Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[queenpea]

That because the game was much easier for AI to handle, not because AI was better. Not only Civ1-4 had much simpler combat tactics, but stacks of doom also allowed AI to directly convert their huge yields into challenge.

Yes, but shouldn't it be easier to code competent AI in 2025 than in 2005 (Civ IV release)? Clearly there is room to improve upon things here.

 

[socratic]

I think it's interesting that Millennia has few civs (21), despite these being only a flag, name, two city lists (one very short, one a little bit longer), and an irrelevant little bonus. So, for this game, I don't think they were trying to beat the civilization series with civs.

Humankind certainly tried to beat civilization and provided many important cultures that have never made it into a civ game. Partly, because they don't have a good leader that civ could have used (e.g., Harappa, Mycenae, Mississippians). Also, they realized that civ switching required more cultures, so having a large starting roster (60) was kind of necessary. The fabulous continent DLC packs added a whole bunch of interesting civs that never made it into a civ game, and many likely never will. Currently, it has 79 civs in total. I'm sure that one of the ideas of Amplitude was to make the civilization main game rosters, whether at launch (civ 6: 18 or 19) or final (civ 6: 50), look small and satisfy the people which were always craving for other civs, and especially more African, South American, and Polynesian civs – which civ is traditionally very good at overlooking. I think this is also one reason why 7's roster now feels a bit lackluster, even with 39 civs. HK was just very good at delivering the iconic and necessary civs, while also bringing in a whole lot of interesting and previously neglected others. In my opinion, it is clearly the best roster ever in a 4X game (if we exclude PDS games, of course), and 7 has a lot of work to do to come close. HK doesn't have many historical leaders though, but I also think they aren't really missing, because you play against persons or avatars made by your friends (at launch) and meanwhile even yourself (which means you can include any historical leader you want).

Ara also started with an extended roster of 42 leaders, although some civs have two of these. I think they also tried to outdo the civilization series with this. And Microsoft, in my opinion, went for what you describe: the civs make a rather conservative list, the only two "surprises" are Belgium and Palmyra (and that Bolivar leads Venezuela instead of Gran Colombia for some reason). The leaders are for the most part the civ staples and fan favorites. Gandhi is missing, and they added some non-leaders like Sappho (next to Alexander) and Hildegard von Bingen (next to Bismarck). They even added Tamar, the leader that was summoned by fans into civ VI. So, I think Ara tried to grab the player base by having a roster of civs and leaders nearly everybody (or at least nearly every civ player) knows. Whether it worked is unclear – it sold only around 50k copies (on Steam, maybe Microsoft and Xbox are a factor here), but that probably has other reasons than the civ selection. But to me, this looks for sure like the most "play it safe" roster of civs and leaders in all 4X games.

I think one difference is that a civilization main game can in a way afford to have a more interesting roster at launch. Meanwhile, we expect that many civs will appear later on. Some, even some of the most important in history I'd say, have/had a tradition of coming later.
- Isn't this the first time that Maya are in the base game (which I think should always have priority over Aztecs imho)?
- The Ottomans were never in a civ base game except for 5.
- Spain has been in base games (4 and 6), but missing in others (3 and 5)
- Babylon has been DLC in civ 5 and 6.
- The Zulu went from launch staple to DLC
Yet, I think no one was concerned that Aztecs, Babylon, Korean, Dutch or the Ottomans won't make it into the final set of civ 7 – at least before the game released. Now, of course you can label this as a monetization strategy (and it for sure is, and has been for the past 20 years, with a clear tendency to increase), but I believe there is also a big incentive to keep the starting roster at least in parts fresh, interesting, and not completely predictable. And I also believe that the added rule of 10 per era made this much harder to decide. It doesn't mean that the British had to be left out, or that one of Prussia/Russia/British had to be left out, as we concluded here way before release. But it makes this decision easier to comprehend, even if many others don't agree with the outcome. I also believe that the idea of Normans already representing "England" (as we never had Britain before in name, even if e.g., civ IV was certainly meant to be the British Empire and not the English) has some sense to it.

On paper, Civ 7 probably has the best launch roster out of any Civ game. Almost all major mediterranean civilizations, almost every staple, every major European country, mesoamerica, andes, long requested civs like Mexico, returning Civ 5 favorites like Songhai and Siam, multiple versions of India and China, and wildcards to keep things interesting. The problem is the 10 per Age. Each Age feels repetitive or disjointed for anyone wanting to stick to a region or people. Africa getting 4 civs at launch is terrible when you realize Aksum > Songhai > Buganda is your only “historical” path.

 

[Kwami]

Humankind certainly tried to beat civilization and provided many important cultures that have never made it into a civ game. Partly, because they don't have a good leader that civ could have used (e.g., Harappa, Mycenae, Mississippians). Also, they realized that civ switching required more cultures, so having a large starting roster (60) was kind of necessary. The fabulous continent DLC packs added a whole bunch of interesting civs that never made it into a civ game, and many likely never will. Currently, it has 79 civs in total. I'm sure that one of the ideas of Amplitude was to make the civilization main game rosters, whether at launch (civ 6: 18 or 19) or final (civ 6: 50), look small and satisfy the people which were always craving for other civs, and especially more African, South American, and Polynesian civs – which civ is traditionally very good at overlooking. I think this is also one reason why 7's roster now feels a bit lackluster, even with 39 civs. HK was just very good at delivering the iconic and necessary civs, while also bringing in a whole lot of interesting and previously neglected others. In my opinion, it is clearly the best roster ever in a 4X game (if we exclude PDS games, of course), and 7 has a lot of work to do to come close. HK doesn't have many historical leaders though, but I also think they aren't really missing, because you play against persons or avatars made by your friends (at launch) and meanwhile even yourself (which means you can include any historical leader you want).

Yeah, but to be fair, the civilizations in Humankind are much simpler than the ones in Civilization VII. And not having historical leaders was seen as a negative by most players, though it also saved them a lot of development resources. Add it up and I'm not surprised that Humankind can have so many civilizations. I would rather have more detailed civilizations and historical leaders, though. Sometimes, quality > quantity.

The age system of VII does call for a much larger roster, though. I really hope that the expansions add more than usual.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Yes, but shouldn't it be easier to code competent in 2025 than in 2005 (Civ IV release)? Clearly there is room to improve upon things here.

Yes, and AI in later game is way more complex. The problem is that all this "playing the map" theme, starting from 1UPT skyrocketed the game complexity to stars and it's impossible for AI to catch up yet. Where Civ4 AI could operate in terms of "routes", further games required defining actual positions on the map for everything and that's a thing which is interesting for humans (our brain is optimized for it), but is a disaster for AI.

 

[Siptah]

Yeah, but to be fair, the civilizations in Humankind are much simpler than the ones in Civilization VII. And not having historical leaders was seen as a negative by most players, though it also saved them a lot of development resources. Add it up and I'm not surprised that Humankind can have so many civilizations. I would rather have more detailed civilizations and historical leaders, though. Sometimes, quality > quantity.

The age system of VII does call for a much larger roster, though. I really hope that the expansions add more than usual.

Yeah, I agree that civ 7's civs have more content, and that it's probably more resource intensive to make a civ in civ 7 than for HK. Yet I think it would be really nice if we would see many of HK's cultures in civ 7 eventually, especially because of the eras, as HK found a good way to provide civs over its 6 eras – which is a more difficult undertaking compared to civ 7's three ages.

HK bundled its culture packs per continent, and this was actually quite a nice way to expand the roster in my opinion. Getting 6 African civ (1 per age) was a great first pack. I think it might have helped to bundle civs likewise in the 7's first pack – e.g., a Scandinavia pack, North Africa pack, Central Asia pack, South America pack or whatever that would have added 3 (1 per era) civs of a region. Instead, we get these disjointed packs for civ 7 to fill out a somewhat disjointed base game roster. Even with only three ages, you'll need probably three packs to puzzle together a North African line (e.g., Carthage - Tunis - Morocco) or two for a South American line (e.g., Nazca - Inca - Gran Colombia).

 

[stealth_nsk]

Yeah, I agree that civ 7's civs have more content, and that it's probably more resource intensive to make a civ in civ 7 than for HK. Yet I think it would be really nice if we would see many of HK's cultures in civ 7 eventually, especially because of the eras, as HK found a good way to provide civs over its 6 eras – which is a more difficult undertaking compared to civ 7's three ages.

HK has 79 cultures currently and I totally expect Civ7 to have more eventually.

Let's assume we'll have 3 more DLC packs before the next expansion to get number of civs to 17 per era and then have 4th age expansion with 17 civs for this 4th age, that would be 68 civs already and with second expansion and some additional DLCs we could expect something closer to 100.

 

[Kwami]

Yeah, I agree that civ 7's civs have more content, and that it's probably more resource intensive to make a civ in civ 7 than for HK. Yet I think it would be really nice if we would see many of HK's cultures in civ 7 eventually, especially because of the eras, as HK found a good way to provide civs over its 6 eras – which is a more difficult undertaking compared to civ 7's three ages.

I just counted the release roster for Humankind and there were about 10 cultures per era, which is the same as VII's 10 civilizations per age. I wonder if Humankind just feels much better now because of all the DLC cultures.

 

[itix]

Old World has proven it is possible to create lean and mean AI.

But the truth is that most players don't want AI to put up a fight. They want to steamroll over AI, not that AI steamrolls over them.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Old World has proven it is possible to create lean and mean AI.

But the truth is that most players don't want AI to put up a fight. They want to steamroll over AI, not that AI steamrolls over them.

This is part of the diversity of the civ community. I played early versions of Civ at the difficulty level where I lost more often than I won. Civ 6 was the first Civ game where I couldn't tune up the difficulty level to the point where victory was ever in doubt (plus Civ 6's deity was stupid game design, preventing early game exploration and forcing turtling to survive the initial AI Warrior rush, after which victory was certain). As a result, Civ 6 is the first civ game I found boring. But lots of other fans were attracted to Civ 6's "win your way" design.

As much as I love Old World, in part because of AI competence, I'm pretty sure Firaxis has decided that most of their customer base doesn't want an AI that can beat them. And I get that. What I'm disappointed with is Firaxis spending so little attention to competency of the AI that there's no way to accommodate both the customer who wants a relaxed game at Prince and the customer who wants to struggle against likely, eventual defeat at Immortal.

 

[Siptah]

I just counted the release roster for Humankind and there were about 10 cultures per era, which is the same as VII's 10 civilizations per age. I wonder if Humankind just feels much better now because of all the DLC cultures.

It got a lot of patches to smooth out problems and improve the game. But I think if you didn't like it previously, you won't like it now. Except if your main critique was one of the things that eventually got patched, e.g., race to get cultures or how war score is calculated. There have been many good tweaks imho (army upkeep, rebalances, line of sight, better AI, etc.) but this might only be noticeable if you actually enjoy what you are doing. If the yield and district inflation was the reason you bounced off, or the endless battles with dozens of units, or the many culture switches throughout the game, they are still largely the same (although presentation and identification improved somewhat).

I think the additional cultures per era made a noticeable difference – but there aren't that many more per era than in civ 7 after RTR, it just went from 10 to 14 (with Early Modern having one extra). Yet, the way I see it, changing culture 5 times makes many changes more plausible, even when you are set to change only historically/geographically from one to the other. And HK has enough cultures to do this in many ways.

Three examples:
Hittites – Achaemenids – Mongols – Mughals – Persians – Indians. This feels logical, despite not ending in Turks or going with Middle Eastern cultures in between. It's not preset where you go and where you end up, you have the freedom to choose at each crossroad and always a bit of flexibility.

Caral* – Nazca* – Taino* – Inca – Argentina* – Brazil. While not fully congruent, this is just feels as good, and is around the same level as civ 7's India path. But here, there would have been ways out as well, e.g., having Spain in the mix and going to Mexico and/or Cuba. Or even have Caribbean Pirates (and this example shows the benefit of having a thematic culture DLC).

Zhou – Huns – Bulgarians* – Poles – Austria-Hungary – America. This is obviously a wild path, but still, I don't think any of the one-to-one transitions is too far off for me to be plausible, and you went half around the globe and always had an alternative that felt just as right or even more correct.

But to be honest, I'm actually glad that you don't change that often in civ 7. It allows for more complex and deeper civs, and "feeling" the age much more.I just wanted to point out that, for some reason, having more switches seem to decrease the need for more civs per era somewhat, as you have more choices throughout the game, and there seems to be more flexibility with paths. But this is all personal opinion and experience, of course.

Edit: marked DLC cultures with *.

 

[Gori the Grey]

But the truth is that most players don't want AI to put up a fight. They want to steamroll over AI, not that AI steamrolls over them.

This is part of the diversity of the civ community. I played early versions of Civ at the difficulty level where I lost more often than I won.

This is a matter on which I would really like to see some reliable data (i.e. not just a CFC poll, though maybe I'll create one).

I play at deity in Civ V. I win fewer than 10% of the games I play. I recognize I'm probably an outlier, and my suspicion is that @itix is correct: that most people want to win most (all?) of the games they play.

In any case, I think it's data that the developers ought to gather, because it bears directly on game-design and game-development priorities (like should they bother trying to make a good AI).

 

[Krikkit1]

HK has 79 cultures currently and I totally expect Civ7 to have more eventually.

Let's assume we'll have 3 more DLC packs before the next expansion to get number of civs to 17 per era and then have 4th age expansion with 17 civs for this 4th age, that would be 68 civs already and with second expansion and some additional DLCs we could expect something closer to 100.

I'd say more like 2 more packs (and 1 Christmas Freebee) for 15 per age...45
Then an Atomic Age Expansion with 12 4th Age and 2 for each of the other Ages (so 12 each age for the expansion) 30 base game 48 expansion 63 expansion+DLC

and then 4 DLC packs with that are either 2 base or 2 base+2 4th age
(and one free bee)
so you get 20 for each age with all the DLC.... then time for a second expansions with more gameplay systems

 

[GeneralZift]

The thing I really dislike about Civ design is that the higher the difficulty, the more restricted you are in the way that you play in order to win. And challenge doesn't feel earned or warranted because you know the AI started with 4 cities and 7 warriors.

 

[Krikkit1]

The thing I really dislike about Civ design is that the higher the difficulty, the more restricted you are in the way that you play in order to win. And challenge doesn't feel earned or warranted because you know the AI started with 4 cities and 7 warriors.

I think the problem there is matching the basic snowball mechanics (inherent in any empire builder) with the desire for a proper challenge.

What they need is AI bonuses that ramp up throughout the game. (probably based on how well those AIs did in previous ages) [the Ages structure appears to be potentially good for this]

 

[stealth_nsk]

I'd say more like 2 more packs (and 1 Christmas Freebee) for 15 per age...45
Then an Atomic Age Expansion with 12 4th Age and 2 for each of the other Ages (so 12 each age for the expansion) 30 base game 48 expansion 63 expansion+DLC

and then 4 DLC packs with that are either 2 base or 2 base+2 4th age
(and one free bee)
so you get 20 for each age with all the DLC.... then time for a second expansions with more gameplay systems

I'm pretty sure if we'll see 4th age expansion, it will bring the same number of civs as other ages, developers seem to keep it the same, So:

1. If we get 2 more packs +1 free civ, that would bring number of civs per age to 16, not 15, because we'll have 13 per age in September
2. So, with 4th age expansion adding 16 more, that would be 64 even if this expansions will not bring any other civs to the table
3. If we assume no more DLC packs, just second expansion with 16 more civs (4 per age), that's 80 total

I'd say that's the minimal estimation for the full 2-expansion lifecycle, there surely could be more DLC packs or additional civs in expansions.

 

[Xur]

The thing I really dislike about Civ design is that the higher the difficulty, the more restricted you are in the way that you play in order to win. And challenge doesn't feel earned or warranted because you know the AI started with 4 cities and 7 warriors.

Yea, the real difficulty is at the start of the game. Once you get past a certain threshhold, then the AI can't really shake things up. That's why (I think) most people didn't finish civ6 games. An assured victory is boring and a chore to finish. Firaxis just dont understand how bad their AI is.

When I remember back to civ1,2,3 and 4, then an AI civ could pose a threat throughout the game. They conquered entire continents. Some AI civs remained tiny, some got large - it had variation. From civ5 and onwards, all the AI civs almost felt like a singular passive entity. Somewhat equal in size and they stopped taking cities at some arbitrary point.

I dont think most people want an universally easy AI to steamroll. I get bored rather fast if I dont get a challenge. I can't say that I enjoy losing, but on the other hand if I never lose then it's simply going through the motions and that's even less fun. I need to lose 20%-40% of the games. Some times I want the AI to conquer a continent and steamroll me. That's what makes the next game more interesting. If I know I'm gonna win either way, I'd rather not play at all.

I wish the game would introduce something like Rimworlds scaling difficulty. Count cities, units, tech and gold - compare that to each civ and then give a negative multiplier to AI attitudes based on that. The AI should gang up against you more if you are dominating and on a path to victory. On the other hand, friendlier if you are no threat. Introduce some chaos. That's not even a better AI, just some modifiers to make the AI at least do something. It would of course help if they tweaked the AI to be better also.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

The thing I really dislike about Civ design is that the higher the difficulty, the more restricted you are in the way that you play in order to win. And challenge doesn't feel earned or warranted because you know the AI started with 4 cities and 7 warriors.

I'd like to see Civ move away from higher difficulty = more AI units and cities at start and instead implement something like the AI gets bonus yields each turn = turn # times X, where X is bigger the higher the difficulty level. So if X = 1%, then by turn 25 the AI is getting 25% more than their base yields, and by turn 50 that's up to 50% more than their base yields.

That, I think, would keep the early exploration and settling game fun at all difficulty levels, while making it harder for the player to translate an early lead into a bigger and bigger lead as the game goes on. But you could also play at a lower level where X = 0% for a more relaxed game.

 

[itix]

This is a matter on which I would really like to see some reliable data (i.e. not just a CFC poll, though maybe I'll create one).

I play at deity in Civ V. I win fewer than 10% of the games I play. I recognize I'm probably an outlier, and my suspicion is that @itix is correct: that most people want to win most (all?) of the games they play.

In any case, I think it's data that the developers ought to gather, because it bears directly on game-design and game-development priorities (like should they bother trying to make a good AI).

It was mentioned in the HOI4 forum that many are playing the game on easy difficulty only. I find it strange because the AI is not difficult to beat on the normal difficulty but of course, you have to put effort into learning mechanics and so on.

It was also interesting to learn that the AI was deliberately adjusted to attack even when it cant win the battle. This is because otherwise it leads to passive AI and the player gets bored. So the AI must engage the player and take initiative.

 

[stealth_nsk]

It was mentioned in the HOI4 forum that many are playing the game on easy difficulty only. I find it strange because the AI is not difficult to beat on the normal difficulty but of course, you have to put effort into learning mechanics and so on.

It was also interesting to learn that the AI was deliberately adjusted to attack even when it cant win the battle. This is because otherwise it leads to passive AI and the player gets bored. So the AI must engage the player and take initiative.

I often play games without a single war and enjoy them. I really like 1UPT combat, especially in Civ7, but I like building things and growing my empire even more, so usually I don't want to spend resources on creating large army.

But even with this, I'm sitting comfortably on Immortal in Civ7, just don't want to go up yet.

 

[itix]

This is part of the diversity of the civ community. I played early versions of Civ at the difficulty level where I lost more often than I won.

Civ 1 was not difficult to master at the highest difficulty. Once you learn its patterns, and it is the same every time, you know what to expect and play against it. The AI was always building up to 3 defence units in every city, putting up walls and barracks. Early rush with chariots before they got their defense ready.

Civ 2 followed a similar pattern, but hitpoints and nerf to chariots made early conquest difficult or impossible. The AI was adjusted to steal tech aggressively, so if you were snowballing in the tech, you could lose it very quickly (what I also found annoying).