Poll: Did you like the new era system overall?

[Maiq]

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.

Because they released it for free

 

[ThichN]

Love the era system, love the game, and having the most fun with a Civ game since IV.

 

[teakbois2112]

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,

Last Civ game had a full release on a Friday. This had a staggered release, with the official relase on a Tuesday
If we compare Civ VII players this week to the first post release weekend of civ vi, we are looking at 110k vs 85k + epic/console
I suspect Civ VI still leads in player count, but if the player reviews are lower than that would lead one to the fair assumption that a lower percentage of people who bought the game are playing it.

The reality is we don't know its sales, 2k's expectations, and if it is a disappointment or not.

Veilguard was a flop. Civ VII may be a disappointment, or it may not be. We don't know. Its almost certain its not a 'flop' though.

And the important thing is that the people that matter know the numbers. You trying to rally people against a game they are enjoying, or might enjoy, is not helping anyone.
There is plenty of good, constructive feedback in these forums that might get buried under this kind of nonsense. People on both sides need to try to be balanced and not pretend that the game is a disaster, or that its a masterpiece.

 

[TheGrayFox]

Last Civ game had a full release on a Friday. This had a staggered release, with the official relase on a Tuesday
If we compare Civ VII players this week to the first post release weekend of civ vi, we are looking at 110k vs 85k + epic/console
I suspect Civ VI still leads in player count, but if the player reviews are lower than that would lead one to the fair assumption that a lower percentage of people who bought the game are playing it.

Okay some of you guys really do need to be more realistic. First of all, by just comparing first weekends you are completely leaving out the context that VI's had a much higher peak earlier meaning more people actually bought the game and the unpopular epic store and consoles is not making up the difference in lost sales/peak playercount here ... Civ is a PC series first and foremost. VI was released on PC first and sold over a million in its first week without factoring in consoles at all, the market for its console port weren't cutting into its PC sales.

The reality is we don't know its sales, 2k's expectations, and if it is a disappointment or notVeilguard was a flop. Civ VII may be a disappointment, or it may not be. We don't know. Its almost certain its not a 'flop' though.

Based on what? Feelings? Half of the peak players of its direct predessecor and not even reaching the peak that Beyond Earth managed 15 years ago is a flop for a modern mainline Civilization title.

And the important thing is that the people that matter know the numbers. You trying to rally people against a game they are enjoying, or might enjoy, is not helping anyone.
There is plenty of good, constructive feedback in these forums that might get buried under this kind of nonsense. People on both sides need to try to be balanced and not pretend that the game is a disaster, or that its a masterpiece.

The people "that matter" are literally running damage control as we speak with Firaxis scambling to put out 3 patches since release and 2K talking about "how they know things are not perfect and they'll win over legacy fans eventually".

People pointing out reality aren't "rallying people against the game", you are free to enjoy the Civilization VII but let's not pretend that this has been a succesful launch.

 

[pokiehl]

Its almost certain its not a 'flop' though.

Definitely not a flop by any means. It set the record for the franchise for most preorders and is the #1 selling game on Steam right now.

 

[ColtSeavers]

Definitely not a flop by any means. It set the record for the franchise for most preorders and is the #1 selling game on Steam right now.

Are you sure about that? Just checked Steam's Top Sellers, and Civ 7 is still behind Kingdom come Deliverance 2?

 

[TheGrayFox]

Definitely not a flop by any means. It set the record for the franchise for most preorders and is the #1 selling game on Steam right now.

How many of those preorders actually went through with their purchase without refunding and honestly being the #1 preordered or selling game on steam in one country alone (it's not the #1 seller in many countries outside the US) isn't much of accomplishment when your only real competition released recently is a relatively obscure Medieval RPG, which also has a large console playerbase.

Again shareholders look for growth, when you release a AAA sequel to a series as promiment as Civilization,. they're not looking for a game released to mixed reception which couldn't even reach a player peak that is half of its predessecor.....

 

[pokiehl]

Are you sure about that? Just checked Steam's Top Sellers, and Civ 7 is still behind Kingdom come Deliverance 2?

Just triple checked and it remains at the top of the list on my end. Must be based on Steam region

 

[Maiq]

Definitely not a flop by any means. It set the record for the franchise for most preorders and is the #1 selling game on Steam right now.

How many of those preorders actually went through with their purchase without refunding and honestly being the #1 preordered or selling game on steam in one country alone (it's not the #1 seller in many countries outside the US) isn't much of accomplishment when your only real competition released recently is a relatively obscure Medieval RPG, which also has a large console playerbase.

Again shareholders look for growth, when you release a AAA sequel to a series as promiment as Civilization,. they're not looking for a game released to mixed reception which couldn't even reach a player peak that is half of its predessecor.....

Right? Like, cool, it had the most people say they wanted to play it before it came out. Until those sales go through, big whoop. And plus you had early-early access tied into it too.

 

[TheGrayFox]

Right? Like, cool, it had the most people say they wanted to play it before it came out. Until those sales go through, big whoop. And plus you had early-early access tied into it too.

Even ignoring preorders, pointing out the fact that the game is listed on steam store as a best seller is just a bit disingenious because again Civilization is a AAA game releasing without any real AAA competition.

I'm pretty sure even Veilgaurd could flaunt its impressive amount of preorders and status as a top seller on steam for a while.

 

[AriochIV]

The Age system functions... it's playable... but it's not any kind of improvement over the previous system. It doesn't accomplish any of the goals it was supposed to accomplish.

• It doesn't reduce late-game micromanagement. I spend just as much if not more time every turn dealing with new population allocation than I did with workers or builders, and there are more units than before and combat is even more fiddly and unforgiving of a misclick. There are some good quality of life improvements (like Towns and Commanders), but these have nothing to do with the Age system.
• It doesn't reduce snowballing or the boredom of the late game. The AI is aggressive, but if you are competent at handling military units they can't touch you.
• It doesn't reduce abandoning a playthrough. I've played bits of about six games by this point and only finished one, and gotten to the Exploration Age in three.
• The obtuse victory conditions have always been the weakest point of the last two iterations; it's no different in Civ7 except now you have to deal with them three times instead of just once. The worst part of the game now lasts the entire game. "Build Something You Believe In"? Hardly. "Play the way we tell you to play."
• The reset between Ages totally destroys any immersion or emergent narrative that's been built up. Losing much of your progress can be a challenge, but it feels terrible.

I'm speaking of the Age system specifically... there are a lot of good things in Civilization 7. Specifically, civilization-switching does a decent job of keeping your civilization abilities and attributes relevant for the whole game... but that didn't necessarily have to be implemented the way this Age system is, with basically a complete reset between three connected playthroughs.

I'm well aware that the Age system is core to the design of Civ7, so there's no way it will be removed. However, if I had to guess, what we'll see over the next several years is a gradual rolling back of the worst parts of it, until by DLC 256 it will barely still be there. Kind of like the resource system over the course of Civ5-6.

 

[Isca Dumnoniorum]

It doesn't reduce late-game micromanagement. I spend just as much if not more time every turn dealing with new population allocation than I did with workers or builders

I’ve been struck by this. At least with builders you could stop building them or just set them to sleep but having to allocate specialists every two or three turns for each city really gets old. I’d love an automate function to reduce this part of the busywork.

 

[Timothy001]

While I like the the New Era System, it does need some work.

1. Antiquity Age feels too short. Usually have several Science and Culture not Researched
2. Modern Era is too long. Most games, finish both trees before end game is ready.
3. Crisis needs lots of work. The way they were first described, they would become so bad, that your civ would finally break, thats when the era would end. The new era will dawn several years later, with your collection of towns reforming into a new civ. For the most part the Crisis does not make me beleive it was bad enough to force this.
4. Some of the in game unlocks, are too easy to get.

 

[Steveo110]

Reached Modern age for first time last night, and for the Era mechanic I can say this:

Seems a good innovation but still needs a lot of work.

Transition from Antiquity to Exploration feels smooth, 180 ish turns in Antiquity feels okay. Leap ahead in time frame doesn't feel forced as historically you are side stepping the Dark Ages.
Transition from Exploration to Modern is... jarring, to say the least. Exploration only lasted 101 turns, and by end I had both science & economic legacies fulfilled and barely reached the gunpowder tech when it ended 1225AD. Jumping ahead to 1700's (so jumping 500 years) feels too forced and disruptive to game flow.

Exploration so far clearly needs work in terms of making longer & avoiding the same problem that used to occur in Civ 6 where the mid game tech/units usually get bypassed due to too short a timespan.

 

[Leucarum]

Are people really finding the modern age times out too fast? Even avoiding culture victory, science and economic are way too fast to win IMO!

 

[Donny Hayes]

I don't understand this system and don't like it. Also can't understand people who really enjoy it, especially old players of the series.
I am extremely unused to the fact that now the leader is not tied to his civilization, for me in many ways loses the charm and interest of the whole game. Despite the fact that I've been actively playing Civ since the 4th part, the 7th part has passed me by so far.

 

[aelf]

I don't understand this system and don't like it. Also can't understand people who really enjoy it, especially old players of the series.
I am extremely unused to the fact that now the leader is not tied to his civilization, for me in many ways loses the charm and interest of the whole game. Despite the fact that I've been actively playing Civ since the 4th part, the 7th part has passed me by so far.

I've been playing since Civ1. I don't understand what you don't understand. It's a new system and every Civ since 2 has had a new system at launch.

Leaders not being tied to civilisation makes little difference to me. I find the only leaders in the series to have any personality were in Civ4, so that ship has sailed, tbh. They've just been avatars for the other civs for more than a decade at least.

 

[Donny Hayes]

I've been playing since Civ1. I don't understand what you don't understand. It's a new system and every Civ since 2 has had a new system at launch.

Leaders not being tied to civilisation makes little difference to me. I find the only leaders in the series to have any personality were in Civ4, so that ship has sailed, tbh. They've just been avatars for the other civs for more than a decade at least.

Well, I'm glad you're happy with this system as a fan of the series, but I think those are still a minority. For me, these systems lose any historical simulation.

 

[Siptah]

Well, I'm glad you're happy with this system as a fan of the series, but I think those are still a minority. For me, these systems lose any historical simulation.

Not going into the minority/majority debate (it derails enough threads already), but I don‘t think any civ game had much going on in terms of historical simulation. Granted, some bits shifted towards a different world view with 7, but I don‘t think what’s there now is significantly more or less of a simulation than before. It is and has always been historically inspired fantasy.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Well, I'm glad you're happy with this system as a fan of the series, but I think those are still a minority. For me, these systems lose any historical simulation.

You're definitely far from alone in feeling this way.

Although I would suggest that whilst the Ages structure enables civ switching and decoupled leaders, you could still have this three part structure with different iterations of the same civ and a historically associated leader. I.e., you could enjoy the Ages whilst still being down on the rest.