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 am confused. What is this free stuff?
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
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
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'm not talking about Age transitions. I'm talking about snowballing. Apologies if I wasn't clear (I don't think I was, but doing anything online is significantly more effort than doing it in-person, plus language barriers, lack of tone, etc).
It doesn't help that they haven't added the ability to Win the game in any Age.... some people might like starting in Exploration more if they could start there and got to play 80-120 turns to get the Exploration Victory. (same with antiquity... if people prefer Antiquity they should be able to play a quick Antiquity only game)
I'm actually not sure if a victory after each age that is not just based on overall legacy points or similar improves the game in any way. If it is just a race to complete one path and a project, even Antiquity would probably feel wrong. And just ending the game after an age is already an option in single player, if you simply abort the game.
It's a good question. Having different victory types actually was always a problem. On one hand, ages make it less impactful, because only the last age is affected (unlike previous civ games where you often railroad to the chosen victory quite early), on the other hand, the last age is affected heavily and the problem is highlighted.
Civ 7 way to deal with snowballing IS Age transitions. Both are the same thing when we are talking about Civ 7
I think the solution is to
They're not the same things. Snowballing is a thing you like. Transitions are a thing you don't. By that definition alone they are literally separate things.
1. It's the biggest problem, because victory conditions were never good in civ games.
Actually, I think Civ 1 had the best setup for victory conditions. They definitely had the best space victory. You only had conquest, Space, and score. However, the Space Victory was more dynamic. You would have to build the ship but you could build thrusters, life support, fuel reserves, habitats, and solar panels. You could see if your ship could make the journey. However, without enough life support your people could die before you reached Alpha Centauri losing you the victory. You could run out of fuel or power, etc. Whats cool was the game announced whenever opponents launched and it was nerve racking. You would start adding thrusters and fuel to speed up your flight time to try to beat them even though they launched before you. Sometimes, the game would announce you opponent's crew died on their journey. I would love to see a variation of this come back.
They kept this for civ II like this as well irrc. It was civ III that changed this: more different components, but instant win with launch.
The first game to implement different victory conditions was SMAC, I believe. It fitted very well into it's theme of different sci-fi paths, but from gameplay perspective it planted bad seeds.
It's different for different players, I guess, but I heard from many people that it was huge problem and probably even bigger than in Civ7. I'm far from optimization player, but in Civ6 I know from the first third of the game, which victory I'm going to pursue and from this point the game is pretty railroady. In Civ7 I try to balance science, culture and economics throughout antiquity and exploration and only in Modern I decide, which victory to go. Moreover, in the first half of the Modern I usually pursue most of the victories, having only short part of the game with the railroad feel.
I liked it personally. It was only like 10-15 turns. I dont mind clicking through that. Plus, I didn't just click next though it, I continued playing through the 'drama' of Earth each of those turns. Back then you were always at war with the world at that point. I always have been more drawn to the narrative in my games than the getting my win. I think the exciting part here though in that space race victory design is not knowing where your opponent is at exactly. That makes it scary. Lately in civ there is always some way to track where your opponent is and your comparison. I think this info should be hidden behind espionage. As stealth_nsk says, it's just different for different players, some like the number crunchy direct route to victory side of civ, some the simple drama of it, and everything in between. We all fall in there somewhere.
