Test of time
- Thread starter Stoic
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Good, and Yes, the default will be for the AI to behave as you.
(and they are looking at ways to have different options)
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SupremacyKing2
Deity
I love what we know so far.
The AI will do whatever you do. So if you keep the same civ, all the AIs will do the same. If you switch to a new civ, the AIs will also switch to a new civ.
Crashdummy
Prince
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Its a good update but also a missed opportunity
I wanted a new mode, chosen before the start of the game, so I can get rid of the immersion breaking screens in each Age. Instead, we got even more immersion breaking screens
The game will be better after we get it, specially because Triumphs are a huge improvement over one of the worst features i have ever seen in Civilization which were Legacy Paths. But it could be better
The age change screens are deep in the build of the game.
Crashdummy
Prince
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But the Civ change one isnt. You can get rid of it if you choose before the game that you dont want to change. It would be one less screen, even if we cant get rid of all of them and we will still have the Age loading screen
I know we cant get perfection, which would be no screens interrupting gameplay (which we had for the whole franchise) but at least get as close as possible to it
EDIT: I just reread my own message. Age loading screens, how we even got to the point of having Age loading screens stil baffles me. The designers of this .... need to have a serious Talk with someone above them, even if it is Ed Beach the one needing the talk
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j51
Blue Star Cadet
We have the age loading screens because Civ VII is more like three scenarios strung together than a unified single game. To not have load screens, they’d have to make a single scenario (age) with all of the techs and civs and other assets in it. But as people on this forum have pointed out, that might exceed the object limits right?
Games need to load assets. There are a lot of ways to approach this, but demanding less loading screens and being incredulous when others suggest they might exist for a reason is a bit puzzling.
But sure. Maybe they put them in there for no other reason than to be annoying. Maybe despite all the feedback about them breaking immersion for various players was completely ignored for completely unjustifiable reasons.
I doubt that, personally. Not saying you even believe it. But it's a valid opinion to hold.
I worry, personally, that the devs are investing too much effort in players who are never going to play VII. But what they have done is looking very thought out, targeted at common player criticisms, and very much not a band aid fix. I'm definitely interested in seeing the final version of this evolving design.
Crashdummy
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I know, we have Age loading screens because of a design decision and thats 99.9999% certainly wont change because it would be a lot of work. My point is that its insane that someone at the design table didnt say: "Wouldnt be bad an immersion breaking to have a loading screen on every Age change?" How could this leave the design table, its something i cant fanthom
All previous Civilization games had to load the same assets, and they had no problem not having loading screens. Also, you can load assets while in game in the background
They might have made it this way because it was the easiest and cheaper way
Yes, previous Civ games fit the entire asset set for the game in the initial loading screen (which, uh, definitely existed).
This puts a limit on the detail and quantity of assets a game can load ahead of time (at least without impacting that loading time).
You can, but then the game you're rendering takes the performance hit of doing both. Loading (depending on what you're doing) can take quite a bit of resources. Check Task Manager when VII is starting a new game.
Leucarum
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So, what about other games with loading screens? There are some seamless open world games out there, but pretty much anything which involves exploration has loading screens between areas. The loading screen in Civ7 doesn't break immersion for me any more than it did in Baldur's Gate 3 for example...
What I do think it an issue is the amount of re-setting up of your empire which is needed afterwards. That is the point which for me is immersion breaking, and also very tedious. To keep the analogy, it's as if in BG3 you needed to re-level your character at the start of each act. I really don't get the focus on loading screens when the bigger immersion problem comes immediately afterwards.
What I do think it an issue is the amount of re-setting up of your empire which is needed afterwards. That is the point which for me is immersion breaking, and also very tedious. To keep the analogy, it's as if in BG3 you needed to re-level your character at the start of each act. I really don't get the focus on loading screens when the bigger immersion problem comes immediately afterwards.
britesparc
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As a pretty big Civ fan who actively didn't want VII as originally presented, I'm cautiously excited by the new mode. It's turned the game from something I would never bother with unless I got it for free to something I'd now like to try.
But this game has still broken something in me regarding Civilization as a franchise. When they first announced that a Civ VII was coming, I was incredibly excited - game of the year! I was ready to pre-order the fanciest edition, because I knew I'd sink thousands of hours into it and buy all the expansions; I've been doing it since the nineties. But the fundamental changes to the game run antithetical to what I want and enjoy from Civ; and this has mentally changed the franchise from being "that thing you love that's basically a hobby" to "a new game with new mechanics that might be good or might not be good, but really you've got tons of other games to play and you're going on holiday this year and you've got work to do and etc etc etc".
I mean, as others have been saying, I still hate the concept of ages because what I want is an unbroken playground from beginning to end. Even if Civ VII is designed so that, mechanically, they need loading screens between ages, I still would like it if nothing whatsoever changed from the end of one age to the start of the next. The game continues to remove choice and chaos from the player as far as I can see, eschewing silliness for supposed historical accuracy, and the fact that this is what the developers want - and that's their right, I'm not criticising them - suggests that they don't want the same things as me in Civ. So I'm not sure I trust them to build a game again that can become "my Civ". Which is sad because the whole franchise has been "my Civ" for nearly thirty years, but I'm old enough to know you've gotta let stuff go.
So: the new mode sounds interesting. I will definitely, at some point, get Civ VII, which is not a sentence I could have said before. But it's no longer a franchise I will be prepared to pay anywhere near full price for. When it's under twenty quid I might give it a pop. Fingers crossed.
But this game has still broken something in me regarding Civilization as a franchise. When they first announced that a Civ VII was coming, I was incredibly excited - game of the year! I was ready to pre-order the fanciest edition, because I knew I'd sink thousands of hours into it and buy all the expansions; I've been doing it since the nineties. But the fundamental changes to the game run antithetical to what I want and enjoy from Civ; and this has mentally changed the franchise from being "that thing you love that's basically a hobby" to "a new game with new mechanics that might be good or might not be good, but really you've got tons of other games to play and you're going on holiday this year and you've got work to do and etc etc etc".
I mean, as others have been saying, I still hate the concept of ages because what I want is an unbroken playground from beginning to end. Even if Civ VII is designed so that, mechanically, they need loading screens between ages, I still would like it if nothing whatsoever changed from the end of one age to the start of the next. The game continues to remove choice and chaos from the player as far as I can see, eschewing silliness for supposed historical accuracy, and the fact that this is what the developers want - and that's their right, I'm not criticising them - suggests that they don't want the same things as me in Civ. So I'm not sure I trust them to build a game again that can become "my Civ". Which is sad because the whole franchise has been "my Civ" for nearly thirty years, but I'm old enough to know you've gotta let stuff go.
So: the new mode sounds interesting. I will definitely, at some point, get Civ VII, which is not a sentence I could have said before. But it's no longer a franchise I will be prepared to pay anywhere near full price for. When it's under twenty quid I might give it a pop. Fingers crossed.
Yeah, I couldn't care less about a loading screen. It's not any different than seeing a wonder animation vs a wonder movie, or in any other game when you go to a different room or a planet and they need to add in a quick cutscene.
The setup between ages is the annoying part. You have to scan around your empire, see which resources came or left. Did I get lucky with whales spawning? Did my fantastic +4 library spot lose 2 nearby resources? And now you have to go buy a bunch of merchants and set up a bunch of trade routes again, go through every town and specialize them again, etc.. And then you realize that you clicked onto the resource page but didn't set them up, and now you can't change them until you connect a new one because you didn't get a reminder again about them.
I don't hate it as much as some on here seem to, but it definitely makes a break. Like I have a game that I stopped one turn before the age transition, and there's a part of me that doesn't really want to advance to the next age, because I know I have like a 45 minute turn to go through everything that I need just to get through the first turn and actually start enjoying again.
I've made it a habit to take a pause when an age is wrapped up. It's usually 2 hours for an age for me (can be longer with lots of wars), and that's also a good time to take a break and continue on another day. I don't like having to set up everything again when I continue the game right then, but when I come back to the game on another day, I actually enjoy that. It's some time that I would have needed to familiarize myself with the current state of that game anyway, and it gives me a chance to look at the map and situation with (somewhat more) fresh eyes. I might also be in a slightly different mood then compared to the previous age, and prefer a different civ or choose different legacies.
By now, for me, getting into an old save can sometimes feel worse than starting at an age transition. I feel that continuing a save in a civ game, I have to remember much more of my previous thoughts and strategies and continue with what I've done before. The age transition gives me a chance to change things up. But admittedly, there are games were the "i have to remember these x important things" are much more severe than in the rather light-hearted and more linear civ, for example, loading up an Anno save that's 50+ hours in but currently not running smoothly on some islands, or an RPG with non-detailed quest logs in the middle of a long-running quest.
MutilationWave
IDDQD
I literally take notes as I play. Might seem silly but it really helps with this.
I did this for some games, e.g., Breath of the Wild and some EU4 campaigns, but I'm too lazy to do this all the time – and especially if I think I can wrap up a game within a week or so, as it is common with civ.
MutilationWave
IDDQD
Recently I was working so much that it took me a month to get time to sit down and play an age. I've been playing a ton the past week though, it's just the way contractor work can be. Notes help me for sure. Plus I like to do my little write-ups on the tell us your story thread.
Yeah, taking a break mid-age and coming back is a good chance to sort of reset. Often you start down a specific path, but after a couple hours you got railroaded. Starting fresh you're not beholden to like "I started down the path of war and have to do that" when starting new you start thinking whether that's a good choice or not.
But yeah, coming back after a long time, at least the age change is a good idea to start fresh. So you start fresh, with nothing in the research queue, not even with your cities set. It's just annoying that it takes so long to get through the first turn. I've had a few times where maybe I'd like to play, but I don't want to like sit down for an hour and only do 2 turns.
Crashdummy
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I dont know about BG3, havent played it to be honest. But i have been playing games for over 4 decades, and we were always trying to get less loading screens because they were immersion breaking, in every game. Loading screens were never something to be praised. So when a franchise is full of games that have none, and the new iteration has many, it is something to point out and in my case at least, it is immersion breaking
For example, a great push in fighting games, like Mortal Kombat, was when you were in campaign and the fights started in a continous movement from the cinematic, without loading screens. And its a fighting game, were immersion is less important
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