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

[dumpstertrash]

Depending on how it's implemented it would be great or horrible. I am cautiously optimistic about it. I would love the idea of Huns -> Ottomans -> Turkey, but Rome -> China -> Norway would suck.

From what I saw, you can choose. There's one based off of historically more aligned to leader, more aligned to civ or towards what you've done in game. It'll probably branch from there too once DLC and time happen. Every civ game releases a little lite, then becomes massive. I'm excited and expecting the same thing.

I never got into civ VI. It's a good game, but not my style. This one looks amazing, and is unique, in that I have what seems like a 1000 ways to play with a different story every time.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

One thing that I think Firaxis is doing right with this is having each Age end with a crisis. Burn it all to the ground and see what rises from the ashes. HK made it seem like your culture  ascends from one era to the next, and that seems uninspired from a narrative perspective.

 

[dumpstertrash]

Modders saved the abomination that was 5 and made it somewhat decent.

Hopefully they can neuter or refine the Civ switching in 7. There definitely is potential if they make it as modder friendly as possible.

Well now I know to completely disregard your opinion. Civ V is far from an abomination lmao.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Well now I know to completely disregard your opinion. Civ V is far from an abomination lmao.

It started out that way. I'd say it was God's and Kings that saved it. But mods like Vox Populi definitely gave it an extended shelf life.

 

[dumpstertrash]

It started out that way. I'd say it was God's and Kings that saved it. But mods like Vox Populi definitely gave it an extended shelf life.

Exactly, mods didnt save it. The DLC was amazing. I play with QOL mods, but never needed to venture into Vox Populi. I admit that a lot of ppl still play because of that mod, but the game is how old now? It's a hell of a shelf life, and most certainly not an "abomination".

IDK why we're going to think this game will be that different. It'll be really cool but a little barren, then BAM dlc makes it awesome, then BAM DLC 2 and it's a massive well fleshed out game. It's the cycle.

 

[Askia Muhammad]

Hate it. I played Humankind and I found that changing cultures to another that's drastically different was really jarring. It never felt like a linear history. I get the idea behind it in adapting your culture to fit the map, but going from being Chinese to French is just strange and too game-y. I could never develop an attachment to my nation/civ because it would change so frequently - although at least it was an OPTION to keep my culture from the beginning of the game until the end. It being required here just feels constraining.

I want to play a game as Poland? Well I either have to skip the age of antiquity entirely or play another Civ and grind through to get to the Age of Exploration. I want to win a space race with an antiquity or exploration Civ? Well it's (likely) not possible, you can only win in the modern age with those Civilizations. Civ games have always been great because they can feel like a sandbox version of history. You can choose which nations you want to match up. You can do a TSL map and see how the world develops. You can have the ancient Babylonians survive into the modern era and become a space-faring Civilization. Now if you want Alexander the Great to go toe to toe with Suleiman the Magnificent, it's not even an option. I. hate. it.

Yeah, I hate it and it threatens to completely ruin the entire game for me. I’m not here for arguments saying every new civ iteration was unpopular because with Civ 7 they’ve essentially decided to scrap/change the very foundation of the franchise: leading your civilization from the Stone Age to the space age.

They could have still allowed pivots in strategy and bonuses by having us change leaders between eras if that’s what they really wanted. Old World did this EXCELLENTLY. It’s far less jarring when a head of state changes than an empire changing cultures, architectural styles etc in the span of a turn or two. Cultures don’t change over night either.

Humankind couldn’t have been a bigger flop to me and at least 60% of the reason I couldn’t enjoy that game was due to the culture changing.

Off topic but I also really dislike the diplomatic screen and the hilariously dramatic and over exaggerated movements by the leaders when they are in dialogue - it reminds me of Humankind even more where it felt like the leaders were kids in a middle school play performance

 

[Verdant]

When I heard about such feature in Humankind I immediately disliked it (and it turned out I was right to dislike it since it feels wrong in the game) and thought about how I would do it.

Instead of switching to new civs I would add more ways to customize our own civ. Instead of total transition to a compeletely new culture I would modify the existing one.

For example you start as Egypt. Instead of switching to Songhai or Mongols in the next era - I would give people the ability to become Songhai-like or Mongolia-like or even Japan-like state while still being an Egyptian one. New unique units, buildings and abilities in each era, possibly hidden behind some requirements and choices (for example ability to become more like Japan if you had Japanese neighbor or strong cultural/economic ties with Japan), but it would still be that good, old Egypt you had. You had access to horses, had civics similar to historical Mongolia or simply would love to have a Mongolian-like approach in the next age? You would be able to make it so, while still formally being Egypt.

That would be a true evolution of a civilization. Egyptians becoming Songhai isn't evolution. Greeks becoming Turks isn't evolution. Egyptians/Greeks adopting new ways of life and new ideas while still being Egyptians and Greeks is.

This is the way I see it. Your people don't start as Egyptians, they're a people with Egyptian traits in the ancient era, then they adopt Mongolian traits in the exploration era, and finally they adopt say Soviet Russia traits to close out the game

It's a shame Humankind botched the implementation so badly that people are hating on the concept

 

[ZeroSuitSenpai]

This system was so reviled in Humankind that I am honestly surprised to see them going for it. Maybe it's copium to say as much, but I think they must have figured out some way to make it actually good because otherwise they would have taken one look at the reception Humankind got and realized it was a bad idea.

I am in the "strongly dislike" camp for now, but will keep an open mind about it and see how they choose to handle it.

 

[kaspergm]

The less controversial way to implement this feature would obviously be to have unique development trees (dynasties, houses, etc.) for each civilization. I can also see why this would be a huge work to implement, not to mention that this will only work for civilizations that has actually survived, in some form or another, from ancient times to today. Their approach obviously avoids these issues, but has the big downside that it removes a lot of the "write an alternative history" element of the game - just because the Incans didn't survive as a major civilization in our world does not mean they could not have done it in the alternative world we are playing.

 

[zaint]

I think civs evolving from one civ to another is good, but the way CiV7 does it is horrible!

Like the preview video showed, the Egypt civ evolved into Songhai.
Ehh why?
Those two civs have NOTHING in common. The only thing they had in common is that they exist /existed in northern Africa. Their distance between their historical borders are more than 1500 miles apart! To compare that with Europe, is Ukraine going to be able to evolve into England? It doesn't make any sense at all.

I would rather see a cultural upgrade system where you civ growth from a province to a country into perhaps an empire. For example, Merica envolves into England -> Great Britain.

And their way to upgrade civs makes me wonder, can Egypt and Songhai exist at the same time?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

This system was so reviled in Humankind that I am honestly surprised to see them going for it. Maybe it's copium to say as much, but I think they must have figured out some way to make it actually good because otherwise they would have taken one look at the reception Humankind got and realized it was a bad idea.

I am in the "strongly dislike" camp for now, but will keep an open mind about it and see how they choose to handle it.

Firaxis was almost certainly too deep into their design to abandon it when HK came out in 2021. For better or worse, they were stuck with it.

Their chief hope is to see what failed with the HK design and course-correct, and to run their salesmanship at full power to convince everyone that this isn't HK2.

 

[Aquila SPQR]

This system was so reviled in Humankind that I am honestly surprised to see them going for it. Maybe it's copium to say as much, but I think they must have figured out some way to make it actually good because otherwise they would have taken one look at the reception Humankind got and realized it was a bad idea.

I am in the "strongly dislike" camp for now, but will keep an open mind about it and see how they choose to handle it.

Humankind announced it, people became interested in this new feature.
Firaxis noticed it, thought it was a good move (by the way, I've heard they copied the idea of Civ VI districts from some other Amplitude's game). They started working on it.
Humankind was released, a lot of people disliked it when they finally had the chance to play it themselves.
Firaxis was already too deep into that design to change it, so they had to go forward with it and pretend it's great.

That's how I imagine things looked like.

 

[Vahnstad]

I'm worried about there not being enough options to cover historical paths, like if they even in the trailer / gameplay showcase reveals suggest.. Songhai as a historical path successor to Egypt, than I feel like even "historical paths" would feel very ahistorical. While secondly, bonuses are more likely not to feel impactful and flavour or general flavor would be reduced. I'm very worried. If done right, it can work out well, but I just think it won't be done right.

 

[Brackenspore]

That's not the same. France switched from Monarchy to Republic few times in the last two centuries, but never transitioned from being France to something completely else in the process. My idea isn't about the government, or civics. It's about the same benefits switching civs would give (new unique units/buildings/abilities for each era) but without the soul-tearing idea of bizarre transformation of civs, locking all civs to specific eras only, confusion with everyone switching to someone else, leaders leading the "wrong" cultures and abandoning your old beloved civ just because you'd be punished with no new unique content otherwise.

In fact, a change of government often changes the architectural appearance. You will not build massively baroque buildings under a communist government. You will build in the constructivist style. You will build many public buildings. The country houses of your officials will also be in a poorer style than the estates of the nobility. If you think about it, this can be expanded to units. The most ideal examples: from monarchy to communism. In fact, this is almost a change of civilizations (Tsarist Russia to Soviet, Imperial China to Communist China)

 

[Vahnstad]

From what I saw, you can choose.

Yes but the options need to be there

like Huns -> Mongols -> Turkey could also work theoretically

But Egypt has like nothing in common with Songhai at all, except for that they were geographically located in Africa, and even that is just very barebones since they were separated by the vast Sahara desert and therefore have more in common with Middle Eastern or Mediterranean civs than with Subsaharan ones.

 

[Ordnael]

I have to see how it really plays out but I love the idea if the system permits a Visigoths, Romans, Portugal progression! But still I hope to see modern Egypt in the game.

 

[DJ_Tanner]

So I will buy this regardless of my skepticism of this mechanic. I was skeptical of Civ V, and did not enjoy that at launch, but I still trust them to, when things don't work, to be adjusted in a reasonable manner. So even if this mechanic sucks, I would trust that buy end of life Civ VII will be an enjoyable entry to the series.

That being said, I understand others may not share this view or have the same luxury, but Civ has and will always be a purchase from me until they prove, definitely, they don't deserve it. As I could buy every iteration of this game and never play another hour and still it would have been a worthwhile investment to how much I have already played on prior games.

 

[Navelgazer]

I'm in the apparently distinct minority who is wildly excited about this idea. I haven't played Humankind, nor do I expect to, but I'm not put off by the idea that HK apparently did something like this badly. Good ideas are ruined by bad execution all the time. What I saw in the video yesterday looks awesome, and looks like they've put a lot of thought into how to make both the evolution of civs make narrative sense (rather than just "Well, I was China a minute ago, but now I'm England for some reason!," which I'm gathering is the way that HK does it) and also into making each Age have its own narrative "completeness" in terms of story.

As much as I love this series, my biggest issue with it has always been that feeling of playing through all of human history for the one era where my Civ can really shine, especially once that era is past and it becomes a game of maintaining whatever advantages I pushed in that time. This change specifically addresses that (as well as hopefully making the "Story" of the game a lot more immersive) in ways that I find truly exciting.

 

[Aquila SPQR]

In fact, a change of government often changes the architectural appearance. You will not build massively baroque buildings under a communist government. You will build in the constructivist style. You will build many public buildings. The country houses of your officials will also be in a poorer style than the estates of the nobility. If you think about it, this can be expanded to units. The most ideal examples: from monarchy to communism. In fact, this is almost a change of civilizations (Tsarist Russia to Soviet, Imperial China to Communist China)

Architectural appearance? OK. Units? Fine. But no switching from one historical culture to another.

Rome went from republic to basically monarchy, architecture changed a bit (mostly due to tech advances but ok), units changed a lot (late Roman army was completely different from republican one) but it was still Rome. Constantine the Great was Roman, like Pompey, even though he lived about 400 years later in a Roman state that evolved a lot. They did not become Mongols just because they has horses.

 

[CGPanama]

While there is an awful lot of absolutism regarding this new mechanic, I believe there is room for some healthy skepticism. Personally, I started toward the negative on the scale, but the preview video and some of the information that has come out since have eased my concerns, but I still have plenty of questions. They fall into two categories, things I might turn my nose up at, but also opportunities.

For many years, I have longed for more flexibility in the life of a civilization. I long for the day that I see an Colonies leading to American Revolution, or civil war splitting a nation, the break up of the Soviet Union and many more historical events that just aren’t possible in a rigid civilization model. Maybe this opens the door to these possibilities or at least makes mods possible that can do something innovative with them.