Where does civ go after civ7?

[SupremacyKing2]

If we look at the civ5, civ6 and civ7, there seems to be a trend towards the game being more tactical. Civ5 introduced 1upt making combat more tactical. Civ6 introduced the idea of "unpacking cities", moving wonders and districts outside the city center. Civ7 took the unpacking cities idea to its next logical stage, moving all buildings into districts outside the city center. Now the entire city is spread out on the main map around the city center, making cities more tactical. At this point, I don't feel like they can unpack cities anymore. Civ7 refined 1upt, introducing commanders that allow us to stack some units for movement while still retaining 1upt for combat. Honestly, I feel like civ7 takes the best of stacks and the best of 1upt and combines them in a way that works pretty well. Not saying that there can't be some improvements to the system but the general idea works imo. The most radical ideas in civ7 are probably the age transition and civ switching. Civ7 abandons the long tradition of civ games going from the bronze age to the future age in one unbroken game and instead breaks up the game into essentially 3 mini civ games, one for the Antiquity Age, one for the Exploration Age and one for the Modern Age. Along with this age transition mechanic, civ7 introduces civ switching. It abandons the long tradition of playing the same civ from the bronze age to the future age and instead allows the player to change civs at the start of Exploration and Modern Ages. This was done so that civs would be more age appropriate, give a player more interesting choices of what playstyle they want but also modeling in some way how civs have evolved historically over time.

Knowing all this, what direction do we think the devs will take going forward? Will they reverse course on some ideas, maybe undo the unpacking city concept, go back to some form of stack combat, undo civ switching or undo age transitions? Considering that age transitions and civ switching seem to have caused quite a bit of uproar from many long time fans, the devs may try to go back to a more traditional civ feel. They might admit that age transitions and civ switching are too radical for civ. Or will they just do a slow evolution of refining army commanders or tweaking age transitions to work better? Or will civ8 try something radical again maybe let players switch both civs and leaders or adding alternate history ages like Millennia did?

Personally, I hope civ8 goes back to a more strategic tone for the franchise. I enjoy civ7 for what it is. But it does feel smaller and more tactical. I would like to see bigger maps, bigger empires and more civs and more independent peoples on the map. And while I appreciate what age transitions try to do, I think I would like a return to a single game from bronze age to future age. My vision for civ8 would be a more battle royale type format where a bunch of civs and a bunch of independent peoples start on a large map and you just let the game play out. Some civs or independent peoples might get wiped early, some might survive a bit and then get wiped out, some independent peoples might become a civ or join another civ, others might remain small through the entire game, some might rise to become major empires, some civs might have civil wars and split, some civs might merge together, some civs might switch to a different culture due to a crisis in game. Just let it happen organically from choices players make rather than forced due to age transitions. To keep compute power reasonable and avoid long turn times, you would need to get rid of unpacked cities and go back to a more "simple" strategic map of just cities in one tile or at least reduce unpacking a lot, maybe just have wonders on the main map and "towns" as a tile improvement. You would also likely need to keep the number of units reasonable too. You would not want hundreds or thousands of units that would bog down the computer. But I think it could work in order to focus on more empire level strategy and not getting bogged down with city building.

 

[Naokaukodem]

If you look my signature in this site I would like that unpacking cities goes even more deep as in citizens unpacking.
If you look at my most recent topic in this forum I would like more freedom as in a total freedom to settle cities. (on resources and even on the same tile, maybe up to 3, maybe just like number of citizens capable of working more than one single tile) Furthermore I think such features would be necessary to emulate wider areas while being more detailed in the same time also, the True Earth Maps being the reference.

 

[GeneralZift]

They'll milk Civ7 for what it's got. Depending on the long term success or failure of the franchise, they might have a change in leadership and general adjustments in their work / release ethic (since 7 came out very half baked.)

I reckon when they do come about to Civ8, it'll be a far cry from Civ7, because they upset unprecedented numbers of people with some of their new ideas.

Some stuff will probably stay, like Army commanders, the building system. Some stuff will go, probably the whole crisis / age / Civ switching bonanza since they are all linked.

They won't be short on ideas. Video game developers throw around ideas for weeks on end before they come up with their final proposal.
I believe Civ8 will probably consist of some of those thrown-away ideas from Civ7's development.

Maybe the failed release will be a wake-up call to change and innovate with the eighth game, out of fear of losing their entire playerbase.
Maybe there will be long-term success for Civ7 which overshadows the failed release, and Civ8 would be somewhat derivative as a result (in terms of mechanics).

It's hard to know for sure without seeing how Civ7 works out in the long run.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Some stuff will probably stay, like Army commanders, the building system. Some stuff will go, probably the whole crisis / age / Civ switching bonanza since they are all linked.

Yes, I think this is the most likely scenario. Although, I do think they could keep a crisis mechanic but do it without age transitions since you don't need crisis in order to have age transitions. You could have some trigger event, based on gameplay, that starts a crisis and then when it is over, the players get some kind of bonus, without the age changing. I say this because the crisis mechanic could still be a good way to prevent snowballing and also adding some excitement and challenge to break up the monotony. I think the devs will want something in the game to prevent snowballing. So I do see value in keeping crisis even without the age transition. But the crisis would also need to be more challenging imo. Right now, they are just a minor nuisance that makes me beg for the age to be over just to move on. I think crisis do need to actually shake things up a bit without breaking the game and making it too difficult. And players should have to live with the consequences of the crisis so that the crisis has a meaningful impact on the game. For example, if there is a pandemic crisis, you might stop the pandemic but you would still have to rebuild your cities after losing so much population. Or, if there is a barbarian crisis and you lose a city or two, you might eventually defeat the barbarians, but you still have to accept that those cities were razed and carry on.

I know devs did civ switching in part because they wanted to address the problem of civs only being useful or interesting in certain stages of the game, like the early game or late game and being useless the rest of the time. This happened because the devs really doubled down on giving civs even more historically relevant bonuses like unique units and unique buildings. This did add a lot of historical flavor and make civs more interesting to play. The problem is that some civs did not exist in certain ages so they have no historical bonuses for those ages. This means that civs will tend to be powerful in the ages where they were historically powerful. Civ7 tried to address this problem by having players switch to an age appropriate civ. But I think this issue can be addressed without civ switching. I think you just need to rework the bonuses to make them more age agnostic. So I think it is just a matter of better balance. For example, you could give America some good age agnostic bonuses that make it useful in the early game and then give it a couple late game unique buildings or units for historical flavor. You could also let civs pick age specific bonuses when they move to a new Age. That way civs would still have bonuses in each Age.

And to be honest, you might even get to keep civ switching if you rework it to make it optional and more historically accurate. So every player starts with an ancient age civ like Babylonians and you can keep that civ the entire game if you want. But you also have the option of "upgrading" your civ to an age appropriate civ that is directly tied to that civ. So for example, Babylon civ can change to Iraq civ in the Modern Age, Gauls can become Franks and then France. You would not really be switching civs as much as upgrading your civ to a new set of age specific bonuses with a historical name change.

 

[moondog385]

First and foremost, I hope that the series continues and 2K doesn’t just cut their losses after seeing what’s going on with 7.

As for specific gameplay ideas, I would like era-specific gameplay from 7 to return to enhance the feeling of experiencing history. I would be surprised if civ-switching returns at this point but I would still like eras to be clearly delineated like in 7, with 4 ages as opposed to 3.

I also hope that civs continue to have their own unique civic trees and I would like leaders to remain detached from civs as it encourages players to mix and match and increases the amount of options available.

 

[GeneralZift]

First and foremost, I hope that the series continues and 2K doesn’t just cut their losses after seeing what’s going on with 7.

As for specific gameplay ideas, I would like era-specific gameplay from 7 to return to enhance the feeling of experiencing history. I would be surprised if civ-switching returns at this point but I would still like eras to be clearly delineated like in 7, with 4 ages as opposed to 3.

I also hope that civs continue to have their own unique civic trees and I would like leaders to remain detached from civs as it encourages players to mix and match and increases the amount of options available.

*All respect to your opinion but I have to disagree at this point:

I really dislike this "era delineation", it feels the opposite of fluid. Of course history didn't happen in set periods, it happened continuously over time. They didn't one day wake up and find it to be the Medieval Era. There's the narrative issue and then the gameplay issue, the game feels jarring when the mechanics suddenly change. Instead they should come into play gradually, as would make sense and come palatable to new and returning players.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

*All respect to your opinion but I have to disagree at this point:

I really dislike this "era delineation", it feels the opposite of fluid. Of course history didn't happen in set periods, it happened continuously over time. They didn't one day wake up and find it to be the Medieval Era. There's the narrative issue and then the gameplay issue, the game feels jarring when the mechanics suddenly change. Instead they should come into play gradually, as would make sense and come palatable to new and returning players.

I agree. It sounds good on paper having three different minigames in each game. But unfortunately, you end up in situations such as where Great works only exist in certain ages. In order to adhere to gameplay mechanics works of writing are only available in Antiquity, as if people like Shakespeare never existed. They are later replaced by Relics in Exploration, to coincide with religion, although the majority of world religions would have actually been founded in the Antiquity Age.

 

[moondog385]

*All respect to your opinion but I have to disagree at this point:

I really dislike this "era delineation", it feels the opposite of fluid. Of course history didn't happen in set periods, it happened continuously over time. They didn't one day wake up and find it to be the Medieval Era. There's the narrative issue and then the gameplay issue, the game feels jarring when the mechanics suddenly change. Instead they should come into play gradually, as would make sense and come palatable to new and returning players.

I understand your point but I like how, from a gameplay perspective, each period of history (even though that isn’t how anyone would have experienced it in actuality) feels unique. Maybe if there was some way to get that across without the delineation?

 

[GeneralZift]

I understand your point but I like how, from a gameplay perspective, each period of history (even though that isn’t how anyone would have experienced it in actuality) feels unique. Maybe if there was some way to get that across without the delineation?

Yea, maybe there is some way, that would be nice. I think it would be good if the mechanics get introduced slowly and gradually. So for example, you unlock a tech that lets you do the Treasure Fleets system from Civ7.
Then a tutorial pop-up shows up to explain it very briefly.

Maybe this system lives for a particular period of time, like you can only have so many Treasure Fleets. Then it ends, and if you miss it, then you miss it.
I'm not sure but this is one way

 

[socratic]

I understand your point but I like how, from a gameplay perspective, each period of history (even though that isn’t how anyone would have experienced it in actuality) feels unique. Maybe if there was some way to get that across without the delineation?

It’d be cool if we entered ages based on player choices vs a set linear path. If someone makes it to Distant Lands early game, it would start an Exploration Age for everyone on that side of the map. Or if someone reaches a certain amount of culture, a Classical Age starts.