Small Observations General Thread (things not worth separate threads)

[Boris Gudenuf]

I have 600+ hours in Civ 6 and I still had to stare at that for a while to parse it. It's not hard to write in a way that people can read without having to pull out their cypher book.

Every human endeavor produces its own 'jargon', and sometimes I am convinced that parts of it are made up to confuse any outsider and keep them from gaining access to the Arcane Secrets of the 'in-group'.

It is a real problem for a writer steeped in it, though: as an ex-military person and military historian who has been immersed in World War Two for decades, I have to go back over everything I and my partner have written several times to make sure we have not descended into military/historical babblespeak that will simply befuddle our audience unless it is composed entirely of WWII veterans - and that audience is shrinking fast.

Gaming is no exception. For example, LOS, ZOC, SOD, 1UPT are all relatively simple 'brevity codes' (whoops, diving into Military Speak! - abbreviations), some of which have been used in games since the boardgames of the 1960s, yet imagine a non-gamer trying to figure out what all of them mean with no clues other than context.

Then throw in all the non-English titles, names, and terms that Civ introduces: Achaemenid, Keshig, Medjay, etc. Even among the Civ Fanatics community, I'd bet there are many with only the vaguest notion what some of the unit, building and other terms mean outside the game, which makes explaining the game to Real Outsiders more than a bit difficult.

 

[Potworny]

I can imagine the esports community (which I have played with a couple of times and thus brutally verified my Civilization skills) developing pseudo-iso codes for every civ (like MS-MG-FR) and certain combinations will most likely have affectionate pseudonyms, like Persia-Mongolia-Prussia will be called scum or something more creative.

 

[AriochIV]

I guess you don't play many RPGs.

I do, I just don't have much cause to discuss them online.

'Cause I'm not a girl.

 

[Zaarin]

I do, I just don't have much cause to discuss them online.

'Cause I'm not a girl.

I'm not either, but Shakarian is canon and I stand by that.

 

[Arcaian]

Gamers like abbreviations, but I haven't really noticed a lot of gamers using relationship-mashup words. That seems like kind of a girl thing.

Ah yes, the two genders - gamers and girls, and never the twain shall meet.

 

[shaglio]

Ah yes, the two genders - gamers and girls, and never the twain shall meet.

Mark Twain or Shania Twain?

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Mark Twain or Shania Twain?

Choo-Choo Twain

 

[SemiLazyGamer]

This isn't related to VII directly, but Nintendo confirmed backwards compatability for the Switch successor. Even though we should expect a native Switch successor port, this means folks can still buy the Switch version when it launches and play on Nintendo's next gen.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1853972163033968794

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

From the game guide

Al-Jabr

• Tier 1: Increased Science in Cities with a set number of Population. Unlocks 'Compendious Book' Tradition.
• Tradition - Compendious Book: Increased Science in Towns.
• Tier 2: Reduce Specialist Happiness Maintenance costs by a set percentage. Unlocks the House of Wisdom Wonder.

So the House of Wisdom is unlocked for the Abbasids via their Civic Tree. If it's not unique to them, how is it unlocked for others?

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

From the game guide


So the House of Wisdom is unlocked for the Abbasids via their Civic Tree. If it's not unique to them, how is it unlocked for others?

Isn't this the case with all associated wonders? The associated civ unlocks it via their Traditions, which allows you to get there sooner, but everyone else will unlock it via the regular science/civic trees.

 

[Siptah]

From the game guide


So the House of Wisdom is unlocked for the Abbasids via their Civic Tree. If it's not unique to them, how is it unlocked for others?

All associated wonders are unlocked with the civic tree of the respective civ: the Egyptians have the Pyramids in their civic tree, the Romans the Colosseum, etc. But all wonders are also in the common tech or civic tree for everyone to unlock. The benefit of having it in your civ-specific civic tree is that you can unlock it faster (as it is always at maximum 3 civics away from the age start).

 

[Haig]

In this picture there are three different civic trees:
Spanish civis - Exploration civics - Theology

https://forums.civfanatics.com/attachments/1731007731368-png.708630/

Does it work like in Civ VI so you research one civic at a time, or are you researching from all the 3 civic trees?

 

[Krikkit1]

In this picture there are three different civic trees:
Spanish civis - Exploration civics - Theology

https://forums.civfanatics.com/attachments/1731007731368-png.708630/

Does it work like in Civ VI so you research one civic at a time, or are you researching from all the 3 civic trees?

One at a a time (the Spanish civic was one of the options when he was picking what civic to research)

 

[Nikolai II]

One at a a time (the Spanish civic was one of the options when he was picking what civic to research)

This.

 

[Potworny]

Contrary to the build from the antiquity stream, toponyms now remain the same in spite of age transitions. Hooray.

 

[Siegfried Sturmwind]

I think I saw such somewhere on these forums; that in Civ 7 no military units require specific resources. Is that true all around or for just, say, infantry? Because if horse based units do not need horses anymore, I find that incredibly lame LOL. No longer can American civs be simulated for example. Can anyone confirm or deny this? I have not noticed anything official that confirms this but maybe I just missed it as it was a passing comment in one of the livestreams?

 

[Siptah]

I think I saw such somewhere on these forums; that in Civ 7 no military units require specific resources. Is that true all around or for just, say, infantry? Because if horse based units do not need horses anymore, I find that incredibly lame LOL. No longer can American civs be simulated for example. Can anyone confirm or deny this? I have not noticed anything official that confirms this but maybe I just missed it as it was a passing comment in one of the livestreams?

Units in general don‘t require resources. But having resources like iron, miter, and horses makes the units better.

 

[AriochIV]

I think I saw such somewhere on these forums; that in Civ 7 no military units require specific resources. Is that true all around or for just, say, infantry? Because if horse based units do not need horses anymore, I find that incredibly lame LOL. No longer can American civs be simulated for example. Can anyone confirm or deny this? I have not noticed anything official that confirms this but maybe I just missed it as it was a passing comment in one of the livestreams?

There are no units that I have seen that require particular resources.

It's conceivable that this may be different in the Modern Age, though I doubt it.

 

[tedhebert]

Do we know if army/naval commanders that are in PACKED condition will UNPACK automatically if attacked by another commander and/or military unit ? Or if the commander itself will receive the sum of the attacks and you will have to unpack them yourself on the next turn ? Seems like an important nuance as we have seen commander promotions defining if your units will be able to attack immediately upon unpacking or not.

 

[rocksinmypath]

From today's stream, there was a bit where a volcano in a city exploded and ruined two tiles around it. When it did that, it looked like the city's population was reduced by two. I wonder if this means that pillaging and natural disasters always kill population on ruined tiles. Also, what would happen for the next growth event? Would the new citizen be allocated to one of the pillaged tiles automatically or would the player be given the choice to place it on either a pillaged tile or an unimproved tile? Ed mentioned during the stream that, after repairing those mines the first few times, he stopped doing that, so I guess that means it's the latter.