What's your opinion on civ switching?

[stealth_nsk]

In my opinion, Civ6 is a micromanagement hell. To play effectively, you need to toss around a lot of things, from citizens to policy cards. And it doesn't have any strategic choice involved - you just either spend time or this or not.

Civ7 did a great work on removing micromanagement from many aspects (although they added resource juggling). Not all choices introduced are interesting, but I expect a lot of improvements on how yields are generated and used to make choices better. The core mechanics of Civ7, IMHO, are better designed for strategic choices.

 

[Siptah]

Civ7 did a great work on removing micromanagement from many aspects (although they added resource juggling).

But in the defense of resource juggling, this can actually be super impactful. There certainly are games where you just pump all of the best resource into your capital, and then resource juggling is a nuisance. It can also be tiresome with factory resources, if you want to place them optimally. But especially in games in which your capital isn't the best city to begin with, and you need to boost others, or if you have traditions/policies that interact with other cities (e.g., Spain), it gets more interesting. It's also a great way of getting a newly founded DL settlements to ~10 pop quickly, which can be very helpful for grabbing resources and establishing a new base.

 

[stealth_nsk]

But in the defense of resource juggling, this can actually be super impactful. There certainly are games where you just pump all of the best resource into your capital, and then resource juggling is a nuisance. It can also be tiresome with factory resources, if you want to place them optimally. But especially in games in which your capital isn't the best city to begin with, and you need to boost others, or if you have traditions/policies that interact with other cities (e.g., Spain), it gets more interesting. It's also a great way of getting a newly founded DL settlements to ~10 pop quickly, which can be very helpful for grabbing resources and establishing a new base.

Yeah, I know it's very impactful and I like it, but if you want to max your effectiveness, you may want to juggle resources constantly, turning it into pretty significant effort.

 

[McSpank01]

In my opinion, Civ6 is micromanagement hell. To play effectively, you need to toss around a lot of things, from citizens to policy cards. And it doesn't have any strategic choice involved - you just either spend time or this or not.

I think there are elements of the mid to late game in 6 that require far too much micro. You almost never want to do a late war because it means tediously moving units across the map. I always disliked that Civ 6 encouraged wide play which inevitably led to too much micro. Having said that 6 did have systems to deal with it. There are queues for building, you have armies to merge units. It just wasn’t enough.

However what 6 has that 7 doesn’t is complexity. It’s a game that is easy to pick up but takes a long time to master. Cannot say that about 7.

There are some elements in 7 that may eventually help with micro, but even now it’s not really working. Commanders initially seemed great, but I also tend to find them fiddly and awkward to manage. Moving units feels slow and sluggish in 7, so even if there is less of it, doing any action feels worse.

Towns are another element that should reduce micro, but mostly they lead to you either forgetting towns exist or you feel you were doing something wrong by not paying attention to them.

I don’t know if 7 is set up for better strategic choices, it would need to add so many layers for that to be true. The best I can say is that it’s so undercooked that it has a base to build something on, with a lot of work.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I think there are elements of the mid to late game in 6 that require far too much micro. You almost never want to do a late war because it means tediously moving units across the map. I always disliked that Civ 6 encouraged wide play which inevitably led to too much micro. Having said that 6 did have systems to deal with it. There are queues for building, you have armies to merge units. It just wasn’t enough.

However what 6 has that 7 doesn’t is complexity. It’s a game that is easy to pick up but takes a long time to master. Cannot say that about 7.

I have different opinion here. Things like chopping or policy juggling are not hard to learn, they are just tedious to execute. That's why Civ6 is the only game I haven't beaten on Deity - not because I can, but because I strongly dislike the playstyle required for it.

There are some elements in 7 that may eventually help with micro, but even now it’s not really working. Commanders initially seemed great, but I also tend to find them fiddly and awkward to manage. Moving units feels slow and sluggish in 7, so even if there is less of it, doing any action feels worse.

The best thing to help with micro is to not create areas where micro is working. Sure, unit movement is already one of those areas and commanders only partially help. But I'm speaking about the empire management, not tactics.

Towns are another element that should reduce micro, but mostly they lead to you either forgetting towns exist or you feel you were doing something wrong by not paying attention to them.

Probably subjective, but towns totally satisfy me in this regard. I never forget about them and they really make it easy for me to manage 20+ settlements.

I don’t know if 7 is set up for better strategic choices, it would need to add so many layers for that to be true. The best I can say is that it’s so undercooked that it has a base to build something on, with a lot of work.

Yes, it's far from polished, but the patches make me optimistic. They are released fast and improve the game a lot.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Towns are another element that should reduce micro, but mostly they lead to you either forgetting towns exist or you feel you were doing something wrong by not paying attention to them.

Incidentally, I almost never specialize my towns because i constantly forget that I can. And even when I do remember, I feel like getting another tile is better than shipping off my food to a City that already has good growth anyway.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Incidentally, I almost never specialize my towns because i constantly forget that I can. And even when I do remember, I feel like getting another tile is better than shipping off my food to a City that already has good growth anyway.

I specialize towns which have nowhere to grow - some of those towns are on small islands, some just grab some resource which other settlements can't get, etc.

For other towns, yes, it's hard decision I haven't mastered fully yet. Letting town grow often looks cheesy.

 

[Siptah]

Incidentally, I almost never specialize my towns because i constantly forget that I can. And even when I do remember, I feel like getting another tile is better than shipping off my food to a City that already has good growth anyway.

I'm sorry, but this is just nonsense that shouldn't be spread as a good or even comfortable way of playing. After you've grabbed all resource tiles and strategically important tiles (so say, usually around pop 15 at the latest), what do more tiles in towns get you? The food isn't worth anything if you are not sending it to some other place – all it gives you is more pop that gives you more food (useless) and gold (almost useless). And the production (= gold) is nice to some extent, but at some (rather early) point spending so much food and turns to get +5 gold per turn isn't really a good investment, when the alternative is another specialist several turns faster. In addition, specialized towns can be awesome besides the food, for instance, it's the game's main way of generating influence. And if you have towns that once were cities or that you pumped money into (because starting from exploration age, there isn't much to do with money), specializing can also give some culture and science. More recently, I've also started to use fortress towns every now and then. And obviously, factory towns are really helpful in the modern age.

Edit: there are some benefits from pops in cities, e.g., from religion. But this doesn't change the big picture. And improvements have to be bought anyway.

 

[kotpeter]

there is next to no strategy discussion around Civ 7

We already proved this claim false by comparing the relative number of posts per time frame between civ 6 and civ 7 (civ 7's number is lower but not nearly as low as to be called next to nothing).

Your strategy in Civ 7 is mostly determined by what civ & leader you pick, as inherent synergy bonuses in this game are as powerful as situational synergy bonuses (if not more). Taking the maximum out of situational bonuses is a bit too easy in Civ 7, as choices to make are usually pretty easy. One situational decision that is interesting enough is whether to build a wonder at Xth turn in the game instead of settling or conquering, and this is probably one of the big pillars of replayability for me.

The AI isn't as big of a threat as it was in Civ 6 (early game of Civ 6 at least with its famous deity warrior rush), which further reduces the number of situations forcing you to adapt.

All in all, I think Civ 7 isn't as demanding from the player in terms of planning and isn't as satisfying for the player when it comes to plan execution. I still play it occasionally and have a hard time going back to Civ 6, so I hope these points will get addressed with next patches.

 

[Lord Lakely]

I'm sorry, but this is just nonsense that shouldn't be spread as a good or even comfortable way of playing. After you've grabbed all resource tiles and strategically important tiles (so say, usually around pop 15 at the latest), what do more tiles in towns get you? The food isn't worth anything if you are not sending it to some other place – all it gives you is more pop that gives you more food (useless) and gold (almost useless). And the production (= gold) is nice to some extent, but at some (rather early) point spending so much food and turns to get +5 gold per turn isn't really a good investment, when the alternative is another specialist several turns faster. In addition, specialized towns can be awesome besides the food, for instance, it's the game's main way of generating influence. And if you have towns that once were cities or that you pumped money into (because starting from exploration age, there isn't much to do with money), specializing can also give some culture and science. More recently, I've also started to use fortress towns every now and then. And obviously, factory towns are really helpful in the modern age.

I never said I'm good at playing the game! I just like to expand! Besides, I think it's satisfying to grab more tiles. It's a clear visual cue of the progress you're making across your empire.

The thing with the UI is that it draws my attention purchasing buildings, rather than specialization when it reminds me to specialize my towns. So, I buy the buildings and promptly forget why I had gotten the reminder in the first place. Once I have all the buildings, I convert into a City.

And sometimes It's actually beneficial to not specialize - In my current game I'm playing Han into Ming so I absolutely want as many improved tiles as possible, so i can place as many Great Walls as possible, and buff my culture and gold.

Your strategy in Civ 7 is mostly determined by what civ & leader you pick, as inherent synergy bonuses in this game are as powerful as situational synergy bonuses (if not more). Taking the maximum out of situational bonuses is a bit too easy in Civ 7, as choices to make are usually pretty easy. One situational decision that is interesting enough is whether to build a wonder at Xth turn in the game instead of settling or conquering, and this is probably one of the big pillars of replayability for me.

One of the biggest things - and I barely see anyone discuss this for some reason - are Memento's. Memento's a SO powerful in this game, like giving another leader's bonuses to your own leader. I hate that they exist. They're awful, and that's largely because of how impactful the right memento can be. Shischa Necklace by itself allows you to chain City State Vassals in Antiquity

I always found it baffling that AI leaders don't get to use their own memento's.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I always found it baffling that AI leaders don't get to use their own memento's.

They have other bonuses to compensate this, it's totally normal. It's better to give AI bonuses it can use, instead of trying to code it to use bonuses designed for human players.

 

[kotpeter]

One of the biggest things - and I barely see anyone discuss this for some reason - are Memento's. Memento's a SO powerful in this game, like giving another leader's bonuses to your own leader. I hate that they exist. They're awful, and that's largely because of how impactful the right memento can be. Shischa Necklace by itself allows you to chain City State Vassals in Antiquity

I always found it baffling that AI leaders don't get to use their own memento's.

While I don't think mementos are as powerful, I do find leader attribute bonuses to be OP compared to all other bonuses in the game. I don't think it's good that they are so generic and net so much value. I'd rather have them more specialized, situational and unique across leaders, like governor promotion trees in Civ 6.

 

[Siptah]

I never said I'm good at playing the game! I just like to expand! Besides, I think it's satisfying to grab more tiles. It's a clear visual cue of the progress you're making across your empire.

Fair.

The thing with the UI is that it draws my attention purchasing buildings, rather than specialization when it reminds me to specialize my towns. So, I buy the buildings and promptly forget why I had gotten the reminder in the first place.

Yeah, the reminder isn't really as helpful into pointing what it actually should remind you about.

One of the biggest things - and I barely see anyone discuss this for some reason - are Memento's. Memento's a SO powerful in this game, like giving another leader's bonuses to your own leader. I hate that they exist. They're awful, and that's largely because of how impactful the right memento can be. Shischa Necklace by itself allows you to chain City State Vassals in Antiquity

I always found it baffling that AI leaders don't get to use their own memento's.

There's a mod that gives AI mementos. I think one reason why mementos are rarely talked about is that they can feel a bit like cheating if you select them carefully to synergise with your leader and civ. They can be so powerful in these cases, that they reduce the difficulty level by 1. So, it seems it is very personal whether you want to have impactful mementos, and whether these are specialized or general. I personally, always go with the same: +1 policy slot and +2 culture on wonders. I could choose lesser mementos (commander recovery speed, for example), but I've gotten very used to the policy slot and wonders being generally a tad more wonderful, and after many games, this feels vanilla to me. Yet, I think these aren't game breakingly good mementos.

 

[UWHabs]

Until they get the AI also using mememtos, I haven't tried them yet, other than once I think I slotted in the +1 movement on commanders one because I felt they moved too slowly, but I would have been happy if that was a mod that everyone got. I do think once they get AI using mementos that will help give a little more flex and replay to things, so that everyone gets slightly different bonuses each game.

Otherwise, I do think there's still some balance at play needed before we can really get too far in strategy talks. And I do think in a lot of cases, it's hard to really talk strategy, because it does depend on the game and the map. Like my last game, my town specialization was easy, because I had a very snakey continent every settlement in my homeland was coastal, it was pretty obvious to specialize every town into like a +15 influence per turn hub town. but my current game, it's got some rivers and paths so most of my towns are only connected to like 2 or 3 other settlements, there's no point to hub towning them. Then you get some of the choice of taking the flat yields from farming or mining, or use them as mini-settlements urban centres, or how to specialize them best. I probably over-specialize - I kind of wish sometimes I could like turn a town off a growing town without actually specializing them. Because there's a few where right from turn 1 of the era, I just know that it's not worth keeping them growing, but it's still a little early for me to decide which specialization I want. And waiting 19 turns for them to grow one tile just feels like a big waste of time. So you end up picking something way too early before you really know where things are headed...

 

[Lord Lakely]

While I don't think mementos are as powerful, I do find leader attribute bonuses to be OP compared to all other bonuses in the game. I don't think it's good that they are so generic and net so much value. I'd rather have them more specialized, situational and unique across leaders, like governor promotion trees in Civ 6.

Attribute bonuses are also bad, yeah. I blocked them out completely. Why is EVERY attribute tree the same set of bonuses? It's so jank.

If you compare it to Civ5's Policy Trees, which the Attribute bonuses are modelled after: the Policies you can get are so distinct from each other, and really encourage the associated playstyle. Honor works best for early war, Tradition for tall and liberty is an absolute must if you plan to expand and blob out. Going from there, Piety is important for Religious Civs or Civs that have Stonehenge and poor overall Faith, Patronage is good if you're near several powerful City States, while Commerce and Exploration are great for Wide Civs depending on whether most of your cities are Coastal or Inland. Aesthetics is a fantastic choice for tall players that took full Tradition, and synergizes well with Piety or Patronage in tall builds.

The only really unbalanced tree is Rationalism, which always has to be taken for Free Inquiry, but the other policies in that tree aren't that good (which compensates for it).

That was a pretty good mechanic. The Attribute trees feel... lazy and samey.

 

[Siptah]

I think "exclusive" attribute trees would go against the open design philosophy, but maybe it could be something like: in the two trees that correspond to your leader, advances cost 1 attribute point, while in all others, they cost 2 attribute points? That way, you would at least not march through most trees every game, giving a bit more variety.

I'd be also happy if more of the attributes could be swapped for leader uniques, not just 2. Maybe have 5 "unique" options in the associated trees, while keeping the non-associated ones generic. The unique ones can be as simple as better versions of the ones they are replacing in worst case, and interesting trade-offs in others. E.g., instead of +15% production towards all buildings, it could be +20% towards all buildings, or +50% towards only production buildings.

 

[UWHabs]

Maybe what should happen is that instead of having the same trees, leaders only get access to the 2 trees associated with their base ratings, but add in a 3rd "custom leader" tree, so that any points not directly filling those other trees could be used for the leader-specific tree.

If you want a complicated system, the leader tree could also maybe unlock the other trees too at certain points. So Ada is scientific and cultural, she would start with those 2 trees plus her leader tree. But then maybe once she puts a couple points into her leader tree, she could unlock the expansionist tree later on. So you could still get to that tree to use it if you want, but it won't be available right from the start.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I'm not sure that's needed. We already have leader-specific leaves on the tree, not sure if we need more. Those leader attributes are the way to specialize your game beyond your leader choice. Kind of permanent version of social policies. Making them more leader-dependent would make each leader a bit more unique, but would also make the game with the same leader less varied.

 

[Nic@Melbourne]

It’s all too much on top of 3 Civs over the game.

I’d remove attribute trees. Give each leader 3-5 attribute
S to unlock that based on quests or narrative achievement.

 

[AD1730]

It’s all too much on top of 3 Civs over the game.

I’d remove attribute trees. Give each leader 3-5 attribute
S to unlock that based on quests or narrative achievement.

Agreed. If you apply the rule of thirds (which Firaxis ignored on this iteration, regardless of what they claim), the 1/3rd new "budget" was entirely spent on civ switching and eras. Anything new beyond that goes into the red.