Threshold for a civilization to feel like a civilization

[Gedemon]

That too, but I’d really like it if every civs city names changed each era

@SeelingCat 's Rosetta mod would be perfect for civ7.

 

[Caprikel]

Aside from decorative aspects, I prefer it when the gameplay for different civs is unique, as in I can't play one civ the same way as I would another. Asymmetric civs have always been best at this, since restricting what I can do is typically far more meaningful and impactful to changing my gameplay experience than pure bonuses. Civ 5's Venice is of course the best example of this. Bonuses are obviously important for allowing new strategies, but without restrictions I can ultimately play the civ like any other, which makes it not really feel like I'm playing a unique civilization. Conditional bonuses are also good at making gameplay unique, but do of course come with the downside mentioned in the opening post, in that missing out on bonuses because there was nothing you could do to get them, such as missing out on religion, feels bad as a player. I much prefer conditional bonuses that focus on things that you can control, like where you settle, or how you build your cities.

 

[sTAPler27]

Honestly even with civ switching I think this might be the game that nails that. The cities feel like proper cities with architecture unqiue to each culture that is very much visible and not sparcely constrained to a couple districts. Combine that with the very unique unit models and each civ having multiple unique units and buildings and a unique civic tree there will be a lot of gamepaly and visuals that instill who you're playing as.

 

[dagriggstar]

I've wondered in terms of city art, if they'd be better off if the city art was tied to the landscape rather than the civilization itself. So if you play England but get a desert start the cities you get cities built with Adobe bricks/architecture, maybe with some emblem or piece of architecture (In this case maybe large chimneys or tudor windows or a royal emblem or something) mixed in.

 

[Krikkit1]

I've wondered in terms of city art, if they'd be better off if the city art was tied to the landscape rather than the civilization itself. So if you play England but get a desert start the cities you get cities built with Adobe bricks/architecture, maybe with some emblem or piece of architecture (In this case maybe large chimneys or tudor windows or a royal emblem or something) mixed in.

The thing is many civs have the same landscape…Shawnee, Norman, and Ming are all the same landscape….which do you use for a bank in a temperate forest/flatlands?

 

[dagriggstar]

Shawnee style I’d say is wetter so more swamp/marsh admixture.

Norman style has some coast element compared to the other two. Grass/forest/coast.

Ming well I think more of the capital as defining the style which would probably be grass/plains but taking your lands as a whole could be seen as desert/plains/grass/tropical without vegetation.

But I was thinking more generally anyway, like starting from the ground up.
Forest/Grass might give us a Western Europe base
Marsh/Grass might give you native South Eastern US
Grass on its own might give you something more north east Asian
Rough/Grass and perhaps it’s Northern India

 

[Dale]

So here's the question - what is the bare minimum amount of game elements you think you need to make you feel like you are the civilization you are playing as

To be able to play a single civilisation for the whole game. That is the bare minimum to make me feel like I am the civilisation I am playing as.

 

[BK_PEARL]

for me its wonders, cant stomach zulus making the Parthenon, completely lightyears away in culture styles.

 

[Naokaukodem]

So to be clear, we are talking about inidividual civilizations (I usually call them factions) rather than the game civilization.

It's not necessarily two different things. Civilization the game is quite committed with civilizations the factions. You'll see a number of people who play the game only for the latter. (they usually love uniques and leaders work, and love to discuss about them, I don't know if you noticed )

So here's the question - what is the bare minimum amount of game elements you think you need to make you feel like you are the civilization you are playing as (what's the minimum for you to get the "Yes, I am civilization x" basically) ?

City names and names in general. Well, at least for France. I guess skin color and unit design could be important for playing any other country than mine, especially "exotic", and buildings art style too. But that would be massive work for something I barely consider while playing. (I usually play frenetically, absorbed by the one more turn, and that's not always to my advantage, especially in Civ6 where it seems I can't put enough thinking in my actions)

And, but there we enter trouble waters, maybe some kind of music, provided it's not insanely annoying (Civ6... ), but i have to admit that "musics representing nations", beside the African hunter-gatherers are quite the ridiculous folkloric ones or pompous. (I wonder if they considered the Marseillaise for France , and if there is other national anthems in the game (6). There sure is some folkloric rubbish, like the awful American Country music and other pompous nation-related crap. (I hate western ones the most, and maybe Chinese or Asian ones too, like if they got out of a ridiculous opera or something - doesn't mean I dislike every form of exotic art representation, I quite love the Akira soundtrack for example, and Japanese "HoooOOOooo *dum* *dum* Hooooooooo" thing because it cracks me up and I feel like a connoisseur when listening at that stuff rofl))

And a bonus question - How do you feel when you don't use all aspects of a civilizations uniqueness (Like if you don't use a civilization ability for instance) ?

Disappointed. If I pick Incas and I spawn too far from mountains for example, I quit. Just because I expected to play Incas with insane yields. It's quite the same with any civ really, because I'm like "I will try a cultural win so I will pick Egypt for wonders", except I win a science victory nowhere close to a cultural victory, but in that case I have to go all the way through to figure it out. I know I 'm like the automatic gameplay person and always tend to science victory though, but I hardly can see a civ in the base game that makes for obvious cultural victory yet. (and dam it, I never find the time to build theater squares, and where do we get this artist for that boost before we can get artists ?)

 

[The Fanatical]

1)Unique appearance for a civilization's uniques and non-unique units and buildings.

2)Unique design for a civilization that draws inspiration from real history and tries to incorporate it via gameplay mechanics.

3) An appropriate leader leading his/her civilization. He/she doesn't have to be a head of state, but at least he/she needs to have belonged to that civilization in real history.

4) More authentic city names (that idea about city names changing on transition sounds amazing and should be incorporated).

The three of these seem to have been improved in Civilization VII like never before. I have seen a unique appearance for most of the units of a civilization, with a few exceptions, such as the Archer unit for Greece and Rome being identical. Likewise, I have seen unique and non-unique buildings with a fitting look for their specific civilization, aside from a few buildings like the Barracks in the Antiquity Age and the Dungeon in the Exploration Age. I have seen civilizations being designed gameplaywise from real historical events that shaped them and made them famous, and I have seen more accurate names for cities.

The third one might be fixed in some years from now when almost all cultures will get at least one native leader in the game, aside from a few of course (Mississippians etc.), but that won't be the case at launch for obvious reasons.

 

[sTAPler27]

@SeelingCat 's Rosetta mod would be perfect for civ7.

I was genuinely hoping they'd do this. A gripe I had with Humankind is your empire would be a mishmash of random city names

 

[UWHabs]

Count me as someone else who barely notices art style differences. Now, granted, I'm sure that's one of those pieces that I would notice if it was different or missing, but if you showed me a random screenshot where you stripped out any city names, and just showed me the districts/improvements/unit models, I doubt I'd be much higher than random chance at guessing which civ is which.

To me, it's about the abilities. If the civ design pushes me down a path, then I feel invested. I don't have to be 100% - I'm allowed to settle inland cities as Portugal. But if I'm playing Portugal, I'm leaning all in to trade routes. If I'm Mongolia, I'm cavalry rushing. I don't tell myself I have to use every aspect of the civ, as long as I get most of them. I mean sometimes civs just have a scattershot of bonuses, I'm never realistically getting all of them play time in a single game if the map doesn't lean me that way.

But that's probably because civ gives me that now. If I went back to civ 2 where you don't really have uniques, would i still feel "Roman" vs "Egyptian" depending on who I picked? I dunno, probably. I think I could convince myself to lean one way or the other just by playing the game. I know back in the day I would sometimes like to role-play as Canada, and would go through my Canadian city list as I expanded out rather than using the default city names.