What's your opinion on civ switching?

[phoenixician]

Because Civ 7 has a lot more things than just Ages and Civ switching

Seriously, the game has alot of things that are not related to those mechanics that would be great to play in a Classic Mode. The work required for a Classic Mode is MUCH LESS than to create a new game

I posed that question from the perspective of Firaxis/2K btw. I doubt the cost of reworking Civ7 fundamentals is less than polishing the graphics of Civ4/5 though, even before taking risk vs. profit into account.

 

[phoenixician]

...You play well early and you get punished, you get units removed, you get resources taken away from you, and then your opponents get free stuff, upgrading units far beyond their science level, etc

...

I am confused. What is this free stuff?

 

[Crashdummy]

I posed that question from the perspective of Firaxis/2K btw. I doubt the cost of reworking Civ7 fundamentals is less than polishing the graphics of Civ4/5 though, even before taking risk vs. profit into account.

I think it would take less time to remove ages and civ switching than to rewrite all of Civ4/5 into a new engine and create better graphics for them

People are overestimating the time it takes to make a Classic Mode, we have modders that by themselves made a basic attempt in just a few weeks. Alone.

Firaxis can make Classic Mode in a few months

 

[Crashdummy]

I am confused. What is this free stuff?

When the Age ends, everyone gets pushed to the same place in science and culture (if anyone is behind, they get free techs, etc), everyone gets their units upgraded to the same tier (even if you would be unable to do so by yourself), if you have too many resources, you get stripped of them to be close to those that dont have any and much more stuff

 

[McSpank01]

I think that is important...
Basic Science buildings get boosts from Resources...in ALL 3 Ages
Basic Food buidings get boosts from Water...in ALL 3 Ages
Culture buildings get boosts from the same things Happiness buildings do...in ALL 3 Ages

You get resources from other civs by building a Merchant and getting it to a Trade route.... in ALL 3 AGES
..what if Merchants were for Antiquity and
in Exploration, You got resources from other civs or your distant Lands settlements from Treasure Convoys.
You want Iron from China or your new Colony in America... a Treasure Convoy has to move to one of your Homeland cities.. (the Iron doesn't count for points, but the Spices might)
...In Modern, Trade has a different model.. it has to connect to a Factory to supply that Factory.... or not just the exact same thing as Ancient but the Merchant gets to Teleport.

Specialists have a base of 2 Culture and 2 Science with +50% adjacency in Every Age
Now here at least Modern has big Ideology based boosts and Exploration enhances the Adjacency,... but it could be differentiated further.

etc....

Yeah thanks, I think that sort of sums up many of the issues with ages, but also with the basic resetting that Crashdummy mentions above. I think the problem is that Firaxis wanted players to be able to play shorter games starting in any one of the ages, and so built a system and a game that works in that scenario. Therefore you can start in exploration and play a similar game to the one if you started in Antiquity.

I think is a fundamentally bad decision, because the game should not play in the same way in all 3 ages, and it is simply too punishing to reset so many things at the end of an age. It feels bad.

I have a very high confidence that the number of players starting games outside of Antiquity is incredibly low, and so this decision essentially wrecked the game for no reason.

Really a civ game is about using the early ages to build up your strategy, and then use that foundation to move towards a goal in the next age. That doesn't really happen very much in Civ 7 because you spend much of your time just redoing many of the actions you took in the previous age. That is not a fun interaction. I don't mind overbuilding, but if all I am doing is putting a slightly better science building on a now defunked science building (because that makes the most sense) then how is that fun?