Small Observations General Thread (things not worth separate threads)

[8housesofelixir]

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Looking at the minimaps from Antiquity and Exploration, it seems that in the Exploration age, all the minor civs have disappeared. The climate has also changed in the lower half of the map, there's no longer any snow showing.

@JNR13 mentioned on Reddit that the overall visual representation of terrain in Civ 7 seems "warmer". There is now an extra "tropical" tile; the normal grasslands and plains are greener; and the tundra tiles look more actual tundra than snow-capped, etc.

And here on the minimap, we can see the entire map generation is warmer on this particular map.

The continent on the map follows a simplified climate system based entirely on latitude (no monsoon regions; every climate zone is entirely horizontal). There is a massive tropical rainforest zone spanning the middle of the continent, bordered by two also-massive subtropical hot desert zones on either side. The temprate climate zone is very narrow; the city of Rome is in the temprate, and its borders can touch both the desert and the tundra.

You can also see how Axsum and Egypt both spawned in the northern hot desert, the Mauryans spawned near the tropical rainforest, and the Romans spawned in the southern temprate zone.

 

[Nikolai II]

Age progression numbers
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In this case it's turn 8 and the age progression is at 8%. Devs said it's 200 turns per age but if so, shouldn't the progress at 4%?
If they were playing with fast speed, 8/133 is about 0.06 so the numbers does match.
And we have...

View attachment 703201
55% at turn 65. 133 * 0.55 = 73.15 so I guess the age progression count is at 73, which means there was +8 bonus besides normal turn increments.
We could see 4 legacy path milestones were done, so it means each milestone gives +2 progression on fast speed, rather than +5 in standard. But why not 3, since 5 * 0.67 = 3.35?

Pretty sure they did not play on normal/standard speed, yes.

 

[JNR13]

Could be part of how they "open up the map" for the next ages and explain how it will work on Pangaea.

 

[Potworny]

Spoiler :

It would appear that geographic location names change with the eras. Here's Tiber changing into Seine. A little weird maybe, but I hope that it stays Seine when Normans evolve into the French...?

 

[Uberfrog]

Spoiler :

View attachment 703240View attachment 703239

It would appear that geographic location names change with the eras. Here's Tiber changing into Seine. A little weird maybe, but I hope that it stays Seine when Normans evolve into the French...?

Good spot! I wondered how they would handle the automatic naming of features through the ages.

It’s quite an odd implementation really. Changing the civ capital appeared to rename a different Roman city to Rouen, but somehow the Seine ended up in Rome?

 

[Siptah]

There are obviously bugs in the build, which could explain strange renaming that make no sense. Rome had the ability to build/buy the Greek unique Parthenon in a town after all. So, if some things seem hard to explain or see any reasoning for, I wouldn't exclude that it is a bug.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Good spot! I wondered how they would handle the automatic naming of features through the ages.

It’s quite an odd implementation really. Changing the civ capital appeared to rename a different Roman city to Rouen, but somehow the Seine ended up in Rome?

It's very odd. Toponyms are some of the words most resistant to change. To borrow Ed's favorite example of London, the River Thames' name is thousands of years old and comes from the Britons.

I'd rather they keep the Antiquity names of rivers and other geo features.

 

[rocksinmypath]

One thing I find weird is how a specialist takes away 2 food. I think that implies citizens don't consume food by default. So, all of the tile yields we've been seeing are missing 2 food, if we want to make comparison to Civ 6. Also, another change I noticed is that specialist yields aren't necessarily integral.

 

[AriochIV]

Having feature names change with the Ages is kind of admitting that they're completely pointless to gameplay... otherwise that would be very confusing.

 

[Seek]

One thing I find weird is how a specialist takes away 2 food. I think that implies citizens don't consume food by default. So, all of the tile yields we've been seeing are missing 2 food, if we want to make comparison to Civ 6. Also, another change I noticed is that specialist yields aren't necessarily integral.

Good catch. I just went back to the stream from yesterday and looked, and this does indeed seem to be the case. Rather odd decision, but ok.

Additionally, I noticed the city collects the yields only from improved tiles (rural districts) and not unimproved tiles (which is what I understood from previous descriptions from the youtubers who said cities collect all yields in their borders)

 

[Atlas627]

Additionally, I noticed the city collects the yields only from improved tiles (rural districts) and not unimproved tiles (which is what I understood from previous descriptions from the youtubers who said cities collect all yields in their borders)

I think this was a UI bug in the stream, but I also would believe that the youtubers were all incorrect (or correct at the time, but outdated).

 

[AriochIV]

Pardon if this observation has already been made.

I noticed that the Medjay (sickle sword icon) appears in the Egyptian tech tree at Bronze Working, even though in the first gameplay videos the Medjay is available to build right away like a Warrior. I also noticed that the Legion icon appears both at Bronze Working and Iron Working in the Roman tech tree. So this suggests that there are upgrades to these units (these are not including the Mastery upgrades). Upgrade "Tiers" if you will.

I also noticed in the newer combat footage that the icons for military units have chevrons beneath them. The initial Roman Warrior has 1 chevron, and some later units have 2. At first I dismissed these as promotions, until I remembered that military units don't have promotions any more (the Commander does). So I think these chevrons probably mark the Tier of the unit. I didn't see any Tier 2 Warriors or Tier 3 Legions, so this might just be a redundant reminder of the Tier of the base unit, but it might also indicate the upgrades suggested above.

If correct, this would mean that "warrior" and "swordsman" are not different units, but different tiers of the same unit. Same with the "warrior" Medjay and the one listed at Bronze Working.

Below: Tier 1 warrior/swordsman, Tier 2 spearman, Tier 2 Legion, and Tier 2 embarked archer.

The colored chevron at the very bottom of the icon appears to indicate the unit health when it is damaged.

edit: and, no sooner had I posted the above than I did see a Tier 2 Medjay.

 

[JNR13]

One thing I find weird is how a specialist takes away 2 food. I think that implies citizens don't consume food by default. So, all of the tile yields we've been seeing are missing 2 food, if we want to make comparison to Civ 6. Also, another change I noticed is that specialist yields aren't necessarily integral.

I think it could be said that wherever you place an improvement, i.e. a rural citizen, the people can forage to at least sustain themselves. Any improvement can be considered an abstraction of a local community that centers around a specific structure, but still consists mainly of farmers, ranchers, hunters, and gatherers. The improvement just represents the advanced thing the community is built around that actually generates *surplus* for your city to receive.

However, I think a consequence of this should be that a lot more terrains should give production instead of food right now (grassland forests, rough grassland). While I actually like forests giving food early on, if foraging is already covered by citizens not consuming food, that seems redundant.

 

[rocksinmypath]

I think it could be said that wherever you place an improvement, i.e. a rural citizen, the people can forage to at least sustain themselves. Any improvement can be considered an abstraction of a local community that centers around a specific structure, but still consists mainly of farmers, ranchers, hunters, and gatherers. The improvement just represents the advanced thing the community is built around that actually generates *surplus* for your city to receive.

However, I think a consequence of this should be that a lot more terrains should give production instead of food right now (grassland forests, rough grassland). While I actually like forests giving food early on, if foraging is already covered by citizens not consuming food, that seems redundant.

I don't think it's redundant because I expect specialists to be extremely important in Civ 7. This is what I believe Civ 7's recipe of "simulating natural city growth" will be:

- Cities are still restricted to 3 rings or 37 tiles.
- Early cities can reach >30 pop by the end of Antiquity, more or less saturating all workable tiles.
- Subsequent ages allow cities to place more specialists per urban district, which allows urban districts to become extremely attractive compared to rural districts.
- As cities regain the motive to continue growing, more specialists are thrown into existing urban districts.
- When cities run out of specialist slots in existing urban districts, they're incentivized to redevelop rural districts.
- As the number of food-consuming specialists grows while food-producing rural districts disappear, cities become increasingly reliant on towns for growth.

Assuming Exploration age increases specialist limit to 2 per district and Modern to 3 per, I expect the "ideal" population at the end of these ages to be ~70 and ~100, respectively.

 

[JNR13]

I don't think it's redundant because I expect specialists to be extremely important in Civ 7. This is what I believe Civ 7's recipe of "simulating natural city growth" will be:

- Cities are still restricted to 3 rings or 37 tiles.
- Early cities can reach >30 pop by the end of Antiquity, more or less saturating all workable tiles.
- Subsequent ages allow cities to place more specialists per urban district, which allows urban districts to become extremely attractive compared to rural districts.
- As cities regain the motive to continue growing, more specialists are thrown into existing urban districts.
- When cities run out of specialist slots in existing urban districts, they're incentivized to redevelop rural districts.
- As the number of food-consuming specialists grows while food-producing rural districts disappear, cities become increasingly reliant on towns for growth.

Assuming Exploration age increases specialist limit to 2 per district and Modern to 3 per, I expect the "ideal" population at the end of these ages to be ~70 and ~100, respectively.

Those estimates seem pretty high for cities. Having to assign 70-100 citizens per city throughout a game would go against the reduction of micromanagement they're going for. Also, covering every tile with max citizens isn't the goal of worker placement mechanics, usually.

37 tiles is also the max if you space cities out instead of crowding them closer. Which sometimes is unavoidable, sometimes even desired to make better use of adjacencies. It also includes mountains and other unworkable tiles.

I think it will be possible to get that high in your capital with a tall build, but your other cities and towns will remain much smaller then.

Also, I was hoping specialists would do more than just give yields again, this made them fairly irrelevant in Civ VI, but making them the main source of culture and science isn't a bad move in general, I think.

 

[rocksinmypath]

Those estimates seem pretty high for cities. Having to assign 70-100 citizens per city throughout a game would go against the reduction of micromanagement they're going for. Also, covering every tile with max citizens isn't the goal of worker placement mechanics, usually.

37 tiles is also the max if you space cities out instead of crowding them closer. Which sometimes is unavoidable, sometimes even desired to make better use of adjacencies. It also includes mountains and other unworkable tiles.

I think it will be possible to get that high in your capital with a tall build, but your other cities and towns will remain much smaller then.

Also, I was hoping specialists would do more than just give yields again, this made them fairly irrelevant in Civ VI, but making them the main source of culture and science isn't a bad move in general, I think.

100 citizens over the course of a game that lasts ~450 turns isn't that much micromanagement. I agree that not all of your cities will end up reaching that level of density, and you do raise an interesting point about adjacencies and spacing out cities. In the recent livestream, it was mentioned that specialists will provide adjacency bonuses, so that could be a replacement for building cities close together to maximize adjacencies. I disagree with your last point about specialists in Civ 6 being irrelevant because they only provided yields. They were irrelevant because the yields they provided were terrible. That doesn't have to be the case in 7.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Pardon if this observation has already been made.

I noticed that the Medjay (sickle sword icon) appears in the Egyptian tech tree at Bronze Working, even though in the first gameplay videos the Medjay is available to build right away like a Warrior. I also noticed that the Legion icon appears both at Bronze Working and Iron Working in the Roman tech tree. So this suggests that there are upgrades to these units (these are not including the Mastery upgrades). Upgrade "Tiers" if you will.

I also noticed in the newer combat footage that the icons for military units have chevrons beneath them. The initial Roman Warrior has 1 chevron, and some later units have 2. At first I dismissed these as promotions, until I remembered that military units don't have promotions any more (the Commander does). So I think these chevrons probably mark the Tier of the unit. I didn't see any Tier 2 Warriors or Tier 3 Legions, so this might just be a redundant reminder of the Tier of the base unit, but it might also indicate the upgrades suggested above.

If correct, this would mean that "warrior" and "swordsman" are not different units, but different tiers of the same unit. Same with the "warrior" Medjay and the one listed at Bronze Working.

I think I like this. I wonder if the units upgrade automatically as soon as the new tech level is reached, or do you have to pay to upgrade them? I hope its the former, to cut out the tedium of finding and clicking on all of them. If the upgrading only happens when the unit's at full health, that could limit the shock of your enemy upgrading in the middle of a battle.

 

[The Fanatical]

I don't know if this has been noticed but Swordmen units no longer have a bonus advantage over Spearmen units. This means they dropped the paper rock scissors combat system of Civilization 6 and I'm glad they did because seeing infantry that wielded long spears to be at a disadvantage against infantry with shorter swords felt weird and innaccurate.

 

[AntSou]

@AriochIV the screenshot above corroborates your suggestion that the unit gets extra strength/tier from tech, in this case +3 from Bronze Working.

But then, does that mean the Legion unlocks before Bronze Working?

Edit: could also be due to mastery.

 

[AriochIV]

@AriochIV the screenshot above corroborates your suggestion that the unit gets extra strength/tier from tech, in this case +3 from Bronze Working.

But then, does that mean the Legion unlocks before Bronze Working?

Edit: could also be due to mastery.

Yeah, it might be a mastery bonus.