Teaser trailer:
Gameplay changes are ...
... going to be showcased in August. <_<
Release: 2025.
It seems every subsequent civ game has a shorter and shorter time span before it gets a sequel.
Probably just me getting old and feels rather than facts. But still.
Don't think I ever did finish a game of 6 so I'm pretty Meh on this.
Dude.
Civ 1: 1991
Civ 2: 1996 (5 yrs)
Civ 3: 2001 (6 yrs)
Civ 4: 2005 (4 yrs)
Civ 5: 2010 (5 yrs)
Civ 6: 2016 (6 yrs)
Civ 7: 2025 (9 yrs)
:P
Quote from: Josquius on June 08, 2024, 01:27:13 AMIt seems every subsequent civ game has a shorter and shorter time span before it gets a sequel.
Probably just me getting old and feels rather than facts. But still.
Don't think I ever did finish a game of 6 so I'm pretty Meh on this.
Civ 6 is quite old though.
And while it looks nice... "booh" at teaser trailers. They say nothing
Quote from: Syt on June 08, 2024, 01:32:22 AMDude.
Civ 1: 1991
Civ 2: 1996 (5 yrs)
Civ 3: 2001 (6 yrs)
Civ 4: 2005 (4 yrs)
Civ 5: 2010 (5 yrs)
Civ 6: 2016 (6 yrs)
Civ 7: 2025 (9 yrs)
:P
Indeed
Civ6 was 25th jubilee for civ
Weird. So it's the biggest gap between 7 and 6.
2 seemed to be THE game forever.
Quote from: Josquius on June 08, 2024, 01:37:22 AMWeird. So it's the biggest gap between 7 and 6.
2 seemed to be THE game forever.
Continuing the "vibes" theme - III was for sure the least memorable to me. I had it, I recall I didn't really enjoy it, and it didn't seem to leave the big imprint that Civ2 and Civ 4 had, respectively.
Civ 6 may feel "newer" because the stylized gfx haven't aged that terribly (and maybe the more colorful designs of VI feel more contemporary now?), and it has kept pushing out civs and leaders DLCs till 2022.
I do remember 3s pop culture thing and culture flipping was cool, though too rare to actually happen.
Also with age... I do think games in general have sort of Plateaued as compared to the generational leap every 5 years we used to get.
A game from 2010 isn't tooooo different to a game of today, 2016 is basically yesterday.
PS 3 to 4 to 5 is nothing compared to MD to PS1 to PS2.
That's definitely true. The big graphical leaps don't really happen any more at the moment.
Quote from: Josquius on June 08, 2024, 01:37:22 AMWeird. So it's the biggest gap between 7 and 6.
2 seemed to be THE game forever.
Probably because we were young, and time flowed differently then
The lack of an Elvis impersonator has ruined every Civ since Civ 2.
(https://i.imgur.com/noqN7Tk.png)
BUILD CITY WALLS!!! :mad: :mad: :mad:
Quote from: Valmy on June 08, 2024, 03:08:47 AMThe lack of Civ 2 has ruined every Civ since Civ 2.
Fixed
I'll buy it.
Well, yeah. -_-
(Unless there's some egregious form of micro transactions or other monetization in place)
Quote from: Syt on June 08, 2024, 01:03:57 PMWell, yeah. -_-
(Unless there's some egregious form of micro transactions or other monetization in place)
CIV7 published by Paradox :ph34r: :ph34r: :ph34r:
I never did buy Civ VI. The look and feel wasn't good enough for me to learn a new Civ system while I could just play V again.
Hopefully this 7 version will have a more interesting look.
Quote from: Grey Fox on June 08, 2024, 03:25:27 PMI never did buy Civ VI. The look and feel wasn't good enough for me to learn a new Civ system while I could just play V again.
Hopefully this 7 version will have a more interesting look.
I think Civ VI had a lot of really good game mechanics, e.g. the events that push your research, the zones giving a new interesting optimization topic for your cities, different play styles for the different factions etc.
I wish they deepen some of these to add more variety.
Civ6 had a lot of features that I liked on paper, but the game never quite clicked for me.
Ironically, though, I have a few more hours in Civ6 than in Civ5, which is my favorite Civ in terms of gameplay.
I have three times as much time in Civ VI compared to Civ V according to my Steam account. Both only a fraction of EU IV. :ph34r:
Still haven't cracked 100 hours in EU4. :blush: Stellaris, CK3 and V3 are all beyond 400 hours, though (why do I have 800+ in Victoria :o ). I still have more hours in EU4 than in Imperator or HoI4, though. :P
Quote from: Syt on June 09, 2024, 11:50:46 AMCiv6 had a lot of features that I liked on paper, but the game never quite clicked for me.
Ironically, though, I have a few more hours in Civ6 than in Civ5, which is my favorite Civ in terms of gameplay.
Same for me. This was the first Civ game where my mind went from "one more turn" to "jeez, not another turn". I think one part of it was the district system, which made the game too much of an optimization puzzle. It may be an interesting optimization puzzle, but it detracts from the strategy of the whole game. My Steam stats show that I played Civ V almost 4 times as much as Civ VI, and this feels accurate.
If the district system or governors return in CIV7 I won't be buying it.
I really hated these features.
What didn't you like about districts?
Without the districts you built a city once in a good spot and then never really had to think about it again. How is that better than actually having to optimise it over time with a proper map based feature? :hmm:
Quote from: Zanza on June 11, 2024, 05:53:04 PMWithout the districts you built a city once in a good spot and then never really had to think about it again. How is that better than actually having to optimise it over time with a proper map based feature? :hmm:
With districts you still build a city once in a good spot, but determining exactly where that spot is becomes a distracting minigame of its own.
You don't actually have to optimize anything out the wazoo (if you aren't playing on Deity or something). It's enough that your district gives some bonus.
Plus, isn't "finding a good spot to build a city" core gameplay of all Civ games? :P
Do you "have to"? No, of course not, you don't have to play the game either, no one is forcing you. However, if I'm playing a strategy game, I need to know that I'm playing it the best I know how (excepting marginal improvements that cost a lot of QOL).
I know that a juicy district/adjacency bonus synergy can smash the game, so voluntarily giving up on finding them would mean voluntarily accepting a substantial penalty. I've never been a fan of self-imposed limitations on strategy in strategy games, I think it's on game designer to create a game where me trying to do the best I can aligns with getting the best enjoyment out of the game.
Quote from: DGuller on June 12, 2024, 08:45:19 AMDo you "have to"? No, of course not, you don't have to play the game either, no one is forcing you. However, if I'm playing a strategy game, I need to know that I'm playing it the best I know how (excepting marginal improvements that cost a lot of QOL).
I know that a juicy district/adjacency bonus synergy can smash the game, so voluntarily giving up on finding them would mean voluntarily accepting a substantial penalty. I've never been a fan of self-imposed limitations on strategy in strategy games, I think it's on game designer to create a game where me trying to do the best I can aligns with getting the best enjoyment out of the game.
And that's
your preference.
Quote from: garbon on June 12, 2024, 11:58:12 AMAnd that's your preference.
For sure, but this subthread of the conversation is in response to "what didn't you like about districts?"
Quote from: Jacob on June 12, 2024, 04:23:48 PMQuote from: garbon on June 12, 2024, 11:58:12 AMAnd that's your preference.
For sure, but this subthread of the conversation is in response to "what didn't you like about districts?"
Districts add more for the player to think about so I wondered what the down side is.
Quote from: Jacob on June 12, 2024, 04:23:48 PMQuote from: garbon on June 12, 2024, 11:58:12 AMAnd that's your preference.
For sure, but this subthread of the conversation is in response to "what didn't you like about districts?"
And I'd argue someone posting that the point of games should be to be the best at it or why bother playing doesn't shed much light.
Quote from: DGuller on June 12, 2024, 08:45:19 AMDo you "have to"? No, of course not, you don't have to play the game either, no one is forcing you. However, if I'm playing a strategy game, I need to know that I'm playing it the best I know how (excepting marginal improvements that cost a lot of QOL).
I know that a juicy district/adjacency bonus synergy can smash the game, so voluntarily giving up on finding them would mean voluntarily accepting a substantial penalty. I've never been a fan of self-imposed limitations on strategy in strategy games, I think it's on game designer to create a game where me trying to do the best I can aligns with getting the best enjoyment out of the game.
Seems like he was only talking about himself to me. I don't think he was saying that the point of games should be to be the best for everybody.
In my preference, I would sometimes limit development/tile improvements if it made the map less pretty. :P
*But Civ 5 was my last-played Civ, and even then not much...mostly a lot of 4.
Quote from: Valmy on June 12, 2024, 06:39:27 PMQuote from: DGuller on June 12, 2024, 08:45:19 AMDo you "have to"? No, of course not, you don't have to play the game either, no one is forcing you. However, if I'm playing a strategy game, I need to know that I'm playing it the best I know how (excepting marginal improvements that cost a lot of QOL).
I know that a juicy district/adjacency bonus synergy can smash the game, so voluntarily giving up on finding them would mean voluntarily accepting a substantial penalty. I've never been a fan of self-imposed limitations on strategy in strategy games, I think it's on game designer to create a game where me trying to do the best I can aligns with getting the best enjoyment out of the game.
Seems like he was only talking about himself to me. I don't think he was saying that the point of games should be to be the best for everybody.
Area where disdained seemed to be expressed: Do you "have to"? No, of course not, you don't have to play the game either, no one is forcing you.
:wacko: I think you're reading into the post something that isn't there. I was just offering my own explanation for why the district system killed the enjoyment of the game for me. If you enjoy Civ VI, by all means continue enjoying it, who am I to judge your shockingly poor taste in strategy games?
This discussion did remind me of a related point of why the district system was not enjoyable to me, which I didn't originally remember because I literally haven't played a game in over three years. The district system forced you to plan everything out the moment you founded your city, so much so that I recall there were even mods that let you drop pins to mark locations where you would eventually place the districts.
I found that it made the game very rigid, because instead of dynamically developing as you go, possibly in response to changing needs and priorities, you have to in great detail plan out exactly what each city will do even a few eras from now. It was just too static for my tastes, you made all the decisions once at the founding of the city and then the rest of the game you just mechanically followed through on them like a bureaucrat.
IDK... most strategy games you need to be intimately familiar with the systems at the start of a new game to be able to min-max to the maximum potential.
It is far from impossible to win a game without placing every district to the most optimal hex imaginable on the game map.
So while DG you are free to dislike Civ6 for not having systems that you find fun, the district system is no broken or failed or anything of the sort.
Quote from: Tamas on June 13, 2024, 08:45:25 AMIDK... most strategy games you need to be intimately familiar with the systems at the start of a new game to be able to min-max to the maximum potential.
It is far from impossible to win a game without placing every district to the most optimal hex imaginable on the game map.
So while DG you are free to dislike Civ6 for not having systems that you find fun, the district system is no broken or failed or anything of the sort.
Yeah, I want strategy games that have challenging strategic elements. That increases the number of consequential decisions which increases my enjoyment of the game.
I agree with the views that the Civ6 system is too static and that to minmax you had to plan ahead a lot.
In general a more dynamic map that changes or needs different minmax strategies in different ages over time would be good.
But the mechanic still had more of a strategic element than placing cities in earlier Civs. Unless I forgot about the mechanics there.
Quote from: crazy canuck on June 11, 2024, 04:20:32 PMWhat didn't you like about districts?
I've always liked the civ series for it's story telling potential.
Civ 7 and the districts turned the game into some kind of pre-planning simulator.
I haven't analyzed the possible reasons, but personally I found the district mechanics tedious. I didn't play VI very much, and I don't know if I'll even get VII.
Quote from: barkdreg on June 13, 2024, 03:14:50 PMQuote from: crazy canuck on June 11, 2024, 04:20:32 PMWhat didn't you like about districts?
I've always liked the civ series for it's story telling potential.
Civ 7 and the districts turned the game into some kind of pre-planning simulator.
Yeah, I can see that. Have you tried Old World? And if so, what do you think about how that game approaches adjacency bonuses?
I like how AOW4 handles it. It uses a similar concept, but upgrades are per province instead of tiles, making it much more manageable. Also, replacing improvements (or upgrading them when you unlock something better) is straightforward.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK_JrrP9m2U
gameplay reveal trailer.
I think I'll wait this one out for a bit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc3_EO6Bj2M
this is the showcase stream (at time of writing it yet needs to begin)
Doesn't really say anything.
Quote from: Darth Wagtaros on August 20, 2024, 03:40:00 PMDoesn't really say anything.
most heard comment in the stream-chat: Humankind 2.... and it's not in a positive way from what I can gather... (in between all the bs that floods all kinds of social media nowadays)
"Civilization has been around a long time. We're going to release another one."
Christopher Tin returning is nice though. The rest: I don't know. Maybe 25 years of playing civ is enough...
One of the things that has really turned me off of Civ over the years (and more so it appears from the trailer) is the city/graphical sprawl. To me, it kills immersion in that I like the countryside/flyover country to look like...the countryside.
A minor thing, I know.
And I didn't see anything that looked any different or better than Civ 6 looked (which I had skipped as well).
Feels a bit light on gameplay, that gameplay trailer? :unsure:
The graphics sure look pretty, though.
EDIT: only watched the 2min "gameplay" trailer ... just saw there's a 20min video, too - will watch later. :D
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/strategy/civilization-7-hands-on-huge-changes-are-coming-to-the-classic-strategy-series/
QuoteCivilization 7 hands-on: Huge changes are coming to the classic strategy series
Firaxis is changing Civilization's structure with the goal of getting more of us to the victory screen.
Be honest: When you play Civilization, do you dutifully guide your subjects from the dawn of history to the moon landing, or do you get bored sometime around the Renaissance and start over? If you're the dutiful type, you're in the minority: Firaxis has been collecting statistics, and although it wouldn't share specifics, the developer told me it was surprised to discover how few Civilization players had finished a game of Civilization.
In response to this revelation, Firaxis has substantially changed Civilization's structure for the next game, which is out in February. In Civilization 7, you no longer begin in the Ancient era, advancing through and beyond the Classical, Medieval, Renaissance, Industrial, and Modern eras. There are just three ages in Civilization 7—Antiquity, Discovery, and Modern—and the tech tree has been somewhat simplified.
It might turn out to be the most controversial change since Civilization 5 ditched unit stacking, or since Civilization 6 adopted a cartoonier art style (which has been walked back in Civ 7). But before the word "simplified" causes too much anxiety, I should elaborate: I think the changes are exciting, and Firaxis has also added, tweaked, and expanded. You can now build towns, not just cities. There are powerful new units called Commanders. You'll find navigable rivers for the first time (yes!), so you can have your own Mississippi or Nile. Major features from the Civ 5 and 6 expansion packs are here, such as religion and natural disasters.
It's still Civilization, a judgment I arrived at after playing for three hours, and that creative director Ed Beach, who was also the lead designer of Civilization 6, expresses in numbers.
"We're very mindful of exactly how much we were changing," Beach said to a group of press, including myself, who were flown to Firaxis's office in early August to try the game. "You've probably heard the Firaxis mantra that 33% of the game stays the same, 33% of it gets updated, and 33% is brand new. We absolutely followed that again."
History in layers
Here's one big change: Despite leading Rome, I played as Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut. Your leader no longer has to match your civilization.
This relates to a key part of the new three-act structure: In the transition to a new age, you'll select a new civilization. Each age has unique civs, and the choices available depend on your leader, but also what you've accomplished so far. If you've amassed a huge stable of powerful cavalry units, for instance, you might be granted the option of swapping to Mongolia for the Exploration age.
Beach's big theme for Civilization 7 is the idea that "history is built in layers." The thought was inspired by London, which began as Roman outpost Londinium before being abandoned, occupied by the conquering Normans, and then transformed by the Industrial Revolution.
"Now we have a new version of Civilization where I can play a single pathway through history, and I get to be the Romans, I get to be the Normans, and then I get to be Britain," he said.
In the transition to a new age, old buildings lose their special effects and adjacency bonuses, so you'll be encouraged to literally build in layers, replacing the old with the new. The pre-defined districts of Civ 6 have been dropped in favor of general urban districts that the player defines by the buildings they opt to place in them. Cities should be more compact as a result.
Along with sub-goals that break up the journey toward one of Civ's victory conditions, getting to adopt a new culture's architecture, units, and bonuses along the way—an idea you'll also find in 2021 strategy game Humankind—might just tempt me to finally start sticking things out to the end. It's hard to say, though, because Civ's early game remains as compelling as ever, and some of the changes in Civ 7 make it even more exciting.
One of those changes has to do with how cities come to be in the first place. Settler units now found towns instead of cities, which are a much more sensible thing to found, I think. Don't get ahead of yourself!
Towns are like cities, but have no production queue. Instead, their productive capacity is converted directly into gold for your coffers. You can add buildings to towns, but only by purchasing them. You can spend gold to transform a town into a proper city, but you don't have to. You can leave your town as a town, and optionally select a permanent specialization, turning it into a mining town, a farming town (which includes a fishing bonus), a trading outpost, or a military fort. Strategic Civ players already specialize their cities; now there's a built-in way to optimize your settlements based on their geographic and political situation.
I like this change a lot, not because I care about min-maxing, but because my love of expansion conflicts with my desire to actually manage 12 cities. In Civ's blissful early game, when I'm making my most creative and consequential decisions, I enjoy sticking cities wherever I think cities should go, sometimes for purely aesthetic reasons. If I see a cute bay with fish, you better believe I'm hitting it with a cute bayside fishing town. But now it can actually be a fishing town.
My overall impression of Civ 7 is that Firaxis has sought to remove low-impact decisions—stuff players always do, or choices they don't take seriously—while emphasizing actually important decisions.
A good example of this trend is the removal of Workers. RIP to the little guys you previously had to send hiking across the countryside to build land improvements like farms and mines. Improvements are now constructed automatically when a new land tile is annexed by a city. However, cities no longer expand into new tiles automatically. You're instead prompted to choose a new tile whenever a city grows. With that new level of control, I developed my capital, Rome, as a very long city, capturing resources on the either side of a river.
Spreading influence
Barbarians are gone, replacing another obvious choice (beat up on the barbarians) with something slightly more complex, if not by much. Replacing those early game foes are Independent Powers, who may or may not be hostile. If they're peaceful, you can spend the new Influence resource to befriend them. If they're allowed to develop, they'll later form a city-state, and getting on their good side is helpful if you want to become their suzerain.
Influence can also be spent to cooperate with or sabotage other nations. It's an all-purpose diplomacy currency, basically, and might be too universal. I could spend it to enthusiastically accept a neighboring country's proposal for an international farmer's market, and also to sanction them or attempt to infiltrate their military.
The system did get me more involved in international relations than I usually am early in a Civ game: I used Influence to befriend an independent power, to make military pacts that increased my unit strength, and to weaken my antagonistic neighbor, Egypt—which by the way was run by Roman emperor Octavian, who traded places with Hatshepsut.
In command
The AI leaders still behave like kids who are making things up as they go, leaping from negotiations over fruits and vegetables to declarations of war, but I'm not sure more human-like computer players would be a profitable area for Firaxis to invest in. If they behaved like real players, the AI leaders would probably focus all their early-game energy on building cool Wonders and then quit the first time they suffered a significant military loss.
I concluded my session in the middle of a protracted war between Egyptian Rome and Roman Egypt that I refused to end—mainly out of spite, but also because I wanted to play with the new Commander units. They are now the only units that get promotions, which buff their abilities or the abilities of units around them. More interestingly, you can stack multiple units 'inside' a commander, send them to the front line, and then unpack them. Commanders can also issue orders to nearby units, telling them to focus fire on a particular enemy, for instance, which confers bonuses. There's a whiff of XCOM here: I can imagine getting quite attached to a max level general who's overseen my greatest military victories.
As curious as I am about big additions like Commanders and the new three-age structure, I walked away most excited by little tweaks to ancient Civ conventions, like the addition of towns. Even smaller, but also exciting: When you tell a unit to fortify, it actually builds a fortification, and Scouts can now put up little watchtowers to see further—I love that.
But there are also good signs for Firaxis' plan to get more of us to play Civ games till the end. One, I'm curious to experience a Crisis event—I didn't get that far in my session, but I'm told that these events act as climaxes to the first two ages, requiring players to select a series of Crisis policies that negatively affect their civs.
And beyond that, I'll be interested to know just how different the Exploration and Modern ages are from Antiquity. During our brief interview, Beach gave me some hints about what to expect in the Exploration age. It's themed around the part of any Civ game (and of world history) when deep ocean tiles become traversable, and you start to discover what's going on outside of your own continent. Exploring "the distant lands," as they're called in Civ 7, will lead to the discovery of valuable new resources.
The real history of global exploration of course did not involve everyone venturing across the oceans at the same time and on equal footing—some explored, and then they violently exploited the people they found—but Civ isn't meant to be an accurate replay of history. Still, I already know that I want to try to defy Civ 7's structure and themes to, for instance, play an isolationist nation during that second act, engaging with just a few foreign traders from behind my walls.
That's the plight of a strategy game designer, I guess: Give us a structure, goals, and themes meant to help us progress through the game and take advantage of all its systems, and of course the first thing we want to do is reject them all to see what happens. Another headache to sit alongside Civ 4 designer Soren Johnson's observation that "given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game."
Civilization 7 will release on February 11, 2025, and it's coming to Windows, Linux, and Mac at launch (here's its Steam page), as well as Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch.
For more details, I've compiled a big list of Civ 7 changes and new features I saw during my gameplay session, and heard about from Firaxis. The studio has also broadcast a gameplay showcase on Twitch.
Generally I like the idea of changing up civs to be more age-appropriate, but limiting it to three ages (from what it seems) feels a bit reductive. (Though I guess it helps mitigating that otherwise you might have civs available in multiple ages, e.g. the French from middle ages to modern day.)
I guess you could have a Civ-Tree of which civs can morph into which ones on age transition, e.g. Rome => Byzantium or English => Americans, but that is fraught with potential PR nightmares ("Our Nation is not descended from that other pigdog nation!" *spits contemptuously* )
Hopefully they manage to do something more fun with what they've lifted from Humankind...
With the switching civs, I don't see why they needed to divorce leaders from their civ.
Crap, I think the civ-switching didn't help Humankind. Hopefully they are getting around the disjointed feeling that causes by having leaders stay the same.
Unconvinced about the three ages but I don't mind them trying to innovate.
Aesthetically, I really hate seeing every tile turn urban. It just looks really off. The vast majority of land everywhere is thinly populated.
No more workers. Instead everything is automatically upgraded. Do no more decisions about what to do with a tile. Seems they have gone to great lengths to simplify the game.
quill18 has a playlist about C7:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLs3acGYgI1-tzagcKgi6fNTFoBRZfOWVE
I play the game to play the game, not to 'win'. I never win.
The "Founders Edition" with the first two DLCs is 129 Euro. :wacko:
Quote from: Zanza on August 24, 2024, 02:36:37 AMThe "Founders Edition" with the first two DLCs is 129 Euro. :wacko:
Yeah, saw that. :lol:
"Still cheaper than a Paradox game with all DLC!" - Capital G Gamers, probably. :P
People don't finish long games for many reasons. But they will start over and play some more. The real fun is usually found in the start up and middle. Endings are often an anticlimax.
Replayability is a sign of a good game. Shortening the mid-game won't make it necessarily more fun.
The problem is always to make the game interesting and open till the end. Many times the game might be decided half way through, but then it's just a slog to "clean the board." Stuff like crises, late game ganging up on the points leader etc. can mitigate that somewhat, but you probably also want to avoid a situation where the player has to relentlessly min/max to stay in the game (because while some players like that, I'd assume the vast majority of players don't; and I'd argue the "interesting decisions" design suffers when you need to make (near-)optimal decisions at all times).
So from what I hear, there are three eras, and you can pick a new CIV at the end of each one, sort of Humankind ish.
They are likely happy all these imitators have experimented.
Quote from: garbon on January 17, 2025, 05:10:05 PMThey are likely happy all these imitators have experimented.
This
There's some gameplay videos popping up, but apparently content creators are limited to 60 minutes total gameplay (quill18 does 6 videos that have 10 minutes gameplay each, plus ca. 20 minutes of additional comments).
The eras are a bit more pronounced from what I understand and serve as "soft resets" throughout the game to keep the game interesting into later ages. Older buildings become less productive (but can be built over with new ones), resources shift in importance/values etc. First era seems to cover similar ground as Old World (from early civilization to middle ages), and the second age covers essentially the era of EU4, with the final age being modernity.
Overall I try to keep an open mind. But one of the most annoying things in Civ4 was buildings/wonders becoming obsolete which made me often not want to bother with those, so not sure how I feel about that part of era change, but overall looking forward to trying it for myself.
Civ6 never quite clicked for me, especially in the early days, when AI allies would declare war on you randomly, because they wanted to acquire something from another AI and treated declaring war the same as paying a couple gold. "Sure we will declare war on our long time ally for getting some tea from you!" :P
One of the aspects of Old World that is interesting is always thinking about how buildings should be updated/replaced as you tech up. There are very few structures that are one and done type structures. If the new CIV game incorporates that kind of gameplay that could be good. But it took Old World a lot of patches to get to the point where that aspect of the game play worked well (and wasn't just annoying). But like Garbon said, the CIV developers have had the benefit of watching and learning.
I think there's just a lot of attempts in the Civ-o-sphere where developers try to shake up the mechanics. Humankind with its different cultures per age, Millennia going for more diverse ages between "historic" and speculative, the districts we saw in Endless Legends, Warhammer 40k Gladius and Civ6, character focus in Old World ... of course there will then be cross-pollination of ideas. But much better than what used to happen in space 4x where every week some indie dev pushed out the next "spiritual successor of MoO2" which added little to no new ideas to the formula.
I'm curious about diplomacy - the devs have said the "bartering table" has been a bad idea. Remains to be seen yet how much or how little they can move away from it.
I like the idea that they have fewer "ruler" characters but other historical characters as leaders, like Harriett Tubman or Machiavelli. Though doubtlessly also driven by not wanting to keep repeating the same old same old. "So, Washington for the US this time? Or Lincoln?" :P
That said, many covering the game have said this iteration of Civ is a huge shake-up of the series, maybe even the biggest divergence from one main title to the next. (Which will doubtlessly rile up tons of purists, even if the game turns out great :P )
As with all Civ games, I am going to wait, really :D to see what Languish has to say
Quote from: crazy canuck on January 17, 2025, 05:23:41 PMOne of the aspects of Old World that is interesting is always thinking about how buildings should be updated/replaced as you tech up. There are very few structures that are one and done type structures. If the new CIV game incorporates that kind of gameplay that could be good. But it took Old World a lot of patches to get to the point where that aspect of the game play worked well (and wasn't just annoying). But like Garbon said, the CIV developers have had the benefit of watching and learning.
Yeah you guys turned me on to OW, and I haven't really looked back. Also like Paradox of old, they are always making free minor updates in additon to patches, keeping it fresh. I still play that from time to time.
Quote from: Josephus on January 17, 2025, 08:13:28 PMAlso like Paradox of old, they are always making free minor updates in additon to patches, keeping it fresh.
Why "of old"? That is still the concept at Paradox, no?
PotatoMcWhiskey's preview video:
Quote from: Josephus on January 17, 2025, 08:13:28 PMQuote from: crazy canuck on January 17, 2025, 05:23:41 PMOne of the aspects of Old World that is interesting is always thinking about how buildings should be updated/replaced as you tech up. There are very few structures that are one and done type structures. If the new CIV game incorporates that kind of gameplay that could be good. But it took Old World a lot of patches to get to the point where that aspect of the game play worked well (and wasn't just annoying). But like Garbon said, the CIV developers have had the benefit of watching and learning.
Yeah you guys turned me on to OW, and I haven't really looked back. Also like Paradox of old, they are always making free minor updates in additon to patches, keeping it fresh. I still play that from time to time.
:cheers:
Maybe they could introduce a dark age or civil war without turning it into an unwinnable grind.
Quote from: Syt on January 17, 2025, 06:02:11 PM"So, Washington for the US this time? Or Lincoln?"
Either Barrack Obama or Donald Trump.
Quote from: viper37 on January 18, 2025, 03:36:22 PMQuote from: Syt on January 17, 2025, 06:02:11 PM"So, Washington for the US this time? Or Lincoln?"
Either Barrack Obama or Donald Trump.
You mean "Barrack Obama or Hotel Trump?"
I watched the 60 minutes video from Marbozir. I have to say I'm not sold. It seems like they took my least favorite feature of Civ 6, the district system, and doubled down on it. Changing cultures between eras felt weird with Humankind, and it feel weird for the real Civ game.
I don't watch Marbozir. He always seems super whiny if things are not 100% how he wants them and only seems to want to min/max. Worst was seeing him and other guys playing Talisman, and him wanting to quit when his character died once, because he saw no point in continuing (even though Talisman's heavy RNG and length gives plenty opportunity to do so).
On districts, from what I've seen from previews I think they're making it a bit more flexible, and less the "there's one perfect way to arrange your districts". The era changes I don't mind too much yet. A common comment I see is that the new game moves away from "this is your Civ and how you play them" and more towards creating builds, i.e. which leader, and which succession of civilizations (plus the bonuses you can unlock from gameplay, which I'm not a fan of for now).
On borrowed mechanics - I guess towns that can later be upgraded to proper cities is borrowed from GalCiv4, where you have colonies that provide resources for Core Worlds but that can later be turned into Core Worlds themselves.
Quote from: Syt on January 19, 2025, 03:12:17 AMOn borrowed mechanics - I guess towns that can later be upgraded to proper cities is borrowed from GalCiv4, where you have colonies that provide resources for Core Worlds but that can later be turned into Core Worlds themselves.
A number of games have done that. It's more likely that they've modelled this after humankind, where are the decision to upgrade an outpost to a city is an important strategic consideration.
Millennium also has it as a core part of the game mechanics.
I watched Potato McWhiskey's gameplay video and the game actually looks interesting. A lot of changes from previous games, but I don't mind.
I mean it could still be meh. I liked a lot of the mechanics they added to Civ6 on paper, but somehow I mostly got frustrated when playing the game.
Isn't Potato one of these arseholes who did a frenzied "this is shit" review of Star Wars Outlaws?
I don't recall? He's usually just doing 4X games and adjacent.
EDIT: checked - no Star Wars Outlaws on his channel (which would have surprised me, because while he will be critical about things, he tends to not be edgy negative).
I am bored and this looks like it might be fun. So I guess I will buy the founders edition for 129 Euro. :hide:
Quote from: Zanza on January 20, 2025, 01:35:48 PMI am bored and this looks like it might be fun. So I guess I will buy the founders edition for 129 Euro. :hide:
I'll buy in a few years: platinum edition or some such at 5 euros
Ok.
I saw I can get Civ6 on my phone via my Netflix subscription now. :lol:
Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on January 20, 2025, 02:07:11 PMQuote from: Zanza on January 20, 2025, 01:35:48 PMI am bored and this looks like it might be fun. So I guess I will buy the founders edition for 129 Euro. :hide:
I'll buy in a few years: platinum edition or some such at 5 euros
The future is now.
Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on January 20, 2025, 02:07:11 PMQuote from: Zanza on January 20, 2025, 01:35:48 PMI am bored and this looks like it might be fun. So I guess I will buy the founders edition for 129 Euro. :hide:
I'll buy in a few years: platinum edition or some such at 5 euros
watching a Quill18 game where Catherine the Great, in full Russian regalia, is leader of the Greek Civilization, is a bit jarring. :D
Not sure if that's the way to go then, or the Humankind way of non-real characters.
PC Gamer makes a low risk prediction: Civ VII will be divisive:
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/strategy/civ-7-reaction-expectations/
But then, most Civs from 4 onwards have been. :P
I might stay away from online opinions when I play it myself to not get mired in the "THEY RUINED IT FOREVER" and "CIV2 [or 3, or 4, or 5, or 6] WERE PINNACLE!" threads that will doubtlessly pop up everywhere :P
Yeah that's probably a good idea :)
The general tenor among previewers seems to be that the changes are more drastic than with any other mainline release, so it might be worse. But I'm sure Firaxis is very much expecting same.
Then again, as a Paradox enjoyer, I'm used to having fun with games with vocal critics :D
IGN review. 7/10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B67vadCC1gg
Quote from: Josephus on February 03, 2025, 09:41:00 AMIGN review. 7/10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B67vadCC1gg
Well that just removed almost all my desire to buy it on release day.
One thing I was already worried about is the bloody quests/missions and events about low level minutiae. Can we have just one strategy game without those, please?
Quote from: Tamas on February 03, 2025, 11:42:43 AMQuote from: Josephus on February 03, 2025, 09:41:00 AMIGN review. 7/10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B67vadCC1gg
Well that just removed almost all my desire to buy it on release day.
One thing I was already worried about is the bloody quests/missions and events about low level minutiae. Can we have just one strategy game without those, please?
It's been succesful for Paradox, so I guess other companies are doing it.
I bought it. Metacritic is 81% which is not exactly BG3, but still solid.
Got it too. Been watching Quill18's Rome playthrough and it looks interesting enough that I can see myself sinking some hours into it. I'm sure it will get better over time.
I started playing it. I understand some of the criticism, the UX is poor and does not explain concepts well (needs Paradox' nested tool tips) and some features are not complete, e.g. map generation seems to be a joke.
I have not yet reached that age switch, which seems to be jarring.
But I do overall get the impression that I will enjoy this like its predecessors.
Just dropping in briefly to give my impressions. I did a tutorial game as Ibn-Battuta going Aksum => Abbasids => Mughals.
Overall, this clicks a lot more out of the box for me than Civ VI did. I like the overhauled district system. My main gripe with it is that it fills the map with A LOT of urban sprawl. Also, city graphics are quite busy and hard to read, i.e. what building is where. I wish the "sprawl" was smaller, with more space in between, and improvements stand out more. I'm not sure yet how I feel about the city/town dichotomy, and not sure I like all cities of an age (except capital) reverting to towns - it feels a bit annoying, but it also allows you a "re-do" if a city that was important before is now no longer as relevant.
Age switch mechanics are interesting, but it still feels like a jarring cut. I mean, at the end of each age you would be researching "future" techs if you run out of tech tree (which grants some bonus to the following age).
Speaking of tech trees - the tech tree per age seems a bit short and linear. Masteries (which grant additional buffs/wonders) add some spice, but I hope it will get expanded. Especially the Modern Age tech tree which ends ca. end of WW2 (the final science achievements are launching a satellite and a manned space mission). But no computers, no internet, no fighter jets, no nuclear power, no mechanized infantry .... I hope that this will be added either as part of Modern Age or as a new age.
I do like the addition of civ-specific short civic trees. Overall, the civs are more fleshed out. Each civ has its special units and buildings (some have to be unlocked by tech or civics). Though I hope there's more civs added soon (I think a couple are coming in March). Generally, the civ-progression is fine. There's some "logical" progressions of who you can select for next era depending on your current Civ and/or leader (e.g. Spain => Mexico, Ming => Qing, Frederick the Great gets to select Prussia in modern age), though you can unlock additional options through gameplay, e.g. if you're settling three cities on Tundra in exploration age, you can pick Russia in Modern Age. Also, soldiers and units for civs are fairly well distinguished from each other. E.g. my Mughal tank (T-34 model) soldiers had Indian uniforms, while Qing tanks (Pz-IV model) had Chinese army uniforms.
Age specific mechanics are ok but feel too similar per age. Each age you want "great works" for cultural milestones. In Ancient Age you collect codices, in exploration age you collect relics (through religious gameplay), in modern age you collect archaeological artifacts (through researching/excavating historical sites).
Religion only is a major component during Exploration Age. It works pretty much like previously - found religion, select tenets, spread belief. In Modern Age, the mechanic is disabled. Instead it focuses on ideology (Democracy, Fascism, Communism). Diplomacy in general feels better, but could do with some improvements. You gain influence to suggest cooperations with other nations, or to do hostile stuff (stealing research points, sabotaging happiness ... ). It feels a bit less random or weird than Civ6 at launch. I feel it's still a bit undercooked, though, lacking some more options.
Trade is a bit OP, maybe? It gives you full access to the target city's special goods. Assigning goods to cities to give them the relevant bonuses is fine, I guess.
Biggest gripe is the UI. I feel it needs more data easily accessible. It took me a while to realize that to see a city's info you have to click the city, then click the "show more" button in the build menu to see what buildings you have in the city, how the yields are calculated etc. The game could use a few more charts or info pop ups or map lenses. I miss the labels for mountain ranges, oceans, rivers ... And as said, it looks very pretty when you zoom in, but it's also crowded. It took me quite some time to realize that I hadn't connected my capital to the other cities for much of the game, only noticing when I had railroads in all towns but still couldn't build factories. Due to the urban sprawl this was pretty invisible (and before/after connecting I didn't see a different on map).
Wars are ok. I'm fine with the Commander system (Commander can merge units into him for fast transport, then disembark units for combat onto the map and giving bonuses). Keeps the map cleaner between wars, and makes movement of units a bit easier. (Not sure why they decided to hide the upgrade/sleep/alert buttons under a second, fold out menu).
Finally, the leveling up of leaders is a bit silly. Each leader can be leveled to 10, and it will unlock more specifics for their playstyle. Ibn-Battuta, after playing through a campaign (and the tutorial) is now level 4. Additionally, you get "mementos" which you can add to your leader at the start of a game for additional bonuses. I guess it incentivizes playing with various leaders etc., but also annoying that you have those buffs locked behind a progression system (and I assume this will be either tuned or abandoned at some point). :P
Overall, I like this better than Civ 6 for now, but there's also lots to do still (like fast army animations, or better UI scaling between "blocks a lot of screen real estate" and "miniscule" on my screen).
I pretty much agree with Syt's post above. I am: enjoying the game. :)
Btw, there are already several QoL mods for the game even though the Steam workshop isn't up yet: https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/categories/civilization-vii-downloads.181/
Thanks guys. Based on Syt's review it sounds like I will likely find it worthwhile to put up with the console-optimises UI and the ugly map generation.
Any more opinions?
Watching Quill do his thing. Unlike Civ 6, I'll get that one.
Played a second game as Frederick (Oblique). Still on second lowest difficulty because I suck. :P
Focused heavily on military in Ancient Age (Rome) and dropped behind on tech and culture and barely had any wonders. Made up some of it as Normans in Exploration Age, sparring a lot with Catherine (Songhai) and Ashoka (Chola) while allied to Himiko, Hatshepsut and Confucius. Charlemagne was also in the game, but he was far away, and we loved each other, so barely ever interacted. :P I completely ignored religion during this and thought I did all right.
In Modern Age I switched to Prussia. I largely dismantled Catherine's Russia and razed Ashoka's Mughal cities (they were distant and I was at settlement limit). I switched to Fascist ( -_- ), and this led to my game-long friendship with Himiko and Hatshepsut to nosedive when they turned Communist. They were also allied with Confucius and Charlemagne, so I didn't want to go to war, necessarily, even with my tech advantage. In the end I managed to win by sending a man into space. :P
Notes after second game: trade is great, and there's not really drawbacks - trade copies the resources in the foreign city and gives you access, while the other side gets gold. (Prussia gets "Zollverein" civic that lets them trade with enemies during war.) Also, resources are mostly there for stat stacking - adding happiness here, adding food or production there, boosting culture ... Empire resources give empire wide buffs that stack. So no more "can't build X without resource Y" which overall made me pay less attention. I assume on higher difficulties it will become more relevant to min max the bonuses or try to prevent opponent access to some resources? Also, only realized in my second game how factory resources work. In modern age, a bunch of resources get reclassified as "factory resources". You can only slot one of them into a factor you build, but you can then send an unlimited number there. E.g. If you put coffee into your factory in Berlin, you can put as much coffee into Berlin as you have access to and have capacity for, but you can't assign e.g. chocolate or fish to Berlin now.
Urban sprawl was not as bad in this game as in my first one as unlike with Ibn-Battuta I didn't swim in gold/tech for the first two ages. It did kick off a lot in Modern Age, though. :P Still pretty messy to read on map.
I saw after I finished that a new patch has rolled out.
https://civilization.2k.com/civ-vii/game-update-notes/
I like this one: "Completing the final milestone of a Legacy Path no longer adds Age Progress in the Modern Age to ensure you have more time to complete a Victory."
Previously, reaching the end of a legacy path advanced the age by 10%, and by that time in my two games it was already sitting at or near 90%. :P
I'm getting more used to the UI, but besides the issues mentioned before - a lot of it feels just drab. Dark text boxes with functional sans serif text.
And of course the map variety is a bit of a bummer. Then again, I see why continents plus (two main continents with islands between them) is the default - the distant lands mechanic and treasure fleet stuff would be a bit harder on a pangea map. I often played on continents maps anyways, so not as much of a bummer, but the generation (at least in shorelines) seems a lot more uniform now. Though I did discover a neat thing yesterday - a navigable river leading from the coast to a big lake that had another normal river flowing into it. Still wish geographic features were labeled. :P Still not a fan of having to level up leaders to get all their features. (Or that one of the Napoleons was behind registering a 2K account.)
I do look forward to adding more civs, though - announced are Carthage, Great Britain, Bulgaria and Nepal. Leaders to be added will be Ada Lovelace and Simon Bolivar.
I'll probably start a Tecumseh game tonight to play around with city states a bit. I also wish there was more music variety. Like, that there were more generic tracks besides the civ specific ones. Because listening to the same 2 or 3 tunes (depending on how many folks you've met) during antiquity is a bit jarring, regardless of how good the music is. :D
Oh, and with 2 games finished, this is more than Civ 6 managed to get out of me at release. So I'm happy for now. Is it the best game ever? No. Is it competent? Yes. And with just enough new stuff to keep me interested. AI? No idea, I play on low difficulties for now. :D
Also watched a bit of Quill's tutorial/let's play, and it was an example of how some concepts aren't well explained in game. He tried to place a garden, but couldn't assuming he couldn't place it on a desert tile. However, the real reason (I'm pretty sure) is that you can only place urban districts next to other urban districts, and there would have been a one tile gap between the city and the garden. :P
I've heard some people complain about the new commander system and that it's just a glorified transport. Yes, in part. But their buffs matter, especially as they're the ones leveling up (not your units), so getting them trained to move faster, give more damage when attacking cities, improve their defense, or give bonuses to the cities they're stationed in. Main complaint is that if you unload them you have no control of which unit goes into which hex, so I often end up unloading them manually which is a chore - click army, click unit, unload, click hex. Click army, click next unit ... a manual/single unit unload button, or keeping you in the army would be helpful. :P
To occupy a city you have to occupy all fortfied tiles of the city (Berlin and Rouen in Modern Age had like 7 or 8 fortified tiles -Normans love walls :P ). Makes sense. Unfortunately, it's not always visible what tiles count as fortified. City walls - easy enough. However, some wonders count as fortified. When I tried to take Aksum from Russia, I took the city, but that wasn't enough. I mouse-overed the tiles and couldn't find what tile was missing. My artillery had no targets (i.e. defenses to reduce). In the end I swept my army through all tiles in the city until I found the right one. :P Some more (optional) map icons would be really helpful. Like having a map lense for military/fortification buildings. :P
Also noticed some annoying typos in quest texts - like calling it the Brandenb_e_rg Gate (the wonder itself is correctly spelled) or telling you to "destory" a number of units. :D
I hope governments get some love later. Currently you pick one of three at the start of an age, and its main effect is what buff it gives when trigger a celebration. :mellow:
Also still carefully optimistic about them adding a fourth age - some buildings are marked "Ageless", meaning they retain their function in future ages. Some exclusively Modern Age ones are marked as Ageless, which only makes sense if they at least conceptualize transitioning to another age afterwards. And let's be honest, the cut off of ca. 1950 feels a bit lame. Gimme ICBMs, attack helicopters and the Internet, dammit! :P (Though it might need some reshuffling of civs, like maybe moving America further along? Though they do have Prussia and Meiji Japan for the Modern Age instead of Germany or just plain Japan, so maybe there's hope? :D
Civfanatics has speculation about future contents based on game files:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/asset-file-hinting-at-future-and-or-cut-content.695000/
Btw, I the somewhat jarring age transitions have one advantage: they help leveling the playing field a little bit in between. So instead of having a Civ clinging on to slingers till the nuclear age, there's two updates where everybody is put on equal footing again. A sledgehammer approach to addressing the issue, but better than nothing and probably easier than trying to get the AI up to speed. :D
Btw, I strongly recommend setting the age length to long when starting the game, so that you have plenty of time in each age. Also, there's a mod on Civfanatics that removes age advancement from Future Tech/Civic in the Modern Age, though I haven't tried it yet.
Quote from: Grey Fox on February 10, 2025, 04:00:12 PMWatching Quill do his thing. Unlike Civ 6, I'll get that one.
Watched his Rome tutorial. Looks good, but the civ change thing kills it for me.
Quote from: HVC on February 11, 2025, 09:26:03 AMQuote from: Grey Fox on February 10, 2025, 04:00:12 PMWatching Quill do his thing. Unlike Civ 6, I'll get that one.
Watched his Rome tutorial. Looks good, but the civ change thing kills it for me.
Why? I like that part. Civ midgame is boring to me.
Quote from: Grey Fox on February 11, 2025, 11:08:50 AMQuote from: HVC on February 11, 2025, 09:26:03 AMQuote from: Grey Fox on February 10, 2025, 04:00:12 PMWatching Quill do his thing. Unlike Civ 6, I'll get that one.
Watched his Rome tutorial. Looks good, but the civ change thing kills it for me.
Why? I like that part. Civ midgame is boring to me.
Going from Rome to, say, aztec just throws me. I realize I'm probably the weird one, since civ isn't exactly historically accurate :D if you had to go down a certain path like Rome to Italy, or Gaul to France it wouldn't bother me.
Quote from: HVC on February 11, 2025, 11:17:52 AMQuote from: Grey Fox on February 11, 2025, 11:08:50 AMQuote from: HVC on February 11, 2025, 09:26:03 AMQuote from: Grey Fox on February 10, 2025, 04:00:12 PMWatching Quill do his thing. Unlike Civ 6, I'll get that one.
Watched his Rome tutorial. Looks good, but the civ change thing kills it for me.
Why? I like that part. Civ midgame is boring to me.
Going from Rome to, say, aztec just throws me. I realize I'm probably the weird one, since civ isn't exactly historically accurate :D if you had to go down a certain path like Rome to Italy, or Gaul to France it wouldn't bother me.
That is what happens in Civ
Still enjoying it FWIW. I'm not on the level of Mr. "I beat Deity" Solmyr (saw your achievement in my feed :P ), but I'm having fun with what it is. Mostly exploring the various different civs and leaders and what additional flavor they all bring with their events and little tradition trees.
I think a lot of long term theory-crafting will be around which Civs make sense in which combination and what Ageless buildings/traditions synergize (you keep your unlocked Civ-specific policies from age to age, e.g. as Catherine the Great as Russia in Modern Age I still had the Strategoi policy from Ancient Greeks unlocked that gives my commander +25% XP if I slot it in my policies).
Game still looks gorgeous. While some units don't have unique models per civ (e.g. the Chinese use Pz-IV, but with Chinese tank crew inside, and it seems each tank has its own number on the hull - useless fluff, but I dig it :P ), it warms my heart with joy to see the French WW1 unit being a FT-17, the German one an A7V and the British one a Mark ... something, never could tell them apart).
The age transition are probably the most controversial feature among players. Personally, I kind of like them - mostly because it generally keeps the other civs relevant to each age. So no ancient Greeks in modern age. Though I fully get that it's kind of a deal breaker for many. Maybe at some point down the line there will be an option to carry a civ through the ages, but the amount of extra work would probably be a lot - currently each civ in each age has its own unique buildings, civics, units, mechanics, and often unique 3D models (a Songhai knight doesn't look like a Chola knight doesn't look like a Ming knight). But I also like that there's special units/mechanics for each age. In previous games it always irked me that each Civ would have its specific stuff, but often tied to specific ages, like the Roman Legions tied to antiquity, so you get to use them for a portion of the game only.
In my last game I started as Napoleon of the Persians - my neighbor was Ben Franklin of the Greeks. He settled near me, around me and generally was a nuisance, so I allied Macchievelli (Rome) and we spend most of antiquity waging war. Something fun about seeing Greek Hoplites and Persian Immortals duking it out. :P By far my most military focused campaign. The fighting ran into the Exploration Age when I (as Songhai) finally put Ben out of his misery (and Confucius, too, for good measure).
In the game before that I was Catherine the Great with the Greeks and Xerxes and the Persians - we were at each other's throats almost from the go. I don't know - maybe something hardcoded about Greeks and Persians in the game? :D
I think the Age transitions could be a bit smoother and less abrupt, tbh (I tried playing longer Ages, but that just served to run up the score), and it's a learning process to understand what does and doesn't carry over, what milestones give you what options (e.g. keeping all cities from previous age instead of switching them back to towns), etc. I also expect a lot of tweaking to happen around this. That said, if you absolutely hate the idea I would recommend not buying the game.
Also, the end of Age Crises - they're a decent idea, but I agree that they seem far too random. Like Antiquity and Exploration have three crises each and it picks them randomly. Some are fairly easy to work around - happiness debuffs, some income debuffs etc. Except the Exploration Age plague which will disable/damage some cities for a couple of turns at a time and will hit you like a truck (well, at least for me, even with lowest crisis settings). There's some mechanic around using medics to mitigate the effect, but I feel it's just a placebo (or I'm not using it right :P ). And it's just not connected much to other mechanics. Bit of a missed opportunity.
I am liking it as well although I am using an AI mod. Haven't actually finished a game yet, always rerolled so far around the start of the Exploration age.
I am actually on board with the era changes, but they do disorient me a bit so since these have been learning games (I did not bother with tutorials), felt like a good point to restart.
Game is indeed gorgeous. I like the way districts are here much more than how they are in Civ6, even though I wasn't one of these "omg districts!" people.
If they manage to patch in a UI from post-2006 and work on the AI and map generation, this will be a classic.
Btw, check out this video from quill18:
Thanks, I found the Reddit post just last night
I'm still trying to figure out what the best strategy for towns is. Most of the time I tend to expand tem as much as possible and switching them to cities. When I guess it's often more efficient to keep them as farming/mining towns to feed the cities where I don't want to worry about keeping rural tiles. :P
Quote from: Syt on February 17, 2025, 09:20:46 AMI'm still trying to figure out what the best strategy for towns is. Most of the time I tend to expand tem as much as possible and switching them to cities. When I guess it's often more efficient to keep them as farming/mining towns to feed the cities where I don't want to worry about keeping rural tiles. :P
Yeah same, the realisation was just slowly dawning on me that it's probably not optimal to waste city tiles on food (production I have no other option for, I guess). Except for coastal/sea tiles, which can be nice. Navigable river hexes can be bonused up to high heavens but they do take the spot from a city tile.
Quote from: Tamas on February 17, 2025, 09:48:33 AMQuote from: Syt on February 17, 2025, 09:20:46 AMI'm still trying to figure out what the best strategy for towns is. Most of the time I tend to expand tem as much as possible and switching them to cities. When I guess it's often more efficient to keep them as farming/mining towns to feed the cities where I don't want to worry about keeping rural tiles. :P
Yeah same, the realisation was just slowly dawning on me that it's probably not optimal to waste city tiles on food (production I have no other option for, I guess). Except for coastal/sea tiles, which can be nice. Navigable river hexes can be bonused up to high heavens but they do take the spot from a city tile.
Plus the ongoing repair costs from flooding. :P (BRING DAMS BACK!) But you can use them for harbors, bridges, wharves, shipyards ...
Re: age transitions, I wish there was a better preview of what happens, the unlocks screen is not quite as good. Or maybe a menu where you can "buy" units that carry over (assign a cost for each unit, give player a budget based on era performance). Some of the era transition perks let you up the amount of units you get beyond the ones you carry over, but better player control would go a long way, I think. Similar with retaining cities from previous age (though I guess technically that's in, with the 200g cost for the first few town-city switches at the start of a new age).
The system I like the least for now is religion in the Exploration Age. It seems a bit lackluster for now and suffers from an "everyone gets a religion" issue - not helped by a game of whack-a-mole trying to keep cities in your religion, and no defensive units to deploy for "religious combat" like in Civ6. That the game distinguishes between rural and urban population is in theory a nice touch (and the only part of the game where it seems to matter?) but in practice just adds busywork IMO. But you can't ignore it entirely because you want at least one legacy milestone to avoid a cultural dark age (though you can use tech to acquire the necessary relics, I guess). Mostly I try to keep some missionaries in my territory to re-convert some cities back to me while trying to spread my religion through trade, missionaries, or conversion diplo actions. Unless I ignore it completely. :P
However, Missionaries make great scouts in foreign territories, because they ignore borders (like Explorers in Modern Age).
Quote from: Syt on February 17, 2025, 05:56:19 AMStill enjoying it FWIW. I'm not on the level of Mr. "I beat Deity" Solmyr (saw your achievement in my feed :P )
It wasn't too hard. :P The AI is very defensive early on, so you are fairly safe from being conquered. On Deity you are usually very behind on tech and civics in the early ages, but it mostly won't matter because the game is won in the Modern Age. And right now culture victory is piss easy - you only need the first civic you can research and 15 great works. I used Friedrich, Baroque, as he gets great works from conquering settlements. Just collect all the artifacts you can and then conquer some easy towns for the rest.
Quote from: Syt on February 17, 2025, 09:20:46 AMI'm still trying to figure out what the best strategy for towns is. Most of the time I tend to expand tem as much as possible and switching them to cities. When I guess it's often more efficient to keep them as farming/mining towns to feed the cities where I don't want to worry about keeping rural tiles. :P
If the town has high production yields, I usually convert it to a city at some point. If high food but low production, then they stay as towns. It also depends on your civ and leader though. E.g. with Mughals you get +75% gold but -25% everything else, so having a couple of high-production towns can really explode your gold reserve and you can just buy anything you want.
Quote from: Syt on February 18, 2025, 01:55:32 AMThe system I like the least for now is religion in the Exploration Age. It seems a bit lackluster for now and suffers from an "everyone gets a religion" issue - not helped by a game of whack-a-mole trying to keep cities in your religion, and no defensive units to deploy for "religious combat" like in Civ6.
There's actually no need to re-convert your settlements, unless you are running certain civics where that matters. Otherwise, once you've gotten the relics you can from converting, it doesn't affect anything anymore.
OpenCritic reviews for those who don't have it:
https://opencritic.com/game/17742/sid-meiers-civilization-vii
Roadmap:
(https://i.imgur.com/Ax8YiAj.jpeg)
4th March also sees release of the Crossroads to Power, with Ada Lovelace, Carthage (antiquity) and Great Britain (modern age), plus some natural wonders. The second March patch should add Simon Bolivar, Bulgaria (medieval) and Nepal (modern, I guess?).
Also, PotatoMcWhiskey has released a good video about settlement limits:
On the roadmap's "naval units can disperse coastal independents" - I only recently realized I can use the "loot" function to pick up coastal goodie huts with naval units. Or that you can capture coastal cities with navies. :blush:
They do seem to be scraping the barrel a bit with their civilizations though.
Haven't tried out the new patch yet. Not many big changes from what I see, mostly small balancing stuff, except for a rework of the culture victory for the Modern Age (which, frankly, was a bit rubbish).
PC Gamer has an overview of stuff the game doesn't tell you but is good to know. Much of it you guys will know by now, but there might still be a thing or three that's new:
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/strategy/civilization-7-guide-to-unexplained-systems-faq/
Oh side note from my own learning experience - in Exploration Age, don't build your fishing quay in a Distant Lands settlement on a lake. Your Treasure Fleet for that settlement will spawn there and might not get out. :P (I think if you keep it, the next one will spawn on another tile since treasure fleets can't stack?)