The Modern Age livestream is coming December 17th!

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Do we know if there will be a crisis in Modern? I think so, right? Curious to see how that affects the final victory conditions.

Thinking more about legacy paths and victories:

- I think they've done a great job with Economic, this looks really fun. I'm surprised that we didn't see anything to do with corporations, but I like what I see across all three Ages. I'll probably try this first.

- I think they might have done an even better job with Domination. It sounds far less tedious than previous titles, and I love the way it encourages everyone to go after civs with different ideologies in the final Age. War will always be a useful tool for achieving whatever victory you like, so giving Domination some focus makes it a lot more appealing to me. I might actually try it more than the one time I slogged through it in VI.

- Science is largely the same as a victory, which I think we all expected, but the legacy paths in earlier Ages add something extra, it's not simply "fill science yield" from turn 1 until the end. It's not a radical change, unlike other victories, but I don't think it needed to be.

- Culture is definitely where I have most reservations. It's not bad; I like the focus on wonders in Antiquity, and whilst I'm not convinced by religion in Exploration, I do like the idea of hoarding relics. I like archaeology and I'm glad it's back. I hated Rock Bands and I'm glad they're gone. It's just a shame that this final Age has been reduced to archaeology only. I will miss national parks and great works, theming museums, etc. And this feels like the first Civ game where a tourism victory would have made sense; no chance of gaming the system and winning tourism in Antiquity, because it doesn't exist as a yield, but introducing tourism in Modern so that you start generating it from your wonders and relics? I felt sure that they would go in this direction, and I'm a bit surprised they didn't. Culture still sounds fun, using Explorers sounds fun, but I'm a bit saddened by the things we've lost along the way.

My final thought is about the +5% to the victory project based on your legacy points from previous Ages. I like this in theory, because it adds significance to your earlier endeavours, but it has to be balanced, otherwise there's still a big snowball risk as far as I can see.

 

[gdr_willter]

View attachment 712579
Lol. It sounds like they sent up a bunch of accountants.

Firaxis, listen: First Human Space Flight works so much better.

What Human? Human technology? Human gene? Human culture (like golden disk)? Or the living Human Astronauts? It can fit any space flight which done by human race.

They obviously tried to replace the "First Manned Space Flight", so "Staffed" can work for that purpose IMO. "Crewed" will be better tho.

 

[mitsho]

As long as we're having these discussions here, Firaxis has obviously done something right.

 

[local_hero]

Regarding a possible 4th age, I think I'd prefer just extending the Modern Age and add some techs to have that Cold Era gameplay. Otherwise I'd also hope for a rule set that allows me to just play a 3 age game. I think the rule set idea in civ 6 was very good.

 

[NooBusMaxximus]

Sooo, we do understand now what 3 ages are. It's an interesting decision and ages separately seem decent, but in the end i am worried about the game as a whole. First, ages distribution across the history is awkward, there was an attempt to represent different historic plots across the history through the gameplay, but it seems imbalanced: antiquity era is perfect, but then there is a weird and really quick transition to exploration with naval emphasis, and it feels like the whole medieval era got lost and/or distributed between these 2 ages. The transition to modern seems fine, i like it much more and the modern age itself has cool mechanics, really enjoyed the stream. Especially I liked the implementation of factory resources: producing goods for entertainment and trading really makes perfect sense, I also liked the return of ideology paths, the system which cause action around the map and world wars - sounds really cool. At the same time this age seems short and finished too early: somewhere in the middle of 20 century. Maybe that will be fixed with dlc as many people assumed here but I also see here some more fundamental problems in planing ages content in advance: right now it is a bit unbalanced, and requires more polishing after the release. Also transitions itself: at first I was perfectly fine with it. I guess it may fix some snowballing issues, but at the same time the game may feels too separated, like you are playing 3 different mini games with strict boundaries in between: with additions of new mechanics and removal of the old ones instead of gradually changing rules, depending on your progress through science and culture (how it was in previous civs, and I liked such approach a bit more). Overall there are plenty of things that I really like in new civ: narrative events, graphical design, proper and variable diplomacy, commanders, civs with plenty of unique abilities and details, leaders. However, age-related mechanics probably creates more problems for immersion, balancing and the sense of integrity, than offers some solutions for previously existed problems. This is a purely subjective POV, and I hope that I am wrong here or such issues will be fixed after release as usual. Anyway I am still excited about the new civ, and February will show if some of these concerns are real and not made up.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Also transitions itself: at first I was perfectly fine with it. I guess it may fix some snowballing issues, but at the same time the game may feels too separated, like you are playing 3 different mini games with strict boundaries in between: with additions of new mechanics and removal of the old ones instead of gradually changing rules, depending on your progress through science and culture (how it was in previous civs, and I liked such approach a bit more).

Interesting. My concern on this point has been steadily alleviated over the course of the various reveals and livestreams. For me, I think there are enough mechanics tying the Ages together that it will feel like a continuous game. The land you control remains the same, your neighboring Leaders remain the same, your legacy points contribute to the next Age and ultimately to your victory path, the leader attributes and commander promotions remain, you get the option of Traditions in your policy slots, some of your buildings remain forever (wonders, unique quarters). There are probably some things I am forgetting, too. I really think they've done a nice job here, each Age will be distinct but clearly tied together across a single campaign.

 

[Ornen]

A 4th age with unique civs would be a bad development for the game in my opinion. With only 10 civ per age at the current time, we desperately need DLC and expansions to expand the sparse civ rosters in those ages, rather than having those resources go to another age with very few civs. I'd much rather have the modern to future era represented as added mechanics and an expanded tech tree to the second half of the third age, as opposed to a new 4th age.

To add to that, I don't think a 4th age would have enough unique mechanics to make it worthwhile. The most interesting historical developments (in my opinion at least) of the last 300 years of history are already represented in the 3rd age, with the cold war ideology struggle, the industrial revolution, and the world wars. I suspect a possible 4th age would be the return of the "boring late-game" of civ 6.

A fourth age expansion could simply lengthen the “modern age” end the age with a “climate crisis” and then update VII with a lot of themes and features we saw in Gathering Storm.

I very much doubt that we're ever getting a 4th age, though I would probably bet on adding new techs and such alongside the introduction of espionage & climate change mechanics.

But what I'd really love to see is more late antiquity / dark age gameplay. Bring on the Huns & Goths!!

 

[UWHabs]

Do we know if there will be a crisis in Modern? I think so, right? Curious to see how that affects the final victory conditions.

Thinking more about legacy paths and victories:

- I think they've done a great job with Economic, this looks really fun. I'm surprised that we didn't see anything to do with corporations, but I like what I see across all three Ages. I'll probably try this first.

- I think they might have done an even better job with Domination. It sounds far less tedious than previous titles, and I love the way it encourages everyone to go after civs with different ideologies in the final Age. War will always be a useful tool for achieving whatever victory you like, so giving Domination some focus makes it a lot more appealing to me. I might actually try it more than the one time I slogged through it in VI.

- Science is largely the same as a victory, which I think we all expected, but the legacy paths in earlier Ages add something extra, it's not simply "fill science yield" from turn 1 until the end. It's not a radical change, unlike other victories, but I don't think it needed to be.

- Culture is definitely where I have most reservations. It's not bad; I like the focus on wonders in Antiquity, and whilst I'm not convinced by religion in Exploration, I do like the idea of hoarding relics. I like archaeology and I'm glad it's back. I hated Rock Bands and I'm glad they're gone. It's just a shame that this final Age has been reduced to archaeology only. I will miss national parks and great works, theming museums, etc. And this feels like the first Civ game where a tourism victory would have made sense; no chance of gaming the system and winning tourism in Antiquity, because it doesn't exist as a yield, but introducing tourism in Modern so that you start generating it from your wonders and relics? I felt sure that they would go in this direction, and I'm a bit surprised they didn't. Culture still sounds fun, using Explorers sounds fun, but I'm a bit saddened by the things we've lost along the way.

My final thought is about the +5% to the victory project based on your legacy points from previous Ages. I like this in theory, because it adds significance to your earlier endeavours, but it has to be balanced, otherwise there's still a big snowball risk as far as I can see.

I don't think they mentioned anything about a crisis, but they didn't dig deep into the victory setup. My guess is that the "Victory" spot which unlocks the special project basically unlocks the crisis at the same time. So you end up with a "Domination Crisis" vs a "Culture Crisis" etc...

As for the victories, at some level, domination sort of feels too "easy". Like, if you swing a different ideology, you only have to capture like 7 cities to complete it. I feel like it should maybe be 1 point per city, 2 for different ideology, doubled for the civ's capital city. With those numbers, 20 might still be ok for points needed, maybe could be a bit higher (or scaled based on map size, at least) I do like how it's naturally themed on the ideologies, that's a nice twist.

Culture agreed too feels like it could bulk out more. Although I expect that over time they could probably expand it out a little more. Like they could add a similar "artifacts per turn slotted" type of counter like the economic victory. And if they want to expand beyond archaeology, have it so that founding a National Park gives you like a "National Park Artifact". Although they didn't expand on the Explorer units, they did mention that they have to "research" to find the artifacts. Maybe an extra bonus would be to expand that out so that you can go find artifacts in wonder spots for cities you own as well, for example. So basically each wonder you built before would give you a step up on completing the culture quest.

 

[NooBusMaxximus]

Interesting. My concern on this point has been steadily alleviated over the course of the various reveals and livestreams. For me, I think there are enough mechanics tying the Ages together that it will feel like a continuous game. The land you control remains the same, your neighboring Leaders remain the same, your legacy points contribute to the next Age and ultimately to your victory path, the leader attributes and commander promotions remain, you get the option of Traditions in your policy slots, some of your buildings remain forever (wonders, unique quarters). There are probably some things I am forgetting, too. I really think they've done a nice job here, each Age will be distinct but clearly tied together across a single campaign.

Sure, multiple things were done to create as smooth transition as possible, but at the same time too much is changed at one single moment: from resources and adjacency bonuses, to units locations and civ abilities and as soon as I remember from previous streams, war/peace status with other civs: I can imagine situation when you are at war with neighbor, successfully moving forward and then suddenly *age transition* and your progress resets, not depending on somone’s action clearly, but due to some empirical mechanic of worldwide progress. Same with other aspects of transitions: it could be much more fluent in my opinion.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

As for the victories, at some level, domination sort of feels too "easy". Like, if you swing a different ideology, you only have to capture like 7 cities to complete it. I feel like it should maybe be 1 point per city, 2 for different ideology, doubled for the civ's capital city. With those numbers, 20 might still be ok for points needed, maybe could be a bit higher (or scaled based on map size, at least) I do like how it's naturally themed on the ideologies, that's a nice twist.

That can be easily balanced at least. I guess it comes down to how well the AI is able to handle warfare.

 

[chaosprophet]

Firaxis, listen: First Human Space Flight works so much better.

Just Human can be ambiguous, imo. Even if there is no human inside, sending an unmanned rocket to space would count as humans who made the rocket and sent it.

Do we know if there will be a crisis in Modern? I think so, right? Curious to see how that affects the final victory conditions.

The Crisis short strongly imply it will, with lines like "to the entire of the game" and "every single age".

 

[Jeppetto]

Apparently, age progression is also a thing in modern age too. I assume the game will end with 100% age progression and the game will be resolved with score victory.

It may be that the Victory Project completed first bumbs it to 100% and naturally reaching 100% is stand-in for Score/Time Victory.

 

[PauI]

Themingwise I get the following impressions from CIV7 thus far;

Economic is all about connecting
[resources, treasure resources, stations]

Culture is about gathering/ collecting
[wonders, relics, artifacts]

Domination is taking/ (influencing?)
[homelands & distant foreign stuff]

& Science rewards stacking [yields]

 

[Jeppetto]

View attachment 712579
Lol. It sounds like they sent up a bunch of accountants.

Firaxis, listen: First Human Space Flight works so much better.

Hmm... First Stuffed Space Flight... - Homer Simpson

 

[Black Gate]

Considering that the Exploration Age stream already showed us that the transition period skipped a whole 1300 years from 920 BC in antiquity to 400 AD in exploration, I don't see why the lack of post-60s tech means there's a missing age, and not that all the ages are missing techs.

 

[Jeppetto]

Information was already in vanilla, only Future Era was added.
Also this isn't that comparable, Ages now have exclusive features and civs and victory paths can grow obsolete in unprecedented ways.

 

[Mudkip1001]

The Crisis short strongly imply it will, with lines like "to the entire of the game" and "every single age".

I'm sad that Ed deconfirmed that a scripted World War Event as one of those hypothetical Crisises, especially since they added back Ideologies from Brave New World. However, the new Military/Ideology victory of conquering random cities of enemy ideologues, rather than all capitals, may force some larger conflicts instigated by the AI. Although I imagine this change was also made to make the AI actually have a chance at winning a military-related victory, since I have never seen the AI become such a threat (that takes out entire civs) since it usually wins another victory type before that just due to its size... In Civ VI the AI would almost always pivot away from even trying for domination sometime in the industrial/modern age.

If they are truly going to have a new age after Modern, the crises I guess would have to be about the Great Depression, (Maybe Dust Bowl Event?), Spanish Influenza, Revolutions / Red Scare, or maybe Nuclear Proliferation? GS-like Climate Change has to be another era.

 

[Gori the Grey]

For me, the evidence in the livestream tells against a fourth age.

Very early on Ed says he's excited about this live stream because it allows them to show how they've designed for the game to end. I'll go get the exact quote, but it references the three-age model and Modern is the end of the three-age model on which this civ is designed. "This is the end of our story. We have a three-chapter story that we've been telling. This is the big conclusion."

I combine with that a way he phrases things around 19:20ish that our RL modern age has the kinds of things in it that make for a good game ending, e.g. world war, launching a crewed space mission. I unpack that to mean. We're designing a historically-themed empire-builder. We of course have to figure out what will make for the ending of our game, RL to 1950ish has good elements in it that can be used as a dramatic and decisive-feeling game-ender. Not "our game has to end around 2025 because RL history has only reached that date, so we don't know what would make up the content of anything after that," but, "we know that our game needs to have an end point: this spot in RL allows for a dramatic one." It's kind of a fine distinction, but I think it's a real one.

The victories here are called final (or total) victories. Yes, of course, you could move the events that count as final victories into a fourth age, but he said they didn't want them to feel like filling up buckets, so they've made them projects you have to complete. What would count as such projects would all have to be redesigned and all of these present projects dumped. (And with fewer dramatic things to draw on in post-1950 RL history to constitute such projects).

I know there was that one comment about how you can only move troops 20 tiles on a railroad "in this particular age," but the preponderance of evidence (for me) is that Civ 7 will always have just three ages.

 

[thecrazyscot]

Something I noticed is that it appears there is no Crisis in the Modern Age? At least it was never alluded to.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Something I noticed is that it appears there is no Crisis in the Modern Age? At least it was never alluded to.

Yeah, there didn't seem to be any indication of it on the social policy screen in the later save.