What do you think of exploration age as an age

[Lebo44]

To me this age begins TOO soon. There should be Middle Ages with focuses more on religions. and Age of Exploration should begins at 1400 AD. and ends at 1700
and should be more gunny

Absolutely agree. Right now, the transition jumps from Antiquity straight into the Age of Discovery, leaving the Middle Ages feeling almost absent to me. As you pointed out, the issue likely lies with how underdeveloped religion is. Meanwhile, exploration is overflowing with interesting features: Treasure Fleets, Distant Lands, unique resources, and now even pirates.

Hopefully, religion will get the attention it deserves, with interesting legacy paths, buildings, civics and other features (i.e. crusades, religion wars).

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Absolutely agree. Right now, the transition jumps from Antiquity straight into the Age of Discovery, leaving the Middle Ages feeling almost absent to me. As you pointed out, the issue likely lies with how underdeveloped religion is. Meanwhile, exploration is overflowing with interesting features: Treasure Fleets, Distant Lands, unique resources, and now even pirates.

Hopefully, religion will get the attention it deserves, with interesting legacy paths, buildings, civics and other features (i.e. crusades, religion wars).

And this should answer my Normandia VS Spain questions. To me the two superpowers did NOT share the same age. When Normandy shines. Spain was not even existed yet! (but there's Castillia). likewise. Normans ceased to existed as distinct groups by the rise of Spanish Empire.

 

[Krikkit1]

Absolutely agree. Right now, the transition jumps from Antiquity straight into the Age of Discovery, leaving the Middle Ages feeling almost absent to me. As you pointed out, the issue likely lies with how underdeveloped religion is. Meanwhile, exploration is overflowing with interesting features: Treasure Fleets, Distant Lands, unique resources, and now even pirates.

Hopefully, religion will get the attention it deserves, with interesting legacy paths, buildings, civics and other features (i.e. crusades, religion wars).

I think extending the age would make that possible... if it took ~60 turns just to get to Shipbuilding, there is your "Middle ages" of 600-1400 where it is hard to cross the ocean.
Then the Next 60 turns is the mad dash to send colonists+convoys across and battle for naval supremacy 1400-1700

 

[Lebo44]

I think extending the age would make that possible... if it took ~60 turns just to get to Shipbuilding, there is your "Middle ages" of 600-1400 where it is hard to cross the ocean.
Then the Next 60 turns is the mad dash to send colonists+convoys across and battle for naval supremacy 1400-1700

Like I said, it’s more of a vibe for me. The coolest stuff in this era is all about exploration and distanct lands, even the military path. Religion, on the other hand, is just bland. So in practice, you kick off the Age with exploration as the main focus. I would love to see two interesting paths in this Age: exploration (as it is) and religion (but in a really engaging way).

Yes, I saw some suggestions about extending the age (or even make a separate post-classical age) on Discord. That would help but it would still be bland without proper religion.

 

[ehecatzin]

*points at signature*

I think exploration age is good thematically, the idea of Antiquity to explore your continent and Exploration to go discover the rest of the world sounds nice...if the game started on medieval. The pacing, lack of diplomatic options and barebones religion is what makes it very unsatisfying for me. having a medieval age would:

• allow for the introduction of more diplomatic options (vassals, sphere's of influence)
• better fleshed out religion, think holy cities, religion base diplomacy, relics and pilgrimages, etc.
• allow you to finish "filling" the home continent and interact with cities through other means, ej. wars of conversion as opposed to straight up conquest.

Then once your continent is actually filled, religions and diplomatic spheres of influence are set, THEN you sail out and really put that city cap to good use. It has a nice rythm, 2 eras for home continent (1 for settling one for power proyection), and 2 for the rest of the world (again 1 settling, 1 power proyection)

Maybe all of that could be achieved by making our 3 existing eras longer and more content heavy, but we would be stuck with the very odd timeline jump we have now of finishing antiquity and jumping to gunpowder and privateers.

 

[Crashdummy]

Hi all,

Sorry if this have been brought up before but I havent read much about it. This is not a discussion regarding the age-system but rather about having the exploration age as one of the three ages.
I think I can come to terms with the agesystem and even civ switching, but exploration age I´m having a hard time appreciating.
My reasons for this i threefold.

1. It put constraints on how the map can look. I mean we cant have an archipelagal map where all islands are reachable with trireme, for example.
2. It really annoys me that I cant go exploring the distant lands when i so choose to. I mean that owas one of my strategies to quickly develop seafaring capability and then fast settle other lands i discovered.
3. I think, to me the exploration age is a bit eurocentric? Especially with the treasure fleet system.

So, as I said I havent read much about it, but rather more about the age system in total. What do you think about it? And if you would like to replace it with another age, then what would that be?

Well, I´d like to hear from you!

Best regards

Exploration age is bad, they made the whole Age to force the Distand Land concept and they made a whole Age with a clear European bias

I dont know who proposed this, but in my opinion it was a HUGE mistale

 

[rocksinmypath]

The devs have an unhealthy obsession with board games, and the Exploration age demonstrates how detrimental it is to the game. I think the only way to keep exploration fun and relevant into the late stages of the game is to get rid of units altogether. I presume this is not what the devs want, however, evidenced by some bizarre design decisions that cannot be explained without the premise that the devs see movable pieces, like those featuring in many board games, as integral part of the game’s identity.

For example, there was absolutely no need to have the player manually move merchants in order to create trade routes. It wasn’t like that in 6, and the new requirement adds very little value to the game. That decision only makes sense when you realize that there was a need to expand the set of civilian unit classes, which was part of a broader initiative to enrich the “package” each civ represents. If you ask me, the game would be losing very little by foregoing the Khmer unique merchant’s ability to ignore wet terrain movement penalty, but clearly the devs saw some value in including that feature perhaps because it justified their decision to turn merchants into movable units.

The distant lands and treasure fleet mechanisms are a result of a struggle between two objectives. One objective is concerned with making the game more fun by extending the shelf life of exploration, a core element of the game. The other is about upholding what I would argue is a false identity.

I think the correct way of solving the exploration problem is to have three radically different interpretations of “exploration” for the three ages. Currently, the game just has one: move units around the map to uncover it. Making the map bigger or making some areas impossible to reach unto until a certain point don’t change this fundamental fact, so all that these measures do is to just sort of “ration” the limited amount of joy that exploration has to offer.

I’m mostly spitballing, but the three interpretations I have are the following:

Antiquity: The map starts out more or less filled out with individual city states, among which you are one. Your vision is initially limited to the areas controlled by you and your immediate neighbours. You cannot reveal the map by moving units around because there are no units. Instead, you expand your vision mostly by trade and diplomacy, which helps you “absorb” your neighbours’ map vision.

Exploration: You are given the ability to send out expeditions. You are not given full control over where these head out to. Instead, the game gives you several destinations to choose from. There’s potential for synergy with the existing narrative events system. Potential destinations can include natural wonders, and expedition events can make references to these wonders, hinting at what you might discover on a successful journey. A successful expedition lets you set up an expedition base at the destination. You can either send settlers (still not movable; they just teleport) to this location or conduct further expeditions from this point.

Modern: By this point, the map should be more or less fully uncovered, so instead of heading out to the world, we head into the past. The existing archaeology system somewhat touches on this, I suppose, but I would like to see it coupled with governance. I think there’s an opportunity to tie traditions (social policies) with exploration. You no longer keep your Antiquity traditions for free in the Modern age. Instead, you have to “dig” for it. Similar to how you’re currently give a choice to re-purpose Colosseum in the Exploration age, you’re given opportunities to put a spin on a re-discovered tradition to suit your current needs. You’re also given opportunities to “steal” traditions that other nations will argue aren’t yours.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I think about the original release of Civ 6. It was bare bones. They got the basics working mostly right and then added/changed/whatever as time went along. By the end, probably because of pandemic-inspired extenstion of its life, there was probably too much.

The 7 release, no matter what you think about it, was not bare bones. But for all of the different stuff they threw against the wall, I suspect they always planned on expanding on the paths.

 

[stealth_nsk]

The 7 release, no matter what you think about it, was not bare bones. But for all of the different stuff they threw against the wall, I suspect they always planned on expanding on the paths.

It's guaranteed, because in the first gameplay video they talked about ability to end the game in any age as if it's already done. So, they clearly wanted to expand on legacies and victories

 

[Lebo44]

Maybe there will be another thematic DLC expanding on religion, featuring four more civilizations focused on it. These could include the Aztecs, Byzantines, or the Holy Roman Empire.

 

[ehecatzin]

Maybe there will be another thematic DLC expanding on religion, featuring four more civilizations focused on it. These could include the Aztecs, Byzantines, or the Holy Roman Empire.

It would seem that DLC's are thematic rather than geographic yes. But I wonder if fixing religion and diplomacy through individual DLC's like the naval update would be enough, I imagine we would need an actual expansion to do that.

 

[stealth_nsk]

It would seem that DLC's are thematic rather than geographic yes. But I wonder if fixing religion and diplomacy through individual DLC's like the naval update would be enough, I imagine we would need an actual expansion to do that.

Changes to naval are in patch, not DLC, they are just released in sync.

And considering we're going to get some form of legacy path rework in patches as well, it's highly possible that we'll see some changes in religion.

But of course, it all depends on what you mean by "fixing". Diplomacy in Civ7 is already the best in series, IMHO. Religion also has some advantages over previous implementations (at least you could skip it alnost entirely).

 

[ehecatzin]

But of course, it all depends on what you mean by "fixing". Diplomacy in Civ7 is already the best in series, IMHO. Religion also has some advantages over previous implementations (at least you could skip it alnost entirely)

Yeah fixing is not the correct word (I do like how influence and diplomacy work) I mean that we need way more options within peace treaties, demands (gpt, sums of gold, influence, great works, etc), or ways to liberate cities, restore independents or set up other civs as vassals.

Religion tho, that one really needs a deep look into.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Yeah fixing is not the correct word (I do like how influence and diplomacy work) I mean that we need way more options within peace treaties, demands (gpt, sums of gold, influence, great works, etc), or ways to liberate cities, restore independents or set up other civs as vassals.

I think we need option to liberate city-states (not exactly diplomacy, but could be a part of peace deal), more ways to spend influence for peaceful players and probably some trade item for peace deals which is less granular than a settlement. Other than that, more options aren't necessary good. For example, vassal mechanics never worked well in civ series, especially if we consider multiplayer is not a second-class citizen for civ game anymore.

Religion tho, that one really needs a deep look into.

My problem with religion is that, IMHO, it never worked well in civ series. Religious pressure is obscure mechanics, which were really hard to influence strategically. Religious units gameplay was always tedious. It looked fine in Civ6 where a lot of game mechanics are obscure and indirect (i.e. tourism and loyalty) and a lot of gameplay was tedious micromanagement (chopping, policy juggling, etc.), but in Civ7 where most of those problems were solved, religion looks like outlier even though minimal religious play requires much less efforts than in previous games.

 

[Lebo44]

Religious units gameplay was always tedious.

I never really got the point of missionaries as units. All they do is wander from city to city to activate convertion. I can understand a scout as a unit as it is exploring the map and you get only few of them across the game so it is a pleasant mini-game. But with missionaries it doesnt make sense.

It would be way more fun (and way less of a chore) if religion worked more like trade or diplomacy - just give us a separate panel where we can set up religious missions and track how things are going. City conversions could be on % terms so there could be more than one religion in a city. The more of a city's population follows a religion, the better the bonuses you get. Big cities would be tougher to convert but give stronger rewards, while smaller ones would be easier and cheaper to convert.

 

[UWHabs]

I never really got the point of missionaries as units. All they do is wander from city to city to activate convertion. I can understand a scout as a unit as it is exploring the map and you get only few of them across the game so it is a pleasant mini-game. But with missionaries it doesnt make sense.

It would be way more fun (and way less of a chore) if religion worked more like trade or diplomacy - just give us a separate panel where we can set up religious missions and track how things are going. City conversions could be on % terms so there could be more than one religion in a city. The more of a city's population follows a religion, the better the bonuses you get. Big cities would be tougher to convert but give stronger rewards, while smaller ones would be easier and cheaper to convert.

Even if you don't want all of that with religion, I think going away from missionaries entirely, and having religion almost play more into diplomatic rather than culture, could make a lot of sense. I think either you could set it up as a sort of sanctions/endeavor system, where you convert settlements (can run once per civ).
Another option would be to set it up more like city-states, so basically you funnel influence into settlements to convert them. Or maybe both - use the city-state action for converting a settlement the first time, but then to convert a settlement away from whoever controls it, that's through an espionage-type action, with appropriate counter-religious actions too.

If you do that, then you probably need a few other modifiers to diplomacy in the era - maybe for each settlement you have converted of a civ, you get +10% towards any further actions towards them. And for each of your own settlements follow your own religion, you get +10% towards all civs (to encourage you to convert the homelands first).

But yeah, in the current form, missionaries just don't work as units. At least in 6 they had the whole combat system around them. But if you don't have that, they're just busy clicks that could do everything around them in a different way without cluttering the map.

 

[Evolena]

I'm not saying that by itself it does what you want, but a diplomatic action exists to convert a settlement to your religion. I've not checked if you can have several of those at the same time.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I never really got the point of missionaries as units. All they do is wander from city to city to activate convertion. I can understand a scout as a unit as it is exploring the map and you get only few of them across the game so it is a pleasant mini-game. But with missionaries it doesnt make sense.

In Civ1 we even had diplomats as units and our diplomacy worked on them

There are 2 main reasons. First is from gamedesign standpoint it's good to have everything happening on the same layer, that's why unstacking units and cities was welcome. Thus playing religion on general map instead of separate screens. Second is that civ games try to solve imbalance between peaceful and aggressive playstyles in the amount of gameplay attached. Civ6 even has religious combat, which doesn't bring fan of regular combat, but tries to do so. Archeology and in Civ6 musicians try to do so as well.

I think the big question is that religion doesn't represent anything needed for civilization gameplay. Instead of being an answer ("We'll solve gameplay problem X with religion") it's a question ("How can we implement a religion?"). And that's the problem.

It would be way more fun (and way less of a chore) if religion worked more like trade or diplomacy - just give us a separate panel where we can set up religious missions and track how things are going. City conversions could be on % terms so there could be more than one religion in a city. The more of a city's population follows a religion, the better the bonuses you get. Big cities would be tougher to convert but give stronger rewards, while smaller ones would be easier and cheaper to convert.

Religion could share some functions with espionage, culture, ideology or loyalty, but it's hard to find a specific niche for it. What you describe is more a form of espionage.

 

[ehecatzin]

I think religion could use some of the existing systems and tweak them as to avoid just missionary spamming everywhere. First, we need some form of religion defense, a single missionary just obliterating your holy city seems, anti climatic, and second...maybe missionaries should work like marchants? in that they setup a continual religious pressure into a settlement (instead of just a faith bomb), maybe aided by beliefs, civics, relics and wonders?

• Town specialization or religious infraestructure for either spreading or shielding against religon.
• bring back great prophets, they could have the the faith bombs or set up pilgrimages.
• make it so that having a "holy city" means something beside where a religions starts.

Not sure, I just feel like, for example, if I play the trading game, It's fun building the markets, sending merchants and actually building a network of trade, it feels more earned. Religion, doesn't do that it's just spam.

 

[reddishrecue]

I think religion could use some of the existing systems and tweak them as to avoid just missionary spamming everywhere. First, we need some form of religion defense, a single missionary just obliterating your holy city seems, anti climatic, and second...maybe missionaries should work like marchants? in that they setup a continual religious pressure into a settlement (instead of just a faith bomb), maybe aided by beliefs, civics, relics and wonders?

• Town specialization or religious infraestructure for either spreading or shielding against religon.
• bring back great prophets, they could have the the faith bombs or set up pilgrimages.
• make it so that having a "holy city" means something beside where a religions starts.

Not sure, I just feel like, for example, if I play the trading game, It's fun building the markets, sending merchants and actually building a network of trade, it feels more earned. Religion, doesn't do that it's just spam.

They should bring back inquisitors. They were cheaper and helped keep your religion in your cities safe.