Preservations of Name in Civ switching (w Poll)

[AriochIV]

Oh, I feel very differently. I want the AI to be designed as well as it can, and to be programmed to play to win. (In another thread recently, I acknowledged all the challenges there are to that.)

But this toggle, to which you're not opposed, would achieve what each of us favors. And not just the two of us, but two broad contingents of Civvers.

I would like the game to be challenging, but if possible in ways that don't destroy immersion. Having an AI player do something obviously out of character because it's trying to win is almost as jarring as having it cheat in obvious ways. Sure, it makes the game more challenging, but not in a good way.

Zaarin is, I think, referring to one of the three main complaints about early Civ V: the AI were designed to act like players rather than world leaders. I don't know what the number were, but I believe the devs acknowledged that this was overwhelmingly hated by the majority of players.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Having an AI player do something obviously out of character because it's trying to win is almost as jarring as having it cheat in obvious ways

Yeah, I see what you are saying.

(And I was there for those days in Civ V. Civ V is the only game I've ever bought on release and participated in forum discussion of right from the get-go. I still remember not knowing whether to agree to a Pact of Secrecy with Alex against China because the Civilopedia wouldn't tell me what a Pact of Secrecy was. And I still don't know).

Yes, particularly with the advantages that the AI civs get at the higher difficulty settings, they can wipe you out in the early game before you could conceivably get defenses up, if they are programmed to be as ruthless as possible. And that's no fun.

What I have in mind is not that, but something a little different: that each civ (think 1-6, not 7's new system) would settle in on a way that it wants to win the game. Not necessarily on turn 1, but on turn 75, maybe. And then from that point play (as well as they can be programmed to play) toward some specific victory condition, organizing everything about their play so as to speed their progress toward that VC. Maybe I even do want it from turn 1, for a certain small number of warmongering civs. In Civ 5, Montezuma gets Jaguar Warriors, and any human player playing him would try to max out that advantage by taking out a neighbor or two in the early eras. So AI Monty, should do the same. I think what I'm describing is what 5 did eventually make its way toward. Its early programming for every civ was "If I have military superiority, I should try to wipe this guy out," and that got tiresome for the human player, yes. So, with revision, that got altered, properly.

But what I do want is to feel like each AIs is deliberately trying to make progress toward a particular victory condition, and with the advantages they have (UUs, UBs, UAs) they have advantages over me in reaching those objectives, and so there is a real possibility that they will beat me in the game. Not them just happily playing along building a civ, in general, and waiting for me to steamroll them.

So, to get back to the core issue, if the AIs always choose the historical path, I will not feel as though they are operating in the game as competitively as they could.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

This is all just a complex and unsatisfying workaround for the thing that would actually bring players along with this - give every geographically placed civ predecessor and successor civs so they have natural progressions through the ages.

Egyptians > Mamluks > Egypt
Britons > Anglo Saxons > England
Gauls > Franks > France
Turks > Ottomans > Turkey
Han > Ming > China
Slavs > Muscovy > Russia
Visigoths > Castille > Spain
Nazca > Inca > Peru

And you still need to keep some kind of awkward name changing mechanic for civs like America which might go Britons > Anglo Saxons > America

This new mechanic just doesn't work for people who play civ to play as a civ.

 

[Zaarin]

This is all just a complex and unsatisfying workaround for the thing that would actually bring players along with this - give every geographically place civ predecessor and successor civs so they have natural progressions through the ages.

Egyptians > Mamluks > Egypt
Britons > Anglo Saxons > England
Gauls > Franks > France
Turks > Ottomans > Turkey
Han > Ming > China
Slavs > Muscovy > Russia
Vandals > Castille > Spain
Nazca > Inca > Peru

And you still need to keep some kind of awkward name changing mechanic for civs like America which might go Britons > Anglo Saxons > America

I think we will eventually for most civs, though I think this list is overly specific. E.g., Vandals, Slavs, and Britons are all pretty hard to justify as full civs.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

I think we will eventually for most civs, though I think this list is overly specific. E.g., Vandals, Slavs, and Britons are all pretty hard to justify as full civs.

Fortunately they aren't full civs, they are a third of a full civ!

 

[Zaarin]

Fortunately they aren't full civs, they are a third of a full civ!

Given that civs are the most detailed they've ever been in the franchise, that's not really true, but my broader point was that there's no reason to have the Vandals when the Goths can cover several civs...and there's just no real reason to include the Slavs or Britons at all except as Independent Peoples--plus the Anglo-Saxons would probably be Antiquity if they were included (though they're kind of awkwardly placed either way).

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Given that civs are the most detailed they've ever been in the franchise, that's not really true, but my broader point was that there's no reason to have the Vandals when the Goths can cover several civs...and there's just no real reason to include the Slavs or Britons at all except as Independent Peoples--plus the Anglo-Saxons would probably be Antiquity if they were included (though they're kind of awkwardly placed either way).

A little note for everyone concerned with using any of the 'Barbarian German' groups as a Civ. The consensus among historians now is that absolutely none of the groups was a monolithic one in terms of ethnicity or culture. That is, there was no Gothic, Vandalic, Saxon, Burgundian, etc 'race' or group that did not include elements of all the others plus a bunch I didn't bother to name. Their leaders might have been from a single group, but they were a tiny percentage of the whole, and the whole changed its ethnic identity and composition constantly.

See From Roman Provinces to Medieval Kingdoms: Rewriting Histories, edited by Thomas F. X. Noble. A collection of academic essays summarizing the current consensus and how they got there. Currently, 'Barbarian Invasions' is not even used: they were Barbarian Confederations and the majority migrated relatively peacefully into Roman territory well before the Roman 'collapse' in the 5th century, taking advantage of the relative depopulation of the Empire by the plagues of the 2nd century.

All of which simply means that the terms Ostrogoth, Visigoth, Vandal, Frank, Saxon, Burgundian, etc all refer to much the same people, more or less, so trying to include each and every one of them as a separate group in the game is repetitive and redundant unless you are modeling a detailed game of the Crisis Period of the Roman Empire from about 150 - 500 CE

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

Given that civs are the most detailed they've ever been in the franchise, that's not really true, but my broader point was that there's no reason to have the Vandals when the Goths can cover several civs...and there's just no real reason to include the Slavs or Britons at all except as Independent Peoples--plus the Anglo-Saxons would probably be Antiquity if they were included (though they're kind of awkwardly placed either way).

I think this is a bit disingenous and dismissive. Its abundantly clear that there are reasons to do it for many people. It's fine that you don't feel those reasons are relevant for your enjoyment of the game, but there clearly are reasons, and this whole threads premise is one of them.

A significant group of, especially casual in my experience, people want a sense of playing a single civilization from start to finish. The joy comes from feeling like you are playing Russia and competing against the Byzantines and America through the ups and downs of 6000 years of history.

You lose that if you aren't the Russians all the way through, and you lose that if when you do get to be russians, all your cities have greek names. It just reminds me of that episode of friends where Rachel gets two pages of a cookbook stuck together and creates a vanilla cream and beef trifle. The flavour is all mixed up.

For you, maybe that doesn't matter, but it is a reason to have all these different antiquity civs under this 3 age model.

 

[Zaarin]

I think this is a bit disingenous and dismissive. Its abundantly clear that there are reasons to do it for many people. It's fine that you don't feel those reasons are relevant for your enjoyment of the game, but there clearly are reasons, and this whole threads premise is one of them.

A significant group of, especially casual in my experience, people want a sense of playing a single civilization from start to finish. The joy comes from feeling like you are playing Russia and competing against the Byzantines and America through the ups and downs of 6000 years of history.

You lose that if you aren't the Russians all the way through, and you lose that if when you do get to be russians, all your cities have greek names. It just reminds me of that episode of friends where Rachel gets two pages of a cookbook stuck together and creates a vanilla cream and beef trifle. The flavour is all mixed up.

For you, maybe that doesn't matter, but it is a reason to have all these different antiquity civs under this 3 age model.

You're entitled to have as unrealistic a wishlist as you like--I have plenty of unrealistic civ choices on mine as well like Elam and Hurria--but that doesn't make your wishlist realistic.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

You're entitled to have as unrealistic a wishlist as you like--I have plenty of unrealistic civ choices on mine as well like Elam and Hurria--but that doesn't make your wishlist realistic.

Noone said anything about this being realistic, I think it's just as pie eyed as yourself, there's just a part of me that's still gutted that I'm just not going to enjoy the game for what I enjoy civ for. I'm just laying out what I'd need to see before I'd consider buying

 

[agonistes]

A lot of people don't like certain aspects of the civ switching. (Unrealistic, Rome cannot into space, Real world culture getting erased in the game, etc.)

One thing is, a couple of those could probably be dealt with by allowing the Human player to preserve things like names and gaphics, and to have even the AI preserve some aspects of previous civs

So proposal
1. Custom Naming
Human Players can give their Civ & Leader a custom name on the Start of a new Age/Start of game*
Human Players can always give their cities a custom name*

2. Default stored Identity (what the AI uses)
The Default name of an Empire: Primary Civ Default Name (next most recent Civ Default name, Age before that civ default name)
eg Buganda (Songhai, Egypt)
When the Banner/Flag of an Empire would display the Primary Civ Banner in a large form, the banners of the other Civs of the empire are displayed next to it in a small form
eg Buganda flag is dominant, but often small Egypt/Songhai flags are next to it
City Graphics: The graphics of some the non-gameplay buildings will be from previous civs in the empires history ~1/4 from each of the non current civs.
eg the Bugandan city 'houses' will have ~1/2 Modern Bugandan Architecture, 1/4 Exploration Songhai Architecture, 1/4 Antiquity Egyptian architecture

3. "Primary Identity" choice
Each Civ Change the Human Player is prompted to choose whether to change or keep the "Primary Identity/Name" of the empire... so if Egypt chooses songhai
The player can go
Egypt->Songhai(Egypt) with Songhai flag dominant and Songhai city name list[what the AI will do]
OR
Egypt->Egypt (Songhai) with Egypt flag dominant and Egypt city name list (a way for a player to say I'm Egypt, but the culture is different than it was a few centuries ago... new Uniques, but Egypt can into space)

Then the Egypt(Songhai) player can go to Egypt (Buganda, Songhai) or Buganda (Songhai, Egypt)
and the Songhai(Egypt) player can go to Songhai (Buganda, Egypt) or Buganda (Songhai, Egypt)


*May be disabled in MP public games

This way no civ really disappears and (if its a Human player civ) may just enter a new chapter
(and If you want to play America in 4000 BC you can customize your name, until you get to Modern)

Thoughts, ways you would do it differently?

...........................................................................Edited after further thought
OK... new Idea.

When the Civ switches, you get a Narrative Choice

"What do you want you Civ & City Names to be?"
-New Option (you will use the new city name list and trigger more narrative events)
-Keep Option (you will keep using the old city name list and get a +1 happiness/City bonus towards your next celebration)
Whichever you select, it brings up a place where you can change the Civ name..default in that spot is based on what you chose
[Here is where you can then type a change to your civ name]

NEXT... if you chose the New Option, for every City on era change you get a narrative event
-Keep City name (+1 happiness to the next celebration)
-Change City name (+2?3 culture towards one of your Unique Civics)

FINALLY... any time you make a Town (whether founded or Conquered) into a City, it has the option of changing its name from your list
-Keep Name (+1 happiness to the next Celebration)
-Change Name (+2?3 culture towards one of your Unique Civics.. or the current Civic you are working on if all Unique Civics are fully researched)

Then get the ability for the player to edit the city names if they really want (at least on founding)

Well, my personal belief is that if you can give the player an option, then give the player the option.

If I want to remain a nation called Rome, why not let me?

 

[agonistes]

You left out the only option I would have voted for:

"I like Civ Switching, I think it will be interesting, but no game mechanic or game design will really satisfy me unless it allows me to rename any of my cities at any time any way I choose."

I didn't compile 17 different City Lists for various Civilizations/Cultures for nothing!

Oh god, I remember the days of compiling those lists. Some civs had like 12 names!

 

[RedCourtJester]

Only slightly dislike/like, wouldn't help at all. I still think when the full picture is revealed, the naming issue will not offend people much at all. Leaders/civs will have complete and logical throughlines, at launch. That is what I suspect.

 

[chaosprophet]

I didn't vote on this thread because the options were pretty badly done imo, my opinion like I said elsewhere is that while I wouldn't use this mechanic at all, if it helps even a few people and likely being very easy thing to do, I hope they implement it.

Only slightly dislike/like, wouldn't help at all. I still think when the full picture is revealed, the naming issue will not offend people much at all. Leaders/civs will have complete and logical throughlines, at launch. That is what I suspect.

Albeit we know almost all of the launch 30+1 civs, so we can have a good idea that many who complain won't like the possible paths we will have, even with the few unknowns. And seems like a good portion would want only same country different phases which likely won't happen in this game even in future dlcs or expansions as for very modern civs like Brasil and USA as it wouldn't make sense to have them for the three eras.

 

[RedCourtJester]

Albeit we know almost all of the launch 30+1 civs, so we can have a good idea that many who complain won't like the possible paths we will have, even with the few unknowns. And seems like a good portion would want only same country different phases which likely won't happen in this game even in future dlcs or expansions as for very modern civs like Brasil and USA as it wouldn't make sense to have them for the three eras.

I'm still not taking "30 civs" literally until I see more evidence to contradict weird "too proximate" aspects of the game like full India/China stacks, Amina leading the Songhai while Askum has different assigned colors, a Vietnamese leader, the Normans (potentially without the Norse or Britain?), and hints at a Mayan leader despite no reveal alongside the Maya.

I'm not saying people are wrong for taking it literally, but I also see a lot of weird things I would not expect to see in a Civ game that launched with only 30 civs. They designed 30-ish different region/era architectural styles and 30-ish different region/era unit styles and didn't think once to use them for more than one civ outside of Maurya/Khmer? When all it takes to "add a new civ" at that point is effectively a wonder (and UI/UU that just reappropriate/restyle existing assets)?

 

[chaosprophet]

I'm still not taking "30 civs" literally until I see more evidence to contradict weird "too proximate" aspects of the game like full India/China stacks, Amina leading the Songhai while Askum has different assigned colors, a Vietnamese leader, the Normans (potentially without the Norse or Britain?), and hints at a Mayan leader despite no reveal alongside the Maya.

I'm not saying people are wrong for taking it literally, but I also see a lot of weird things I would not expect to see in a Civ game that launched with only 30 civs.

Did you see when they talk about it here? Go for a bit more after he mentions it, as he them comments how each of those civs have one unique civilian (which becomes 10 if their civilian unit is the great people type) and military unit each (as the context of the reveal is to show how many units the game will have). It is pretty clear. Plus really, if we interpreted it wrong, do you really think Firaxis, who is very aware of this forum (as they post here, and Andrew also comments fairly often), wouldn't have had someone pass by to at very least say "hey guys, the 30 civs isn't supposed to mean 30 civs, we won't tell the exact number yet but don't worry"? Don't think that would make any advertisement sense.

 

[moysturfurmer]

Did you see when they talk about it here? Go for a bit more after he mentions it, as he them comments how each of those civs have one unique civilian (which becomes 10 if their civilian unit is the great people type) and military unit each (as the context of the reveal is to show how many units the game will have). It is pretty clear. Plus really, if we interpreted it wrong, do you really think Firaxis, who is very aware of this forum (as they post here, and Andrew also comments fairly often), wouldn't have had someone pass by to at very least say "hey guys, the 30 civs isn't supposed to mean 30 civs, we won't tell the exact name yet but don't worry"? Don't think that would make any advertisement sense.

I think the most likely answer is the guy misspoke, and meant to say “thirty thousand,” not “thirty.” Which is absolutely thrilling to hear. I’ve never been more excited than when I realized Firaxis confirmed the game is launching with thirty thousand civs in the base game. They’ve truly truly outdone themselves.

Re: the topic at hand though, I would be curious to see Firaxis introduce a mechanic where you can retain your civ’s cultural identity at the cost of Age-relevant uniques/abilities. Like some kind of cost-benefit thing where you can hit a certain threshold in the legacy points system and choose to stay as Egypt in Exploration, but with no uniques/abilities but instead a choice of a somewhat substantial yield benefit (whether culture in the capital, production along rivers, extra policy slots, whatever). I forget if Narrative events are tied to civ or leader, but if its leader then it might not be a complete nonstarter. Dunno.

 

[RedCourtJester]

Did you see when they talk about it here? Go for a bit more after he mentions it, as he them comments how each of those civs have one unique civilian (which becomes 10 if their civilian unit is the great people type) and military unit each (as the context of the reveal is to show how many units the game will have). It is pretty clear. Plus really, if we interpreted it wrong, do you really think Firaxis, who is very aware of this forum (as they post here, and Andrew also comments fairly often), wouldn't have had someone pass by to at very least say "hey guys, the 30 civs isn't supposed to mean 30 civs, we won't tell the exact name yet but don't worry"? Don't think that would make any advertisement sense.

I have watched it. Again, I am not taking it at face value, not with so many other design choices that don't sync up to me with only 30 civs. They have hidden other information in promo material. They also have had far more of a historical research and assets/systems headstart than Humankind had.

As far as I'm concerned, it's an honest statement. There are 30 civs in the game. This would be true regardless of whether you interpret it as literally and conservatively as possible (only 30 "civs"), or more liberally (30 "leaders-as-civs"), or somewhere in between and they were merely underpromising for greater surprises down the road.

So I don't really think it affects public discourse on here much. I'm not denying there are 30 civs in the game, we agree on that. And I'm totally fine being the village idiot with wacky theories for now; but I am going to keep that as my basis until I see more evidence to affirmatively disprove 30+ civs at launch. I'm not trying to stir anyone up or offend; but I'm also not going to deny my personal take on the evidence.

Re: the topic at hand though, I would be curious to see Firaxis introduce a mechanic where you can retain your civ’s cultural identity at the cost of Age-relevant uniques/abilities. Like some kind of cost-benefit thing where you can hit a certain threshold in the legacy points system and choose to stay as Egypt in Exploration, but with no uniques/abilities but instead a choice of a somewhat substantial yield benefit (whether culture in the capital, production along rivers, extra policy slots, whatever). I forget if Narrative events are tied to civ or leader, but if its leader then it might not be a complete nonstarter. Dunno.

I'm really dubious of this, although we will need to see more exploration era civs to really confirm my suspicions. The problem with allowings civs to "persist" that way is that, if antiquity civs are designed to capitalize on antiquity-limited mechanics, whereas exploration civs by design incorporate exploration mechanics, then any antiquity civ choosing to progress into the next era would be shooting themselves in the foot by not having uniques that utilize the full facets of that era's game mode. That's not even addressing the lack of robustness from having a new, more differentiated and likely more powerful set of unique units/infrastructure, nor lacking a new wonder option as a synergy option. (and then apply the same logic to exploration era mechanics versus opened up modern era mechanics).

I could see it being treated as a toggleable challenge mode kind of deal, but I doubt the game will be designed to encourage that kind of play.

 

[chaosprophet]

Re: the topic at hand though, I would be curious to see Firaxis introduce a mechanic where you can retain your civ’s cultural identity at the cost of Age-relevant uniques/abilities. Like some kind of cost-benefit thing where you can hit a certain threshold in the legacy points system and choose to stay as Egypt in Exploration, but with no uniques/abilities but instead a choice of a somewhat substantial yield benefit (whether culture in the capital, production along rivers, extra policy slots, whatever). I forget if Narrative events are tied to civ or leader, but if its leader then it might not be a complete nonstarter. Dunno.

Things like that seems unlikely to me, as it would be pretty much throwing a base game design choice for the game out of the window. If civ switching ends up being completely unacceptable by the community even after launch and some time for people to try it, I would think it would be more likely for them to abandon updating it early and focus on making a new one than to change the game at what seems to be it's core (ages and civ switching).

 

[moysturfurmer]

Things like that seems unlikely to me, as it would be pretty much throwing a base game design choice for the game out of the window. If civ switching ends up being completely unacceptable by the community even after launch and some time for people to try it, I would think it would be more likely for them to abandon updating it early and focus on making a new one than to change the game at what seems to be it's core (ages and civ switching).

Yeah I hear you. But if it’s between them adding an optional means of progression and completely ripping out civ-switching in an Expansion and turning the whole thing on its head, I can’t imagine they’d go for the latter.

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’ll grant you that a Cultural Retention system contradicts the design goals of the game, but if their metrics have decided that enough players are too upset about it, I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility for them to come up with a cost-effective way of throwing them a bone. Even if it’s as something as simple as a “Keep name and symbol” checkbox