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

[BackseatTyrant]

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?

Eh, I'm not a fan of calling this mechanic a series of "upgrades"; it harkens to some rather unpleasant but unfortunately very popular misconceptions about world history and also evolution as a concept (the word doesn't mean improvement; it means adaptation)

I guess this where the whole "an empire that'll stand the test of time" still rings true, if not even more so: a change in environment requires a change in traditions

 

[logtoad]

Listening/reading their logic I find their approach to be lacking vision:
late game dragging, lets reinsert early game dynamics and do it twice by resetting.
Dragging the entire game into the next era as one civ reaches a threshold is very unappealing. Civ specific revolutions are fine and advancing independently into eras with new costs/opportunities are great. They should bring back the abandoned impact/management of consequences policies, practices. environmental degradation, social upheaval as feeders to regime change. These are the barbarians of mid and late game that can disrupt grand plans.
resource benefits need to change over time as the technologies they enabled/supported change. ie horses have little industrial benefit in modern era, or copper having benefits early on and for bronze cannon, later changing to role in electronics
social changes can be added too like the economic impact of women entering the workforce, globalization, impact of cultural stagnation/hegemony
Chinese history often refers to the mandate of heaven role in dynastic change, not excluding the foreign driven changes from Mongols and Manchus. in modern times the role of communism overthrowing feudal societies to be replaced/modified in their turn. maybe technologies research also brings social/cultural/economic and political changes that make earlier choices unsupportable. Maybe forcing a situation that if you do not give your people more rights, happiness then a revolt takes you to more extreme solutions and or secession/loss of cities (revolutions did a lot of these.) RI has some of these as well. making a civilization stand the test of time does not work if cities keep leaving

 

[Thormodr]

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

Agreed with your statement below, at least. Thank you.

5 was an unmitigated disaster upon release.

 

[Professor Phobo]

I was skeptical at first but it's kind of growing on me as a concept. Have to see how it plays, but I'm keeping an open mind. Is this a "neutral" on the poll?

 

[Vahnstad]

I was skeptical at first but it's kind of growing on me as a concept. Have to see how it plays, but I'm keeping an open mind. Is this a "neutral" on the poll?

I would say so yes

It's not a "no opinion neutral" for me too. I voted neutral but I have strong mixed feelings about it, and I guess we just have to wait and see how it's implemented, potentially good but many potential pitfalls so.

 

[Thormodr]

Multi-civilisation is Humankind's best innovation. And it makes sense. The Mayans didn't persist as a civilisation for 4,000 years. Neither did Rome, and so on.

And it allows for major strategic choices that you don't have when you play Canadians from Antiquity to the Contemporary Era (a ridiculous idea when you think about it).

However, ideally they should limit the cultural spheres. For example, it makes sense for a Roman to become French, but it's historically and ethnically bizarre for a Roman to become something from South America. It wouldn't be the end of the world if it were possible, but it can give a feeling of unreality.

You'll find that once you've had a taste of the multi-civilisation system, there's no going back.

You could be right about the no going back.

Civ switching was the most hated feature of Humankind and the game was a flop. Now we have Humanization 1 after Firaxis looted and pillaged that dead corpse.

As for the Maya, the last independent Mayan kingdom/city state did not fall until 1697. Even then, some Mayan people in Belize lived independently until the 20th century.

What is the problem with historical what ifs? What if the Maya had discovered the wheel or lived in an area that had horses? What is wrong with playing the Maya from 4000 BC through the modern era?

Oh right, since it didn't really happen historically they have decided to make equally unhistorical (and incredibly unappealing) mechanics where Egypt into Songhai or Mongolia.

This might work if they had 500 civs/cultures/dynasties in the game but I highly doubt that is going to happen.

 

[Stilgar08]

How about checking out how it's done first, eh?
In theory it was a good idea in humankind and didn't play out... What if it's done "better" by Fxs?
That's why I voted neutral. For now.
Please ask again in 5 months...

 

[Vahnstad]

However, ideally they should limit the cultural spheres. For example, it makes sense for a Roman to become French, but it's historically and ethnically bizarre for a Roman to become something from South America. It wouldn't be the end of the world if it were possible, but it can give a feeling of unreality.

Yes but the options to provide for that coverage need to be available

like our understanding from the classical / antiquity era might be quite poor for some areas of the world and if a part of the world has no coverage for antiquity like South America than who do you start as to switch civs while following the historical path?

Maya into Inca into Brazil?

China (or Khmer/Vietnam?) into Indonesia into Phillipines?

Or Hawaii if Hawaii supposedly is an exploration era civ? How do you start? and who do you become after Hawaii? America? Australia?

For areas like India, China, Persia some parts of Europe this can all be great. But for some other parts, i have a hard time seeing how they'll do it well.

 

[Amrunril]

I'm surprised to see the consensus so strongly against this mechanic. To me, finding interesting ways to combine unique bonuses is one of the most compelling aspects of games like Civ (which is why I was so strongly in favor of unrestricted civ/leader combinations in Civ VI). And while I disliked many other aspects of Humankind, I certainly enjoyed its civ-building component.

I do wonder how much of the opposition stems from the framing of the mechanic and the perception that a civilization is being supplanted when it gains a new name and ability set.The way I see it is that If "Egypt" transitions into "France" (with the Egypt and France of the game world potentially potentially being very different than the Egypt and France of the real world), that doesn't mean that the underlying civ failed to stand the test of time, it means that it as it persisted and evolved, it added French features to its identity while retaining many of the Egyptian ones. I can see how the name change could be jarring, but I'm hopeful the developers will find way to play that continuity. Perhaps the game could even allow the player to choose what name to carry into the new era with their new combination of abilities.

 

[Professor Phobo]

I've always wondered how someone could implement a "rise and fall" sort of mechanic in these games, to represent the shuffle and churn of history, rather than the same set of starting great powers feuding for eternity. Never quite saw how to implement it with the Civ format, so I'm glad they are taking a stab at it I think.

There are alternative takes on the Civ concept I'd love to see that might have an easier time of reflecting collapse without feeling like a punishment to the player, but maybe this Age system will scratch a similar itch.

 

[Sirsquier]

I honestly think most issues could be solved by simply making a new category like they did in 6 with leaders. Here's my humble suggestion, based off an exchange I had over on X (Using the Example of England and again all this is completely for example of the idea).

Civilization:
This will stay unchanging throughout the entire Game: For my example I chose England, let's say each Civ gets a unique ability like in Civ 6 and potentially a unique unit and infrastructure. Though maybe not for balancing. Let's say it does and that England get +50% on trade routes to its settlements on different continents from its capital, the redcoat UU and the Royal Navy Dockyard UI.

Leader:
Now we need to chose a leader, I think the AI should be restricted to just those for the Civ but the player could chose any (maybe make this togglable). Let's say for England we can choose between Queen Victoria, King Alfred, and Richard the Lionhearted. Like in 6 each leader would have their own unique ability.

Cultures: A Separate set of flavored boosts that change with age. Each Civ would have a pool of these.
For Example England: Breton, Anglo-Saxon, Norman. Other options could be unlocked through gameplay, for example say England invades a bunch of Egypt's cities, they'd unlock one of the Egyptian cultures. Or maybe they become friends with the Cardiff city state and unlock Welsh. England goes to war a bunch in the early Era, they unlock Danelander. Cultures would have small unique abilities.

Let's say we choose Anglo-Saxon which in this example give us a Byrig UI. During the first Era we run into the French, who have chosen French as their culture. We form a strong alliance with them. Along with this we build a bunch of mines. The next Era rolls around and we're given the choice between switching to one of the cultures in our base pool (Breton or Norman in this Example), taking up the French Culture, or Cornish (special choice due to all the mines we built). We chose to go Cornish unlocking a +1 gold and +1 production from all copper mines (for sake of the example). The French on the other hand chose to become Frankish, gaining +50% great artist points per turn or something.

One last note on this hypothetical, based pools could share a culture. For example I used England and France above. England's base pool could be: Breton, Saxon, Norman. France could have Frankish, Norman, French. Germany could share Frankish with France and Saxon with England, etc.

 

[Ellye]

I like the idea mechanically but I don't like the idea the way it is presented.

The Humankind route of completely changing the civilization name to the name of a different, mostly non-related civilization, never looked good for me.

I'd rather a civilization stayed mostly the same name, maybe with dynamic qualifiers like we already do with "Republic of <x>", "Kingdom of <y>" etc.

 

[durfal]

I have chosen strongly dislike. I understand that some civilizations didn't survive but there are also a lot that did through some way or another.
This feature of changing your original civilization 2 times can work for some civs today if there were transparent empires that ruled over the people in an area over time like in China (Han<Ming<Modern) and India (Maurya<Mughal<Modern).

In Europe for the most part I can make quick examples that could work : (And yes off course there could be made many other example paths for each civilization)
Goths<HRE/Prussia<Germany,
Gaul<Kingdom France/Aquitaine<Republic France/Canada
Rome<Venice/Tuscany<Italy,
Ancient Greece/Hellas/Macedon<Byzantium<Modern Greece,
Kiev Rus<Muscovy/Novgorod<Russia,
Britons<Normans/England/Scotland<United Kingdom/USA/Australia/Canada,
Iberia<Castille<Spain/Argentina/Chile/Colombia etc.
Lusitania<King Portugal<Rep Portugal/Brazil,
Dacia<Wallachia<Romania,
Lechites<Piast Poland<Rep Poland,
Franks<United Provinces<Netherlands,
Norse<Kalmar Union<Norway/Sweden/Denmark (A bit fishy here because the Norse Vikings were a bit late for the first age, but to early for the exploration age)

Other paths in Asia that could work are:
Gokturks<Ottomans<Turkey
Also a path like Persia<Safavid<Iran I could understand and maybe Babylon/Sumeria/Assyria to the Abbassids but that is more fishy
In SE Asia the paths could be Srivijaya<Majapahit<Indonesia, Dvarati(Mon People)<Sukhotai<Thailand, Chenla<Khmer<Cambodja and Champa<Dai Viet<Vietnam
In East Asia it could be Gojoseon<Goguryeo<Korea and Yajoi/Jomon<Ashikaga/Edo<Japan

In Africa:
For Egypt we know that they also can become the Abbassids (a much more logic choice than Songhai) in civ 7, even though they aren't excactly the same people (the Copts are), we do know that most of the people living in Egypt were converted to Islam so they seem a much better choice and probably the modern transition would be Arabia/Rep Egypt?
For the Songhai in the Explorer age the best path could be the Ghana Empire (not the modern country)< Songhai < Nigeria??? (Most Songhai people live in modern Niger though)
And even for Axum which we know is in game there would be a logical path to Abyssinia to Ethiopia.
And maybe something like Kanem-Bornu<Sokoto<Nigeria? (with Amina as a leader)
The path Egypt<Songhai<Buganda though is really weird and makes no sence whatsoever. The choice for Buganda as a modern age African civ is also realy weird in my opinion as it is part of the modern nation Uganda.
A path like Bantu<Zulu<South Africa of Bantu<Swahili/Kilwa<Tanzania/Kenya would be more logical for south and East Africa.

But there are a lot of paths that would be somewhat difficult like what to do with people that lived in the same area but were a different people but cultural influenced eachother like Maya to Aztec and then both intermarried with their Spanish conquerors a lot and became Mexico. Or only in the same area like Nazca to the Inca and than the same intermarriage thing and they become Peru/Ecuador/Bolivia?
But what to do with the many Native Americans (US)/First Nations (Canada) or people like the Mapuche from Chile/Argentina or the many people in Oceania like the Hawaii, Maori, Samoa and Tonga and many more all over the world without a good path.

Unfortunately I doubt all off these civs with a more logical path are in the game. Or that the AI opponent countries will choose the logical path and will still go for the Egypt to Mongolia to USA route
Lets say I want to play my home nation/civilization; The Netherlands, I bet they will be put only in the Explorer age if they are or come later with an expansion in the game. So I have to choose in the ancient age the closest thing like a Celtic tribe or the Romans, if our ancesters the Franks aren't in the game. And if we are unlucky we don't have a dutch speaking leader either.
But what then when the transition comes to the modern age. We are still here as a civilization/people/country and it would for me be absurd to choose the UK, Germany, the US or France as if we suddenly don't exist anymore.
A same lot would be there for Portugal and Spain I Guess. But they at least could probably choose a new world former colony country like Brasil or Mexico.
Also your capital and first cities will be the ones the ancient civ founded (One of the things I disliked about Humankind) even if the look changes and even if you can change the names it feels wrong.
I realy hope we can rename every civilization from the start to the end. So even if they look roman/celtic or later German/US American I can pretent they are our ancesters/modern dutchies.
But I doubt we can rename Civilizations though. So I'm gonna hope that this game will be as moddable as it predecessors were, so we can have more modded logical paths for civilizations.
It's also a shame that we wil loose the "what if?" part of the games, like what if the Maya, Sumerians, Babylonians etc. empire survived and build an empire that could stand the test of time.

But the rest of the game looks stunning (except the leader art though) and a lot of the other new features look great like the commander/fighting and the 3 end of Era disasters you have to overcome.

 

[Zaarin]

Persia<Safavid<Iran

I think Achaemenids > Sassanids > Safavids makes better sense (could sub Qajar for Safavid--they fit better but feel less interesting; the Sassanids are also uncomfortably situated but deserve inclusion IMO). I don't feel a pressing need for the Islamic Republic of Iran in the game.

Gojoseon<Goguryeo<Korea

It looks like Silla is an Antiquity civ so we could have Silla > Goryeo > Joseon.

It's also a shame that we wil loose the "what if?" part of the games, like what if the Maya, Sumerians, Babylonians etc. empire survived and build an empire that could stand the test of time.

This has always been one of my favorite parts of civ and the chief reason I'm not thrilled with changing civs.

I suspect the era transitions will be blurry in their definition to allow for edge cases. However, I doubt all civs will have clear cut historical transitions, especially on release.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

For Egypt we know that they also can become the Abbassids (a much more logic choice than Songhai) in civ 7, even though they aren't excactly the same people (the Copts are), we do know that most of the people living in Egypt were converted to Islam so they seem a much better choice and probably the modern transition would be Arabia/Rep Egypt?

The Abbasids were based in Iraq and had much more influence in (and were influenced by) Persia and Central Asia. The Fatimids/Ayyubids/Mamluks are a better choice for historical progression for Egypt

 

[Zaarin]

The Abbasids were based in Iraq and had much more influence in (and were influenced by) Persia and Central Asia. The Fatimids/Ayyubids/Mamluks are a better choice for historical progression for Egypt

After the Seljuqs conquered Baghdad, the Abbasid caliphs went into exile in Egypt, but they didn't have any real power. I agree that the Ayyubids or Fatimids make more sense as a successor for Egypt--but Abbasids make more sense than Songhai. (Abbasids might work neatly as a compromise for a nice successor state for either of Egypt or Babylon/Assyria, though.)

 

[TheGrayFox]

Who on earth looked at Humankind and its playerbase smaller than Civilization 3 and thought "hey you know that gimmick most people actually complained about when they got to experience it ? Well we can do it better!"

 

[Zaarin]

Who on earth looked at Humankind and its playerbase smaller than Civilization 3 and thought "hey you know that gimmick most people actually complained about when they got to experience it ? Well we can do it better!"

Amplitude/Sega, presumably, given how long Civ7 has been in development.

 

[Professor Phobo]

Who on earth looked at Humankind and its playerbase smaller than Civilization 3 and thought "hey you know that gimmick most people actually complained about when they got to experience it ? Well we can do it better!"

I mean, maybe they can do it better? Game designers often look at other games for inspiration and usually interesting failures are more helpful than predictable successes.

A lot could come down to execution. I think maybe people would be more comfortable if each age was a reset but your Civilization remained nominally the same; you went from Egypt I to Egypt II to Egypt III. Flavored as the successor state/cultural rebirth following the end of age crises, rather than a "completely new" Civilization. Using the preset unique Civilization design (a hallmark of the game) is a little bit of a poor fit for this age transition/historical churn mechanic. But if it works for the gameplay and it's fun, I don't know if it's any sillier than Abraham Lincoln building the Great Library of Berlin in 2800 BCE, you know?

 

[ehecatzin]

I really like it. To me playing civ there was always a "goldilocks zone" when your civ got to "do the thing" which is when I found it more intersting, early and mid game civs I found the most fun, but more modern civs I always found kinda boring, depending on a set bonus until you got to that goldilocks zone.

The way I see it, this system allows you to always be in that zone with every civ you choose, I'd rather have a flavourful civ for 1/3 of the game instead of 1/8 of it. Coming from Humankind (how I tried to like that game) I think Firaxis is doing the same idea but the right way, 3 civs, 2 crisis and 1 leader, all with unique art and music, mini civics tree, leader leveling up,multiple uniques and 1 associated wonder? sign me in.

I get the fears of people feeling like immersion will be broken. I think that this design allows for the addition of specific civs and strategies, and a lot of potential additions to "fill the gaps". Because while something like Rome-Byzantium-Italy might be ideal for a historical run, and maybe not avaliable at game release, something like Rome-Norman-France might be, and It really isn't that bad.