Why legacy points are one of my biggest concerns?

[Evie]

There's arbitraryness in all things, but there is to me a clear distinction between arbitrary ways of determining the winner once the game reach a natural end point ; and arbitrary end points for the game. I can accept the former ; I despise the later with a vengeance.

"One or more of the players are no longer contained on the game board and we would need a whole new game board for them to keep playing" is a natural end point. (Space)
"There is only one competing player left in the game" is a natural end point (Conquest)
"We've reached the end of the time frame the game represent." is a natural end point - at that point (or roughly around then) you should have only future techs left to research. (Time/Score)

Stretching the game past any of those points is stretching the game beyond what it's built to handle ; players can do so at their own risk if they want (that's the one more turn button), but within limits only. So it make sense to have an end point there, and calculate a winner, if a winner must be calculated.

But the game ending because somebody built a world fair, or somewone built a bank? Yeah, no, I'm not okay with that kind of arbitrary end point. And that's what all those other victoryc onditions are: arbitrary end points, which do not reflect any inherent limits of the game mechanism, but just the desire to have some sort of victory conditions for players who don't want to wait for the score victory.

 

[Evolena]

But the game ending because somebody built a world fair, or somewone built a bank? Yeah, no, I'm not okay with that kind of arbitrary end point. And that's what all those other victoryc onditions are: arbitrary end points, which do not reflect any inherent limits of the game mechanism, but just the desire to have some sort of victory conditions for players who don't want to wait for the score victory.

I do want these arbitrary end points. Time/score is long and boring, I'm not interested in conquest, so I should only have science left? I would not play that game anymore.
At least there could be options to disable the victories you don't like and let the rest of us have fun.

 

[Evie]

There's countless games out there that end at a set point to calculate score, and work just fine. If Civ's time/score victory is long and boring, it's a failure of the devs to properly develop what should be an integral part of the game, not an indictment of the idea of score victories as a concept.

Using the crutches of arbitrary victory condition instead of actually improving the original victory conditions is not good game design. It's lazy wallpapering - and it's meant that instead of making the reasonable victory conditions work better, the game has just been shunting them to a quiet corner and pretending they don't exist. Moreover, any number of game features exist exclusively or almost exclusively to serve the needs of this or that victory condition, and become useless if you disable it ; meaning that entire areas of human history just vanish from game relevance if you turn off the relevant victory conditions. where all aspects of the game should be able to contribute to the score victory. Tying too many aspects of history and the game exclusively into vicory condition means those aspects vanish from the game if you turn off those condition.

I could be okay with the disable option, if the game coudl be played with some or most victory condiion disabled and feel whole. Bu not when so many aspects of the game are each tied tightly to a victory condition and largely pointless without them. Disabling victory conditions and playing a time-score game lead to an incomplete mess of a game where key aspects of human history just stop being relevant. Until they go and make sure that all aspects of the game maintain significant game utility even if you turn their associated victory condition off, "at least there should be options to disable the victories you don't like" is a woefully insufficient answer.

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

Just for confirmation, what do you mean by this? I’m not aware of what you are referring to.

I mean Policy Cards. Sorry for the inaccuracy.

 

[Krikkit1]

I mean Policy Cards. Sorry for the inaccuracy.

Policy cards are meant to switch in and out fast. Because of this they leave little lasting impression.

Compare to say Wonders…once you build a Wonder should you get to switch which Wonder bonus it gave you every turn? …you still get the significance of how many Wonders you built (by Modern age you could have as many as 12-20 “Wonder points”)
but then Which wonder you build is irrelevant to what you do later.

I doubt you just want to earn Civ7 points that you can cash in every turn for population/techs/cities/Wonders/military units,treaties, etc. (all of which you could sell back for civ7 points every turn as well)

I don’t want every decision to lock you in to an irreversible path either.

I think having the legacy points have different effects depending on the Type of Legacy you earned is significant…it means the “flavor” of my civ (not just it’s “power#”) is based on my previous decisions.

If you have a civ in the ancient age that has cultural bonuses…you can use those bonuses to get more cultural bonuses for the next age by building wonders you access earlier…or you can use those bonuses to get civics that will help you expand, conquer, gain resources or masteries…so that you get some other bonuses for the next age.
If I want to shift my strategy, I get to respec my civ each era. The leader choices are permanent but I can get choose a military civ because this is the era I want to expand (and those cultural bonuses from the last era will help get me military supporting civics)

 

[King Flevance]

There's countless games out there that end at a set point to calculate score, and work just fine. If Civ's time/score victory is long and boring, it's a failure of the devs to properly develop what should be an integral part of the game, not an indictment of the idea of score victories as a concept.

Civilization is one of, if not, the highest selling strategy titles on the market. 6 currently IS the most played strategy title on Steam. Working "just fine" isn't selling many games, because most fans are bored by time/score victories.

I cannot think of 3 games that end with time/score as a primary end state. Where are these 'countless' strategy titles? The most common is conquest/domination in most strategy titles. Or they follow Civ's proven market record and also have a cultural/influence and diplomatic victory conditions.

By all means, you are free to enjoy what you like but I know you perspective is against the grain in the community. Many players like a big victory moment that they build up to.

 

[Evie]

Taken at a wider scale, "the community" think reality TV is great entertainment. Among many other things I happen to think very little of the community's opinion on.

I don't see much considerable difference between this and that. Cheap thrills don't become more than that because people enjoy them.

 

[Gori the Grey]

If the victory conditions are known from the beginning of the game and I can work toward them throughout the game, then they don't feel arbitrary to me.

They feel like a built-in feature of the game: one of the ways of winning it.

 

[King Flevance]

This is a good example. I am not saying to change it every 5 levels but before the new era, when you swap Civilization.
BTW We don't mind swapping civics in the game but suddenly have a problem with leader abilities?

You have always been able to change your government (Civics/Policies) in Civ whenever you wanted as it is kind of part of the point of a game about human civilization so that is not really a good comparison. Leaders have tended to represent a personality not have Montezuma be aggressive & organized and then operate with completely different traits. Teaching the AI to do this would be a train wreck and we already have enough trouble on that front in this franchise.

What I do not understand about your perspective is you keep giving these examples that you are playing strong in 1 or 2 areas early on and suddenly in your example you are wanting to switch. However, the game rewards you in those areas for doing well so why switch? Win this game and then start a new save and play a cultural strategy game. It even makes sense that the natural progression of your empire would echo what your empire did well for centuries. This example makes more sense.

If you were playing Science Civ in your previous era and invested your science legacy points in a science tree and the next Era you got only Cultural and Economic Civs to choose you would probably want to spend some or maybe all of your legacy points in an economic tree. Specifically, if it's the final era. So the game should give us such option. If you don't want to do it nobody force you. It just makes the game nice and smooth. The same with Civs. Perhaps you would like to choose a Science Civ you cannot. Again An option to choose one of all Civs in this era.
If you start with a cultural Civ and in the next era you cannot pick cultural Civ, or cannot rearrange your leader talent tree it's punishing and limiting for the player. The same way Covenants were in WoW Shadowlands.
And let it be my summary.

Immediately, I want to address that we don't know how common this problem will be of being forced to pick an undesirable civ. We are assuming "worst case" scenario here. Which is fine, it could happen theoretically.

That said, you may very easily have cultural or economic points to spend along with your science points. You keep assuming you won't. Because there is only 3 science points available, there is no reward to ignore the other aspects of the game. Plus, you need to do those aspects to get more science! When you have 6 towns/cities you gain a military legacy point for the next age. (12 gets all 3 points) Are you intentionally not expanding? Build 2 wonders, you get a cultural legacy point. (7 gets all 3 points) Did you ignore Wonders by choice? 7 resources assigned to settlements gets an economic legacy point. (25 gets all 3 points) How did you get all those techs without resources? What good is all that science if you are unable to do any of this other stuff? So there is no reason you can't get those points. These are things you are going to be doing anyways. If you do one well, the game rewards you in that area. And not just with more of that yield. The science leader tree has build bonuses, happiness, etc. There is still a lot of this we can't see fully. Plus, it looks like the leader you pick has special powers associated with these points where they can do even more with them.

So if you do get a Cultural and Economic Civ next, after a good scientific run it doesn't lock you into - or lock you out of - anything. And you are not struggling necessarily unless you chose not to expand, get resources, or build wonders to spite those areas of the game. But if you did, how did you do so well with science? Honestly, this system will probably make me prioritize wonders more than I do. I hope there are enough to go around.

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

What I do not understand about your perspective is you keep giving these examples that you are playing strong in 1 or 2 areas early on and suddenly in your example you are wanting to switch. However, the game rewards you in those areas for doing well so why switch? Win this game and then start a new save and play a cultural strategy game.

This kind of strategy will be narrow and defined largely by picking the most effective path of Civs for a certain win condition. This is what era system had to change and I am afraid it doesn't. (hope I am wrong). Instead, it is stucked halfway. Either abolish limitations in Civ combinations and make the game all-out-race for the strongest science path (which is a weaker option IMO), or lose up the legacy point system and let me play around those forced choices. (than I will be ok with them)

Immediately, I want to address that we don't know how common this problem will be of being forced to pick an undesirable civ.

Statistics say it will be very common Some possible Civ transitions are limited (Greece can go into A or B. not all) there will be a very limited number of "must play" Civs. To show it on hard numbers we must wait for more info about Civ transitions.
The use case we have:
Rome is cultural and militaristic and can change into Spain (militaristic, expansionist) or Normans (diplomatic/militaristic). So if you start a cultural game like Rome you are at a dead-end Neither Spain nor Normans can follow it up and build your cultural legacy tree that will help you in the last era with your cultural game. On top of that if you already played a culture Roman game for like 2 hours at this point you know you are kinda screwed Reasonable is to play Rome militaristic and then change into either Spain or Normans. If you pick militaristic Spain you can change to Mexico (Cultural, Diplomatic) -> another dead end You get the pattern. So how many Civ combinations will fit the pattern? (whatever it will be) A few. If you don't believe me just wait for the first build tier lists and see all those "unplayable" civs

That is why more flexible legacy points are needed. To make a Civ-path in the for example cultural game more... playable and less predictable. To be as you believe in

 

[TheGhostEnthusiast]

This kind of strategy will be narrow and defined largely by picking the most effective path of Civs for a certain win condition. This is what era system had to change and I am afraid it doesn't. (hope I am wrong). Instead, it is stucked halfway. Either abolish limitations in Civ combinations and make the game all-out-race for the strongest science path (which is a weaker option IMO), or lose up the legacy point system and let me play around those forced choices. (than I will be ok with them)


Statistics say it will be very common Some possible Civ transitions are limited (Greece can go into A or B. not all) there will be a very limited number of "must play" Civs. To show it on hard numbers we must wait for more info about Civ transitions.
The use case we have:
Rome is cultural and militaristic and can change into Spain (militaristic, expansionist) or Normans (diplomatic/militaristic). So if you start a cultural game like Rome you are at a dead-end Neither Spain nor Normans can follow it up and build your cultural legacy tree that will help you in the last era with your cultural game. On top of that if you already played a culture Roman game for like 2 hours at this point you know you are kinda screwed Reasonable is to play Rome militaristic and then change into either Spain or Normans. If you pick militaristic Spain you can change to Mexico (Cultural, Diplomatic) -> another dead end You get the pattern. So how many Civ combinations will fit the pattern? (whatever it will be) A few. If you don't believe me just wait for the first build tier lists and see all those "unplayable" civs

That is why more flexible legacy points are needed. To make a Civ-path in the for example cultural game more... playable and less predictable. To be as you believe in

If you want to play a game where that minor system of bonuses is dedicated entirely to increasing Culture yield instead of shoring up any other category, you could always pick a Cultural leader, as Leader attributes stay for the entire game.

 

[Krikkit1]

This kind of strategy will be narrow and defined largely by picking the most effective path of Civs for a certain win condition. This is what era system had to change and I am afraid it doesn't. (hope I am wrong). Instead, it is stucked halfway. Either abolish limitations in Civ combinations and make the game all-out-race for the strongest science path (which is a weaker option IMO), or lose up the legacy point system and let me play around those forced choices. (than I will be ok with them)


Statistics say it will be very common Some possible Civ transitions are limited (Greece can go into A or B. not all) there will be a very limited number of "must play" Civs. To show it on hard numbers we must wait for more info about Civ transitions.
The use case we have:
Rome is cultural and militaristic and can change into Spain (militaristic, expansionist) or Normans (diplomatic/militaristic). So if you start a cultural game like Rome you are at a dead-end Neither Spain nor Normans can follow it up and build your cultural legacy tree that will help you in the last era with your cultural game. On top of that if you already played a culture Roman game for like 2 hours at this point you know you are kinda screwed Reasonable is to play Rome militaristic and then change into either Spain or Normans. If you pick militaristic Spain you can change to Mexico (Cultural, Diplomatic) -> another dead end You get the pattern. So how many Civ combinations will fit the pattern? (whatever it will be) A few. If you don't believe me just wait for the first build tier lists and see all those "unplayable" civs

That is why more flexible legacy points are needed. To make a Civ-path in the for example cultural game more... playable and less predictable. To be as you believe in

That’s why Rome can often go to Abassids or Hawaii or Ming or Songhai or Mongol if you play right with gameplay unlocks.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I think it might take a lot longer for tier lists to emerge.

The strong players will work out (and post here) good three-civ+leader sequences among the automatic unlocks.

But if (just to make up an example) Egypt, Mongolia, America+Franklin is the S-tier* package for science, that might not be discovered right away if people's games don't give them the secondary paths (I don't know if they have their own distinguishing name) for choosing those other civs. Presumably not every Egypt game is going to give you 3 horses, so you're closed out of exploring how much Mongolia might do for you until you get a map where you are allowed that pathway.

And this will impact people's testing posted strategies. So some CFCer posts "Egypt, Mongolia, America gives sick yields for science, late game," I can't automatically go play that game to see if that poster is correct.

*am I using that correctly?

 

[Krikkit1]

I think it might take a lot longer for tier lists to emerge.

The strong players will work out (and post here) good three-civ+leader sequences among the automatic unlocks.

But if (just to make up an example) Egypt, Mongolia, America+Franklin is the best package for science, that might not be discovered right away if people's games don't give them the secondary paths (I don't know if they have their own distinguishing name) for choosing those other civs. Presumably not every Egypt game is going to give you 3 horses, so you're closed out of exploring how much Mongolia might do for you until you get a map where you are allowed that pathway.

And that makes it interesting…is the benefit of Mongolia (in this game/map) worth the costs to unlock Mongolia (in this game/map)

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

If you want to play a game where that minor system of bonuses is dedicated entirely to increasing Culture yield instead of shoring up any other category, you could always pick a Cultural leader, as Leader attributes stay for the entire game.

You are earning leader atributes points in culture tree by culture game So the weaker Civ is in a culture game the less points in the culture leader tree. In other words, your leader will always want a Culture Civ over another.

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

I think it might take a lot longer for tier lists to emerge.

The strong players will work out (and post here) good three-civ+leader sequences among the automatic unlocks.

But if (just to make up an example) Egypt, Mongolia, America+Franklin is the S-tier* package for science, that might not be discovered right away if people's games don't give them the secondary paths (I don't know if they have their own distinguishing name) for choosing those other civs. Presumably not every Egypt game is going to give you 3 horses, so you're closed out of exploring how much Mongolia might do for you until you get a map where you are allowed that pathway.

And this will impact people's testing posted strategies. So some CFCer posts "Egypt, Mongolia, America gives sick yields for science," I can't automatically go play that game to see if that poster is correct.

*am I using that correctly?

Seems legit. Perhaps I am overestimating the Internet. Nevertheless, sooner or later they will appear. There is a high demand for it.

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

And that makes it interesting…is the benefit of Mongolia (in this game/map) worth the costs to unlock Mongolia (in this game/map)

And prey for RNGesus

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

OK guys and how about this?

What if one of those above was:
"Reasign 4 of your leader Attribute Points in any way" Cost 1"

 

[Seek]

Rome is cultural and militaristic and can change into Spain (militaristic, expansionist) or Normans (diplomatic/militaristic). So if you start a cultural game like Rome you are at a dead-end Neither Spain nor Normans can follow it up and build your cultural legacy tree that will help you in the last era with your cultural game.

Hm, I am getting the impression that maybe you do not understand how the system works? (Edit: I don’t mean to sound pedantic, this is a fairly convoluted system that has not been very well presented yet! Apologies if this is not needed.)

Legacy points are the small “win conditions” for each age that speed the Victory Project.

Legacy Points are different from the Attribute Points and do not contribute directly to the Victory Projects.

The official Attributes each Civ and Leader have only serve to contribute towards narrative events which may grant specific Leader Attribute Points that can be spent on the skill trees.

There is nothing stopping you from getting any and all Legacy points in each Age, aside from skill, luck and time. All civs can get any of them regardless of their Attributes.

So not having a “cultural” civ after Rome doesn’t prevent you from getting the 3 Cultural Legacy Points in the Exploration Age.

This is really less of an issue than you present, I think, even without knowing how much of an impact the Legacy Points will contribute to victory (which I suspect is minimal).

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

What if one of those above was:
"Reasign 4 of your leader Attribute Points in any way" Cost 1"

It's would be a fine secondary leader ability.