Update 1.2.3 is coming soon!

[Krikkit1]

My assumption currently is the 10 turns countdown starts at 90%, so you are forced to deal with the worst of the crisis for 10 turns at max. The absolute maximum I could see is 95%.

I think it’s more likely they start it when you have 10 points left so 190/200 or 150/160 or 230/240 depending on your age length.

(which means it would be 5 turns on online speed and 30 on marathon)

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

I think it’s more likely they start it when you have 10 points left so 190/200 or 150/160 or 230/240 depending on your age length.

(which means it would be 5 turns on online speed and 30 on marathon)

I also imagine it working like this, similar to how the Era countdowns function in post-Rise and Fall Civ VII.

 

[Kenshiro70]

I really have to wonder if Auto-Explore is really going to be as useful as people seem to think. I've been using the auto-explore mod for a couple of months now, and and I only ever use it in the latter half of Exploration, mainly to locate any remaining city states. I've never used it in Antiquity at all. At the start of Antiquity, Scouts need tight management balancing movement and search to find goodie huts, suss out other civ capitals and then settlement locations (or possibly vice versa), all while dodging slingers, fording rivers, and cursing the ancestors of whoever thought navigating ridges would make for fun game play. Then it's finding the three C's - city-states, camels, and coastlines. None of which is a good fit for auto-explore.

The start of Exploration is the same - even with Treasure convoys city placement is key or you'll lose precious turns expanding out to treasure resources since it's usually 15+ turns from settling to first shipment received. You have to pair up Scouts and Settlers, coordinate movement tightly, and pray you don't run into mountain ranges which force you to backtrack. I've even tried spamming 10+ Scouts at the start of Exploration, turning on auto-explore once they hit the major landfall, but with very little impact. Suffice to say that they start of Exploration is a tedious, punishing grind if you're pursuing the Economic Legacy path.

I hope I'm wrong, but this feels like it's going to be a big disappointment. I'm in software product management, and one of the fundamental rules is "never give the customer what they ask for; give them what they need." And Auto-Explore is not it.

 

[Kenshiro70]

I think it’s more likely they start it when you have 10 points left so 190/200 or 150/160 or 230/240 depending on your age length.

(which means it would be 5 turns on online speed and 30 on marathon)

I wonder how Future Tech and Future Civics will impact this, since it's possible to jump 10 points in a single turn. Perhaps they'll just disable the +5 age progress once the counter starts, or better yet ignore progress score overage. I never liked fearing research gains, so it's all good in my book.

(And if you really wanted to mess with your progress score, you could mass-convert six of your Distant Land cities in one turn and get two Military path milestones.)

 

[Rob Airdrie]

Trung Nhi looks really cool! But I’m wondering when we will hear more about Dai Viet and the other Right to Rule civs!

I love the look of this. I always rename my first commander as Trung Trac to make her Trung Nhi but now she'll even look the part!

 

[Kenshiro70]

I wonder does Trung Nhi will be just a graphical changes (the one which gets additional promotions), or "her own tactical playstyle" implies gameplay effect? In the latter case it's interesting how it would work with civ-specific unique commanders like Legatus.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess it's a free upgrade for either the Mobility commander ability (Ignore terrain when packed) or the Service Commendation (+1 movement for land units in command radius). I'm basing my guess on the Civ VI Vietnam ability to ignore jungle terrain penalties.

Of course, they could do something completely out of left field, like make a "Love you long time" ability which completely heals a unit over time, but something tells me that ain't happening.

 

[Kenshiro70]

Fingers crossed... Civ7 is really entering the danger zone now methinks.

Agreed. The Switch 2 launch wasn't the bonanza people were hoping for (for any third-party developers, really, as Cyberpunk was the only third-party title to crack the top 10.) So 2K will push Firaxis to restart the DLC pipeline, with the inevitable review bombing and copious reaction videos.

But where it gets really nasty is when 2K realizes that you don't actually need Firaxis to shovel out DLC - you can mix and remix the metadata available today to whip up something like the Civ VI Leader packs pretty easily. Go into Steam, right click on Civ VII and "Browse local files." Go into the DLC folder and look at the leaders and the "leader-gameeffects.xml" files and you'll see what I mean. 2K could easily shift that work to a cheaper studio, contract for some art assets, and reduce Firaxis to a skeleton crew, saying "a focused team is best positioned to craft Civ VII's redemption arc."

Think I'm over-reacting? Monolith is gone, and Bungie and Bioware are on life support. Pedigree is no protection.

So what can Firaxis do? Other than the obvious (make the game fun again), I suspect the DLC will be a reunion tour - Abe Lincoln, Julius Ceaser, and Gandhi return to play their greatest hits. And not just once - they'll have more costume changes than Cher.

Can Firaxis thread the needle? Time will tell.

 

[McSpank01]

I think it is too much to expect that they will fix age transitions in a couple of patches. Unit placement is a start, so have to be happy with that. Overall though this is definitely in the realm of 'minor tweak' rather than fundamental changes. It isn't going to be enough to get me to come back to the game any time soon unfortunately, not till I see something more substantial in the way the game plays.

 

[Pfeffersack]

I don't see myself using auto-explore, too...exploring the map is for me just a too important part of the 4X package. Yes, it saves clicks of course...but at the price of having to constantly monitor the automatic progress to reap the full benefits (if you don't do that, someone else might just steal the great city site you scouts digged up). Still fine with it being added, comfort functions are always nice and maybe even I will change my mind at some point...

I'm most excited so far for being able to keep unit positions in age transitions. In my book, that also should clear up the sub-problem of the unit-commander-assigments being messed up...and that means a significant annoy factor being gone.

Curious how exactly the 10-turn-timer will work...as others pointed out, it has to been seen whether turns get added. Maybe the logic is that the game picks the moment where -under the current rules- the age will at maximum last 10 turns longer (seen strictly by minimum progress due turns passing and ignoring everything lese). At this moment the 10-turn-counter will then start under v1.2.3 ...and in those following 10 turns everything bringing extra progression will be just ignored and not leading to a premature age end.

The added commander is a nice invitation to fire up the first game with the new patch with Trung Trac...and as usual it will be interesting to see what is burried as additional "minor stuff" in the changelog (as often those things spice up the game more than you think, e.g. when the AI learns something new)

 

[UWHabs]

I wonder how Future Tech and Future Civics will impact this, since it's possible to jump 10 points in a single turn. Perhaps they'll just disable the +5 age progress once the counter starts, or better yet ignore progress score overage. I never liked fearing research gains, so it's all good in my book.

(And if you really wanted to mess with your progress score, you could mass-convert six of your Distant Land cities in one turn and get two Military path milestones.)

Yeah, effectively all the solutions people have listed work out to be the same. Either they just stop adding bonus age progress for those last 10 turns, or they turn the progress off and have a separate last turns counter. I've had cases where I finished 2 legacy paths on the same turn, or both future tech/civic and a legacy path, and have jumped from like 85% to 100% in one turn. However it works, knowing exactly what you have at the end will be a blessing. My last game I started a wonder which was supposed to take 6 turns when the counter was at 90%, but a couple turns in I converted a city and finished a legacy path, and suddenly it jumped to 100% and got the last turn notice.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I think it is too much to expect that they will fix age transitions in a couple of patches. Unit placement is a start, so have to be happy with that. Overall though this is definitely in the realm of 'minor tweak' rather than fundamental changes. It isn't going to be enough to get me to come back to the game any time soon unfortunately, not till I see something more substantial in the way the game plays.

It depends on which problems people see with the age transition. For those who can't live with civilization switching there aren't any good news and I doubt there will be any.

However, if we look at gameplay only, not immersion, two most voiced concerns about age transition (we have quantitative research on reviews) are abrupt end and unit reshuffle. This patch addresses both of them (I assume vague wording about counter somehow addresses the first one), so it's actually a pretty huge step in the right direction. If we'll actually have 10 turn window where we could optionally end the age on any of those turns and all units saved on their places, I don't think I'll be able to point any actual problems with age transition.

P.S. Another interesting question is whether antiquity navy is saved on age transition. Keeping it could be a pretty exploitable thing. On the other hand, not sure if that's a problem.

 

[McSpank01]

It depends on which problems people see with the age transition. For those who can't live with civilization switching there aren't any good news and I doubt there will be any.

However, if we look at gameplay only, not immersion, two most voiced concerns about age transition (we have quantitative research on reviews) are abrupt end and unit reshuffle. This patch addresses both of them (I assume vague wording about counter somehow addresses the first one), so it's actually a pretty huge step in the right direction. If we'll actually have 10 turn window where we could optionally end the age on any of those turns and all units saved on their places, I don't think I'll be able to point any actual problems with age transition.

P.S. Another interesting question is whether antiquity navy is saved on age transition. Keeping it could be a pretty exploitable thing. On the other hand, not sure if that's a problem.

What I suspect is, that these are two of the most obvious aspects of age transitions that people have a hard time with, but that even with them fixed, most people will still feel rather dissatisfied with the whole process. People might voice these concerns because they are the clearest symptoms of the overall problem, but I think the issue is a lot deeper. I doubt that fixing these in of themselves will actually bring most people around to loving the game. I think there is a need for much more fundamental changes

 

[stealth_nsk]

What I suspect is, that these are two of the most obvious aspects of age transitions that people have a hard time with, but that even with them fixed, most people will still feel rather dissatisfied with the whole process. People might voice these concerns because they are the clearest symptoms of the overall problem, but I think the issue is a lot deeper. I doubt that fixing these in of themselves will actually bring most people around to loving the game. I think there is a need for much more fundamental changes

It's different for different people, but if we don't count those who can't accept Civ7 for immersion reasons, I don't see this hypothetical deeper overall problem.

 

[Pfeffersack]

(...)

P.S. Another interesting question is whether antiquity navy is saved on age transition. Keeping it could be a pretty exploitable thing. On the other hand, not sure if that's a problem.

I doubt that this will be covered by this change, as the technical reason for ancient navies disappearing is different: There are no naval commanders providing "unit-era-takeover-spaces" and the "free minimum starting units" for the navy in exploration age were set to one (the free cog you get...). My theory is that his was done for balancing reasons, as it prevents the tactic of mass-building of cheap ancient ships to swarm out with them as free-updated cogs in the exploration age from the start. I concede though that this setback it isn't really immersive for ancient naval civs.

 

[Siptah]

I'm curious how exactly the changes to age transitions will look, and how they will play out after 2-3 games. In my eyes, they have the potential to be very, very positive! As written in the other thread, customising age transitions seems one of the best ways to improve the game. And with the repositioned troops and sudden age endings, two major critiques are addressed in this page. Let's hope they are addressed in a good and flexible way.

I don't care much for auto explore. Exploring is fun! At least in the beginning of the game, and then again in the beginning of the 2nd era. I will probably only use this feature from the 2nd half of the 2nd era onwards, if at all.

A custom commander is a nice touch, and I had hoped to see these little details at some point – unique visual designs for non-unique buildings/units for some civs or leaders. But I'm not sure if it is the best spent dev time right now. I assume that this means that all assets for RtR are finished and polished?

 

[stealth_nsk]

I'm curious how exactly the changes to age transitions will look, and how they will play out after 2-3 games. In my eyes, they have the potential to be very, very positive! As written in the other thread, customising age transitions seems one of the best ways to improve the game. And with the repositioned troops and sudden age endings, two major critiques are addressed in this page. Let's hope they are addressed in a good and flexible way.

Agree!

I don't care much for auto explore. Exploring is fun! At least in the beginning of the game, and then again in the beginning of the 2nd era. I will probably only use this feature from the 2nd half of the 2nd era onwards, if at all.

To me auto explore was always an option after you already explored all reachable territory and just want scouts to run around updating the map.

A custom commander is a nice touch, and I had hoped to see these little details at some point – unique visual designs for non-unique buildings/units for some civs or leaders. But I'm not sure if it is the best spent dev time right now. I assume that this means that all assets for RtR are finished and polished?

Yes, seems to. Firaxis delayed release of RtR's first half, so I guess people working on models and animations done their part already.

 

[UWHabs]

I doubt that this will be covered by this change, as the technical reason for ancient navies disappearing is different: There are no naval commanders providing "unit-era-takeover-spaces" and the "free minimum starting units" for the navy in exploration age were set to one (the free cog you get...). My theory is that his was done for balancing reasons, as it prevents the tactic of mass-building of cheap ancient ships to swarm out with them as free-updated cogs in the exploration age from the start. I concede though that this setback it isn't really immersive for ancient naval civs.

IMO, I think the best transition would be to let you keep all your units from the earlier era, but they start as some sort of "obsolete" variety. So lower combat strength, fleets that can't sail into open ocean even after astronomy, etc... If you were forced to upgrade them to the basic level 1 unit, at least there's a cost to the age transition, and that would prevent some of the ways to cheese it. Especially if those upgrades are not significantly cheaper than simply getting a new unit outright.

Agree!


To me auto explore was always an option after you already explored all reachable territory and just want scouts to run around updating the map.


Yes, seems to. Firaxis delayed release of RtR's first half, so I guess people working on models and animations done their part already.

Yeah, I wouldn't use auto-explore on my first scout, but once you have most of the land scouted, being able to just send a scout out to random map the coastline and check all those little spots which you didn't quite see on the first tour of the island is a useful feature to save you some time.

 

[McSpank01]

It's different for different people, but if we don't count those who can't accept Civ7 for immersion reasons, I don't see this hypothetical deeper overall problem.

I think it will come down to those people who are happy with the game being split into a set of 3 mini games and those who aren't. I think there is always going to be a jarring effect when it comes to age transitions, because it is meant to depict a time jump (one of the reasons keeping units in the same place doesn't actually make a lot of sense because it pretends there was no time jump) and I don't imagine Firaxis will reach a place where there is zero friction in the transition.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I think it will come down to those people who are happy with the game being split into a set of 3 mini games and those who aren't. I think there is always going to be a jarring effect when it comes to age transitions, because it is meant to depict a time jump (one of the reasons keeping units in the same place doesn't actually make a lot of sense because it pretends there was no time jump) and I don't imagine Firaxis will reach a place where there is zero friction in the transition.

I think there are much more variations than just that. Between happy and unhappy, there are people who are indifferent, who like some aspects of it and dislike others and so on.

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.

P.S. For the record, I'm not a big fan of age reset and I'd clearly experiment with some other approaches, but it's not a deal breaker to me. To me Civ7 is already more fun than Civ6 or Civ5 even though it's mostly because I've spent less hours in it.

 

[Kwami]

A custom commander is a nice touch, and I had hoped to see these little details at some point – unique visual designs for non-unique buildings/units for some civs or leaders. But I'm not sure if it is the best spent dev time right now. I assume that this means that all assets for RtR are finished and polished?

Firaxis announced that the RtR DLC was delayed in... April? So the assets were probably done in April.

Then again, we still don't have a real model for the Revenge, so maybe not.