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

[Caesar of Bread]

I strongly despise the civ changing mechanics, it seems like Civilization wanted to be like Humankind but Civilization lost it's special ingredient in the 4X game soup

 

[Professor Phobo]

I'm a little more worried they'll put too much emphasis on keeping to some kind of historical continuity; I don't think that's necessary or important for a franchise with immortal George Washington launching nuclear attacks on Gilgamesh's Sumeria. If it's a fully flexible system where we're just picking our Age of Exploration civilization and we don't care about the history, and it can just be Egypt to Mongolia to Brazil because that's just what the player wants to do at those points in the game, that's a better fit for what they seem to be trying to go for.

 

[TheGrayFox]

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

This doesn't even make sense. Humankind's devolopment and its gimmick was first showcased half a decade ago in like 2019 and Civilization only announced it was in devolopment last year (it probably began serious devolopment a few years ago)

 

[Leucarum]

My guess is that the ages were what came first and drove the civ splitting. I really doubt it was a desire to ape humankind.

I guess once they had 3 distinct ages with 3 distinct gameplay styles, they probably wanted either evolving civs, or civ switching, since you'd otherwise have very bloated civs trying to be useful in all 3 eras.

I'd guess you try evolving a single civ first. But most civs are anachronistic at some point in the game so you're either enforcing an alternate history or really limiting the civs you include.

So you think about having civs switch into their successor states, but that runs into a problem that a lot of civs don't have obvious evolution paths... Or uncontroversial evolution paths. Would many first nations want to evolve into their colonizers?

So, they break the link and let civs evolve in a semi-restricted manner, with regions/culture groups always being allowed to merge. And then you end up where they are....

And mid development cycle Humankind comes out. After a brief panic they see it's bombing, and instead treat it as an autopsy to see what you shouldn't do. By this point you are locked into civ switching. Hopefully humankind's failure will have helped firaxis learn...

 

[Bug Repellent]

I pray this civ switch is a game mode I can disable and forget about it. I have no issues evolving a civ through the ages, picking up new abilities/attributes/UU, etc. But going from Egypt -> Cree -> Georgia will be weird and unnatural. Rome -> Venice -> Italy does work though, but you can prob bet good money the AI will pick weird evolution paths.

 

[Professor Phobo]

I do like the idea that the great powers of the game will vary at least three times in the course of the campaign.

 

[zaint]

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.

I wonder when people are going to learn that first Kalmar Union was never a country. It was a union consisted of Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Each country existed on its own during the union but was ruled by the same regent. All 3 countried existed several hundreds of years before the union so going from norse -> kalmar union -> Den/Swe/Nor doesn't make any sense.

 

[MasterPaw]

I love the idea
I have been less and less satisfied with civ system of having civ that feel unique only in early game, and where you need to rush/be lucky to make best use or use at all of unique unit, or civ having only late game one.
Civ switching deal with that
It also give interesting gameplay choices of a Civ build, and make you chose your civ to adapt to your environment (become horse lord if you have horses, merchant if you need money...) which can make work better more specialised civs as you only pick them if you can make use of them

Yes it can feel weird because of some weird civ transition, but if you just accept its a game mechanic it's fine to me. And having an unchanging civ from stone to future like USA doesn't make sense anyway. Even Egypt or China, are they really the same civ in modern age and ancient?

Although about "historical path", I m more against it, mostly because they are going to be wrong (Egypt into Songhai into Buganda? Just because they are in Africa doesn't mean it make sense),for path to make sense it would require a lot of civ and less diversity because you need to remove dead ends paths or unkown/not relevant enough past. Also some are merges, more complex stuff.

It can work with modding so I'm fine with this being in option
But imo they should embrace the system and not have those pseudo historical path. If you need to have an available civ to pick with no conditions for gameplay reason, make it gameplay not pseudo history (or just random), but I think the issue can still arise if someone pick your "historical path"

I do think it is weird and unexpected though to have this in a Civ game and I understand it's a radical change not all will like; but I'd rather have that that always have the same games

 

[AriochIV]

I pray this civ switch is a game mode I can disable and forget about it. I have no issues evolving a civ through the ages, picking up new abilities/attributes/UU, etc. But going from Egypt -> Cree -> Georgia will be weird and unnatural. Rome -> Venice -> Italy does work though, but you can prob bet good money the AI will pick weird evolution paths.

It's not a game mode, and you can't disable it, any more than you could disable 1UPT or Districts -- it's the key feature of Civ 7.

However, it's not like Humankind where you can pick any civilization in any era. You will unlock a limited number of choices depending on your current civ and how you played it. In the Gameplay Showcase example of Egypt, the available upgrade was Songhai, and it was said that Mongolia could be unlocked if you'd collected enough Horses. The latter is a little weird, but at least it's not completely wide open.

I suspect that the upgrade paths may seem convoluted on release when there are a limited number of available civilizations, but it will probably become more logical as a greater variety of civilizations are added.

Unfortunately, some of the most obvious progressions (like Rome -> Byzantium) will probably not be available because of the scope of the eras. Rome and Byzantium would both qualify as "Antiquity Era" civs.

 

[Uberfrog]

Unfortunately, some of the most obvious progressions (like Rome -> Byzantium) will probably not be available because of the scope of the eras. Rome and Byzantium would both qualify as "Antiquity Era" civs.

I think there is plenty of leeway for them to fudge Byzantium into the second era. I don’t think they are approaching this with strict cut offs in terms of real world centuries… especially since the Maya and Aksum are somehow coexisting with ancient Egypt!

There is more than enough historical interplay between the Byzantines and the Normans, or the Abbasids for instance…

 

[Lord Lakely]

Byzantium will 100% be an Age 2 Civ if and when they're included.

 

[Krajzen]

i really really REALLY dont like the civswapping system, which is a huge shame because basically everything else about civ7 looks like its almost tailor made to appeal to me.

Same. I am in love with literally everything else in civ7 so far. Era system on its own is genius framework imo.
I can even imagine greatly enjoying civ switching once we get many mod civs and can have actual sensible paths (say Britons->Anglo-Saxons->England, or Chinese dynasties). It is definitely going to be far less miserable than Humankind's bc of only two switches, not five, and having leaders.

But I still want to have an option, I still want to play normal TSL maps, I want to play with a lot of civs at once, ans I especially want to play the old way in the beginning of game's development when we gonna have very few civs to choose from. I want to play Brazil from an ancient era and Egypt in the modern era and I no arguments are going to change this taste which strategy games developed in me for two decades.

Don't lose hope. Once Firaxis sees massive discontent and our pleading for the "classical mode" of playing I think they are likely to make it an option. There is also hope from modders disabling civ switching - I'd do a lot to be able to play Civ7 systems but in the old "stand the test of time" way.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Once again, I do think it's worth recognising that the potential in this system is enormous, provided there are enough civilizations. By locking them into an Age, there is so much scope for FXS to add cool civilizations that we have never seen before and do them justice; the idea of moving from an early Germanic tribe to modern Germany via the HRE or Prussia is just fantastic.

It can definitely be done badly. So, let's hope it is isn't, heh.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

I'm warming to the idea myself. In previous iterations, we would have civs that would try to include elements from a vast time period, like the Germans in Civ5 with Landsknechts and Panzers, or the Japanese with Samurai and Zero Fighters. In this brave new system, there is more potential for chronologically-bound civ designs with non-anachronistic elements.

 

[Krajzen]

Once again, I do think it's worth recognising that the potential in this system is enormous, provided there are enough civilizations. By locking them into an Age, there is so much scope for FXS to add cool civilizations that we have never seen before and do them justice; the idea of moving from an early Germanic tribe to modern Germany via the HRE or Prussia is just fantastic.

It can definitely be done badly. So, let's hope it is isn't, heh.

I'm warming to the idea myself. In previous iterations, we would have civs that would try to include elements from a vast time period, like the Germans in Civ5 with Landsknechts and Panzers, or the Japanese with Samurai and Zero Fighters. In this brave new system, there is more potential for chronologically-bound civ designs with non-anachronistic elements.

I agree with borh of you that in the long term there is gigantic potential in putting changing leaders and civs in one campaign, potentially solving ton of other problems of representation.

The problem is, fulfilling this potential is going to take a lot of time, and for years we are going to be stuck with Egypt -> Mongolia -> India. Also say bye to TSL maps forever, they are annihilated.

One more argument for two game modes.

Personally I think Firaxis got it all upside down. They should have done three age system which looks amazing, made default mode the same as always, and then announce that the engine now allows transitions between those eras as an optional game mode with those transitions programmed by Firaxis and all those that can be added by mods.
This way everybody would be happy.

 

[asmodai]

Went with neutral as I want to see how it plays, although I still find a transition from, say, Egypt to Mongolia weird. In a sense it erodes some of the cultural identity of why you played that civilization in the first place.

 

[Magnússon]

It's a risky maneuver, but I think I'm excited for it. Nations and cultures are dynamic and it makes for a lot of potential for emergent narratives and a more "personal" journey. My main concern is that it will be a bit too disjointed if done poorly, that if it's too abrupt and the legacy system doesn't do enough to tie the eras together you might not feel attached to the civ. Humankind's issue was that it was a bit too frequent, so you never felt that any given civ was "yours".

 

[Dys0nSphere]

I've never played Humankind, so I don't have that same frame of reference like many others do here. However, the idea of switching from Egypt to Mongolia or something as equally far apart doesn't sit right with me, so I went with "dislike". I wouldn't say strongly dislike, since I don't think it's a mechanic that completely kills the game. It sounds easy for Firaxis to make this a setting you can toggle, and if that's the case, I'll just disable it- out of sight, out of mind. If it's not a setting in the game, I imagine there will be a mod for it relatively soon after the game's release, given that Civ is a popular enough series and the backlash has been pretty strong so far.

Overall, it doesn't make me too concerned for the game as a whole.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

It sounds easy for Firaxis to make this a setting you can toggle, and if that's the case, I'll just disable it- out of sight, out of mind.

That would be a serious balance issue. The developers said they went for Ages so they could design each civ with respect to its civ; if you choose to remain with Egypt your unique bonuses will become obsolete, while your rivals who changed their civ will have more powerful Age-appropriate bonuses

 

[Zaarin]

This doesn't even make sense. Humankind's devolopment and its gimmick was first showcased half a decade ago in like 2019 and Civilization only announced it was in devolopment last year (it probably began serious devolopment a few years ago)

...I'm sorry, do you really think it takes two years to make a game?