What's your opinion on civ switching?

[UWHabs]

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.

I didn't mind it. Sure, it was a little of the click click click, but there were a few caveats
1. If someone else launched first, you could add your extra thruster or whatever and beat them there still
2. There was also the system where if you captured their capital, their shuttle would crash. So you still had a way to "stop" someone else if needed. Definitely remember more than once getting a Nuke and patatroopers ready to capture an AI capital if they launched.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I think even science victory in its pure form was redundant. The most sandboxy system is just a victory by gaining X points, where points could be gotten from population, special projects, wonders and so on. You see someone launching space expedition? Taking some of their cities, especially big and wonderous would greatly delay their victory. Whether this sandbox victory is actually interested for the majority of players, is hard to say.

 

[GeneralZift]

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.

I think it would also be cool if they could figure out a way to do this type of thing with the united nations for a diplomatic victory. Though you would not be building space ship modules, you would push influence into "building" humanitarian efforts like Green Peace or Red Cross. This would actually boost food and happiness yields for an opponent's empire or even globally risking giving an opponent an edge for another victory.

You know this is really cool, I didn't know this about Civ1!

They could definitely work something like this back into the Science victory to make it more interesting, since it hasn't been interesting in forever

Plus your idea for a new diplomatic victory is also really good. I think as long as Victories have more player interaction, they are better. Same with most mechanics really.

 

[King Flevance]

I didn't mind it. Sure, it was a little of the click click click, but there were a few caveats
1. If someone else launched first, you could add your extra thruster or whatever and beat them there still
2. There was also the system where if you captured their capital, their shuttle would crash. So you still had a way to "stop" someone else if needed. Definitely remember more than once getting a Nuke and patatroopers ready to capture an AI capital if they launched.

I forgot about the capital thing. I always thought that was dumb, but young me was ok with it as an insurance policy.

I feel this system could easily be revisited and tweaked to offer a better experience than we have today. It should be viable to want to be first to launch, but the ability to launch later and still beat your opponent makes it so interesting, otherwise just keep it as it is. Whoever builds first wins. I would like to see those last 10-20 turn play out like expeditions in Anno 1800. Where every 3-5 turns you have a narrative event that your ship encounters that could be a problem or a small boost. Have this happen 3or 4 times, then victory if you make it. This way, taking extra supplies improves your chances.

 

[Siptah]

I would like to see those last 10-20 turn play out like expeditions in Anno 1800. Where every 3-5 turns you have a narrative event that your ship encounters that could be a problem or a small boost. Have this happen 3or 4 times, then victory if you make it. This way, taking extra supplies improves your chances.

That would be brilliant imho. Not just for the space race, but for all victories. Payment of resources or even small quests on the map that can speed up the victory or slow it down, depending on your choices in events. Granted, similar to Anno, after so and so many hours, you know the outcome of the choices though and always go for what fits your current situation.

 

[GeneralZift]

I thought about this and I think counter space missions would be interesting.
So you may not have enough capability for a science victory, but you could, for example, fire space debris at the enemy spaceship with some kind of satellite mission.

Then you could slow each other down, build your ship with extra armour to protect against that, build thrusters for faster victory etc. Etc.

I would have loads of fun with this. Firaxis get on it!! Then add Gandhi

 

[Krikkit1]

I thought about this and I think counter space missions would be interesting.
So you may not have enough capability for a science victory, but you could, for example, fire space debris at the enemy spaceship with some kind of satellite mission.

Then you could slow each other down, build your ship with extra armour to protect against that, build thrusters for faster victory etc. Etc.

I would have loads of fun with this. Firaxis get on it!! Then add Gandhi

Space Warfare would be an interesting Hail Mary mechanic.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Space Warfare would be an interesting Hail Mary mechanic.

Didn’t Civ2 have something like this with the different “layers”

 

[Siptah]

Didn’t Civ2 have something like this with the different “layers”

You are thinking of CTP perhaps?
If there ever is a civ remaster, I'd actually like to have CTP2, but this is probably the least likely.

 

[McSpank01]

Just watched a video by the Saxy Gamer on his problems with Civ 7 and it really made it plain how many other issues the game has outside of just Civ Switching. Outside of some immersion problems and not knowing who was who after each age he even barely mentions it.

The bigger issues the game has are far more fundamental I feel. The way they have wiped out basically all strategic decision making from the game, so that you mostly have very little to actually do each turn is maybe the killer for me. I realised from going back to 6 just how much I was having to actually choose what to do often, something that almost never happens in 7.

 

[Kev1916]

 

[Kev1916]

The bigger issues the game has are far more fundamental I feel. The way they have wiped out basically all strategic decision making from the game, so that you mostly have very little to actually do each turn is maybe the killer for me

The unpolished UI , lack of strategic decisons, no click and drag , lack of map sizes, bland boring and little to do each turn Etc Etc .

This is down to trying to force a 4x game into a console shell, this game will never get beyond at best mini game MP for casual user's .

 

[Siptah]

The unpolished UI , lack of strategic decisons, no click and drag , lack of map sizes, bland boring and littel to do each turn Etc Etc .

He has many good points that show that the game's main problems are neither ages, nor civ switching, nor console release. But rather that it has many weaknesses – weaknesses that could be fixed, most importantly!

What I find more concerning: reading through the comments, I got the impression that many there are very vocal about how proud they are of not buying the game. This means, in their eyes, the game now needs to fail, otherwise they can't continue being proud of that decision. That's a concerning stance from my view, but also quite funny because they put themselves into a lose-lose situation.

 

[McSpank01]

He has many good points that show that the game's main problems are neither ages, nor civ switching, nor console release. But rather that it has many weaknesses – weaknesses that could be fixed, most importantly!

I feel the opposite, I now feel less optimistic that the real issues with the game can actually be fixed. There are some fundamental design philosophies behind the game which basically take the decision making away from the player. How will they fix these issues when they are so baked into the game itself. It would take so much work.

 

[Krikkit1]

He has many good points that show that the game's main problems are neither ages, nor civ switching, nor console release. But rather that it has many weaknesses – weaknesses that could be fixed, most importantly!

What I find more concerning: reading through the comments, I got the impression that many there are very vocal about how proud they are of not buying the game. This means, in their eyes, the game now needs to fail, otherwise they can't continue being proud of that decision. That's a concerning stance from my view, but also quite funny because they put themselves into a lose-lose situation.

Not necessarily….in a year or so they could be proud of waiting until the game was “fixed” of on sale.

 

[GeneralZift]

They will fix the game somehow I have a feeling. This is called Zift's Intuition, a term I coined. It means when da money involved da money find a way to make more money.

 

[Gori the Grey]

From Saxy Gamer's video, I like his phrase concerning terrain (about the 12:00 mark) "interactions with the map."

I've really only played two games in the series, 3 and 5, and for me, much as I like 5, there was a dropoff between the two on this point. In 3 (as I remember it; it's been a while), you had plains and grasslands. They started with 1food 1prod or 2food, but you could mine (+1prod) or irrigate (+1food) either one. This did mean that you could effectively even out what the terrain provided you, but it also meant that you could make a strategic decision about what you wanted to totality of your terrain ultimately to yield you.

In 5, there's only one kind of thing you can do with each kind of tile. You can only put mines on hills. Moreover, there pretty much is a best order in which to develop tiles, luxes first, strats next, farms next to rivers next, farms elsewhere and mines next. So you're pretty much playing out a program.

I get it that all of this is out the window in 7, where there aren't workers any more. (Around 17:00, he mentions the missing builders and the number of forms of player involvement that eliminates).

But my sweet spot would be between 3 and 5, where you had real choice in how you developed a tile. I played 4 a tiny bit and I remember that there you had to do long-term investments. You could start a village that would eventually grow into a town. And you could know what the yields would be at each of those stages. I don't remember it well enough.

Anyway, my ideal civ game would have a good number of opportunities for "interactions with the map." I just wanted to say I liked that phrase.

 

[McSpank01]

From Saxy Gamer's video, I like his phrase concerning terrain (about the 12:00 mark) "interactions with the map."

I've really only played two games in the series, 3 and 5, and for me, much as I like 5, there was a dropoff between the two on this point. In 3 (as I remember it; it's been a while), you had plains and grasslands. They started with 1food 1prod or 2food, but you could mine (+1prod) or irrigate (+1food) either one. This did mean that you could effectively even out what the terrain provided you, but it also meant that you could make a strategic decision about what you wanted to totality of your terrain ultimately to yield you.

In 5, there's only one kind of thing you can do with each kind of tile. You can only put mines on hills. Moreover, there pretty much is a best order in which to develop tiles, luxes first, strats next, farms next to rivers next, farms elsewhere and mines next. So you're pretty much playing out a program.

I get it that all of this is out the window in 7, where there aren't workers any more.

But my sweet spot would be between 3 and 5, where you had real choice in how you developed a tile. I played 4 a tiny bit and I remember that there you had to do long-term investments. You could start a village that would eventually grow into a town. And you could know what the yields would be at each of those stages. I don't remember it well enough.

Anyway, my ideal civ game would have a good number of opportunities for "interactions with the map." I just wanted to say I liked that phrase.

Yeah I think Civ 6 is a game that really leaned in to making players adapt to the map, where your location absolutely influenced the choices you made and what kind of civ you are. I think that was really powerful and a good choice.

So it’s pretty deflating to play Civ 7 and have your location feel almost irrelevant. Ideally your civ would be specially suited to some climates, but right now the effects are so minor as to barely be noticeable.

 

[Gori the Grey]

His big point is that all of the forms of "optimization" really have the effect of eliminating meaningful choices by the player.

Around 30:00 (sorry, you're all just having to deal with my running commentary on the video), he points out an important fact about age transitions. Not only are they frustrating at the moment they happen (which I know the devs have tried to mitigate), but they impact your play for multiple turns beforehand: why bother starting a war if you know that, in the course of it, it's going to be stopped, all of your and your opponents' units reset? What most of us Civ-lovers love is precisely the long-range planning that the game involves: "Yes, if I do this now, it will cost me a lot of hammers, but 30 turns from now that will set me up for a massive advance in science." A game dynamic that interferes with such long-term planning really is counter to the spirit of the game.

 

[Pfeffersack]

Is it better than Old World though?

I would agree that Civ VII's ancient era is the best of its three...but it is no match for Old World, which turns that era into a full-blown game - including a lot more strategic depth, clever AI, polished UI, less bugs...and even a better religious system. Old World being restricted in its scope is probably the sole reason I still feel the need to look elsewhere for a "full Civ experience" in the sense of "cave to cosmos".