Speculation on civ switching and colonial nations

[Milith]

There has been some speculation on how succession will work with new world nations such as USA or Canada. I think I've pieced together what firaxis might be going for.

We know that:

- The map gets bigger every age
- The age of exploration is focused on settling new continents
- There's a crisis at the end of every age, so supposedly there's one after the age of exploration
- (from what I understand) New civs show up in the last era.

I believe the crisis at the end of the age of exploration will be colonial nations going independent. Players who have settled overseas will have a choice between continuing with their civ in the old continent and the one in the new continent as they diverge for the last chapter of the campaign. This resolves nonsense such as England or native Americans switching to USA. Instead, USA will be a brand new entity for the last age and the mainland colonizer civ will still be around.

Does this sound plausible? Are there other elements either corroborating or contradicting this thesis that I've missed?

 

[Krikkit1]

There has been some speculation on how succession will work with new world nations such as USA or Canada. I think I've pieced together what firaxis might be going for.

We know that:

- The map gets bigger every age
- The age of exploration is focused on settling new continents
- There's a crisis at the end of every age, so supposedly there's one after the age of exploration
- (from what I understand) New civs show up in the last era.

I believe the crisis at the end of the age of exploration will be colonial nations going independent. Players who have settled overseas will have a choice between continuing with their civ in the old continent and the one in the new continent as they diverge for the last chapter of the campaign. This resolves nonsense such as England or native Americans switching to USA. Instead, USA will be a brand new entity for the last age and the mainland colonizer civ will still be around.

Does this sound plausible? Are there other elements either corroborating or contradicting this thesis that I've missed?

I think a key element contradicting that would be Forcing the player to lose their overseas possessions.

I could see the Crisis of the Second Age involving overseas possessions revolting. I don’t think the revolution should automatically succeed though.

I do like the idea that IF your overseas possessions successfully revolted in the crisis, that allows you to take control of them for the next Age.

So if Songhai has colonized the new world and it successfully rebels in the crisis (4+ settlements in the new world rebelled). Then the Songhai player has the option of going with those rebels as their new civ, which unlocks America and Mexico?Argentina. (They could also go with the rebels and choose Buganda..or stay at home and go Buganda)

 

[Milith]

Right, maybe another outcome could be a master-vassal relationship, similar to Canada but in contrast with the US.

 

[Pistol90]

I dont think map gets bigger.

Its just there is non-explorable portion of map until you reach technology to travel across oceans .. thats almost the same as Civ6 if you have map with continents separated by oceans.

 

[Josephias]

I see very plausible (one of) the crisis of the Exploration age revolves about colonial independence, and indeed that would give room to introduce "independent colonial civs" as a branch option to evolve, and as a way to introduce more actors in the Modern era.

This system, however, mainly works from an European perspective, and does not adress the main issue of : to wich civ do the pre-colonial civs evolve, in areas that were colonized? And, if in Civ alternate world, these civs settle colonies, ¿to which Modern civs do they evolve?

Of course, that could be random, or use the "at least two successors" theory i presented in other thread (note in this case we would need at least three or four, so any potential clash of civs can be solved with two successors for each). It is in any case, a potential rubberbanding mechanic for the Modern age (with colonies independizing at war with you or as your allies depending on how you handle crisis), and maybe not independizing at all if you reach an expansionist golden age (legacy path).

I think it is too soon to tell, however, as we do not really know how colonies will be handled (e.g will any civ be able to manage colones as cities, or they will be all towns or a likely type of settlement?). We'll need a bit more insight in the exploration age mechanics to make sensible speculation on how it will end.

 

[Milith]

(Apologies I seem to have misunderstood the quote interface on mobile).

> Unless the balance of Civ7 is drastically different to anything we've known in the past, I don't think losing your core cities with the high populations, developed infrastructure, and wonders is something that many people are actually going to want to do

I think it will be. One of the big things about eras is that the new stuff will make the old stuff mostly obsolete (though not completely). If on top of that you make new world civs better at colonizing the rest of the new world then they'd be competitive and would play very differently. In such a simulation, manifest destiny happens in the 3rd age and would give new world civs enough of an edge to compete with well established old world civs.

This is something Europa Universalis has pulled off pretty well, switching to a colonial nation is often a competitive choice as it allows you to go develop in peace without being immediately threatened by Prussia next door.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Like Mongolia, the USA and Canada could be unlocked by satisfying certain condtions: like having three cities on a different continent

 

[Milith]

And even then, while you can form the USA as England in EU4, and it can be fun to do so, the optimal decision is almost always to keep playing as England - even if you handled things badly enough that your colonies declared independence. That late into a EU4 game, I'm always playing for flavour rather than survival anyway.

This is true for single player but in MP the "exodus" (as it's usually called) towards the Americas is very common. In fact you rarely focus on your colonies if you don't plan on doing so, as it detracts from optimizing land army strength which you desperately need to survive in the old world. A similar system with civ could be balanced differently and try to aim for more parity. After all, irl it's an independent colonial nation that's currently "leading" and it would make sense for the game to allow for that.

You're definitely right that it's too early to assert anything along these lines though.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I'm going to speculate the default path for picking America would be:
1) Start the game with Ben Franklin as leader
2) Play as the Normans in the Exploration Age (which is presumably supposed to represent Exploration Age England).

 

[Lazy sweeper]

I think a key element contradicting that would be Forcing the player to lose their overseas possessions.

I could see the Crisis of the Second Age involving overseas possessions revolting. I don’t think the revolution should automatically succeed though.

I do like the idea that IF your overseas possessions successfully revolted in the crisis, that allows you to take control of them for the next Age.

So if Songhai has colonized the new world and it successfully rebels in the crisis (4+ settlements in the new world rebelled). Then the Songhai player has the option of going with those rebels as their new civ, which unlocks America and Mexico?Argentina. (They could also go with the rebels and choose Buganda..or stay at home and go Buganda)

And if the revolution happens succesfully , then you are allowed to choose from a Modern Nation pool, otherwise you'd be forced to continue with your old civ in the new Age, with other players possibly having advanced, getting access to new units, but it would still be possible to advance to a Modern civs by other means,
thus allowing players that got not enough of this or that particular requirement in the moment of the worldwide crisis, and not being completely blocked from advancing, even if this would mean penalties of some sorts, it could bear many more bonuses, like retaining a wide empire, making it more likely to pursue some victory conditions anyway.

 

[Vincent_lacruz]

One take would be that the ressources available from the "old word" would be scarces, with most new ressources being in the "new continents".

Also we might expect independent powers in the new continent to be more powerful than those met during antiquity, with maybe multi-cities entities?

 

[Lord Lakely]

We know from the Mongols that a few Civs will require specific actions in order to be unlocked. The United States might be one of them. Like say, "colonize a continent different from your starting one, and move your capital there" or "tax the sh*znit out of a luxury resource during the crisis".

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The more I think about, the more I believe that playing as the breakaway colonies during a 2nd age could be one of the "Dark Paths" that were hinted at recently that would become available if things weren't going well otherwise. I doubt that's the only way to get the USA or other post-colonial nations, but it could be a backup plan for any civ losing badly at home (I'm thinking South American colonies during and after the Napoleonic invasion of Iberia).

Don't forget, in the Colonial, Post-Colonial mix there were also very viable Colonies that were simply lost completely without really providing any good Path from the mother country: New Amsterdam springs to mind, or Spanish Florida or even Spanish/French Louisiana Territory, which left behind some French influence on one city and a tiny fraction of the territory.

That could actually be used: any 'colonial' projects on other continents might not give you a certain path to move on to them: depending on the situation, you might have a complete choice of Mother Country or Colony or a choice of Mother Country Only or a choice of Colony Only - but they should be based on decisions that the Player makes, not on random combinations of events propelled by other players entirely - that's a recipe for Rage Quitting between Ages. Whether you wind up choosing between Normandy and the United States or Normandy and Darien should be a possibility that keeps the game from being completely predictable.

 

[ehecatzin]

I dont think such a hard split as OP suggest would happen, but there absolutely has to be a crisis about colonies demanding more autonomy and independence. The American independence is not the only interesting ramification, maybe the crisis could go Portugal and Brazil style, in making you choose to keep you capital on the old world and risk your colonies rebelling, or moving your capital overseas, but maybe you old territories turn into independent peoples. (and if you have a particulary good capital, that could really hurt.)

 

[BuchiTaton]

Are not civs going to lost the control of some of their cities with each Age transition?
I mean, people was praising the forced civ swift as a way to solve the problem of snowbalding. So have to pick just a couple of your previous cities to play in the next age while the rest turn into Independent Peoples would certainly make everybody to start again.

Then your Norman empire fall apart with the revolutionary crisis then you can pick to play as England, Ireland, America, Australia or India. Meanwhile the rest of cities turn into the not selected options. Whatever you pick homeland or colonial cities do not limits the options, you could still turn into India in your Homeland or England in a colony.

 

[Professor Phobo]

I don't think you lose control, I think they get downgraded back to Towns and you have to raise them up to Cities again.

 

[Krikkit1]

Are not civs going to lost the control of some of their cities with each Age transition?
I mean, people was praising the forced civ swift as a way to solve the problem of snowbalding. So have to pick just a couple of your previous cities to play in the next age while the rest turn into Independent Peoples would certainly make everybody to start again.

Then your Norman empire fall apart with the revolutionary crisis then you can pick to play as England, Ireland, America, Australia or India. Meanwhile the rest of cities turn into the not selected options. Whatever you pick homeland or colonial cities do not limits the options, you could still turn into India in your Homeland or England in a colony.

I don’t think you lose control in the Transition, you probably will lose control of some in the crisis, but not necessarily.

And hopefully that can happen in the middle of an Age as well for a badly run empire. (let a totally new AI civ appear as your rebels)

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Actua

I don’t think you lose control in the Transition, you probably will lose control of some in the crisis, but not necessarily.

I would hope, although we don't have details yet, that the exact extent and degree of Crisis and loss suffered will vary somewhat on in-game events and player actions. Having the entire Crisis Transition from one Age to the other be Fixed with all Penalties set seems pretty arbitrary and removes all player inout to what is a major part of the entire game sequence.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

What we know is far is that you get legacy points from getting golden ages during an age (or even just reaching certain thresholds towards a golden age). There seem to be other sources of legacy points too. Those legacy points can be spent to limit what you lose during a transition, or give you free stuff at the start of the new age.

So there's certainly some player control over what they lose, and how much they lose. But the devil's in the details that we don't have...

Exactly. We have Legacies with some kind of effect, and certain elements of Civs that are labeled as if they might 'carry over' into the next Age, but no details on how much and to what effect.

 

[BuchiTaton]

I would hope, although we don't have details yet, that the exact extent and degree of Crisis and loss suffered will vary somewhat on in-game events and player actions. Having the entire Crisis Transition from one Age to the other be Fixed with all Penalties set seems pretty arbitrary and removes all player inout to what is a major part of the entire game sequence.

One of the elements of player agancy during a crisis seems to be the option to select the penalties you experience.
About a variable transition's degree of collapse based on players actions, this would be better to be mostly based in the average performance of all the players if Firaxis really want to make Age Transitions a reset to keep the game interesting. Otherwise just be the players that do better each era would turn the traditional snowbalding match into a three episodes snowball game.