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[member66170]

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[stealth_nsk]

But... In Civ7 we already have this method of unlocking civs. We generally have 3 of them:

1. Historical/regional tied to civilization choice
2. Leader tied to leader choice
3. Unlockable - the one you've described. As an example developers announced Mongols available to anyone who has 3 horse resources by the beginning of exploration

I believe this combining multiple ways is the best thing to do

 

[stealth_nsk]

Right, but my idea is only to have 3. Make gameplay and the players action king, rather than forcing them to be shackled by what happened in real life history.

There should be some set of options which are always available in case you didn't unlocked anything, or options you've unlocked are picked by another player, or just for more options.

 

[chaosprophet]

What your idea made me think, one thing I could see as an interesting mode to play sometimes, is one where you not pick your next civ, but your actions on the previous age count as points and you progress to the civ you had the more points for in the end of the age. Would likely be hard to make it a work well (I can see some civs just having things that are easier to do and often becoming the top one) especially as dlcs and expansions pile up increasing the number of civs each age by a lot.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I've been thinking along this line also, but with a different emphasis.

I think All Progression paths should be open, with effort.
In other words, Abbasid/Songhai might be the 'prescribed' path for Egypt, but with in-game developments like the Mongol 3 Horse Resources they should also be available to anyone else if Egypt does not pick them.

Hitch-hiking on your idea, the requirements could be much harder for completely different progressions that transcend historical events or geography, but never completely Impossible.

If, as an example, the requirement to pick Songhai is to have a Navigable River next to at least 3 cities and you played Mississippians with a start location along a Mississippi River equivalent, it would be pretty easy. If you were playing Greece in a (historically-based) Greek Start, it would be exceedingly difficult, because there are 0 navigable rivers in Greece - but Greeks planted colonies at the mouths of the Danube, Dnepr, and Don Rivers historically, so it wouldn't be Impossible - but your in-game Greeks would have to work at it.

This violates strict historicality, but that was beaten to death in the Civ franchise long, long ago. On the other hand, it would open up potential playable opportunities dramatically within the 'switching - Age' mechanic without upending what they've already built into the game too violently.

 

[TheGrayFox]

This is something that I think might be within the moddable sphere and is a layer on top of the Civ7 system (as we understand it) rather than a replacement of it. The idea is to go full-in on the "what if" side of things and embrace the fact that the game takes place on am imaginary map that bears no resemblance to real world geography (sorry TSL fans). What if there were no "historical" or "geographical" options for civ-switching, and instead they were all unlocked by gameplay actions? If you've failed to unlock any new Civ, it's an automatic failure - ie, you failed to adapt to the changing world and lose to the ongoing crisis. The twist would be that the unlocking requirements for a new civ would be naturally easier or harder depending on how linked it is to the civ you are currently playing as.

No thanks

 

[rocksinmypath]

I like it. It's somewhat reminiscent of Dramatic Ages. I wouldn't mind having it as a game mode.

 

[Krikkit1]

Right, but my idea is only to have 3. Make gameplay and the players action king, rather than forcing them to be shackled by what happened in real life history.

Except that prevents the possibility of historical type play naturally arising in the AI

Now I Do think it would be good if Every civ Did have at least one gameplay unlock option.... However, there are a few problems with Only gameplay unlock options
1. You may not unlock anything (with civ unlocks, every civ can be guaranteed there is at least one other civ that it will unlock... you can ever guarantee at least 2 for an interesting player choice) [just saw your solution, don't like that]
2. You lose the Historicity possibility.... The American civ having Roman Social policies, one "Indian"/"China" civ staying "India" or "China" just different
3. Some gameplay unlock options would overlap too much.... what would be the difference between the gameplay unlock for Britain, Meiji Japan, and say Hawaii? You could come up with some, but they might make the gameplay unlocks too complicated (and they would probably also require some...you do X and you lose an unlock).

 

[Krikkit1]

Not really. After all, the Normans *did* conquer coastal cities in the process of becoming the English. What I'm saying is that if you want to follow that historical progression within the game, you have to do the historical actions too. If you fail to do the historically inspired actions that unlock any civ from the next age, then it means that you failed in the current age and you lose. This is made not too harsh by making the historical unlocks easier than the alternative ones (which also encourages them).

How would historical be easier?? How Would unlocking Britain be easier than unlocking Hawaii for the Normans??

 

[AntSou]

You either make them simple enough so that they are trivial and like playing the game normally, or if they are so difficult to achieve that the human player may fail, you'd reach the modern era with no AI civs.

Or at least that's a scenario I have no trouble imagining from my experience with Civ VI.

Sure, they are improving the AI in Civ VII, but they're also changing many systems to make it easier for the AI to handle. This goes in the opposite direction of that, and I can see the AI constantly faceplanting itself.
---

I do like your idea of being able to unlock other non-regional civs, but making it really difficult to do so. It's easy to mod (it's the same system, just different unlocks) and it has no implications on the AI.

Also, I'm pretty sure if Alexander had never reached India, people today would be complaining about the ridiculousness of it. It's a game, maybe in my timeline the Romans crossed the ocean and met the Maya.

 

[uppi]

What your idea made me think, one thing I could see as an interesting mode to play sometimes, is one where you not pick your next civ, but your actions on the previous age count as points and you progress to the civ you had the more points for in the end of the age. Would likely be hard to make it a work well (I can see some civs just having things that are easier to do and often becoming the top one) especially as dlcs and expansions pile up increasing the number of civs each age by a lot.

Yeah, good point about the AI. That is always the problem... Maybe it would be possible to write a script that makes them switch to which ever civilization they're closest to unlocking, even if they haven't actually unlocked it yet? A bit hacky, but probably doable in a mod. And more in spirit with the general idea than keeping the AI railroaded into "real historical / geographical" paths.

Maybe combine these ideas: You (and the AI) collect points towards all options in the next age. If you reach a certain threshold it becomes available as a choice for the next age. If you don't reach the threshold for any civ, you don't get a choice, but get auto-assigned the civ for which you had the most points.

If you wanted to nudge towards certain historical or geographical progressions you could give civs free points for the preferred options.

 

[RedCourtJester]

Maybe combine these ideas: You (and the AI) collect points towards all options in the next age. If you reach a certain threshold it becomes available as a choice for the next age. If you don't reach the threshold for any civ, you don't get a choice, but get auto-assigned the civ for which you had the most points.

If you wanted to nudge towards certain historical or geographical progressions you could give civs free points for the preferred options.

I'm predicting there is no score for AI, they just have a priority list for auto-progression.

I have been under the impression for a while that you probably *can* progress to any civ in solo mode. Just depends on which prereqs you satisfy. As opposed to multiplayer where the choice is totally free.

 

[AriochIV]

It's possible that all or most civilizations already are unlockable by some criteria. I mean, Mongols are not exactly an obvious follow-on from Egypt; I have a feeling that Mongols can be unlocked by any empire that gets enough horses.

 

[stealth_nsk]

It's possible that all or most civilizations already are unlockable by some criteria. I mean, Mongols are not exactly an obvious follow-on from Egypt; I have a feeling that Mongols can be unlocked by any empire that gets enough horses.

Yes, that's what developers generally said. The bigger question is - do all civilization have similar universal unlock conditions? Normans on the latest playthrough didn't seem to have one

 

[Vitruvian Guar]

Also leave an option for a player not to unlock anything. But instead of immediate loss, they get to stay their previous civ, which means that in the new age they do not receive any bonuses and uniques.

 

[Vitruvian Guar]

That seems like condemning them to a slow death. Better to tell the player they've lost now, than make them waste 10h+ in a near hopeless situation.

I don't know, seems like potentially an interesting challenge. But yes, that would require some balancing in order not to be completely hopeless.

 

[GeneralZift]

Spent 6 hours on a game then have to delete the save file because I only got 2 out of 3 required castles and now my Normans die to magic civilisation killing powers instead of becoming French. Indeed...

 

[TheGrayFox]

Yeah, git gud. You can lose the game if a barbarian wonders into your capital in the early game when it's not defended, and you can lose the game if someone launches a spaceship to Mars a single turn before you do. The game already has arbitrary "win" conditions, why not add no-less-arbitrary "lose" conditions too? An additional source of tension in the middle game seems fun to me. Of course I realise that's not for everyone, which is why I was thinking of this as a mod more than anything else.

Civilization is a game about abstracting human history. "Barbarians" have destroyed and set back nations in the past and someone winning the game via winning the space race/colonizing Mars is an abstraction of their civilization completely surpassing others in scienfitic achievement .

The arbitrary lose conditions you propose on the other hand have no basis as either an abstraction of reality/history and are simply punishing game mechanics for no apparent reason other than to justify civ swapping. I can't see many wanting to waste hours of their lives having their historical 4x save files ruined because they or the AI didn't happen to build enough stables to magically transform into the Mongols or didn't build enough ports to be the English and the Civ God's just happened to decide to smite their civilization from existence because of it. The idea might work in a mod but that's me being generous

 

[Black Gate]

The very first line to open this thread was:

This is something that I think might be within the moddable sphere and is a layer on top of the Civ7 system (as we understand it) rather than a replacement of it

Are we not discussing the potential of a future mod? There's no way Firaxis would add something to kill your game at the end of an age and potential hinder someone new's experience, that's the entire reason the regional unlocks exist. Nor would they change such a game defining mechanic with only twenty weeks left to launch.

 

[aieeegrunt]

If you do well enough with the Era Crises you should have the option to pick a set of Era traits for the next era, but keep your civilization

I mean your civ surmounted the crises, why would people abandon their culture?