The bold nature of civ7 goes deeper than just civ switching - it's about sandbox vs structured narrative

[Krajzen]

I have only realized this in light of the recent discussion of how there is a considerable chance civ7 is going to limit the freedom od map generation script, so that there is always "new world" to explore. Civ switching is merely a symptom of a deeper underlying idea which is quite revolutionary (and very controversial) undertaking. In fact, devs have almost explicitly said it, but only now I truly "got" implications.

Previous civ games, and almost? all 4X games in fact (and most strategy games in general?) have been sandboxes. You freely choose the civ, the map script, and then off you go. The game consists of a world with civs thrown there and broad static rules (not really changing with eras), according to which civs follow snowballing accumulating growth to victory. There is no broader structure beyond what occurs as a result of AI or human civs individually do.

The upside of this approach is obviously freedom. The downsides are not so obvious. Total sandbox is frequently uneven and anticlimactic in all video game genres, as there is nothing commanding the "story" from beginning to an end. In 4X games this manifests as their endless problems with snowballing and steadily decreasing enjoyment the longer you play. After all, at a certain point victors and losers are clear; why continue if you are just going to repeat minutiate of more and more micro (which is less and less meaningful) in the static slog till the anticlimactic end? Additionally, it is very contrary to the real history, with its very dramatic twists and turns.

There has been a thread on this forum where we discussed how to solve the endgame problem. The general take I personally had from it was that in order to do that the game must at its very core be committed to some sort of structure commanding buildup and release of tension, some deeper logic which messes with the usual static snowballing accumulation. Such structure may emerge spontaneously from game mechanics, but this is very hard to achieve for very complex games and civ6 has also failed at this task, having all those "rise and fall" mechanics which together were clearly insufficient.

So civ7 is based precisely on this intuition and devs taking the risk going with it all the way. The game is going to have a clear beginning, middle and the end; very strong instead of soft segmentation into three acts, which radically mess with the players and the game. Each of those three acts is supposed to have somewhat dofferent mechanics and tell its own story and they all together come into one great story (history) which has shifts and turns, quantum leaps and collapses instead of endless static growth of the usual 4X games. Game rules change to acommodate different needs of beginning, middle and the end and the players (civs) themselves change to reflect that.

But why are civs changing, couldn't they have stayed the same? It is worth noting that the new approach is also explicitly more historical in its aims: more historically narrow civilisations, era transitions resembling historical shifts, and I suppose mechanics reflecting each period more specifically. If we have an actual attempt to emulate ancient era defined by bronze and iron and pantheons and then attacked by barbarians, then we can't have Brazil there - it breaks the historical narrative. Historical eras change dramatically, so it makes sense for the same to happen to their protagonists.

Time will show how it's all going to work out, but personally I am mostly excited by Firaxis taking this massive undertaking (though I would like option to stay with the same civs) - it's actually very novel approach to 4X games. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri had a narrative structure as its characteristic, but Civ7 goes way further than that. It's an attempt to reflect how different eras of history make society functio n differently, and an attempt to strike directly at the 4X problem of static snowballing till boring endgame.

 

[notNamed]

I wouldn't call it novel. Structured gameplay has long been standard in these circles, it was Civ that was sticking to the older way of simple narrative design longer than all of (or perhaps more accurately most of) its peers.

 

[Arent11]

I have only realized this in light of the recent discussion of how there is a considerable chance civ7 is going to limit the freedom od map generation script, so that there is always "new world" to explore. Civ switching is merely a symptom of a deeper underlying idea which is profoundly revolutionary (and very controversial) undertaking. In fact, devs have almost explicitly said it, but only now I truly "got" implications.

Previous civ games, and almost? all 4X games in fact (and most strategy games in general?) have been sandboxes. You freely choose the civ, the map script, and then off you go. The game consists of a world with civs thrown there and broad static rules (not really changing with eras), according to which civs follow snowballing accumulating growth to victory. There is no broader structure beyond what occurs as a result of AI or human civs individually do.

The upside of this approach is obviously freedom. The downsides are not so obvious. Total sandbox is frequently uneven and anticlimactic in all video game genres, as there is nothing commanding the "story" from beginning to an end. In 4X games this manifests as their endless problems with snowballing and steadily decreasing enjoyment the longer you play. After all, at a certain point victors and losers are clear; why continue if you are just going to repeat minutiate of more and more micro (which is less and less meaningful) in the static slog till the anticlimactic end? Additionally, it is very contrary to the real history, with its very dramatic twists and turns.

There has been a thread on this forum where we discussed how to solve the endgame problem. The general take I personally had from it was that in order to do that the game must at its very core be committed to some sort of structure commanding buildup and release of tension, some deeper logic which messes with the usual static snowballing accumulation. Such structure may emerge spontaneously from game mechanics, but this is very hard to achieve for very complex games and civ6 has also failed at this task, having all those "rise and fall" mechanics which together were clearly insufficient.

So civ7 is based precisely on this intuition and devs taking the risk going with it all the way. The game is going to have a clear beginning, middle and the end; very strong instead of soft segmentation into three acts, which radically mess with the players and the game. Each of those three acts is supposed to have somewhat dofferent mechanics and tell its own story and they all together come into one great story (history) which has shifts and turns, quantum leaps and collapses instead of endless static growth of the usual 4X games. Game rules change to acommodate different needs of beginning, middle and the end and the players (civs) themselves change to reflect that.

But why are civs changing, couldn't they have stayed the same? It is worth noting that the new approach is also explicitly more historical in its aims: more historically narrow civilisations, era transitions resembling historical shifts, and I suppose mechanics reflecting each period more specifically. If we have an actual attempt to emulate ancient era defined by bronze and iron and pantheons and then attacked by barbarians, then we can't have Brazil there - it breaks the historical narrative.

Time will show how it's all going to work out, but personally I am mostly excited by Firaxis taking this massive undertaking (though I would like option to stay with the same civs) - it's actually very novel approach to 4X games. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri had a narrative structure as its characteristic, but Civ7 goes way further than that. It's an attempt to reflect how different eras of history make society functio n differently, and an attempt to strike directly at the 4X problem of static snowballing till boring endgame.

The mayor problem here is of course that such a "narrative" structure might become repetitive.

In alpha centauri, the story was narrated through interludes. And the description of techs. You shaped your own story - leading your civ that was basically your RPG "character" - but there was an overarching story concerning the planet and transcendence that applied to all factions.

In Civ 6, the Eurekas were always the same and you had to fulfill them in every single game. This was highly repetitive.

Now, you're always have a civ that you build and is always thrashed at the end of an age. Then you choose another one that's also getting thrashed. I'll have to see how that works out.

 

[8housesofelixir]

A similar approach can be seen in the development of the Old World.

In his design diaries for Old World, Soren Johnson specifically stated that many designs in the Old World are trying to directly reply to many of the old issues of Civ series (and turn-based 4X in general). To deal with the city spam, the game introduced limited city sites; to reduce micromanagement, citizen work slots are replaced by dedicated specialists; the leaders and families add to the narrative aspects; and as for the endgame, it has a system for the game to end much earlier based on your score, etc, etc.

I guess Ed Beach and Soren have similar visions and think alike in this case.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Previous installments weren't full sandboxes as well. Starting from fixed tech tree to things like ages in Civ 6, the narrative was already somehow structured.

And if you look a bit deeper at Civ 7 gameplay, it's not that much structured compared to Civ 6. We already had ages starting at the same time for all civs with some things attached to them. And, honestly, I hate Civ 6 dark / golden age feature (another thing to micromanage as if Civ6 doesn't have enough), so having dark ages a fixed period on age swap looks much better to me.

Sure, attaching tech and civic trees to those ages is a bit limiting, but it's a good balance factor and I'm not sure I'd call it structured narrative.

 

[Siptah]

It might depend on how you play and how you define sandbox, but I did not really view civ as a sandbox game, at least not the last few installments. For me, the choice (or random assignment) of civ (and thus bonuses and RP potential), map, and active victory conditions always strongly suggested a narrative and a way to play it out. Sure, no one forced me to follow it; I can obviously do a cultural victory with Kongo and win a religious victory with Rome without ever declaring a war. Yet, for a real sandbox, I think I did not have enough possibilities to change things throughout the game. In contrast, I think switching civs (and thus bonuses and RP potential) two times increases the sandbox feeling for me greatly. To me, Humankind was much more of a sandbox than any civ game of the last decades.

 

[Kev1916]

"Three " games in one ticks a lot of boxes, you max out your cash grab ( more fluff in civ's leaders hat's tiles etc ) it suit's the casual gamer and suit's console use , smaller in scale etc etc

Done to death but as soon as they enforced a hard re-set with forced changed from Civ A to Civ B or C or D or who cares it was game over for me .

Different games thou Warhammer 3 sandbox mode is played 99% of the time as opposed to a structed narrative , In Old world the Civ stays the same , your leaders however ......

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[Noble Zarkon]

So civ7 is based precisely on this intuition and devs taking the risk going with it all the way.

I think your analysis is spot on, where we differ is that I think they are in danger of destroying the core of what Civ is so I am deeply concerned. I hope I'm wrong of course.

 

[Krikkit1]

The mayor problem here is of course that such a "narrative" structure might become repetitive.

In alpha centauri, the story was narrated through interludes. And the description of techs. You shaped your own story - leading your civ that was basically your RPG "character" - but there was an overarching story concerning the planet and transcendence that applied to all factions.

In Civ 6, the Eurekas were always the same and you had to fulfill them in every single game. This was highly repetitive.

Now, you're always have a civ that you build and is always thrashed at the end of an age. Then you choose another one that's also getting thrashed. I'll have to see how that works out.

The problem is the lack of a “narrative” is also repetitive, because the game mechanics Always encourage a narrative. Some approaches will require trade offs, others will fail.

So civ 1-6 each had their own game mechanic based narrative. Which for most was Snowball Away (initial build, conquer, click to win)

 

[Gorbles]

It depends exactly what we consider freedom, and what VII exactly lets us do.

For example, the eras are meant to be self-contained, right? You're meant to be play any single one, or chain them. In that regard, this gives more flexibility vs. committing to a "whole" playthrough. This is something I appreciate, with two young kids - the opportunity for a shorter game cycle is actually kinda exciting / less daunting.

I agree with the posters that have already said that the game isn't really a sandbox. I think this is simply an alternate expression of the civ-switching as a principle. It's the immersion break. It's not really a sandbox vs. structure narrative because Civ VI was similarly structured with District-building, and older Civ games had their own structure as well. It's simply that here an aspect that previously wasn't structured now is. But at the same time it provides new opportunities that we haven't really had before (at least out of the box in the vanilla experience).

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I like your take on it and largely agree with your analysis, thanks for the well articulated write up.

For me, it is exciting, but I can see why it is contentious and causing some concern.

I think Civ VI is pretty linear though, to be honest. The illusion of freedom, but the rules of the game are pretty strict, and you can't really escape them.

 

[UWHabs]

It's always been a mix of the two. It's a sandbox in that you (most of the time) play on a completely random map, with completely random opponents. You're having Abe Lincoln build the pyramids, while fighting off a Mongolian horde of horse archers. But it's also structured, in that Mongolia has horse archers, and the pyramids only can exist once you have unlocked them and have a suitable location. The fixed tech tree is structured, but allowing the tech shuffle adds a sandbox mode to it.

I do think some of the ideas we're seeing in the 7 previews will continue this mix of structure and sandbox style. Forcing you into a Terra (or Terra-like) map adds extra structure, but at the same time, if you kind of know that's always the case in the game, the AI probably will also know it, and so will almost certainly be adjusted for that. That's always been one of my biggest problems with Terra maps in the past - when I know it's a terra map, I know I'm in a race to the right tech, and then I have a mass of land open to me. Sure, you get Continents map scripts where you end up with a natural Terra un-settled landmass, and that's a lot of fun when I don't expect it.
Similarly with the civ switching and age resets, at some level, you get a weird structured sandbox. One of the "flaws" with civ 6 is sometimes mapping out all your districts for the length of the game. It was a level of structure that you kind of got pushed into. I'm planning my city to get the max Hansa/commerce hub balance. I'm 30 techs away from knowing what Dams are, but I'm planning them out already. In 7, by the time you unlock dams, you don't strictly know what civ you're going to be playing as. It should let you be a little more flexible early, knowing that you have a couple chances to reset. You can sort of decide if you want to follow the structure of the historical civ progression, or reset to a sandbox and mix it up.

 

[Nikolai II]

I really like this take on it, @Krajzen . Good writeup.

 

[ombak]

I echo the caveats that it was never really a sandbox but I think the take is largely correct in that the biggest concerns or most divisive issues are the ones that make people feel like they're losing this sandbox.

I'm one of those excited about Civ-switching and eras, but I am less excited about the map changes and still concerned about the implementation of crises. As was pointed out above, this narrative, quest-like structure can become repetitive. Now, Civ was already repetitive thanks to not being quite a sandbox, to have structured tech trees, and best ways of approaching problems, and that contributes to snowballing and the late-game issues etc.

At any rate, it would be an interesting experiment if we could somehow announce a new iteration with only the district changes, navigable rivers etc and see if, in the absence of these other big changes, one of those would be at the top of the "hate cycle" for the new game. But changes like that don't really make a new Civ. You might need a different engine to accommodate those changes, but it would feel like Civ 6.5, not Civ 7.

I think we're all worried, to varying degrees, about what the constraints will feel like. As worried as I am about the map and the "quests" I still think that the game will win me over on gameplay, so I'm a wait and see type. Others are willing to say those new constraints are too much for them. Fair enough.

But I feel like this is a good summary of where we're at, when it comes to what we know of the gameplay itself and how we imagine it will feel. This is a good way to parse out the feelings so far, I think.

 

[Arent11]

The problem is the lack of a “narrative” is also repetitive, because the game mechanics Always encourage a narrative. Some approaches will require trade offs, others will fail.

So civ 1-6 each had their own game mechanic based narrative. Which for most was Snowball Away (initial build, conquer, click to win)

Well, the narrative was the intro & outro, leading a civ to the stars. In between you had the "sandbox" - exploration, wars, tech discovery, building cities etc. The 4X. That was the story.

Now, you'll have your civ rising and falling. You need clever writers/designers to tell you "oh, your successful civ declines, gets overrun by barbarians and subjugated, but your imperial family flees to another kingdom" (Or something else).

 

[TreVor_ish]

I always treated CIV games as a sandbox, but that doesn't make it a sandbox, not if I obey the rules of the game, right? Is there a game that has no rules? As far as I'm concern, every one has. The difference is, how big of randomness is being used in every one of those rules, and how big of a restrain there is on cores of the type of the game that I choose to play.
There is also a very small detail of moddability of those rules.
Now, if I'm being constrained to move to a certain tile, before a certain turn - that's more of a restrain on one of the cores of 4x - which is base of this franchise.
Who remembers the ocean exploration without the proper tech, to make you lose a unit, right.
What, if I I'm being constrained to hold on to a certain amount of settlements, before a certain turn - that's another restrain on the cores of 4x. How that does translate to a size of game board I'm currently playing, this one we still don't really know. There is also the bigger emphasis on building on that board, while simultaneously making it smaller.
What, if I'm being thrown into some turmoil, because I hit a certain turn, I mean that's ok, it's just something I have to go through 3 times - every time. And after every one of those turmoils, the rules are changed - which is also a big adjustment in CIV core gameplay.

All this certain turns are just more of a strings pulled during gameplay, that I like to see unfold without any hand holding.
This is also a turn base game that can be literally left alone til my hardware dies, or saved and close at any given time, so any shortening the cycle is just psychological.

 

[jdevo]

I'm shocked that the Devs are willing to take these big risks and make big changes considering the huge success Civ6 was. I was expecting a very safe, conservative approach to Civ7.

 

[Krikkit1]

Well, the narrative was the intro & outro, leading a civ to the stars. In between you had the "sandbox" - exploration, wars, tech discovery, building cities etc. The 4X. That was the story.

Now, you'll have your civ rising and falling. You need clever writers/designers to tell you "oh, your successful civ declines, gets overrun by barbarians and subjugated, but your imperial family flees to another kingdom" (Or something else).

Except the exploration and the wars were limited by the gameplay.

Wars that you lost usually ended you. Wars that you won meant you were now the major power through all of world history.

 

[Zaarin]

I'm shocked that the Devs are willing to take these big risks and make big changes considering the huge success Civ6 was. I was expecting a very safe, conservative approach to Civ7.

I was, as well. I'm pleased to be wrong.

 

[Milith]

Why Imperial family fleeing? Why even think of it as a hostile external take over rather than an internal change of identity / culture (albeit one that arose from crisis-related pressures)? I don't think one needs to all that clever to say:

"Ever since your people settled down eons ago, some of them recognised the value of horses: for trade, for war, and as a way of life. [Inspired by the deeds of the barbarians that roamed our borders recently], an offshoot of Egyptians came to centre itself more and more around these majestic creatures. This faction took the name 'Mongolian' and progressively seized the reigns of power while chaos ruled the land. Now that order has been restored, they have lent their name to the next chapter of our history; who knows what pastures they will lead us to next?"

You can replace what's inside [...] with any flavour-text that matches the crisis. And, no, I will not apologise for my double horse puns.

Because we know that the "natural historical progressions" that the devs are putting forward for the most part resulted from foreign takeovers. You're draping your game with the aesthetics of historical phenomenon and then presenting them as something completely different from their public perception. This results in massive whiplash.