Poll: Did you like the new era system overall?

[VGT]

Steam reviews, and surprisingly few of them complained about civ switching or era system itself

Was going to write: don't forget to also count silent ones, like me

or my optimism above is unfounded because tons of players have never even tried the game to begin with

Luckily you didn't forget.

I was there during civ6 release playing since day one, being counted to that all-time peak steamdb have listed.

Even have proof. Finished my first game that day. Pangea standard map domination victory with Saladin on Prince difficulty

But this time I'm not there and I'm not leaving negative review for reasons you mentioned. It's hard to figure out if there is many of people like me. I read a lot of negative comments here on CFC, but often from the same avatars, so maybe we're just loud minority. Maybe watching trends in civ6 graphs since before civ7 advanced access started and now will give some answers. While I'm not going to start civ6 this weekend, (got other 4x plans ) maybe those that were waiting for new entry and are disappointed, will go back to civ6.

 

[Psychotronics]

I really don't like it. It isn't just disruptive, it's boring.
The issue they wanted to fix was people not finishing games because by the modern era the game was already decided. Now my decisions in past eras are mostly meaningless and the late game is boring because the victory systems aren't fun to do.

 

[TheGrayFox]

This, I think, is the reason for the optimism regarding civ7 and the main bullet devs have managed to avoid: civ switching and era system actually feeling ok according to the majority of players, despite causing terror and shock upon the first announcement. And I know it does, because yesterday I have skimmed through like a hundred or so negative Steam reviews, and surprisingly few of them complained about civ switching or era system itself; I'd say that at most 10% of all Steam reviews (positive plus negative) disliked that feature? Maybe even closer to 5%? More people complained about leaders combined with incorrect civs, and interestingly enough many more people complained about the specifics of abrupt resets between the eras in particular, not about era system in general. The majority of complaints had to do with the UI or general price/policy vs quality ratio, plus general balance and performance and mechanics complaints, or vague "hurr I feel this game is bad idk how to describe it", not those two fundamental revolutions.

Era and civ swapping are mentioned in a number of the steam reviews though and if you look through all the reviews being voted "most helpful" ages are mentioned in some form in like nearly half of the complaints. I'm actually going through the first page of reviews as we speak to confirm this. That's without touching upon the professional reviewers who dislike the ages system and wondered if the change was going too far.

This is very important, because for the entire time since the announcement I have been afraid of civ7 crashing and burning regarding the very fundamentals of civ switching and eras; if this felt terrible there would be no possible salvation at all, sans mods or some optional game mode.
UI can be fixed with patches and mods, DLC policy and pricing is well controversial but doesn't touch the game itself, abrupt era resets can be rebalanced or modded, everything regarding balance or pacing or difficulty can be changed. I even suspect we could get mods creating leader for each civ in the game if the leader graphics shall not be a problem* seing how they'd essentially only require a graphic and a simple ability. But if civ switching and fundamental three-era-division systems hadn't landed at all and had felt awful for the sizeable amount of players, the game would have been unsalvageable. Frankly those two revolutionary changes so far seem more accepted by the playerbase than the earthquake that was civ5 release in my memory, with huge schism and exodus of people unable to go from civ4 to civ5.

VII is flopping hard though.... and 5 and 6 combined have more players than VII last time I checked (it's launch weekend) and it's peak hasn't even reached half of VI's. I'm sorry but there is no universe where VII is having a more succesfull launch and reception to its changes than V. (which brought tons of new players to the series)

There is only one thing worrying me atm: suspiciously low initial peak of players compared with civ7. Either it is caused by the game being split between a lot of platforms this time, or my optimism above is unfounded because tons of players have never even tried the game to begin with, repulsed by the fundamental systems.

*which they may be, however, due to the way diplomacy screen looks this time...

low player count is not being caused by the launch being split by platform. Playstation only has a small fraction of the total number of reviews that there are on steam.. PC is the main audience for a strategy series like Civ and VI did as well as it did with a PC only launch before it was later ported to make more money. Speaking from experience, I think people were just repulsed by fundamental changes and the cherry on top was the game being released unfinished and what feels barebones state.

 

[Mezmorizor]

vague "hurr I feel this game is bad idk how to describe it"

I really, really, really hate this rhetoric. I can't quite pinpoint what it is yet, but I can tell you that I have yet to actually have fun playing civ VII. There are only five concrete thing I can say at the moment.

1. The input that does what I want to do is consistently my 2nd-4th idea of how I would do something. I don't mind it as much as I thought I would, but it is definitely true that the intuitive to me thing is never how you actually do things. It's actually impressive. You'd think by random chance some things would be my instinct. Especially as a long time series vet who has also played a bunch of other strategy games.

2. The new war system is really awkward and feels bad. It's probably relatively okay at low difficulties where the AI doesn't have huge combat bonuses for existing, but on high difficulties where they do, I feel like I have to shoot myself in the foot to actually do war because I need to spend a boatload of influence to have them hate me, even more to not still be in war weariness even after doing a formal war, and because the AI has to hate me and spending influence is the only way to make them hate me, I'm giving up substantial diplomatic endeavor stuff between just losing a trade partner because they hate me and making them hate me required me to use the trade partner resource. I'm sure with more games I'll figure out how to make it work naturally, but the system is definitely awkward and bad if you do the game theory optimal thing (match your partner. If they want to collaborate, collaborate. If they want to kill you, kill them.)

3. Units are too cheap for a 1 UPT combat system where killing anything takes multiple turns and most combat happens at home. Defensive terrain is way too defensive and basically impossible to crack if the map generation gods/AI decide to put their city in a big stretch of it because movement is so constrained. You also can't build builders or engineers to make siege structures or logistical roads that match your intended strategy to overcome defensive terrain because that would be fun, tactically deep, solve the issue, and be historically accurate.

4. Cities vs settlements isn't very fun or complicated. Your production sites become cities. Your food sites stay as settlements. Settlement focus feels like a trap and you'd rather just keep growing to get more yields to accelerate future eras. This is probably one of the big things making me not have fun. I'm just...not really doing anything for very long stretches of time because I have very few build queues and the AI didn't decide to hate me so I'm not in wars or imminently in wars.

5. Endeavors being locked to specific leader traits is confusing and needlessly limiting. Not the biggest deal because it feels like you really have to go out of your way to get excess influence if you're not playing an influence leader, but if I'm playing Ben Franklin I don't need more science help and it sure would be nice if I could use diplomacy and trade to shore up things I have a comparative disadvantage in, but that's not a thing.

It's 5.5 I guess, but I strongly suspect that independent people aren't going to be a real barb replacement in practice. Too early to say for sure there, but I've yet to feel particularly threatened by them. Bottom line is that the fact that I'm just not having fun and not really understanding the strategy game as an avid strategy gamer and longtime series veteran is very relevant information. I'm sure if I put in another 100 hours I could more pinpoint what it is I don't like, but that would require putting in 100 hours I'm not having fun in...

Overall, it feels very much so how Humankind felt to me (on release at least). I start out by exploring, expanding, and building towns. I pick yields that do that sensibly. If I get attacked, I defend. When it feels "right", I work on actively doing something on the big checklist. It seems to be working okay even though I decided to do immortal for the first game after hearing the AI isn't very good. I really should be getting bullied by the AI for doing a 95% blind playthrough on immortal, especially because I clearly don't actually understand many, many systems, and I'm just not.

 

[Mesix]

I do not like how it is currently implemented. It feels like a cheap rip off of the age mechanic in Humankind.

The design choice to have separate leaders and civs has potential, but again is not well implemented. It feels strange to have one immortal leader who rules separate civs in each era. It would be better if the leader changes each era, and the options were aligned to the era (antiquity leaders, exploration leaders, etc.).

It would feel more authentic is the civs progressed from one era to another with options appropriate to the civ selected. Playing as China should unlock different dynasty civs in later eras, or perhaps adjacent civs (like Korea or Mongolia) could unlock, but progressing from China to Aztec to France does not feel right.

The current mix and match mechanic makes for meta gaming (pairing the best military leader with a strong military civ), but destroys the historical aspects which the franchise was built on.

 

[Krajzen]

I really, really, really hate this rhetoric. I can't quite pinpoint what it is yet, but I can tell you that I have yet to actually have fun playing civ VII. There are only five concrete thing I can say at the moment.

You say you have "only" few things to say, but you have actually provided very high quality detailed review of things you dislike and why (in fact it's many times longer than I'd expect, I'm fine with few sentence long reviews), which is exactly the kind of review I respect , not "I dislike it and think it's terrible but cannot articulate why, I just think it's soulless". Such reviews I have seen on Steam contain zero valuable information for the third party, one can simply give the game a negative vote (after all everyone is entitled to his/her negative feelings). But when somebody goes to type a review I expect something more than "don't buy it, it's stupid and dumb and soulless", just purely emotive and subjective expression. Personally I have inexplicably instantly hated several universally acclaimed video games in my life, just because they didn't fit my vibe or whatever, but I didn't go to their forums to say "the game is terrible because uhh idk I just hate it".

 

[aelf]

I'm in Modern Age now in my first game and set up for Railroad Tycoon, which I should win unless the AI pulls off a Culture win somehow. Overall, I do like the era changes and civ switching, because it makes me think strategically about my civ choices more than once in a game.

At first I thought that the differentiation between civs was getting a little too complex, but I actually found myself wanting more things to consider. As it is, each civ can feel a little simple if I don't find their unique civics particularly interesting.

I have no feelings about the resetting at the end of each age. I didn't find it necessary to fight any wars, so nothing was really interrupted, and I find trying to time the end of the age right a bit of an interesting puzzle.

As for the crises, I found the Antiquity plague a nothing burger. Though I guess it has to be, since there's no way to manage it. In Exploration, it was more of a nuisance and forced me to spend all my gold on Physicians, which ultimately lost me Non Sufficit Orbis, though I still won two other Legacy Paths. I'm still unsure how it works exactly, and am confused about what Physicians actually do other than remove the unrest (so only 1 Physician per city is enough?). I think the crises feel a little underbaked.

 

[Mo02]

I suspected this place to be a massive bubble but not to this extent.

 

[TheGrayFox]

I suspected this place to be a massive bubble but not to this extent.

Well to be fair and we've had this discussion in another polling topic, it makes sense that many of the people who had no interest in even entertaining these changes simply wrote the game off and moved on already. You could see in the consistent polling of the community across months that the total number engaging in polls was dropping dramatically inbtween polls, even as we inched closer to release. So what you're left with is a slight echochamber of people who were excited for changes and a vocal minority of those like myself refused to budge in their criticism.

 

[Krajzen]

I wouldn't call "echochamber" any place which, as you can see in this very poll, is split in half between "I like it" and "I don't like it, or I am not sure if I like it bc I see major problems"... Also, these forums lack social media mob dynamics, where people with other views are pushed away by the brute force of social mechanisms, points, authoritarian moderation, hate campaigns, purity spirals etc.

"Echo chamber" is not simply "a place where a certain view has a slight majority"; it's not even "a place where 78% people like changes or are unsure, and 22% are against them", if you wanna flip the ratio upside down, as long as 22% are not actively and forcibly pushed away by the social mechanisms of mob mentality, and their voices are very well visible (that's a nod to the messed up reddit style notion "minority opinions with few social points are hidden as if they didn't exist").

 

[TheGrayFox]

I wouldn't call "echochamber" any place which, as you can see in this very poll, is split in half between "I like it" and "I don't like it, or I am not sure if I like it bc I see major problems"... Also, these forums lack social media mob dynamics, where people with other views are pushed away by the brute force of social mechanisms, points, authoritarian moderation, hate campaigns, purity spirals etc.

STRONG disagree Moderator Action: *SNIP* -lymond .. I will say though that there have been plenty of people driven away from here from the constant bad faith argumentation, from from the seeming majority here who supported changes trying to ram their opinions down others throats, and because they expressed their opinions in ways that have been deemed not politicall correct or inflammatory.

"Echo chamber" is not simply "a place where a certain view has a slight majority"; it's not even "a place where 78% people like changes or are unsure, and 22% are against them", if you wanna flip the ratio upside down, as long as 22% are not actively and forcibly pushed away by the social mechanisms of mob mentality, and their voices are very well visible (that's a nod to the messed up reddit style notion "minority opinions with few social points are hidden as if they didn't exist").

There is a reason why I said a slight echochamber. I'm not saying everyone here has the same exact opinion and everyone is positive about everything, i'm pointing out what happens when the people who had no interest in the changes of VII and wrote the series off out of repulsion simply leave in droves. The overall perception becomes more positive than it actually is and results in an amplification/reinforcement of that positivity. Which is exactly what we saw in the months leading up to launch and here we are now..... with what by almost any metric is a huge flop.

 

[AD1730]

Well to be fair and we've had this discussion in another polling topic

And the option I would pick (I'm not buying this game because of this mechanic) isn't one of the options.

 

[CAB]

I'm not fond of the legacy system but I like the ages concept in general. Unfortunately the AI are not good enough so I more or less quit the game after the first age on all the games so far... no point in continuing when I outpace the AI all the time and they can't keep up even halfway into the first age,

 

[Vennlig]

I went the other direction to some in this thread, was very positive before release but a little more on the fence now, at least in its current state. I think it can be awesome but it needs some significant tweaking in my opinion.

For me the civ switching feels natural after a few games, and just adds an interesting layer to the game. I am more a gameplay first over immersion first player so I understand it might not feel as natural for everyone. If I was nit-picking I would say they didn't take it far enough on release, most of the starting civs are too easily unlocked and some don't feel unique enough (Disclaimer: I haven't played all the civs yet)

The age reset, while a blunt instrument, is at least partially successful in reigning in snowballing without making previous ages pointless. The different victory conditions in the ages make each age feel slightly different with keeps things fresh. Especially I feel going from antiquity to exploration and the opening up of the distant lands works really well. Again I think like there is room for improvement on this point as some of the victory paths are unlocked anyway through passive play without requiring much thought. Some players probably prefer this though so that they don't feel railroaded and dislike distant lands as too colonial centric - you can never please everyone!

The big problem with ages for me, that I didn't anticipate, before I got to play is that they tend to end in a damp squib rather than an exciting climax. I think it was perceived as an exciting race for the last few victory points. While I am sure that happens sometimes, most of the time the ending turns are very flat, there is no point building new buildings, there is no jeopardy - even if someone declares war on me now they won't have time to capture anything, the only reason to build units would be if I want to take a few more to the next age and so on.

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

Can maybe change my mind later on, but right now its negative.
Having two spots in the game where you have to gather all your units and attach them to commanders to save them for the next era is just silly.
Why even? Civ had eras before. Why soft reset?
Disconnects me from my empire and its situation.

I cannot see how I can see this as a good thing later on. Right now I hope Firaxis has few more aces in its sleeve.

The game automatically distributes your units into commanders and cities on the age transition.

 

[teakbois2112]

Era and civ swapping are mentioned in a number of the steam reviews though and if you look through all the reviews being voted "most helpful" ages are mentioned in some form in like nearly half of the complaints. I'm actually going through the first page of reviews as we speak to confirm this. That's without touching upon the professional reviewers who dislike the ages system and wondered if the change was going too far.



VII is flopping hard though.... and 5 and 6 combined have more players than VII last time I checked (it's launch weekend) and it's peak hasn't even reached half of VI's. I'm sorry but there is no universe where VII is having a more succesfull launch and reception to its changes than V. (which brought tons of new players to the series)



low player count is not being caused by the launch being split by platform. Playstation only has a small fraction of the total number of reviews that there are on steam.. PC is the main audience for a strategy series like Civ and VI did as well as it did with a PC only launch before it was later ported to make more money. Speaking from experience, I think people were just repulsed by fundamental changes and the cherry on top was the game being released unfinished and what feels barebones state.

Why do people like you try to push this game failure narrative so hard? You seem to want the game to fail.

The bad reviews will of course hurt initial sales. But still, its tough to compare the two releases yet. Civ VI had a high initial weekend spike and drop pretty drastically, before a very steady climb where it grew year after year. Civ VI's second weekend is higher than its first so far, but then its full release now (if that even matters that much). The most likely scenario is Civ VII will drop off to the 30K player range like VI and will have that same climb, and 2K and Firaxis both know this. And so do players, as each game goes on there will be more and more people who wait for the expansions. For 4x and GS games in particular the worst version of the game is always by far on launch.

Bad launches (and its not even clear if this is actually a bad launch yet...though its certainly not a great one) matter less if the core is good (which it is here) and there is incentive for the publisher to support it (which is obvious here as well). If 2K needs more money to pump into firaxis to cover for a below expectation launch they can just release a new Michael Jordan for the NBA 2K people to spend hundreds on.

 

[TheGrayFox]

Why do people like you try to push this game failure narrative so hard? You seem to want the game to fail.

The bad reviews will of course hurt initial sales. But still, its tough to compare the two releases yet. Civ VI had a high initial weekend spike and drop pretty drastically, before a very steady climb where it grew year after year. Civ VI's second weekend is higher than its first so far, but then its full release now (if that even matters that much). The most likely scenario is Civ VII will drop off to the 30K player range like VI and will have that same climb, and 2K and Firaxis both know this. And so do players, as each game goes on there will be more and more people who wait for the expansions. For 4x and GS games in particular the worst version of the game is always by far on launch.

Bad launches (and its not even clear if this is actually a bad launch yet...though its certainly not a great one) matter less if the core is good (which it is here) and there is incentive for the publisher to support it (which is obvious here as well). If 2K needs more money to pump into firaxis to cover for a below expectation launch they can just release a new Michael Jordan for the NBA 2K people to spend hundreds on.

I'm not pushing a narrative, I'm telling you the truth. While I will be the first to admit that I don't like the direction the series has taken but I honestly didn't expect the game to flop this hard.

VII has a bigger production budget than VI and somehow managed to not even break the peak playercount that V had nearly 15 years ago..... We all know consoles and unpopular Epic store are not making up that difference in sales, no matter how hard some want to cover their eyes. People are not buying VII. Saying more and more people are waiting for expansions each game makes zero sense when VI had an amazing launch and literally sold million+ in its first weeks. It's playercount may have eventually fell as people realized it was half baked, went back to V, and waited for more devolopment but people actually bought the game...

 

[JNR13]

Getting stuck on peak player count, which is usually a day 1 thing, when the release was basically split in two is just nonsense. Nevermind the fact that releasing on different weekdays already makes it hard to compare launches. These two factors already make the shape of VII's player count curve rather exotic, regardless of the absolute numbers. No idea where to even start with a proper comparison there.

Also, Epic might not make up for it but console sales were already a surprisingly big share for Civ VI. The devs themselves were quite surprised by it.

 

[Sekou]

I've quite enjoyed it. The reset seem to be working as intended as they've kept me engaged and eschewing restarts. They've also been helpful to reset my civ. I had a particularly nasty exploration age, I was overextended and just not succeeding anywhere. The age change stripped me down to a core of like 6 settlements and I was able to refresh and battle back to a science win. That was cool.

But I still continue to adhere to my original thoughts on the system - that being that you should swap leaders and not your civ. Just works better thematically with Crises.

 

[Maiq]

Why do people like you try to push this game failure narrative so hard? You seem to want the game to fail.

The bad reviews will of course hurt initial sales. But still, its tough to compare the two releases yet. Civ VI had a high initial weekend spike and drop pretty drastically, before a very steady climb where it grew year after year. Civ VI's second weekend is higher than its first so far, but then its full release now (if that even matters that much). The most likely scenario is Civ VII will drop off to the 30K player range like VI and will have that same climb, and 2K and Firaxis both know this. And so do players, as each game goes on there will be more and more people who wait for the expansions. For 4x and GS games in particular the worst version of the game is always by far on launch.

Bad launches (and its not even clear if this is actually a bad launch yet...though its certainly not a great one) matter less if the core is good (which it is here) and there is incentive for the publisher to support it (which is obvious here as well). If 2K needs more money to pump into firaxis to cover for a below expectation launch they can just release a new Michael Jordan for the NBA 2K people to spend hundreds on.

It isn't about pumping out more money, it is about cutting their losses. They aren't going to give this some 10 year life cycle if it comes no where close to their sales goals.