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

[Razpor]

TBF this has been in development or at least planning since before HK.

still,they could have used the feedback after humankind . Maybe make it an optional mode,this takes a lot of character from what we associate with civilization,too fundamental a change.

 

[Nikolai II]

logged in after quite a while.
why why why would you choose to add the worst possible feature from humankind when you had the time to analyze the negative response to it.??
They added the only mechanic ,no one wanted them to add.

HK is relatively new. By the time HK released it was likely too far along to do big changes. But we don't know for sure how it's implemented yet, so let's not despair before it's necessary.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

Civ-switching was not an inherently bad feature in Humankind; it's just that some progressions did not make sense, and were very pick-and-choose-y based on what you as a player wanted at the time.

Something like beginning as the Franks and them becoming either the French or the Holy Roman Empire would be interesting. Or England > Britain.

this was def my biggest qualm with the civ-switching mechanic in humankind, it felt forced in the sense that not every progression made sense…why would the qin become the franks temporarily before becoming the han, etc.

worse is when the progression historically or culturally made sense but the playstyle was so different it made it not worth it, or downright illogical to play in that manner.

humankind’s system required hundreds of cultures to create realistic and logical progressions, and that’s not something they could or wanted to do at the time.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

Folks I think maybe what they're trying to do is some super-create-your-own-Civ game where there's dozens of leaders and bonuses and Civs and you just freestyle everything for an amalgamation

this is very unfun for me, personally. Like I’ve mentioned elsewhere, i think a lot of the fun of civ comes from role playing “what could’ve been” and in general, *as* your civ

edit: sorry didn’t realize the post above this was one of mine that moved, sorry for the double-post

 

[Pedro P]

Don't devs realize doing this "quirky" little change basically forces anyone playing Native American civs to always have their civ be colonized by Europeans?

 

[UWHabs]

I'm hesitant, for sure. Watching the reveal, it seems like you will have some limitations. So you can always evolve your historical counterpart, but you might need to unlock certain criteria to jump to a very different one. At least that I like, so you can't just jump Egypt to Germany because you want more production.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

Don't devs realize doing this "quirky" little change basically forces anyone playing Native American civs to always have their civ be colonized by Europeans?

100% my least favorite part about this

Aztecs to Mexico, Haudenosaunee to USA is not the win they think it is, especially when so much is being improved in the actual inclusion of civs, languages and cutures.

 

[BuchiTaton]

Note that "logical" and "historical" civ transitions area not the same thing. Turks taking over Anatolia or Spanish taking over the Andes is the outcome we know from the real world configuration, but in CIV unless you want to play a scenario the world is random with the position of civs being different, so if I start a game where I am the Gauls and my neighboors are the Chinese, Aztecs and Ethipioans why should I turn into France if there are no Franks around? Even Romans would be needed to get the France we know!

If the system is free to change to any civ, that would be more versatile and less predictable. But if the system is historicaly limited (like the RTS AoM and WS) recognition is the only obvious element to gain.

So I am not saying that one thing or the other is good for gameplay, I just want to point that for in-game mechanics any sequence could be valid.

 

[seasnake]

I am pleases there are restrictions, in that you can either look to shared cultural civs to convert to or others that match your playstyle. I am looking forward to playing as Ben Franklin of Mixtec. Because why not?

 

[BackseatTyrant]

Don't devs realize doing this "quirky" little change basically forces anyone playing Native American civs to always have their civ be colonized by Europeans?

tbh, i never understood the whole "it's like humankind therefore it sucks"-panic, but this bit is definitely problematic for me

 

[bene_legionary]

I'm surprised you guys are so negative. The way the civ-switching looks like it's going to be handled seems to have what I had hoped Humankind would be; progression with logic and context attached, not just "I'm Venice today, I'm Russia tomorrow!"

Very excited to see what the unique mechanics are for each age.

 

[CoconutTank]

This was a cool presentation, and I'm not as turned off on the civ switching as most folks seemed to be. It's not like Civ's never borrowed from other games or series either; districts were inspired by boroughs from Endless Legend, and I really like districts.

As usual, all I want is a civ or leader with air unit emphasis, and helis that can actually fly over water instead of being fancy land units

 

[iammaxhailme]

I see a lot of people are comparing to humankind. I haven't even played it yet... I wonder if I should give it a try before Civ 7 comes

 

[Thenewwwguy]

Absolutely. There is a ton of cool looking stuff. But having to switch Civilizations as the game goes along? That really kills it for me. It's so immersion breaking to be Egypt one turn and then suddenly you're France.

it was always going to be weird considering one of the sad, but very real issues with this system is that most of these cultures just aren't around, or don't have real-world direct correlaries

probably the most unfortunate part? some of these cultures (again, microfocusing on the Buganda reveal) have real-world correlaries in the other time periods, but I somehow doubt that Firaxis found modern-day Uganda itself of meriting a civilization slot, and if you're going to actually go about this new system in that manner, its doubly offensive. Not only are you forcing disparate cultures to evolve into each other, but you're also excluding the actual real world successor cultures at the cost of including the cultures you feel merit inclusion more

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I feel like Civ might handle this better. The key here really is exactly how the Three Ages play out.

 

[kaspergm]

I'm surprised you guys are so negative. The way the civ-switching looks like it's going to be handled seems to have what I had hoped Humankind would be; progression with logic and context attached, not just "I'm Venice today, I'm Russia tomorrow!"

Yes I agree actually, if they manage to pull this off with quality, I'm cautiously hopeful it will not be a disaster.

 

[Razpor]

so with this any civs that were colonized ,invaded simply cant be played into later eras. I find this problematic.

 

[iammaxhailme]

I was hoping the civ-switching thing would be more like dynasties, and it would be based on how you play, not a binary choice.

For example rome "evolves" into one of the italian city states. Were you warmongering rome? You become merchant-navy venice. Were you cultural/religious rome? You become milan. etc.

 

[seasnake]

If the civ switch is rationally related either by culture or gameplay choices I am less concerned. Humankind the civ you choose feels like a social policy from Civ 5. If it meaningfully is reflected by gameplay some of my concern goes away. However, I'm not sure I like non-historical leaders with their civs. I joked about Ben Franklin of the Mixtec in another thread, but that's going to take some getting used to. It would be nice if there was an option to tie leaders to civs.

 

[Foxforch]

This Ages thing... I'm doubtful about it. Graphics looked a lot like HUMANKIND as well as the leaders. I hope there'll be a mod that will let us play traditionally as one civ and one leader to stand the test of time, instead of switching as the game progress.