What's your opinion on civ switching?

[phoenixician]

Distant Lands / Exploration has generated a lot of criticism because the actions are often described as tedious (if they're even viable in the first place - in earlier patches, sometimes you were just stuffed depending on your setup and game RNG).

This is probably a hot take, but the Distant Land concept in this game is a bit bizarre. If a landmass is separated from your home continent by ocean tiles even if it's only 2-4 tiles away from your continent, then it is considered to be Distant Land? It is such a bizarre notion to me. I would define Distant Land as how the Romans thought of China back then--almost inaccessible, a lot of travel attrition in-between, no line of communication nor roads in-between, etc...

What is worse about the Distant Land concept in civ7 is that it forces the map to be so predictable no matter what map type you pick--you always expect small islands forming in vertical lines on left or right of your home continent. The predictability partially kills the Exploration Age for me, as much as I am loving Civ7.

As for the treasure fleet, I honestly don't mind it as a concept. My problem with it is that it lacks interaction and it is just a unnecessary tedium. By lack of interaction, I mean the AI rarely if not ever tries to impede or capture your treasure fleet at all. No matter how far you've progressed in the treasure fleet, the AI never tries to slow you down. Furthermore, there is no form of hired piracy you can employ against other civs' treasure fleets. The treasure fleet therefore devolves into a game of settling on the so called distant land and wait for what feels like almost an eternity for the points to hit 30. This leads to it being tedious. In my opinion, what makes it even worse is that you have to directly order the treasure fleet where to drop off. Manually moving the fleets wouldn't be too tedious for me if there were any actual threats nearby, but due to the lack of interactions, it becomes a meaningless real time action for me. I would not have complained as much if there was an automatic process that resumes to manual control if threat is nearby.

There's more about the current Exploration Age that is actively cheapening the experience, but the above are what stood out for me. Religion has issues too, but I rather save it for another thread.

 

[Crashdummy]

This is probably a hot take, but the Distant Land concept in this game is a bit bizarre. If a landmass is separated from your home continent by ocean tiles even if it's only 2-4 tiles away from your continent, then it is considered to be Distant Land? It is such a bizarre notion to me. I would define Distant Land as how the Romans thought of China back then--almost inaccessible, a lot of travel attrition in-between, no line of communication nor roads in-between, etc...

What is worse about the Distant Land concept in civ7 is that it forces the map to be so predictable no matter what map type you pick--you always expect small islands forming in vertical lines on left or right of your home continent. The predictability partially kills the Exploration Age for me, as much as I am loving Civ7.

As for the treasure fleet, I honestly don't mind it as a concept. My problem with it is that it lacks interaction and it is just a unnecessary tedium. By lack of interaction, I mean the AI rarely if not ever tries to impede or capture your treasure fleet at all. No matter how far you've progressed in the treasure fleet, the AI never tries to slow you down. Furthermore, there is no form of hired piracy you can employ against other civs' treasure fleets. The treasure fleet therefore devolves into a game of settling on the so called distant land and wait for what feels like almost an eternity for the points to hit 30. This leads to it being tedious. In my opinion, what makes it even worse is that you have to directly order the treasure fleet where to drop off. Manually moving the fleets wouldn't be too tedious for me if there were any actual threats nearby, but due to the lack of interactions, it becomes a meaningless real time action for me. I would not have complained as much if there was an automatic process that resumes to manual control if threat is nearby.

There's more about the current Exploration Age that is actively cheapening the experience, but the above are what stood out for me. Religion has issues too, but I rather save it for another thread.

Distant Lands was surely a concept derived from Firaxis making the Eurocentric Exploration Age. Since the whole Age is manufactered from the Europe view of how they "conquered" America and Africa and part of Asia, the whole game had to revolve about that

Thats why after deciding such an Age, they decided on the Distant Land mechanic

One mistake leading to another

 

[uppi]

As for the treasure fleet, I honestly don't mind it as a concept. My problem with it is that it lacks interaction and it is just a unnecessary tedium. By lack of interaction, I mean the AI rarely if not ever tries to impede or capture your treasure fleet at all. No matter how far you've progressed in the treasure fleet, the AI never tries to slow you down. Furthermore, there is no form of hired piracy you can employ against other civs' treasure fleets. The treasure fleet therefore devolves into a game of settling on the so called distant land and wait for what feels like almost an eternity for the points to hit 30. This leads to it being tedious. In my opinion, what makes it even worse is that you have to directly order the treasure fleet where to drop off. Manually moving the fleets wouldn't be too tedious for me if there were any actual threats nearby, but due to the lack of interactions, it becomes a meaningless real time action for me. I would not have complained as much if there was an automatic process that resumes to manual control if threat is nearby.

Eh, that is not true anymore. As of the latest patch, the AI will capture your treasure fleets if you are at war and don't protect them. I find myself having a few ships on shipping lane protection, because otherwise, the AI will just capture too many of them.