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

[pokiehl]

I would honestly make above a separate post, just to reach more people who were terrified of this system just as I was at first, but I suppose mods would be unhappy and say it should be there, right?
Anyway @Alexander's Hetaroi @Xandinho @pokiehl @Leyrann , see my post of hope above as I recognize you guys for too long to not hope we shall ultimately enjoy the new game, which for me looks amazing in everything except my first impression of civ switching.

Thanks for this. I am quite busy and haven’t gotten a chance to watch anything Civ revealed, so I’ve only been able to quickly skim through the forums and I have to admit this development got me concerned and disappointed.

I’ll try to read what people are saying and see the videos and hopefully it won’t seem so bad.

 

[Evie]

I believe you are right. I just saw quill118's video about it.
Not sure how I feel about it.

It's the one thing that make me hopeful this will work better than Humankind - because having all those recognizable faces around you (presumably with their AI personalities stable from game to game) should help in maintaining a sense of continuity in who you are and who you are playing against.

It's like playing against Kublai Khan but not being sure if he's Mongolian or Chinese, but at least you still know it's Kublai.

 

[bitula]

I think that changing civs may get to me eventually, I don't know, I don't feel so negative about it as I felt an hour ago. It just needs a lot of potential civs to make the historical branches smooth.

Its completly impossible to make so many civilizations. Completly overambitious and out of scope. Its quite easy to predict, that this is simply a "potentially fun mechanic" which will break immersion, just for the sake of fun. They'll just do some approximation regarding the alignments of those few civilizations which are reasonable to timely implement. Or do you really think that they'll like in eu4 do real transitions? I'm sure that won't happen. Therefore this idea should have been dropped as soon as it came to whoevers mind. I know civ is not the best resource for history education, but it sort of had educational value, but with all the newer versions it becomes more and more uneducational, with this civ mix chaos rather confuses anyome who would like to learn history.

 

[Potworny]

Well at least they are both founders of some form of democracy, I guess.

Good one. But I'm afraid I won't have the energy to justify every pairing in my head... All I ask for is a cosmetic title mechanic, like one added by the Nomina mod for VI

 

[Giskler]

I noticed from the videos and screenshots that it seems like the architectural style of your cities changes as your civilization changes. I think I prefer that over a mishmash of styles as the ages advance.

 

[Cerilis]

This screenshots suggests you may be able to do that:

View attachment 699900
I am not sure how it all fits together, playing as Aksum/Egypt/Amina but with a Choose Songhai option? Hopefully we will learn more soon.

I think those are the requirements(OR) for choosing Songhai, not the options you have for exploration age. It's 2 civs and 1 leader from the ancient age.

 

[ToothedBomb]

I was willing to pre-order the founders edition of the game, but after seeing the gameplay reveal, I'd rather not. It seems I can't build a civilization that will stand the test of time anymore, so what's the point? Isn't that the main appeal of these games?

If I choose to play as Egypt, I want to play as Egypt with a pharaoh leader. I don't want to be forced to change costumes 100 turns in and suddenly become Songhai. If I want to play as America, I don't want to be forced to play as Benjamin Franklin leading the Shawnee and play two thirds of a game to finally end with the desired combo. That's just not how I enjoy these games, that's not how I understand Civilization to be. I can see some of the upsides to these changes, but they can't compensate for the completely shifted premise of the game.

I'll keep an eye on future reveals and info, but for now I'm severely disappointed with the direction of this game.

 

[criZp]

CONSOLATION POST FOR PEOPLE SCARED LIKE ME AT FIRST

Keep in mind that in Humankind the system was forced upon the player largely due to this game's horrible mod support and civ switching being enforced by its mechanics. It is highly possible that "classic mode" is either going to be a popular mod (or maybe even official option added by Firaxis if they decide negative response is too high).

Also, Humankind's system was made terrible by the fact you made six transitions and the game had essentially no leaders (avatar system was godawful). Meanwhile in civ7 you're going to have only two transitions plus you have leaders (plus, again, I highly expect mods and modes for AI civs remaining old civs, or going for the closest historical paths etc). So you have much more time to get attached - on epic speed I would spend like 200 turns with each of three civs even if I decided to switch each time and had no "viable feeling" transitions. Much less transitions also means that it is actually possible to fill out sensible development lines using mods, which brings us too...

Finally, this system has incredible potential once you add mod civs. It allows for epic things such as:
China having progression of dynasties (Han -> Ming -> Qing)=
India having countless possible evolution lines
History of Iran (Achaemenids -> Safavids -> modern Iran);
History of Arabs (say Nabateans -> Abbasids -> any modern country)
History of France (Gauls -> French Kingdom -> French Republic (because why not?? mods will allow that))
History of England (Britons -> Anglo-Saxons -> Great Britain)
History of Italy (Rome -> let's say Florence -> Italy)
History of Germany (your fav Germanic tribe -> your fav HRE state -> Germany)
History of Turks (Gokturks -> Ottomans -> Turkey)
History of Andean civs (Nazca -> Inca -> Peru (honestly I'm fine with it - but you can retain Inca))
more historical America (Britons/Anglo-Saxons -> Great Britain -> America )
History of any Bantu country (Bantu -> precolonial empire -> modern country)
History of Korea (Goryeo -> Joseon -> your fav modern Korea)

In Humankind filling out sensible transitions was impossible due to their number (and miserable mod scene). But here it is tangible and actually opens amazing opportunities. I can repeat the above with sensible transitions for Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Burma, history of Bengal and Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Armenia, Russia (Slavs -> Muscovy -> Russia), Nordic peoples (Proto-Germanic -> Norse -> Norway), Greece (ancient polis -> Byzantium -> Greece), Spain (Iberians -> Visigoths -> Spain), Ukraine (Rus -> Cossacks -> Ukraine)...

Doesn't this sound glorious? There is a potential in this system to make each historical civilization shine greater than before, with fans creativity.

There will be mods modifying the system or even removing it, there may be official game modes, there will be your agency, which taken together will most probably enable you to see the world of old civ games - but there will be also options for something greater. Humankind never had this potential because six transitions, its systems, its avatars and its terrible modding made anti-immersion inescapable; here we have hope.

Sorry to tell you but this reads like giga cope. The game is just revealed and the first reaction is "m-maybe mods can fix it!"

 

[clapyourhands]

I'm a little concerned about the resource allocation needed to make this system work the way it seems like a lot of people think it will. If we assume the game is similar to other release titles, then there will be around 18 base civs upon release. Firaxis has stated many times that the bulk of the work and cost of a civ/leader is in the animations, model, art, translations, voice acting, music, etc..., but if each era has its own distinct civs then with 18 total that would only be 6 per era. Even if we bump that up to 24 civs upon release, it would only be 8 per era, which seems OK but I can see it being difficult to represent global civilization with only 6-8 picks in per era. I kind of think 24 is already a generous estimate given the track record with Civ VI leader assets.

The alternative is not not every civ comes with a "historical" leader so it doesn't need its own complete set of assets I suppose, or a heavy reliance on personas, neither of which seem ideal to me.

 

[Amtoj]

I'm a little concerned about the resource allocation needed to make this system work the way it seems like a lot of people think it will. If we assume the game is similar to other release titles, then there will be around 18 base civs upon release. Firaxis has stated many times that the bulk of the work and cost of a civ/leader is in the animations, model, art, translations, music, etc..., but if each era has its own distinct civs then with 18 total that would only be 6 per era. Even if we bump that up to 24 civs upon release, it would only be 8 per era, which seems OK but I can see it being difficult to represent global civilization with only 6-8 picks in per era. I kind of think 24 is already a generous estimate given the track record with Civ VI leader assets.

The alternative is not not every civ comes with a "historical" leader so it doesn't need its own complete set of assets I suppose, or a heavy reliance on personas, neither of which seem ideal to me.

Regarding your point at the end there, I think there's potential.

For example, take Queen Victoria as a leader. She could be assigned to England, Scotland, or Canada as what the game would recognize as a historical choice. Perhaps of those three, Scotland doesn't have a leader of their own, but is still a low-cost option for those wanting to play them while still maintaining some historicity.

 

[Evie]

I'm a little concerned about the resource allocation needed to make this system work the way it seems like a lot of people think it will. If we assume the game is similar to other release titles, then there will be around 18 base civs upon release. Firaxis has stated many times that the bulk of the work and cost of a civ/leader is in the animations, model, art, translations, voice acting, music, etc..., but if each era has its own distinct civs then with 18 total that would only be 6 per era. Even if we bump that up to 24 civs upon release, it would only be 8 per era, which seems OK but I can see it being difficult to represent global civilization with only 6-8 picks in per era. I kind of think 24 is already a generous estimate given the track record with Civ VI leader assets.

The alternative is not not every civ comes with a "historical" leader so it doesn't need its own complete set of assets I suppose, or a heavy reliance on personas, neither of which seem ideal to me.

The leaders are however a big part of the animation/language/etc cost of a new civilization. Music is another one, but music could also be leader-based. By splitting them off entirely and having only the civilization change with each era,you reduce the art to a couple unique units and unique buildings, which might allow for a much larger volume of civilizations in turn.

 

[Krajzen]

Sorry to tell you but this reads like giga cope. The game is just revealed and the first reaction is "m-maybe mods can fix it!"

It is not very unreasonable cope when speaking about game series with recurring great modding capabilities I assume "classical mode" won't be that hard to mod at all, unless Firaxis goes out of their way to hardcode the hell of it - you just move all civs and their leaders to be able to be chosen in the first era, and then forbid AI from changing them. Voila, that's all, now you play your old civ series. I also seriously expect Firaxis to have that escape hatch as an official customization option just in case.

It is also not unreasonable to expect another thing that also happens every civ game: modders eventually adding hundreds of additional civs to the game, which combined with this system would actually allow for something incredible.

So if Firaxis enable "classical mode" on release then we have objectively better system, as it retains the ability to play the old way for those who like that, while also opening enormous potential of historically accurate (or semi-accurate, or inaccurate) transitions between eras, dynasties and subcultures of real life civilizations.

 

[nakzox]

I am not sure if I really like the Ages concept.

They make it seem like it was previously a bad thing that some Civs were better early, mid, or late. That was the whole point of having different Civs. That some have bonuses that you can use right away (Huns in V for instance), and some that don't get fully taken advantage of until late, and also some that are relevant throughout the whole game. It's like they don't want any Civ to be "bad" anymore or worrying so much about a meta with each Civ (which I do think was a problem in Civ VI), but now I am worried that the bonuses will be even more underwhelming because how much can you really make use of a Civ's bonus if one age is maybe just a third of a game or so, and then it's gone?

Watching the gameplay overview now, and I am really not pumped for it at all.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I also wanna point out the obvious

No one really remembers Byzantium, the Aztecs etc, they remember the backstabbing Dido, the nuke-happy Gandhi, the wildcard Montezuma.. Leaders were always the root of the civilization game, not the civilization themselves, they just decided to flip it this time around.

 

[nakzox]

I also don't think the UI looks very good at all.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

Like I said: there is no way there won't be countless mods or quite possibly an official "classic game mode" allowing to modify, cut or customize this aspect of the game. Hell we may even get in-game settings customizing it: "unlock all civs in the first age", "enforce AIs to always stay with their civs and leaders", mods adding three Chinese dynasty civs and then forcing AI to only switch between them etc.

I think Firaxis has been aware of the possible controversial response, but they have reasoned "we'll see how it develops and be ready for [above escape hatches] if many players hate it, but overall we see the enormous potential in this system long term" (see my post for that potential)

the issue is it should not be the role of the devs to make major changes to entire game philosophy that modders need to walk back. I’d argue it makes more sense for something like this to be possible within the mod framework but for Firaxis to retain the core gameplay, but now expecting the fanbase to restore the core gameplay seems unfair.

I think those are the requirements(OR) for choosing Songhai, not the options you have for exploration age. It's 2 civs and 1 leader from the ancient age.

amina would be a leader from the exploration age. She was a Hausa queen who was contemporaneous with the Songhai. My assumption is she is the leader of Songhai in this game—as mentioned elsewhere, she wasn’t actually Songhai

 

[acluewithout]

“In Civilization VII, your strategic decisions shape the unique cultural lineage of your evolving empire. Rule as one of many legendary leaders from throughout history and steer the course of your story by choosing a new civilization to represent your empire in each Age of human advancement.”

Oh, sounds like Humankind.

Everybody, just breathe. It’s going to be fine.

No idea how this mechanic is going to work in detail. But big picture this is nothing scary.

There’s two bits. Changing leaders and distinct ages.

LeadersCivilisation. Changing leaders Civs will inevitably just mean choosing different bonuses over time. That’s core gameplay, and not a big deal.

So, the worry is just look and feel. Seems like you pick a leader and starting Civ, and you might then either stay with that Civ or have the option to level up into something related, eg English to British. might be able to stick with a starting leader or pick leaders consistent with your Civ, eg English to Britain to UK. But regardless, it looks like you’ll still being basically playing one ‘Civilization’. You’re still the ‘English’, just the English changing over time. Or, uh, maybe not.

I don’t think this is HK, which was more hodge-podge build your own Civ. This looks more consistent with Civ’s changing (really, specialising and or upgrading) your Civ over time. Which makes sense - Ed and Firaxis seem to really get Civ. I just don’t think they’re likely to stuff this up[0].

Edit: OK. So maybe a bit closer to HK than I thought. But I think it will still feel a bit more like you’re playing one Civ that changes than a hodgepodge more than HK does, but yeah we’ll have to see how that goes.

Eras. Yeah, this has always been the obvious needed chance to Civ.

Civ is most fun in the opening turns. Civ VI really fine tuned this, creating absolutely fantastic opening turns and then extending that initial gameplay well into the mid-turns. And then Firaxis couldn’t get any further. They ended up not really trying to make the end game work, and instead just created mechanics to let plays rush out the end game as quickly as possible, ie mechanics to ‘get it over with’.

I’m not going to do a long post about it, but this 4X end game problem is, well, and well known problem. It’s maybe something to do with 4Xs that is inevitably, or it’s maybe developers just haven’t figured it out, but it’s the criticism of every freaking 4X.

The obvious solution is … don’t have an end game. Just have the opening turns again and again. And that seems like what the Eras will do - each Era, you carry over your Civ’s identity, but you’re basically going to reset each Era. You’ll then do all that cool opening turn stuff again, but with different tools / stakes etc.

I think that will rock if FXS get it right. And they probably will[1].

Side note. Fine by me, but FXS obviously building Civ 7 to be more modular. They are already flagging over time you’ll have the option to add more Eras. You’ll obviously also add more leaders over time. I thought Civ 6’s game modes were a solid idea, but hampered by not being designed to work with C6 from the start. Not sure it’s clear we’re literally getting game modes in C7, but yeah, all looks designed to be very modular from the start.

[0] and, umm, if they did make a mess of things, they would pretty quickly back out the change so you can play Queen Victoria Era 1, 2, and 3, and they’d all be the same but you get different cool hats.

[1] … just maybe not in the first release.

 

[Bufus]

I also wanna point out the obvious

No one really remembers Byzantium, the Aztecs etc, they remember the backstabbing Dido, the nuke-happy Gandhi, the wildcard Montezuma.. Leaders were always the root of the civilization game, not the civilization themselves, they just decided to flip it this time around.

That's a good point.

But ...

The idea that we could see Napoleon leading China, and then fighting a war against France is too much for me.

I've been OK with virtually everything Firaxis has thrown at us - districts, 1UPT, that's all fine.

Mandating the switching of civs (for players and the AI) over the course of three, pre-canned "eras" is a bridge too far, though. This is so bad.

 

[bengalryan9]

To simplify my response, this is the point of my distaste. That's not the game I want to play. I want to play as the Egyptians or as the Americans (well, actually I am more likely to play as Rome, Mongolian, or an Amerindian culture), I want to build an Empire that stands the test of time with the flavor that helps me immerse myself coming from a *continuous* civilization. It's not that the new solution is a bad design, it's just not the one I want as a fan of the series. Which is okay, it just means the game isn't for me, but maybe it's going to be for a larger audience. For many Civ 5 was a bad transition after Civ 4, however the audience overall expanded. That's okay.

Fair enough. I'd still argue that you *are* building a continuous civilization - *your* civilization, which is an amalgamation of a bunch of different real life civilizations built over thousands of years. If that's not what you want, that's cool.

i agree with this in theory but the reality is at the end of the day, a game should cater to the role-playing ppl want to participate in, not force them to go through even more hoops of imagination because it’s poorly implemented.

Maybe *you* want to role-play as Cleopatra or Julius Caesar, but that's not why everybody plays the game. I don't care if my leader is Bongo the Dancing Clown as long as the game is fun, and I'll rather play as myself or my own creation then try to put myself in the shoes of what Shaka Zulu might've done (even if the map put me in a situation said leader would've never come across in real life. Obviously it comes down to personal preference, but Firaxis can't cater to everybody.

Alternatively, the game is no longer Civilization. Now it's Civilizations

Eh, I don't know. I still look at it as me playing one civilization. It's just a civilization that evolves.

We won't know for sure how different each era feels until we get way more information either way.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

That's a good point.

But ...

The idea that we could see Napoleon leading China, and then fighting a war against France is too much for me.

I've been OK with virtually everything Firaxis has thrown at us - districts, 1UPT, that's all fine.

Mandating the switching of civs (for players and the AI) over the course of three, pre-canned "eras" is a bridge too far, though. This is so bad.

There are so many ahistoricalities in this game that I start to realise how ironic this outrage has become.

There's literal memes of certain Great Generals fighting their own people and no one batted an eye.

But this is a deal breaker for a lot people?