Tune in November 7 for an Exploration Age livestream!

[MasterPaw]

View attachment 708807
^ Fleet Commander. I don't understand why this unit is enabled at Age II. graphic representation is either carrack or galleon. And this fleet consisted of three carracks / naus if you will.

Naval gameplay seem limited in age 1

I wonder if we will see some interior seas to have age 1 naval battles

I hope it doesn't mean early civs will never have focus on naval

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

^ Historically there were great naval battles in Age 1. from Nile to Actium.

 

[UWHabs]

As I understand it, we now have 2 kinds of civ opponents. The civs of your homeland, who compete with you for the win and the civs in distant lands, who are there as a stronger.IP, but can't compete with you for the win. Did I misunderstood something?

My take on their reaction there is that the new world civs essentially don't play the same game, they're more or less locked out of the policies. I wonder if they could add a mechanism where their goals essentially are the reverse of the old world civs - ie. they can "capture" treasure fleets, and when they bring them back to their lands, they get points for "defending their resources". I don't think it makes sense to have them try to go the opposite way with treasure fleets.
You need to come up with some alt version for their military path. Maybe you give civs over there a default ability like Mongolia where it's simply about conquering stuff. Even if they're not playing with the same victory conditions, it would be nice if they could be a foil with an adversarial feel.

Some observations that I haven't read (enough of) yet:
- great works and great work slots (aside from the palace) are age-specific. In the stream, Ed had some codices in antiquity, but none of them (nor the slots from the library) made it into the exploration age. With religion being a focus of the 2nd age only, it seems likely that the same happens with relics and temple slots.

- we've been told that trade works differently in each age. We haven't seen any trade in the stream, right? I also didn't catch any merchant unit in the production overviews, but I also haven't looked specifically for them.

- the fact that leader and civ traits give you a respective attribute point per age, and the bonuses down the tree seem quite strong, means some synergies might arise simply from having a good trait fit between your leader and all your civs.

- the meta-progress per leader exists as a gameplay feature that results in at least one unique legacy per age. Isabella's exploration legacy didn't seem like a no-brainer OP choice. I really like that: not just cosmetics, but also not something that you absolutely need to have to stay competitive. Curious how hard they are to unlock. Finish all trees with the leader?

- I wonder how many "your legacy goal works different" civs à la Mongols we'll see in the base game and early expansions. This has huge potential for different play styles.

- I hope that FXS manages to find 2-3 legacy goals per age per type to have some more variety at some point (maybe as focus of the first major expansion). It would be "fun" to not know what's waiting for you in the next age in a way.

- events that don't trigger just because the conditions are fulfilled is a godsend.

Yeah, I don't recall seeing anything different with trade. I do think the whole treasure fleet thing is probably what they were referring to mostly when they talked about "trade" being different in the different ages. Maybe there's other pieces, but IMO given that's tied to resources, that's probably what they meant most. Whether the old trade system is still in place in that era or not, I don't know.


Overall, it looked interesting, although obviously it's so heavily geared towards a race for the new world, my problem is that if you don't have a naval base setup, you're pretty much going to be completely locked out of the era if you don't take a Mongolia-like civ. I mean, I guess you could ignore those trees and really focus on the other trees, but I can definitely foresee a number of games where you essentially are stuck in an inland sea or in impassable ice/tundra, and you're just not going to be able to do any of the new world stuff.

 

[Siptah]

My take on their reaction there is that the new world civs essentially don't play the same game, they're more or less locked out of the policies. I wonder if they could add a mechanism where their goals essentially are the reverse of the old world civs - ie. they can "capture" treasure fleets, and when they bring them back to their lands, they get points for "defending their resources". I don't think it makes sense to have them try to go the opposite way with treasure fleets.
You need to come up with some alt version for their military path. Maybe you give civs over there a default ability like Mongolia where it's simply about conquering stuff. Even if they're not playing with the same victory conditions, it would be nice if they could be a foil with an adversarial feel.

I think the DL civs play a different game in the first two ages, but can compete for the actual victory at the end of the game.

Yeah, I don't recall seeing anything different with trade. I do think the whole treasure fleet thing is probably what they were referring to mostly when they talked about "trade" being different in the different ages. Maybe there's other pieces, but IMO given that's tied to resources, that's probably what they meant most. Whether the old trade system is still in place in that era or not, I don't know.

I had this thought as well. But it would be really strange if there is no option to trade resources and build roads anymore at all. Maybe there's a different kind of trade with DL civs?

Overall, it looked interesting, although obviously it's so heavily geared towards a race for the new world, my problem is that if you don't have a naval base setup, you're pretty much going to be completely locked out of the era if you don't take a Mongolia-like civ. I mean, I guess you could ignore those trees and really focus on the other trees, but I can definitely foresee a number of games where you essentially are stuck in an inland sea or in impassable ice/tundra, and you're just not going to be able to do any of the new world stuff.

You can still go for two paths (culture and science), but I think you'd be waging a big war at some point to a) capture some treasure fleets for at least a bit of legacy points b) capture some cities in the HL (to get coastal access or even one or two DL settlements directly).

Another consequence of this railroading is that coastal towns are more likely to become cities, as you can't buy naval units in towns, right?
By the way, did they have a chance to decide which city becomes the capital of the new age? Or is this a random assignment?

 

[stealth_nsk]

As I understand it, we now have 2 kinds of civ opponents. The civs of your homeland, who compete with you for the win and the civs in distant lands, who are there as a stronger.IP, but can't compete with you for the win. Did I misunderstood something?

As I understand, all civs are equal and all civs could win. Civs on the distant lands treat their lands as homeland and your homeland as distant lands, that's it.

The only difference is what some map types are asymmetrical and, for example, distant lands could be islands while player's homeland is a continent.

My take on their reaction there is that the new world civs essentially don't play the same game, they're more or less locked out of the policies. I wonder if they could add a mechanism where their goals essentially are the reverse of the old world civs - ie. they can "capture" treasure fleets, and when they bring them back to their lands, they get points for "defending their resources". I don't think it makes sense to have them try to go the opposite way with treasure fleets.
You need to come up with some alt version for their military path. Maybe you give civs over there a default ability like Mongolia where it's simply about conquering stuff. Even if they're not playing with the same victory conditions, it would be nice if they could be a foil with an adversarial feel.

They do play the same game and they could beat you with wonders even in antiquity, as was mentioned before.

 

[Evolena]

As I understand, all civs are equal and all civs could win. Civs on the distant lands treat their lands as homeland and your homeland as distant lands, that's it.

The only difference is what some map types are asymmetrical and, for example, distant lands could be islands while player's homeland is a continent.


They do play the same game and they could beat you with wonders even in antiquity, as was mentioned before.

But Ed stated that resources in our Homeland are not Treasure Resources from Distant Land for them... so that is asymmetrical.

 

[Siptah]

I feel just switching HL and DL for DL civs also isn‘t an elegant solution. Treasure fleets going the wrong way, and thus you need to patrol both coasts to capture them as a non-colonizer, for example. And settling/conquering the filled and strong player‘s HL as DL civ is a completely different task from settling/conquering the half-empty player‘s DL. DL is AI only, even in MP, so maybe a solution for DL civ legacy paths is really low in the priority list?

Also, if DL/HL would be a dynamic system, they would have just said that when asked about it.

I‘m also not convinced that DL civs building wonders in antiquity equals them getting legacy and age progress for it.

One thing I wondered when HL/DL was announced was if civs that are exterminated in HL (in antiquity or maybe even exploration) get a free founder in DL instead. But with yesterday‘s stream, chances for this seem getting even smaller than they ever were.

 

[Krikkit1]

I feel just switching HL and DL for DL civs also isn‘t an elegant solution. Treasure fleets going the wrong way, and thus you need to patrol both coasts to capture them as a non-colonizer, for example. And settling/conquering the filled and strong player‘s HL as DL civ is a completely different task from settling/conquering the half-empty player‘s DL. DL is AI only, even in MP, so maybe a solution for DL civ legacy paths is really low in the priority list?

Also, if DL/HL would be a dynamic system, they would have just said that when asked about it.

I‘m also not convinced that DL civs building wonders in antiquity equals them getting legacy and age progress for it.

One thing I wondered when HL/DL was announced was if civs that are exterminated in HL (in antiquity or maybe even exploration) get a free founder in DL instead. But with yesterday‘s stream, chances for this seem getting even smaller than they ever were.

Treasure Fleets is simple enough…the treasure fleet is marked with which “lands” goods it is carrying.

It should be
Different Treasure Resources are on both Lands, but you can only make/cash in Treasure Fleets from resources that are distant to you. ie Sugar is on your homelands, Spice is on your Distant Lands, so you can’t build or cash Sugar Fleets. (you may not even be able to steal them)

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

- I hope that FXS manages to find 2-3 legacy goals per age per type to have some more variety at some point (maybe as focus of the first major expansion). It would be "fun" to not know what's waiting for you in the next age in a way.

I'm still trying to get my head around everything we saw but I think this is my main takeaway. Like, I don't mind this idea of DL and treasure fleets but I think there should be at least one interesting HL alternative so that not all cis following an economic path are forced to go overseas and get treasure.

I think my overriding feeling is that the game has tremendous potential but I'm a bit unsure about some of the implementation.

All the pieces are there to make something phenomenal: I think the Age structure is great, I like the idea of having distinct gameplay elements in each Age, I like the idea of legacy paths, and points to spend in the next Age based on your performance, I like civ switching because imo it fits well within this framework.

But religion looks weak. Hard to get excited about what they've done there. And whilst DL is a cool idea, it seems to dominate Exploration a little too much, basically forcing everyone to engage in treasure fleets. And I don't know how I feel about having Civs in the game that can't win.

Ultimately, I have more questions than answers after the stream. If anything, it has made me more keen than ever to get stuck in and start exploring the game myself, but I can't pretend that I liked everything I saw.

 

[Siptah]

How is symmetry not elegant?

It's not true to RL history to have treasure fleets and colonisation happening the other way, but that's because in RL the technology gap between Eurasia and the Americas in ~1500 was astronomical. But there's no reason why that would be the case in a game of Civ. Depending on how many civs got killed off, how much they expanded, or how they handled the crisis; it's even possibly for there to be more available land on the HL than the DL. Imposing a directionality on which way treasure fleets go, and designating the HL landmass as the one "true" H, even for civs that didn't start there, strikes me as an unnecessarily ugly break of symmetry. And the symmetry that all civs (minor IPs aside) play by the same rules is a foundational one to the series.

Well, of course, as we all know „symmetry is the aesthetic of the unimaginative.“

More seriously, the game is designed to be played from the HL, in SP and MP, simulating the old world based exploration and trade. Making it symmetric (which it isn‘t anyway due to hard coded asymmetric civ numbers) takes away from that experience. If anything, the DL civs should have diverging mechanics and age goals

Maybe the modern age will see triangular trade instead, and it is more important what the HL has to offer to the DL settlements of the HL civs?

And still, if it was dynamic/symmetric, why didn‘t the devs say so when asked?

 

[anemo]

I think the DL civs play a different game in the first two ages, but can compete for the actual victory at the end of the game.

I had this thought as well. But it would be really strange if there is no option to trade resources and build roads anymore at all. Maybe there's a different kind of trade with DL civs?

You can still go for two paths (culture and science), but I think you'd be waging a big war at some point to a) capture some treasure fleets for at least a bit of legacy points b) capture some cities in the HL (to get coastal access or even one or two DL settlements directly).

Another consequence of this railroading is that coastal towns are more likely to become cities, as you can't buy naval units in towns, right?
By the way, did they have a chance to decide which city becomes the capital of the new age? Or is this a random assignmeI

I think that they chose the new capital between 2 cities, if I remember correctly.

 

[chaosprophet]

On the discussion about the Exploration mechanics making so people who complete ignore DL getting some disadvantages, I agree in part but then exploring and getting new land is part of the game that you can always ignore but that obviously would make you weaker than other players if you just sit still. So overall may not be that much of a difference from previous games than it seems, besides the order (first you can only explore the homeland and only later you can explore the distant lands). From the streams we saw so far, you would expect the antiquity age to end with most of the useful space on the homelands to be covered by cities of the various civs (while larger maps would have more land also would have more players). So that means that on exploration, players would naturally have to either conquer other civs land or go explore the distant lands if they want to get more land. And if they don't want to get more land, that is a choice they can make but makes sense they would then have some disadvantages compared to other players, the same if they would stop expanding around turns 150~200 in other civ games.

So basically, if the game natural flow makes so in general there wouldn't be much space left on HL during exploration, then going to DL is less about deciding to go expand there rather than expand on HL, but more about deciding to expand or not expand. And makes sense that a player who decides to not expand at all would have disadvantages.

And lastly, take in account there are apparently interesting dark age legacies if you don't get any bonus in a legacy path, so maybe ignoring one or another for an interesting boost on next age may even be a good strategy.

As I understand it, we now have 2 kinds of civ opponents. The civs of your homeland, who compete with you for the win and the civs in distant lands, who are there as a stronger.IP, but can't compete with you for the win. Did I misunderstood something?

We don't know that yet, but may be the case. We really need some clarification on that.

- we've been told that trade works differently in each age. We haven't seen any trade in the stream, right? I also didn't catch any merchant unit in the production overviews, but I also haven't looked specifically for them.

Good point, I'm curious about trade on exploration. There is probably some just wasn't the focus on this stream, as it already had tons of stuff. Hopefully they make a new exploration age stream in a few weeks to give us more details on stuff that didn't fit the first stream.

- I wonder how many "your legacy goal works different" civs à la Mongols we'll see in the base game and early expansions. This has huge potential for different play styles.

- I hope that FXS manages to find 2-3 legacy goals per age per type to have some more variety at some point (maybe as focus of the first major expansion). It would be "fun" to not know what's waiting for you in the next age in a way.

I can see many civs, especially in DLC with their unique legacy mechanics in the near future. While I think would be a good idea to have different legacies goals, I don't expect them anytime soon as they may need big rebalances, changing the AI to aim for them or decide which option is the best and more aggressively aim for those, etc. Albeit one wya that may be easier to balance is to make them count together instead of separated paths. For example, if an alternative economic is to establish trade routes with settlements that have those treasure resources earning you also one point as long as those routes exist at the end of the age, or depending of the difficulty it earning you less or more points. For example, an idea I mentioned before for antiquity Wonder legacy being instead: Obtain 21 points where every urban district with both slots filled equals one point and a wonder equals 3 points.

By the way, did they have a chance to decide which city becomes the capital of the new age? Or is this a random assignment?

In both streams, they had an option between two settlements, likely the two bigger ones besides the current capital. I just hope the game let me check the map so I can fully remember if one of the two options are really good options for my next civ, as I tend to be forgeteful.

Different Treasure Resources are on both Lands, but you can only make/cash in Treasure Fleets from resources that are distant to you. ie Sugar is on your homelands, Spice is on your Distant Lands, so you can’t build or cash Sugar Fleets. (you may not even be able to steal them)

That would be a good solution, yeah.

 

[Siptah]

Well, of course, as we all know, there are artists who are contrarians and will say the opposite of what everyone feels just to stand out. Not that I'm arguing for perfect symmetry here where no civs have uniques and every landmass is identical down to every last tile. Football is a game with symmetric rules, even if the players are different on each team and one gets red carded.


Why railroad something so specific? Why not build trade systems such that something like that arrises when the circumstances are right (and play with map generation and civ placement to make that happen more often than not)? Didn't the devs say that they were trying to make it symmetric, it just wasn't in the current implementation? It's in the very name, it's absurd for all civs to agree on which continent is the homeland when they didn't start there: the very name homeland and distant land implies that it's relative to a particular civilizations point of view rather than a global constant.

It's pretty fundamental to Civilization that all the civs play by the same rules. Sure, they have different uniques, and there are difficulty bonuses, and the map will spawn them in different places; but the underlying rules are the same. This isn't, eg, a city builder where the player is the only one building a settlement and the AI merely controls raiders that intrude on the player. If you have civs that obey fundamentally different rules with different goals and some are locked out of winning all together, then they're not really civs anymore. Might as well just replace them with barbarians or city states or independent powers.

Now you could, I guess, have different legacy paths and victory conditions for civs depending on whether they start on the same continent as the player or not. But that seems to be a lot of work. And, eventually, players would want to to try out those legacy paths. But they would be unable to do so because, obviously, they can't start on a different continent to themselves. So it's better to put that work into creating new civs with those legacy paths, no matter where they start.

I find it hard to argue, as I would have to argue for a point that I don‘t believe is a good one. Of course, a dynamic system would be better. But I don‘t see any evidence for it and shy evidence against it in the shown build and revealed info.

 

[Evolena]

In both streams, they had an option between two settlements, likely the two bigger ones besides the current capital. I just hope the game let me check the map so I can fully remember if one of the two options are really good options for my next civ, as I tend to be forgeteful.

My hypothesis is rather 2 Coastal Settlements.

 

[chaosprophet]

My hypothesis is rather 2 Coastal Settlements.

Do you mean always that being the case for exploration? Or maybe the game picking two settlements that are likely the best related with your choice of next age civ?

 

[Krikkit1]

I'm still trying to get my head around everything we saw but I think this is my main takeaway. Like, I don't mind this idea of DL and treasure fleets but I think there should be at least one interesting HL alternative so that not all cis following an economic path are forced to go overseas and get treasure.

I think my overriding feeling is that the game has tremendous potential but I'm a bit unsure about some of the implementation.

All the pieces are there to make something phenomenal: I think the Age structure is great, I like the idea of having distinct gameplay elements in each Age, I like the idea of legacy paths, and points to spend in the next Age based on your performance, I like civ switching because imo it fits well within this framework.

But religion looks weak. Hard to get excited about what they've done there. And whilst DL is a cool idea, it seems to dominate Exploration a little too much, basically forcing everyone to engage in treasure fleets. And I don't know how I feel about having Civs in the game that can't win.

Ultimately, I have more questions than answers after the stream. If anything, it has made me more keen than ever to get stuck in and start exploring the game myself, but I can't pretend that I liked everything I saw.

I think the science victory is enough of an “economic” non expansion path (ie just boost yields)

I do agree I don’t quite like the asymmetry of the HL v DL. (one is part empty and can’t get the treasure fleets)

 

[Evolena]

Do you mean always that being the case for exploration? Or maybe the game picking two settlements that are likely the best related with your choice of next age civ?

I was thinking the former, but the later sure is interesting as making use of these starting biases!

 

[Krikkit1]

My hypothesis is rather 2 Coastal Settlements.

I think it was their 2 other cities, ie you can only switch your capital to another city.

 

[chaosprophet]

This stream also confirms that overbuilding can be done over any non ageless building, and not something like an upgrade, where you could only overbuild a library with an specific science building or just any science building, as some theorized.

Expanding on this I mentioned before, I wonder if the best strategy would be, aside from the unique district in case your civ have one, to have at least one slot on an urban district being a non ageless building, or basically to avoid having two ageless/persistent buildings on the same urban district. That way, on the next age when you overbuild, you have more options of adjacency for the new buildings and may also make it not as bad to not plan too ahead, as you can correct course of a new age.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Every major empire in human history employed some system to move the resources they extracted from the provinces or colonies to the capital or metropolis. Treasure fleet is just one such system.

I don't mind Civ 7 using one system to represent all of them, and I also hope we can at least have a land-based "treasure fleet" mechanic for a land-based empire and its colonies (Russia proper and Siberia, for instance).