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

[Licentia]

I just heard that Egypt can experience this progression: Egypt -> Sinai -> Buganda.

Suddenly, one of my favorite Civs throughout all 7 games is a civ I no longer want to play.

 

[Razpor]

I don't think deblobbing was a component to that. The fanbase has been wanting the deblobbing of India, China, Persia, Arabia for years. Most of us (including me) would've preferred that within the confines of the old system.

The mechanic is a bit awkward, and I don't like its implications on role playing, the ability to see a civ all the way through a game, and the like, but I dont see it as the "cause" of deblobbing, though I think the blobby civs wouldn't have owrked with the new stylistic choices,

If all this was optional,it would have made sense.
The most fun aspect for Civ for me was seeing an ancient civ through to modern times ,in a ' what if ' scenario ,that aspect of roleplaying seems all but gone with this.
De-blobing was not an issue if you still played as one civ throughout.
Playing as one civ throughout just feels better in general,not to forget with every age all the AIs would probably have a new civ and it would feel like a new game every Era.
I just don't like the gameplay implications.

 

[Razpor]

I just heard that Egypt can experience this progression: Egypt -> Sinai -> Buganda.

Suddenly, one of my favorite Civs throughout all 7 games is a civ I no longer want to play.

This is exactly the concern i have.

 

[Cerilis]

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.


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

But wasn't she one of the available leaders in the showcase? So you can also obviously pick her for ancient age, and apparently Songhai is one of her "historical" choices?

 

[King Jason]

I'm under the impression you can pick any leader you want to start for any nation. So I can play as Benjamin Franklin of Egypt.

Furthermore, when the appropriate age comes; in addition to the choice of a natural progression, a progression associated with game developments (mongols, 3 horses), I can choose a civilization associated with my leader. So I'm currently under the assumption that I could start a game as Benjamin Franklin, pick Egypt, transition to the mongols if i find 3 horses, and then transition to the United States in the modern age because I have Benjamin Franklin as a leader.

 

[Thormodr]

So, I wonder if you start as Egypt and have all Egyptian looking architecture and then you *Ugh* morph into Mongolia, does all your ancient architecture go *poof* and you now have exclusively mongol architecture?

 

[Thenewwwguy]

But wasn't she one of the available leaders in the showcase? So you can also obviously pick her for ancient age, and apparently Songhai is one of her "historical" choices?

yep, you’re able to pick any leader for any civ, so it’s possible that the songhai don’t have a leader so sje’s a historical choice there as well as the Hausa. Also possible is that Firaxis messed up and made her, a Hausa queen, the leader of Songhai

 

[Pistol90]

I understand idea behind switching, but implementation is not right.

Civilizations dont evolve like that, its true that Rome-England-USA is more historically accurate that having USA in 4000bc, but there should be process where during gameplay your Civ evolve, and not this big screen one turn where you choose in UI.

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

I understand idea behind switching, but implementation is not right.

Civilizations dont evolve like that, its true that Rome-England-USA is more historically accurate that having USA in 4000bc, but there should be process where during gameplay your Civ evolve, and not this big screen one turn where you choose in UI.

Have you saw what they showed us?

There will be a big crisis that will change the world, putting it into a state of chaos, forcing you into changes and to adapt, and afterwards, after the crisis had culminated, you'll change civ, and everyone will change at the same time, while the world will literally expand (the map will be bigger) and new gameplay mechanics will unfold.

It will be a process (as much as it can be represented into a videogame), not just a switch at the click of a button. There will be a sense of progression and transition (or at least that's their plan, perhaps the implementation will be bad, but accusing it of basic one-turn switching is illegitimate to say from what they told us).

 

[V. Soma]

from IGN
https://www.ign.com/articles/civilization-7-the-first-preview

"Other interesting progression paths mentioned included
starting as Rome,
then becoming the Normans,
and finally the England."

 

[uppi]

Do you think a classic mode is even possible with all the mechanics in place??
I am guessing not.

You would have to add some kind of Exploration Egypt and Modern Egypt (and Ancient USA,... ) and then remove all the triggers that allow anything else. A mod should be able to do it, but I doubt that Firaxis will do it. And I am pretty sure that it will not be an option on release.

I could imagine an allow-"historical"-options only, but that would still allow Egypt into Songhai (but not Egypt into Mongols)

 

[Somebody613]

Honest "poll":
How many of you who are so vehemently arguing against "Egypt => Mongolia" had actually played something similar in other games/mods?
Because it's staple stuff in CK3 - yet that game is extremely popular (and yes, I know "it's not Civ", but that's not the question I'm asking).
And even in the Civ franchise itself, there's C2C which technically allows you to start as Egypt (Middle Eastern continental culture), then conquer enough Asian neighbors to adopt Asian continental culture, then lose your initial Middle Eastern continental culture (by shedding the cities that have it, and yes, it's "counter-intuitive", but still possible), and then end up being 100% Asian altogether (including Mongolian culture that unlocks Mongolian cultural units, lol), and yet still be called "Egypt" and led by "Cleopatra" (or whomever is there).
Have any of you ever experienced anything like that in an actual game?
Because this is already available in a Civ game (well, mod), lol.

 

[GeneralZift]

Honest "poll":
How many of you who are so vehemently arguing against "Egypt => Mongolia" had actually played something similar in other games/mods?
Because it's staple stuff in CK3 - yet that game is extremely popular (and yes, I know "it's not Civ", but that's not the question I'm asking).
And even in the Civ franchise itself, there's C2C which technically allows you to start as Egypt (Middle Eastern continental culture), then conquer enough Asian neighbors to adopt Asian continental culture, then lose your initial Middle Eastern continental culture (by shedding the cities that have it, and yes, it's "counter-intuitive", but still possible), and then end up being 100% Asian altogether (including Mongolian culture that unlocks Mongolian cultural units, lol), and yet still be called "Egypt" and led by "Cleopatra" (or whomever is there).
Have any of you ever experienced anything like that in an actual game?
Because this is already available in a Civ game (well, mod), lol.

I might facepalm so hard my head will fly into the stratosphere. I for one played Humankind and hated the idea. To this single moment I've heard no compelling reasons why this needed to be in the game; I've only heard excuses why it's not so bad and why we should just accept it, which is totally different.


Let me ask an alternative question. How did this get past market research at their studio? Even a quick survey here shows 50%+ dislike ratio. I feel like if I made forum thread suggesting it I'd probably get lambasted.

I doubt it's "for the casual audience" - even looking at the livestream comments it was obviously taken badly.

I hate to hate, because I loved the presentation and everything else of this game.
But their huge big selling feature is the one thing I didn't want in the game.

 

[Josephias]

Well, just my two cents after going after 20-smth pages of mainly outrage (tough also some calls to calm, which I like).

Personally, i think the outrage for some may be justified, as it impacts the may way they see the civ experience, but it can't be hardly generalyzed.

I myself started in Civ I and Civ II leading customised Civs, terefore I started to be annoyed with the addition of "uniques" that forced me to use historical civilizations, breaking my own "build YOUR empire" experience. Uniques were nevertheless interesting gameplay-wise and for replayability, so I eventually started to adapt to them (still being slighty annoyed by things like Civ VI not allowing you to change the Leader name).

I see claims on civ "historicity" being broken by evolution choice exaggerated. There are many reasons pointed out, like leading modern era civs from the start of the game, or no having suitable succesorss. Regarding this last, bear in mind this won't hapen only for pre-colonization civs, which such an anglo-saxon centered game as it is, I could even imagine not having suitable successors for i.e. Exploration Spain: bleak choices to a modern Italy -or France - , if you chose a mediterranian path, or having to become a "modern" South American state that actually independised from them (Portugal becoming Brazil is still more reasonable due all the monarchi changes, but still a similar thing to consider). The Netherlands might be a similar case, being forced to become Britain or Germany. It will be annoying at first. Yes, but I find it hardly disqualifing, more if some mechanics are put in place to manage the evolution choice.

A consideration regarding what is said aboutn immersion, as @Republic of San Montuoso reminded some posts before me: civilization switch ties into the crisis/era change mechanic which is a whole discussion apart an we may like or not, but it is probably the core change for this iteration (just to provide a preview of my impressions: it is bold and risky indeed, and a bit gamey, but I find it has a reasonable historical basis, and splitting the game in three games may indeed allow for better gameplay, so I'm excited to test it. But I would lie if I say I'm fullly confident and not worried about the final implementation - specially after some of the civ VI flaws. Still, I think its the developer right to test this new path and no, it's not doing something completely different)

And a final point of my own, gameplay wise I'll say if we isolate a feature of "play without unique options while your oponents have nice things to do", I would hardly consider this something many would say this like. Note that I underestand, strategy wise the "I have to endure this until my uniques come into place and then I turn the tables", but I feel that, on a grand-scale game of all the eras, this led to not completely satisfying situation as it really was difficult to find the sweet spot were your late unique might actually made a diference (as really the power difference where the unique might turn the tables was probably a narrow band, and you could either reach your unique era in a position either too good you could win without the unique, or too bad you would lose nevertheles). This strategic choice may be still be made in eras (early antique/exploration/modern vs late antique/exploration/modern uniques), but having that in a more limited timeframe will probably help not deviating too much.

Well, enough written so far, and too much to read still as I'm late to the party, Keep enjoying the discusion, don't get to heted up, and give some margin to hope .

 

[UWHabs]

Honest "poll":
How many of you who are so vehemently arguing against "Egypt => Mongolia" had actually played something similar in other games/mods?
Because it's staple stuff in CK3 - yet that game is extremely popular (and yes, I know "it's not Civ", but that's not the question I'm asking).
And even in the Civ franchise itself, there's C2C which technically allows you to start as Egypt (Middle Eastern continental culture), then conquer enough Asian neighbors to adopt Asian continental culture, then lose your initial Middle Eastern continental culture (by shedding the cities that have it, and yes, it's "counter-intuitive", but still possible), and then end up being 100% Asian altogether (including Mongolian culture that unlocks Mongolian cultural units, lol), and yet still be called "Egypt" and led by "Cleopatra" (or whomever is there).
Have any of you ever experienced anything like that in an actual game?
Because this is already available in a Civ game (well, mod), lol.

I haven't played other versions like this. But I also think that the Egypt -> Mongolia chain, while being shown on the gameplay trailer, is also somewhat of the rare occurrence. You won't always unlock that.

What I'm more curious about is how they decide that Mongolia there. Like, does every civ have "Mongolia" as an Exploration civ available to unlock with 3 horses? Is there something in that game seed that triggers it? We know the Songhai have a few options to unlock - do they also have some sort of "natural" unlock as well, like settling X desert or river cities? Is there a path for me to be Ben Franklin of Rome, convert to the Songhai in the middle era, and then take over the US in the modern era? Or are my only choices to play Songhai those 3 listed on the screenshot?

 

[Nikolai II]

Let me ask an alternative question. How did this get past market research at their studio? Even a quick survey here shows 50%+ dislike ratio. I feel like if I made forum thread suggesting it I'd probably get lambasted.

It's common in the industry with user tests, often several as development goes on. Presumably some liked it.

 

[BackseatTyrant]

Okay, with the initial panic hopefully settling down, I need to ask: wasn't one of the most common critiques of the Civ series that the civs remain basically the same through their 6000 year history?

 

[Venceslau Pietro Pietra]

I still absorving the impact of the multi civ campaign, but i realy want a option for keeping my civ in the next era, babylon needs to go for space and rome must colonize the americas, like tradicional civilization gameplay

 

[BackseatTyrant]

So, I wonder if you start as Egypt and have all Egyptian looking architecture and then you *Ugh* morph into Mongolia, does all your ancient architecture go *poof* and you now have exclusively mongol architecture?

What I'd hope to see, is some fusion between the two architecture styles. Besides, barely anyone ever bat an eye at civs building wonders that aren't associated with them, and I have my suspicions that Firaxis really wanted to implement this civ-changing mechanic for an extremely long time, but didn't have the resources for it until now

 

[bitula]

It seems to me a "classical path" mod (or mode) is easy to implement. But there are 2 issues with this:
1) Some (or a lot of) players won't pre-purchase until it is implemented - not good for FXS business.
2) The "civ switch" is a main feature (or THE main feature) of civ7. Possibly a huge amount of time and resource went into it, which could have been spent on other features, like leader screens.