What's your opinion on civ switching?

[Leucarum]

"Can you build a civilization that will stand the test of time?" Already implies that not every Civ will exist through the whole period. I think Civ previously dealt with it abstractly enough that it was enjoyable

Sure, some civs get wiped out, but whichever civ you pick has to have an equal ability to stand the test of time. Which is why I don't think linking your evolutions to cultures is going to work if you also demand historical accuracy. You just don't have the same amount of source material to work with, and they probably would rather avoid full on alt-history.

That's why I think the way to square the circle is to have civs evolve in ways which do not involve civ switching. And why the prize will go to whoever makes that not feel generic.

 

[Wrenched]

This is clearly wrong

There are A LOT of players that are not fine with Civ switching, and no, it isnt just because the game takes you completely away from itself to change, its because the change itself goes against the core concept of the franchise

Civilization was always about how well could you do with a Civilization, from scratch to modern, Civ 7 goes against the soul of the franchise. Maybe civ switching can work in another IP, but it wont in Civilization

And Age of Wonders do NOT have anything like civ switching, you just get MORE spells and units available to be built, you never LOSE a single spell or unit available to be built

Fair enough.

I was just trying to articulate that the concept can be appealing when approached subtly and with a softer touch...with much more scaffolding supporting an incremental on-ramp.

I mentioned Age of Wonders as an example of Civ evolution. A way to show a Civ or peoples evolving over time and changing in states. As you note it is a gradual positive change where new aspects are added in layers while leaving what came before intact.

The approaches in the Paradox games can be applied to Civ-like games as Soren Johnson demonstrated with Old World taking a lot of inspiration from Crusader Kings and modeling internal family, faction, court, and ruler dynamics.

Whether the same could be accomplished with a mainline Civ game is up to the wider audience to decide and places like this thread to chew on.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

Sure, some civs get wiped out, but whichever civ you pick has to have an equal ability to stand the test of time. Which is why I don't think linking your evolutions to cultures is going to work if you also demand historical accuracy. You just don't have the same amount of source material to work with, and they probably would rather avoid full on alt-history.

That's why I think the way to square the circle is to have civs evolve in ways which do not involve civ switching. And why the prize will go to whoever makes that not feel generic.

I'm not suggesting they do. I'm saying the old model worked enough, and now they've f***ed it basically.

 

[Leucarum]

I'm not suggesting they do. I'm saying the old model worked enough, and now they've f***ed it basically.

Aah ok. I guess I misinterpreted your point. I don't know if I'd go quite that far. I can still play Civ7 in spite of civ switching, I just wish they hadn't gone down that route as it's a definite downgrade to how the game feels for me.

 

[aieeegrunt]

forced age transition ?

That deletes and replaces my civ offscreen via developer fiat regardless of the situation in the game.

Twice.

Sure, some civs get wiped out, but whichever civ you pick has to have an equal ability to stand the test of time. Which is why I don't think linking your evolutions to cultures is going to work if you also demand historical accuracy. You just don't have the same amount of source material to work with, and they probably would rather avoid full on alt-history.

That's why I think the way to square the circle is to have civs evolve in ways which do not involve civ switching. And why the prize will go to whoever makes that not feel generic.

I agree. Civ was already well down that path when we did this bizarre detour into “Humankind, but worse”

 

[Leucarum]

“Humankind, but worse”

It fixed a lot of Humankind's problems. That game had too many transitions, even worse identity issues, bland civs... I just don't think it was enough to recuperate the mechanic. And they made new mistakes.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Sure, some civs get wiped out, but whichever civ you pick has to have an equal ability to stand the test of time. Which is why I don't think linking your evolutions to cultures is going to work if you also demand historical accuracy. You just don't have the same amount of source material to work with, and they probably would rather avoid full on alt-history.

That's why I think the way to square the circle is to have civs evolve in ways which do not involve civ switching. And why the prize will go to whoever makes that not feel generic.

The major problem with 'alternate history' is that it requires so much Work to get right, and then is either too much wide open to be immersive or too much of a strait jacket to be replayable.

I would only modify "civs evolve in ways that do not involve civ switching" to "do not Necessarily involve civ switching." Switching to another Civ entirely should be an option, but only an option and entered into in extreme circumstances when nothing else is working.

- And that has to be included in a system that has both massive ways to change and smaller, incremental changes to your Civ in response to specific situations and problems that may - repeat, may - result in a whole new Civ eventually.

 

[Gorbles]

They don't help their case by making 7's UI scream "made for touchscreens"

Hi, cross-platform software developer here. The stuff I do has to work on phones, tablets, and desktops, and frequently has distinct differences between desktops and large tablets, vs. small tablets and phones.

There are plenty of small enough elements that are not built for touchscreens. Maybe they're built to be accessible, but accessibility (in software, probably not in video games) is a literal legal standard we need to comply with to do effective business.

By all means, hate the colour palette, or the lack of detail. But very little about the UI in VII screams "made for touchscreens" (read: mobile) to me.

 

[Crashdummy]

This game has had soooo many things that turned people off. Denuvo, UI, the buggy release, the day-one DLC, the leader roster, age transitions, etc. We can’t say that civ-switching is the sole reason for its divisiveness. There’s no telling how civ-switching would’ve been received had it been implemented differently.

We can say it, because everything else has been improved and numbers are NOT increasing.

So the problem must be from the things that they havent changed yet, which is age transitions and civ switching

Civ switching isnt solving any problems, the game didnt need it. I think the main drive for it is that they can make new Civs to sell faster and easier

 

[Crashdummy]

Fair enough.

I was just trying to articulate that the concept can be appealing when approached subtly and with a softer touch...with much more scaffolding supporting an incremental on-ramp.

I mentioned Age of Wonders as an example of Civ evolution. A way to show a Civ or peoples evolving over time and changing in states. As you note it is a gradual positive change where new aspects are added in layers while leaving what came before intact.

The approaches in the Paradox games can be applied to Civ-like games as Soren Johnson demonstrated with Old World taking a lot of inspiration from Crusader Kings and modeling internal family, faction, court, and ruler dynamics.

Whether the same could be accomplished with a mainline Civ game is up to the wider audience to decide and places like this thread to chew on.

But we already had in Civ what AoW has. We got new policies, new goverments that we could change to. What AoW does isnt that much different from that, it adds very little and incrementally, like civis and technologies did in previous Civs

There was nothing to fix there, the improvements for the Civllization franchise were needed in other places

 

[Abaxial]

One of the reasons I won't play Civ VII. (1) It is completely contrary to the basic premise of Civ: build a civilisation that stands the test of time. (2) It is so obviously just an artificial game mechanic with no historical basis.

 

[McSpank01]

We can say it, because everything else has been improved and numbers are NOT increasing.

So the problem must be from the things that they havent changed yet, which is age transitions and civ switching

Civ switching isnt solving any problems, the game didnt need it. I think the main drive for it is that they can make new Civs to sell faster and easier

I doubt most players (especially casual ones) are just waiting around and examining each patch to understand whether to buy the game or come back to the game. There are a smaller subset of dedicated players, who probably hang around here and other forums who will be more engaged in that content, but I doubt it applies to most.

I suspect that for Civ 7 to be truly successful there needs to be large scale, almost universal buzz about the game that radiates out into the wider world. If you get a standard narrative that Civ 7 started out flawed but is now definitely an amazing game, then you might get a second wind of people rediscovering it.

It’s going to take a lot more work on the game and the systems involved to make that happen I think. Bite sized DLC which are basically flavour packs are not going to be enough.

 

[Gorbles]

It is so obviously just an artificial game mechanic with no historical basis.

I understand why people don't get on with the mechanical implementation, but this is simply false. These kinds of transitions happened all the time.

 

[Maiq]

Hi, cross-platform software developer here. The stuff I do has to work on phones, tablets, and desktops, and frequently has distinct differences between desktops and large tablets, vs. small tablets and phones.

There are plenty of small enough elements that are not built for touchscreens. Maybe they're built to be accessible, but accessibility (in software, probably not in video games) is a literal legal standard we need to comply with to do effective business.

By all means, hate the colour palette, or the lack of detail. But very little about the UI in VII screams "made for touchscreens" (read: mobile) to me.

For God's sake the game doesn't even have edge scrolling lol. Nothing more to really say

 

[Nikolai II]

For God's sake the game doesn't even have edge scrolling lol. Nothing more to really say

Never say never. Hopefully easy to implement later.

 

[Gorbles]

For God's sake the game doesn't even have edge scrolling lol. Nothing more to really say

The game wasn't released in a polished state. In my opinion, it wasn't ready, and I can only guess (cough cough shareholders) why it was released when it was.

You've evidently come up with a theory (that's impossible to prove or disprove) and you don't seem to want to discuss it. Fair enough.