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[McSpank01]

So, while agree that there always will be some negative perception of age transition, I don't think it would matter for majority of players once other things will be ironed out.

I guess it all depends how much you can imagine it can be 'ironed out'. The age transition is such an enormous part of the game that will always be hard to ignore.

I can imagine a world where all 3 mini games feel fulfilling and viable, and give you enough direction whilst keeping the continuity with what happened in the previous age. I'm not totally against the age transition per se. I think they need to deal with the enormous sense of loss that can occur in that transition. However I think there is a conflict in the vision of 3 separate games, with the idea that users could start in any age and one of continuity. It will be very hard to satisfy both visions.

I would be excited to start a new age if it didn't feel like I have to start all over again. Too much effort was put into pulling players back and rubber banding. In reality they should have made the ages more distinct, so that the advantages gained in one age don't always translate exactly into the next. If an age is suddenly about exploration and colonisation, then having a huge land empire could be more of a hinderance for example. I'm not sure they have approached it in the right way.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I would be excited to start a new age if it didn't feel like I have to start all over again.

I think this discussion happened in another thread already. For many players, starting new age already doesn't feel like starting a new game - too many things are actually carried over, much more than those which are reset. Now with units staying in place the reset will be even smaller.

 

[McSpank01]

I think this discussion happened in another thread already. For many players, starting new age already doesn't feel like starting a new game - too many things are actually carried over, much more than those which are reset. Now with units staying in place the reset will be even smaller.

Clearly those people are a small enough percentage that Firaxis have been spending a lot of dev energy trying to make age transitions less jarring. I’m not sure there is much value in trying to act like there is no problem to solve, the producers of the game can see the data and all the feedback and they know there is an issue.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Clearly those people are a small enough percentage that Firaxis have been spending a lot of dev energy trying to make age transitions less jarring. I’m not sure there is much value in trying to act like there is no problem to solve, the producers of the game can see the data and all the feedback and they know there is an issue.

I don't have any statistics on how big this percentage is and I doubt even Firaxis has. Although if we assume standard gaussian distribution and put most polar opinions we've seen on tgis forum at the ends of the curve, I'd say the majority of players have problems with age transition, but they aren't critical to them.

And yes, I think that's exactly why Firaxis puts so much efforts into it.

 

[Gedemo]

I don't really understand why we have to lose the city's statut (of city or town), and why we have to lose the trade routes if they survive to barbarian and plagues?

 

[McSpank01]

I don't have any statistics on how big this percentage is and I doubt even Firaxis has. Although if we assume standard gaussian distribution and put most polar opinions we've seen on tgis forum at the ends of the curve, I'd say the majority of players have problems with age transition, but they aren't critical to them.

And yes, I think that's exactly why Firaxis puts so much efforts into it.

Depends what you mean by critical. I’d describe it one of many issues the game has which is preventing more players from playing. It also seems to be one of the major problems players have given how Firaxis are acting and talking about it.

 

[Leucarum]

I guess it all depends how much you can imagine it can be 'ironed out'. The age transition is such an enormous part of the game that will always be hard to ignore.

I can imagine a world where all 3 mini games feel fulfilling and viable, and give you enough direction whilst keeping the continuity with what happened in the previous age. I'm not totally against the age transition per se. I think they need to deal with the enormous sense of loss that can occur in that transition. However I think there is a conflict in the vision of 3 separate games, with the idea that users could start in any age and one of continuity. It will be very hard to satisfy both visions.

I don't know that this is a dichotomy you can fix. Part of the goal of distinct ages is that play patterns be very different. Even if all 3 ages were perfectly balanced, players would still inevitably have favourites. It's part and parcel of what they were trying to achieve.

As it is though, antiquity seems to have almost unanimously picked up all the best versions of the legacy paths. Which is kind of the worst place for firaxis to be in.

I would be excited to start a new age if it didn't feel like I have to start all over again. Too much effort was put into pulling players back and rubber banding. In reality they should have made the ages more distinct, so that the advantages gained in one age don't always translate exactly into the next. If an age is suddenly about exploration and colonisation, then having a huge land empire could be more of a hinderance for example. I'm not sure they have approached it in the right way.

I think a large part of the issue is that once you start playing as you describe - building for the next age not the current one - the rubber banding doesn't even work... This might be the Civ version with the worst snowballing effects once you adjust your play style.

But it also creates a delayed gratifcation effect, where you are building to be better later. And the payoff isn't great right now.

I was initially pretty bullish that it was a good idea to try the changes Civ7 made. They were trying to address longstanding issues with the game. Unfortunately, the devil's in the details and I think they've failed to achieve their goals (snowballing still there, no incentive to play to the late game) while creating a bunch of new own-goals (jarring transitions, variability of how fun the ages are, a general revolt against civ switching)...

I really hope the first expansion is effectively a backpedal on Civ7's 1/3 new concepts. I don't think the game will survive otherwise, and that would be a real shame because the 1/3 iterative improvements Civ7 made (no builders, army commanders, influence, etc...) are beyond fantastic and are the perfect foundation for rhe best Civ game you could make.

 

[Siptah]

I don't really understand why we have to lose the city's statut (of city or town)

This is actually not only a negative. It gives you some flexibility, especially moving from era 1 (usually mostly cities at the end) to era 2 (you don't need many cities right away).

and why we have to lose the trade routes if they survive to barbarian and plagues?

For some reason, trade needs to be researched again. But I find this one is very thematic, apart from the need to re-research. Decline or collapse of trade networks is a symptom of and reason for political and cultural changes. So, this fits very nicely with the transition imho, and building a new (and this time multi-continental) trade network requires some new investments and also gives you more benefits. Or if you want to keep it more basic – not all routes that you sent in Antiquity are still good choices in Exploration due to changing resources.

 

[McSpank01]

I don't know that this is a dichotomy you can fix. Part of the goal of distinct ages is that play patterns be very different. Even if all 3 ages were perfectly balanced, players would still inevitably have favourites. It's part and parcel of what they were trying to achieve.

On some level it isn't massively different to how something like Civ 6 would play. That game had ages, and in some ways your style of game would need to adapt to that age and you would end up doing different things. You might go from one age where you are trying to expand and grow your settlements, to a point where you need to go explore new lands and are rewarded for it, to a point where you then need to really concentrate on a win condition, and that might be building up your tourism for instance. There were ages, and there were different playstyles in each one, but they also were much more seamless.

So it's hard to see why it suddenly became necessary to do hard and fast age cuts at all. The only real reason is because they want to push the idea of shorter mini games. That seems like a huge error.

Basically you don't need to have hard edges around your ages to make them feel different, Civ 6 was already doing it, and doing it better.

I think a large part of the issue is that once you start playing as you describe - building for the next age not the current one - the rubber banding doesn't even work... This might be the Civ version with the worst snowballing effects once you adjust your play style.

The worst part is that 2/3rds of the way through an age I basically stop doing anything, feels like a waste of time if it's going to be taken away. Or I just concentrate of gaming the system or doing repetitive tasks that I know will benefit the next age. It is such a poor gameplay loop.

 

[TheGeoffey]

I would be excited to start a new age if it didn't feel like I have to start all over again. Too much effort was put into pulling players back and rubber banding. In reality they should have made the ages more distinct, so that the advantages gained in one age don't always translate exactly into the next. If an age is suddenly about exploration and colonisation, then having a huge land empire could be more of a hinderance for example. I'm not sure they have approached it in the right way.

This really already does exist. If you have a larger land empire at the start of Exploration and you're at, over or close to the new settlement limit, you're very limited on being able to establish an overseas empire until you get the right civics and/or enough happiness to be able to spread out without having problems at home

One of the things I like about the transitions between ages is that is cuts out the boring parts of previous games - like the time between finishing exploring your continent(s) and before you're able to cross the ocean to explore the rest of the world. If i'm not playing a conquest game or a heavy expansion one, there's not a lot to do in that between era but research as fast as possible and build things [Yawn]

 

[Pfeffersack]

This is actually not only a negative. It gives you some flexibility, especially moving from era 1 (usually mostly cities at the end) to era 2 (you don't need many cities right away).

Plus it is the foundation for having the chance to town-spezialise former cities in a certain way. If cities would stay cities, that would only work if there would be added an active way to downgrade (which is BTW the reason I think the special to keep all cities upon era change is at best weak by saving you a comparatively small anount of money, but in many cases detrimental)

 

[Elhoim]

So it's hard to see why it suddenly became necessary to do hard and fast age cuts at all. The only real reason is because they want to push the idea of shorter mini games. That seems like a huge error.

Yeah, the way it was implemented and structured in code seems to point to this, plus they made it a marketing point when presenting it. And it makes it very hard to change or smooth it out.

 

[ggalindo001]

The worst part is that 2/3rds of the way through an age I basically stop doing anything, feels like a waste of time if it's going to be taken away. Or I just concentrate of gaming the system or doing repetitive tasks that I know will benefit the next age. It is such a poor gameplay loop.

Absolutely this. This also includes research/civics, etc -- at some point, it is about collecting gold and influence points. It is basically building for the next age and not playing in the current age. I know it is unintended design, but it is where the game leads us.

The age transition is great for AI IMO (where they can "catch up"), but terrible design for human players.

IMO, the continuation of where your units are, etc., basically is the "soft white flag" by the devs that the age transition is a busted mechanic and hopefully at some point, the option to turn it off exists. (Tho again, I do like it for the AI to be able to "catch up" - so maybe allow the human player to play continuously, while the AI at certain points accelerates up to the new age.

 

[McSpank01]

This really already does exist. If you have a larger land empire at the start of Exploration and you're at, over or close to the new settlement limit, you're very limited on being able to establish an overseas empire until you get the right civics and/or enough happiness to be able to spread out without having problems at home

I don't think I've ever played to the end of an antiquity age and not been at or over my settlement limit. Does anyone do that? There is almost no advantage.

 

[Leucarum]

The worst part is that 2/3rds of the way through an age I basically stop doing anything, feels like a waste of time if it's going to be taken away. Or I just concentrate of gaming the system or doing repetitive tasks that I know will benefit the next age. It is such a poor gameplay loop.

What you're talking about in terms of altered incentives, I think is underlying a lot of what annoys players when they talk about "feeling railroaded", "having repetitive gameplay", or "feeling like what they do won't matter". Civ7 is pushing you towards different goals in ways that aren't immediately obvious to new players... Or particularly great once you realise them.

I don't want to take away from the good goals firaxis had with the era system, but I think as implemented, it's backfired hard.

 

[j51]

I honestly think the era system is better suited to scenarios. Firaxis should build a few of those as examples.

And for the first big DLC they should create a “one era” game where all the techs, units, etc. are in that single era and you play as one civ the whole time and the only legacy paths are the late game victory paths. That could satisfy the anti civ switching crowd hopefully.

 

[Brew God]

I would love to see an overhaul on the entire Religion aspect of the game. Wish it will build into something much larger than it is currently.

 

[Pfeffersack]

I don't think I've ever played to the end of an antiquity age and not been at or over my settlement limit. Does anyone do that? There is almost no advantage.

I don't see any benefit in not using it up at minimum...and even the cost for going over the softcap are quite negligible: One or two more cities are almost never enough to send the existung ones in happiness debt and so they are net bonus. The slight delay for the next golden age/policy slot alone is no convincing argument and the more you come towards the end of the era, the less it matters. Then even going strongly over the cap can pay out - with the exception case of the happiness crisis hitting.

I think it is a bit of an irony that the true min-maxing concerns are rather built around whether you should invest everything into bringing the settlement cap up as far as you can:

Y

Thread 'Question About Settlement Limit'

Mar 11, 2025

I've been playing my first game on the March patch. I seem to recall that in my previous games, when I transitioned from Exploration to Modern, my settlement cap would increase by three, but in my current game, it only increased by one. Does anyone know if this was rebalanced in the latest patch (I didn't see anything in the patch notes about this), or if there are other factors that affect how much the settlement cap increases from age to age? As a side note, I saw in a Civ youtube video, a player who had a settlement cap of 18 in Exploration and managed to increase the cap to 35 by...

• y10
• Replies: 15
• Forum: Civ7 - General Discussions

 

[Xandinho]

I hate how tech trees are like funnels that always push the player toward the same end. They're extremely linear. I really hope they add more techs and civics in the future, and restructure the trees so they're less linear.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

I don't have any statistics on how big this percentage is and I doubt even Firaxis has. Although if we assume standard gaussian distribution and put most polar opinions we've seen on tgis forum at the ends of the curve, I'd say the majority of players have problems with age transition, but they aren't critical to them.

And yes, I think that's exactly why Firaxis puts so much efforts into it.

The other thing to bear in mind is that reviews only reflect the views of people that werent put off enough to stop them buying the game. If you're looking at it from a potential player POV, I think the trend is far more to the critical side given how many people haven't bought the game compared to how many own Civ VI.