Preservations of Name in Civ switching (w Poll)

[chaosprophet]

Or do you mean “abandon updating Civ VII and make Civ VIII soon?” Because that doesn’t seem likely to me either. They probably have internal benchmarks they’re trying to hit to justify development costs, and the DLC model seems vital to those ends. If it costs 200 Million to make a base game, and 5 million per DLC pack, I’m sure they’d focus on pumping out the cheaper DLC packs since they’re sold at half the price of the game itself.

I mean if the game really does terrible and the main reason is recognized as civ switching, I would expect it to more likely then restart anew (or the series dying if 2K don't want to invest in it anymore) to try to make changes that much to the core, but your may be right.

 

[timmychompchomp]

Why would someone be bothered by a real world culture being eliminated from the game? That’s what happens. Realism is the single lamest arguments against civ switching. Civ switching is one of the most realistic things Civ has ever introduced. I also believe the word immersion should be filtered by the moderators to some other word like wind or cherry. It has become cringeworthy, why not go full secondhand embarrassment.

 

[UWHabs]

Back on topic, I don't think retaining the old name/symbol/city list needs any sort of narrative event piece around it regarding the switch. It feels like a (relatively) cheap win to give users an option to have each civ switch give you the option to either completely take the new culture, or some sort of merging of the old culture. You could even expand it to give the users an option for custom civ naming, like you can name your own religion. If I want to call myself Mongolia (Rome), or Rome-Mongolia, or Roman Mongolia, or Mongolian Rome, etc... give me a choice. Keep my old city names, and then maybe new cities get settled with the new names. Maybe once we get going with the game it will become a moot point, but I can definitely see potentially wanting some option to try to keep some culture consistent through an age transition.

 

[King Flevance]

I have always thought that THIS is why in Humankind all "civs" felt "generic". You are playing as a civilization but you are picking a new civilization throughout the game. So despite the variety, it just feels like you are just playing "blue" or "green".

So you are not actually playing a civilization - you are playing a leader. And yes, that makes your "civilization" feel like a generic entity over the course of multiple games. Even if it has flavor, upon Era changes, it can feel disorienting when suddenly, now the Assyrians are known as the Egyptians and the Phonecians are now known as the Mayans, etc. With all civilizations in a state of flux, it can feel very impersonal both for you and the other civs on the map.

Hopefully, this is where only picking 3 will help as it is more time with each civ to become invested in that cultural playstyle. I do see some value in consistency empire identity through banner, or namesake. At the end of the day we are playing a game, and this is not realistic with 1 ruler guiding multiple civilizations. This is a very video gamey concept as it is, and clear non-shifting team identities holds value. The previous 6 iterations used your civ choice as that identifier. But now it is only border color and that can make it feel generic as it can feel like you are just playing "blue". I have just taken the stance that I will just have to wait and see what is there before I can make a judgement. Sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and sometimes it fails to live up. But until we see the whole, what few parts we can see (in the grande scheme of 100s of turns) does not give us enough to make more than an estimation beyond simply whether it interests us or not. There is plenty of room in those estimations for disappointment and to be impressed though.