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

[Thenewwwguy]

They also forget Hong Kong is an independent city-state in Civ5

there’s just this weird parasocial relationship that online gaming fans “beyond the great firewall” have with the chinese government to the point where they think they both a) know the government’s motivations to a T and b) think the government hates foreign perceptions of it so much that it just all gets censored.

They (again, esp Civ fans) forget that the main target of Chinese game censorship is mainly gacha games produced domestically, which are literally causing gaming addiction and bankruptcy among Chinese teenagers.

China doesn’t really care how the Chinese monarchies were portrayed (especially since as a communist government, the general tendency to the empires is mostly with some reverence, but also a recognition that monarchy…is not good)

I’m not the type of person to go out of my way to defend the Chinese government when I don’t have to but a lot of gaming fans’ weird behavior towards China does stem from a lot of misinformation and sinophobia.

In general I’m not a fan of this weird generalization about how “other countries” will react like only us in the west have sensible and level headed reactions to games, or that Civ is even important enough for ppl to really care what it does.

 

[Guandao]

Does Firaxis think this Civ-switching mechanic will appeal to the younger generations? Keep them less bored? I'm still not on board with this change. Civilizations change over time via various processes. But some of the paths are gonna feel ridiculous. I like playing as a specific Civ through history from ancient times to the future. These changes makes me wonder how much different will Civ8 differ from Civ7. "Civ8 will allow the player to scan their face and pretend to be the Civ leader in-game"...

 

[Professor Phobo]

Does Firaxis think this Civ-switching mechanic will appeal to the younger generations? Keep them less bored? I'm still not on board with this change. Civilizations change over time via various processes. But some of the paths are gonna feel ridiculous. I like playing as a specific Civ through history from ancient times to the future. These changes makes me wonder how much different will Civ8 differ from Civ7. "Civ8 will allow the player to scan their face and pretend to be the Civ leader in-game"...

I think the civ-switching mechanic appeals to Firaxis. They want to bring in a sense of historical ebb and flow, of having ruins beneath your feet, that sort of thing. It's a very gamey implementation of it, but absolutely everything in Civ is a gamey implementation of something loosely tied to the real world.

 

[civilizationfanatic2000]

could make it less gamey to differentiate yourself from humankind

 

[Arent11]

I think the civ-switching mechanic appeals to Firaxis. They want to bring in a sense of historical ebb and flow, of having ruins beneath your feet, that sort of thing. It's a very gamey implementation of it, but absolutely everything in Civ is a gamey implementation of something loosely tied to the real world.

I hope I'm wrong. But I fear that nothing of this is meant to create a fun game, a new experience or cool gameplay mechanics. I fear it's meant to add more "diversity", fun or great gameplay be damned.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

I hope I'm wrong. But I fear that nothing of this is meant to create a fun game, a new experience or cool gameplay mechanics. I fear it's meant to add more "diversity", fun or great gameplay be damned.

I have no idea how you came to this conclusion, but I'm not sure I want to interrogate this further

 

[Thenewwwguy]

Does Firaxis think this Civ-switching mechanic will appeal to the younger generations? Keep them less bored? I'm still not on board with this change. Civilizations change over time via various processes. But some of the paths are gonna feel ridiculous. I like playing as a specific Civ through history from ancient times to the future. These changes makes me wonder how much different will Civ8 differ from Civ7. "Civ8 will allow the player to scan their face and pretend to be the Civ leader in-game"...

as a zoomer who’s been playing since civ 3/4 i’m not a fan, but i’m growing more open to it, if that’s a useful data point

 

[lt22677]

Does Firaxis think this Civ-switching mechanic will appeal to the younger generations? Keep them less bored? I'm still not on board with this change. Civilizations change over time via various processes. But some of the paths are gonna feel ridiculous. I like playing as a specific Civ through history from ancient times to the future. These changes makes me wonder how much different will Civ8 differ from Civ7. "Civ8 will allow the player to scan their face and pretend to be the Civ leader in-game"...

Has Firaxis made any statements on the matter? because many of the various attempts to make something more attractive have often turned out to be counterproductive, such as the remake of Ghostbuster or the various live actions of old Disney films (like Mulan) have had horrible results and we remember the insults that are continuing to take Disney on the various Star Wars products (where out of one good one there are 3 that are very bad) so be careful to say that Firaxis knows what it is doing, because there are companies that have 10 times the resources of Firaxis and Brands that are much simpler to manage and yet they have FAILED spectacularly

 

[Hannibal XIII]

For all our sturm und drang over the new mechanics Firaxis still deserves more benefit of the doubt than to be compared to Disney-era Lucasfilm

 

[Thormodr]

Come on guys, how do you justify something like that? it is VERY poorly made and it is truly an absurd thing. The Egyptians were sedentary and agricultural and were invaded many times. Nonetheless, the characteristics of civilization have always REMAINED the same even in terms of military traditions. Mongolia EVEN TODAY is a people based on their economy on animal husbandry and they remained nomadic, the truth is that in the end we have three separate scenarios weakly linked, we might as well play the Civilization 3 Conquest scenarios (Mesopotania, Rise of Rome, Fall of Rome, Age of Discovery, etc.. ) and from the point of view of the game it would change LITTLE or NOTHING in short they have taken the WORST part of HUMANKIND and want to present it as a sensational innovation

The idea itself isn't bad. Well, isn't bad if you start with blank slates and have no Civ identities at the start of the game. Generic blue blob Civ, generic red blob Civ, etc.

Did they censor Kublai leading China in Civ 6? If not, I don't see why they couldn't go the route of Han China into Mongolia. It's less absurd than other scenarios and at least has historical precedent no matter what the CCP sees.

The CCP considers Kublei kosher, so to speak, since he founded the Yuan dynasty. They use it to justify their territorial claims. In other words, the Mongols conquered Tibet and Tibet was part of China then and so that is why it should be part of China now.

 

[Thormodr]

Ngl, civ fans, esp in this forums, overplay this ccp censor stuff all the time. civ fans will be like “the ccp would never let kublai khan lead both mongolia and china” and then they do it…ok, now what???


like realistically, the chinese government is not preoccupied with whether or not a strategy game with a cult following is allowing china to become buganda, be so for real.

They are happy having Kublei lead China for my reason stated above.

I don't think they would be that amused about China into Buganda if it was written into game, though.

Somewhat off topic, though. Civ switching still sucks because you are going to have these bizarre transformations as there simply are not enough Civs to make some logical immersive ones. That would be fixed if they made over a hundred plus Civs (doubtful) or if they let modders do their things with good modding capability. We'll see what happens.

As for Humankind, I have played it a fair amount. To be honest, I found the Civ switching annoying so I just stayed Harappan all game. Civ switching is a negative mechanic for Humankind but certainly not the worst. It is buggy and unbalanced as well as the late game being a slog.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

They are happy having Kublei lead China for my reason stated above.

I don't think they would be that amused about China into Buganda if it was written into game, though

no this is exactly my point—the CCP could not give less [insert expeltive]s about what a video game considers to be their leader.

every time something happens in civ there’s always think pieces here, on reddit, on discord, about “OH MY GOD THE CCP”

i promise you, they have other things they are thinking about. The idea that a [nominally, or genuinely, depending on your political analysis] communist government would be idolizing monarchical institutions [hint: communists don’t actually like monarchies] from thousands of years ago is not realistic any way you want to cut it. I promise you, they’re not out here caring this much about civ when again, they’d much rather limit how much people are spending on genshin impact.

 

[Thormodr]

no this is exactly my point—the CCP could not give less [insert expeltive]s about what a video game considers to be their leader.

every time something happens in civ there’s always think pieces here, on reddit, on discord, about “OH MY GOD THE CCP”

i promise you, they have other things they are thinking about. The idea that a [nominally, or genuinely, depending on your political analysis] communist government would be idolizing monarchical institutions [hint: communists don’t actually like monarchies] from thousands of years ago is not realistic any way you want to cut it. I promise you, they’re not out here caring this much about civ when again, they’d much rather limit how much people are spending on genshin impact.

They like to make others lose face, though. If Firaxis did something that irritated them, they'd make sure some rapid kowtowing was in order. 2K Games doesn't want to jeopardize such a huge market. (Even if piracy is rampant there.)

I am convinced we will never see a Tibetan Civ for that reason.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

They like to make others lose face, though. If Firaxis did something that irritated them, they'd make sure some rapid kowtowing was in order. 2K Games doesn't want to jeopardize such a huge market. (Even if piracy is rampant there.)

I am convinced we will never see a Tibetan Civ for that reason.

I doubt that one of tje world’s two most powerful countries really cares what a relatively minor player in the video game market does as long as it doesn’t impact the perception of the *modern* Chinese state.

I can see issues if Firaxis tried a Tibetan or a Uyghur civ, but all of this other nonsense about what China will or won’t do because of the portrayal of the same imperial systems the current government opposed is borderline ridiculous

 

[UWHabs]

I doubt that one of tje world’s two most powerful countries really cares what a relatively minor player in the video game market does as long as it doesn’t impact the perception of the *modern* Chinese state.

I can see issues if Firaxis tried a Tibetan or a Uyghur civ, but all of this other nonsense about what China will or won’t do because of the portrayal of the same imperial systems the current government opposed is borderline ridiculous

They might be happy that age of exploration Mongolia "naturally" evolves into China. But yeah, I don't think we'd ever get a Tibet or Taiwan in any official release. That's one of the prices you pay for being a big popular game.

 

[lymond]

Moderator Action: Thread closed temporarily for staff review. -lymond

 

[lymond]

Moderator Action: Several posts deleted. Please refrain from political or potentially racist discussions in gaming forums. Stick to topic. Thread reopened. - lymond