To stand the test of time - or a little argumentative essay on why civ7 should allow retention of the old civs in the new eras

[Krikkit1]

Not in a TSL game if, for example, Egypt switches to Songhai. Those two are thousands of miles apart. Others do work, although it's tough to see Rome as a Norman city.

If you want a True Switch Location:TSwL (instead of True Start Location:TSL) then the only way to unlock Songhai have to be modded to “control some of its “Location”

So in a civ 7 TSwL Egypt might be forced to go Abbasid if it didn’t expand…if it expanded far south west it could become Songhai, northwest fot Spain (or even Norman if it expanded farther North)…if it expanded far enough east it could become Chola.


Each civ would only have one automatic unlock of the closest civ to their original start location (Egypt, Persia and Greece would probably all get Abbasids if they didn’t expand)

 

[I was NC]

Each civ would only have one automatic unlock of the closest civ to their original start location (Egypt, Persia and Greece would probably all get Abbasids if they didn’t expand)

Or... you just don't switch. Problem solved.

 

[Zaarin]

Not in a TSL game if, for example, Egypt switches to Songhai. Those two are thousands of miles apart. Others do work, although it's tough to see Rome as a Norman city.

Is it? It's only 111 miles from Gaeta to Rome.

Spoiler :

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

'Successor' systems should be more consistence with time frame actually. For Rome, the successor should be either Byzantium or Italian States.
Normans are too ambiguos to me. they have the best knights yes but their domains never have centralized Pan Norman governements. like ones in Italy did NOT follow Guilliame de Normandie in London. Also while Normans did conquer England. they no longer call themselves as such about one or two centuries before the nominal Age II ends. There were Crusades. where hosts are referred to as either 'English', 'French'. and no 'Norman' hosts. (also the first known instances sailers were used as warships. this due to their 'long range' capabilities rather than combat characteristics. (all 'North European Clinker' ships can sail all the way from Baltic to The Levant without much difficulty, something Mediterranean vessels of the 12th-13th Centuries couldn't do.

 

[Krikkit1]

Or... you just don't switch. Problem solved.

Well that’s another way you could mod it.

 

[seasnake]

Well that’s another way you could mod it.

I don't think you can mod out the switch requirement. I think you will have to create a civ in the Exploration/Modern civ with the same name. You may be able to make it so that playing as the Ancient Mississippians unlocks the Exploration Mississippians (perhaps even have Mound Builders > Mississippi > Choctaw). It will be really hard I think to make units, infrastructure wonders associated with each one of these civs, but I'm sure someone will do it.

If you can tweak the switching requirements, you might essentially force a single-civ continuity in this way, and make it more like Classic Civ.

 

[Krikkit1]

I don't think you can mod out the switch requirement. I think you will have to create a civ in the Exploration/Modern civ with the same name. You may be able to make it so that playing as the Ancient Mississippians unlocks the Exploration Mississippians (perhaps even have Mound Builders > Mississippi > Choctaw). It will be really hard I think to make units, infrastructure wonders associated with each one of these civs, but I'm sure someone will do it.

If you can tweak the switching requirements, you might essentially force a single-civ continuity in this way, and make it more like Classic Civ.

Thats the mod I was talking about (dummy civs)

I much prefer Firaxis letting you keep the Name of a civ while getting the uniques of your new civ for that age.

 

[I was NC]

Is it? It's only 111 miles from Gaeta to Rome.

True, they are close geographically, I just don't think of Rome itself as ever having been a Norman city.

 

[Siptah]

True, they are close geographically, I just don't think of Rome itself as ever having been a Norman city.

And I rarely think of Rome in a civ game as being „Rome, the city state.“

 

[Zaarin]

True, they are close geographically, I just don't think of Rome itself as ever having been a Norman city.

For a while I think most civ transitions are just going to be close geographically. (Though in the case of the Normans, they spoke a Latin-descended language and Roman-derived culture so I'm okay with that particular switch.) I do look forward to Civ7's equivalent of Rosetta, though, that changes your city names to something more appropriate for your new civ. E.g., Roman Rotomagus becomes Norman Roem becomes French Rouen. (Though...Rome will have to give up Rotomagus if we ever get the Gauls. )

 

[I was NC]

And I rarely think of Rome in a civ game as being „Rome, the city state.“

Okay. However the city was more than just part of a city state, the whole empire served it. There's even a saying:

The Meaning and Ancient Origin of the Saying 'All Roads Lead to Rome'

The ancient Romans built an amazing network of roads everywhere they went, such that roads from every city eventually led back to Rome. This gave rise to the famous saying 'All roads lead to Rome', which simply means that there are different paths and ways to reach the same goal.

penlighten.com

Regardless, I don't see Normans as being the inheritors of Rome, and don't want to switch.

 

[I was NC]

If nothing else, it would be to satisfy your curiosity of "What if the Phoenicians/Carthaginians continued on after Rome?"

I mean technically we did get the Fatimids in Civ 6, in the form of Vizier Saladin.

Or here's a solution: for ancient civs without a cultural and geographic successor, make one up based on history. Idea taken from another thread:

Civ7: Successors civilizations to Egypt

In the preview videofeed. Egypt under Hapshepsut (?) narratives demonstrated how Civ7 gameplay would be, including civ changes when aging up. in this videofeed. Songhai is chosen. AFAIK Songhai is slightly sub sahara Africans with Mali being their enemy. and their domain rarely touches Old Egypt...

forums.civfanatics.com

 

[sTAPler27]

I feel like if you choose to keep a civ your age victory conditions should be made easier but your unique abilities become weaker, to show that while it's impressive you survived the crisis you were weakened by it.

 

[queenpea]

Very thoughtful post! I share many of the same concerns, especially when it comes to cordoning off indigenous civs like Maya to pre-modern ages.

I’ll be buying the game regardless, unless it truly bombed by critics, which is very unlikely. Even if the Steam score is mixed, I will be buying it to try out the new mechanics for myself.

 

[ehecatzin]

I don't think the transcendance mechanic from Humankind (advancing to the next age with current civ) would really work in civVII, for two reasons:

The ages are larger, if we had an ancient and classical Era, going to Egypt in classical doesn't quite feel out of place. But in civ VII going to the next Era with Egypt would mean bumping heads with...the Normans? Second reason being, there's particular mechanics to each era and civs are using said mechanics, it would put you in a disadvantage automatically unless there were a set of "vanilla" mechanics for civs to use, but at that point are you really playing Egypt in Exploration? or just vanilla template no.3

To your point about peoples not just dissapearing, I absolutely agree, one thing I'd love to see is pops with culture tied to narrative events, and visual style. So for example, our Egyptians turn into Abbasids, well yes, and most of our population is still Abbasid (and their housing still is Egyptian), and we could get a series of narrative events about managing our population to either assimilate them into the new identity or hold to the old one (or go for a multicultural empire). That way we could have very Abbasid Egyptians, or very Egyptian Abbasids. couple that with conquered peoples and it could open a lot of oportunity, to show that civs don't just dissapear but are built on top of one another and keep evolving.

I think the main problem of civ switching will be very alleviated once we get more civs to flesh out the "historical" and regional paths

Now once they run out of the usual suspects I'd love to see plausible alt history, or civs that are either sandwiched between the blurry era limits, for example, if Khmer can be Antiquity, I don't see why a Western Roman empire couldn't be Exploration and live side by side with Byzantium. All this to say, that once civ VII development reaches the point in Civ VI when it started to add magic, heroes and vampires, I'd rather they add plausible "what if" civs with interesting unlocks,.

Personally I would have liked it to be 1 more era, and split Antiquity into Ancient and Classical, as it's the longer time lapse, that way we could have...(to bring our Egyptian example back) old Kingdom Egypt and New Kingdom, and civs like Sumer and Babylon could have their time before the likes of Rome and Greece show up.

 

[Leucarum]

Prefacing this with the fact that I am looking forward to Civ7... Albeit with reservations about civ switching.

My big worry is that Civ switching is going to be a feels-bad event. It's also probably the biggest set of moments in a playthrough, and if it feels more like a loss than a gain it's going to have an outsized impact on what players remember!

There's a board game called Euphoria, which is meticulously well designed - but the focus is about forcing unpleasant decisions on other players. Every time I've played it I can't help admire how much precision went into the design, but also, the play experience is full of feels-bad moments and I'm constantly wishing I didn't have to do X or Y. With civ switching and crises as major decision points... I worry that Civ7 will feel the same way in the end. You can have an amazing design, where every choice was made for good, understandable reasons, but if the moments you remember are the lows, does that matter?

I almost feel it might have been better if civ switching was something you built hype towards, rather than did to recover from negatives...

 

[Kyriakos]

"...to choose a ready-made leader who will stand the test of time, and to hell with the civilization" ^^

 

[Krikkit1]

Prefacing this with the fact that I am looking forward to Civ7... Albeit with reservations about civ switching.

My big worry is that Civ switching is going to be a feels-bad event. It's also probably the biggest set of moments in a playthrough, and if it feels more like a loss than a gain it's going to have an outsized impact on what players remember!


I almost feel it might have been better if civ switching was something you built hype towards, rather than did to recover from negatives...

There is the problem that civ switching will occur just after the Crises. This is one area where I think the Narrative events can help
1. The Wording... if it focuses on new approaches to a new age, as opposed to old things going away
2, The opportunity to retain/change the name of your civ/cities

(This is also where I think the "gameplay unlocking" of new civs is a good thing... ie it helps you to see the new civs as opportunities that you strive for)

 

[Leucarum]

There is the problem that civ switching will occur just after the Crises. This is one area where I think the Narrative events can help
1. The Wording... if it focuses on new approaches to a new age, as opposed to old things going away
2, The opportunity to retain/change the name of your civ/cities

(This is also where I think the "gameplay unlocking" of new civs is a good thing... ie it helps you to see the new civs as opportunities that you strive for)

Being able to pick stuff to carry over and where you spend points is a good example. It's like giving the player a goody bag full of endorphins. The challenge for civ switching is gonna be how to make it feel more like "I'm gaining something" than "I'm losing something" - it'll always be both, but this is something where presentation will make a big difference to player experience - and you're on the money that a lot of it is semantics and how the lead in is presented I think.

And yeah, gameplay unlocks are a really good way to push this feeling - if they were more like quest chains than "I haz horses" that would probably feel a lot better.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

I like this post @Krajzen and fully endorse it. I would be like a 9/10 rather than a 0/10 if this was the way they developed the game, and I'd probably buy pre-day one rather than not in the foreseeable.

I just don't like that the game is taking my toys away, and telling me I have to play with different ones now because antiquarians play with Romans, and explorers play with spaniards.

What if I'm an antiquarian and I want to play with spaniards? Who is firaxis to tell me what age norms I should live by?