What's your opinion on civ switching?

[Leucarum]

But then it's hard to imagine that the Carthaginians would just be building the same stuff hundreds and thousands of years later.

I literally just visited a recently built harbour and spent a solid 5 minutes pointing out how little the design they'd used was basically a Cothon.

I think most of the earlier UBs and UIs work going into later eras. Hawelti still being built as monuments? A Mortuary Temple still being built as a place of worship? Ulemas still used as universities? Going backwards (e.g. if modern civs could be played out of era their UBs don't usually work) is not viable but I'd have no difficulty accepting still being able to build older buildings in later eras...

 

[Crashdummy]

Based on the amount of work and number of uniques for each civ, you need to multiple their number, not divide.

Because the Civs you have now are shadows of the Civs you had before, they are cheaper (which i think was the main reason for civ switching). Yes, you would need to multiply, but your base isnt 39, your base its 39/3. You multiply that for 3 and you get 39

They are selling you parts of a Civilization now, not a full one

And btw in my case i dont want UU and UB for everyone in every age, that creates a bland playstyle where everyone is equally powerfull at all times, and that is boring

 

[Skojardu]

Because the Civs you have now are shadows of the Civs you had before, they are cheaper (which i think was the main reason for civ switching). Yes, you would need to multiply, but your base isnt 39, your base its 39/3. You multiply that for 3 and you get 39

They are selling you parts of a Civilization now, not a full one

And btw in my case i dont want UU and UB for everyone in every age, that creates a bland playstyle where everyone is equally powerfull at all times, and that is boring

I still think that civ-evolving should happen if you are losing, rather than if you are winning. It would serve as a good catch-up mechanic.
For context, in Civ 4, early on in the game, if you were rocketing ahead of a neighbor in score, a pop-up would ask you if you wanted to "lift your neighbor out of their squalor".

My idea: if you made it to some moment on the tech tree or some moment of turn count, if you were in the bottom nth of players, you would have a national revival revolution and get some sort of boost, possibly some change of dynasty or culture. That would mean that you wouldn't run into the moral of the story in "The Incredibles" referenced in bold by Crashdummy.

 

[Crashdummy]

I still think that civ-evolving should happen if you are losing, rather than if you are winning. It would serve as a good catch-up mechanic.
For context, in Civ 4, early on in the game, if you were rocketing ahead of a neighbor in score, a pop-up would ask you if you wanted to "lift your neighbor out of their squalor".

My idea: if you made it to some moment on the tech tree or some moment of turn count, if you were in the bottom nth of players, you would have a national revival revolution and get some sort of boost, possibly some change of dynasty or culture. That would mean that you wouldn't run into the moral of the story in "The Incredibles" referenced in bold by Crashdummy.

No please, not more punishment for playing well...

Let people win in any way they like if they are playing well, stop trying to undermine the player's work, it doesnt feel good. Besides, Classic and "Retail" modes should be separate and you should pick them BEFORE you even start the game

I dont want to change civs and i dont want my enemies to change either, i dont want age transitions that force change at set intervals

I want a clean, fluid, smooth sandbox game, like we always had, with no immersion breaking stuff and witout the game taking me away from the game to a freaking selection screen... Alternative ways to shove the current design down my throat are not something i am interested in

 

[WillK96]

I don't thats true and a quick google suggests it isn't as I had to check. There was a Mediterranean style that was shared by Greece and Rome and more of a European one that Germany and France would use, but they were still generic. I don't see that as being very different to what is happening with Spain and Normandy.

It is certainly true - see the attached gallery. The palaces/city centers were different, it added a unique flavor for the civ. That has now been erased. YOU MUST play as a civilization with a historical anchoring in that age (unless Firaxis is trying to fill ages in and uses the Maya in antiquity, etc.) and ONLY that age. The only thing to remind you of who you once were are the city names and the unique buildings in your cities (note that you can only build them in your cities, so it is entirely possible to play a game where there is no hint that you played as Rome in the antiquity age outside of 1-2 unique quarters across your 30 settlements). That is not what CIV has been for the last 30 years and is a major gameplay change.

Well Civ games are always grouping nations and empires together, slapping a label on it and saying 'that is a civ'. They are this kind of cartoonish idea of history that doesn't really correlate to reality except in a sort of vague loose way. Egypt is almost always depicted as the Egypt of Cleopatra, which is just a small bit of it's history, and has zero correlation to the Egypt of 2025. They don't even really represent Cleopatra's Egypt in any real way. These civs are nothing more than ideas.

Like, I get the desire to see what happens if you took Ancient Egypt into modern age and launched a spaceship with it, thats cool. But at the same time, that idea of Egypt is just a fiction, its a cartoon, it's almost like having a concept of Egypt that is entire created by Civilisation games. I have been guilty in the past of basing my historic knowledge on what Civ games do, and then realising how unrealistic that idea is.

Brother I have a JD and LLM, I do not base my knowledge of history on what the Civ games did. Unless you are going to have 300+ civilizations across the 3 eras - Civ switching is an inferior historical analog than keeping the "cartoonish" singular civs and allowing their units and architecture to develop and evolve based on who is living in the area the civ represents for the appropriate time period. It is preferable for me, and for a great deal of the player base, to have the Roman civilization gradually morph into a civilization artistically depicted as a modern European/Mediterranean civilization while retaining the key design elements that made them Roman (free roads and trading posts in Civ VI, even into the modern age).

To be fair, Carthage is basically one of the only civs in Civ 7 that has any sort of unique playstyle. So picking that one is maybe not representative. Having said that, I have played numerous Carthage > Spain games and it absolutely worked, because it is quite easy to imagine that if you took Carthage forward in time it would basically be just like Spain in many ways, acting like a naval exploration faction with southern med styling. So in that regard, it's hard to see what the difference is, it then just becomes a label on the front of the Civ. Yeah maybe that one specific mechanic which is unique to Carthage doesn't stick around (maybe it should) but then you keep all your Cothons that you built and they still work. But then it's hard to imagine that the Carthaginians would just be building the same stuff hundreds and thousands of years later.

You did not engage in my critique. I have also played numerous Carthage > Spain games. I agree that they are fun. That is not my point. If I transition to Spain or the Abbasids or anyone else in the Exploration age, I can no longer continue to make my civilization feel like Carthage. No Punic Ports, no double merchants, no double colonists. In other words - nothing really Carthaginian. Again compare with every civ game since unique infrastructure was introduced in Civ IV, over 20 years ago. That is a material loss and you are unable to play around that by cosplaying Spain as Carthage by not building any Plazas or Conquistadors. Likewise, and even more frustratingly, I cannot play as the Inca or the Abbasids from antiquity, which makes them feel like a shell of themselves in the exploration era, given that the civs of the anitquity age do not share the same terrain or geographical starting biases.

You may enjoy the civ switching because you like that each age is a minigame with civilizations locked to that age in a sort of "time-appropriate" historical simulator. (I can't fight the Mayans with the Spanish, but I can fight the Hawaiians with the Chola). That's fine. I too enjoy the individual ages with their unique mechanics. But that does not detract from the very real gameplay negatives which occur as a result of the civ-switching mechanic; it is fundamentally not a Civilization game.


More broadly, you seem to think that previous Civs just slapped a label on an incongruous ahistorical ethnic blob and called it a "Civ," so you can't comprehend why people are annoyed that you are now forced to change those labels. To that I pose the following hypothetical - do you think that Civ VII would be as popular if the devs had decided to do away with Civilizations all together and just had randomly named factions? I suggest the answer to that question is no, because people enjoy the historical role playing element of playing a real civs with real uniques and real(ish) leaders. Consequently, it stands to reason that people opposed being forced to switch from the Romans, an italo-ethnic group which created an Empire, to the Normans, a Nordic-Frankish admixture inhabiting an extremely small overlap of territory and almost no ethnic overlap (aside from the American generalization of "they were both White"), do not oppose this on both an emotional ground: Civilizations do not just randomly morph into other distinguishable groups if people and the Romans and Normans are as distinct of a people - ethnically, culturally, geographically, and Romans and the Kushites. This is unsatisfying emotionally, because Romans really did not share much if any cultural ties to the nordic raiders of the early medieval period, and logically, because there is little to no reasoning behind forcing the player to switch to these unrelated civs, except to enforce the broader framework of Civ VII's ages system - something Civilization managed just fine without for 3 decades.

 

[EpicWestern]

I was skeptical at first, but I've come around to the idea that civ-switching is just the natural evolution for 4x games. There really isn't a better way to achieve the same level of richness across ages (however they are defined). Its possible Firaxis was pushing people too hard to come to this conclusion though, by not allowing continuations of civs in some sort of bland form. Its a bit like a chef not wanting people to fill up on bread before the main course, so bread is not served, which inevitably annoys people who like and are expecting bread.

 

[WillK96]

I was skeptical at first, but I've come around to the idea that civ-switching is just the natural evolution for 4x games. There really isn't a better way to achieve the same level of richness across ages (however they are defined). Its possible Firaxis was pushing people too hard to come to this conclusion though, by not allowing continuations of civs in some sort of bland form. Its a bit like a chef not wanting people to fill up on bread before the main course, so bread is not served, which inevitably annoys people who like and are expecting bread.

I'm not sure I agree. Humankind did it and it was a commercial failure (happy to be corrected but appears support has ended and while reviews were mixed, the general consensus is it was fun for a bit but not great). Neither Millenia (which I haven't played but understand is like a civ knock-off) nor Old World (played extensively, though the scope prohibits civ switching), nor Ara (poor launch but looks like the dev team is continuing development and significantly updating the game, I would not be surprised if Ara had a resurgence if CIV VII dies an early death) did civ/culture switching. So that leaves really Humankind and Civ VII? Neither of which have been well received. And Civ VII has been so poorly received that I would be surprised if it ever matches Civ V or Civ VI's current #s with the current mechanics in place.

 

[Skojardu]

It is certainly true - see the attached gallery. The palaces/city centers were different, it added a unique flavor for the civ. That has now been erased. YOU MUST play as a civilization with a historical anchoring in that age (unless Firaxis is trying to fill ages in and uses the Maya in antiquity, etc.) and ONLY that age. The only thing to remind you of who you once were are the city names and the unique buildings in your cities (note that you can only build them in your cities, so it is entirely possible to play a game where there is no hint that you played as Rome in the antiquity age outside of 1-2 unique quarters across your 30 settlements). That is not what CIV has been for the last 30 years and is a major gameplay change.

Brother I have a JD and LLM, I do not base my knowledge of history on what the Civ games did. Unless you are going to have 300+ civilizations across the 3 eras - Civ switching is an inferior historical analog than keeping the "cartoonish" singular civs and allowing their units and architecture to develop and evolve based on who is living in the area the civ represents for the appropriate time period. It is preferable for me, and for a great deal of the player base, to have the Roman civilization gradually morph into a civilization artistically depicted as a modern European/Mediterranean civilization while retaining the key design elements that made them Roman (free roads and trading posts in Civ VI, even into the modern age).

You did not engage in my critique. I have also played numerous Carthage > Spain games. I agree that they are fun. That is not my point. If I transition to Spain or the Abbasids or anyone else in the Exploration age, I can no longer continue to make my civilization feel like Carthage. No Punic Ports, no double merchants, no double colonists. In other words - nothing really Carthaginian. Again compare with every civ game since unique infrastructure was introduced in Civ IV, over 20 years ago. That is a material loss and you are unable to play around that by cosplaying Spain as Carthage by not building any Plazas or Conquistadors. Likewise, and even more frustratingly, I cannot play as the Inca or the Abbasids from antiquity, which makes them feel like a shell of themselves in the exploration era, given that the civs of the anitquity age do not share the same terrain or geographical starting biases.

You may enjoy the civ switching because you like that each age is a minigame with civilizations locked to that age in a sort of "time-appropriate" historical simulator. (I can't fight the Mayans with the Spanish, but I can fight the Hawaiians with the Chola). That's fine. I too enjoy the individual ages with their unique mechanics. But that does not detract from the very real gameplay negatives which occur as a result of the civ-switching mechanic; it is fundamentally not a Civilization game.


More broadly, you seem to think that previous Civs just slapped a label on an incongruous ahistorical ethnic blob and called it a "Civ," so you can't comprehend why people are annoyed that you are now forced to change those labels. To that I pose the following hypothetical - do you think that Civ VII would be as popular if the devs had decided to do away with Civilizations all together and just had randomly named factions? I suggest the answer to that question is no, because people enjoy the historical role playing element of playing a real civs with real uniques and real(ish) leaders. Consequently, it stands to reason that people opposed being forced to switch from the Romans, an italo-ethnic group which created an Empire, to the Normans, a Nordic-Frankish admixture inhabiting an extremely small overlap of territory and almost no ethnic overlap (aside from the American generalization of "they were both White"), do not oppose this on both an emotional ground: Civilizations do not just randomly morph into other distinguishable groups if people and the Romans and Normans are as distinct of a people - ethnically, culturally, geographically, and Romans and the Kushites. This is unsatisfying emotionally, because Romans really did not share much if any cultural ties to the nordic raiders of the early medieval period, and logically, because there is little to no reasoning behind forcing the player to switch to these unrelated civs, except to enforce the broader framework of Civ VII's ages system - something Civilization managed just fine without for 3 decades.

*mic drop*

Well said!

 

[Leucarum]

I think Civ evolution is for certain here to stay. I think Civ switching as the means to achieve that is dead in the water.

 

[WillK96]

I think Civ evolution is for certain here to stay. I think Civ switching as the means to achieve that is dead in the water.

What do you propose as an alternative to civ switching?

I don't actually mind civ-switching - I just think there would have to be approximately 250 civs to make it feel both logical and replayable (e.g. I could go Rome - Papal States - Italy or Rome - HRE - Germany; Gauls - Franks - France or Gauls - Swiss Confederacy - Switzerland). And it would still be at odds with the basic design of Civs 1-VI.

 

[Kev1916]

What do you propose as an alternative to civ switching?

I don't actually mind civ-switching - I just think there would have to be approximately 250 civs to make it feel both logical and replayable (e.g. I could go Rome - Papal States - Italy or Rome - HRE - Germany; Gauls - Franks - France or Gauls - Swiss Confederacy - Switzerland). And it would still be at odds with the basic design of Civs 1-VI.

There is no sane person going to spend 6-8$ a civ to get 250 "civs", unless they dilute the "civ" to just a cosmetic identity with cheap skins which to be fair some poster's on here may not mind

2K Should double down on switching and move solely into the casual console market play to it's strength wih the 3 in 1 casual mini game :- selling themed packs - Pokeman , historic scenarios, sf fantasy, future apocalypse, etc

 

[Crashdummy]

I was skeptical at first, but I've come around to the idea that civ-switching is just the natural evolution for 4x games. There really isn't a better way to achieve the same level of richness across ages (however they are defined). Its possible Firaxis was pushing people too hard to come to this conclusion though, by not allowing continuations of civs in some sort of bland form. Its a bit like a chef not wanting people to fill up on bread before the main course, so bread is not served, which inevitably annoys people who like and are expecting bread.

Players seem to be rejecting that "evolution". We cant say something is an evolution when we still dont have a single succcessful implementation of it

I think Devs trying to push this "evolution" will be the doom of 4x games

 

[EpicWestern]

I'm not sure I agree. Humankind did it and it was a commercial failure (happy to be corrected but appears support has ended and while reviews were mixed, the general consensus is it was fun for a bit but not great). Neither Millenia (which I haven't played but understand is like a civ knock-off) nor Old World (played extensively, though the scope prohibits civ switching), nor Ara (poor launch but looks like the dev team is continuing development and significantly updating the game, I would not be surprised if Ara had a resurgence if CIV VII dies an early death) did civ/culture switching. So that leaves really Humankind and Civ VII? Neither of which have been well received. And Civ VII has been so poorly received that I would be surprised if it ever matches Civ V or Civ VI's current #s with the current mechanics in place.

Old World doesn't consider civ switching because the entire game takes place in one age. Humankind gave you the option to continue with your previous civ, but it was pretty pointless and bland since there was no real development for it (and of course there couldn't be unless you're willing to fictionalize units or abilities). Humankind also had more weakly developed civs than Civ7. It seems natural from a development standpoint that if you're only getting a civ for 1/3 of the time that it only needs to be developed about 1/3 as much as a civ that you would use through an entire game playthrough. This definitely did give a feel of a loss of immersion though. Civ7 mostly corrected that mistake by just having almost fully developed civs in that period when you get them. They still should have gone all the way and have dedicated leaders for each civ (there's still time!). After getting over the psychological hump of continuity, just feels like you're getting a 3 for 1 bargain on your civs, and I don't like the prospect of going back.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I think one way to rationalize civ-switching in civ7 is to think of it not as the civ itself switching per se but more the cities and towns changing control. In other words, the cities and towns are shifting from being controlled by one civ in one Age to now being controlled by another civ in the next Age. For example, the Antiquity Age ends, your Roman cities and towns have fallen due to the crisis and Age ending and now hundreds of years later, the Exploration Age has started, and those previously Roman cities and towns are now under Spanish control. So the player is not switching civs, rather they are selecting which civ will control their cities and towns in the next Age. This view of "civ-switching" would fit history probably a bit better, although still very abstract. Of course, the game does not really explain this. So it is all head canon to try to rationalize what is happening. I do think that the time jump during the Age transition is a big flaw because the player has to assume that "stuff happens" and now they pick the next civ to control their cities and towns. But what happened? Why is this new civ controlling their settlements? The game does not say. The game is making the player skip part of the story. I think it is always a mistake when players are forced to imagine what happened and skip parts of a game.

 

[EpicWestern]

Players seem to be rejecting that "evolution".

Some players, I mean you can just scroll up to the poll to see that it's about 50/50. Probably more people would be in favor than not if the game had a more polished rollout.

 

[Leucarum]

Players seem to be rejecting that "evolution". We cant say something is an evolution when we still dont have a single succcessful implementation of it

I think Devs trying to push this "evolution" will be the doom of 4x games

What do you propose as an alternative to civ switching?

I don't actually mind civ-switching - I just think there would have to be approximately 250 civs to make it feel both logical and replayable (e.g. I could go Rome - Papal States - Italy or Rome - HRE - Germany; Gauls - Franks - France or Gauls - Swiss Confederacy - Switzerland). And it would still be at odds with the basic design of Civs 1-VI.

I'd define it as any form of acquiring new abilities over the course of the game so that your Civ stays fresh without the jarring changes introduced by Civ switching. I don't think any dev has found how to make this not feel too generic yet. And it's not new, even Civ Rev had something like this! So doom and gloom over dramatic changes which evil devs are foisting on us feels overblown.

Some players, I mean you can just scroll up to the poll to see that it's about 50/50. Probably more people would be in favor than not if the game had a more polished rollout.

At this point it's tough to spin Civ Switching as successful. I know people will try, but it seems to be a major reason why Civ7 is underperforming.

 

[King Flevance]

I wouldn't call this a "3 for 1 bargain" especially considering how obvious this model is primed for paid DLC. You were paying $5 for a civ and leader you could play a whole game as but now you can pay $10 for a civ you can play for 1/3 of the game. Hardly a bargain.

What do you propose as an alternative to civ switching?

I would propose that events like settling 3 coastal cities or becoming suzerain of 3 city states (things that unlock civs) instead unlock access to at new ability at age transition. Perhaps this new ability grants +1 movement for embarked units and coastal trade routes can't be pillaged. Or you gain a 50% discount on city state endeavors except "Befriend Independant". This would be a single Unique Ability your civ gains each age based on your playstyle from the previous age. (And you can only pick one no matter how many you unlock but I would also make them a little harder to unlock) Plus, if you reworked legacies to be a bit more varied asymmetrically these could compound to make each playthrough adapt to the circumstances of each game. An evolution of your civ based on circumstances you had to overcome.

 

[Gorbles]

I'm not sure I agree. Humankind did it and it was a commercial failure (happy to be corrected but appears support has ended and while reviews were mixed, the general consensus is it was fun for a bit but not great)

Would you say your agreement is therefore represented by a commercial success?

This is an open question, actually. A lot of posters active here seem to say "VII is doing bad, ergo it did bad" but at the same time don't like vanilla (e.g. mod-less) Civ VI (or even V in some cases).

What defines a success? Is commercial success the only indicator? Or can we have a commercial success that will also be decided?

This isn't a leading question. I was an am a big fan of Civ VI. I championed it before, up to, and after launch (and still do). It was a commercial success. But more than a few here won't call it a success either. So what metrics of success actually matter? It's not like we can trust user reviews on Steam. They don't exist prior to V (as a representation of the actual game on launch / without mods).

 

[WillK96]

I think one way to rationalize civ-switching in civ7 is to think of it not as the civ itself switching per se but more the cities and towns changing control. In other words, the cities and towns are shifting from being controlled by one civ in one Age to now being controlled by another civ in the next Age. For example, the Antiquity Age ends, your Roman cities and towns have fallen due to the crisis and Age ending and now hundreds of years later, the Exploration Age has started, and those previously Roman cities and towns are now under Spanish control. So the player is not switching civs, rather they are selecting which civ will control their cities and towns in the next Age. This view of "civ-switching" would fit history probably a bit better, although still very abstract. Of course, the game does not really explain this. So it is all head canon to try to rationalize what is happening. I do think that the time jump during the Age transition is a big flaw because the player has to assume that "stuff happens" and now they pick the next civ to control their cities and towns. But what happened? Why is this new civ controlling their settlements? The game does not say. The game is making the player skip part of the story. I think it is always a mistake when players are forced to imagine what happened and skip parts of a game.

Sure but this is arguably worse because now you are forced to have your civ taken over by another random civ that you now control.

 

[WillK96]

Would you say your agreement is therefore represented by a commercial success?

This is an open question, actually. A lot of posters active here seem to say "VII is doing bad, ergo it did bad" but at the same time don't like vanilla (e.g. mod-less) Civ VI (or even V in some cases).

What defines a success? Is commercial success the only indicator? Or can we have a commercial success that will also be decided?

This isn't a leading question. I was an am a big fan of Civ VI. I championed it before, up to, and after launch (and still do). It was a commercial success. But more than a few here won't call it a success either. So what metrics of success actually matter? It's not like we can trust user reviews on Steam. They don't exist prior to V (as a representation of the actual game on launch / without mods).

My agreement about what?

I think that being a commercial success is a big part of having a successful game. I'd also say having a high concurrent player count is another metric one could factor in when determining whether the game was a "success." High community engagement as well. All of those things. I have been playing Civ religiously since IV. I agree that not every launch has been successful and that Civ V and VI required significant investment before they became "good" games (I'd argue that Civ VI wasn't even that great until post New Frontier, which added a lot of much needed variety, etc...).

The problem I see for VII is that (while the total player count is unknown), I think it can be reasonably estimated that community engagement is way down and that the PC player count is borderline nonexistent.