What's your opinion on civ switching?

[Siptah]

Thats not a Classic Mode, that just removes civ switching

You cant start with any civ for example

Yes, that's why I wrote that some people already voiced that the Humankind-like system of Enduring Empires isn't what they want.
In contrast, classic civ allows to start with any civ (in theory, I think modern ones still aren't implemented), but gives bland civs in the other two ages. Is that the better way?

 

[Crashdummy]

Yes, that's why I wrote that some people already voiced that the Humankind-like system of Enduring Empires isn't what they want.
In contrast, classic civ allows to start with any civ (in theory, I think modern ones still aren't implemented), but gives bland civs in the other two ages. Is that the better way?

Honestly, i didnt notice the classic civ one. I have never played with any mod in any civ game, its unlikely that i start now. But i guess if at some point i am bored with nothing to play, i could install civ 7 again, learn how to install the mod, do it and try how it feels, but i dont see that happening any time soon

 

[UWHabs]

I think in the end given the division of people, they'll have to come out with something of a classic mode for those who want it. As mentioned, the game is built in the ages system, so I would expect any classic mode to work within that.

If it were me, I'd set it up so that switching is disabled, and you can select any civ from any era. Whether you allow unrestricted leaders, that's another design decision to worry about. What would happen IMO is that if you play a civ outside of its era, you get assigned a basic civics tree with bonuses based on your civ attributes. So if you play as America, being Economic and Expansionist, you'd get a basic civics tree that would give you 3-4 legacy options you can use (maybe economic legacies would be something like +1 gold on quarters, +1 gold on rivers, discount to building purchasing, etc...) You can define a bunch of bonuses like that, for each of the traits, and then IMO you get some of them as legacy options, some of them could just be flat bonuses for the current era.

So everyone at least gets something to play with, but presumably the generic economic legacy options wouldn't be as specialized for you. You'd certainly be at a disadvantage compared to other civs specialized in the era.

Ideally, you could create a custom tree for each civ and every era, but that's a lot of design work, so I think something generic makes some sense. Maybe you could define one generic bonus for each civ to give more continuity (like America could still get their gain gold each time they improve a resource, just scaled by era), if you want a little more. Whether that's a mode that I would play or like, or whether it would be more popular than the civ switching mode, I don't know. It might be interesting for a change, at least.

 

[Siptah]

Ideally, you could create a custom tree for each civ and every era, but that's a lot of design work, so I think something generic makes some sense. Maybe you could define one generic bonus for each civ to give more continuity (like America could still get their gain gold each time they improve a resource, just scaled by era), if you want a little more. Whether that's a mode that I would play or like, or whether it would be more popular than the civ switching mode, I don't know. It might be interesting for a change, at least.

Enduring Empires seems to have a nice way of doing this. You get a civic tree that interacts with your previous civic tree and traditions. These are apparently generic to make, but influence your civ differently. With the drawback that this isn't possible backwards, i.e., it only works once you researched your actual civic tree, so wouldn't work for an Antiquity America for example.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Enduring Empires seems to have a nice way of doing this. You get a civic tree that interacts with your previous civic tree and traditions. These are apparently generic to make, but influence your civ differently. With the drawback that this isn't possible backwards, i.e., it only works once you researched your actual civic tree, so wouldn't work for an Antiquity America for example.

I think it looks as a step towards HK, where you can keep you early culture, but can't start with the later one.

 

[Albertan Civfanatic]

I honestly like it.

 

[Haig]

Ok I don't know if this is possible from programming/mechanics point of view and would it mess up the whole game, but I would do "Classic Mode" something like this:

1. Just one age, with all the tech trees put together. No era changes or crises, just one long era from antique to modern.

2. Choose any civ at the start you like. Also ai civs can be anything.
Some civs like Rome would have their unique units in early part of the game, some like Prussia a bit more spread out (Hussars in "late renaissance"/industrial part of the age, Stuka planes in the later stage).

3. Some civs' unique ability would need to be rewritten, for example French Empire "You can select the Celebration effects of any Government in the Modern Age. " would need to be changed.

------------

It's not perfect, but it would put civ switching and three ages to rest.
There still would be plenty of content to play with, like commanders, navigable rivers, new diplomacy(that I love!), towns vs cities etc.
I would probably reinstall the game.

It would allow empires to progress in their own pace, we would get again wars with huge technological differences and we could do the sandbox-style fun games.

 

[McSpank01]

Honestly I think everyone should give up on the idea that there is ever going to be anything like a 'classic mode' in this game. What people are essentially asking for is the entire game to be rewritten from the ground up. There is just no way that is happening.

The real fact is that the game is about Ages and Civ Switching. That is Civ 7. It is not going away. The best the devs are ever going to do is water it down, smooth it out a bit and make it less clunky, but it isn't going away.

 

[ColtSeavers]

Honestly I think everyone should give up on the idea that there is ever going to be anything like a 'classic mode' in this game. What people are essentially asking for is the entire game to be rewritten from the ground up. There is just no way that is happening.

The real fact is that the game is about Ages and Civ Switching. That is Civ 7. It is not going away. The best the devs are ever going to do is water it down, smooth it out a bit and make it less clunky, but it isn't going away.

Honestly, I think the Devs should finally accept, that the Civ Switching/ Ages mechanic is primarily responsible for the most disatrous Civ launch in history, and finally come up with a solution to accomodate for players who can't stand it. Otherwise the sales figures and reviews will stay as underwhelming as they are. "Watering down" is not going to cut it, there are just too many players, who do not care for these mechanics, and I doubt that FXS will be able to support a game, which is failing so miserably in the long run.

 

[Siptah]

I think a classic mode isn‘t out of the question. But as really just that: an additional game mode that puts all civs in all eras in whatever way. A game without eras and switching? Seems unlikely, and that would also not be just a game mode, but a different game that needs to be built anew from the ground up.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I think a classic mode isn‘t out of the question. But as really just that: an additional game mode that puts all civs in all eras in whatever way. A game without eras and switching? Seems unlikely, and that would also not be just a game mode, but a different game that needs to be built anew from the ground up.

Putting all civs in all eras would require adopting each civ to each era. Civs without bonuses look a bit too much to me for an official game mode (and I believe modders already went further than that, so it doesn't make much sense).

 

[Krikkit1]

Putting all civs in all eras would require adopting each civ to each era. Civs without bonuses look a bit too much to me for an official game mode (and I believe modders already went further than that, so it doesn't make much sense).

Civs without fully unique bonuses in every age seem reasonable. If they had semi-unique bonuses (for attribute categories of civs) that wouldn’t require looking at each individual civ and modifying its uniques for multiple ages.

 

[Crashdummy]

Honestly I think everyone should give up on the idea that there is ever going to be anything like a 'classic mode' in this game. What people are essentially asking for is the entire game to be rewritten from the ground up. There is just no way that is happening.

The real fact is that the game is about Ages and Civ Switching. That is Civ 7. It is not going away. The best the devs are ever going to do is water it down, smooth it out a bit and make it less clunky, but it isn't going away.

Every patch i think people just need to accept the opposite. CLassic Mode is more and more inevitable

Firaxis keep trying to get away from Ages with every patch, its clear that they dont see the current design working. Eventually they will convince themselves Classic Mode is the only choice

And yes, it would probably take over a year of work, but the sooner they start, the sooner we can get a functional Civ game

I think a classic mode isn‘t out of the question. But as really just that: an additional game mode that puts all civs in all eras in whatever way. A game without eras and switching? Seems unlikely, and that would also not be just a game mode, but a different game that needs to be built anew from the ground up.

There would be no reason to delete a game that already works and that some people like. Of course it should be a new mode in Civ 7, with the current game being another game mode

That being said, if anyone is thinking there is any chance of Civ 8 to have civ switching and age transitions, i think you need to say goodbye to that idea

 

[aieeegrunt]

Ok I don't know if this is possible from programming/mechanics point of view and would it mess up the whole game, but I would do "Classic Mode" something like this:

1. Just one age, with all the tech trees put together. No era changes or crises, just one long era from antique to modern.

2. Choose any civ at the start you like. Also ai civs can be anything.
Some civs like Rome would have their unique units in early part of the game, some like Prussia a bit more spread out (Hussars in "late renaissance"/industrial part of the age, Stuka planes in the later stage).

3. Some civs' unique ability would need to be rewritten, for example French Empire "You can select the Celebration effects of any Government in the Modern Age. " would need to be changed.

------------

It's not perfect, but it would put civ switching and three ages to rest.
There still would be plenty of content to play with, like commanders, navigable rivers, new diplomacy(that I love!), towns vs cities etc.
I would probably reinstall the game.

It would allow empires to progress in their own pace, we would get again wars with huge technological differences and we could do the sandbox-style fun games.

This is your only shot at getting back the majority of the playerbase who bailed.

People who think this won’t sell because Oh Noes I don’t get a shiny unique thing every era, well tnis certainly didn’t keep Civ6 from selling like it did

Honestly I think everyone should give up on the idea that there is ever going to be anything like a 'classic mode' in this game. What people are essentially asking for is the entire game to be rewritten from the ground up. There is just no way that is happening.

The real fact is that the game is about Ages and Civ Switching. That is Civ 7. It is not going away. The best the devs are ever going to do is water it down, smooth it out a bit and make it less clunky, but it isn't going away.

Then you can give up on the game being anything but a flop.

The ship has sailed on whether or not people want civ switching and era resets, clearly the answer is no

 

[Human Crouton]

There should be no "classic mode" because there shouldn't be different modes. It has to be the normal and only way to play the game. You'll just get two modes that are both terrible.

The only way the game is saved is if they completely gut it for an expansion pack and get rid of age transitions and civ switching entirely and return the game to traditional I-VI play. Then they will have retool every DLC that had been released up to that point to operate correctly in that new expansion pack.

They'd also have to abandon people who enjoy the current VII vanilla; telling them that if they enjoy the vanilla VII experience that their game is now stagnant, and they will lose this experience if they ever get the expansion pass.

This is all crazy, obviously.

Start on VIII now. VII can't be saved.

 

[AD1730]

There should be no "classic mode" because there shouldn't be different modes. It has to be the normal and only way to play the game. You'll just get two modes that are both terrible.

The only way the game is saved is if they completely gut it for an expansion pack and get rid of age transitions and civ switching entirely and return the game to traditional I-VI play. Then they will have retool every DLC that had been released up to that point to operate correctly in that new expansion pack.

They'd also have to abandon people who enjoy the current VII vanilla; telling them that if they enjoy the vanilla VII experience that their game is now stagnant, and they will lose this experience if they ever get the expansion pass.

This is all crazy, obviously.

Start on VIII now. VII can't be saved.

Closest thing to this in my experience is what Paradox has done with Stellaris over time. That game is basically unrecognizable from a mechanical standpoint from release to now. They even removed the different travel modes, which was something that was marketed as a unique feature of the game.

 

[Human Crouton]

Closest thing to this in my experience is what Paradox has done with Stellaris over time. That game is basically unrecognizable from a mechanical standpoint from release to now. They even removed the different travel modes, which was something that was marketed as a unique feature of the game.

Yeah. I think the only way to fix it is something like this. Change the game and then keep the game around for ever a decade so that none of this ever mattered.

 

[Leucarum]

The real fact is that the game is about Ages and Civ Switching. That is Civ 7. It is not going away. The best the devs are ever going to do is water it down, smooth it out a bit and make it less clunky, but it isn't going away.

The counter argument is somewhere between a slippery slope and a catch-22 for Firaxis. If they don't deal with snowballing then modern in particular will be irrelevant which invalidates the age system and makes civ switching a rough sell. Unfortunately the efforts to curb snowballing have been crazily unpopular and dialling them back seems to be their direction of travel. In a game with as many joined-up mechanics as Civ7 that'll have consequences on how their design can hold up.

I suspect that the choice is to end up with something that looks like a classic Civ game but leave snowballing in place, or to make a serious attempt at dealing with snowballing but Civ7 will be stuck as the series' most niche entry as it seems to turn off too many players.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

There should be no "classic mode" because there shouldn't be different modes. It has to be the normal and only way to play the game. You'll just get two modes that are both terrible.

The only way the game is saved is if they completely gut it for an expansion pack and get rid of age transitions and civ switching entirely and return the game to traditional I-VI play. Then they will have retool every DLC that had been released up to that point to operate correctly in that new expansion pack.

They'd also have to abandon people who enjoy the current VII vanilla; telling them that if they enjoy the vanilla VII experience that their game is now stagnant, and they will lose this experience if they ever get the expansion pass.

This is all crazy, obviously.

Start on VIII now. VII can't be saved.

Yeah I'm definitely not paying for an expansion to have a playable game.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Every patch i think people just need to accept the opposite. CLassic Mode is more and more inevitable

Firaxis keep trying to get away from Ages with every patch, its clear that they dont see the current design working. Eventually they will convince themselves Classic Mode is the only choice

Far from this.

Firaxis developed Civ7 like this from the beginning - they created full age reset and then started to soften restrictions to get the game to a better shape. They just continue doing this. However, this can't evolve into any "classic" game mode:

1. All those changes still operate within the same ages framework. They don't change any fundamental things, which would require total game rebuild. For example, Firaxis made buildings retain their base yields, but the whole building/district system is still designed for overbuilding on the next age. Firaxis made independent powers reappear on the first turn, but the game is still designed for them to reset to initial state. And so on.

2. If you look at public reaction, the more continuity is added, the more voices there are that the old mode is better. People who play the game, accept ages as its core feature, so going to far from the original design would displease those who like the game approach as is.