Active users on Steam is sliding again, daily lows is back under 4000 again, highs 7000 and change.
The idea that the quality of changes in the last patch is enough to create a trend that leads to a bunch of people picking up the game again is just completely dismissive of all of the complaints about the game.
I don't see anything changing for Civ 7 until there's a minimum change like overhauling something like at least three legacy paths. A complete retool of religion, archeology and something else so the game plays differently and better would be a minimum. For other people it's the distant lands and rough seas that would need a complete rethink.
Yes, civ switching bothers people and is unacceptable for many. Yes, the main problem (as discussed and IMO) is the game is designed to be too balanced and ends up feeling boring because a lot of the policies abilities and traditions don't really do much. However, half of the legacy paths are either not fun, or outright painful to play.
The least they could do is just update a couple of them, put it in a roadmap, don't charge extra. This is the
least they could do, and everything short of it will change nothing.
I personally think the minimum is:
- Create the distant lands flexibility people have been asking for.
- Change something about oceans so they're less painful (only take rough seas damage with RNG after large distance from coast, but it's more damage).
- Completely retool religion (initial conversion is easy, subsequent is much harder; followers' benefits so you might want to convert to someone else's faith), and think of a different way to do relics that's more interesting. Maybe they should let you build a religious building per type of religion which would add just enough strategic depth, and you obtain relics and can get them for things other players of the same faith are doing.
- Completely retool modern age culture victory.
- Improve what's happening with railroads.
- Synergize victories with ideology to make modern more interesting (fascism gives science based on military size, communism multiplies factory bonuses based on culture, capitalism gives unit production bonuses based on factory slot density).
They can save things like holy wars for the DLC. The main thing I'd do with a DLC after the above is link systems between ages (religion bridges antiquity/exploration, industrialism/slotted factory resources begins during exploration).
EDIT: fascism should penalize large population size (settlement limits), communism should nerf science progress for technology no one has researched yet, capitalism should have higher war weariness.
