What's your opinion on civ switching?

[Gedemon]

Civ Switching isn’t just cosmetic though. You lose access to most of your previous abilities every time you swap. When I go from Carthage to Spain/Abbasid/whatever I’m not just changing my name and banner, but also my entire game plan. Even if my civ was still named the same, the core of what made Carthage interesting and different is gone.

Maybe it's because I'm seeing it from code/modder perspective.

It's the age transition that change the rules and your game plan.

As in: the entire game's database is actually wiped and a new one is created at each transition, and you're playing a different game after reloading.

Even if you would keep the appearance and abilities, you'd face a new set of rules.

I have issues with both. If you think things like cosmetics don’t matter, just recall all the sturm und drang surrounding Civ6’s art atyle

cosmetic is easy to fix is what I mean.

keep the name, appearance, no problem.

keeping the abilities, more work because of the database wipe, but still possible. Its done already (see Enduring Empire)

and now you're left to deal with the age transition.

here makeup won't help you, its the core of the game, you may be able to cancel some rules change, but I doubt we'll see a version of civ7 without a loading screen between ages or re-adding one of most the important element of a civ game like in <insert which civ version was the latest true civ game here>:



(ok maybe the later is possible with civ-specific tech trees, but you'll never have civs in different eras)

and also:

This speaks to the Brontosaurus stomping on the Game Design: Ages.

Whether they call them Eras or Ages or Artificial Nooses to Strangle Game Play they've been with us for several renditions of Civ, and have been picked up by other 4x historicalish games like Millenia and Humankind so that they appear to be a Basic Requirement to such games.

Which they aren't. They started as an historiographical 'shorthand' to keep track of changes that defined certain periods in certain areas of the globe but, critically, no one has ever agreed on which ones apply for which times to which areas and no one has ever seriously suggested that they apply to all areas of the globe simultaneously unless you so load them down with caveats and exceptions that they become (to mis-quote the old physics joke) like Spherical Civs in a Vacuum - worthless for any real purpose.

Full Disclosure: I've never liked them, no matter how convenient they may appear to the designers to grind the game forward defining what you are supposed to be doing at each stage.

Civ VII has not improved the design one whit over previous attempts, except to reduce them in number - which is counterbalanced by making them absolutely definitive in what you are allowed to do and still almost entirely Eurocentric in their definitions and effects.

So, while we are all discussing 'Civ Switching' or 'Legacy Paths' let's not forget that both are tied, twisted and entangled in the Age system that really defines the game and every mechanic in it: remove Civ Switching and you are still throttled by an artificial construct that severely and arbitrarily limits everything you do.

this, completely.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Ages are a great idea in theory, but you need them all to be engaging if you split them as firmly as 7 does... And in 7 antiquity got all the good mechanics

Exploration and Modern don't have enough mechanics yeah.

I feel like the AMOUNT of goals you work towards should increase every age, as should the methods required to obtain those goals.

Add a secondary objective to the Legacy paths on Exploration for ALL Civs, while retaining the alternative 'win' condition for Civs like Mongolia and Songhai.

Do the same in Modern.

 

[Siptah]

The idea failed in Humankind too, and that was fictional, with no historical attachment

Humankind was closer tied to history than any of the civ games imho. Of course that means it was fictional, as are all the civ games with their caricature 2-line definitions of what identifies different civs and leaders, and their shorthand understandings of what civs "were about" in real world history. But calling Humankind without historical attachment seems a bit strong. They have the same universal Western bias of history, as have all the civ games. But at least they seemed to try to get to a wider scope (which civ 7 is also trying, obviously). And their cultures are a bit better grounded in history than for example the civs of civ VI or V.

That aside, and I've said this many times, "fail" is a big word. Humankind didn't have the appeal on the 4X players that Amplitude and Sega might have wished for. Many tried it and turned away disappointed (due to switching but also other mechanics). Yet, despite less sales the Amplitude's previous game Endless Legend, the player count metric – that many hold up in these forums as being meaningful – suggests that Humankind would be more successful in that regard. And it's still getting major updates 4 years after release. So, I'm not sure if it is an outright fail. And if so, if switching alone is to be blamed. As with civ 7, there were many, many critiques of Humankind at release, and while some – like the war point system – got patched eventually, they seemed to be important drivers of the performance. Also, switching in Humankind compared to civ 7 is really, really different.

 

[Gedemon]

keeping the abilities, more work because of the database wipe, but still possible. Its done already (see Enduring Empires)

for those who want to try:

Steam Workshop::Enduring Empires - Base Game

steamcommunity.com

 

[Siptah]

for those who want to try:

Steam Workshop::Enduring Empires - Base Game

steamcommunity.com

I'm curious to try that, but I likely won't find the time in the next two months, as the few games I will be able to play will be focused around the new civs and continuity settings. Although I can already see that the bonuses for enduring are quite big, which is contrary to what I would wish for: the longer you endure, the harder it should get and the more useless your abilities and units should become. In this mod, the downside is apparently not that big, depending on the civ you choose. Enduring Carthage is probably the nightmare you would think it is though.

Any reports yet by fellow civ-fanatics how this feels to play?

 

[stealth_nsk]

1. So you don’t have concrete data of this success on consoles, just baseless speculation and assumption that you tried chastising myself and others for…. ? I’ll remind you that your “hints” for console success which included looking player counts on steam and going “well they’re going down so they must all be playing on consoles” fell flat for almost every one you shared the logic with in the other topic. Funny how the people using steam stats are atleast basing their assumptions on actual numbers and data and not feels.

You understand how working with imprecise data works? There are always things like statistical error margin. If you're more willing to believe people who are sure in there incorrect assumptions than people who could estimate the margin of error, I don't think I could help you here. Conspiracy theory followers are always more sure in their believes than real scientists (and they also base their belief on "actual numbers" which have no connection with those beliefs).

2. You are literally one of the only people here I see here regularly still doing mental gymnastics to argue that the game did not flop. Most others, even those who like the game's direction, have accepted the negative implications of all the relevant data we have. The game is not doing well and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to come to that conclusion

Yes, but there are also analytics sites like Gamalytics, who use the same methodological approach as I do.

EDIT: Made ChatGPT deepresearch to estimate the number of Civ7 console sales. It got results quite close to what I get (and with roughly the same margin of error).

 

[King Flevance]

The idea failed in Humankind too, and that was fictional, with no historical attachment

The idea just doesnt work on 4x games, doesnt matter on which game you attach it too. People dont like to having stuff removed in games, and specially not in a strategy game, where you spent effort into gaining advantages only to be arnitrarily removed because the Devs are incapable of writing a proper IA

Humankind was based on cultures throughout history... It had generic but immortal leaders and you selected various historical empires on age transition. It is exactly the same idea as Civ 7. Only in it, they removed nothing from the player and you switched like 6 or 8 times with soft switches, not hard abrupt transitions.

When I said fictional empire, I meant entirely made up lore. Like a Civ known as the Rabbit Kingdom. Age 1, You are the Bunny Tribe. Age 2, you may choose between the JackRabbit Empire or the Cottontail Kingdom. Act 3, Long Ear Nation or the Hop Collective. But also <- See how you stay rabbits and keep a common thread of your identity through the "civ switching"? Like that. The "civ switching is an evolutionary process, not a "now the rabits turn into frogs". The idea is fantastic if you see it as a way to evolve or "level up" your civ and make your civ become more malleable and gain more abilities over time. Like "every civ "leveling up" to raise the stakes as the game goes forward. That idea works very well for a 4x game. But designing a system that works well, you need to be able to design based on how each faction grows simultaneously and worrying about accurately representing a real culture in history is very restrictive to that idea.

 

[Evie]

I will note, having played Humankind, that while it ended up not being my game, what I didn't enjoy had little to do with age transition (which could have been better, but the problem I had with it - rival faction identity being limited to generic avatars, and excessive number of civ changes - are both absent in Civ VII) - it was the handling of battle. Turning warfare into any sort of mini games with different rules remains one of the best ways to chase me away - I like the strategic level, not the tactical one. (Or rather, I like to play one or the other, not both in one game). And Humankind did it better than most (ie, they didn't have a separate battle resolution map a la Total War/Empire at War/SW Rebellion/Call to Power), but it still had the fundamental flaws of all the other. And it didn't have an auto-resolve button.

But apparently I don't know my own opinions because any and all struggles of Humankind can be laid exclusively and entirely at the foot of civ changes and age changes, and that's the only reason that game struggled to meet the desired success.Or at least, so claim the people with weird psychic power to read the mind of everyone who didn't like a certain game...

 

[Leucarum]

Exploration and Modern don't have enough mechanics yeah.

I feel like the AMOUNT of goals you work towards should increase every age, as should the methods required to obtain those goals.

Add a secondary objective to the Legacy paths on Exploration for ALL Civs, while retaining the alternative 'win' condition for Civs like Mongolia and Songhai.

Do the same in Modern.

I feel like what's missing from the legacy paths is dynamism. You should have at least some goals which arise from things which happen in game. E.g. the AI beats you to a wonder you were about to finish? The city they built it in is worth an extra Mil point if you conquer it. Or something less easily gamed.

I will note, having played Humankind, that while it ended up not being my game, what I didn't enjoy had little to do with age transition (which could have been better, but the problem I had with it - rival faction identity being limited to generic avatars, and excessive number of civ changes - are both absent in Civ VII) - it was the handling of battle. Turning warfare into any sort of mini games with different rules remains one of the best ways to chase me away - I like the strategic level, not the tactical one. (Or rather, I like to play one or the other, not both in one game). And Humankind did it better than most (ie, they didn't have a separate battle resolution map a la Total War/Empire at War/SW Rebellion/Call to Power), but it still had the fundamental flaws of all the other. And it didn't have an auto-resolve button.

But apparently I don't know my own opinions because any and all struggles of Humankind can be laid exclusively and entirely at the foot of civ changes and age changes, and that's the only reason that game struggled to meet the desired success.Or at least, so claim the people with weird psychic power to read the mind of everyone who didn't like a certain game...

The battle system was also by far my least favourite element of Humankind. I will also say the district placement was a close second. Thinking about it, Civ switching maybe annoyed me less in HK than Civ7 since the civs were so bare-bones it never felt like you were picking civ abilities in the first place.

 

[CivKirk64]

Going back to unlockable Civs would be a terrible idea, i would hate all those changes. I would be fine if everything in there is optional, but i thik it would be a waste of resources. Also, i think part of the problems with Age transition is the game stopping your gameplay to promt the change to you, breaking immersion. I think we need LESS prompting, not even more. I wanrt a smooth and fluid experience, so the less interruptions the better

I think the evolution to Civilization is not in the direction of neither civ switching nor age transitions, in any way, those failed and Firaxis needs to look somewhere else for improvements

What do you mean going back? It's already the case where you unlock a civ and switch at the hard age transition. we are talking about how you evolve the current system.

I kind of don't care that some people hate it so much they should stop support for 7 now and start on 8.

 

[Krajzen]

I have a very strange relationship with civ switching, as every now and then I talk about it and my opinion is a pendulum swingin all the way from "it's a great idea with great historical potential" through "mixed feelings" to "it's fundamentally terrible idea and the main hope for civ7 is devs enabling playing it the old way"

But today I think I have an explanation for this: I simply find the civ switching very alluring solution to model some historical civilizations, while very repulsive in some other cases (this is complicated by the gap between potential and actual roster of available civs). To put it simply, it's an immersive way to portray some phenomenons and "histories" while very anti-immersive in other cases.

On one hand it shines when it allows the transformation from ancient to medieval Europe and Middle East. Rome->Italy, Persia->Abbasids->Qajar, Gauls->France, great! And when it allows for many facets of Iranians, Arabs, India, China. Better than the old system! And I can't wait to see e.g. full Andean path.

But on the other hand it is awful when dealing with the cultures where it is actually sensible (or at least "has a great vibe") to lead them from antiquity to modernity and the game forcibly forbids you from doing the actual historical continuity. Korea and Japan are two of the most obvious examples (tbh China too but you can play "full China" through three dynasties since day 1, not them). But you also have Khmer, Vietnam, Mongolia, Ethiopia, Mali, Armenia, Maya, Irish and many other cultures where it actually feels RIGHT to do them from antiquity to modernity. And then there are civs such as Germany, where potentially it could feel great if we get more civs but for now it's certainly feels bad to forced to be first Romans (??) and then uhh Normans (???)...

So I am torn. Frankly I'd probably prefer a Civ game calibrated around the default persistent civs but with the non-enforced ability to switch, occasionally taken by the player and AI, in the latter case when it's "right". Of course the balance of such game would require some clever solutions, between one player getting new toys and other not getting them.

 

[Evie]

I think it's very interesting that your list of "we should be able to play them the full era" includes almost only non-European civ, and I think it reflect a tendency in European historiography to perceive "foreign" cultures and groups as more monolithic than they were in reality. "Korea" speaks of a wide number of kingdoms that existed over the years ; China of course is divided by dynasties of diverse origins and conquerors, with the only continuity being that they all claimed to be each other's successor (in the same way that the German Holy Roman Empire, the Turkish Ottoman Empire and the Slavic Russian Empire all claimed to be continuations of the Latin Roman Empire). Japan went through several extremely divergent cultural era under various foreign and local influences, Mali only existed for a few hundred years before being resurected in post-colonial times, Ethiopia is a catch all for a wide variety of realms that existed at various times under different dynasties, Armenia likewise.,..

The truth is, all these place are as much hodgepodge of different fluid countries as Europe is, and playing them as a monolithic unchanging bloc from antiquity to modernity makes no more sense for them than to others - we're just more used to thinking of them as "one thing" because that's been the traditional European perspective on them from afar.

(Basically, same problem as India, which we argued to the death in pre-Civ VII times. India was one place from an European perspective (ish, there were times when there was Near India, Far India and so forth), so we're used to thinking of it as a monolithic bloc rather than the diverse hodgepodge of cultures, realms and kingdoms it really was.

 

[Elhoim]

Yeah, basically a big issue with it is the lack of civs for many paths, and the only way to "fix it" is to keep buying DLC that adds them.

 

[socratic]

I have a very strange relationship with civ switching, as every now and then I talk about it and my opinion is a pendulum swingin all the way from "it's a great idea with great historical potential" through "mixed feelings" to "it's fundamentally terrible idea and the main hope for civ7 is devs enabling playing it the old way"

But today I think I have an explanation for this: I simply find the civ switching very alluring solution to model some historical civilizations, while very repulsive in some other cases (this is complicated by the gap between potential and actual roster of available civs). To put it simply, it's an immersive way to portray some phenomenons and "histories" while very anti-immersive in other cases.

On one hand it shines when it allows the transformation from ancient to medieval Europe and Middle East. Persia->Abbasids->Qajar, Rome->Italy, Gauls->France, great! And when it allows for many facets of India and dynasties of China. Better than the old system!

But on the other hand it is awful when dealing with the cultures where it is actually sensible (or at least "has a great vibe") to lead them from antiquity to modernity and the game forcibly forbids you from doing the actual historical continuity. Korea and Japan are two of the most obvious examples (tbh China too but you can play "full China" since day 1, not them). But you also have Khmer, Vietnam, Mongolia, Ethiopia, Mali, Armenia, Maya, Irish and many other cultures where it actually feels RIGHT to do them from antiquity to modernity.

So I am torn. Frankly I'd probably prefer a Civ game calibrated around the default persistent civs but with the non-enforced ability to switch, occasionally taken by the player and AI, in the latter case when it's "right". Of course the balance of such game would require some clever solutions, between one player getting new toys and other not getting them.

The more I think about it, the more I think they should have started with a smaller geographic roster, even if it means cutting out some staples on release (which they already ended up doing anyways). Start with civilizations that compliment the mechanic, maybe sprinkle in some outliers like America or Carthage, then later expand the roster to represent more groups. The current selection of civs has the worst of both worlds imo, because almost no one is properly represented. People who want to play long-lasting civilizations like Greece are out of luck, while people who want to play Songhai are forced to watch their West African civ turn into a almost completely unrelated culture on the other side of the continent.

 

[Crashdummy]

Humankind was based on cultures throughout history... It had generic but immortal leaders and you selected various historical empires on age transition. It is exactly the same idea as Civ 7. Only in it, they removed nothing from the player and you switched like 6 or 8 times with soft switches, not hard abrupt transitions.

When I said fictional empire, I meant entirely made up lore. Like a Civ known as the Rabbit Kingdom. Age 1, You are the Bunny Tribe. Age 2, you may choose between the JackRabbit Empire or the Cottontail Kingdom. Act 3, Long Ear Nation or the Hop Collective. But also <- See how you stay rabbits and keep a common thread of your identity through the "civ switching"? Like that. The "civ switching is an evolutionary process, not a "now the rabits turn into frogs". The idea is fantastic if you see it as a way to evolve or "level up" your civ and make your civ become more malleable and gain more abilities over time. Like "every civ "leveling up" to raise the stakes as the game goes forward. That idea works very well for a 4x game. But designing a system that works well, you need to be able to design based on how each faction grows simultaneously and worrying about accurately representing a real culture in history is very restrictive to that idea.

A "evolution" of the Civ might work, but i think it would still not be my cup of tea. I want as little amount of interruptions during my gameplay as possible, because when i am interrupted my immersion goes down. So if the game stops to take me into a civ selection, or civ upgrade selection, or whatever, then my enjoyment goes down. AoW4 is as far as i can go, and even then it breaks immersion a little bit

In any way, i dont think Civ switching is necessary at all, it was never a problem in previous Civs so i think Firaxis shoot themselves on the foot with this one. Are transitions do intend to solve a "problem" (people not finishing games) but it fails at that and makes the game worse IMHO, while being a HUGE immersion breaker

I dont see any solution other than a Classic Mode

What do you mean going back? It's already the case where you unlock a civ and switch at the hard age transition. we are talking about how you evolve the current system.

I kind of don't care that some people hate it so much they should stop support for 7 now and start on 8.

They added an option to bypasss all Civ unlocks on the June patch. Going back to being forced is bad for the game IMHO. That was what i tried to tell you

 

[TylertheDestroyer]

You could check which sources ChatGPT uses, they are in the document.

I've read all the data you plugged in before , no I'm not going to take chatGPT prompt you wrote using data like "Civ VII at only one point during its launch briefly topped physical release chart in the UK only" and "the switch is the fastest selling console" extropolate baseless estimations and speculation seriously. I'm sorry

I'm just trying to reply to similar accusations.

The reason why I don't write my position in details is that I did it many times already and never received a constructive reply. Men, the simple idea what you can't talk about how successful game is without defined criteria of success was never properly replied! Those are not elite skills, those are the basiest basics.

The game sold significantly less than its predessecors, even using actually somewhat credible estimations algorithm like gameayltics.

Ok that's more advanced operation, but I think it's not that hard to understand as a concept. You take multiple sources of indirect data, where each individual piece of information doesn't prove anything due to high error margin, but together they paint much more convincing feature. You keep picking individual ones and say they aren't convincing. Yes, they aren't and that's why I don't use them individually!

Stop talking down to us. We are using all the same data you plugged into ChatGPT prompt you wrote to justify your own baseless position. All the data together all points to a flop, you're are the only person still doing mental gymnastics and trying to pull million+ secret console players out of thin air to avoid facing this reality

 

[Evie]

I agree that interrupting you to go on a separate screen and force you to chose a new civilization is a bad way to do things. The culture change should be fluidly integrated in the game, part of the normal interface you use to manage your civilization, not an interruption of it - and not something that is forced, something you do on your own times after your cultural abilities start going obsolete.

At most, you would get a flag/warning message telling you "The following cultural abilities are now obsolete and you no longer benefit from them. You may want to consider choosing a different culture/civilization/whatever". You click, it guides you to the right section of the game to do that in, but it's one of the normal game screen (say, the government/civics one, for example, or even the main map).

Or you can just not click on it and keep your previous culture though it may no longer benefit you as much, if the one you'd like isn't there yet, or you just want to keep your current one.

 

[socratic]

I think it's very interesting that your list of "we should be able to play them the full era" includes almost only non-European civ, and I think it reflect a tendency in European historiography to perceive "foreign" cultures and groups as more monolithic than they were in reality. "Korea" speaks of a wide number of kingdoms that existed over the years ; China of course is divided by dynasties of diverse origins and conquerors, with the only continuity being that they all claimed to be each other's successor (in the same way that the German Holy Roman Empire, the Turkish Ottoman Empire and the Slavic Russian Empire all claimed to be continuations of the Latin Roman Empire). Japan went through several extremely divergent cultural era under various foreign and local influences, Mali only existed for a few hundred years before being resurected in post-colonial times, Ethiopia is a catch all for a wide variety of realms that existed at various times under different dynasties, Armenia likewise.,..

The truth is, all these place are as much hodgepodge of different fluid countries as Europe is, and playing them as a monolithic unchanging bloc from antiquity to modernity makes no more sense for them than to others - we're just more used to thinking of them as "one thing" because that's been the traditional European perspective on them from afar.

(Basically, same problem as India, which we argued to the death in pre-Civ VII times. India was one place from an European perspective (ish, there were times when there was Near India, Far India and so forth), so we're used to thinking of it as a monolithic bloc rather than the diverse hodgepodge of cultures, realms and kingdoms it really was.

I disagree. What makes Civ Switching interesting on a thematic level is exploring the different facets and fluctuations of a group leading up to their unity in today. France has a really good lineup in this game because it embraces this. Rome > Norman > France shows different groups and cultural influences coming together to form “France”, not a single unchanging block. No Gallo-Roman called themselves “French”, but Rome still works as a predecessor of France because of its influence on French culture/identity. The Persia > Abbasid > Qajar transition shows how ancient Persian culture fused with Arabic and Turkic influence to form a modern Iran. I’d love to see that represented with Japan, Korea, Ethiopia, etc.

 

[Evie]

I'm not sure we're actually disagreeing, since my point is also that we should represent the various cultural transition undergone by people outside Europe rather than thinking of them as unchanging monolithic blocks. There should be (say) Silla-Goryeo-Joseon or Heian-Kamakura-Meiji not one civ named Korea (or Japan) you play the whole game.

There are not enough civs in the game right now (one major reason I want them to add more civs to the existing age, not new ages) to cover all the possible historical evolution.

(Though I would nitpick that the Norman are better exploration english than exploration French, being far more based on Norman england than anything else. They do mostly fit both roles, though).

 

[Crashdummy]

Even if more paths are added that makes sense (which very few of the ones in the game do), the problem will still exist. Its not a problem about switching paths, its the switching itself that is a problem

The only ones that think more paths would fix anything are the ones that already like civ switching. The problem is the immersion breaking, the player feeling like its losing what they chose to start the game with, the player feeling stuff they worked for is being taken away, the fact that you cant build an empire to stand the test of time (and Firaxis knows that which is why they changed the slogan) which was the SOUL of the franchise

More civs to switch wont solve anything