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

[Gorbles]

The problem is taking a 4x historical sandbox series and trying to introduce forced/structured narrative into each campaign that serve a gameplay purpose first and foremost under the guise being "more historical'

Are ages, or eras, or whatever we're calling them not more historical?

If we want to simulate the rise and fall of political or cultural "empires" while the people are sustained throughout, aren't ages better than what we had previously?

I don't see continuing a single civ from 4000 BC to 2150 AD (I think that's roughly where VI ends these days) is remotely historical. Ignoring the leaders, the actual continuation of the civ, right? The tech tree is maxed out and the same for all civs in the game (a contrast to this would be something like Sword of the Stars if you've played that). The civics tree likewise. All civs reach the same endpoint and vary only due to the differences assigned to them at the start of the game.

 

[TheGrayFox]

Are ages, or eras, or whatever we're calling them not more historical?

Not really, the choice to divide the game into three seperated eras and introduce civ swapping was done for the sake of addressed gameplay concerns first and foremost and as already explained what Firaxis is presenting us is actually a pretty poor abstraction of human history.

If we want to simulate the rise and fall of political or cultural "empires" while the people are sustained throughout, aren't ages better than what we had previously?

I'd ask why are we trying to arbitrarily force contrived rise and falls of political or cultural empires in the Civilization series? A series about building an empire/civilization (singular) and standing the test of time?

But to answer the question, no I don't think ages are better than what we had previously and I believe if Firaxis was really so passionate about modeling the rises and fall of empires and a concept of "layering" of civilizations, they could've done so in a much more elegantly designed and dynamic manner. I would've rather seen a expanded return to internal management/colonies/revolutions of IV than seperating the grand campaign into three seperated game rounds and arbitrarily forcing civ swapping going against the core series tagline of building an empire to stand the test of time.. What they're doing seems to be throwing out the baby with the bath water (imo ofcourse)

I don't see continuing a single civ from 4000 BC to 2150 AD (I think that's roughly where VI ends these days) is remotely historical.

Neither is immortal leaders, the Incans competing to build Notre Dame, Rome founding Judaism, Benjamin Franklin leading the Greeks, etc, etc. Again I don't want civilization to be a 1:1 attempt at simulating human history.

Ignoring the leaders, the actual continuation of the civ, right? The tech tree is maxed out and the same for all civs in the game (a contrast to this would be something like Sword of the Stars if you've played that). The civics tree likewise. All civs reach the same endpoint and vary only due to the differences assigned to them at the start of the game.

I mean this as respectfully as possible when i say I'm failing to understand the point

 

[Gorbles]

I'd ask why are we trying to arbitrarily force contrived rise and falls of political or cultural empires in the Civilization series? A series about building an empire/civilization (singular) and standing the test of time?

But to answer the question, no I don't think ages are better than what we had previously and I believe if Firaxis was really so passionate about modeling the rises and fall of empires and a concept of "layering" of civilizations, they could've done so in a much more elegantly designed and dynamic manner. I would've rather seen a expanded return to internal management/colonies/revolutions of IV than seperating the grand campaign into three seperated game rounds and arbitrarily forcing civ swapping going against the core series tagline of building an empire to stand the test of time.. What they're doing seems to be throwing out the baby with the bath water.

So, full disclosure, I completely skipped IV. I mean, I also skipped III, but less folks seem concerned about that It's seen as more of a sin to not have experienced IV. My 4x, grand strategy and RTS upbringing kinda weaved together a bit, I went a bit like this: Civilisation, SMAC, Age of Empires, Age of Empires 2, more SMAC, Total War, Dawn of War, probably more SMAC, Command and Conquer, Battle for Middle Earth, more Dawn of War, SotS, Civ 5 / CiV. Roughly. I went from CiV into VI (meanwhile RTS' between 2010 - 2015 kinda fell off of the map a bit).

But in terms of "why are we trying to force the rise and falls of empires in Civ", it's because you're still guiding that empire. Or "empire". Whatever we want to phrase it as. It's hard to put into words. If we agree that strict adherence to history isn't necessary, and that immortal leaders (specifically) are a part of that franchise package (as fans), at least in my opinion, "empire" is rather loose. What does it matter if there's an "age" that "ends", so long as I'm in control of how it ends, and what I bring through to the next age?

Maybe it's because I got on so well with VI, but it feels like the ages in that game, but codified into an actual game mechanic that has some kind of historical relevance, vs. the more game-y feel of VI in accruing as many points as possible to avoid a Dark Age / hit a Golden Age. And maybe that's a negative to you, because I can 100% see the gamification influence. But I still consider what we've seen of VII to be more historical and not less. Like I said, no real knowledge of IV, but presumably they moved away from whatever IV had for a reason. It's not like they don't have anyone there who remembers IV. Firaxis is pretty rare as far as I'm aware in that they're pretty good at retaining staff (famous members who have moved on notwithstanding).

I mean this as respectfully as possible when i say I'm failing to understand the point

I'm contrasting what we know of VII to what I know of VI and V, in that every single civ. in those two games always ended up at pretty much the same state in the end. VI diversified this a bit by unpacking choices into permanent Districts, but you could still mostly achieve everything you wanted with every city, and every civ. (barring tall vs. wide, or other moderately high-level choices) ended up with an eight-slot government researching infinite Future Techs.

Now you have a lot more customisation available to you, directly tied to your competence in handling game mechanics to boot. You're more in control of the narrative than you were before simply because despite the hard ending of each of the three ages, you get to experience the "lategame" three times instead of once.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Are ages, or eras, or whatever we're calling them not more historical?

If we want to simulate the rise and fall of political or cultural "empires" while the people are sustained throughout, aren't ages better than what we had previously?

I don't see continuing a single civ from 4000 BC to 2150 AD (I think that's roughly where VI ends these days) is remotely historical. Ignoring the leaders, the actual continuation of the civ, right? The tech tree is maxed out and the same for all civs in the game (a contrast to this would be something like Sword of the Stars if you've played that). The civics tree likewise. All civs reach the same endpoint and vary only due to the differences assigned to them at the start of the game.

You could do this with properly designed game mechanics.

Civ6 with the right mods can do a fairlt decent job of this organically without the need for Developer Fiat.

Of course Developer Fiat is far easier to code.

 

[Gorbles]

You could do this with properly designed game mechanics.

Civ6 with the right mods can do a fairlt decent job of this organically without the need for Developer Fiat.

Of course Developer Fiat is far easier to code.

You're going to have to explain both what you mean by "properly designed game mechanics" and "Developer Fiat".

 

[TheGrayFox]

So, full disclosure, I completely skipped IV. I mean, I also skipped III, but less folks seem concerned about that It's seen as more of a sin to not have experienced IV. My 4x, grand strategy and RTS upbringing kinda weaved together a bit, I went a bit like this: Civilisation, SMAC, Age of Empires, Age of Empires 2, more SMAC, Total War, Dawn of War, probably more SMAC, Command and Conquer, Battle for Middle Earth, more Dawn of War, SotS, Civ 5 / CiV. Roughly. I went from CiV into VI (meanwhile RTS' between 2010 - 2015 kinda fell off of the map a bit).

I wouldn't call it blasphemy but will say its a shame because you probably missed out on what many would consider the best game in the series. Civ V with mods is still my favorite but if those mods didn't exist, I'd still probably be a Civ IV stan. There are some seriously cool mechanics and historical abstractions that we lost in the transition from IV to V and I sincerly do believe that a return to IV's cultural system and fleshing out its internal empire management/revolution/colonization mechanics to allow for dynamic seccessions and revolutions and the creation of new civs from those events (like many overhaul mods did) would've been a much more interesting and "historically accurate" way of modeling the rise and fall of civilization than what Firaxis has given us with VII.

I've played and enjoyed most of game you've listed but I notice that you that you didn't list any Paradox titles. If you enjoy history and RTS, you should give EU4 an honest try. I think it would much better satisfy your apparent desire for historical accuracy than a 4x game like Civ ever will.

But in terms of "why are we trying to force the rise and falls of empires in Civ", it's because you're still guiding that empire. Or "empire". Whatever we want to phrase it as. It's hard to put into words. If we agree that strict adherence to history isn't necessary, and that immortal leaders (specifically) are a part of that franchise package (as fans), at least in my opinion, "empire" is rather loose. What does it matter if there's an "age" that "ends", so long as I'm in control of how it ends, and what I bring through to the next age?

But you're not really in control of what you bring through to the next age, as you can't decide to bring your original civilization and its langauge, archetecture, cultural ability into the next age and make it span the test of time like established by decades of series precedent... instead you're now forced into a contrived, gamey, and quite arbitrary crisis system at the same time as everyone else on the planet and then forced to pick what sometimes will amount to a completely different cultural/civilization group sometimes from opposite sides of the continent, which is narratively your original being replaced either through collapse or some a nebulously defined "evolution" according to the game/Firaxis.

Maybe it's because I got on so well with VI, but it feels like the ages in that game, but codified into an actual game mechanic that has some kind of historical relevance, vs. the more game-y feel of VI in accruing as many points as possible to avoid a Dark Age / hit a Golden Age. And maybe that's a negative to you, because I can 100% see the gamification influence. But I still consider what we've seen of VII to be more historical and not less. Like I said, no real knowledge of IV, but presumably they moved away from whatever IV had for a reason. It's not like they don't have anyone there who remembers IV. Firaxis is pretty rare as far as I'm aware in that they're pretty good at retaining staff (famous members who have moved on notwithstanding).

I don't intense feelings towards IV's Age system one way or the other tbh, I don't mind Golden Age/Dark Ages because its not intrusively and arbitrarily forcing me to pick another civilization in a series about making civilizations span the test of time under some arguable notion of "historical accuracy". We're going to probably have to agree to disagree about what Firaxis has presented us as being anymore "historically accurate" than previous Civs. There is nothing "more historical" about Abbasids suffering an arbitary crisis at the same time as every other civilization on earth and then becoming Buganda because... Africa? Even entertaining the historical reality that Civilizations rise and fall.

I'm contrasting what we know of VII to what I know of VI and V, in that every single civ. in those two games always ended up at pretty much the same state in the end. VI diversified this a bit by unpacking choices into permanent Districts, but you could still mostly achieve everything you wanted with every city, and every civ. (barring tall vs. wide, or other moderately high-level choices) ended up with an eight-slot government researching infinite Future Techs.

Now you have a lot more customisation available to you, directly tied to your competence in handling game mechanics to boot. You're more in control of the narrative than you were before simply because despite the hard ending of each of the three ages, you get to experience the "lategame" three times instead of once.

But i'm not more in control of the narrative because what was a sandbox 4x game is now split into three seperated and seemingly narrative driven rounds and i'm forced to switch cizilizations between them for no other reason than the devs thinking I need to experience the game three time? Sure it's more customisation but i didn't ask for leaders to be seperated from their civs and for civs to swap like hats between seperate rounds. That's not the customazation or direction I particularly want from the civ series

Civ is a 4x game, the game should end up in the same state of a handful of civilizations/players who managed to explore, expand, exploit and exterminate better than the others competing to win.

 

[Thormodr]

I find it a bit of a stretch to link people's interest in Civ to this "quest for immortality". Storytelling too as been a part of human culture since ancient times, and often the best stories are the ones that deal with loss. Maybe the fascination with immortality and loss go hand in hand, but had the norm been switching Civs and were we now trying immortal Civs for the first time, the argument could be made just as easily of how loss and the impossibility of eternity is what drew people to the game. And such an argument would be equally vague and tenuous.

No stretch at all. Art imitates life and Civ is art

 

[BuchiTaton]

But the whole point of Civ 7 is that your Empire (or Civilization) DOES exist on and on.

It doesn't die. It grows and gets stronger. It keeps the best of its past and adds new layers from the current Age.

The Incan Empire is a tragic tale because it DID fall . . . but an Incan empire that survived wouldn't have stayed the same . . . it would have evolved . . . at least I sure hope so (I don't fancy ritual sacrifice of children and animals in a modern society!).

I don't expect my Roman empire to keep running legions around in the 1800's or to fail to modernize its government, religion, and society.

Change was already in previous civ games, you just pointed it. Modernization through technologies, government, religion and society were already in CIV. As we were already supposed not be using Roman legionaries in later eras in previous CIV games.

One point is that to be able to advance many civs are going to be forced to change their identity in ways that are historically grievous and shallow in narrative gameplay terms, when Firaxis has the tools to provide options for any CIV do change in different ways. So they are taking away the traditional option for CIV players to change history and keep the Inca State until the Contemporary Era with the pretext of add a change mechanic, when we can have BOTH, the option to change if you want but also the chance to keep your identity. Or why Japan would has the right to claim to be same Imperial dinasty until these days but Inca wont if you dont get conquered?

 

[aieeegrunt]

You're going to have to explain both what you mean by "properly designed game mechanics" and "Developer Fiat".

Game mechanics that actually reflect how and why empires often stagnated or fell apart when they overextended.

Developer Fiat is civ7 forcing your civilization to end Because We Say So at the era change, regardless of how well or poorly you played. It’s a crises coming out of nowhere regardless of the actual state of the game, Because We Say So.

 

[Gorbles]

Game mechanics that actually reflect how and why empires often stagnated or fell apart when they overextended.

Developer Fiat is civ7 forcing your civilization to end Because We Say So at the era change, regardless of how well or poorly you played. It’s a crises coming out of nowhere regardless of the actual state of the game, Because We Say So.

The Crises reflect how your empire faces challenges, and your success (or failure) in handling them. If your game ends, that represents the empire falling apart. Transitioning into a new Age by evolving into a Civ choice for that new Age is a success story. How well you play literally defines a) if you progress into the next Age and b) what advantages you can start with if you do. That's the impression I got from the last livestream.

Anything can be "arbitrary" if you call it such. You're not explaining your choice of words. Why is Civ VII as we've seen it "developer fiat", and your imagined version (that you havent described, despite my asking) not?

Everything a developer chooses to put into a game is "railroading" from a certain point of view, because every system you need to interact with, you need to. Even optional systems are likely to harm you if you completely ignore them.

I get you don't like what you've seen of VII. But I don't think that just because you disagree with the choices the developers have made, that this makes them or the systems related to them "arbitrary". And I don't think just because a system is a mandatory, that it's "developer fiat". Are victory conditions developer fiat? Is the necessity of founding a city developer fiat? Yes, the Age structure is new. Yes, to play the game you have to interact with it.

So what? Why is this different from any other part of the game that you need to interact with? Is it simply because it's another thing that you have to? Is that why you dislike it?

If so, I understand, but I don't think it supports all these labels you're trying to attach to the mechanic.

 

[Gorbles]

This is a doublepost, sorry, XenForo didn't refresh properly on my phone.

I've played and enjoyed most of game you've listed but I notice that you that you didn't list any Paradox titles. If you enjoy history and RTS, you should give EU4 an honest try. I think it would much better satisfy your apparent desire for historical accuracy than a 4x game like Civ ever will.

I played a bit of EU3 when I was younger. I even own 4, not sure how much of the DLC though.

I found EU3 a bit slow. Too much grand strategy, not enough real-time. Something like SotS just had a bit more juice to it (plus I'm a sucker for sci-fi).

Then again it's been a while. Open to giving EU4 a go, in what little gaming time I have.

But you're not really in control of what you bring through to the next age, as you can't decide to bring your original civilization and its langauge, archetecture, cultural ability into the next age and make it span the test of time like established by decades of series precedent... instead you're now forced into a contrived, gamey, and quite arbitrary crisis system at the same time as everyone else on the planet and then forced to pick what sometimes will amount to a completely different cultural/civilization group sometimes from opposite sides of the continent, which is narratively your original being replaced either through collapse or some a nebulously defined "evolution" according to the game/Firaxis.

I mean, language isn't a thing in Civilisation. The entire game is localised in the language of your choice.

Do we know if the leader's spoken languages change through the Ages? That'd be neat (imo). Language isn't static. Hatshepsut shouldn't be talking in the same way around 1000 AD than she did circa 4000 BC.

And we know part of the architecture persists from the livestream. You can also earn some kind of points that let you purchase abilities that reflect your victories in the previous Age? This all feels very contiguous to me. Or at least, more contiguous than it seemed when we had less knowledge about the game to discuss.

r.e. being forced to pick. Sure, you have to engage with the system (if you're not just playing a single Age game, which I believe is possible?). But you're not forced to make anachronistic choices. Or rather, the progression is tailored to allow you a range of options that reflect the game you've played and the choices you make.

I get that you think the progression mechanics aren't accurate enough, that the official choices are too anachronistic for you. But at the same time that's always going to happen as a part of the abstraction process. It doesn't mean they can't add more. Maybe in the future they'll add choices you feel are less ridiculous. Maybe they won't.

The game at launch is always the least complete version even if the devs do a good job with it. Even if they do a great job. That's just the nature of post-release support these days. Games, if popular, change after release. That's driven as much by consumers as it is publishers. The way I see it, and this isn't me saying that you therefore have to accept it, is that the developers have to balance these progression choices with coverage across the world throughout history.

Which means ultimately it comes down to trying to emulate the rise and fall of empires at all, or not bothering. @aieeegrunt seems to think it can be done, somehow, in a different way. You said you felt the mechanics in IV were a better fit. So we all on some level see a way that this can be modelled. We just disagree on the particulars (or at least I'm happy with what I see in VII).

Sure it's more customisation but i didn't ask for leaders to be seperated from their civs and for civs to swap like hats between seperate rounds. That's not the customazation or direction I particularly want from the civ series

I understand, but we're back at preference. I completely get it.

Civ is a 4x game, the game should end up in the same state of a handful of civilizations/players who managed to explore, expand, exploit and exterminate better than the others competing to win.

I don't think VII doesn't. Handling Crises tests you as a player, and even tests all players equally (by coming in at the same time . . . I think? I still haven't literally watched the livestream yet, been relying on CFC poring over it ).

What part of the changes in VII don't reward playing better than other players, in the classic 4x categories?

 

[TheGrayFox]

This is a doublepost, sorry, XenForo didn't refresh properly on my phone.


I played a bit of EU3 when I was younger. I even own 4, not sure how much of the DLC though.

I found EU3 a bit slow. Too much grand strategy, not enough real-time. Something like SotS just had a bit more juice to it (plus I'm a sucker for sci-fi).

Then again it's been a while. Open to giving EU4 a go, in what little gaming time I have.

Paradox games are definitely more grand strategy than RTS. Only reason I suggest EU4 is because EU games definitely do the historical rise and fall of nations thing so much better Civ ever will.

I mean, language isn't a thing in Civilisation. The entire game is localised in the language of your choice.

Do we know if the leader's spoken languages change through the Ages? That'd be neat (imo). Language isn't static. Hatshepsut shouldn't be talking in the same way around 1000 AD than she did circa 4000 BC.

And we know part of the architecture persists from the livestream. You can also earn some kind of points that let you purchase abilities that reflect your victories in the previous Age? This all feels very contiguous to me. Or at least, more contiguous than it seemed when we had less knowledge about the game to discuss.

You're right that the game is localized to langauge of choice but what i meant was the naming conventions of your cities and peoples. If my civilization is Greek and I advance to the next age and my potential new capital and all my cities are suddenly being named after Noman French holdings that feels disconnected, just like having leaders seperate from Civilizations.. As for archecture. it may persist between rounds but that doesn't change the fact that civ that either suceeds or evolves from my earlier civilization may now be building different archetcure style over my original civilization. Sure there may still be an immortal leader who levels up and some legacy traits that carries over between them but that alone doesn't address the immersive disconnect many feel.

You know what would feel more contigious to me and many of the people complaining? Not unnessecarily splitting the game into three seperated campaigns and literally forcing civ swapping between those rounds.

r.e. being forced to pick. Sure, you have to engage with the system (if you're not just playing a single Age game, which I believe is possible?). But you're not forced to make anachronistic choices. Or rather, the progression is tailored to allow you a range of options that reflect the game you've played and the choices you make.

I get that you think the progression mechanics aren't accurate enough, that the official choices are too anachronistic for you. But at the same time that's always going to happen as a part of the abstraction process. It doesn't mean they can't add more. Maybe in the future they'll add choices you feel are less ridiculous. Maybe they won't.

But one of the problems is you are and will be forced to make completely anachronistic choices and the very abstraction Firaxis has created isn't actually "more historical" and ultimately end up being restrictive and heavyhanded design that undermines the sandbox and mantra the series is built on. Abbasids did not become Buganda in history and certainly the whole entire world didn't all undergo arbitrary (at the whims of the devs team's authority) crisises at the same exact time causing them to might morph into completely different civilization/cultural groups between rounds

There are SOOOO many other ways the devs could've gone about allowing a wider range of customization based on choice and addressing the gameplay concerns these changes were meant to fix. Instead we got this...

The game at launch is always the least complete version even if the devs do a good job with it. Even if they do a great job. That's just the nature of post-release support these days. Games, if popular, change after release. That's driven as much by consumers as it is publishers. The way I see it, and this isn't me saying that you therefore have to accept it, is that the developers have to balance these progression choices with coverage across the world throughout history.

Which means ultimately it comes down to trying to emulate the rise and fall of empires at all, or not bothering. @aieeegrunt seems to think it can be done, somehow, in a different way. You said you felt the mechanics in IV were a better fit. So we all on some level see a way that this can be modelled. We just disagree on the particulars (or at least I'm happy with what I see in VII). I understand, but we're back at preference. I completely get it.

I'd rather Firaxis have not have bothered if this is how they're going to do it. What Firaxis has presented is NOTHING like the mechanics @aieeegrunt and myself think would be a better fit. We want organic and dynamnic, Firaxis gave us a railroad with narrative. To touch upon your question about railroading and arbitrariness, game mechanics and rules themselves aren't the railroad. Typically when people talk about railroading, they're talking about the devs taking away choice from the player in order to force them to experience designed narrative events as planned.

I don't think VII doesn't. Handling Crises tests you as a player, and even tests all players equally (by coming in at the same time . . . I think? I still haven't literally watched the livestream yet, been relying on CFC poring over it ).

What part of the changes in VII don't reward playing better than other players, in the classic 4x categories?

It doesn't test players equally as players can all undergo different crises, if i'm not mistaken.

The Crisis mechanics and splitting the game into three were designed specifically to address Firaxis concerns with snowballing and late game engagement first and foremost. Their functions of "test of the players" is completely secondary to the fact that devs wanted a way to keep players closer to each other in progress and an ability to soft reset of the game board/state believing it will make late game more interesting.

 

[Gorbles]

You're right that the game is localized to langauge of choice but what i meant was the naming conventions of your cities and peoples. If my civilization is Greek and I advance to the next age and my potential new capital and all my cities are suddenly being named after Noman French holdings that feels disconnected, just like having leaders seperate from Civilizations.. As for archecture. it may persist between rounds but that doesn't change the fact that civ that either suceeds or evolves from my earlier civilization may now be building different archetcure style over my original civilization. Sure there may still be an immortal leader who levels up and some legacy traits that carries over between them but that alone doesn't address the immersive disconnect many feel.

You know what would feel more contigious to me and many of the people complaining? Not unnessecarily splitting the game into three seperated campaigns and literally forcing civ swapping between those rounds.

"more contiguous" in this case is "more immersive", which I can't and won't judge, because it's subjective. What I'm trying to say is that there are aspects to the Age progression that we know about in Civ VII that seem less silo'd and more contiguous than you seem to view them as. Have you seen the recent livestream, or followed it?

And yes, the newer civ choice will make its mark over the top of the old civ choice. That's very historical. The Civ VII article about London being a case study for this is very apt, because there are literally layers of road you can dig up in London that timestamp the city at various points in time. We paved tarmac over cobbles. Cobbles over whatever else. Layers on layers of built-on ground over the actual earth, that date back centuries. Our major cities were, in a lot of cases, prominent Roman settlements. That were then repurposed or doubled-down on by the Vikings and / or Normans. Only certain landmarks remain. Take another city, in another country. Look at Rome. You have the Colosseum, you have Vatican City, you have a thousand fountains (more or less - there are even fountain-oriented tours you can take around Rome. Or were, when I went 15 years ago or so). But a lot of the architecture is modern Italian. History sticks out here and there, but it's still Italy. They still celebrate thousands of years of cultural history. Despite the fact that a modern Italian is as incomparable to a Latin-speaking Roman than a Briton or Celt is to me, a modern-day Brit.

But one of the problems is you are and will be forced to make completely anachronistic choices and the very abstraction Firaxis has created isn't actually "more historical" and ultimately end up being restrictive and heavyhanded design that undermines the sandbox and mantra the series is built on. Abbasids did not become Buganda in history and certainly the whole entire world didn't all undergo arbitrary (at the whims of the devs team's authority) crisises at the same exact time causing them to might morph into completely different civilization/cultural groups between rounds

You're forced to make choices. I appreciate you consider the existing choices to be significantly anachronistic, but I don't consider them to be. And I'd be very interested to see how you design a similar kind of game without making compromises for the sake of scope. Either you pick kingdoms that literally sat on top of each other, which greatly constrains your choices in subsequent Ages (and also removes latitude in early game civilisations, in the historical cases that they have no progression because they were wiped out), or you compromise. Firaxis opted to compromise. But more on that below.

I'd rather Firaxis have not have bothered if this is how they're going to do it. What Firaxis has presented is NOTHING like the mechanics @aieeegrunt and myself think would be a better fit. We want organic and dynamnic, Firaxis gave us a railroad with narrative. To touch upon your question about railroading and arbitrariness, game mechanics and rules themselves aren't the railroad. Typically when people talk about railroading, they're talking about the devs taking away choice from the player in order to force them to experience designed narrative events as planned.

So what would it look like, in your opinion? I have no frame of reference r.e. Civ IV, so could you explain how you would do the system, and what mechanics would be used? I will be critical in my response, because I sincerely believe it's hard to nail "organic and dynamic" on a video games development budget / timeframe. I'm a games modder, I know how mods can work. I also know people have their lives to work on them. I'm also a professional software developer, and I know the difference between my pet hobbies and code I have to ship on a deadline.

Sorry if you feel I'm getting too nitty-gritty, I feel this is a very "games design-y" topic, and both that and software development are things I have a lot of direct (and indirect) experience with. If you'd rather not (time, effort, etc) and simply agree to disagree on Firaxis bothering, I'm fine with that too.

Also r.e. railroading, I know it's about the lack of choice. But it has little to do with "narrative events". It could be anything. 2000s-era shooters tended to railroad players by having straightforward level design (the "corridor shooter" archetype). "railroading" isn't inherently bad - like most things in games design, it depends significantly on the greater context.

It doesn't test players equally as players can all undergo different crises, if i'm not mistaken.

We don't know much about it, but if the Crises can differ, and the Crises differ based on where you are as a player and what you're doing with your civ, then it's better than everyone getting the same Crisis. Imagine you're playing a military game, and you get an economic crisis. Is that fair, vs. an economic player getting the same crisis? Or vice versa, an economic player getting hit with a massive military uprising and then the militaristic player getting hit with the same one?

I (always) reserve judgement until I know more, and of course the reality is rarely as good as I'm imagining it to be, but going through different crises doesn't mean that a crisis doesn't test each player equally (or close to).

 

[TheGrayFox]

"more contiguous" in this case is "more immersive", which I can't and won't judge, because it's subjective. What I'm trying to say is that there are aspects to the Age progression that we know about in Civ VII that seem less silo'd and more contiguous than you seem to view them as. Have you seen the recent livestream, or followed it?

And yes, the newer civ choice will make its mark over the top of the old civ choice. That's very historical. The Civ VII article about London being a case study for this is very apt, because there are literally layers of road you can dig up in London that timestamp the city at various points in time. We paved tarmac over cobbles. Cobbles over whatever else. Layers on layers of built-on ground over the actual earth, that date back centuries. Our major cities were, in a lot of cases, prominent Roman settlements. That were then repurposed or doubled-down on by the Vikings and / or Normans. Only certain landmarks remain. Take another city, in another country. Look at Rome. You have the Colosseum, you have Vatican City, you have a thousand fountains (more or less - there are even fountain-oriented tours you can take around Rome. Or were, when I went 15 years ago or so). But a lot of the architecture is modern Italian. History sticks out here and there, but it's still Italy. They still celebrate thousands of years of cultural history. Despite the fact that a modern Italian is as incomparable to a Latin-speaking Roman than a Briton or Celt is to me, a modern-day Brit.

I've watched both showcases and livestreams, nothing in the latest one allievated any of my concerns or disagreements with the choice

You're right, civilizations don't last forever (though many have lasted for thousands of years with relatively little ethnic/demographic change). Peoples often migrated, conquer, displace, and/or assimilate one another while governments and empires collapse throughout human history, cultures change with time, and there are many cities whose histories are layered by these different civilizations having existed over one another, etc, etc, etc but again I remind you that Civilization series is not a historical simulator, it is a historically themed 4x game and the entire series was built with the mantra of building a civilization to stand the test of time.

I'd also point out that many of the aforementioned things about history are already abstracted and modeled in the series. The only difference is now the devs seemed adament on forcing a narrative by making me change my civ's entire identity two times through the game because "hey look a bucket filled and its now time for everyone to experience an arbitrary crisis all at same exact time because the devs have decreed it."

You're forced to make choices. I appreciate you consider the existing choices to be significantly anachronistic, but I don't consider them to be. And I'd be very interested to see how you design a similar kind of game without making compromises for the sake of scope. Either you pick kingdoms that literally sat on top of each other, which greatly constrains your choices in subsequent Ages (and also removes latitude in early game civilisations, in the historical cases that they have no progression because they were wiped out), or you compromise. Firaxis opted to compromise. But more on that below.

So what would it look like, in your opinion? I have no frame of reference r.e. Civ IV, so could you explain how you would do the system, and what mechanics would be used? I will be critical in my response, because I sincerely believe it's hard to nail "organic and dynamic" on a video games development budget / timeframe. I'm a games modder, I know how mods can work. I also know people have their lives to work on them. I'm also a professional software developer, and I know the difference between my pet hobbies and code I have to ship on a deadline.

Sorry if you feel I'm getting too nitty-gritty, I feel this is a very "games design-y" topic, and both that and software development are things I have a lot of direct (and indirect) experience with. If you'd rather not (time, effort, etc) and simply agree to disagree on Firaxis bothering, I'm fine with that too.

Also r.e. railroading, I know it's about the lack of choice. But it has little to do with "narrative events". It could be anything. 2000s-era shooters tended to railroad players by having straightforward level design (the "corridor shooter" archetype). "railroading" isn't inherently bad - like most things in games design, it depends significantly on the greater context.

Explaining how expanded mechanics from overhaul mods work when you have no reference to IV at all will be tough but I'll try and as succinctly as possible and to the best of my memory

Civilization IV's unsuccesful attempt at limiting expansion was with maitainance for cities that increased with distance from capital. Culture was modeled on a per city basis and your cities demographics and borders would fluctuate and be determined by the cultural output of your city and its neighbors (including your own and neighboring civs). This culture system like many others would tie into the city happiness mechanics which was also modeled on a per city basis.

So for example a small/newly founded or conquered city on the outskirts of your empire might be overwhelmed by the cultural output of a neighboring civs depending on proximity and the borders would shift overtime in the enemies favor and might demographically be 70% enemy 20% you own culture 10% some other civ near by. This (among several other internal management factors) would make your city unhappy and if this culture pressure is too overpowering it could cause your city to "flip" to the dominant culture (only excemption being conquered cities by defaullt) There was also a cool feature that if you settled a certain amount of cities on an overseas continent that you could choose to create a colony, which was a new civilization that would be your vassal or suffer exhuberent overseas maitainance cost. (this colony could revolt and gain independence if unhappy enough)

Now these mechanics alone wouldn't stop civilizations from expanding as rapidly as maintainance would allow or prevent a player/s running away with the game but what overhaul mods with revolutions did is overhaul all of the above and introduce a stability mechanic tied to civic choices and internal management to work into an event system that could create more dynamic rebellions and revolutions from unhappy citiies. Particularly unhappy cities could revolt and potenitally form factions to make demands of their rulers having the potential to eventual devolve into them forming a brand new civ and demanding indpendence, autonomy, or even to join other player civilizations if left unchecked and the players had the choice of responding to these revolutions by sating them bribes, choosing force, granting autonomy, or even chosing to continue playing as the rebels. Depending on how factors and management you could see small localized insurgencies or civilizations being completely ripped apart by revoltuion with those who agressively overextend and find themselves weary from constant war being the most likely to suffer, helping to curb snowballing.

The Revolution mods ended up creating a sense of rise and fall in Civilization games and helped address snowballing and fatigue with the late game while also remaining completely dynamic and organic events created within the sandbox established by the game's mechanics without restrictively/arbitrarily forcing a narrative on the player and without underming the series' mantra of building an empire to span time

 

[BuchiTaton]

And yes, the newer civ choice will make its mark over the top of the old civ choice. That's very historical. The Civ VII article about London being a case study for this is very apt, because there are literally layers of road you can dig up in London that timestamp the city at various points in time. We paved tarmac over cobbles. Cobbles over whatever else. Layers on layers of built-on ground over the actual earth, that date back centuries. Our major cities were, in a lot of cases, prominent Roman settlements. That were then repurposed or doubled-down on by the Vikings and / or Normans. Only certain landmarks remain. Take another city, in another country. Look at Rome. You have the Colosseum, you have Vatican City, you have a thousand fountains (more or less - there are even fountain-oriented tours you can take around Rome. Or were, when I went 15 years ago or so). But a lot of the architecture is modern Italian. History sticks out here and there, but it's still Italy. They still celebrate thousands of years of cultural history. Despite the fact that a modern Italian is as incomparable to a Latin-speaking Roman than a Briton or Celt is to me, a modern-day Brit.

London is an example of CIV7s weak justification and likely poor implementation of transition mechanic.
1- CIV series already have regional change of buildings and units visuals. Previous CIV games have some degree of regional sets with their own temporal progression. These are supposed to represent the changes that came from new technologies and particular historical sucesions.
2- The historical examples include civs failing to others. Some people are sugar coating the civ transition as "your civ suffered a crisis but overcomed it by changing your identity!" in a "use your imagination" exercise. Still some of the most friendly examples like the British one include the conquest and some level of culturation of celtic Britons by the Romans, then the Anglosaxons, then the Norse and then the Normans. Then come the way worse examples if we look to cases like the Native Americans.
3- The way a style is replaced does not match with what we know from history. The original CIV7s example of Egyptians to Mongols is perfect to show how bad for immersion this system is. Historical Mongols were the ones being culturized and genetically diluted into most of the regions they conquered. Same with Egypt were the Nubian and Greeks legitimized themselves by assuming Egyptian titles and customs. Then when foreigns changed Egyptians and Mongols(+Turks) changed conquered peoples that included some degree of higher violence and fanatism.
4- Not every region have "low identity impact" historical transition options and not all transitions are the same. It is not a surprise to see Firaxis using an example like the UK for civ transition, or some even worse like Japan. Still it is dishonest when some people pretend the change of France before and after their Revolution is the same that Inca to Peru.
5- The implementation can be better with some changes. If Firaxis want us to pretend that some of the in game transitions are not "forced failures" they can make them to have some flavor and by the way better traceability, so instead of turn most of Egypt visuals and names into Mongols ones it could be the oposite, only the new uniques are Mongol and your civ are named Khanate of Egypt.
Also since some of the historical changes are goverment and religion changes instead of ethnocultural ones, so all civs should have the option to get Age flavored "generic" goverment and religion focuses transitions like a Revolutionary Babylonian Republic (with some uniques related to that kind of ideologies) .

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

It's quite baffling that some people are still saying that you "end" your civilization and forced to change your civilization as if you were playing an entire different game because it changes name and gains new bonuses, while also:

• keeping your cities with their names;
• keeping the unique social policies (traidition) of your previous civ;
• keeping the buildings of your cities;
• keeping the world wonders you built;
• keeping the relationships you had with your neighbors;
• keeping bonuses based upon how you played your previous era (economic, scientific, cultural, militaristic);
• keeping your leader...

It's like saying someone changes entirely their personality because they changed hair colour or their name. You wouldn't say that a woman marrying, taking her husband's name and decided to go from brunette to blonde is an entirely different person, right? You wouldn't say that she "ended"? You'd realize that she's the same person, just with new aesthetics, a new name and potentially new "abilities" (joint income, for example)?

So why would your object permanence suddenly fail in this instance? It's still the same civ, except your architecture changed (which already happened) and the name changes; heck, if I recall correctly from the livestream, even your colours stay the same. Are so many people thrown away by a simple name change? I try to understand, truly, because saying that your civilization "ended" while 90% of what you built, you keep it, is difficult for me to understand.

 

[Kev1916]

It's quite baffling that some people are still saying that you "end" your civilization and forced to change your civilization as if you were playing an entire different game because it changes name and gains new bonuses, while also:

• keeping your cities with their names;
• keeping the unique social policies (traidition) of your previous civ;
• keeping the buildings of your cities;
• keeping the world wonders you built;
• keeping the relationships you had with your neighbors;
• keeping bonuses based upon how you played your previous era (economic, scientific, cultural, militaristic);
• keeping your leader...

It's like saying someone changes entirely their personality because they changed hair colour or their name. You wouldn't say that a woman marrying, taking her husband's name and decided to go from brunette to blonde is an entirely different person, right? You wouldn't say that she "ended"? You'd realize that she's the same person, just with new aesthetics, a new name and potentially new "abilities" (joint income, for example)?

So why would your object permanence suddenly fail in this instance? It's still the same civ, except your architecture changed (which already happened) and the name changes; heck, if I recall correctly from the livestream, even your colours stay the same. Are so many people thrown away by a simple name change? I try to understand, truly, because saying that your civilization "ended" while 90% of what you built, you keep it, is difficult for me to understand.

Maybe the analogy that may stop you being baffled , is try getting married then get divorced then get re-married then getting divorced all to a person called "Sharon".

You may have the same car as before even the same pet , but as sure as hell it aint the same Sharon ... and sorry but changing from the Zulu's to the Mongol's is just a laughable comparision to a hair job and "joint income " say what

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

changing from the Zulu's to the Mongol's is just a laughable comparision to a hair job and "joint income " say what

It's not a laughable comparison if you can get around the idea that you're playing an alternate history game, not a recreation of actual history. If "this didn't happen in history, therefore I don't want it in my game" is a show stopper for you, that's fine. This won't be the game for you.

To me, the worst part of the Civ-switching we've seen so far as the default historical options. You shouldn't be able to just go Norman to France as a default, it should depend on what happens during your game.

 

[Zoeff]

I wouldn't call it blasphemy but will say its a shame because you probably missed out on what many would consider the best game in the series. Civ V with mods is still my favorite but if those mods didn't exist, I'd still probably be a Civ IV stan. There are some seriously cool mechanics and historical abstractions that we lost in the transition from IV to V and I sincerly do believe that a return to IV's cultural system and fleshing out its internal empire management/revolution/colonization mechanics to allow for dynamic seccessions and revolutions and the creation of new civs from those events (like many overhaul mods did) would've been a much more interesting and "historically accurate" way of modeling the rise and fall of civilization than what Firaxis has given us with VII.

Having started the series with 5 and never experienced 4 beyond seeing some gameplay on youtube, what exactly happens in 4 with these "empire management/revolution/colonization mechanics"?

But you're not really in control of what you bring through to the next age, as you can't decide to bring your original civilization and its langauge, archetecture, cultural ability into the next age and make it span the test of time like established by decades of series precedent... instead you're now forced into a contrived, gamey, and quite arbitrary crisis system at the same time as everyone else on the planet and then forced to pick what sometimes will amount to a completely different cultural/civilization group sometimes from opposite sides of the continent, which is narratively your original being replaced either through collapse or some a nebulously defined "evolution" according to the game/Firaxis.

To me, having different labels for your civilization in different ages feels fine simply because these transitions aren't an instantanous event in my head canon. There is even a small jump in years where the game skips the bit of you picking up the pieces and reorganizing yourself during which your units upgrade to the lowest tech of that age. People don't instantly change all the architecture or speak a different language but change more slowly over the span of several generations. This new civilization then has a history of having been a different civilization the past with the same cities and such.

In the Civ franchise we always had procedurally generated maps and could have things like Japan and Poland spawn next to each other above antactica. Because of that I have no problem with Egypt becoming Mongolia. In that example, my head canon is simply that in this universe the Egyptians decided that roaming the lands on horseback terrorizing your neighbors is more lucrative than farming a large river delta.

 

[Kev1916]

It's not a laughable comparison if you can get around the idea that you're playing an alternate history game, not a recreation of actual history. If "this didn't happen in history, therefore I don't want it in my game" is a show stopper for you, that's fine. This won't be the game for you.

To me, the worst part of the Civ-switching we've seen so far as the default historical options. You shouldn't be able to just go Norman to France as a default, it should depend on what happens during your game.

Dont think anyone has said Civ 1-6 is a recreation of actual history? what's laughable imho is comparing dying your hair to the morphing of your Civ , what happens if your bald like me
Btw all people in history dont live for 4k years.
And another thing re the Civ mutation , many people myself included were really looking forward to the next installation of Civ - to stand the test of time.
This "historical options" stretches reality just to pump out more Dlc with under cooked "Civs" to pad out the "ages"

This will not be the game for me your right but it has ( ) all to do with history , just a lame idea that Imho takes the series to a rather sad end