Wielki Hegemon
Emperor
Hi, It's been a while but I am back on civ fanatics
And of course, I would like to talk about Civ VII and what makes me slightly concerned about the game, and its core design. I will try to avoid subjective issues like esthetics, immersion, civs, or leader selection. I want to focus on game design and mechanics. Here are some design problems I see and why I think legacy points are the biggest.
1. Halfway Civs and era design.
The most controversial decision was splitting the game into three eras and assigning one civilization to just one era. Let's leave my subjective opinion on that aside.
In a game with four important characteristics like this (leader and three different civilizations), a player has to find an optimal combination of these elements (the most effective 'build.') So why are we limited here? I don't know if this was intended from the beginning or if it was a reaction to the player base's dissatisfaction with ahistorical combinations (like: Axum into Majapahit into France), but this kind of design is just inconsistent. Either give us all the possibilities that are on the table or make the game more historical with one predefined set of civs for every era. Neither one nor the other has been achieved here. Example: The Maya, as an ancient scientific civilization, might be utterly useless in a scientific game if they don't have a proper follow-up in later eras (do they?). This leads us to the next problem: an illusion of many combinations and replayability.
2. Possible narrow number of efficient builds
The game still has four types of win conditions. Just like in every game, there will be one or two most efficient ways to archive them. The Internet will bring us best-build tier lists very fast. I am afraid that the number of possible builds will be low. In the beginning, only a few combinations of leaders and Civs will be strong. On top of that, there will be a leader attributes tree problem. Why? You cannot skip +1 science per Age in each Quarter. It's too good. Besides having a relatively small number of playable leader/civilization combinations, a few necessary leader attributes to pick will make the game even more repetitive and schematic. What's even worse, I don't think the snowball effect has been addressed at all.
3. A snowball effect will remain
So here we are at the source: the legacy points. Or to be more precise the final stage of the legacy path and the way how it works.
Ed Beach said here "It's your progress through all three ages that help you towards these victory paths (...) The victory is always through a great project you have to undertake. For Culture Victory it's a Worlds Fair's Project. How long does it take? Every legacy point you have earned towards culture in every age gonna speed that up." So here is how its gonna work in real life: To win Culture Victory you need to speed up World Fair's Project. To do it, you have to earn as many culture legacy points as you can. It forces you to know what kind of victory you are going for from turn 1 (nr 4 snowball effect), pick the best Civs/leader combination for this win (nr 1) and get a must-have leader attributes (nr 2). All the issues I have mentioned are on the menu.
How to avoid the problem in my opinion?
1. Give us the possibility to match every civ with every civ when changing the eras (as an option like a map type for human player or/and AI - the more customization options here the better)
2. Let every legacy point you have earned speed up your final great project. It will make the way more flexible and less punishing for certain Civilizations and leaders!

1. Halfway Civs and era design.
The most controversial decision was splitting the game into three eras and assigning one civilization to just one era. Let's leave my subjective opinion on that aside.
In a game with four important characteristics like this (leader and three different civilizations), a player has to find an optimal combination of these elements (the most effective 'build.') So why are we limited here? I don't know if this was intended from the beginning or if it was a reaction to the player base's dissatisfaction with ahistorical combinations (like: Axum into Majapahit into France), but this kind of design is just inconsistent. Either give us all the possibilities that are on the table or make the game more historical with one predefined set of civs for every era. Neither one nor the other has been achieved here. Example: The Maya, as an ancient scientific civilization, might be utterly useless in a scientific game if they don't have a proper follow-up in later eras (do they?). This leads us to the next problem: an illusion of many combinations and replayability.
2. Possible narrow number of efficient builds
The game still has four types of win conditions. Just like in every game, there will be one or two most efficient ways to archive them. The Internet will bring us best-build tier lists very fast. I am afraid that the number of possible builds will be low. In the beginning, only a few combinations of leaders and Civs will be strong. On top of that, there will be a leader attributes tree problem. Why? You cannot skip +1 science per Age in each Quarter. It's too good. Besides having a relatively small number of playable leader/civilization combinations, a few necessary leader attributes to pick will make the game even more repetitive and schematic. What's even worse, I don't think the snowball effect has been addressed at all.
3. A snowball effect will remain
So here we are at the source: the legacy points. Or to be more precise the final stage of the legacy path and the way how it works.
How to avoid the problem in my opinion?
1. Give us the possibility to match every civ with every civ when changing the eras (as an option like a map type for human player or/and AI - the more customization options here the better)
2. Let every legacy point you have earned speed up your final great project. It will make the way more flexible and less punishing for certain Civilizations and leaders!