(POLL) What do we think of the change to playing multiple civs per game?

What do we think of the change to playing multiple civs per game?

  • Strongly like

    Votes: 48 11.3%
  • Like

    Votes: 70 16.4%
  • Neutral

    Votes: 84 19.7%
  • Dislike

    Votes: 87 20.4%
  • Strongly dislike

    Votes: 137 32.2%

  • Total voters
    426

Hawke9

Warlord
Joined
Feb 5, 2017
Messages
213
Location
The Netherlands
I thought it would be a good idea to do a headcount as to see how the community feels about the newly announced gameplay feature in civilization VII, where the player is meant to change civs twice during a normal game. Personally, I strongly disagree with the change and I will miss leading a single civilization from antiquity to modern times. Of course, we haven't learned all the details of the game yet, and everyone is entitled to their own opinion, so this poll is simply meant to measure everyone's initial reaction.
 
I like it, specifically because we WILL lead a civilization from antiquity to modern times - with all the drastic change that implies. We aren't just ditching the old one and picking any random new civ for the next age, we are restricted to only choices that make sense historically or in terms of the alt-history of the current game. That gets rid of the problem Humankind is said to have, where you don't connect well with your civ because it arbitrarily changes several times.

No real world civilization has existed continuously under the same name throughout all of human history. This change makes the game more realistic and immersive if you ask me.
 
I will just copy my Consolation Post here, I hope it doesn't violate any rules? I was at first very scared of civ switching, but then calmed down a lot after thinking about it, and wanted for many people with similar reaction to see my reasoning and hopefully be consoled.

CONSOLATION POST FOR PEOPLE SCARED LIKE ME AT FIRST

Keep in mind that in Humankind the system was forced upon the player largely due to this game's horrible mod support and civ switching being enforced by its mechanics. It is highly possible that "classic mode" is either going to be a popular mod (or maybe even official option added by Firaxis if they decide negative response is too high).

Also, Humankind's system was made terrible by the fact you made six transitions and the game had essentially no leaders (avatar system was godawful). Meanwhile in civ7 you're going to have only two transitions plus you have leaders (plus, again, I highly expect mods and modes for AI civs remaining old civs, or going for the closest historical paths etc). So you have much more time to get attached - on epic speed I would spend like 200 turns with each of three civs even if I decided to switch each time and had no "viable feeling" transitions. Much less transitions also means that it is actually possible to fill out sensible development lines using mods, which brings us too...

Finally, this system has incredible potential once you add mod civs. It allows for epic things such as:
China having progression of dynasties (Han -> Ming -> Qing)=
India having countless possible evolution lines
History of Iran (Achaemenids -> Safavids -> modern Iran);
History of Arabs (say Nabateans -> Abbasids -> any modern country)
History of France (Gauls -> French Kingdom -> French Republic (because why not?? mods will allow that))
History of England (Britons -> Anglo-Saxons -> Great Britain)
History of Italy (Rome -> let's say Florence -> Italy)
History of Germany (your fav Germanic tribe -> your fav HRE state -> Germany)
History of Turks (Gokturks -> Ottomans -> Turkey)
History of Andean civs (Nazca -> Inca -> Peru (honestly I'm fine with it - but you can retain Inca))
more historical America (Britons/Anglo-Saxons -> Great Britain -> America :))
History of any Bantu country (Bantu -> precolonial empire -> modern country)
History of Korea (Goryeo -> Joseon -> your fav modern Korea)

In Humankind filling out sensible transitions was impossible due to their number (and miserable mod scene). But here it is tangible and actually opens amazing opportunities. I can repeat the above with sensible transitions for Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Burma, history of Bengal and Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Armenia, Russia (Slavs -> Muscovy -> Russia), Nordic peoples (Proto-Germanic -> Norse -> Norway), Greece (ancient polis -> Byzantium -> Greece), Spain (Iberians -> Visigoths -> Spain), Ukraine (Rus -> Cossacks -> Ukraine)...

Doesn't this sound glorious? There is a potential in this system to make each historical civilization shine greater than before, with fans creativity.

There will be mods modifying the system or even removing it, there may be official game modes, there will be your agency, which taken together will most probably enable you to see the world of old civ games - but there will be also options for something greater. Humankind never had this potential because six transitions, its systems, its avatars and its terrible modding made anti-immersion inescapable; here we have hope.
 
Geniunely neutral. I think a lot of the criticsm isn't the system itself, but the way it's represented. If you strip away the flavor, then it's a cool mechanic, reminisicent of what they did in Revolutions.

It's the fact that people are changing civ is what's wrong, but honestly, if they stripped away that aspect and just reattached the Civilization identity to the Leader again then none of this would be a thing.
 
I will just copy my Consolation Post here, I hope it doesn't violate any rules? I was at first very scared of civ switching, but then calmed down a lot after thinking about it, and wanted for many people with similar reaction to see my reasoning and hopefully be consoled.

CONSOLATION POST FOR PEOPLE SCARED LIKE ME AT FIRST

Keep in mind that in Humankind the system was forced upon the player largely due to this game's horrible mod support and civ switching being enforced by its mechanics. It is highly possible that "classic mode" is either going to be a popular mod (or maybe even official option added by Firaxis if they decide negative response is too high).

Also, Humankind's system was made terrible by the fact you made six transitions and the game had essentially no leaders (avatar system was godawful). Meanwhile in civ7 you're going to have only two transitions plus you have leaders (plus, again, I highly expect mods and modes for AI civs remaining old civs, or going for the closest historical paths etc). So you have much more time to get attached - on epic speed I would spend like 200 turns with each of three civs even if I decided to switch each time and had no "viable feeling" transitions. Much less transitions also means that it is actually possible to fill out sensible development lines using mods, which brings us too...

Finally, this system has incredible potential once you add mod civs. It allows for epic things such as:
China having progression of dynasties (Han -> Ming -> Qing)=
India having countless possible evolution lines
History of Iran (Achaemenids -> Safavids -> modern Iran);
History of Arabs (say Nabateans -> Abbasids -> any modern country)
History of France (Gauls -> French Kingdom -> French Republic (because why not?? mods will allow that))
History of England (Britons -> Anglo-Saxons -> Great Britain)
History of Italy (Rome -> let's say Florence -> Italy)
History of Germany (your fav Germanic tribe -> your fav HRE state -> Germany)
History of Turks (Gokturks -> Ottomans -> Turkey)
History of Andean civs (Nazca -> Inca -> Peru (honestly I'm fine with it - but you can retain Inca))
more historical America (Britons/Anglo-Saxons -> Great Britain -> America :))
History of any Bantu country (Bantu -> precolonial empire -> modern country)
History of Korea (Goryeo -> Joseon -> your fav modern Korea)

In Humankind filling out sensible transitions was impossible due to their number (and miserable mod scene). But here it is tangible and actually opens amazing opportunities. I can repeat the above with sensible transitions for Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Burma, history of Bengal and Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Armenia, Russia (Slavs -> Muscovy -> Russia), Nordic peoples (Proto-Germanic -> Norse -> Norway), Greece (ancient polis -> Byzantium -> Greece), Spain (Iberians -> Visigoths -> Spain), Ukraine (Rus -> Cossacks -> Ukraine)...

Doesn't this sound glorious? There is a potential in this system to make each historical civilization shine greater than before, with fans creativity.

There will be mods modifying the system or even removing it, there may be official game modes, there will be your agency, which taken together will most probably enable you to see the world of old civ games - but there will be also options for something greater. Humankind never had this potential because six transitions, its systems, its avatars and its terrible modding made anti-immersion inescapable; here we have hope.

No offense but it sounds like you're gaslighting yourself to enjoy it. Even if it's better than HK's system doesn't mean it's a good system. I for one still don't see why we couldn't have just had the old system. It's quite silly
 
Voted Neutral.
Not because I dislike the idea, but because I have to wait and see how they are going to make it work.

For one thing, the option of maintaining a 'straight line' - same or as close to same as possible Civ through all three Ages - has to be included to support all the gamers out there that want to play a single Civ from Turn 1 to Turn 500.

I don't happen to be one of them, because I know that there is no human civilization that has existed from 4000 BCE to the present day without major changes and disconnects, so for me any such play is pure Fantasy.

BUT there are just too many details missing from what we know to say I'm for or against the in-game Practice as opposed to the in-game Theory.
 
I voted "like", because while it is not what I would have done if I had been designing the game, and I might have *prefered* another path, that doesn't mean I can't like it. It's still an idea that I think has potential for fun, if it hits the right balance to avoid the lack of identity issues of Humankind (which, let's be very clear here, we're NOT an inherent problem of teh feature but rather a problem with the extreme way Humankind implemented it).

So far, what I'm seeing looks like a much more balanced approach, so we'll see how it plays out.
 
Neutral, need to get a feel for it and see what's possible. Played Humankind and saw the downsides, hoping Firaxis implementation is superior.
 
I voted dislike because in the only way I've seen it implemented in a video game, in Humankind, it did not work well. I've also seen it in the board game Small World, which didn't really endear me to it either.

I suspect from what we've seen that Civ's implementation will be better than Humankind's. Whether it's enough that I'll like it and never want to go back... we'll find out.

I wonder if Firaxis considered the name Civilizations VII?
 
I hate it a lot, but all will be well (and I suspect to a wide swath of players) if there's a "Classic" mode.
 
I'm not a big fan of it honestly. At least the graphics are great.
 
Strongly dislike. It's the worst feature of Humankind, I don't like it there, there's very high chance I won't like it here.

I just like the idea of playing the same civ for the entire game against the same civs for the entire game.
And, equally, I dislike the idea of one civ changing peacefully into some other civ, especially when those transitions are "drastic" like Greeks changing into Japanese.

Someone might dislike such approach, call it too "old-fashioned" and not properly "open for new ideas", but that's how it is. It's one of the features of civ games I always liked.

Yes, cultures evolved. Modern French aren't Gauls. But it was happening due to conquest/strong foreign influence. Even though Byzantines were "Greeks" - it all happened because of Roman conquest. Modern Egyptians are the direct descendants of ancient Egyptians, but modern Egypt is what it is because of Arab conquest. I refuse to accept the idea that my culture has to "evolve" and change into some other one just because time has passed, when no one invaded me and no one forced me to adopt a new way of life. If I'm a successful, wealthy, powerful, influential Egyptian civ - why I have to abandon it and become something else? Something I'm not really interested in to be?

Ancient Egyptians stayed more or less the same culturally for the 2000 years when they were left alone. While Old Kingdom Egyptian wasn't the same as New Kingdom one, they did not morph into Romans spontaneaously, without any foreign interference (even under Ptolemies and Romans they kept a lot of their old culture). Poles are Poles even after 1000 years has passed and while they changed in time like all other nations - they weren't forced to completely abandon being Polish and switch to Russians.

It also creates new problems - we'll have the same set of civs in every age. The limited number of ancient civs in ancient era, limited number of "AoE civs" in age of exploration and a limited number of modern civs in modern era. In theory we'll have (let's say) 30 civs in the entire playthrough (a convienient number just as example, not actual number declared by the devs which is smaller I believe) - 10 ancient, 10 AoE and 10 modern. But in reality we'll have the same 10 in every ancient era, the same 10 in every AoE era and the same 10 in every modern era. All games will be more or less the same, against the same opponents, unless number of available civs will be significantly bigger than the number of available "slots".

And what about immersion? Something many Humankind players complained about. You spent an entire age having a strong rivalry/friendship with Aztecs only to find out they are not Aztecs anymore, but Chinese. That can really confuse people and break immersion, as it is evident in many posts of Humankind players. Not to mention the confusion from leaders staying the same, so welcome the Hatshepsut, president of France.

What about city names? Will they change if you switch civ? That's another complaint from Humankind. Since players are forced to a limited selection of ancient civs as starting ones - there is a limited diversity of early city names. We almost always have Kerma as Nubian capital, Assur as Assyrian, Babylon as Babylonian, Memphis as Egyptian and so on on the map. The time passes, players change their cultures but the cities stay the same, and we always have anti-immersion results like Americans with, let's say, Babylon as capital, fighting against Russians with Memphis as their capital. The only way to get Washington as American capital in Humankind is to found a completely new city as American culture in the last era (it'll be named Washington) and then make this tiny city your new capital or rename the original capital manually (not available for AI). That looks very bad in every game and is terribly repetitive. Even though you have, in theory, such very high variety - all games begin to look the same.

I hate it a lot, but all will be well (and I suspect to a wide swath of players) if there's a "Classic" mode.
Unfortunately it seems there will be no such mode, unless devs will be convinced to make it available after noticing a huge negative reaction to it. The devs seem to be too convinced it's a great feature just to remove it, just as Humankind devs were convinced and refused to change it to this day (there's a mod, but it's broken and unbalanced).
The only hope will be in the modders and in devs making it not too hard to implement such change (like hardcoding civs to particular eras).
 
China having progression of dynasties (Han -> Ming -> Qing)=
India having countless possible evolution lines
History of Iran (Achaemenids -> Safavids -> modern Iran);
History of Arabs (say Nabateans -> Abbasids -> any modern country)
History of France (Gauls -> French Kingdom -> French Republic (because why not?? mods will allow that))
History of England (Britons -> Anglo-Saxons -> Great Britain)
History of Italy (Rome -> let's say Florence -> Italy)
History of Germany (your fav Germanic tribe -> your fav HRE state -> Germany)
History of Turks (Gokturks -> Ottomans -> Turkey)
History of Andean civs (Nazca -> Inca -> Peru (honestly I'm fine with it - but you can retain Inca))
more historical America (Britons/Anglo-Saxons -> Great Britain -> America :))
History of any Bantu country (Bantu -> precolonial empire -> modern country)
History of Korea (Goryeo -> Joseon -> your fav modern Korea)
If that was the case I would definately love the idea but I m sure that you will turn progressively from Romans to Zulus and after to Japanese etc.... So I voted strongly dislike... If there was an option hugely extra ultra dislike I would pick that.
 
I think the transitions we've seen in-game so far (Egypt to Songhai/Mongolia to Buganda) are pretty hokey and I don't expect the others will be much better. So I think it will be a fun novelty, but I'll probably stick to era-specific gameplay unless there's more of this mechanic we haven't seen.
 
It's not a change I wanted, and "role-playing" as a civilization/people/nation through the ages is one of my favorite things about this series. Leaders were always just a diplomacy screen to me. A place and point in time when diplomacy is taking place, not the thing the game revolves around, and certainly not the "immortal god-kings" some people interpret them to be. So I voted "dislike" for this particular change.

With that said, I am still very exited about this game, and I think there is a good chance that Firaxis is going to make it into a good game that works. It is interesting with something new, and the old games are still great fun to play, when the "real" Civilization formula is what you want.
 
Last edited:
Well, I'll give it some time to see if I end up liking the civs switching. Although it doesn't appeal to me at the moment, I might change my mind after playing, but I find it hard to believe that I will prefer this over the traditional model. However, I loved the graphics, the city expansion, the new logistics for moving units, and the fact that civilizations have more uniques...
The one thing I am absolutely certain I won't like is leaders not leading their real civilizations. I'm also not at all pleased with the idea of Great People, like Confucius, taking on that role. No matter how much I try to condition my mind to accept this, I believe it will be very difficult.
 
Pretty neutral for now. I didn’t like it much in Humankind but there was so much I didn’t like about the game that it’s hard to parse it out. If a better version of the system is in a fundamentally better game then who knows. I’ll find out next February.
 
Top Bottom