What's your opinion on civ switching?

[Leucarum]

I wish there was a way for those of us that dont want to be limited to ignore all these "solutions"

I dont want a limit on my settlements or where to found a city. It should be my choice how many and when to build them. I understand others do like the limits, so i think this should be another setting that could be enabled and isabledbefore a game

One big issue with changing settlement limits either up or down is that Firaxis have used it as a balancing mechanism between Civs. Any changes will impinge on that

 

[McSpank01]

I didn't like Civ6 loyalty, because it was completely based on population and location, it made it basically impossible to settle colonies. Which makes sense I suppose but it strips the freedom of gameplay.
-20 loyalty for settling across the map was basically a revolt in 5 turns.

Actually I liked Civ 6 Loyalty. I think it worked really well and was logical. Yes it was difficult to settle a colony next to an opposing Civ, but then it should be. However, it was possible to do it, if you had leaned heavily into colonising as a strategy. Some civs are set up to be colonisers, and with the right civic cards and wonders and governors, it was totally a legitimate tactic. That is how it should work. If you think it is advantageous to go and settle far off lands, then you need to be set up to do that, not all civs should be able to do it easily.

I think that is a big step up from the way things work in Civ 7

Corruption is a very passive mechanics with a lot of calculations behind the scenes. It's hard to make impactful decisions around it.

But surely, it's possible to do it much better. Civ7 settlement limit is much more fun corruption mechanics implementation and there are more ways to improve it.

I don't know if the settlement limit is a more fun implementation. Corruption was always disliked by many people, but the fact that is passive and hard to calculate was part of it's appeal. Settlement limit is such a blunt, simplistic rule, it leads to boring gameplay. You can either stick to your settlement limit (which I mostly do in many games, because it feels better) in which case you just feel pretty restricted. Or you ignore it and min max and do lots of busywork to manage it, which isn't fun either. Either way, it doesn't feel immersive, the blunt nature reminds you that you are playing a video game at all times.

Passive, under the hood mechanics is something the game needs more of, and less obvious arbitrary numbers that make you feel like you are playing a video game.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I don't know if the settlement limit is a more fun implementation. Corruption was always disliked by many people, but the fact that is passive and hard to calculate was part of it's appeal. Settlement limit is such a blunt, simplistic rule, it leads to boring gameplay. You can either stick to your settlement limit (which I mostly do in many games, because it feels better) in which case you just feel pretty restricted. Or you ignore it and min max and do lots of busywork to manage it, which isn't fun either. Either way, it doesn't feel immersive, the blunt nature reminds you that you are playing a video game at all times.

Passive, under the hood mechanics is something the game needs more of, and less obvious arbitrary numbers that make you feel like you are playing a video game.

The most important thing for each mechanics is what it should lead to meaningful decisions.

For Civ7 settlement limit, the areas for the decisions are mostly:
1. How far you could stretch behind the limit.
2. How to prioritize various sources of the limit increase
And it's pretty good, interacting with other mechanics. Also, due to being transparent, it provides enough information to make those decisions.

Civ6 loyalty is much less about meaningful decisions, you never want cities you'll lose. Instead there's gambling around lack of information - you could occasionally settle or conquer a city which could become vulnerable. Tossing around governors to improve loyalty is a strategic decision, but it's too obvious to be interesting.

So, in my book, Civ6 loyalty is pure restrictive mechanics (don't settle too far), while Civ7 settlement limit is much more strategic.

 

[kotpeter]

Regarding colonies, I think the issue with them in Civ 6 is that there aren't enough bonuses for colonial settlements. There are some policies, but they don't do enough to encourage colonization as a strategy.

One could mention luxury resource diversity, but the same thing is possible on the original landmass if there are multiple continents. And it's not uncommon to spawn right next to 2 continents, especially playing as civs with mountain start bias (Incas, Mapuche).

 

[UWHabs]

Actually I liked Civ 6 Loyalty. I think it worked really well and was logical. Yes it was difficult to settle a colony next to an opposing Civ, but then it should be. However, it was possible to do it, if you had leaned heavily into colonising as a strategy. Some civs are set up to be colonisers, and with the right civic cards and wonders and governors, it was totally a legitimate tactic. That is how it should work. If you think it is advantageous to go and settle far off lands, then you need to be set up to do that, not all civs should be able to do it easily.

I think that is a big step up from the way things work in Civ 7



I don't know if the settlement limit is a more fun implementation. Corruption was always disliked by many people, but the fact that is passive and hard to calculate was part of it's appeal. Settlement limit is such a blunt, simplistic rule, it leads to boring gameplay. You can either stick to your settlement limit (which I mostly do in many games, because it feels better) in which case you just feel pretty restricted. Or you ignore it and min max and do lots of busywork to manage it, which isn't fun either. Either way, it doesn't feel immersive, the blunt nature reminds you that you are playing a video game at all times.

Passive, under the hood mechanics is something the game needs more of, and less obvious arbitrary numbers that make you feel like you are playing a video game.

Yeah, I liked the loyalty in 6. It was best in that it prevented people sneaking in a tiny city in between all your others. At times it sucked (trying to get a colony going), and other times I didn't like it because it was too easy to cheese (basically as soon as you captured your opponent's biggest city, suddenly you never had loyalty issues with their other former cities and could actually culturally flip the rest of their empire).

I don't mind the settlement limit, but I agree that it can use more. I'm definitely in favour of changing it to some sort of "administration" cost, where cities cost you more settlement limit than towns do. And you could even add on more to it - settle a city outside your trade network, it costs an extra point to the settlement limit. Captured/occupied cities should maybe cost you an extra settlement point in their occupation period. And then often you just get so many happiness bonuses from other sources (city parks can give you like 60 happiness in some settlements, pavilions can give you like 10+, etc...) it's just too easy to cover the max -35 penalty you can hit on your biggest cities.

Civ keeps running into problems trying to figure out if they want nice round values, or they want weird calculations. Like in 7, they simplified adjacency so you don't have this whole minor/standard/major, or some of the weirder calculations from earlier versions. But at the same time, the growth formula is some complex cubic equation, and specialists still end up with cases where they give you 0.5 hammers and cost you 1.3 food in some cases. Sure, it sometimes was a struggle to understand why one trade route was 12.6 gold and another was 10.8 in civ 6, but at the same time, do I care? Computers can do math for me, tell me the biggest number and I'm happy.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Yeah, but strong anti-snowball measures mean the other part of the game doesn't matter. I.e. the bigger reset you have between ages, the less previous age will matter. It's a hell complex thing to balance.

That’s unavoidable if you do resets with each era change, which is why this mechanic is so widely unpopular in a game series where the core identity is the complete opposite

 

[Siptah]

That’s unavoidable if you do resets with each era change, which is why this mechanic is so widely unpopular in a game series where the core identity is the complete opposite

It clearly isn‘t unavoidable that the part before the reset doesn‘t matter. Even if we stick to popular strategy video games, we can find an obvious example in the Crusader Kings franchise. Resets range from nuisance to brutal, but in almost all cases, you have a different base to start from due to what happened before the reset. And hence, what happened earlier is widely important. As it is in civ 7 currently with its rather mild reset, regardless of regroup or continuity.

 

[Maiq]

It clearly isn‘t unavoidable that the part before the reset doesn‘t matter. Even if we stick to popular strategy video games, we can find an obvious example in the Crusader Kings franchise. Resets range from nuisance to brutal, but in almost all cases, you have a different base to start from due to what happened before the reset. And hence, what happened earlier is widely important. As it is in civ 7 currently with its rather mild reset, regardless of regroup or continuity.

It all makes sense in the context of the game though. Your character dies and you keep going along with their heir. Civ7 is more like your character dies in Crusader Kings and you are hard forced to play Europa Universalis.

 

[Siptah]

It all makes sense in the context of the game though. Your character dies and you keep going along with their heir. Civ7 is more like your character dies in Crusader Kings and you are hard forced to play Europa Universalis.

Nah, the game stays the same in civ 7. Neither does the reset take much away, nor are there more than a handful different mechanics in the new era. It‘s comparable to when your heir in CK has a different culture, and less disruption than when they have a different main title. But ymmv.

 

[kaspergm]

Actually I liked Civ 6 Loyalty. I think it worked really well and was logical. Yes it was difficult to settle a colony next to an opposing Civ, but then it should be. However, it was possible to do it, if you had leaned heavily into colonising as a strategy. Some civs are set up to be colonisers, and with the right civic cards and wonders and governors, it was totally a legitimate tactic. That is how it should work. If you think it is advantageous to go and settle far off lands, then you need to be set up to do that, not all civs should be able to do it easily.

I think that is a big step up from the way things work in Civ 7

I half agree, I think Civ6 loyalty was lacking in its implementation, but it definitely had a good basis. If the system had been expanded with some of the following features, it would have helped a lot:

• There needed to be more advanced Settler type units that made the city start with a base population higher than 1 in the later ages. This was one of the most obvious lacking features in Civ6 imo.
• A city's loyalty pressure should not only depend on its population, but also on happiness, culture level and tech level. A city should be less likely to revolt and join a civ which is much less advanced technologically, particularly if citizens are happy.
• There needed to be more options to influence and boost loyalty when settling a new city, and those options needed to be more impactful. For instance, there was a policy card that offered +2 loyalty when having a garrison, but that was not very significant if you were in a -20 loyalty zone.

 

[Leucarum]

That’s unavoidable if you do resets with each era change, which is why this mechanic is so widely unpopular in a game series where the core identity is the complete opposite

Is it the core identity though? I don't like Civ switching, but that feels like a very subjective thing to insist everyone agrees with.

 

[Maiq]

Nah, the game stays the same in civ 7. Neither does the reset take much away, nor are there more than a handful different mechanics in the new era. It‘s comparable to when your heir in CK has a different culture, and less disruption than when they have a different main title. But ymmv.

The reset changes the rules of the game though. It completely sucks the soul out of what you have done before.

 

[shmily_dana]

In my last few games, I've changed the names of every town and city I founded to match my leader. I wish that was an option.

 

[stealth_nsk]

The reset changes the rules of the game though. It completely sucks the soul out of what you have done before.

Rules of the game change in any Civ games, they just usually require things like specific tech or specific unit. Things like ability to travel deep ocean, flying units, ability to build channels and so on are changes of the rules.

 

[Maiq]

Rules of the game change in any Civ games, they just usually require things like specific tech or specific unit. Things like ability to travel deep ocean, flying units, ability to build channels and so on are changes of the rules.

It literally changes your win conditions from age to age lol.

 

[Siptah]

In my last few games, I've changed the names of every town and city I founded to match my leader. I wish that was an option.

I do this very often - but I also did this in past civ games. Especially if the city has a name in the language of the civ/leader I am playing. E.g., latinizing cities as Rome. Or just use cities from the pool of my civ that usually aren‘t on the civs city list.

 

[AD1730]

I do this very often - but I also did this in past civ games. Especially if the city has a name in the language of the civ/leader I am playing. E.g., latinizing cities as Rome. Or just use cities from the pool of my civ that usually aren‘t on the civs city list.

I believe that the option to Latinize, Anglicize, Sinicize, etc. should be an option for every city name on the list at transition. If you’re going to do civ switching (and I’m on the record for my disdain for it as a mechanic in Civ), then this is the type of thing that should have been there from the start and needs to be implemented ASAP. Paradox does something like this with province names in its games, surely Firaxis can do it here.

 

[stealth_nsk]

It literally changes your win conditions from age to age lol.

Win conditions only exist in the last age of your game - so far only Modern. The legacy paths are just a way to get additional bonuses, similar to building wonders, for example.

 

[Siptah]

I believe that the option to Latinize, Anglicize, Sinicize, etc. should be an option for every city name on the list at transition. If you’re going to do civ switching (and I’m on the record for my disdain for it as a mechanic in Civ), then this is the type of thing that should have been there from the start and needs to be implemented ASAP. Paradox does something like this with province names in its games, surely Firaxis can do it here.

It’s probably also something that FXS could outsource to fans (= us on here) in a relatively reliable and efficient way.

 

[Maiq]

Win conditions only exist in the last age of your game - so far only Modern. The legacy paths are just a way to get additional bonuses, similar to building wonders, for example.

If I played an antiquity only game I can't win it the same way I would a discovery only age game.