Civilization VII

[Zanza]

The "Founders Edition" with the first two DLCs is 129 Euro. 

[Syt]

The "Founders Edition" with the first two DLCs is 129 Euro. 

Yeah, saw that.

"Still cheaper than a Paradox game with all DLC!" - Capital G Gamers, probably.

[saskganesh]

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.

[Syt]

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).

[Josephus]

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.

[garbon]

They are likely happy all these imitators have experimented.

[crazy canuck]

They are likely happy all these imitators have experimented.

This

[Syt]

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!"

[crazy canuck]

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.

[Syt]

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?"

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 )

[crazy canuck]

As with all Civ games, I am going to wait, really  to see what Languish has to say

[mongers]

So are they going to drop the cartoonification as seen in Civ6?

[Josephus]

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.

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.

[Zanza]

Also 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?

[Syt]

PotatoMcWhiskey's preview video: