[poll] How excited are you currently about Civ7? [vol 2 - November/December 24]

[kaspergm]

for the same reason I don't play competitive MP, I don't find that fun.

For me civ is more about playing into an alternative history than aiming to reach one of the victory condition ASAP.

But I do want some challenge too, else the story would be boring.

It's a kind of balance, and between pure RP and pure competition there are as much nuances as there are players.

I like your post here. I too think the best part is the AI being somewhere between the two extremes that's playing (only) to win and not at all playing to win.

One example is that in Civ6 (and probably all games before that), if AI played only to win, on Diety difficulty, it would easily achieve this by just spamming warriors and rushing the player. Between the AIs production bonuses, extra starting settlers and extra starting warriers, the human player would never be able to survive if the AI just flat-out declared war immediately. Obviously that would be the sane thing for the AI to do in an extreme "play to win" setup, because AI by default starts much stronger than the human player, but that would not be fun. I have suffered a couple of Gilgamesh Warcart rushes (before I realized I could always DoF him on turn one, thank you crappy agenda system), and it was not fun.

On the other hand, again an example from Civ6, the AIs completely inaptness when it comes to doing a space victory is quite infuriating. I remember someone did some testing of it and showed how the AI completely stalled after the first couple of space projects. Obviously that is not fun either. If the AI gets a clear science lead, obviously it should be able to finish a science victory.

So for me, the crucial point is that the AI should feel and look like it's acting rationally in the way that a real-life empire would be expected to act. It should not make extreme decisions just "to win", but it should not avoid winning either, if it finds itself in a situation where it has the upper hand.

 

[Nikolai II]

Chieftain. I've won on Warlord, but I didn't enjoy it. The AI just got too aggressive.

I like how diverse the dedicated fans are. Some play deity, which I find absolutely horrible and unfun. Some play cheftain, which I find to be too easy and thus often becoming boring. Myself, I always played prince from Civ1 to Civ5. Later in 5 I went to king. Civ6 I ended up on emperor. I find the fun va challenge for me is somewhere around the king/emperor divide. It’s good we are diverse!

 

[Thomas Davie]

Excited enough that I bought a new computer 6 days ago. Excited enough that I thought I effed up, went back and purchased another more powerful PC w/better CPU/graphics/AIPU.

That’s the great thing about being old - more toy money. But Civ is like Oxygen; it’s just necessary.

Tom

 

[Naokaukodem]

Last poll I voted 6. Not sure about now, as I didn't follow the news quite closely, but one thing hit my eyes : there seems to be a lot of "flat choices" (when you have to choose among a big list of descriptions), and I absolutely hate this. It's less a concern when you learn the game more and more, but if I refer myself to Civ6, there's still a huge amount of civs I have no clue what they do / how to play them... on the other hand I love the towns implementation, too bad they have to be built with a settler. (with increasing costs + loss of population ? In any case you have to move them, which is meh to me) Oh yeah I love how they try to reproduce the New World era, it's been quite some years I got that idea that seemed very important to me. Hopefully in Civ8 they will try to simulate yet more important moments of true History. (as we see, History can be a great gameplay inspirator as I always said)
So :
* Flat choices : minus
* Towns : bonus + minus = neutral
* New World = bonus
Result : equal. So that's still a 6.

As to the AI plays to win debate, I like when I feel some resistance, even I like to fix myself goals like "improving my empire production" (like Marbozir did in his Civ5 Deity America game 10 years ago) and succeed in it (very satisfying) but I don't like when we feel like a garbage surrounded by omnipotent superpowers like it is the case in Civ6. At least in Civ5 I take Tradition, pay the threatening AIs to fight someone else and I can win Deity with some luck. (never managed war in Civ5 Deity, only on Immortal and it was fun because I just crushed my enemies, this was so much fun)

 

[Thomas Davie]

I forgot to vote in the poll. Def not at an excitement level of 10, but a) it’s Civ and b) I’m on medical retirement for dialysis with a good pension & don;t worry about money; plus all the time in world.

It’s an addiction which demands to be fed.

Tom

 

[NickTheGreek!]

6 again not enough excitement from the new info revealed to go up and knowing that CIV games take a while after release to become all they can/should be. Enough goodwill/love for the CIV series as a whole to not go below 6. I mean, there are always things to whine about but i have not yet been majorly dissapointed from a CIV game. Some things suck on release but are later fixed/improved (mostly

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[CivLuvah]

I haven’t been engaging much in these forums since the announcement because of my PhD coursework (and also other games during my free time).

But having seen the religion system for Civ7, whatever excitement that was left went away. They oversimplified it, and they should have innovated it more. I think I had my previous score at 6; now it’s at 5.

 

[Architect]

9

I can’t wait for a modern age that matters.

It is my prediction that by the time this game is complete the consensus will be how did we ever play this game any other way.

 

[kaspergm]

9

I can’t wait for a modern age that matters.

It is my prediction that by the time this game is complete the consensus will be how did we ever play this game any other way.

I’m not as convinced, but hope you are right. I fear this will be the HoMaM6 of the Civ series for me, but we’ll see. My biggest fear is that it will be a good game but that the feeling will just be wrong for me, so it won’t catch my affection (maybe that would make it more HoMaM4 actually).

 

[Aeon221]

I’m up to a 12. Unlike Civ 6 (by far the worst entry in the franchise in my view) this feels like the devs prioritized gameplay, beauty and verisimilitude over board gamey features, micro and spam.

I loved what I saw of the exploration age and I think that’s going to be very cool to play through. Naval having a purpose is awesome. I also loved the map expansion feature, the implementation is excellent. Everyone can start moving toward the distant lands at the same time so it’s a race and not “I have early access so I get all the best spots and everyone else gets bupkis”.

I love the way tech has been firmly knocked onto the back foot. While is iconic as a game experience it was a total failure. The world feels more real and the game is more challenging when everyone is operating on roughly the same level tech wise. Tech prowess should make you better on margin, not let you become an alien superpower beyond the comprehension of peer nations with modern stealth bombers against their medieval knights. The devs clearly agree and I am here for it.

The beauty of the cities and the emphasis on making mega cities not just viable but an explicitly supported gameplay path is wonderful! I am so excited to mess with the town/city dynamic and feel it brings back one of the best parts of Civ 5 (puppet cities) with major improvements. I love that the Civ 6 theme park city aesthetic has been kicked aside.

In short I could not be more thrilled that this game looks to be more a mix of Civ 4 and Civ 5 than Civ 6. My only regret is that we aren’t seeing an art deco inspired UI in 7.

 

[Leucarum]

Unlike Civ 6 (by far the worst entry in the franchise in my view) this feels like the devs prioritized gameplay, beauty and verisimilitude over board gamey features, micro and spam.

Interesting comment about board gamry features. I found the fixed age structure really reminded me of board games - the 3 part structure is really common in board games I think. I don't mean that ad an insult though, Civ games are digital board games, 7 feels more than 6 to me though...

Very strong agree about liking micro/spam reduction though.

 

[Aeon221]

Interesting comment about board gamry features. I found the fixed age structure really reminded me of board games - the 3 part structure is really common in board games I think. I don't mean that ad an insult though, Civ games are digital board games, 7 feels more than 6 to me though...

Very strong agree about liking micro/spam reduction though.

I like that the ages solved another major problem I have with the past games: unit upgrade bloat. I know I’m not the only one who has experienced upgrading units, marching them to the enemy and then needing to upgrade them again

 

[BK_PEARL]

I like how diverse the dedicated fans are. Some play deity, which I find absolutely horrible and unfun. Some play cheftain, which I find to be too easy and thus often becoming boring. Myself, I always played prince from Civ1 to Civ5. Later in 5 I went to king. Civ6 I ended up on emperor. I find the fun va challenge for me is somewhere around the king/emperor divide. It’s good we are diverse!

Its about fun and a challenge isn't it, I did deity for all CIv games starting from the first up to the 4th. Emperor is my favourite setting for civ 6, I like a challenge but also want to dominate the game, I have this thing where i want my civ to be outstanding vs the AI. I could win with the next step up but i wouldn't enjoy it. Deity civ 6 i would struggle I think, id have to nut out a plan and really get stuck into the mechanics of everything. which goes against my just play the game feeling that i enjoy the most.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

Interesting comment about board gamry features. I found the fixed age structure really reminded me of board games - the 3 part structure is really common in board games I think. I don't mean that ad an insult though, Civ games are digital board games, 7 feels more than 6 to me though...

Very strong agree about liking micro/spam reduction though.

I like the idea of micro / spam reduction too and I can see it happening in some areas like commanders and no more workers. However, we're getting a bunch more features forcing extra micro instead.

Narrative events are often micro intensive in their implementation which better and worse outcomes. Choosing your city expansion route every time a city grows I can see being great for early growth, but getting stale on the 24th grassland tile when you've got 7 other cities expanding on the same turn. The end game stuff looks quite microey with their "reset the board," type function. There's a bunch more trees and cards.

The sad bit about that for me is you're increasingly doing your micro in bland menus instead of by interacting with the gorgeous map. Hopefully the way they've implemented it doesn't feel too microey in 7, but there is potential for a bit of feature bloat making it feel more microey again

 

[Ornen]

I suspect this is something that a very, very small portion of the player base wants. I know I found it a huge turnoff in Civ5 and when they briefly tried to implement it in Civ6.

my view on this is there are three levels...

• not playing to win
• playing to win
• playing to win, to the extent they will actively try to stop other players from winning

Civ 4 AI actually will gang up on any player that pulls ahead. in my view, this is going further than most players want (maybe a fun inclusion for higher difficulties, but hardly essential)

Civ 6 AI has its own weird little agendas and doesn't try the basic meta path to victory. because of the agendas there are exceptions — Pericles can win CV, for instance, because he's hard-coded to build culture districts — but for the most part, the civs are just out here vibing, having a good time

I don't think playing to win on the basic level of aiming for and attempting to achieve a victory would be such a huge turnoff to most players. it also seems they are in for a model aimed at squeezing extra money out of enthusiasts ($30 for 4 civs ), so I don't think AI that plays to win at the most basic level is such an ask.

but really I'm just tired of AIs calling me up to whine about not building boats or whatever when they could be doing something interesting.

If the AI is playing to win, it's simply reminding me I'm playing a game. The AI should provide the illusion of playing against other nations, not against playing competitively against humans; that's what MP is for for those who want that--I don't. It should play competently enough not to get steamrolled, but it shouldn't metagame.

I'd be happy enough with 'the illusion of playing against other nations' tbh... if the AI would organically take on approaches such as realpolitik, idealism, imperialism, security paranoia, etc. there are all kinds of interesting ways nation-states act towards each other in real life, and "I don't like you, you build wonder" is not really it.

 

[Ornen]

as a separate point, I think this dynamic is an underrated part of why the game becomes uninteresting late game. in Civ 6, civs start with massive advantage and on higher difficulties will smother a player who isn't ready for them in the early game. but if you make it to the mid game while keeping up with the curve, it becomes a total snooze. because the AI isn't playing to win by a basic victory condition, you've already won.

you play Civ 4 and you have a Byzantine police state on a warpath knocking down civs left and right while Korea techs towards spaceship.... that's much more interesting than Civ 6, where victory & defeat are basically decided by midgame because no one else knows how to win.

 

[DeutschDachs]

Probably down to a 4 from a 5 honestly. I was really, really disappointed by the reveal of the Civ changing mechanic. Feels like a total departure from the series' formula. And sometimes things do need a shake-up, but I remain unconvinced. Especially on release, each age will only have 10/11 Civs to pick from which will lead to a feeling of repetitivness.

What bumps my score down right now is that I was really hoping that as more info was released that I would find some cool new ideas or features. But I'm not really finding anything exciting. Closest was that the Inca are in the base game, but they're only there for 1/3 of the game... and I'm stuck with some leader who doesn't match my Civ for the other 2/3s of the time. Civ 5 and 6 Civ reveals always got me so hyped and now I just really couldn't care less. I've always wanted Bohemia in Civ. Now I'm hoping they're not in Civ 7 because they'd probably be in the age of exploration and would never get to win a space race.

Then the leaders... decoupling leaders from Civs would be cool as a gameplay option you could toggle. As a requirement to play a leader apart from their normal Civ for 2/3 of the game? Feels like a joke. Ben Franklin of the Han Chinese... It's so ridiculous I can only laugh at the absurdity.

The more I watch the less enamored I am with the visuals as well. I was pretty positive about them in the reveal but the more gameplay that's shown, the more the chunky buildings crowding hexagons seems to get to me. I've been playing Ara History Untold and the map just feels so much more natural with better scaling. I mean it's nitpicking, it's not like it's ugly, I just find myself wishing it was a bit more polished since this will be Civ for the next decade. At least the leader models seem to be improving so that's good.

I'll end with a couple good things since it probably just seems like I'm a hater. I'm still totally up for navigable rivers which make their return for the first time since Civ II (basically glorified roads) and seem like a vast improvement. While I'm not a fan of Civ switching, I do think ages could be cool. The Age of Exploration in particular is something I am excited for since outside of Terra maps (and scattered islands), new territory to expand to or colonize in the midgame has largely been missing in modern Civ

Anyway still hoping for the best, it's just weird to not be at 10/10 excitement like I have been for every other Civ release since III

 

[Unit 371]

Gave it a 4, I dislike the Civ switching, low AI player cap and age limited exploration. I'll keep playing Civ 4 and 5 so it's not a big deal in the end, just disappointed this is the direction they went. Mods would most likely fix everything I mentioned so I'll wait and see what pops up over time or just try doing it myself. Game looks beautiful though.

 

[Thomas Davie]

Excited enough that I purchased Humankind, Old World & all DLC’s Ah, to think me and miy ex fiancee used to plan LAN Civ III lots.

Tom

 

[kaspergm]

my view on this is there are three levels...

• not playing to win
• playing to win
• playing to win, to the extent they will actively try to stop other players from winning

Civ 4 AI actually will gang up on any player that pulls ahead. in my view, this is going further than most players want (maybe a fun inclusion for higher difficulties, but hardly essential)

Civ 6 AI has its own weird little agendas and doesn't try the basic meta path to victory. because of the agendas there are exceptions — Pericles can win CV, for instance, because he's hard-coded to build culture districts — but for the most part, the civs are just out here vibing, having a good time

I don't think playing to win on the basic level of aiming for and attempting to achieve a victory would be such a huge turnoff to most players. it also seems they are in for a model aimed at squeezing extra money out of enthusiasts ($30 for 4 civs ), so I don't think AI that plays to win at the most basic level is such an ask.

but really I'm just tired of AIs calling me up to whine about not building boats or whatever when they could be doing something interesting.


I'd be happy enough with 'the illusion of playing against other nations' tbh... if the AI would organically take on approaches such as realpolitik, idealism, imperialism, security paranoia, etc. there are all kinds of interesting ways nation-states act towards each other in real life, and "I don't like you, you build wonder" is not really it.

as a separate point, I think this dynamic is an underrated part of why the game becomes uninteresting late game. in Civ 6, civs start with massive advantage and on higher difficulties will smother a player who isn't ready for them in the early game. but if you make it to the mid game while keeping up with the curve, it becomes a total snooze. because the AI isn't playing to win by a basic victory condition, you've already won.

you play Civ 4 and you have a Byzantine police state on a warpath knocking down civs left and right while Korea techs towards spaceship.... that's much more interesting than Civ 6, where victory & defeat are basically decided by midgame because no one else knows how to win.

Just wanted to say I think you make some really good points here. I think developers actually did intend the AI in Civ6 to pursue certain victory conditions, the end result just ended being extremely poorly executed, as evidenced by the pop-ups you sometimes get "Babylon is now pursuing a military victory" (where Babylon is like infinitely behind you in military strength) and then a handful of turns later "Babylon is no longer pursuing a military victory" (no ****).