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

[Republic of San Montuoso]

This doesn't make sense because you could literally create your own leaders and create historical figures for the AI in Humankind if you wanted. Civ VII's mix and match philosphy to both historical leaders and civilizations swapping is going to lead to the same dissonance problem encountered in Humankind.

With all due respect, it's your position that doesn't make sense because the HK leaders have nothing in common with what we saw from Civ VII. I mean, superficially, perhaps, but if you look at it more than 5 minutes, you'll see jarring difference.

And it comes to characterization. @Boris Gudenuf made very good points about psychology, but I dabbled a little in storytelling, and let me tell you that what has been shown about the leaders in the Civ VII previews is already much more memorable than whatever I could encounter in my hundreds of hours of Humankind. Nothing truly made HK avatars distinguishable. They were all more or less standing the same, talking in a quite similar tone of voice, and acting in similar manners. They were barely interacting in diplomacy. How they were created (through a character creation screen) made it so they had to have some sort of genericity to it.

On the other hand, even only by seeing Hatchepsut and Augustus interacting, you had a thousands times more life in those five seconds of gameplay that I ever encountered in HK. Each leader is made individually, with their own personality, their own quirks. They're made to interact, not just quite passively say: "Very good!". Augustus with his scepter is already just something that will make you remember the guy.

Quite example: do you remember the names of some of the leaders against whom you played in Humankind? You might have a decent memory, but in mine, it's all fuzzy. I recall Gilgamesh, I think, but I don't even remember what kind of personality he had. As for the rest, they're all blurry in my mind. Civ VII had launched a trailer just a few days ago and we already have in our heads the atrocious looks of the leaders already revealed. We might complain, but even hideous as they are, they have more life and personality in them.

Firaxis always had the mentality of using Big Faces for their leaders rather than actual, real, important leaders. They wanted leaders we might recognize, we might laugh at, we might befriend or hate, but never stay indifferent. That's why we have Gilgamesh and Dido, because they're mythical; that's why we had Kristina over Gustavus Adolphus, because despite having abdicated by herself, she was such a character storytelling-wise.

I mean, people make fancomics about Civ VI leaders, and sometimes even Civ V leaders. Who has ever made a comic representing the Humankind avatars? Nobody I could think of, it'd be too niche to interest people, because those avatars are not interesting, they're bland and generic. Civ VII leaders promise to be more interesting just by what they showed and by how Firaxis proved in the past that pretty much all their leaders are memorable. So, what @Boris Gudenuf said still stands: the main thing that can help continuity are the leaders, and not the civs themselves. Like, for example, if I was playing a Civ VI game against Chandragupta, and suddenly the civ was led by Gandhi, I wouldn't have the feel of playing against the same opponent, but against a new one. However, if FrEleanor suddenly became EnglEanor, I would consider her the same opponent with different bonuses, but I know how she would react and what her strategy would be. I see less differences between FrEleanor and EnglEanor than between, say, FrEleanor and Catherine de Medici or EnglEanor and Victoria or Elizabeth. Because the civ is nice, but wouldn't you say that your opponent is mostly the leader? They're the ones you see first, they're the ones you interact with. People hate the Dutch not because of the Dutch but because of Wilhemina, and people like the Sumerians because of Gilgamesh. And, as I said, if you encouter India in the first turns of your game, you'd react quite differently if it's lead by Chandragupta or Gandhi, and the difference of reactions would be bigger than the one between meeting both Eleanors.

 

[Patine]

but you've been best friends with Gilgamesh.

What makes you think I'm friends with Gilgamesh? Maybe I think his donkeys are mocking me, like the one from Shrek, and his herbal performance enhancers offend my army trainers and labour taskmasters, and I want to loot all that turquoise and sell it to Huangdi and Montezuma.

Jokes aside, I agree with your point.

 

[bene_legionary]

We know it expands in the Exploration Age, but do we know if it expands in the Modern Age? That would make less sense.

Antarctica was explored in the 19th-20th centuries, I imagine that would be an area that gets shown. Australia and New Zealand also settled by Europeans post 1800s. A bit of a Eurocentric way to implement it, but probably in line with Civ.

 

[Gori the Grey]

My own hunch is that at the two switch-over points significant portions of your empire will have been set back, BUT you will also get some bonuses toward rebuilding/future building that are significantly beyond anything in the previous age. A little like the moment of ideologies in Civ V. The happiness bonuses those gave were in some cases way beyond any previous policy advance, but then suddenly you had ideological pressure from the two other ideologies and that could be a happiness hit bigger than anything you'd experienced earlier in the game. So you managed the new situation. And it gave you something challenging to do late game. And consequential, because if you didn't manage that happiness hit, it could slow science, spawn rebels, etc.

Here I think the start of Exploration and Modern will be "Well, let's survey the damage and see how we can set things right." And it will feel bad that you lost X building and that Y city was reduced to a town. But the new resources for setting things right will feel significant. So, for example, you built a +2 production-enhancing water mill in antiquity. As you wake up in Exploration, you find that the marauding Independent Peoples have razed it. BUT, you can now build a +8 enhancing workshop on the section of the district that is in rubble. You have to build it, so you feel a little like you're starting from scratch, but once you build it, you feel like you have a way better building than in the previous era.

All just guesswork, of course.

 

[TheGrayFox]

With all due respect, it's your position that doesn't make sense because the HK leaders have nothing in common with what we saw from Civ VII. I mean, superficially, perhaps, but if you look at it more than 5 minutes, you'll see jarring difference.

And it comes to characterization. @Boris Gudenuf made very good points about psychology, but I dabbled a little in storytelling, and let me tell you that what has been shown about the leaders in the Civ VII previews is already much more memorable than whatever I could encounter in my hundreds of hours of Humankind. Nothing truly made HK avatars distinguishable. They were all more or less standing the same, talking in a quite similar tone of voice, and acting in similar manners. They were barely interacting in diplomacy. How they were created (through a character creation screen) made it so they had to have some sort of genericity to it.

On the other hand, even only by seeing Hatchepsut and Augustus interacting, you had a thousands times more life in those five seconds of gameplay that I ever encountered in HK. Each leader is made individually, with their own personality, their own quirks. They're made to interact, not just quite passively say: "Very good!". Augustus with his scepter is already just something that will make you remember the guy.

Quite example: do you remember the names of some of the leaders against whom you played in Humankind? You might have a decent memory, but in mine, it's all fuzzy. I recall Gilgamesh, I think, but I don't even remember what kind of personality he had. As for the rest, they're all blurry in my mind. Civ VII had launched a trailer just a few days ago and we already have in our heads the atrocious looks of the leaders already revealed. We might complain, but even hideous as they are, they have more life and personality in them.

Firaxis always had the mentality of using Big Faces for their leaders rather than actual, real, important leaders. They wanted leaders we might recognize, we might laugh at, we might befriend or hate, but never stay indifferent. That's why we have Gilgamesh and Dido, because they're mythical; that's why we had Kristina over Gustavus Adolphus, because despite having abdicated by herself, she was such a character storytelling-wise.

I mean, people make fancomics about Civ VI leaders, and sometimes even Civ V leaders. Who has ever made a comic representing the Humankind avatars? Nobody I could think of, it'd be too niche to interest people, because those avatars are not interesting, they're bland and generic. Civ VII leaders promise to be more interesting just by what they showed and by how Firaxis proved in the past that pretty much all their leaders are memorable. So, what @Boris Gudenuf said still stands: the main thing that can help continuity are the leaders, and not the civs themselves. Like, for example, if I was playing a Civ VI game against Chandragupta, and suddenly the civ was led by Gandhi, I wouldn't have the feel of playing against the same opponent, but against a new one. However, if FrEleanor suddenly became EnglEanor, I would consider her the same opponent with different bonuses, but I know how she would react and what her strategy would be. I see less differences between FrEleanor and EnglEanor than between, say, FrEleanor and Catherine de Medici or EnglEanor and Victoria or Elizabeth. Because the civ is nice, but wouldn't you say that your opponent is mostly the leader? They're the ones you see first, they're the ones you interact with. People hate the Dutch not because of the Dutch but because of Wilhemina, and people like the Sumerians because of Gilgamesh. And, as I said, if you encouter India in the first turns of your game, you'd react quite differently if it's lead by Chandragupta or Gandhi, and the difference of reactions would be bigger than the one between meeting both Eleanors.

Wanted to address this because I do agree and you make some great points.. I don't think Civilization is going to do the gimmick exactly and fail in exactly the same ways as Humankind. You're right from even early presentations leaders in this game have far more character and flavor than anything present in HK (even if their animations are crude and designs are ugly imo)

I also agree that I don't particularly like the idea of leaders wholesale switching in the middle of campaigns either. When I play Civ the leader I'm playing against and the civilization they represent are important to the story and I don't want them swapped out for one another like "analogs" or "costumes" for wholly gamey and min/max purposes at arbitrary points in the game. Which is where I say that dissonance comes in for me.

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

You have to build it, so you feel a little like you're starting from scratch, but once you build it, you feel like you have a way better building than in the previous era.

Perhaps, but ultimately, you still have to build a factory into your industrial zone in Civ VI alongside your workshop.

Worse thing: when building a new city in the Information Era, you still have to build first an amphitheater before reaching your broadcast tower. With the new system, well, in your new cities, you'll directly build the new buildings, and the "change of Age" will just be the point where your start your modernization efforts.

But you'll always need to modernize your cities, no matter what, because better buildings will be available. Making it so that old buildings are now obsoletes is, IMO, a very nice way to represent it. I'm currently re-trying Millennia (and god the game is not good, but it scratches a few itches), and frankly, integrating a vassal and having to build your council then library then other things before reaching your university just seems arbitrarily tedious.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I also agree that I don't particularly like the idea of leaders wholesale switching in the middle of campaigns either. When I play Civ the leader I'm playing against and the civilization they represent are important to the story and I don't want them swapped out for one another like "analogs" or "costumes" for wholly gamey and min/max purposes at arbitrary points in the game. Which is where I say that dissonance comes in for me.

I will say that I would definitely be more on board with the ideas of leader switching than civ switching. But I wouldn't want to force leader switching, or penalizing players for wanting to keep their leader all game.

Perhaps, but ultimately, you still have to build a factory into your industrial zone in Civ VI alongside your workshop.

Worse thing: when building a new city in the Information Era, you still have to build first an amphitheater before reaching your broadcast tower. With the new system, well, in your new cities, you'll directly build the new buildings, and the "change of Age" will just be the point where your start your modernization efforts.

But you'll always need to modernize your cities, no matter what, because better buildings will be available. Making it so that old buildings are now obsoletes is, IMO, a very nice way to represent it. I'm currently re-trying Millennia (and god the game is not good, but it scratches a few itches), and frankly, integrating a vassal and having to build your council then library then other things before reaching your university just seems arbitrarily tedious.

I'm trying to imagine a real-world scenario where you attend a university, but no libraries are available. I guess that will be possible now.

 

[DWilson]

Perhaps it would be better if building an advanced building included the building of a previous one, and you got a discount if you had the previous one already, but that discount diminishes over the term of the game.

Alternatively, build it into the cost of settlers for later cities, which come with early buildings by default

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

I'm trying to imagine a real-world scenario where you attend a university, but no libraries are available. I guess that will be possible now.

I mean, when was the last time that relevant scientific research was done in a stand-alone library? Also, one might assume that when you build a university, all the amenities needed for it as included. After all, in Civ VI, the University is one of the non-housing buildings giving the most housing, representing all the dormitories inside it. It would be fair to assume that a library is also included in it, wouldn't it?

Nowadays, libraries aren't the center of academic research, laboratories are, and libraries are tool for it. I was surprised when my best friend, who did a PhD in Law History, talked about his "Law Laboratories" (myself having graduated from a chemistry school, I was wondering what law laboratories would look like). Sure, you have prestigious libraries that are still the center of some universities, but those are the exceptions rather than the norm; they would be Golden Age libraries that would have kept their yield and adjacency bonuses. But most of standalone libraries have disappeared today, or lost their relevancy. Researchers now do research in universities or research institutes, and go to other libraries to look at a book, but then come back to do the actual research in their own laboratories/universities.

Nowadays, in the real world, when a city wants to build a university, they won't start by building the library: they will plan the university and then, inside it, they will plan the library, but alongside everything else. The library is included in the rest, not a separate building anymore. And the way Civ VII is presumed to work (from what we saw) would better represent this new way of evolving and building cities.

And apart from libraries, you have all the rest. Who goes to amphitheaters nowadays? Who continue to build them? Do you really need to have an amphitheater in your city before you start building movie theaters or broadcast centers? We build stadiums without building arenas, and lots of cities have stadiums without having a zoo beforehand. Perhaps the library->university->laboratory was the worst example as there might be some sort of continuity between them, as well as workshops->factories (if you consider the workshop not as a single workshop but as the representation of the craftmen and artisans in your city, the basis of your industrial potential before fully industrialize yourself), but what's the logic in having to build a zoo before a stadium, or a ferris wheel before an aquarium, or an amphitheater before a museum before a broadcast center?

Also, going into imagining scenarios, a thing that is much most jarring in my opinion is having to choose between an Art Museum or an Archaeological Museum, while in the real life, most of those museums show at the same time works of art and archaeological artifacts and both are under the purview of art historians ^^

However, I agree: I hope that "upgrading" your obsolete building into their newest version would come at a discount from having to build them from scratch, like in Millenia when upgrading your papermakers from papermills. But we'll have to wait and see.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Perhaps it would be better if building an advanced building included the building of a previous one, and you got a discount if you had the previous one already, but that discount diminishes over the term of the game.

Alternatively, build it into the cost of settlers for later cities, which come with early buildings by default

Regarding the idea of having to build a library before a university, I agree that could be a way to combine certain buildings. Same thing for an arena upgrading into a modern stadium. Not sure how it would work for things like a market into a bank though? Maybe you would need an intermediate Guildhall building in-between those?

I mean, when was the last time that relevant scientific research was done in a stand-alone library? Also, one might assume that when you build a university, all the amenities needed for it as included. After all, in Civ VI, the University is one of the non-housing buildings giving the most housing, representing all the dormitories inside it. It would be fair to assume that a library is also included in it, wouldn't it?

Nowadays, libraries aren't the center of academic research, laboratories are, and libraries are tool for it. I was surprised when my best friend, who did a PhD in Law History, talked about his "Law Laboratories" (myself having graduated from a chemistry school, I was wondering what law laboratories would look like). Sure, you have prestigious libraries that are still the center of some universities, but those are the exceptions rather than the norm; they would be Golden Age libraries that would have kept their yield and adjacency bonuses. But most of standalone libraries have disappeared today, or lost their relevancy. Researchers now do research in universities or research institutes, and go to other libraries to look at a book, but then come back to do the actual research in their own laboratories/universities.

Nowadays, in the real world, when a city wants to build a university, they won't start by building the library: they will plan the university and then, inside it, they will plan the library, but alongside everything else. The library is included in the rest, not a separate building anymore. And the way Civ VII is presumed to work (from what we saw) would better represent this new way of evolving and building cities.

And apart from libraries, you have all the rest. Who goes to amphitheaters nowadays? Who continue to build them? Do you really need to have an amphitheater in your city before you start building movie theaters or broadcast centers? We build stadiums without building arenas, and lots of cities have stadiums without having a zoo beforehand. Perhaps the library->university->laboratory was the worst example as there might be some sort of continuity between them, as well as workshops->factories (if you consider the workshop not as a single workshop but as the representation of the craftmen and artisans in your city, the basis of your industrial potential before fully industrialize yourself), but what's the logic in having to build a zoo before a stadium, or a ferris wheel before an aquarium, or an amphitheater before a museum before a broadcast center?

Also, going into imagining scenarios, a thing that is much most jarring in my opinion is having to choose between an Art Museum or an Archaeological Museum, while in the real life, most of those museums show at the same time works of art and archaeological artifacts and both are under the purview of art historians ^^

However, I agree: I hope that "upgrading" your obsolete building into their newest version would come at a discount from having to build them from scratch, like in Millenia when upgrading your papermakers from papermills. But we'll have to wait and see.

Yeah, I mostly meant it as a joke, but I do understand the idea that it does make no sense to have to build a later building you have to always build the first.

I also agree about there not needing to be a distinction between an Art Museum and an Archaeological Museum. Just let there be one museum building that can hold works of art or artifacts.

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

Regarding the idea of having to build a library before a university, I agree that could be a way to combine certain buildings. Same thing for an arena upgrading into a modern stadium. Not sure how it would work for things like a market into a bank though? Maybe you would need an intermediate Guildhall building in-between those?

Or just stop thinking of buildings as necessarily chaining them. Markets don't need to morph into a bank, in fact, markets could be those ageless building staying relevant during the ages (while they kinda changed, a lot of marketplace are still operating around the same idea than medieval markets, i.e. people installing stall in a semi-open area selling their wares directly to clients). That was one thing I disliked about the district system of Civ VI: the fact that you were shoehorned into some sort of pattern no matter what.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Or just stop thinking of buildings as necessarily chaining them. Markets don't need to morph into a bank, in fact, markets could be those ageless building staying relevant during the ages (while they kinda changed, a lot of marketplace are still operating around the same idea than medieval markets, i.e. people installing stall in a semi-open area selling their wares directly to clients). That was one thing I disliked about the district system of Civ VI: the fact that you were shoehorned into some sort of pattern no matter what.

In fact, the successor to the 'market', the modern Shopping Center or Mall, is just a Place where independent contractors (stores) do business - the same pattern seen in the Classical Greek Stoa in the Agora of Athens, or for that matter, Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle, which is simply a collection of booths and retail spaces under one (big) roof.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

In fact, the successor to the 'market', the modern Shopping Center or Mall, is just a Place where independent contractors (stores) do business - the same pattern seen in the Classical Greek Stoa in the Agora of Athens, or for that matter, Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle, which is simply a collection of booths and retail spaces under one (big) roof.

Ah of course it should go Market>Shopping Mall>Online Retailer Warehouse.

But in all seriousness, I wasn't directly thinking that there needs to be a direct line for buildings, or that earlier buildings need to morph into their later counterparts. In fact, I was proposing the idea of having more mutually exclusive buildings for this next iteration in the first place, such as the choice to build markets or caravanserais (I know this is now a Songhai unique), guildhalls or banks etc. for more city diversity.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Ah of course it should go Market>Shopping Mall>Online Retailer Warehouse.

But in all seriousness, I wasn't directly thinking that there needs to be a direct line for buildings, or that earlier buildings need to morph into their later counterparts. In fact, I was proposing the idea of having more mutually exclusive buildings for this next iteration in the first place, such as the choice to build markets or caravanserais (I know this is now a Songhai unique), guildhalls or banks etc. for more city diversity.

More diversity, both functional and graphical, will always get my vote.

It just seems too convenient that most building progressions in the past involved three 'tiers' of buildings, like Market-Bank-Stock Exchange or Library - University - Research Center, and now they have:

3 Ages.

I fear the temptation will be very great to have a 'successor' building for each Age. Which could be very appropriate in many cases, but not all and IMHO, would tend to stifle some of the possible variety.

 

[acluewithout]

Leif and a few other people have linked to this video by Ursula Ryan, which I’ve found one of the best gameplay summaries so far:

Ursa Ryan:

Main takeaways for me are.

1. Civ 7 is very much informed by Civ 6 both in terms of approach and desired gameplay,

2. whether the game will really ‘click’ is clearly going to come down to whether FXS can get the ‘look and feel’ of some mechanics just right and find the ‘sweet spot’ right cod gameplay, and

3. it’s completely impossible to work out of FXS have nailed the look & feel & gameplay until the game comes out, but so far it look promising.

Swapping Civs and Ages are a good example. Depending on how fhe mechanics are balanced and pitched, you could feel you’re playing one Civ evolving through time, still play out ancient > classical > medieval etc eras just with ‘chapters’ at certain points, and carry forward early decisions through to the end game but some mediation; or not and it’s all a disjointed mess.

On balance, I think FXS are likely to get this stuff right. Because, from the video, it seems like a lot of stuff was tried out conceptually in Civ 6 or Civ 7 is heavily informed by Civ 5 or 6. eg Cities / Town, so FXS should be in a good position to really get things ‘just right’. eg Governor mechanics and also colonial mechanics really pushed players to have a few Governor lead ‘mega’ cities and lots of tributary cities, and the new city / town mechanic seems to just really develop that idea; Civ 6 really nailed the 1UPT but limited stacking plus military leader combat model, and Civ 7 seems to cleverly update this; and Civ 7 Ages and Policy cards seems to be a very similar conceptually to Civ 6 golden / dark ages and ‘emergencies’.

I’m … as someone else said… ‘quietly confident’. I think Civ 7 could be really good.
Maybe really good on Day 1, or maybe after some balance patches and even some DLC.

I’m pretty happy with C4, C5, and C6 in my library, and some Paradox games when I want to go full historical economic spreadsheet stategy came, or battle tech when I want to curb stomp the future. The main things I want from C7, really, is the chance of some more good friendly intelligent and very funny Civ Fantatics chat and videos by the nice people at FXS.


(Side note: I mean, I have a generally pretty happy life, but sometimes I just watch the FXS videos to feel there’s a place where nice kind clever people just have a job hanging out and enjoy making cool stuff for other nice kind clever people. That makes me feel like the world is just a little bit better, and sometimes I really need that. … Jesus. Overshare much?)

Anyway. I’m good either way. But it does seem to me there’s a more than even chance C7 is awesome. Not totally certain. But at least a really good chance.

 

[lt22677]

One of the very first things a human baby can focus on and recognize/react to is a Human Face. Even an abstracted human face like Wal-Mart's 'happy face' is more recognizable to a human baby than any other animal or thing. This is one of the very few things that seems to be 'built in' to all modern humans.

Which means we can identify and identify with Human figures better than any other image, icon, or construct in a game.

This is a huge advantage for the Civilization series, because the series has emphasized that human connection: animated Leaders, named Great People, Governors - far more than any other game.

I maintain: Humankind's mistake was not in switching Civs in-game, it was in the utter lack of identification with ANY of the Civs: no Leaders, no names, nothing but a generic Avatar made up by the game or the gamer with no connection to anything you were playing.

Which is precisely the difference between Humankind and Civ VII. In Civilization VII, that Leader, no matter how wonky he/she looks, is with you throughout. He may be Augustus of Slobbovia rather than Augustus of Rome, and he may look like a Schmuck, but he is your Schmuck and you will be surprised at how easy it is to remember that.

Or at least, that's the lesson from my Psychology 200 class at Penn State in 1968. Thank you, Doctor Foxx.

So everybody's concerns about It Didn't Work In Humankind, So It Cannot Work In Civ are so much Funglecarb: it isn't the same.

Furthermore, and contrary to many pronouncements in these Forums (including mine!) the Singularity Change between Ages and Civilizations is not Complete. You can choose or obtain Legacies that carry over, there are buildings that persist from Age to Age (possibly with different effects, I suspect), and you can even modify your Leader's attributes and bonuses (how, exactly, is still Unclear)./ Which means, simply, that you do not start with a Blank Slate in a new Age, and all of your efforts in the previous Age are not entirely wasted. You may be playing a Post-Roman Second Age Angleland, but there will still be some of your 'ancestral' Roman Civ buried in it. Exactly what and how you apply the Legacies will be very interesting . . .

In fact, I will postulate that the 40-page discussion after Launch will be on the best combination of Civs, Leaders and Legacies to give you the 'best' progress from one Age to the next. No, I'll go farther and do what I try to do very seldom: I will Predict that Progression techniques between the Ages will be a major topic of post-launch discussion concerning Civilization VII.

The problem is that you have civilizations that transform randomly like Egypt (agrarian and sedentary African civilization) into Mongolia (a nomadic and livestock-based Asian civilization) just because Egypt has 3 horses and they will necessarily have different characteristics, how do we justify the transformation of a civilization (Egypt) that expanded little and lasted thousands of years (which therefore should have growth and culture as its main characteristics) into one that founded a huge empire and which however was divided into various states in a few centuries and then disappear quite quickly (which therefore should be based on militarism and expansionism)?

I have Humankind and unfortunately the civilization change part of the game is considered the WORST part because in everyone's opinion, it makes the game not a campaign, but a series of scenarios without any connection

 

[Leucarum]

Right, and that makes perfect sense - I'm just spit balling that if the Exploration Age crises theoretically focus on revolution that could account for the extra increased player count. Of course, that would be more complicated to implement so is less likely, but still...that would be cool.

I honestly think that makes a lot of sense. A few new civs emerge our of revolutions... Though if that is the case it could be interesting to allow the players to choose to play one of the newly emerged/extra civs?

 

[lt22677]

I honestly think that makes a lot of sense. A few new civs emerge our of revolutions... Though if that is the case it could be interesting to allow the players to choose to play one of the newly emerged/extra civs?

this could be an interesting mechanic, with perhaps cities trying to break away from the empire in the transition from the age of exploration to the modern age and perhaps at the end of the ancient age, barbarians conquer parts of your empire which then transform in new civilizations (without civ switching without real motivation)

 

[uppi]

This is the real issue with why the civ switching system is bad. The debate on how historically accurate it may be is irrelevant. Even if you think civ switching makes sense because "it happens in real life," that's not the point. Gameplay wise it is just confusing and frustrating. It's really hard to understand until you actually play with it but nearly everyone who played Humankind hated it because it seems like a fun, interesting idea in theory until you actually experience it.

In my opinion it actually was fun and interesting to build my empire from different parts. I my problems with the race part of civ selection and that the color was the most identifiable thing about my opponents. But if that can be solved, the concept is fun.

 

[lt22677]

In my opinion it actually was fun and interesting to build my empire from different parts. I my problems with the race part of civ selection and that the color was the most identifiable thing about my opponents. But if that can be solved, the concept is fun.

Obviously I respect your opinion, but I ask you, have you ever played Humankind? I do and along with many others it is considered the WORST part of the game, then we'll see what Firaxis does, but I'm not very optimistic