Welcome to Civ7 Game of the Month

[leif erikson]

Welcome to Civ7 Game of the Month!

We are discussing how to even run a Game of the Month and keep the games relatively comparable given the new design. As we get a little experience with the game, we are planning to post some polls and get your opinions on how to do this.

Enjoy your initial adventures and we'll see what we can come up with together.

 

[Uberfrog]

Looking forward to it!

 

[Rathmourn]

Also looking forward to it. The soft reset at Age transition has been a pretty fun mechanic, but its randomness will definitely throw an odd twist into things, I think. It may just need to be accepted.

 

[Acken]

Wonder what you have in mind. Fastest win seems a bit awkward in this version. Finding more interest in trying to fill as many points as possible through the legacy points.

 

[Kulko]

Legacy Points would lead to a artificially lengthened ages, were people try to stretch out things just to finish one more path. and probably a lot of draws at the top.

Since GOTM in the newer installments defines which victory you need to accomplish, I believe Legacy points give enough gameplay advantages to be worth chasing even in a timed only game. Another interesting question is whether the time spend in the earlier ages should also count, or whether its just fastest modern age.

 

[Acken]

The age still moves forward with turn count but you could be tempted to delay finishing one milestone for sure. The AI won't though. Not sure it's worse than relying on ai progress rng ?
Play it on shorten age length and maximizing all paths isn't easy.
On the other hand turn count will encourage eliminating players to speed up the ages.

 

[patparker]

I think that the gotm would have to have several parts. Something like

Play leader L and country X in Antiquity age
Transfer to country Y in Exploration age and
Transfer to country Z in Modern Age and win with a specified path.

Each age could also have subgoals. These might be as simple as 'complete the culture path'. But, they could also be more complex like:

Start as Fredrich in Rome and switch to Inca in the exploration age. Normally, Inca would not be available, so part of the antiquity age subgoal would need to be unlock the Inca by having settlements near enough mountains.

 

[Kulko]

I don't think you need to define the civilizations for the later ages, that sounds too restrictive for me. I think making smart choices about the unlock is part of a good strategy and can be rewarded. and if things get too easy we could always whitelisting certain civs to avoid the repetition of everybody always going mongol for the Non sufficit orbi path.
If you define all the civs, you risk either always staying with the historic unlocks or losing some players because they missed the area where they could unlock that civ. Apart from the fact, that RNG might not have left enough of a certain feature or ressource and nobody could fulfil it.

That said, for the initial game just defining everybody follows rome/norman/france for a certain Victory Path sounds reasonable until we find out whats working better.

 

[cas]

I also think defining Exploration and Modern leaders is too restrictive. I'd like to see more variety and what different paths people choose during the game.

Just define a victory condition with the given map and starting leader/civ combo.

I'd prefer something different than Rome, but it is probably one of the easiest starting civs.

cas

 

[raider980]

I’m currently playing Civ 5 and all I play anymore is the GotM so definitely looking forward to this! Question (that you may not know the answer to): Do you think the extra leaders/civs from the Deluxe and Founders editions will be fair game for GotMs as soon as they’re released? I guess they’ll be DLCs in the future. Just not sure how soon after a DLC comes out that it’s been included in previous GotMs for past games.

 

[Uberfrog]

I’m currently playing Civ 5 and all I play anymore is the GotM so definitely looking forward to this! Question (that you may not know the answer to): Do you think the extra leaders/civs from the Deluxe and Founders editions will be fair game for GotMs as soon as they’re released? I guess they’ll be DLCs in the future. Just not sure how soon after a DLC comes out that it’s been included in previous GotMs for past games.

Given that we already have over a year and a half worth of base game leaders before we even need to worry about Napoléon, Tecumseh or any of the alternate personae, I would hope by that time the DLC plans/pricing for the Crossroads of the World and Right to Rule packs would be made clearer.

 

[Poczwar]

Hello, when aproximatelly we can get first GOTM ?

 

[Methos]

A couple thoughts...

1. Momentos - Don't allow them. Keep the game basic so that anyone can play.
2. Crisis - I'm inclined to say no on these as well, since one player could get a good one and another could get one that severely affects them.

 

[leif erikson]

Hello, when aproximatelly we can get first GOTM ?

We may try a trial game and see what happens as we need to figure out how this can work.

The goal is to be able to compare games and learn from each other. Civ7 has so many ways to be different, not sure how comparable games can be? That is the issue?

 

[cas]

A couple thoughts...

1. Momentos - Don't allow them. Keep the game basic so that anyone can play.
2. Crisis - I'm inclined to say no on these as well, since one player could get a good one and another could get one that severely affects them.

I agree with no momentos

Regarding Crisis, does it vary based on what the player does in game ? For instance, one crisis for a peaceful tall game and a different crisis for a warmonger expansion game ? Either way, I'd still like crisis included. Maybe I'll test a game online speed and see if I get different crisis based on different gameplay.

cas

 

[Poczwar]

We may try a trial game and see what happens as we need to figure out how this can work.

The goal is to be able to compare games and learn from each other. Civ7 has so many ways to be different, not sure how comparable games can be? That is the issue?

Yes, I think first can be as test. To see how those features work for CIV 7. If there is too much randomnes.

 

[Ambiorix]

With Civ7 moving away from micro-management it will become harder to compare games anyway. Learning from each other will depend more on the willingness of players to explain their strategy in any given situation, than it does on the GOTM settings and objectives. Also, it might be good to have one post-action discussion thread per age.

 

[Uberfrog]

I think the fun of GoTM is starting in the same place, but ending up somewhere quite different. So I would be in favour of specifying a starting civ and leader, and a victory condition, and nothing else.

I think crises and civ switching are too integral to the game to ignore or restrict. I wouldn’t want to feel like GoTM games are too different from the base game as designed.

Crises won’t be the only source of randomness in the game, after all. Do we know yet if the crises are predetermined by the map seed? It may be a non-issue!

On civ selection, if it’s favourable to pick a certain civ in the next game to end up at the particular victory condition, that should be up to the player to decide.

 

[RocknOats]

I think the Ages format lends itself to Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern discussions for each posted game, and the questions build the stories: "Which civ did you select for the age and why? Which crisis did you receive, and how did you fare?" etc. Yes, there will be far more randomness to deal with, but HOW each of us deal with that and then share the decisions we made, and the strategies we employed, will build those key comparisons and teaching moments. It's no longer just about turn to turn decisions, now grander strategies have a place in the discussion. It always used to be about everyone getting to the optimal path the fastest... Just my two cents.

 

[stefanos85]

Perhaps limit GotM to a single age?

Or have 3 different saves? One starting on each different age.

So we all get to play the same game on each age, better for comparisons I think.