"steer the course of your story by choosing a new civilization to represent your empire" (civ switching)

[Thenewwwguy]

I get why they did this. The stated reason that they want civ bonuses to always feel powerful, so linking civs to specific ages makes sense. The unstated reason, IMO, is that this makes it even easier for them to sell DLCs. It's far easier to design a civ for a specific age than it is to make a civ that's appealing throughout the whole game.

unfortunately i think there were better solutions to the former (extrapolate advantages to the other eras, or give a broad universal ability in addition to the traditional era-based ones)

the latter is what it is, but i’m not too happy about the outcome

 

[Somebody613]

I didn't play Humankind so I have no attachment to the concept of civ culture changes.

It makes logical sense that if you're the Ancient era civ with the most horses, that you can adopt the traits of the civ that dominated the world via horses (Mongolia).

Or say, if you occupied the most tiles in the Ancient era, that you get to adopt the traits of Rome, which may relate to constructing improvements and expanding your empire

There should be enough possibilities for every ancient civ that each game can feel distinct and different depending on your map, resources, and how history plays out for you. I think it could be fun

I'm hugely disappointed (but totally not surprised) that Civ hasn't gotten yet to the point of "starting as No-Civ (maybe with very broad ethnicity) and actually developing your Civ via history".
I mean, C2C has gone all the way to "Continental Cultures" on a game engine that is THREE generations OUTDATED - so I'd expect a MODERN engine going All The Way There.
But - nope, because we should forever stick to "fixed nationalities".
Riiight.
Sooo disappointed.

 

[Evie]

I'm not sure thinking of it as "default leaders" is really the best way to conceptualize this. Each leader has a civ that they can always unlock, and people have interpreted that to mean that there is a one : one relation of civ to leader ; I'm not convinced on that point.

I think you have a number of leaders who are people that the devs determined were interesting Great Historical Figures, and a number of civilizations, whom the devs determined were interesting civilizations to play so that every region of the world had some representation in each era.. Then they decided on how to associate those civs and leaders together as best as they could to create progression trees that, while not realistic in the strict sense, at least have some sense of (geographic, if nothing else) proximity between the civs.

Which, I think,IF you are going to have civilization change in the game with a relatively limited number of civ (so you cannot just give everyone a strict historical path, even if that were possible), is probably how to do it. IT reduces the disconnected feel of Humankind by at least keeping transition grounded into some sense of historical or gameplay proximity (eg, you turn into the mongols because you've already turned into a horse-lord civilization), while still allowing to have a diverse selection of civs instead of being stuck with just a limited selection.

We'll see how it works, but if they were going to do it, I think they might be going the right way about it.

Patterning the growth of civilization over history is neat. "Switching civilizations" and leaders mean opponents, and your own empire, lack identity. I was fighting Ghengis Khan 10 turns ago, now I'm fighting Louis the XIII, and I was playing as William the Conqueror but now my leader is Queen Gitarja. Who am I? Who is my opponent? This is a core conceit and motif of Civ, and it's gone now.

Adding and changing Civilization bonuses could be done with Civs standard of one leader and one civ throughout the game. This also leads to very fun alt history sentences like "Ibn Battuta was born in America in 700 BCE during the war with neighboring South Africa". No need to have "Correct" leaders in "correct" eras, silliness was always a core part of the appeal of Civ for me.

I'm afraid I just view this as directly cribbed from Humankind, which it very obviously is, without any rethinking of how or why the fundamental mechanic should work. I find it disappointing in that regard.

As far as I understand, LEADERS remain the same, only the civilization change.So Genghis remains Geghis the whole game.

 

[Bufus]

The level of disappointment I have now is really something.

Civ switching is such an awful, awful mechanic - it all feels so arbitrary, choppy, and just ... weird.

Once I saw the style/color palette to this game (it's absolutely beautiful), I was ready to pre-order the most expensive addition.

As it stands, I think my run with Civ ends here.

I cannot overstate how awful this is.

 

[bitula]

Over ten pages of people discussing how a game about changing history has to be all about never changing history.
Le facepalm.

Well from this point of view they could add orks, goblins, Aliens, Wormholes or whaterver to this game, which could be executed in a very successful, nice and fun way. But there are people including myself, who wouldn't want this even so.

 

[Somebody613]

Well from this point of view they could add orks, goblins, Aliens, Wormholes or whaterver to this game, which could be executed in a very successful, nice and fun way. But there are people including myself, who wouldn't want this even so.

Right.
Let's play USA in 1000 and Incas in 2000.
I mean, this totally makes sense, right?

 

[Amtoj]

Aside from game design, there is one other reason I like the civ switching. The chances of Canada and Australia returning as modern age picks just went up significantly.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

I'm not sure thinking of it as "default leaders" is really the best way to conceptualize this. Each leader has a civ that they can always unlock, and people have interpreted that to mean that there is a one : one relation of civ to leader ; I'm not convinced on that point.

This is a really good point. I think the implication is every civ will have at least 1 leader, and each leader will have their civ represented, but given that civ and leader are totally unrelated concepts now, there's no reason that they can't release civs with no represented leader, or historical figures without releasing their corresponding civs

 

[tipsoops]

I think a dynamic culture system is a really cool idea. I think achieving it through civ switching is a really bad idea. It just doesn't make a lot of sense (especially as it seems to be implemented), and it seems superficial. Why can't I just play as France and pick up certain legacy culture bonus? If it were something like Egypt turning into Arabia I would be fine with it (though I still wouldn't prefer it, because I think it would be way too limiting if civilizations on the roster had to have continuity over a roughly 4000 year period), but switching from Egypt to Songhai is basically like switching from Slavs to the Spanish, if not worse. This is really disappointing, because I like most of everything else I see.

I think the dev team is trying to "fix" something that isn't really a problem. If you wanted to make the game more immersive, there are a million things you could do before stopping me from pretending that the Roman Empire made it to the 21st Century, or that America existed in 4000 B.C.E.

I'm anxiously awaiting more information, but I am no longer looking forward to this, which is a real shame. Props to the graphics and art direction department, because the game looks absolutely stunning.

 

[djvandyke]

"will your civilization stand the test of time?"
Nope!.. Maybe? For one era?

This is the key point.

 

[bitula]

Right.
Let's play USA in 1000 and Incas in 2000.
I mean, this totally makes sense, right?

No, but, there is no point to add even more nonsense on this and declaring this a "new main feature".

 

[Evie]

No civilization has stood the test of six thousand years as Civ presents it. No, not even China.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I can't guarantee they're not doing something stupid like "America as the modern native nation", but the fact that they went with Buganda for a modern-era African nation rather than with any actual XXIst century African state makes it very plausible in my mind.

Here's hoping that it's the more reasonable England to America.

 

[Benzombie]

I think we're all in that sort of shocked by something new phase. And I know some of us here have their minds set but I'm going to be optimistic and open about what's to come. I'm genuinely curious about how they're going to go about this.

 

[Somebody613]

No, but, there is no point to add even more nonsense on this and declaring this a "new main feature".

I guess you totally missed my point about WHY it wouldn't make sense to play "as USA in 1000".
Hint: It didn't exist back then, yet someone did live in those lands and had a DIFFERENT civilization.
Which absolutely applies to ANY and ALL civilizations basically everywhere (okay, China and India may stretch it a bit, but not 99% of other civs anywhere else).
So "civs changing" is what ACTUALLY HAPPENED in real life history - very much unlike "never changing static nationalities" that Civ tended to use ever since day one.
It's beyond funny to see you complain about "historicity" in THIS context.

 

[Somebody613]

No civilization has stood the test of six thousand years as Civ presents it. No, not even China.

THIS.
It was fine to play this way in Civ 1 or Civ 2, but Civ 4 introduced C2C and RFC... and now for anyone who tasted it, Civ will never be "allowed" to be as "primitive" as "USA in 1000".
At least that's what I think, duh.

 

[BrotherInJah]

This is the key point.

I'm rather choosing "wait and see" and trying hard not to be pessimistic. These day I play almost exclusively early turns and then either don't have time to continue or I want to play from scratch. So if this will be like 3 immersive smaller games in single package chained together then I guess it will do. Again, let's see how they implemented this.

 

[Evie]

Here's hoping that it's the more reasonable England to America.

America might be a civ that's unlocked by meeting certain requirements, too, like Mongolia - "having more cities on another continent than your capital" or something.

I think we're all in that sort of shocked by something new phase. And I know some of us here have their minds set but I'm going to be optimistic and open about what's to come. I'm genuinely curious about how they're going to go about this.

Pretty much where I'm at too, except that my shock was rather short-lived. Is this what I would have chosen in charge of design? No. It is a dealbreaker that makes it impossible for me to enjoy the game? Also no. So I'd rather open my mind to the options that hate-hype myself about it, because if it's not already a deal breaker there is no sense into making it one.

Plus I find speculating about the details far more interesting and a far more entertaining use of my time than pointlessly raging over something that isn't changing at this point.

At the end of the day, civilization is a game. If all it's doing is making me angry, I'd much rather not waste my time on it and go talk about any of the billion other things I could be talking about.,

 

[bitula]

I guess you totally missed my point about WHY it wouldn't make sense to play "as USA in 1000".
Hint: It didn't exist back then, yet someone did live in those lands and had a DIFFERENT civilization.
Which absolutely applies to ANY and ALL civilizations basically everywhere (okay, China and India may stretch it a bit, but not 99% of other civs anywhere else).
So "civs changing" is what ACTUALLY HAPPENED in real life history - very much unlike "never changing static nationalities" that Civ tended to use ever since day one.
It's beyond funny to see you complain about "historicity" in THIS context.

Its not about the idea itself, but about binding known leaders to unrelated civilizations and rooting different civilizations from unrelated civilizations. If any of these would be historically related, would be fine.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I wonder if all they have to do is to not use historical civilizations but use maybe encompassing identites like Millenia did would fix the criticism. No one is complaining about the mechanic, a lot of people are complaining about the immersion breaking.