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

[bbbt]

I mean, I'm not a fan of the civ switching mechanic, but an immortal leader and a "France" or "Rome" that exists from 4000 BC to the present day as civ currently does is also entirely a "fantasy story"...

 

[Leucarum]

When I left a review of Humankind on Steam, my thoughts were that it was full of good ideas that someone else was going to implement properly. The signs are somewhat positive. Less ages means less jarring changes to keep track of, and one consistent, recognizable leader should also help... As well as limiting the evolution paths...

I don't think it's the direction I would have wanted firaxis to go though... Humankind ended up feeling very gimmicky. So overall, I'm jittery despite the positive signs.

 

[bene_legionary]

cannot emphasize this enough. A lot of ppl seem to like that they mentioned historically or culturally appropriated civ evolution while conveniently ignorign that the Songhai are very much not a successor to Ancient Egypt in ANY capacity.

I mean, it's about as historical as the Songhai existing from antiquity into the modern era. That abstraction was exchanged for a different one here. How it's done is what's important; we still don't know very much about how it works.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I expect the early Exploration Age includes most of the Middle Ages, with perhaps a few early bits being part of the Antiquity Age. Byzantium would almost certainly be an Exploration Age civilization.

Mongolia was already mentioned as an Exploration Age civ, so it would seem that the Medieval period covers that.

 

[UWHabs]

Streamers are revealing stuff. Sounds like the ages are strict - the whole world moves at once.

Each civ has a default path, but you can change if you meet some criteria.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

I mean, it's about as historical as the Songhai existing from antiquity into the modern era. That abstraction was exchanged for a different one here. How it's done is what's important; we still don't know very much about how it works.

sure, i get that it's all abstractions, but a lot of ppl, devs included, are claiming that somehow Egypt to Songhai is a more reasonable or realistic succession than Egypt to the Shawnee, when realistically there's pretty much equal cultural similarities to either.

 

[clapyourhands]

It seems like geographic location, historical accuracy, and gameplay similarities will be the main factors considered for civ evolution selection at each era.

They made a point to emphasize that each era would be like a sandbox, at it seems like this belies the fact that transitions between each era are much more restricted to real-world history than in any past iteration.

 

[seasnake]

The Shawnee are confirmed to be an Exploration age civ. America I presume would be Modern.
It's my hope that it would go England into America instead. Maybe the Shawnee could turn into the Sioux or Apache? I don't know what indigenous civ they would consider modern but leaders such as Siting Bull and Geronimo lived later.
Either way I'm afraid that all of these tribes in game might be unrelated.

To be honest, though, there is more overlap between America and Shawnee than Shawnee and Sioux. Native American is an umbrella term, culturally they were all as separate and distinct as European nations. In fact, there's a better argument for the French to become English because the English at least owned part of France, and the Normans were French!

 

[djvandyke]

I totally agree, this game has no future.

 

[Xandinho]

I also need to confess that I am not a fan of figures like Confucius as a leader, as they are better as Great People.

 

[UncivilizedGuy]

I really hope we have a force historical path mode or something like that

The problem with "historical paths" is that many civilizations would have to evolve into their historical conquerors

 

[Jkchart]

The problem with "historical paths" is that many civilizations would have to evolve into their historical conquerors

Yes, but as shown the "historical path" is not forced since other choices open up based on your gameplay situation, which is much better than the HK model.

 

[djvandyke]

Should I play Humankind so I can understand what we're all mad about?

If you did, you would understand it. Civ is supposed to be about taking a Civ through history.
They are making Humankind 2, not Civ 7.

 

[DeutschDachs]

This mechanic honestly just makes it feel like it's not even Civilization. Was the explanation of what the Civilization series is all about at the beginning of the video for the sake of the developers? Because it doesn't really seem like they have a good handle on why folks love the series.

I have never been so disappointed in a game reveal. I really hope at some point that becomes an optional feature... I can't see myself being interested when I already tried this mechanic in Humankind and did not enjoy it whatsoever. I don't know how it would become optional though when it's seemingly a core pillar to their design.

 

[UWHabs]

It seems like geographic location, historical accuracy, and gameplay similarities will be the main factors considered for civ evolution selection at each era.

They made a point to emphasize that each era would be like a sandbox, at it seems like this belies the fact that transitions between each era are much more restricted to real-world history than in any past iteration.

Yeah, it sounds very much like it's 3 different games - you have a full game in the ancient era, and then when the age switches over, things change heavily moving to the next age.

 

[Jkchart]

If you did, you would understand it. Civ is supposed to be about taking a Civ through history.
They are making Humankind 2, not Civ 7.

I don't feel that's entirely fair since the implementations and mechanics are clearly different. This very much feels like Civ with a feature that is inspired by HK, and hopefully better handled. Will it be perfect? Probably not, but we need to see more before we just label it as such.

 

[Tecumseh1]

I can't wait for Civ8, redeeming feature? It will bring back the old style of gameplay

civ4x2 I would take it.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

sure, i get that it's all abstractions, but a lot of ppl, devs included, are claiming that somehow Egypt to Songhai is a more reasonable or realistic succession than Egypt to the Shawnee, when realistically there's pretty much equal cultural similarities to either.

Yes. I'd be less bothered about it if it wasn't considered the "historical" path by the developers.

To be honest, though, there is more overlap between America and Shawnee than Shawnee and Sioux. Native American is an umbrella term, culturally they were all as separate and distinct as European nations. In fact, there's a better argument for the French to become English because the English at least owned part of France, and the Normans were French!

But then you couldn't have a war with each other for hundreds of years.

 

[FishFishFish]

Having Egypt -> Songhai -> Buganda be easier because of their "historical connections" is the equivalent to having Picts -> Ottomans -> Sweden.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

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.

honestly, i think this just speaks to how this is just not a gameplay mechanic that is likely to work for 4x games, especially ones with real historical cultures involved.

Humankind, ppl hated the "randomness" of culture to culture change with no ties involved

here, the desire to avoid that means that cultures that have nothing to do with each other (Egypt and Songhai) become the pigeonholed "default" progression, AND since so much of the civ game is abstract to begin with, that "logical" transition might not make sense anyway, as you noted

To be honest, though, there is more overlap between America and Shawnee than Shawnee and Sioux. Native American is an umbrella term, culturally they were all as separate and distinct as European nations. In fact, there's a better argument for the French to become English because the English at least owned part of France, and the Normans were French!

I mean, isn't this exactly evidential of the issue with this system? We as fans asked for more cultural granularity in civs for so long--give us the Maurya, Chola, Mughals instead of just "India"...give us Rome AND Italy, France AND Franks, more indigenous american represnetation through the Haudenosaunee and Chinook and Cree and Cherokee.

Civ 6 was a huge huge step in that direction. And now it genuinely feels like a step back, because we're forced to have our own civs colonized in their succession, and civs with no commonalities are being pigeonholed together, even though it seems like the most diverse set of civs we've ever had is about to be showcased