Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[wilcoxchar]

Cosmetics are important

Otherwise they could do away with civs altogether, and each age you just pick two attributes that will determine your bonuses for that age. (which would give 15 "civs" each age more than they have now)... or you can stay with the same bonuses for all 3 ages.

Otherwise people wouldn't be upset there wasn't city renaming.

Cosmetics won't be enough for some people, but for others it will because that is what they want.

That "Roman" space ship to AC in previous games had very little "Roman" about it that wasn't cosmetics.

Yeah, with the relaxed continuity option on the age system, I really think all they should be doing now to accommodate people who don't like the idea of civ switching is just letting people rename their civ. It would appease the people who want to play as something called "Rome" throughout the entire game (and it's pretty much always Rome for some reason, nobody complains about not being able to play as Inca for the entire game for instance) while keeping the great existing mechanic entirely intact.

 

[Siptah]

Yeah, with the relaxed continuity option on the age system, I really think all they should be doing now to accommodate people who don't like the idea of civ switching is just letting people rename their civ. It would appease the people who want to play as something called "Rome" throughout the entire game (and it's pretty much always Rome for some reason, nobody complains about not being able to play as Inca for the entire game for instance) while keeping the great existing mechanic entirely intact.

Not sure if this is sarcastic or not? But I think there are quite a few additional things to be done to accommodate people that aren't getting warm with switching. Even if we stick to cosmetics, I think an option to keep the graphic style of your region could help. So, if I want to continue as Rome but select Mongols, I can keep the name Rome if I want to, and also have my classical mediterranean buildings overbuilt with European exploration buildings instead of East Asian ones.

That said I really like the suggestion that old buildings don't change at all (aside from the palace and city centers), and one when you overbuilt you see the "new" architecture of the age.

Extra credit if they let me overbuilt the antiquity granary with a new one... or any other building, for that matter.

 

[kotpeter]

Yeah, with the relaxed continuity option on the age system, I really think all they should be doing now to accommodate people who don't like the idea of civ switching is just letting people rename their civ. It would appease the people who want to play as something called "Rome" throughout the entire game (and it's pretty much always Rome for some reason, nobody complains about not being able to play as Inca for the entire game for instance) while keeping the great existing mechanic entirely intact.

It's not just renaming to take into account, it's also keeping city names' queue, civ emblem, etc.

Not to mention gameplay-related stuff, like what bonuses do such civs get? Because trust me, if there aren't any bonuses, complaints will return and amplify. If the civ persisted and kept its name, why did its cities reverted to towns, and why its conquered settlements aren't considered conquered anymore?

To overcome all this complexity to implement something that is orthogonal to what civ 7 is about, to please the cohort of people who probably wouldn't ever be satisfied until civ 7's ideas became optional game modes, and the game is reworked to match the spirit of previous entry.

If I were the developer, I wouldn't do that

 

[Siptah]

If the civ persisted and kept its name, why did its cities reverted to towns,

This happens quite a lot in empires, because power changes location. New cities always rose, and in consequence others fell. Rome itself is a good example that went from one of *the* cities in the whole mediterranean to being outshined by many cities in Italy – including ones that today aren't important centers anymore like Amalfi. Athens is even more drastic, as it went from very important city with a huge legacy to little village no one cares about for almost 2000 years, until modern Greece emerged and people decided that it would make a good capital. New dynasties (what would be one explanation for the minor disrupt at age transition) often changed their seat of power and favored different regions or cities. But yeah, telling that to gamers in a convincing way...

and why its conquered settlements aren't considered conquered anymore?

That's also not at all strange if we look at history. Do modern Turks still view Istanbul as conquered? Are Calais and Rouen still not really French but basically English and just conquered? How about Seville, Cordoba, Toledo, Malaga? These all have a clearly visible "foreign" legacy (the layers this game is so on about), but I don't think they should be considered conquered in civ terms (i.e., more unhappy or getting penalties).

 

[UWHabs]

Yeah, if you kept the same civs, the age breaks just become resets, where captured settlements merge into your culture, perhaps some cities get slightly abandoned (shifted back to town), etc... Sure, some people would hate that too, but for someone who cares most about civ switching, it might appease them.

But yeah, the big questions are what carries, and what's new. Are you more or less a blank civ outside of your era, or do you get more custom bonuses, or do you get generic bonuses? Does your civ ability stick around? Or do you get a different ability in every era?
And with all those decision points, is everyone going to want a different combo of it all that whatever they do is not going to be any better for everyone who is upset now still?

 

[britesparc]

As someone who isn't buying VII because I absolutely hate the concept of Civ-switching and age resets, here is what I would be happy with that I think (?!) might be doable in an update to VII. Now, obviously, what I WANT is an option to play the game like you have all the other Civ games, but people keep saying that's impossible; I've no idea if it is or it isn't, either technically or financially, but here we go. Trying to stay inside the "framework" of Civ VII.

- at the beginning of the game you select any civilization from any era. This is your Civ name, and forms the basis of all your cities etc for the entire game. It never changes (and neither do your opponents)
- you then choose a "culture" to adopt based on the age. This is choosing the bonuses etc of an existing age-specific Civ.
- every age you change your "culture" to reflect the change in age, but like I said all names stay the same. I'm not sure how you handle the look of the buildings and stuff, to be honest I'm not really bothered by that; I'd actually prefer if that was a choice you could make every age too but maybe that's too hard, I dunno.
- at age transitions, I assume there's still a need to go back to a loading screen, but *absolutely nothing changes* in the game - all units are the same, all resources, all relationships, all cities, etc. There's no time jump. It just carries on from one turn to the next, basically.
- I don't know if the way the game works the units HAVE to be upgraded to the next age equivalent. If so, well, I guess, but they stay in the same place on the map.

That's the least I can think of that I'd be happy with, and even that feels like it's ripping out a ton of stuff that I consider core to the identity of Civilization.

I'm not saying this to rag on the game and I hope I'm not pissing on the chips of people who enjoy it. I'm just trying to explain what would get me to try it out considering the gameplay changes are so antithetical to what I enjoy about the franchise.

 

[wilcoxchar]

Not sure if this is sarcastic or not? But I think there are quite a few additional things to be done to accommodate people that aren't getting warm with switching. Even if we stick to cosmetics, I think an option to keep the graphic style of your region could help. So, if I want to continue as Rome but select Mongols, I can keep the name Rome if I want to, and also have my classical mediterranean buildings overbuilt with European exploration buildings instead of East Asian ones.

That said I really like the suggestion that old buildings don't change at all (aside from the palace and city centers), and one when you overbuilt you see the "new" architecture of the age.

Extra credit if they let me overbuilt the antiquity granary with a new one... or any other building, for that matter.

I'm not being sarcastic at all. Because I'm talking about what should be done, not about what can be done. Because as much as cosmetics are important to player identity, they're even more important for conveying information to the players about what's going on in the game. So you need to avoid cosmetic customization in areas where it will create confusion for figuring out who a player is playing or what they own. Which with the civ emblem, that's the main identifier as to what civ someone is playing as, so that need to be kept as who they're actually playing as and not be customizable. That's doubly true if we allow civ name customization. If you let people call their civ "Rome" or "Spain" when they're playing the Mongols, you still need a way to signal to other players that they are in fact playing the Mongol civ and not Spain, so something like the emblem needs to stay Mongol as a visual identifier.

As for city graphics, it's again an identifier of which civ owns a city so the customization should be minimal. It would also look strange with the unique quarters if say the Spanish plaza was in the middle of a bunch of East Asian looking buildings for no reason. I do agree with you that buildings from a previous age should keep the graphics of their previous age's civ, but that's not an issue with civ switching and is already something that has been brought up in the official Civ discord several times.

The thing about seeing customization as a catch-all solution to people's resistance to change is you run the risk of a game ending up like Millennia. In seeking as much player customization as it did to supposedly create player identity, Millennia had through things like "Egypt" pretty much only defining what color your nation was and having the national spirit "The Messengers" instead of calling it Inca, it lost so much of the historical identity that it just became bland and boring. Which is why customization options need to be chosen very carefully, so they don't make things more confusing for other players and don't sacrifice the historical identity built into a game's mechanics like the mechanics of civ switching.

 

[wilcoxchar]

As someone who isn't buying VII because I absolutely hate the concept of Civ-switching and age resets, here is what I would be happy with that I think (?!) might be doable in an update to VII. Now, obviously, what I WANT is an option to play the game like you have all the other Civ games, but people keep saying that's impossible; I've no idea if it is or it isn't, either technically or financially, but here we go. Trying to stay inside the "framework" of Civ VII.

- at the beginning of the game you select any civilization from any era. This is your Civ name, and forms the basis of all your cities etc for the entire game. It never changes (and neither do your opponents)
- you then choose a "culture" to adopt based on the age. This is choosing the bonuses etc of an existing age-specific Civ.
- every age you change your "culture" to reflect the change in age, but like I said all names stay the same. I'm not sure how you handle the look of the buildings and stuff, to be honest I'm not really bothered by that; I'd actually prefer if that was a choice you could make every age too but maybe that's too hard, I dunno.
- at age transitions, I assume there's still a need to go back to a loading screen, but *absolutely nothing changes* in the game - all units are the same, all resources, all relationships, all cities, etc. There's no time jump. It just carries on from one turn to the next, basically.
- I don't know if the way the game works the units HAVE to be upgraded to the next age equivalent. If so, well, I guess, but they stay in the same place on the map.

That's the least I can think of that I'd be happy with, and even that feels like it's ripping out a ton of stuff that I consider core to the identity of Civilization.

I'm not saying this to rag on the game and I hope I'm not pissing on the chips of people who enjoy it. I'm just trying to explain what would get me to try it out considering the gameplay changes are so antithetical to what I enjoy about the franchise.

You might enjoy Millennia then. It has all the things you want the framework of civ switching to be.

 

[Bug Repellent]

Yeah, with the relaxed continuity option on the age system, I really think all they should be doing now to accommodate people who don't like the idea of civ switching is just letting people rename their civ. It would appease the people who want to play as something called "Rome" throughout the entire game (and it's pretty much always Rome for some reason, nobody complains about not being able to play as Inca for the entire game for instance) while keeping the great existing mechanic entirely intact.

Yeah, no, this will not work for me. It's like wrapping a turd sandwich in lettuce and try to pass it as palatable. This is not what makes Civ as a franchise enticing to many. I want 20 civs or so that were major civs in the world history, led by their famous leaders. I want these civs to be unbalanced, each with unique attributes that require very different game strategies. Think Babylon, Eleanor with her loyalty flipping mechanic, Mongolia with their cav boosts, Byzantium, Alex and continuous warring, Germany with Hansa, Mali with gold generation, etc in Civ6. I don't want to see Tubman, Lovelace, Rizal, Machiavelli, Greta Thunberg, Al Sharpton, Megan Markle, Mark Twain, etc leading civilizations. I want Washington, Louis XIV, Catherine, Nero, Pericles, Cleopatra, Mao, Stalin, Ataturk, etc. You know... actual leaders. Firxais should let the community to come up with Santa and the North Pole Civilization, Super Mario themed Civs, Dracula ruling Transylvania (great mod for Halloween), and yes, Ada Lovelace leading the 01001110 Civilization. Did I enjoy these weird modded civs? Absolutely, but I don't have them on all the time, since I don't want to find Bowser and Daisy on a regular basis in my Civ6 games. If I role play a game of Civ6 as Genghis on a rampage conquering the world, I want to fight Alexander and Shaka, not Lovelace of Bulgaria and Rizal of Maya.

I will only consider purchasing Civ7 if Firaxis creates a game setting that will allow me to remove all non leaders from the game and force the remaining ones to be tied to the civs they actually ruled. None of this Genghis Khan of Canada or Ramses of Poland. And they should fix city sprawl through color coding buildings or something like that. The game visuals are impossible to follow once city sprawl gets under way, which is likely why Civ7 has such a poor online presence. It's like a chessboard where instead of black and white, the pieces and squares are all grey and gray. I'm cool with towns, commanders, and even treasure fleets. Not everything is bad in Civ7, but the core parts are. Horribly so.

 

[queenpea]

Yeah, no, this will not work for me. It's like wrapping a turd sandwich in lettuce and try to pass it as palatable. This is not what makes Civ as a franchise enticing to many. I want 20 civs or so that were major civs in the world history, led by their famous leaders. I want these civs to be unbalanced, each with unique attributes that require very different game strategies. Think Babylon, Eleanor with her loyalty flipping mechanic, Mongolia with their cav boosts, Byzantium, Alex and continuous warring, Germany with Hansa, Mali with gold generation, etc in Civ6. I don't want to see Tubman, Lovelace, Rizal, Machiavelli, Greta Thunberg, Al Sharpton, Megan Markle, Mark Twain, etc leading civilizations. I want Washington, Louis XIV, Catherine, Nero, Pericles, Cleopatra, Mao, Stalin, Ataturk, etc. You know... actual leaders. Firxais should let the community to come up with Santa and the North Pole Civilization, Super Mario themed Civs, Dracula ruling Transylvania (great mod for Halloween), and yes, Ada Lovelace leading the 01001110 Civilization. Did I enjoy these weird modded civs? Absolutely, but I don't have them on all the time, since I don't want to find Bowser and Daisy on a regular basis in my Civ6 games. If I role play a game of Civ6 as Genghis on a rampage conquering the world, I want to fight Alexander and Shaka, not Lovelace of Bulgaria and Rizal of Maya.

I will only consider purchasing Civ7 if Firaxis creates a game setting that will allow me to remove all non leaders from the game and force the remaining ones to be tied to the civs they actually ruled. None of this Genghis Khan of Canada or Ramses of Poland. And they should fix city sprawl through color coding buildings or something like that. The game visuals are impossible to follow once city sprawl gets under way, which is likely why Civ7 has such a poor online presence. It's like a chessboard where instead of black and white, the pieces and squares are all grey and gray. I'm cool with towns, commanders, and even treasure fleets. Not everything is bad in Civ7, but the core parts are. Horribly so.

You can already turn off leaders you would rather not see in the game. As for leaders not leading their "historical" civilizations, that just won't work with civ switching unless you intend to play a single age game. For example, you can start with Augustus of Rome, but by the Exploration Age, there is no longer a Roman civilization to play.

 

[Kwami]

You might enjoy Millennia then. It has all the things you want the framework of civ switching to be.

Indeed, @britesparc basically described Millennia, except that Millennia doesn't have age resets and each player switches at their own time.

But Millennia is a lifeless game where civilizations don't matter and don't feel unique at all.

 

[Bug Repellent]

You can already turn off leaders you would rather not see in the game. As for leaders not leading their "historical" civilizations, that just won't work with civ switching unless you intend to play a single age game. For example, you can start with Augustus of Rome, but by the Exploration Age, there is no longer a Roman civilization to play.

Thank you for the reply. I know you can remove leaders appearing in the game, but I refuse to micromanage every game to remove this and that leader. I want a simple sticky button I check that the game remembers. As for Augustus leading, say, France... if that's how the game wants it, then the game and I are not made for each other, which is fine with me. If Heroes of Might and Magic Olden Era is what I hope it is, well, I'll have as much use for tweaked civ-switching in Civ7 as I have for a pair of wet socks. HOMM3 is my favorite video game of all time. Beautiful, immersive, lots of strategic depth, challenging on higher difficulties, etc. I still play it to this day. And this is the danger when companies release half backed duds: if people uninstall the dud throwing it in the SSD's trash bin, it is very difficult to convince them to spend another $40 on an expansion because "come back, the game is fixed now!". Yeah, thanks, but we moved on to something better. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me".

 

[kotpeter]

Thank you for the reply. I know you can remove leaders appearing in the game, but I refuse to micromanage every game to remove this and that leader. I want a simple sticky button I check that the game remembers.

I know this probably won't help you much, but you can click all that you need once and then save this configuration. When needed, you'll be able to reuse it later.

 

[Xandinho]

Yeah, no, this will not work for me. It's like wrapping a turd sandwich in lettuce and try to pass it as palatable. This is not what makes Civ as a franchise enticing to many. I want 20 civs or so that were major civs in the world history, led by their famous leaders. I want these civs to be unbalanced, each with unique attributes that require very different game strategies. Think Babylon, Eleanor with her loyalty flipping mechanic, Mongolia with their cav boosts, Byzantium, Alex and continuous warring, Germany with Hansa, Mali with gold generation, etc in Civ6. I don't want to see Tubman, Lovelace, Rizal, Machiavelli, Greta Thunberg, Al Sharpton, Megan Markle, Mark Twain, etc leading civilizations. I want Washington, Louis XIV, Catherine, Nero, Pericles, Cleopatra, Mao, Stalin, Ataturk, etc. You know... actual leaders. Firxais should let the community to come up with Santa and the North Pole Civilization, Super Mario themed Civs, Dracula ruling Transylvania (great mod for Halloween), and yes, Ada Lovelace leading the 01001110 Civilization. Did I enjoy these weird modded civs? Absolutely, but I don't have them on all the time, since I don't want to find Bowser and Daisy on a regular basis in my Civ6 games. If I role play a game of Civ6 as Genghis on a rampage conquering the world, I want to fight Alexander and Shaka, not Lovelace of Bulgaria and Rizal of Maya.

I will only consider purchasing Civ7 if Firaxis creates a game setting that will allow me to remove all non leaders from the game and force the remaining ones to be tied to the civs they actually ruled. None of this Genghis Khan of Canada or Ramses of Poland. And they should fix city sprawl through color coding buildings or something like that. The game visuals are impossible to follow once city sprawl gets under way, which is likely why Civ7 has such a poor online presence. It's like a chessboard where instead of black and white, the pieces and squares are all grey and gray. I'm cool with towns, commanders, and even treasure fleets. Not everything is bad in Civ7, but the core parts are. Horribly so.

As much as I find Machiavelli and Ibn Battuta fascinating figures, I share your frustration with leaders who never actually ruled nations. They should instead be portrayed as Great People, which is where they truly belong in history. Playing with or against great leaders is undeniably more exciting. As for leaders detached from their civilizations, I don’t think there’s much of a remedy, since that’s the only way civilization transitions can work. Still, I believe they could at least ease this issue by adding more leaders from regions outside Europe. The game currently has so many European leaders for so few European civilizations that it ends up creating this scenario that half the world is ruled by them, when in fact European civs in game are far from being half.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Yeah, no, this will not work for me. It's like wrapping a turd sandwich in lettuce and try to pass it as palatable. This is not what makes Civ as a franchise enticing to many. I want 20 civs or so that were major civs in the world history, led by their famous leaders. I want these civs to be unbalanced, each with unique attributes that require very different game strategies. Think Babylon, Eleanor with her loyalty flipping mechanic, Mongolia with their cav boosts, Byzantium, Alex and continuous warring, Germany with Hansa, Mali with gold generation, etc in Civ6. I don't want to see Tubman, Lovelace, Rizal, Machiavelli, Greta Thunberg, Al Sharpton, Megan Markle, Mark Twain, etc leading civilizations. I want Washington, Louis XIV, Catherine, Nero, Pericles, Cleopatra, Mao, Stalin, Ataturk, etc. You know... actual leaders.

You had me hooked until you brought up Rizal. I do think Rizal is fine and I could have easily seen him as a leader of the Philippines in Civ 5 and Civ 6. He at least is considered a "national hero" and would be similar to Ba Trieu, Jeanne D'Arc and Gandhi of past games, who weren't actually leaders themselves, but at least lead or inspired major political movements.
I'd rather him than bringing back Mao and Stalin.

 

[GeneralZift]

These are the most confusing reviews. Are they hate playing the game or something? Is this like hate watching TV? Because 300 hours is a long time to do something that you don't like doing!

Some people maybe don't like the game, not because something is inherently flawed in their view, but perhaps after hundreds of hours it becomes apparent to them that there is little variety in the gameplay structure. That's one guess

 

[Kwami]

Some people maybe don't like the game, not because something is inherently flawed in their view, but perhaps after hundreds of hours it becomes apparent to them that there is little variety in the gameplay structure. That's one guess

Yeah, maybe. But 300 hours is a long time. If you enjoyed the game for most of that 300 hours, then it's hard to argue that you didn't get your money's worth. And if you didn't enjoy most of the 300 hours, then why keep playing for so long? I just don't get it.

 

[tman2000]

Yeah, maybe. But 300 hours is a long time. If you enjoyed the game for most of that 300 hours, then it's hard to argue that you didn't get your money's worth. And if you didn't enjoy most of the 300 hours, then why keep playing for so long? I just don't get it.

Anticipation of promised experiences as delayed gratification, and after 300-500 hours when those experience never materialize, a sense of frustration and betrayal.

 

[drewisfat]

There is no appropriate number of hours that someone can leave a negative review and not get challenged in bad faith by a fan.
0 hours = hahaha you haven't played the game, how do u kno?
< 2 hours = well if you hate it just refund it, quit cry
10 hours = that's hardly enough to understand a game as complex as civ
100+ hours = well you got your money's worth, quit complaining.

Now I don't know about your modern civs, but Civ IV at least has infinite replayability. 300 is a whole lot less than infinite, so yeah people can justifiably feel disappointed in a lack of replayability, especially when the devs intend to sell more DLC. Civ isn't a game where you're expected to just play through the campaign once. Not to mention, there's a bit of a sunk cost issue going into things, where after you do buy the game you may try longer than is even rational to give the game a shot to justify your purchase and time already spent learning the game. Noting hours played on a game is just a cheap rhetorical trick.
I have 9000 Steam hours in EU4 (probably less than half of that, I generally fell asleep with it running). Guess what, EU4 is a seriously flawed game. It started going *BACKWARDS* in development due to content filler spam and PTW DLC that really hurt the game's internal balance and AI. Revamped mission trees, development, and trade companies come to mind as the biggest issues. I have absolutely no interest in EU5 as a result. I still have a lot of hours in it because of mods, because it runs well on old computers, and because it's one of the few games my old friend group will play multiplayer. I can criticize what I see as terrible design decisions in a niche genre I love without simultaneously having to win a lawsuit against Paradox for not getting my money's worth. I can even advise others to not buy the game, either because I regret getting so invested in it, or I don't think the reasons I still found it playable will hold up for most people.

 

[Leucarum]

It seems to me very plausible to play a game excessively without thinking most people would be able to overlook its flaws, and hence giving it a bad review.