'late game civ is not fun to play', it's like they read my mind! Why don't I finish a game? The end game is boring. Why should I continue slogging towards what is a certain victory? I am really looking forward to what this civ is offering.
Yes but the late game is boring because the AI in Civ 6 is absolute shit. It can't fight a naval battle (it doesn't even build ships), it can't fight a proper aerial battle, it can't build and deploy artillery properly. And most AI attacks can be repelled by machine gunner in a city. The more the game progresses, the dumber the AI gets. THAT'S what's killing the late game in my opinion.
Yeah dude - absolutely. Surely everyone has got to a stage where you know whether you’re going to win or lose within the first 100 turns? I like the idea of mixing it up in the latter stages of the game
@@Zimionz Not only a problem in single player. Multiplayer matches in the CPL (CIv players League) are mostly given up at round 110 to 130 (on online speed) cause the lategame is always the same, only a matter of time and no one can catch up to the first
I can absolutely agree to that. I hardly ever finish a game once i am certain of the outcome. I rather start a new one and have a fresh challenge. But its not only in civ. I played a lot of rome2 single player, got every base culture on the hardest difficulty to the point of certain victory on a grand campaign, but never finished a single one.
Yeah, others try it to, it aint made the end game better. Engame, for me is boring, cos you run out to do. The crisis is punish, not reward you for playing. But this is only my way if seeing things
It sucked in Humankind because the actual choices were so frequent and so minor that they didn't matter. They've made the choices more significant and the time you spend with them longer which is great.
Yeah I’m sorry but it’s a new game - if they made no changes people would complain it’s a dlc. The most recent let’s play showed off complex interwoven systems that will take an age to master and optimise - this is what makes a good Civ game
I like most changes they have announced so far. But I would have given players the option to either remain Egypt through the ages, or switch to another civ if they want to.
At least give me the choice to remain as the starting civ I wanted. The cool thing about civ games was that you could build the eiffel tower, send a man to the moon and win a scientific victory as THE INCAS.
Well you can at least do that in previous games, Civ 7 apparently force converts you to a different civilization when it switches eras. So no more Inca's going to the moon and building the Eiffel tower. 🤔
But they need to copy that other game's unique mechanic, lol. Unfortunately that mechanic was one I disliked so I'll be sticking with civ 3-6 plus Revolution
“Haha if you don’t like it stop playing” every single fanbase of major titles that have said that in the past few years have seen their games turn into commercial failures that have ultimately forced the companies to make even stupider decisions or even gone bust - if it’s this polarising already and isn’t the best Civ game ever expect it to be a failure in some degree
The more I see about the how and why behind ages, the more I think it was an excellent decision. As a player from civ 3 to 6 with thousands of hours, I always found the late game the least fun and the most tedious. Reallly happy they took a serious look at how to provide a more engaging and consistent experience across the entire campaign.
I suspect that the “ages” will be a hard reset of stats of your civ, and players will start snowballing again until next age. And I fill that endgame boredom came from lack of progression and overall stagnation because all units hit and sponge the same, basically the game turn to static and player lose interest, and I don't think that they introduce “ages” to solve that I highly suspect that it's more related with the business model and monetization of the game
Endgame is a huge problem I agree, but rubberbanding is such a lazy and destructive solution. Instead they could flesh out diplomacy and make the AI actually good at using it, that's what the endgame should be about. And when it comes to endgame micromanagement, they already have solutions for it and ages and civ switching are not part of that. And lastly imbalance of early vs late strength civs, that's just it, a BALANCE issue. Balance the game!
@@Matman651 first, there are more examples than that. Secondly, I don't play civ for realism, but for the fantasy of playing a specific favorite civilization, hence the franchise's tagline.
I dont love that the map is reduced in size and scope until you transition through ages where it opens up. Seems like theyre trying to tackle the late game issue by removing systems, reducing scope, and removing elements of the 'sandbox' to try and control how a player moves through the game.
I think it´s not as big of an issue when playing continental maps. It was basically the same as in previous iterations when you needed to unluck certain techs to cross the oceans. However, I am totally agreeing with regard to different types of map. How do they do this with pangea-style maps? And what worries me most is the fallout of this concept to mulitplayer and especially to team multiplayer games. I hope that Firaxis implements changes to that mechanic with regard to MP.
Nah I love this fact. It never made sense to me that you had dicovered the world before the middle ages even started. The exploration age should be the age where you discover the world.
This could have been fixed without the need for civ changes. Give every civ an antiquity, an exploration and a modernity buff or trait. All the other changes would have been equally effective without civilization change. I would at least have given players the option to either remain Egypt through the ages, or switch to another civ if they want to.
Like antiquity United States or modern Byzantine? Wow that would make sense. I wonder how they've implement imaginary civ traits or unique units without pissing off the fanbase.
@@misterbin00tbh I'd hate antiquity US but I'm down for modern Byzantium. What if pasts don't feel right, but what if futures do. I mean in Civ 5 I can bring the Byzantines into the modern era. It would be cool to have a similar concept, tho I doubt they'll implement it
Really weird for them to base their argument on "Everyone hates the endgame of a 4X game." That's like saying "We removed resource gathering in an RTS because no one finds it fun." Like sure I guess that's true for some people, but it's still kind of fundamental to the genre's design to have these things. Resetting the Civ every couple of years I don't think is going to magically cut down on endgame micro. If anything it might make it worse if you have to constantly change play style between eras.
Except it's not like saying that at all. They specifically brought up statistics that say that people tend to start a new game instead of playing through to the end game screen. Me and most players I know definitely rather do that, it's just obvious who's going to win a 100 tours before the victory screen. There's nothing "weird" about addressing this
@@folx2733From all the things you could have said, you point out the thing that RTS has the same, and proving the original comment argument, no ones play a rts to the end screen, usually a early lead on resources is enough to someone to give up
@@brunobatista5483 this game isn't an RTS buddy. Yes, people give up early in StarCraft 2 multiplayer, how TF is that relevant to a discussion about Civ
@@folx2733 1-Original comment compared RTS to Civ 2-You said the comparision didn't make sense, and used the argument about people giving up 3-I completed that if giving up is your argument why the comparasion don't make sense then that's not a good argument because RTS has people giving up too
@@brunobatista5483 no, I said that the comparison didn't make sense, and elaborated that people give up early in Civ because it becomes boring and obvious, which is a problem. How is that a contradiction? Do you have any reading comprehension skills kid?
“We saw a lot of hype around Humankind before it launched and right when we were starting to work on Civ7 and feared its main selling point would make civ obsolete so we stole it. Now it’s too late to rip it out even though no one likes it.”
They started making civ vii long after humankind came out they had plenty of time to rip it out if they wanted. Humankind's problems were not the age system, the biggest problems are the war support mechanic and the lack of true team based multiplayer. I've watched a friend push an enemy from 5 cities to one and then lose not only all the cities he captured but 2/3 of his own to war support issues. Its such a weird mechanic and despite them trying to make war more realistic they made it less realistic and less fun. Then there's the fact that humankind turns are twice as tedious as civ turns late game (often due to taking 3 combat turns within each regular turn). And finally humankind's developer just doesn't listen to community feedback a counter example would be how Civ VI was released without multiplayer teams, but they added them in later because Firaxis does actually listen to its community. Humankind's age based system was also barely even equivalent. Your civ changed, but thats the only real change. Firaxis is talking about changing large parts about how the game plays each age, which could be huge. No one likes making a city in the modern era and building monuments or other ancient era buildings just to make them barely functional.
@@NickSteffen says they aren’t the same, then says they are the exact same with frosting. Do you see anyone complaining about the extra mechanics or map space as the game progresses? No, you don’t and trying to pretend you do is genuinely crazy. People complain about the fact you are being forced out of the civ you chose to play and to pick between a small list of seemingly random civs the devs decided should be locked to age 2 or 3. Which is the exact same thing people complained about with humankind. Maybe it had other issues but so far we can’t tell if those issues are present in Civ7 because humankind is out and civ 7 isn’t so we can only comment on what we know. Believe me, if civ7 comes out and is total dogshit people *will* complain about it, but complaining about the lack of complaints for an unreleased game is just wasting time.
I’ve grown to like the idea. I remember all the similar moaning about ideas in previous Civs. People instinctively don’t like change until they get used to it. And they’re not wrong about late game Civ not being fun - that’s 100% right.
@@Zveebo I don’t think civ has had a change this impactful since the change to hexes *and* no one likes this in the one and only game that’s tried it, the game that “popularized” this concept. I don’t think we can say “well past changes turned out to not be that bad so obviously this will just be fine” when we only have poor examples to go off of. And idk this sounds like a profound skill issue. Late game civ can be very boring if you play poorly but I’ve had some of my favorite games go very late and come down to the wire. My only complaint about the late game was moving large armies sucked but they’ve already resolved that with the commander unit types which are totally independent of the forced changing of civs over the course of the game. I pay for the game, I play the game, but Sid Meyer gets to sit behind me with a stop watch and say “alright, you and your 50 turns of fun, time to change civs to one of these 3 random options that may or may not have anything to do with how you’re trying to play.”? It was a ridiculous and bad idea in humankind, it’s a ridiculous and bad idea in civ.
I wouldn't be concerned. Firaxis supports modding in every game they develop iirc. They're aware of how important it is for them because it is very important for us.
not only that, but they simplify the early game loop...you know, the thing ppl LIKED about the game lol... also...standard is now 150-200 turns?! great...lets more casualize/shorten the game. when this won't be accepted at launch NOBODY will have seen it coming of course...nope...total mystery
I've played every Civ but this is the first time I'm not excited by a new one coming out. I don't want my civilization to be replaced by a different one.
I think we should play it first. I mean they are right that Civ's from the past are different Civ's now. It's not like it's some crazy unrealistic thing they are doing.
I think the idea is evolution rather than replacement. If they want to keep the games fresh, they need to open the end game up more. It is stale in its current format and as the games become more complicated, the end game gets worse. I also think it is more immersive that you don't have America building the Pyramids in New York in 2600 BC. No one civilization has truly stood the test of time.
I just don’t want micro transactions to unlock Ben Franklins blue cane to be in the game and I think no matter how they are spinning it that’s what they are doing.
Yes that's my main complaint. Not the stupid hysterics about the new gameplay mechanics, I think everything they have talked about sounds great. But it's going to be Paradox-style micro transaction bloat
I understand why they do it but I don’t want it anyway. Bringing one Civ from stone to space age was what attracted me in the first since civ 1 on amiga 500
You can also keep the age mechanic for one civilisation. The civilisation changes with each age, gets different bonuses, the look changes, but it remains Egypt or USA. It's a pity that they chose this way of implementation, that the player is forced to change.
i honestly dont get this kind of thinking it limits civ options. You should be able to play as india but its much cooler that it changes through indian history you have unique things at multiple stages of the game
@@oj8976 Yes and it's beneficial to the Civ. When Norway leaves the middle ages it has lost its moment, the viking age is over while Sweden who didn't get the opportunity of being vikings is starting to see their bonuses. With this new system, every player will have assets to work with at every single age. At least that's how I see it. And about Egypt becoming Mongolia, the Civ game never have been about historical accuracy. Unless you are playing on world maps the Babylonians building the Oxford university (without having Oxford) and fighting the Americans is not crazier than Egypt becoming Mongolia.
So my great China-Fench-Jamacain empire is always what I wanted. The problem is your forced to throw away all your hard won glory to achieve a victory. This is a terrible idea
Civ7 build an civilization that will stand for about an age or two. Can't build a civilization that can stand the test of time if your forced to give up your civilization.
It’s possible that by the final version of civ 7, the civ change could be seamless and turn into just a leader change with the same civ/geographic location. Don’t be too early to judge, you could go from Aethelstan of the Anglo-Saxons to Elizabeth of England to Churchill of England for example.
They did that in humankind and it was very offputting. First you're egypt, then persia, england and end with soviet union. There's really no identity to your nation. Might as well get rid of actual civilizations at that point and create your own.
@@fishleaf18 but they’re not doing that because they said you can pick any leader for any civilization. Even if they never led that civilization. So you aren’t going to be switching leaders, they said the leader will remain consistent throughout the game. I’m pretty sure. It’s the civilization that switches.
I know a number of people have pointed to Humankind as the source of Ages. What I haven't seen is anyone pointing out how much the terrain artwork looks so much like Humankind. Even watching this video, I had to remind myself I'm watching a video of Civ 7 and not Humankind. I wonder if I'm the only one seeing the similarity.
By making systems that lower the amount of actions needed to do, like removing builders, a commander that gathers troops into a bundle, simplifying yields and improvements.
We already know of commanders, reducing the amount of unit micro-management. Maybe cities "merging" together? Them sharing their yields and production queue would reduce overall micro-management as well.
@Aktarvata I see the new systems as more interactivity. Even the great generals can serve as yield boosters in the leadership tree, which encourages some form of unit combat. The new diplomacy system looks more interactive and opportunistic as it encourages diplomatic interactivity with other players as the player who does an action gets more benefit unless both support it or can use it to hinder them as well.
@@markos50100 Yeah some people hear "less micro" and think it means "less depth". They're two different things that CAN overlap but don't need to by any means.
My main concern about this is there will most likely be very little civs to chose from. If they are making age specific civs, doesnt that mean you will only have 1/3 the civ choices at the start of the game? If they have 30 civs in the game at launch, only 10 will be selectable at game start.
Well, yes and no. For example you will not be able to choose Germany or the USA at the start of the Antiquity age for obvious reasons. But you can choose China and Japan and during the rest of the game you can pick new dynasties/stages of both civs. There will still be plenty of civs in the game, just grouped thematically as far as I understand it.
@@8wayz2shine and when Civ 6 was in development, they told us every single civ would have 2+ leaders to chose from eventually. They always skimp out on Civ diversity. I am excited for this game in general, but I doubt it will be as diverse as you think
@@MHMichaelHooper I reckon they fell into the trap of their own due diligence. For most civs you will be able to find two good leaders, but there are also quite a few that really have no good choice for second leader - Mapuche, Cree, Babylon, Maori and more. That said, the modding for CIV VI has provided a lot of alternative leaders for most of the civs, so there is plenty of content to enjoy nowadays. :)
Part of the Fun of Civ though is taking the Roman Empire and making it last all the way through to the space age. The crises that bookmarks each age also, just feels very artificial and shoehorned in. I still plan to try it, but I guess I can always keep playing Civ VI if I don't like it.
Yeah I wonder about the crisis elements too. I’ve seen the first one, but I’ve got no idea about the second and third (maybe plague and then the threat of nuclear war?). I hope they don’t just become box ticking exercises.
i wouldn not mind if say the change was more along the lines of the roman civ turning into say modern italy, but the way they have it makes very little sense. it feels like in one of those games where your winning a fight, then bam cutsene that shows you losing.
@@JumboPixel I wonder if there is only one choice of crisis per age, or if there's a bigger pool that the game just randomly picks one from, and they've just rigged it to only show the one in livestreams to not spoil the surprise.
For me its Civ 5. I always hated the exploded cities, hexes of bs sectors making the map look like garbage. Civ 5 was perfect and I see Civ 7 as more of Civ 6 with "layers" being a code word for "more DLC civs to sell".
And I can't imagine liking limited stacking of units, or having to pre-plan an entire empire due to how certain districts work. Or how leaders have become specific playstyles, almost hardlocked into playing each game a very specific way at higher difficulties (unless Firaxis blessed you with an alt personality version of your exact leader as DLC) Or a bunch of other things that 5/6 did differently (and not any better)
@@mpomp6378 there is no reason to go back to squares. Anyway civ is no longer for me, because they apparently calulated, that they will earn more if they launch game on consoles instead of doing good empire building game. Time to find and support something actually good.
The danger is that while trying to fix the late game, they might accidentally make the early game feel irrelevant. If you essentially reset to some degree with every other civ on the map you risk making players feel like their early game work was for nothing.
One thing I was hoping they'd clarify is how this system works in multiplayer. I assume two people can't switch to the same civ, so if Age transitions are all synced up, how will the game decide who gets priority? Anyway, my personal opinions are still the same: I'm absolutely on board with Ages, I think it's a cool way to remix the formula. However, I am still *very* skeptical of civ switching. Sure, the dilemma of early game vs late game civs is resolved, they aren't competing with each other now. But now, all early, mid, and lategame civs are competing with each other more directly like never before. With how nuts civ balancing has been in the past, and with more civs on launch than any previous civ game, I severely doubt this game's civs will be balanced at all on launch. More importantly, I still think this feels antithetical to Civ's theming and feeling as a game. Sure, I suppose Napoleon being the immortal 4000 year ruler of ancient Egypt, Songhai, and then France is an interesting "what if" scenario, but I'd still prefer ancient Paris building the Great Pyramids as a what if. More importantly, this means if you really like a particular civilisation, you're only getting to play them for 1/3rd of the game, unless they're one of the lucky ones like India or presumably China who get an alternate version for every Age. I also think this bears the potential to be a step back for civ representation. Sure, Egypt in Civ has never done a great job at representing modern Egypt, but what's _even worse_ is potentially removing the ability to play Egypt at all in a modern setting. As many people have pointed out as well, the potential for indigenous civs to become their colonisers _(eg. the Shawnee becoming America)_ is *very* fucked up in its implications, and just the general idea that those civs "don't belong" in the modern era, even though I could meet a Māori or Shawnee person in the present day, feels really bizarre. IMO this feature still needs to be partially optional. All I'm asking for is a universal bonus assigned to different civ types _(eg. 4 different ones depending on the victory type they're most associated with, and maybe different bonuses per era, so 12 different effects in total)_ for playing them outside their assigned era, and giving people that option. Playing a monociv game would likely still be much weaker and less interesting than civ switching, but I do seriously believe that option should exist.
Multiplayer might become an arena for competition for certain top tier civs, or an adaptable player could watch what their opponents are doing and aim for a transition that will counter it. If Egypt has a bunch of horses, don’t compete with them for Mongolia, veer toward someone with a good pikeman UU or wall UB
I don't agree that Civ 6 is not that much fun to play in the later game. I often play beyond the victory condition, I like the late game so much. I detest that in Civ 7 all civs go through the same transformation process at the same time and that there are two such processes. It feels entirely arbitrary. Did the Germans transform when Rome fell? No. Did the Eastern Roman Empire fall when Rome fell? No. Did other nations fall when the Eastern Roman Empire fell? No. How many times did China fall (many) and how many times did it truly transform (not once). Why did only the French transform in the French Revolution? When WW1 ended and Russia, Austria and Germany transformed, why didn't France and the UK? Ditto for the Islamic theocracy, for the USA... There has never been a time when all nations went, "plop," and something new appeared. If this was to be workable at all as a realistic proposition, there should be a continuity between old and new, each governing entity should be faced with the possibility of one or more transformations, transformations should be contingent not certain, . For example, the French Monarchy could transform into the French Republic but this should be avoidable (e.g. the key drivers here were the bankruptcy of the kingdom and its exposure to the US war of independence, both things that need not have happened). The fall of the Western Roman Empire and the duration of the Eastern Roman Empire for another full 1000 years shows how non-inevitable the fall of Rome was. It was a direct consequence of the admission of the Goths into the western part of the Eastern Empire, and their mal-treatment, coupled by the lack of coordination between the Eastern and Western halves of the Empire in controlling them once they rebelled, all contingent stuff.
You’re in the vast minority for enjoying endgame civ 6, they have stats that show the amount of players that finish games is criminally low, so even if I finish most of my games it can still see why, it literally can just become “shift+enter” simulator even against deity ai cause you’re practically untouchable pasta a certain point
There's a reason in civ 6, i wouldn't let it go past medieval era. It's the most fun against the ai in my opinion and i enjoyed mods that prevented the era to go beyond that
That's my main hope for the ages system. The early game always felt like too much of a mad dash for technology. You never got to enjoy the gameplay well for the period. Hopefully with this checkpointed age system, there's less of a need for the rush early game and you can change up your play style a bit more.
Yeah late game can be a slog that's true, but Civ switching with ages is the wrong way to go in my opinion. It wasn't a fun way to play the game in Humankind and I can already see that happening in Civ 7. Civilization for me was always about this fantasy story about what if a civilization never felt and became the greatest civilization in the world, that's all lost in Civ 7. I don't care if they do the historical switch, if I choose a civilization I want to play with it to the end, and let's not mention the leaders staying the same even if the Civs switch, just imagining Augustus leading modern day America just sounds disgusting. It's truly a shame because all the other gameplay features they revealed all sounded amazing, like navegable rivers and I even like the art style of the game, but the Civ switch it's just a huge dealbreaker, it completely killed my hype.
The forced change of civilisation is dubiously justified. The fact that you keep a leader is only for game-mechanical reasons, because otherwise the game would have been split into 3 separate games for final good. They don't even bother to explain why you can't play USA in ancient times, but you can have an American president as your leader (if it becomes a president).
I don't understand what was wrong with the civ switching mechanic is Humankind. The only problem there was that it happened too quickly and I didn't feel like I got to play around with everything that civ could do. Civ 7 having only 3 eras means you're going to be playing each civ for longer. Plus, if i'm playing Greece and I spawn in flat arid terrain surrounded by horses and sheep, I'm 100% going to pick Mongolia the next age because that's the environmental pressure i'm under. That's how cultures in the real world advance. Modern Greece and Eygpt are not the same cultures they were in antiquity, so I don't get what you're on about.
@@L3FT2BURN I mean, it goes against the whole ''does your empire stand the test of time'' which has been part of civ for ages now. And for me personally, i would rather create an empire for Sweden or Austria throughout the ages instead of going from Romans-Norse-Sweden or anything like that. Being able to make an empire for a country was the only reason i even played civ.
I didn't like districts, still dislike how they did it in civ 6 but I think civ 7 does it better than 6 did it already. So everything about 7 just excites me.
So I've got a few casual civ friends where we can end up with a game of 5 of us vs 7 AI or so. My concern with the ages system is whether its now '5 players online' total due to the lack of antiquity age civs. Which would mean this is a potential no buy unless this age system is optional. I also usually play as america, a friend as japan, another as england etc so straight away we cant just play as those civs.... unless, as said, they add a 'classic' mode where the game can potentially play like the older one in terms of its setup to match our needs. I can see why they added ages, it's not so much an issue in itself but what I'm getting at is the potential lack of options or game setup so that we can have the games my friends and I would like.
I think it's "Five players online" because there's less civs in the game-world in the early age, and then they add more AI civs when you go to later eras and they expand the map. So while your friends might have to find new starting civs they like, you should be able to get all of them in a game, plus AI if I'm understanding the Firaxis people properly.
@@MunchKING Hopefully so, we might be worrying over nothing as the game isn't out yet and they have some more livestreams to showcase stuff. Thanks for the reply!
Getting rid of Denuvo will do wonders for player count. The people complaining about features won't play, regardless. They should be addressing the people who actually want to play the game.
@@TheSjuris Then, make it an optional install for people that want to play random multiplayer. If you are playing alone or with friends, I don't see a need for it. For those of us that like to play it alone or with friends don't care about anti-cheat
@@shivanthasamaraweera8759 single player is offline and modable which implies denuvo is only active on multiplayer. You can’t have mods on a cross platform multiplayer game. That would give a huge advantage for anyone on the pc side assuming that the game would even load properly. That’s the reason for having an anti-cheat mode. The backlash against Firaxis allowing that would be immense.
@@TheSjuris It should be optional, it's a kernal level program that is always running and it hurts game performance, honest buyers should not be forced to install it if they do not need to.
@@tuna5618 the other option is to not have any cross platform multiplayer. You can’t have cross platform multiplayer and allow one platform users to have an unfair advantage over everyone else. They could also decide that nobody can mod files. It’s an either/or option. Either no modding at all and then multiplayer would work or prevent mods being used. Which is it going to be? Denuvo wouldn’t allow offline or muds to be used in any case and this game supports both.
I find Ages to be a good idea as long as it is cleverly implemented. Egypt morphing into the Abassid is right but if we have the choice to become Japan, that would be a little bit weird for me
They said the ai will always pick the historically accurate civs for their leader and if you unlock the requirements to go from Egypt to Japan for example, you don’t have to do that and can choose the historical path yourself. For multiplayer I bet there will be an option to only allow historical civ transitions as well.
From what we have seen, jumping from Egypt to Japan may be difficult. It looks like civs have their native decedents available by default, but to get to a far off civ, you have to accomplish some specific requirements that make you more like that civ. I think a lot of us were burned by HK and that cultures system but off the top of my head this looks better in 2 ways. 1st, pacing. HK had you transitioning WAY too fast, you barely got to feel some of the cultures you played as. This has 2 transitions, so your choice actually matters. 2nd, locked transitions. In HK you could go from egypt to classical china to the aztec culture to venice to germany to modern japan all in one game. Civ has fewer choices and many are locked. I personally think they should have an aggressive approach to locked civs where you have hard locked civs and soft locked civs making some impossible to reach based on your choices. From a gameplay perspective i think youll have a set available by default and a set requiring unlocking. Maybe we will even get sandbox options to force historical transitions. But as another commenter said, it looks like you wont seeing the AI doing this so if you dont want to see that transition in your game, you wont unless you do it.
Not at all. In an ideal world, there would be no historic path, there would just be such a wide selection that no matter what your empire ended up like, there would be plentiful option for your empire to go. Rome build along the coast and have some early island colonization? They go Norman because they have a strong martial and naval tradition. They expand across the plains and steppes and have plentiful horses, makes sense they'd become the Mongols, or Magyars. Civilizations evolved the way they did, due to the material reality (and a few specific decisions made by someone in a position of power) of the location they lived. You shouldn't be able to become a powerful naval power like Britain if you're land locked, just because it's "historical."
I mean, as someone playing since 3, I think it’s a good change. Like stated in the video, late civs usually suck. By the time your late game civ has a unique unit, it’s too little too later. You’re now getting 3x the unique units to use, 3x the unique buildings and 3x the unique abilities. And there will probably be an option to disable this feature since it’s Civ and the game setup options are usually pretty in depth.
@@Wabbaaajack there isn't, they have already made it clear that you for example cannot start with Germany so if any civs can be "locked in" it would be one of the 6 in the 1st age.
They addressed the civ switching in the posts referenced in the video. It’s to allow for a change of strategy and varied gameplay depending on starting position. Ai leaders will follow the historical paths of their civs.
I've played Civ1 (on an Amiga 500, if my old brain remembers correctly), Civ 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.... Alpha Centauri and even Beyond Earth. They are all basically the same game, when you get right down to it. A few differences here and there, but pretty much the same ol' same ol'. I cannot wait for CIv 7. It looks like they are FINALLY doing something different that "just another Civ." game.
The more i hear about the ages the better I more I like it, though Im yet to be sold on crises. Hopefully theres a lot of them as I think on repeat plays these could feel repetitive and arbitrary. A very different game of course, but the limited number of endgame crises in Stellaris really throttled my interest in finishing games of that.
I like almost everything they are introducing tbh. I’m a little concerned the game may be simplified too much by things like workers not existing, fishing boats not being in it etc. But the ages thing sounds great to me and as we know usually the base game of Civ is bare and it’s the expansion packs that really add the depth to make Civ 5 or 6 the games they are. What expansions do in the future will be really interesting if this is just how they are starting things
they took all these new changes from humankind. it's a blatant ripoff. and if you want to know how good those changes are, play humankind. you'll see why a number of these choices were bad choices.
@@arizona_anime_fan taking a concept or idea from elsewhere and having your own take on it is what artists do. It’s the building blocks of all things. So I don’t mind them taking the concept that Humankind started if it’s done well and I think it will be done better with just 3 stages rather than Humankind’s like, 7. Humankind’s issue wasn’t the idea, it was the execution of that idea. At least, that is what Civ 7 is trying to prove.
What makes you think fishing boats aren’t a thing? I saw them place fishing boats in rivers and on top of a fish resource in one of the previews with the city builder. You can still build improvements just through the city menu instead of a dedicated builder.
Um didn't you already done by the time you made it to late game in Civ5? You either got there so far ahead of the opponent that you were just on rails screaming towards your victory condition, or you got there so late that you can't really do anything to stop the opponents victory condition.
@@dean._.0.0 Developers have removed Denuvo in the past due to consumer backlash; the more people make their voices heard the sooner we can actually pay real money for this game, and not just download the performance edition from pi-rite bay.
I really hate the graphics on undiscovered tiles. It looks like a tabletop game board instead of an actual world being covered in fog. I just don't feel like immersion is going to be much of a focus this time.
There will probably be a cornucopia of graphics mods a little bit after release. I find the colors to be a bit flat, so I’d love something to give icons and objects some more pop.
I’m glad I’m not the only one. I overall like the graphics with undiscovered tiles being the main exception. I even don’t mind Civ 6 blank map, but overall I prefer the fog on titles.
It does look awful. Clearly it's been done to sell Fog of War cosmetic micro-transactions. Absolutely ridiculous. Especially considering the ancient map being revealed in Civ 6 being absolutely perfect. What a downgrade.
I am not a fan of changing civs. The whole idea of civilization is that YOU are the leader of your chosen civ from start to finish. Now, I dont even have a civ from start to finish. I have 3 different civs, playing in 3 different (although related) settings. It does not make sense, or, feel immersive to me, that, for example, my ancient romans turn into the chinese then the americans (or whatever).
I don't like how they approached the ages, civ swapping, leader swapping, none of that is required to help the late game or any other things and ages is just fundamentally flawed as it was in other games, you disrupt and change the flow that you won't get people finishing the game more which was their stated purpose. They hand wave of "oh it's historical Rome..." Is just not true
If the age transition is as much of a reset button as it sounds that may well become a problem; if there's one thing guaranteed to put players off a game it's the feeling of having their progress wiped.
@@markwatson8714 true and while that is a major problem for me I get bad vibes as a historian the way they talk about history and it justifying game mechanics rather than is it fun and also I find it a bit insensitive to have an American leader ruling china for example that will hurt sales in some countries
I was really skeptical when they anounced ages, but after the last livestream I'm fully behind the idea. I had a lot of critisism for civ 6 and the way the dev explained the idea, ages solves (or at least tries to solve) them.
This Humankind type of game is not Civilization that existed up to No. 6. This is something new. Sorry JumboPixel, you still didn't manage to sell me civ 7.
Clearest example of someone who never played the original Civ games. I assume you played 5 and 6, those are very different games than existed previously. Should civ have never changed to a hexagonal map? Just to stay the same type of game as the first one?
@wooobenny nah, the revisionist history is wild. People wouldn't shut up about how Civ V ruined the series. They did, and will continue to do until the series stops releasing, and considering how long Civ has existed, it's probably going to outlast me. It already has.
@@Skeloperch that to me is at the same time a good point (never liked the first one or the remake) and a poor one - I really don't consider that a true Civ game.
Civ 6 reversed the trend of every next version being better than the one before. Graphics is horrendous, and whoever approved that change probably approved many other changes to worse. Meanwhile Civ 5 got a lot better with Vox Populi mod.
@@coteaux Which is exactly what I'm doing my dude. Civ 6 vanilla was okay but the expansion really spoilled it for me. Now I'm looking at what they're planning to do with Civ 7 and I feel like Firaxis going more and more in the wrong direction.
@@samguy9934 I wholeheartedly disagree personally, and that's okay. But the games you love aren't going anywhere and seeing them trying to refresh the franchise with this iteration is (in my opinion) better than releasing more of the same. I like that they're adding a lot more controllables to the game, and while it is a shame players who don't like the new mechanics can't enjoy things like the city state and army changes, i think it's a nice step forward.
@@coteaux I tried. Believe me I tried. End games on Civilization 6 are just miserable and the new ''fresh'' world congress system is borderline broken. Now they're trying to implement mechanics from humankind that everyone agree was the one of the worst part of the game! People who have played thousands upon thousands of hours on both Civ 5 and Civ 6 can see that Civ 7 is a sinking ship. Its going nowhere. They tried so much to create a ''new'' and ''refreshing'' experience that they forgot to make an enjoyable experience!
When I select Egypt to play as I want to (for role-playing and narrative reasons) want to play the entire game as Egypt. Part of the fun of Civilization is the alternative history/Earth element. Taking away the option to play the what-if scenario of an ancient civilization making into the modern era is hurt by changing it into a completely different civilization. This is not to say giving the players an option to make dramatic changes to their civilizations through the ages system is bad, in fact, it could be very good. But there needs to be a path to remain as the chosen Civilization. Also, what about playing as a modern civilization starting in ancient times? Is there an option for that? It does not seem that way from what has been said. Another thing, if this is about balancing the game throughout the different time periods, then why not come up with "what-if" units and buildings based off of the culture of each civilization for each era? Is it any more dramatic of a change than Egypt becoming Mongolia? I feel like it would not be. In fact, I think it would be more interesting. Lean into the alternative history aspect that civilization has always had. In the end, changing civilizations throughout the game feels, to me, to be more about competitive multiplayer.
Micromanagement was their own problem anyway. Just compare Civ 5 and Civ 6, the amount of micromanagement they added is staggering. - Builders are fun in the early game but by the late game I wish I had Civ 5 workers. Military Engineers building railways in Civ 6 is the most painful thing ever. Repairing pillaged areas after massive wars and disasters is also so frustrating. - The fact you can't queue district buildings is frustrating. You should be able to place a district and queue up all the buildings for that district you've unlocked. - Boosts were cool, but it also adds micromanagement because you don't want to waste science/culture so you're constantly flicking between techs and civics. Civ 6 was great, don't get me wrong, but there's a ton of micromanagement things they could have fixed.
My only worry is that they'll have removed the plant forests feature with the removal of workers. Planting forests late game is pretty fun. Late game is more fun when you're not trying to win but just build a country. A lot of the time I'll just play on King and try to get along with my neighbours and plant forests and scrub CO2. Kind of like similisation for me. Takes all types. Anyhow, VII looks to me like it'll be fun. Looks great. I'll adapt to the mechanics. Get busy civing or get busy dying. Amirite?
The most important point to me of this civilization changing feature is that we will lose a long list of old civilisations. Most of the classical civilisations of the Civ game are Antiquity civilisations. Romans, Egyptians, Greeks, Babylonians, Assyrians, Chinese, Celts, Phoenicians, etc... Basically, if you want to be historically accurate, most of the starting civ will be European ones (I would say all exception made of Chineese and Maias. That will create some very weird pathways: either most continents will lack of civilisation representation, because they florished later (Asia, Africa, North America), or they will be very straightforward (Maias to Incas / Aztecs) but strange in the same time ; or Firaxis will promote very weird transition : Maias to Inca to Brazil ? Egypt to Songhai to Buganda ? I guess to equilibrate this mess, we will have some totally unknown civilisation which will be promoted in the game (like Buganda) and other important classic civilisations which will simply not exist. And here comes the Wonders issue: how will we be able to build most Antiquity wonders if the civilisations who built them are not even in the game ? Where is the logic here ? Sorry, I can't be positive about this change. It's too weird for me.
I've studied African history in my spare time, and I understand WHY Buganda is getting representation (And it's cool that people are going to get to learn about it), but I still don't really understand how it maps onto this current age system.
overall my main gripe is those damn *grey* menus! Grey/white font on a grey background is sooooo ugly and i hope they bring color to all the menus. Going further beyond like adding more art and images to look at in order to quickly identify something would also help to tell what things are at a glance
@@archerlittle4018 because he has to try make them look better than they are, 'oh atleast they didnt do the stupidest and worst idea they could of' instead just a regular bad idea
I like playing an alternate history of civilizations, and I like min maxing so I snowball the other players and become super advanced. So these new features kinda suck in my opinion
The most enjoyable part of the game was exploring, identifying strategies and choosing a win condition. Given that games can take so long, I totally understand why they are spicing things up with these changes. Will wait and see before I buy.
I am really worried about this civilization-change because I think usually I tried to play a people and not as a leader (which so far I never even saw...they were me, right? I usually even changed the name to mine). But with this leader which we can develop now and which stays a constant... I try to see it from the perspective "I play Hatshepsut" a bit more and maybe then changing nations will bother me less.
I think that there is a clear divide on the ages part and I feel that those who played Humankind and are familiar are more against it. The main problem for me is that it will feel like I play against bots and not leaders representing their empire and culture because of the switch mechanics. Also a lot of Civs from second and third age will lose their identity because they will keep the city names from the first civ...
I think it is interesting as the historic names of cities and different settlements have shifted throughout history depending on cultural influences over time. For example, modern day Istanbul was once called Byzantium by ancient Greeks. Later it was known as Constantinople for many centuries, and after the formation of the modern Turkish state, it is now known as Istanbul. Other examples are London (Londinium) and Paris (Parisii) both having etymological roots in ancient Latin.
I 100% agree with the Humankind comparison; I never could get into that game, and it's like they took the majority of what I didn't like about it and put it in Civ 7. I don't mind the ages so much, but being forced to switch civilizations irks me. It should be an option- if you switch, you gain these new abilities / units / etc. If you don't, then you'll stay with what you currently have (excepting progress through the tech tree). That, too, would prevent a lot of the snowballing effect I think.
Those of you asking for the option to literally stay the same civ in the next age, answer this. What is exploration era Sumerians like? What do they play like, what’s their unique unit, building, what is important for them culturally during that time? How did they interact with the growing sphere of influence as trade, exploration, and colonization became prevalent? You don’t know? Sumerians didn’t exist when that era was happening and so it literally never participated in anything like that? Hmmm. What could be a possible solution? Maybe play as a related/successor state that did exist in that era who can be represented correctly by the game? Maybe give it a name like Abbasid empire so players might recognize it better. Ya, that sounds fun.
@@sphaera2520 That argument has little weight, I will show you how it falls on its own, if historical accuracy is really important, Augustus could not govern Mongolia or Egypt could not be transformed into Mongolia, that excuse of historical accuracy is only sustained in games that are precisely based on history, but not here.
I still think the biggest issue is the price. As is outside the US this game is prohibitively expensive, and given how DLC heavy civ games are it's just not worth it at that price.
9:51 -- there's no shadow inside the mouth. A game releasing in 2024 with a huge focus on the appearance of the main character, and there was no ffuucckkiinngg employee at the whole Firaxis to say hold on, should we have shadows inside the mouths so that their tongue don't look like a police siren when they speak?
This is a thing to look at for sure and it's something they maybe should alrdy have put in there but I'm sure it's the sort of thing that'll be handled in quality testing and polishing the game. This isn't anywhere near a release patch
@@lordcommandersnow1611 The game has been in dev for many many years and is close to release past all the QA and polishing of assets, these kind of things are locked in already for years now. This won't get fixed during the lifetime of the game as the corporate machine that owns Firaxis now will not deem the dollar profit of the programmers fixing that error worthy just like the same corporate machine didn't deem it worthy to fix the ffuucckkiinngg GTA 3 remastered trash thing.
I'm dubious about their thesis that late game Civ is not fun to play. The famous mantra of Civ has always been 'one more turn'-usually at the end, when turns take quite a while. I find late game civ fun, as you enact your final victory; the problem is that you are bogged down with the minutiae of deciding which conquered city will build a library this turn. City automation is an unsatisfactory alternative. I think the problem late game civ experiences is that the scope of your ownership has increased so much, while the zoom level of your control has remained the same. Keeping the same instrument of control makes the start exciting but limited, and the end game, yes, a bit of a monotonous chore. I think this needs to be solved first.
they made dumb changes...nope, shouldn't do that. they could have made a new casual/mobile game and not call it Civ7...but hey, need to milk the only good franchise left. remember that cool mobilized space game they made a few years back that was a total success? yea...me neither.
Ages don't bother me. The fact they've removed all snowballing aspects from civ 6 is appalling though. That's where the replayability and mastery comes from. Snowballing is what makes civ fun
Yes and no. It’s fun to steam roll the AI sometimes. But it gets old. It gets to the point where it isn’t a challenge. By the time you’re unlocking gunpowder, you’ve usually outpaced the AI to victory and it becomes a slog, and as turns take long and longer to finish it gets old. It also sucks to play multiplayer and lose because you had a shitty spawn location and the other players got to snowball because of RNG. I absolutely understand why they went this direction
I can see that many in the community are nervous about this porting to consoles / switch… it explains some poor UI and leader screens. Probably would have been better to create a separate console adaptation or ‘Revolution 3’ entry and a true PC-focused title from the off with top-end production quality based on available hardware performance into the mid-2020s which is substantial
@@Commander_Ray tbh the gameplay they showed for the switch announcement didn't look to bad, and it just wouldn't make sense for them to make a whole new game just so they can make the PC version look a bit better
@@archerlittle4018 So apparently PC players are the one to suffer because of consoles? Not the other way around? You know what, now I'm actually celebrating Mortal Kombat 1 on Switch. It was an epitome of poetic justice.
Honestly, I hate the idea of changing civs with each age. I really didn’t like that feature in Humankind, but at least in Humankind you had the option to keep the same civ. I’ll have to wait for launch to see if it’s worth buying, but unless the gameplay is good enough to make up for it, I’m probably just going to stick to Civ 5 and 6
Clearly the Civ team has been listening to players and also looking at the competition. They've taken some of the best mechanics from Humankind and made them a bit more Civ coherent. I frequently play Civ6 deep into the late game but rarely bother to finish once its clear I'm going to win, but my favorite part is always the exploration of the map. Once the map is close to revealed I start to lose interest. I'm glad to see that Ed Beach and the team have given me a way to play a stand alone campaign with all my favorite elements.
I had been hyped for Humankind but after I played it I was more than disappointed with that game. The design of Civ 7 seems repeat some of Humankind's flaws: abrupt cultural shifts that are not to everone's taste, even fiddlier district placement micro-managment than before, era scores/benefits that don't look particularly transparent, convoluted game mechanics with multiple layers that don't necessarily work well with each other. The new way how great generals function on the map looks interesting but also a bit confusing. I would have preferred if the developpers had chosen to go more into the direction of Civ 4 where story events or player's choices are the spice but not the actual recipe of the game. I believe Civ 7 will be a game for experts that can enjoy such kind of stuff but less fitted for the casual gamer. But the new graphics looks very nice, I'll give them that.
Civilization has never been for the casual gamer. Games take hours and hours to complete and there are always complex systems at play that need to be learned. That’s the reason he said less than half of civ 6 players have ever finished a single campaign. If you can figure out the systems in civ 6 you will be able to figure this game out pretty quickly. I have faith this game will be amazing and can’t wait to play it. I hope Firaxis stays true to their vision and doesn’t listen to all the haters who haven’t even tried the game yet.
@@GyroZeppel Afaik it is commonly accepted that Civ6 as a Civ incarnation has been aimed more at casual players (being the foremost reason why its AI is so notoriously bad). But for high-level play especially in multiplayer your statement is definitely valid. I was indeed disappointed by the gameplay information and footage being released so far. Those have evoked just too many Humankind negative flashbacks. But if you are able enjoy that kind of a Civ game, all I can say is: good for you.
I just feel that because they only went with 3 ages, there is going to be a jarring progress during the mid and late game while the early game will be too static. The antiquity age is pretty much early civilization to the fall of Rome, so an entire third of the game where technology is pretty static. The exploration age seems to be the dark ages to about the Napoleonic era, but that seems like a too dynamic period of history to be squashed into one age. 500 AD and 1815 are worlds apart. Then this gets even worse in the final era, which seems to be the beginning of the industrial revolution to the modern day. The world in 1830 vs 2024 is also very different. I just feel like they needed to add a Medieval era between Antiquity and Exploration, and an Industrial era between Exploration and Modern. I mean, I guess I'll see how it plays but I really hope they are planning a DLC that add extra eras. With regards to the mid to late game being "boring" I think that they are assuming that everyone plays 6 and 5 the same way. I never play a full game, I always choose the starting and ending era at setup and tend to play a game in a particular era. Medieval and Napoleonic sort of eras tend to be my favorite eras to lock the game into. Another issue with their limited ages of just 3, is the fact that certain nations won't be playable if they weren't around in early antiquity, the dark ages, or the start of the modern era. What about nations that arose during the middle or end of those broad time periods? The USA for example was formed what would be the Exploration era in the game but wouldn't be playable until the modern era. It seems just too limiting to me.
Good to see another CIV shilling hard here! This video succeeded in sucking what little excitement I had for this game. Devs fucked up with all design decisions and now they're rushing make excuses because it's too late to do anything else. This will not be pretty. Makes me excited for CIV 8, after this shit show the game will have a completely new team, and you can guarantee the marketing will talk about "Correcting the mistakes of the past 2 games and get back to what our players actually want."
I think the civs changing is fine as long as they are historical kinda??? Like how you showed Napoleon and Augustus both having Rome go to Norman’s go to French empire. That is just a lot more strategy then having one civ . But the whole India becoming Mongolia is kinda weird and stupid.
Having your identity (your civ) changed to this degree… It feels like losing. If I want to play another civ, I restart. Not finishing the game is a valid way to play. Playing the CIV series of games has always been about the process, not the destination. This looks like they have fundamentally misunderstood both why and how people play civ.
I wish they would just give you the option to play 'Classic' mode, where you don't HAVE to switch civs... Or maybe another idea is you could morph into "Medieval Egypt" once you get to the "Exploration Age", and then "Modern Egypt" as the last age. Just an idea
As a modder of Civ 6.... I'm gonna share what a modder friend of mine told me, so take it as his words, but said in my way: He said that the civs with the most game-changing bonuses are usually the ones whose bonuses usually show up in the early game, so this is civs like Sumeria, Egypt, Babylon, etc, mainly I presume thanks to having the advantage of being first..... and he says that mid-game civ bonuses have to be really strong for them to be relevant. I asked him about late-game bonuses, which he told me that they were flat out useless. (Anyone who's a longtime player of civ, pls feel free to confirm/debunk this.) Addressing his concerns, I think the way Civ 7 is making their game here, it has the potential to solve this existing dilemma... though I continue to remain cautiously optimistic about it. No opinion-jumping from me for now, we will get our final answer when this game is officially released. (Tho I can't deny being super excited for it tbh, the navigable rivers & army commands function has me hyped! :>)
He is right (tough the examples used are not quite on point) because of how snowbally a weak early game bonus is worth just as much a strong late game bonus.
I highly disagree with the first paragraph, I can only speak for Online speed Multiplayer that ive played since 2016 thousands of hrs, for me and many others it the total opposite and early bonus civs have the major disadvantage for the majority of the game past the mid-game era and often fail to keep up with mid-late game civs like Germany, USA or England, who have much more favorable economic bonuses A Good player will need early era bonuses/units to be successful in a early-mid game war A Pro player will not need these and alone use economical supremacy to overwhelm the enemy
I see great opportunities for modders in civ7! Modders can make to those civs that actually did live through the history, alternate versions to different eras! (For those who want to stay playing the same civ) and in my own eyes more different options in each era that are as historical as possible. Rome, Venetsia, Italy option! And many many more similar, where the civ transition is as smooth as possible! Modders can do ”wonders” with civ7!
@@FriedrichBarb This is because Civ VI multiplayer is balanced in a strange way due to how the tech tree development works (you're incentivized to NOT advance the tech tree as quickly as possible but instead slingshot with +build charge setups due to how worker costs work). This doesn't apply to online team games (where you do indeed need early war bonuses to fight) or offline play (where you are fighting against enemies with number superiority). It also doesn't apply to all of the other Civs, and it will likely not apply to Civ VII due to there not being workers at all.
nothing about denuvo, nothing about the prices, nothing about the immense advantages u get for preordering. no gameplay of any game could make me purchase this games with so much BS layered above it. usually i just get those games when they are cheaper after 2 years in a steam sale, this one i either dont bother or actually pirate it, once people got through denuvo.
I still don't see why they needed to change all the civs at the turn of each age. Why not just allow the player to choose new civ buffs? This would have preserved a sense of continuity in the midst of evolution. I also don't think that the changing civs concept accurately reflects the historical reality. The evolution of one civilisation into another happened over prolonged periods of time rather than suddenly, and it usually followed the collapse of the previous civilisation.
exactly, just give more bonuses that unlock through the ages. their civ changing could also have been better managed, and kept to more realistic outcome, but that would require having a lot more civs, and progressed versions of the same civ for a different age. ie Celts as a starting civ with multiple choices for leaders, then you can choose to progress to either the Kingdom of france or britain and then modern france or england depending on your first choice, i also think this would benifit from more eras than simply going from classical straight to exploration, but again that involves making even more content. egypt could be a bit tricky because it stopped being an independant country for long periods of time, but there are certainly better ways of doing it than having them turn into mongolia.
@@victorscheffers3890 I also think that Firaxes is kind of stepping into a minefield with this new mechanic. In some cases, the question of whether a particular civilisation is a true successor, or heir, of a previous civilisation can rouse passions even today. For example, I know for a fact that many Modern Greeks would not be happy to see Byzantium evolve into the Ottoman Empire. Firaxes has to be very careful in choosing which civilisation can evolve into which else they risk angering members of the player-base. Once again, it would have been so much simpler to just allow players to choose new buffs.
I think they're trying to simulate this collapse of the previous civilization through their crisis system, though I'm not entirely sure how well that will work. Then on the other hand, how would you want the civs to change in a way that wouldn't completely blow the complexity of the mechanic out of proportion? I mean the same could be said for any feature in the game, where in reality innovations happened over periods of time, and then also had to spread around the empire/get established, but in the game you klick on a technology and after a few turns your whole empire immediately has access to those. If you'd make the Civs even less defined and have them basically be just a name for your empire that permanently just changes it's modifiers, it would make people complain even more about the lack of identification and continuity. I think Millenia did something similar to what you're suggesting, where you could choose a Nation/Civilization, but also seperate from that your "Civ ability"/Civ modifier, which made the Names of the Civs be basically redundant, as they weren't a civ that had it's own identity through it's modifiers(and by extension of that, it's own playstyle) but just a Name for an AI that just behaved randomly, without having any uniqueness to it.
@@rosskourtis9602 But that's almost the same as it is now, with civs unlocking their unique units/buildings/districts/mechanics with certain technologies. There's mods for Civ 6 that do exactly what you're describing here, giving each Civ more unique bonuses units/buildings or districts, and while they still make every Civ more interesting in certain/more eras, you run into the same problem again, where you can't give Babylon any unique bonus beyond the Antiquity age, and the same with America not really having any sensible bonuses for the Antiquity for expample. And I don't really understand the argument with the true successors. I mean you can just look at the history to decide if a certain culture/civilization replaced another in a certain area. Doesn't matter if they are legitimate successors to the empire that was there before them or not, that doesn't change the history of what actually happened. I mean the HRE was also not really a legitimate successor to the Roman Empire but it would still make sense as a Civ to choose as Rome, considering the geograhical position and the identification of the HRE itself as a successor to the Roman Empire.
I still can't get behind the Civ swapping mechanic. I pick a civilization in these games because I want to commit to playing that Civ and because I enjoy the personality expressed through the leader. It's a shame that they seem to be set in keeping this mechanic and I may just stick with 5 and 6
I found myself restarting civ games every time I fired it up. If you reload an old save and try to continue after a week or so, it's just an unwieldy mess and you have no idea what was even going on with each city and unit. So I just restarted every time and played for as long as I had time and energy. Eventually, I just started playing on very tiny maps with one other civ. That way, I had a chance of actually finishing a game in one sitting, and not having a hard drive full of old saves. Hopefully, the new system fixes these issues.
SAME. For me, the early game was always the most fun, because it had the least amount of microing. I’m not surprised about half of players finished a game, because the late game really turns into a slog-and don’t get me started on domination victories.
Honestly I like the civ switching if it means late game improves. I’m so tired of having to wait 2 minutes between turns because there’s so much crap the system is dealing with towards the late game. It needs serious improvement.
The one thing that is seriously missing in the civilization series is the option to have a historical start on Earth, the Romans in Italy, the Mongols in Mongolia etc etc. It is quite obvious that there are different start locations when you cycle through at the beginning, but none of them are historical. Such a shame.
I want the micro management - if they wanted to fix that just allow more automation for those players that won't want to be bothered rather than remove it for those that do - and the whole 'ERA's fixes the late game' is utter Bollix thinking - why do i want to get ahead in the early age when i get essentially reset when switching to a new age. Also why have to switch to a new civilisation , wouldn't it be far better to pick up traits depending on how you played previously in the game and keep the general traits of the civ you started with i.e. you used chariots a lot - you get a trait allowing flanking and fast attacks, you always build libraries you get a bonus when building universities
Civ players' core audience is pretty die-hard, so I don't think so. I have so much faith in the franchise, and pretty much everything so far sounds incredibly exciting.
@@nealdoesart Not only players but streamers too. Players are theory-crafting etc in reddit civ for weeks already. Some streamers that "hated" humankind (hate is may be too strong word) are doing 180 and pretending they didn't like the civ change in humankind only because of something something and now they are all onboard for civ7.
Still hasn't convinced me this is a good idea. One of my primary complaints about Humankind was its tendency to snowball in late game - typically another civ would outperform everyone, and there would be no catching up. But Humankind had ages and it had civ swaps - that was its selling point, that was why it was supposed to be a "Civ killer". It didn't fix snowballing. It didn't make the late game interesting, because civs snowballed so fast I never got to late game units. So I still fail to see how this "new" Civ isn't just a Humankind retread.
In fine with ages, im not fine with changing civs. Id much rather they make every civ have its own version for each era. I wanna just play poland but im fine with ancient poland mechanically. To me the point of civ is that you are making an empire so powerful it literally never dies because that's the real fantasy.
This approach appears to be better done than humankind and for civs like America I think it makes perfect sense. China no so much since they've always been around.
now i can't wait for CIV fanbois that hated Humankind go 180 and say "damn this feature in civ is really good"... while they literally hated humankind... even tho it was a good game.
The 50% of players have finished a campaign stat is kinda moot. It took me over 500 hours of Stellaris to see the game end screen. I've got a lot of hours in CivVI and I think I've finished the game in maybe 5% of my runs. It's a long game and sometimes you get so far ahead you need to start a new game on a higher difficulty
Here come the corporate fanboys bootlicking the removal of the game's foundation (they will join the hate when the game turns out to be bs and say they always hated it)
You make very good points for why not to play Civ VII if you're a Civ VI fan. Can't wait for ARA History Unfold to come out in 9 days time and have even more eras and even more micromanagement than VI (things that make that game fun for me) while not punishing you for playing well by making the AI catch up to you by having them progress at the same rate as the player and you can play with ONE civilization from beginning to the end
I mean, I'll happily try it. Maybe I missed something, but why exactly has the actual civ change after an age? The existing civs could just get changes and bonuses based on age objectives, no? I just find it pretty immersion breaking if all the civs suddenly change name
'late game civ is not fun to play', it's like they read my mind! Why don't I finish a game? The end game is boring. Why should I continue slogging towards what is a certain victory?
I am really looking forward to what this civ is offering.
Yes but the late game is boring because the AI in Civ 6 is absolute shit. It can't fight a naval battle (it doesn't even build ships), it can't fight a proper aerial battle, it can't build and deploy artillery properly. And most AI attacks can be repelled by machine gunner in a city. The more the game progresses, the dumber the AI gets. THAT'S what's killing the late game in my opinion.
Play Civ 5?
Yeah dude - absolutely. Surely everyone has got to a stage where you know whether you’re going to win or lose within the first 100 turns? I like the idea of mixing it up in the latter stages of the game
@@Zimionz Not only a problem in single player. Multiplayer matches in the CPL (CIv players League) are mostly given up at round 110 to 130 (on online speed) cause the lategame is always the same, only a matter of time and no one can catch up to the first
I can absolutely agree to that.
I hardly ever finish a game once i am certain of the outcome. I rather start a new one and have a fresh challenge.
But its not only in civ.
I played a lot of rome2 single player, got every base culture on the hardest difficulty to the point of certain victory on a grand campaign, but never finished a single one.
They're entitled to add whatever changes they want to the new title, and I'm entitled to completely ignore it and play Ara: History Untold and Civ 6.
Exactly. Don’t like it, don’t play it. Stop crying.
How are you playing a game that's not out yet?
@@chaircheck2424Ara: History Untold has had multiple open betas.
So they have chosen their Concord era.
@@dean._.0.0the concord way
The Humankind game does this, I enjoyed Civ6 for the reasons that it did NOT do that. Felt more meaningful it invest time into a Civ.
So stick with Civ6 👍
Thats another thing that concerns me. A lot of what we are hearing is already in Ara... So its not unique...
Yeah, others try it to, it aint made the end game better.
Engame, for me is boring, cos you run out to do.
The crisis is punish, not reward you for playing. But this is only my way if seeing things
Even Civ6 was a downgrade. The artwork style was an embarrassment and the sprawling cities was just flat stupid.
It sucked in Humankind because the actual choices were so frequent and so minor that they didn't matter. They've made the choices more significant and the time you spend with them longer which is great.
Yeah I’m sorry but it’s a new game - if they made no changes people would complain it’s a dlc. The most recent let’s play showed off complex interwoven systems that will take an age to master and optimise - this is what makes a good Civ game
YES!! THANK YOU!
Yeah I'm sorry but they took more shit away than they've added or changed at all.
@@SleepWavezzz like they all came at launch
Too true. If I civ 6 or 5 or 4 redux, I'll go play that game. I want something new and innovative from a new numbered civ game.
I like most changes they have announced so far. But I would have given players the option to either remain Egypt through the ages, or switch to another civ if they want to.
At least give me the choice to remain as the starting civ I wanted. The cool thing about civ games was that you could build the eiffel tower, send a man to the moon and win a scientific victory as THE INCAS.
Well you can at least do that in previous games, Civ 7 apparently force converts you to a different civilization when it switches eras. So no more Inca's going to the moon and building the Eiffel tower. 🤔
But they need to copy that other game's unique mechanic, lol. Unfortunately that mechanic was one I disliked so I'll be sticking with civ 3-6 plus Revolution
They're going the Humankind route? Nope! DO NOT WANT.
“Haha if you don’t like it stop playing” every single fanbase of major titles that have said that in the past few years have seen their games turn into commercial failures that have ultimately forced the companies to make even stupider decisions or even gone bust - if it’s this polarising already and isn’t the best Civ game ever expect it to be a failure in some degree
"can your civilization stand the test of time?" LOL apparently not in civ 7
Good point
Ogres. They made in layers 🧅
Can't even last a single age apparently according to Civ7 🤫
It’s a joke
@@ThePassportPapiwho ever suggested this mechanic is a joke and should be fired for it
Wait until Firaxis rolls out the late game "Manage the AI's carbon" feature.
LOL!!!
The more I see about the how and why behind ages, the more I think it was an excellent decision. As a player from civ 3 to 6 with thousands of hours, I always found the late game the least fun and the most tedious. Reallly happy they took a serious look at how to provide a more engaging and consistent experience across the entire campaign.
will this really change the end game. Probably not as someone will be clearly far too powerful and the micromanagement will still be in play
it really depends on how they do it. I am still sceptical but it could work if they do it well enough
I suspect that the “ages” will be a hard reset of stats of your civ, and players will start snowballing again until next age. And I fill that endgame boredom came from lack of progression and overall stagnation because all units hit and sponge the same, basically the game turn to static and player lose interest, and I don't think that they introduce “ages” to solve that I highly suspect that it's more related with the business model and monetization of the game
Endgame is a huge problem I agree, but rubberbanding is such a lazy and destructive solution. Instead they could flesh out diplomacy and make the AI actually good at using it, that's what the endgame should be about. And when it comes to endgame micromanagement, they already have solutions for it and ages and civ switching are not part of that. And lastly imbalance of early vs late strength civs, that's just it, a BALANCE issue. Balance the game!
play humankind, they did this same thing. in fact almost all the "new changes" to civ7 were stolen straight from humankind.
They can make all the excuses they want, if I can't see my civilization "stand the test of time", then I'm not interested.
What civilization ever in history has stood the test of time?
@@Matman651 China, Japan
@@Matman651is the motto of civilization saga and this was the way from the first civlization 1
@@tymiller176 So 2. Most civilisations fall and rise and fall and rise
@@Matman651 first, there are more examples than that. Secondly, I don't play civ for realism, but for the fantasy of playing a specific favorite civilization, hence the franchise's tagline.
I dont love that the map is reduced in size and scope until you transition through ages where it opens up. Seems like theyre trying to tackle the late game issue by removing systems, reducing scope, and removing elements of the 'sandbox' to try and control how a player moves through the game.
Yes, this worries me too, it's a bit restrictive.
lol yes it's great how they dumbed down the entire game instead of trying to improve the late game a little bit
@@illegalsmirf The game actually seems more complex, but less tedious.
I think it´s not as big of an issue when playing continental maps. It was basically the same as in previous iterations when you needed to unluck certain techs to cross the oceans. However, I am totally agreeing with regard to different types of map. How do they do this with pangea-style maps? And what worries me most is the fallout of this concept to mulitplayer and especially to team multiplayer games. I hope that Firaxis implements changes to that mechanic with regard to MP.
Nah I love this fact. It never made sense to me that you had dicovered the world before the middle ages even started. The exploration age should be the age where you discover the world.
This could have been fixed without the need for civ changes. Give every civ an antiquity, an exploration and a modernity buff or trait. All the other changes would have been equally effective without civilization change. I would at least have given players the option to either remain Egypt through the ages, or switch to another civ if they want to.
but ancient egypt was not ancient egypt til 2024 so this acaully makes more rense. egypt was ruled by the abbassid caliphate for many years
Like antiquity United States or modern Byzantine? Wow that would make sense. I wonder how they've implement imaginary civ traits or unique units without pissing off the fanbase.
Thats why Egypt doesnt exist today@@gustavvigolo4480
@@misterbin00tbh I'd hate antiquity US but I'm down for modern Byzantium. What if pasts don't feel right, but what if futures do.
I mean in Civ 5 I can bring the Byzantines into the modern era. It would be cool to have a similar concept, tho I doubt they'll implement it
@@gustavvigolo4480 Egypt was conquered by several civilizations.
Really weird for them to base their argument on "Everyone hates the endgame of a 4X game." That's like saying "We removed resource gathering in an RTS because no one finds it fun."
Like sure I guess that's true for some people, but it's still kind of fundamental to the genre's design to have these things. Resetting the Civ every couple of years I don't think is going to magically cut down on endgame micro. If anything it might make it worse if you have to constantly change play style between eras.
Except it's not like saying that at all. They specifically brought up statistics that say that people tend to start a new game instead of playing through to the end game screen. Me and most players I know definitely rather do that, it's just obvious who's going to win a 100 tours before the victory screen. There's nothing "weird" about addressing this
@@folx2733From all the things you could have said, you point out the thing that RTS has the same, and proving the original comment argument, no ones play a rts to the end screen, usually a early lead on resources is enough to someone to give up
@@brunobatista5483 this game isn't an RTS buddy. Yes, people give up early in StarCraft 2 multiplayer, how TF is that relevant to a discussion about Civ
@@folx2733 1-Original comment compared RTS to Civ
2-You said the comparision didn't make sense, and used the argument about people giving up
3-I completed that if giving up is your argument why the comparasion don't make sense then that's not a good argument because RTS has people giving up too
@@brunobatista5483 no, I said that the comparison didn't make sense, and elaborated that people give up early in Civ because it becomes boring and obvious, which is a problem. How is that a contradiction? Do you have any reading comprehension skills kid?
“We saw a lot of hype around Humankind before it launched and right when we were starting to work on Civ7 and feared its main selling point would make civ obsolete so we stole it. Now it’s too late to rip it out even though no one likes it.”
They started making civ vii long after humankind came out they had plenty of time to rip it out if they wanted. Humankind's problems were not the age system, the biggest problems are the war support mechanic and the lack of true team based multiplayer. I've watched a friend push an enemy from 5 cities to one and then lose not only all the cities he captured but 2/3 of his own to war support issues. Its such a weird mechanic and despite them trying to make war more realistic they made it less realistic and less fun. Then there's the fact that humankind turns are twice as tedious as civ turns late game (often due to taking 3 combat turns within each regular turn). And finally humankind's developer just doesn't listen to community feedback a counter example would be how Civ VI was released without multiplayer teams, but they added them in later because Firaxis does actually listen to its community.
Humankind's age based system was also barely even equivalent. Your civ changed, but thats the only real change. Firaxis is talking about changing large parts about how the game plays each age, which could be huge. No one likes making a city in the modern era and building monuments or other ancient era buildings just to make them barely functional.
@@NickSteffen says they aren’t the same, then says they are the exact same with frosting.
Do you see anyone complaining about the extra mechanics or map space as the game progresses? No, you don’t and trying to pretend you do is genuinely crazy. People complain about the fact you are being forced out of the civ you chose to play and to pick between a small list of seemingly random civs the devs decided should be locked to age 2 or 3. Which is the exact same thing people complained about with humankind. Maybe it had other issues but so far we can’t tell if those issues are present in Civ7 because humankind is out and civ 7 isn’t so we can only comment on what we know.
Believe me, if civ7 comes out and is total dogshit people *will* complain about it, but complaining about the lack of complaints for an unreleased game is just wasting time.
I’ve grown to like the idea. I remember all the similar moaning about ideas in previous Civs. People instinctively don’t like change until they get used to it.
And they’re not wrong about late game Civ not being fun - that’s 100% right.
@@Zveebo I don’t think civ has had a change this impactful since the change to hexes *and* no one likes this in the one and only game that’s tried it, the game that “popularized” this concept. I don’t think we can say “well past changes turned out to not be that bad so obviously this will just be fine” when we only have poor examples to go off of.
And idk this sounds like a profound skill issue. Late game civ can be very boring if you play poorly but I’ve had some of my favorite games go very late and come down to the wire. My only complaint about the late game was moving large armies sucked but they’ve already resolved that with the commander unit types which are totally independent of the forced changing of civs over the course of the game.
I pay for the game, I play the game, but Sid Meyer gets to sit behind me with a stop watch and say “alright, you and your 50 turns of fun, time to change civs to one of these 3 random options that may or may not have anything to do with how you’re trying to play.”? It was a ridiculous and bad idea in humankind, it’s a ridiculous and bad idea in civ.
As a mod developer, I’m more concerned with how silent they’ve been on mod support discussion.
I don't remember them being super talkative about mod support when Civ 6 was being announced either.
They did say their modding community was important to them a few times at the end of the PAX west livestream, IIRC.
They said they mentioned expanded mod support during the showcase the other day.
I'm going to guess this is a couple months out and they're rolling out the details of various areas of the game in stages.
I wouldn't be concerned. Firaxis supports modding in every game they develop iirc. They're aware of how important it is for them because it is very important for us.
So rather than making the end game more engaging they decided to just repeat the beginning and middle game over several times to avoid the problem.
not only that, but they simplify the early game loop...you know, the thing ppl LIKED about the game lol...
also...standard is now 150-200 turns?! great...lets more casualize/shorten the game.
when this won't be accepted at launch NOBODY will have seen it coming of course...nope...total mystery
@@TNM001 I think they said an age is 150-200 turns on standard. So a full game is now 450-600 turns, therefore much longer than before.
@@TNM001 dude it's x3 of that! Criticisms are fine, but please don't be blinded by it.
@@TNM001dude my games usually last 10-14 hours. I’m certainly not going to complain about them shortening the game.
What a PROFOUND analysis. Your cognitive skills are mind blowing.
I've played every Civ but this is the first time I'm not excited by a new one coming out. I don't want my civilization to be replaced by a different one.
I think we should play it first. I mean they are right that Civ's from the past are different Civ's now. It's not like it's some crazy unrealistic thing they are doing.
@@2buxaslice you play it. That's fine. I will not be.
I think the idea is evolution rather than replacement. If they want to keep the games fresh, they need to open the end game up more. It is stale in its current format and as the games become more complicated, the end game gets worse. I also think it is more immersive that you don't have America building the Pyramids in New York in 2600 BC. No one civilization has truly stood the test of time.
@@Bricicles Pretty much, it's a civilization adapting to the changing world around them.
@@QuisUtDeus828 I'll buy you a copy.
I just don’t want micro transactions to unlock Ben Franklins blue cane to be in the game and I think no matter how they are spinning it that’s what they are doing.
Yes that's my main complaint. Not the stupid hysterics about the new gameplay mechanics, I think everything they have talked about sounds great. But it's going to be Paradox-style micro transaction bloat
I understand why they do it but I don’t want it anyway.
Bringing one Civ from stone to space age was what attracted me in the first since civ 1 on amiga 500
You can also keep the age mechanic for one civilisation. The civilisation changes with each age, gets different bonuses, the look changes, but it remains Egypt or USA. It's a pity that they chose this way of implementation, that the player is forced to change.
@@oj8976 exactly
i honestly dont get this kind of thinking it limits civ options. You should be able to play as india but its much cooler that it changes through indian history you have unique things at multiple stages of the game
@@oj8976 Yes and it's beneficial to the Civ. When Norway leaves the middle ages it has lost its moment, the viking age is over while Sweden who didn't get the opportunity of being vikings is starting to see their bonuses. With this new system, every player will have assets to work with at every single age. At least that's how I see it. And about Egypt becoming Mongolia, the Civ game never have been about historical accuracy. Unless you are playing on world maps the Babylonians building the Oxford university (without having Oxford) and fighting the Americans is not crazier than Egypt becoming Mongolia.
So my great China-Fench-Jamacain empire is always what I wanted. The problem is your forced to throw away all your hard won glory to achieve a victory. This is a terrible idea
Civ switching is just a deal breaker for me.
Civ7 build an civilization that will stand for about an age or two. Can't build a civilization that can stand the test of time if your forced to give up your civilization.
It’s possible that by the final version of civ 7, the civ change could be seamless and turn into just a leader change with the same civ/geographic location. Don’t be too early to judge, you could go from Aethelstan of the Anglo-Saxons to Elizabeth of England to Churchill of England for example.
They did that in humankind and it was very offputting. First you're egypt, then persia, england and end with soviet union. There's really no identity to your nation.
Might as well get rid of actual civilizations at that point and create your own.
@@fishleaf18 but they’re not doing that because they said you can pick any leader for any civilization. Even if they never led that civilization. So you aren’t going to be switching leaders, they said the leader will remain consistent throughout the game. I’m pretty sure.
It’s the civilization that switches.
I know a number of people have pointed to Humankind as the source of Ages. What I haven't seen is anyone pointing out how much the terrain artwork looks so much like Humankind. Even watching this video, I had to remind myself I'm watching a video of Civ 7 and not Humankind. I wonder if I'm the only one seeing the similarity.
So how exactly are they reducing micromanagement in the late game?!
They’ve been very tight lipped about the late game
By making systems that lower the amount of actions needed to do, like removing builders, a commander that gathers troops into a bundle, simplifying yields and improvements.
We already know of commanders, reducing the amount of unit micro-management. Maybe cities "merging" together? Them sharing their yields and production queue would reduce overall micro-management as well.
@Aktarvata I see the new systems as more interactivity. Even the great generals can serve as yield boosters in the leadership tree, which encourages some form of unit combat. The new diplomacy system looks more interactive and opportunistic as it encourages diplomatic interactivity with other players as the player who does an action gets more benefit unless both support it or can use it to hinder them as well.
@@markos50100 Yeah some people hear "less micro" and think it means "less depth". They're two different things that CAN overlap but don't need to by any means.
My main concern about this is there will most likely be very little civs to chose from. If they are making age specific civs, doesnt that mean you will only have 1/3 the civ choices at the start of the game? If they have 30 civs in the game at launch, only 10 will be selectable at game start.
Well, yes and no. For example you will not be able to choose Germany or the USA at the start of the Antiquity age for obvious reasons. But you can choose China and Japan and during the rest of the game you can pick new dynasties/stages of both civs.
There will still be plenty of civs in the game, just grouped thematically as far as I understand it.
@@8wayz2shine and when Civ 6 was in development, they told us every single civ would have 2+ leaders to chose from eventually. They always skimp out on Civ diversity. I am excited for this game in general, but I doubt it will be as diverse as you think
@@MHMichaelHooper I reckon they fell into the trap of their own due diligence. For most civs you will be able to find two good leaders, but there are also quite a few that really have no good choice for second leader - Mapuche, Cree, Babylon, Maori and more.
That said, the modding for CIV VI has provided a lot of alternative leaders for most of the civs, so there is plenty of content to enjoy nowadays. :)
Dont worry there will be plenty of Civs....That are DLC you got to buy.
I wouldn't be surprised to see 3+ new civs coming out every month so if this is a concern for you...I doubt it will be for all that long really.
Part of the Fun of Civ though is taking the Roman Empire and making it last all the way through to the space age. The crises that bookmarks each age also, just feels very artificial and shoehorned in. I still plan to try it, but I guess I can always keep playing Civ VI if I don't like it.
Yeah I wonder about the crisis elements too. I’ve seen the first one, but I’ve got no idea about the second and third (maybe plague and then the threat of nuclear war?). I hope they don’t just become box ticking exercises.
@@JumboPixel will there be a third one? There is no transition to a fourth age. What do we need a third crisis for?
@@XorgrimFreudian slip.
i wouldn not mind if say the change was more along the lines of the roman civ turning into say modern italy, but the way they have it makes very little sense. it feels like in one of those games where your winning a fight, then bam cutsene that shows you losing.
@@JumboPixel I wonder if there is only one choice of crisis per age, or if there's a bigger pool that the game just randomly picks one from, and they've just rigged it to only show the one in livestreams to not spoil the surprise.
Thankfully Civ IV will still be there.
For me its Civ 5. I always hated the exploded cities, hexes of bs sectors making the map look like garbage. Civ 5 was perfect and I see Civ 7 as more of Civ 6 with "layers" being a code word for "more DLC civs to sell".
@@ferrisbuellertube civ V would be perfect if they would keep happiness and resources per city and not making it global
I cannot imagine playing a square grid civ post playing Hex.
And I can't imagine liking limited stacking of units, or having to pre-plan an entire empire due to how certain districts work.
Or how leaders have become specific playstyles, almost hardlocked into playing each game a very specific way at higher difficulties (unless Firaxis blessed you with an alt personality version of your exact leader as DLC)
Or a bunch of other things that 5/6 did differently (and not any better)
@@mpomp6378 there is no reason to go back to squares. Anyway civ is no longer for me, because they apparently calulated, that they will earn more if they launch game on consoles instead of doing good empire building game. Time to find and support something actually good.
The danger is that while trying to fix the late game, they might accidentally make the early game feel irrelevant. If you essentially reset to some degree with every other civ on the map you risk making players feel like their early game work was for nothing.
One thing I was hoping they'd clarify is how this system works in multiplayer. I assume two people can't switch to the same civ, so if Age transitions are all synced up, how will the game decide who gets priority?
Anyway, my personal opinions are still the same: I'm absolutely on board with Ages, I think it's a cool way to remix the formula. However, I am still *very* skeptical of civ switching.
Sure, the dilemma of early game vs late game civs is resolved, they aren't competing with each other now. But now, all early, mid, and lategame civs are competing with each other more directly like never before. With how nuts civ balancing has been in the past, and with more civs on launch than any previous civ game, I severely doubt this game's civs will be balanced at all on launch.
More importantly, I still think this feels antithetical to Civ's theming and feeling as a game. Sure, I suppose Napoleon being the immortal 4000 year ruler of ancient Egypt, Songhai, and then France is an interesting "what if" scenario, but I'd still prefer ancient Paris building the Great Pyramids as a what if. More importantly, this means if you really like a particular civilisation, you're only getting to play them for 1/3rd of the game, unless they're one of the lucky ones like India or presumably China who get an alternate version for every Age.
I also think this bears the potential to be a step back for civ representation. Sure, Egypt in Civ has never done a great job at representing modern Egypt, but what's _even worse_ is potentially removing the ability to play Egypt at all in a modern setting. As many people have pointed out as well, the potential for indigenous civs to become their colonisers _(eg. the Shawnee becoming America)_ is *very* fucked up in its implications, and just the general idea that those civs "don't belong" in the modern era, even though I could meet a Māori or Shawnee person in the present day, feels really bizarre.
IMO this feature still needs to be partially optional. All I'm asking for is a universal bonus assigned to different civ types _(eg. 4 different ones depending on the victory type they're most associated with, and maybe different bonuses per era, so 12 different effects in total)_ for playing them outside their assigned era, and giving people that option. Playing a monociv game would likely still be much weaker and less interesting than civ switching, but I do seriously believe that option should exist.
Multiplayer might become an arena for competition for certain top tier civs, or an adaptable player could watch what their opponents are doing and aim for a transition that will counter it. If Egypt has a bunch of horses, don’t compete with them for Mongolia, veer toward someone with a good pikeman UU or wall UB
I don't agree that Civ 6 is not that much fun to play in the later game. I often play beyond the victory condition, I like the late game so much.
I detest that in Civ 7 all civs go through the same transformation process at the same time and that there are two such processes. It feels entirely arbitrary. Did the Germans transform when Rome fell? No. Did the Eastern Roman Empire fall when Rome fell? No. Did other nations fall when the Eastern Roman Empire fell? No. How many times did China fall (many) and how many times did it truly transform (not once). Why did only the French transform in the French Revolution? When WW1 ended and Russia, Austria and Germany transformed, why didn't France and the UK? Ditto for the Islamic theocracy, for the USA... There has never been a time when all nations went, "plop," and something new appeared.
If this was to be workable at all as a realistic proposition, there should be a continuity between old and new, each governing entity should be faced with the possibility of one or more transformations, transformations should be contingent not certain, . For example, the French Monarchy could transform into the French Republic but this should be avoidable (e.g. the key drivers here were the bankruptcy of the kingdom and its exposure to the US war of independence, both things that need not have happened). The fall of the Western Roman Empire and the duration of the Eastern Roman Empire for another full 1000 years shows how non-inevitable the fall of Rome was. It was a direct consequence of the admission of the Goths into the western part of the Eastern Empire, and their mal-treatment, coupled by the lack of coordination between the Eastern and Western halves of the Empire in controlling them once they rebelled, all contingent stuff.
perfectly said. sure let rome
change into a different rome, but rome change into lets say china because "what if" is bullshit
Exactly.
You’re in the vast minority for enjoying endgame civ 6, they have stats that show the amount of players that finish games is criminally low, so even if I finish most of my games it can still see why, it literally can just become “shift+enter” simulator even against deity ai cause you’re practically untouchable pasta a certain point
@@freddywright4239indeed. In his article, Ed Beach mentions that half of civ 6 owners never finished a single run.
There was never a time when Canada built the pyramids but you can do that in Civ 6. Would you like to complain about that too?
There's a reason in civ 6, i wouldn't let it go past medieval era. It's the most fun against the ai in my opinion and i enjoyed mods that prevented the era to go beyond that
I totally agree. I would always do that too.
That's my main hope for the ages system. The early game always felt like too much of a mad dash for technology. You never got to enjoy the gameplay well for the period. Hopefully with this checkpointed age system, there's less of a need for the rush early game and you can change up your play style a bit more.
Yeah late game can be a slog that's true, but Civ switching with ages is the wrong way to go in my opinion. It wasn't a fun way to play the game in Humankind and I can already see that happening in Civ 7. Civilization for me was always about this fantasy story about what if a civilization never felt and became the greatest civilization in the world, that's all lost in Civ 7. I don't care if they do the historical switch, if I choose a civilization I want to play with it to the end, and let's not mention the leaders staying the same even if the Civs switch, just imagining Augustus leading modern day America just sounds disgusting. It's truly a shame because all the other gameplay features they revealed all sounded amazing, like navegable rivers and I even like the art style of the game, but the Civ switch it's just a huge dealbreaker, it completely killed my hype.
The forced change of civilisation is dubiously justified. The fact that you keep a leader is only for game-mechanical reasons, because otherwise the game would have been split into 3 separate games for final good. They don't even bother to explain why you can't play USA in ancient times, but you can have an American president as your leader (if it becomes a president).
I don't understand what was wrong with the civ switching mechanic is Humankind. The only problem there was that it happened too quickly and I didn't feel like I got to play around with everything that civ could do. Civ 7 having only 3 eras means you're going to be playing each civ for longer. Plus, if i'm playing Greece and I spawn in flat arid terrain surrounded by horses and sheep, I'm 100% going to pick Mongolia the next age because that's the environmental pressure i'm under. That's how cultures in the real world advance. Modern Greece and Eygpt are not the same cultures they were in antiquity, so I don't get what you're on about.
@@L3FT2BURN I mean, it goes against the whole ''does your empire stand the test of time'' which has been part of civ for ages now. And for me personally, i would rather create an empire for Sweden or Austria throughout the ages instead of going from Romans-Norse-Sweden or anything like that. Being able to make an empire for a country was the only reason i even played civ.
I didn't like districts, still dislike how they did it in civ 6 but I think civ 7 does it better than 6 did it already. So everything about 7 just excites me.
So I've got a few casual civ friends where we can end up with a game of 5 of us vs 7 AI or so.
My concern with the ages system is whether its now '5 players online' total due to the lack of antiquity age civs. Which would mean this is a potential no buy unless this age system is optional. I also usually play as america, a friend as japan, another as england etc so straight away we cant just play as those civs.... unless, as said, they add a 'classic' mode where the game can potentially play like the older one in terms of its setup to match our needs.
I can see why they added ages, it's not so much an issue in itself but what I'm getting at is the potential lack of options or game setup so that we can have the games my friends and I would like.
I think it's "Five players online" because there's less civs in the game-world in the early age, and then they add more AI civs when you go to later eras and they expand the map. So while your friends might have to find new starting civs they like, you should be able to get all of them in a game, plus AI if I'm understanding the Firaxis people properly.
@@MunchKING Hopefully so, we might be worrying over nothing as the game isn't out yet and they have some more livestreams to showcase stuff. Thanks for the reply!
Getting rid of Denuvo will do wonders for player count.
The people complaining about features won't play, regardless. They should be addressing the people who actually want to play the game.
There’s no way to have cross platform multiplayer unless you have anti-cheat in there.
@@TheSjuris Then, make it an optional install for people that want to play random multiplayer. If you are playing alone or with friends, I don't see a need for it. For those of us that like to play it alone or with friends don't care about anti-cheat
@@shivanthasamaraweera8759 single player is offline and modable which implies denuvo is only active on multiplayer. You can’t have mods on a cross platform multiplayer game. That would give a huge advantage for anyone on the pc side assuming that the game would even load properly. That’s the reason for having an anti-cheat mode. The backlash against Firaxis allowing that would be immense.
@@TheSjuris It should be optional, it's a kernal level program that is always running and it hurts game performance, honest buyers should not be forced to install it if they do not need to.
@@tuna5618 the other option is to not have any cross platform multiplayer. You can’t have cross platform multiplayer and allow one platform users to have an unfair advantage over everyone else. They could also decide that nobody can mod files. It’s an either/or option. Either no modding at all and then multiplayer would work or prevent mods being used. Which is it going to be? Denuvo wouldn’t allow offline or muds to be used in any case and this game supports both.
I find Ages to be a good idea as long as it is cleverly implemented. Egypt morphing into the Abassid is right but if we have the choice to become Japan, that would be a little bit weird for me
THIS. Exactly how I feel here tbh.
This also kills Multiplayer bc others will take Abassid forcing you to become Japan as example so
They said the ai will always pick the historically accurate civs for their leader and if you unlock the requirements to go from Egypt to Japan for example, you don’t have to do that and can choose the historical path yourself. For multiplayer I bet there will be an option to only allow historical civ transitions as well.
From what we have seen, jumping from Egypt to Japan may be difficult. It looks like civs have their native decedents available by default, but to get to a far off civ, you have to accomplish some specific requirements that make you more like that civ. I think a lot of us were burned by HK and that cultures system but off the top of my head this looks better in 2 ways. 1st, pacing. HK had you transitioning WAY too fast, you barely got to feel some of the cultures you played as. This has 2 transitions, so your choice actually matters. 2nd, locked transitions. In HK you could go from egypt to classical china to the aztec culture to venice to germany to modern japan all in one game. Civ has fewer choices and many are locked. I personally think they should have an aggressive approach to locked civs where you have hard locked civs and soft locked civs making some impossible to reach based on your choices. From a gameplay perspective i think youll have a set available by default and a set requiring unlocking. Maybe we will even get sandbox options to force historical transitions. But as another commenter said, it looks like you wont seeing the AI doing this so if you dont want to see that transition in your game, you wont unless you do it.
Not at all. In an ideal world, there would be no historic path, there would just be such a wide selection that no matter what your empire ended up like, there would be plentiful option for your empire to go. Rome build along the coast and have some early island colonization? They go Norman because they have a strong martial and naval tradition. They expand across the plains and steppes and have plentiful horses, makes sense they'd become the Mongols, or Magyars.
Civilizations evolved the way they did, due to the material reality (and a few specific decisions made by someone in a position of power) of the location they lived. You shouldn't be able to become a powerful naval power like Britain if you're land locked, just because it's "historical."
The problem is not the ages but the civ switching. Gaslighting their user base, classy.
Agree 100%. They won't get my $65.00. I will continue on with civ V.
I mean, as someone playing since 3, I think it’s a good change. Like stated in the video, late civs usually suck. By the time your late game civ has a unique unit, it’s too little too later. You’re now getting 3x the unique units to use, 3x the unique buildings and 3x the unique abilities. And there will probably be an option to disable this feature since it’s Civ and the game setup options are usually pretty in depth.
@@Wabbaaajack there isn't, they have already made it clear that you for example cannot start with Germany so if any civs can be "locked in" it would be one of the 6 in the 1st age.
They addressed the civ switching in the posts referenced in the video. It’s to allow for a change of strategy and varied gameplay depending on starting position. Ai leaders will follow the historical paths of their civs.
@@captain_chaos7892 except that the "historical paths" are complete bs anyway.
I've played Civ1 (on an Amiga 500, if my old brain remembers correctly), Civ 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.... Alpha Centauri and even Beyond Earth.
They are all basically the same game, when you get right down to it. A few differences here and there, but pretty much the same ol' same ol'.
I cannot wait for CIv 7. It looks like they are FINALLY doing something different that "just another Civ." game.
they just copied Humankind... i know because i played it and civ7 looks the same now
I also played Civ I on an Amiga, so I wouldn't be surprised if you did too.
play humankind
Will they ever go into future age, just like Call to power 1 and 2. That game was badly implemented on technical level but with some fantastic ideas
@@perfectmazda3538its not the same, humankind was executed poorly with no realism at all, Civ used their idea and expounded on it
The more i hear about the ages the better I more I like it, though Im yet to be sold on crises. Hopefully theres a lot of them as I think on repeat plays these could feel repetitive and arbitrary. A very different game of course, but the limited number of endgame crises in Stellaris really throttled my interest in finishing games of that.
I like almost everything they are introducing tbh. I’m a little concerned the game may be simplified too much by things like workers not existing, fishing boats not being in it etc.
But the ages thing sounds great to me and as we know usually the base game of Civ is bare and it’s the expansion packs that really add the depth to make Civ 5 or 6 the games they are. What expansions do in the future will be really interesting if this is just how they are starting things
they took all these new changes from humankind. it's a blatant ripoff. and if you want to know how good those changes are, play humankind. you'll see why a number of these choices were bad choices.
@@arizona_anime_fan taking a concept or idea from elsewhere and having your own take on it is what artists do. It’s the building blocks of all things. So I don’t mind them taking the concept that Humankind started if it’s done well and I think it will be done better with just 3 stages rather than Humankind’s like, 7.
Humankind’s issue wasn’t the idea, it was the execution of that idea. At least, that is what Civ 7 is trying to prove.
What makes you think fishing boats aren’t a thing? I saw them place fishing boats in rivers and on top of a fish resource in one of the previews with the city builder. You can still build improvements just through the city menu instead of a dedicated builder.
@@arizona_anime_fan Do you still call them Doom clones?
I think the lack of builders and similar concerns will feel less valid when actually playing and having the new decision to make.
CIV 5 Late game is NOT boring with Ideologies and UN.
It's very much still boring
I found ideologies pretty annoying tbh. They were super flavourful, but gameplay-wise I found they just stopped me doing the things I wanted to do.
Um didn't you already done by the time you made it to late game in Civ5? You either got there so far ahead of the opponent that you were just on rails screaming towards your victory condition, or you got there so late that you can't really do anything to stop the opponents victory condition.
@@Lowlightt Depends what difficulty level you play, I play the toughest, where AI cheats like a card shark.
No districts or tile wonders. Civ6 is easily my favorite civ as. Tall only player.
Firaxis needs to respond to the Denuvo concerns. The complete silence on the issue is frustrating and disrespectful to customers.
They don’t need to respond about Denuvo concerns because every AAA developer uses Denuvo. It’s there, it’s not going away.
@@dean._.0.0 Developers have removed Denuvo in the past due to consumer backlash; the more people make their voices heard the sooner we can actually pay real money for this game, and not just download the performance edition from pi-rite bay.
@@dean._.0.0 lmao exactly this. They will have denuvo and probably everyone one commenting on this video will still shove 60 bucks into their monitor.
I really hate the graphics on undiscovered tiles. It looks like a tabletop game board instead of an actual world being covered in fog. I just don't feel like immersion is going to be much of a focus this time.
You can buy several small dlc that make the undiscovered tiles to look different!
😅
There will probably be a cornucopia of graphics mods a little bit after release. I find the colors to be a bit flat, so I’d love something to give icons and objects some more pop.
Agree.
Stupid to get rid of fog/clouds.
I’m glad I’m not the only one. I overall like the graphics with undiscovered tiles being the main exception. I even don’t mind Civ 6 blank map, but overall I prefer the fog on titles.
It does look awful. Clearly it's been done to sell Fog of War cosmetic micro-transactions. Absolutely ridiculous. Especially considering the ancient map being revealed in Civ 6 being absolutely perfect. What a downgrade.
I am not a fan of changing civs. The whole idea of civilization is that YOU are the leader of your chosen civ from start to finish. Now, I dont even have a civ from start to finish. I have 3 different civs, playing in 3 different (although related) settings. It does not make sense, or, feel immersive to me, that, for example, my ancient romans turn into the chinese then the americans (or whatever).
I don't like how they approached the ages, civ swapping, leader swapping, none of that is required to help the late game or any other things and ages is just fundamentally flawed as it was in other games, you disrupt and change the flow that you won't get people finishing the game more which was their stated purpose. They hand wave of "oh it's historical Rome..." Is just not true
If the age transition is as much of a reset button as it sounds that may well become a problem; if there's one thing guaranteed to put players off a game it's the feeling of having their progress wiped.
@@markwatson8714 true and while that is a major problem for me I get bad vibes as a historian the way they talk about history and it justifying game mechanics rather than is it fun and also I find it a bit insensitive to have an American leader ruling china for example that will hurt sales in some countries
I was really skeptical when they anounced ages, but after the last livestream I'm fully behind the idea. I had a lot of critisism for civ 6 and the way the dev explained the idea, ages solves (or at least tries to solve) them.
This Humankind type of game is not Civilization that existed up to No. 6. This is something new. Sorry JumboPixel, you still didn't manage to sell me civ 7.
Clearest example of someone who never played the original Civ games. I assume you played 5 and 6, those are very different games than existed previously. Should civ have never changed to a hexagonal map? Just to stay the same type of game as the first one?
ok but the changes from 4 to 5 were massive too and we all survived just fine
@@wooobenny if you view your willingness to purchase a product as surviving, then you should reassess that.
@wooobenny nah, the revisionist history is wild. People wouldn't shut up about how Civ V ruined the series. They did, and will continue to do until the series stops releasing, and considering how long Civ has existed, it's probably going to outlast me. It already has.
I have not been let down by a Civilization game so far. I know some people didn't love 6 but I did.
a vocal minority. CIV 6 is far and away the most played CIV and it's certainly better than 5.
I have. Remember Beyond Earth? I certainly do.
@@Skeloperch that to me is at the same time a good point (never liked the first one or the remake) and a poor one - I really don't consider that a true Civ game.
Civ 6 reversed the trend of every next version being better than the one before. Graphics is horrendous, and whoever approved that change probably approved many other changes to worse. Meanwhile Civ 5 got a lot better with Vox Populi mod.
Other than the one-dimensional aspect of all civs having to mindlessly build wide it was a great game.
From Egypt to Mongolia to Buganda - no thanks, this is not my CIV....this fantasy CIV development is destroying the whole atmosphere.
They should try to go back the simple Civ 5 formula and try to balance things instead of adding convoluted gimmicks that demotivate players.
Or you can go play civ 5? It still exists
@@coteaux Which is exactly what I'm doing my dude. Civ 6 vanilla was okay but the expansion really spoilled it for me.
Now I'm looking at what they're planning to do with Civ 7 and I feel like Firaxis going more and more in the wrong direction.
@@samguy9934 I wholeheartedly disagree personally, and that's okay. But the games you love aren't going anywhere and seeing them trying to refresh the franchise with this iteration is (in my opinion) better than releasing more of the same.
I like that they're adding a lot more controllables to the game, and while it is a shame players who don't like the new mechanics can't enjoy things like the city state and army changes, i think it's a nice step forward.
CIV 5 is great for beginners I agree.
@@coteaux I tried. Believe me I tried. End games on Civilization 6 are just miserable and the new ''fresh'' world congress system is borderline broken.
Now they're trying to implement mechanics from humankind that everyone agree was the one of the worst part of the game!
People who have played thousands upon thousands of hours on both Civ 5 and Civ 6 can see that Civ 7 is a sinking ship. Its going nowhere. They tried so much to create a ''new'' and ''refreshing'' experience that they forgot to make an enjoyable experience!
When I select Egypt to play as I want to (for role-playing and narrative reasons) want to play the entire game as Egypt. Part of the fun of Civilization is the alternative history/Earth element. Taking away the option to play the what-if scenario of an ancient civilization making into the modern era is hurt by changing it into a completely different civilization. This is not to say giving the players an option to make dramatic changes to their civilizations through the ages system is bad, in fact, it could be very good. But there needs to be a path to remain as the chosen Civilization. Also, what about playing as a modern civilization starting in ancient times? Is there an option for that? It does not seem that way from what has been said.
Another thing, if this is about balancing the game throughout the different time periods, then why not come up with "what-if" units and buildings based off of the culture of each civilization for each era? Is it any more dramatic of a change than Egypt becoming Mongolia? I feel like it would not be. In fact, I think it would be more interesting. Lean into the alternative history aspect that civilization has always had.
In the end, changing civilizations throughout the game feels, to me, to be more about competitive multiplayer.
Micromanagement was their own problem anyway. Just compare Civ 5 and Civ 6, the amount of micromanagement they added is staggering.
- Builders are fun in the early game but by the late game I wish I had Civ 5 workers. Military Engineers building railways in Civ 6 is the most painful thing ever. Repairing pillaged areas after massive wars and disasters is also so frustrating.
- The fact you can't queue district buildings is frustrating. You should be able to place a district and queue up all the buildings for that district you've unlocked.
- Boosts were cool, but it also adds micromanagement because you don't want to waste science/culture so you're constantly flicking between techs and civics.
Civ 6 was great, don't get me wrong, but there's a ton of micromanagement things they could have fixed.
If i wanted to play humankind, I could play humankind
My only worry is that they'll have removed the plant forests feature with the removal of workers. Planting forests late game is pretty fun. Late game is more fun when you're not trying to win but just build a country. A lot of the time I'll just play on King and try to get along with my neighbours and plant forests and scrub CO2. Kind of like similisation for me. Takes all types.
Anyhow, VII looks to me like it'll be fun. Looks great. I'll adapt to the mechanics. Get busy civing or get busy dying. Amirite?
The most important point to me of this civilization changing feature is that we will lose a long list of old civilisations.
Most of the classical civilisations of the Civ game are Antiquity civilisations. Romans, Egyptians, Greeks, Babylonians, Assyrians, Chinese, Celts, Phoenicians, etc...
Basically, if you want to be historically accurate, most of the starting civ will be European ones (I would say all exception made of Chineese and Maias.
That will create some very weird pathways: either most continents will lack of civilisation representation, because they florished later (Asia, Africa, North America), or they will be very straightforward (Maias to Incas / Aztecs) but strange in the same time ; or Firaxis will promote very weird transition : Maias to Inca to Brazil ? Egypt to Songhai to Buganda ?
I guess to equilibrate this mess, we will have some totally unknown civilisation which will be promoted in the game (like Buganda) and other important classic civilisations which will simply not exist. And here comes the Wonders issue: how will we be able to build most Antiquity wonders if the civilisations who built them are not even in the game ? Where is the logic here ?
Sorry, I can't be positive about this change. It's too weird for me.
I've studied African history in my spare time, and I understand WHY Buganda is getting representation (And it's cool that people are going to get to learn about it), but I still don't really understand how it maps onto this current age system.
I feel so much more confident after the last dev livestream. Can't wait!!
overall my main gripe is those damn *grey* menus! Grey/white font on a grey background is sooooo ugly and i hope they bring color to all the menus. Going further beyond like adding more art and images to look at in order to quickly identify something would also help to tell what things are at a glance
At least they didn't lock ages behind DLC's, (if you own the base game you can only play antiquity)
Just wait for it.
But why would they do that? It's just part of the game
@@archerlittle4018 because he has to try make them look better than they are, 'oh atleast they didnt do the stupidest and worst idea they could of' instead just a regular bad idea
@@archerlittle4018 for money, lots of companies lock stuff behind pay walls.
@@TheMerchantGuild he's... trying to make them look better?
What also was the case regarding not finisheing the game is, that when you see that you will lose the game you dont finish it....
I like playing an alternate history of civilizations, and I like min maxing so I snowball the other players and become super advanced. So these new features kinda suck in my opinion
Agreed. Game seems to keeps players equal and I don't like that at all. No overall strategy around say Ship of the Line.
The most enjoyable part of the game was exploring, identifying strategies and choosing a win condition. Given that games can take so long, I totally understand why they are spicing things up with these changes. Will wait and see before I buy.
My biggest concern is Denuvo, honestly. I'm on the fence but can be convinced about the gameplay stuff, but it's not worth malware.
I am really worried about this civilization-change because I think usually I tried to play a people and not as a leader (which so far I never even saw...they were me, right? I usually even changed the name to mine). But with this leader which we can develop now and which stays a constant... I try to see it from the perspective "I play Hatshepsut" a bit more and maybe then changing nations will bother me less.
I think that there is a clear divide on the ages part and I feel that those who played Humankind and are familiar are more against it. The main problem for me is that it will feel like I play against bots and not leaders representing their empire and culture because of the switch mechanics. Also a lot of Civs from second and third age will lose their identity because they will keep the city names from the first civ...
I think it is interesting as the historic names of cities and different settlements have shifted throughout history depending on cultural influences over time. For example, modern day Istanbul was once called Byzantium by ancient Greeks. Later it was known as Constantinople for many centuries, and after the formation of the modern Turkish state, it is now known as Istanbul. Other examples are London (Londinium) and Paris (Parisii) both having etymological roots in ancient Latin.
I 100% agree with the Humankind comparison; I never could get into that game, and it's like they took the majority of what I didn't like about it and put it in Civ 7. I don't mind the ages so much, but being forced to switch civilizations irks me. It should be an option- if you switch, you gain these new abilities / units / etc. If you don't, then you'll stay with what you currently have (excepting progress through the tech tree). That, too, would prevent a lot of the snowballing effect I think.
@@MongolMedicAgree 100%. If I am forced to give up my civ when an age ends, rather than optional, then it's a hard pass for me.
Those of you asking for the option to literally stay the same civ in the next age, answer this. What is exploration era Sumerians like? What do they play like, what’s their unique unit, building, what is important for them culturally during that time? How did they interact with the growing sphere of influence as trade, exploration, and colonization became prevalent?
You don’t know? Sumerians didn’t exist when that era was happening and so it literally never participated in anything like that?
Hmmm. What could be a possible solution? Maybe play as a related/successor state that did exist in that era who can be represented correctly by the game? Maybe give it a name like Abbasid empire so players might recognize it better. Ya, that sounds fun.
@@sphaera2520 That argument has little weight, I will show you how it falls on its own, if historical accuracy is really important, Augustus could not govern Mongolia or Egypt could not be transformed into Mongolia, that excuse of historical accuracy is only sustained in games that are precisely based on history, but not here.
I still think the biggest issue is the price. As is outside the US this game is prohibitively expensive, and given how DLC heavy civ games are it's just not worth it at that price.
9:51 -- there's no shadow inside the mouth. A game releasing in 2024 with a huge focus on the appearance of the main character, and there was no ffuucckkiinngg employee at the whole Firaxis to say hold on, should we have shadows inside the mouths so that their tongue don't look like a police siren when they speak?
This is a thing to look at for sure and it's something they maybe should alrdy have put in there but I'm sure it's the sort of thing that'll be handled in quality testing and polishing the game. This isn't anywhere near a release patch
@@lordcommandersnow1611 The game has been in dev for many many years and is close to release past all the QA and polishing of assets, these kind of things are locked in already for years now. This won't get fixed during the lifetime of the game as the corporate machine that owns Firaxis now will not deem the dollar profit of the programmers fixing that error worthy just like the same corporate machine didn't deem it worthy to fix the ffuucckkiinngg GTA 3 remastered trash thing.
Who do you think the main character of a civ game is?
I'm dubious about their thesis that late game Civ is not fun to play. The famous mantra of Civ has always been 'one more turn'-usually at the end, when turns take quite a while. I find late game civ fun, as you enact your final victory; the problem is that you are bogged down with the minutiae of deciding which conquered city will build a library this turn. City automation is an unsatisfactory alternative. I think the problem late game civ experiences is that the scope of your ownership has increased so much, while the zoom level of your control has remained the same. Keeping the same instrument of control makes the start exciting but limited, and the end game, yes, a bit of a monotonous chore. I think this needs to be solved first.
Oh oh, they made a change. Cant do that.
they made dumb changes...nope, shouldn't do that. they could have made a new casual/mobile game and not call it Civ7...but hey, need to milk the only good franchise left.
remember that cool mobilized space game they made a few years back that was a total success? yea...me neither.
@@TNM001 Everything I don't like is a mobile game.
Stop Defending Lazy game Development. They are stealing a Garbage mechanic from another game.
@@cass7448 i only have 1 braincell and can't even troll well...lol...oh boy...i pity you. good luck in life.
Absolutely love the dev diary coverage videos - keep them coming please! ^_^
Ages don't bother me. The fact they've removed all snowballing aspects from civ 6 is appalling though. That's where the replayability and mastery comes from. Snowballing is what makes civ fun
Yes and no. It’s fun to steam roll the AI sometimes. But it gets old. It gets to the point where it isn’t a challenge. By the time you’re unlocking gunpowder, you’ve usually outpaced the AI to victory and it becomes a slog, and as turns take long and longer to finish it gets old. It also sucks to play multiplayer and lose because you had a shitty spawn location and the other players got to snowball because of RNG. I absolutely understand why they went this direction
Thank you for clarifications. Now I know that Civ VII is not evolution what I needed. It is some variation of HK. This is not my game!
I can see that many in the community are nervous about this porting to consoles / switch… it explains some poor UI and leader screens. Probably would have been better to create a separate console adaptation or ‘Revolution 3’ entry and a true PC-focused title from the off with top-end production quality based on available hardware performance into the mid-2020s which is substantial
But the whole point of putting it on consoles is so that everyone is playing the same game
@@archerlittle4018that doesn't make it right, PC is now at the mercy of switch and PS4 which limits the game quite a lot
@@Commander_Ray tbh the gameplay they showed for the switch announcement didn't look to bad, and it just wouldn't make sense for them to make a whole new game just so they can make the PC version look a bit better
@@archerlittle4018 So apparently PC players are the one to suffer because of consoles? Not the other way around? You know what, now I'm actually celebrating Mortal Kombat 1 on Switch. It was an epitome of poetic justice.
Honestly, I hate the idea of changing civs with each age. I really didn’t like that feature in Humankind, but at least in Humankind you had the option to keep the same civ.
I’ll have to wait for launch to see if it’s worth buying, but unless the gameplay is good enough to make up for it, I’m probably just going to stick to Civ 5 and 6
Clearly the Civ team has been listening to players and also looking at the competition. They've taken some of the best mechanics from Humankind and made them a bit more Civ coherent. I frequently play Civ6 deep into the late game but rarely bother to finish once its clear I'm going to win, but my favorite part is always the exploration of the map. Once the map is close to revealed I start to lose interest. I'm glad to see that Ed Beach and the team have given me a way to play a stand alone campaign with all my favorite elements.
I don't mind ages. I quasi-like the idea. I just absolutely hate civ swapping.
I had been hyped for Humankind but after I played it I was more than disappointed with that game. The design of Civ 7 seems repeat some of Humankind's flaws: abrupt cultural shifts that are not to everone's taste, even fiddlier district placement micro-managment than before, era scores/benefits that don't look particularly transparent, convoluted game mechanics with multiple layers that don't necessarily work well with each other. The new way how great generals function on the map looks interesting but also a bit confusing. I would have preferred if the developpers had chosen to go more into the direction of Civ 4 where story events or player's choices are the spice but not the actual recipe of the game. I believe Civ 7 will be a game for experts that can enjoy such kind of stuff but less fitted for the casual gamer. But the new graphics looks very nice, I'll give them that.
THIS!
Civilization has never been for the casual gamer. Games take hours and hours to complete and there are always complex systems at play that need to be learned. That’s the reason he said less than half of civ 6 players have ever finished a single campaign. If you can figure out the systems in civ 6 you will be able to figure this game out pretty quickly. I have faith this game will be amazing and can’t wait to play it. I hope Firaxis stays true to their vision and doesn’t listen to all the haters who haven’t even tried the game yet.
@@GyroZeppel Afaik it is commonly accepted that Civ6 as a Civ incarnation has been aimed more at casual players (being the foremost reason why its AI is so notoriously bad). But for high-level play especially in multiplayer your statement is definitely valid.
I was indeed disappointed by the gameplay information and footage being released so far. Those have evoked just too many Humankind negative flashbacks. But if you are able enjoy that kind of a Civ game, all I can say is: good for you.
@@rincemind8369 lol at civ 6 is aimed at casual gamers
I just feel that because they only went with 3 ages, there is going to be a jarring progress during the mid and late game while the early game will be too static. The antiquity age is pretty much early civilization to the fall of Rome, so an entire third of the game where technology is pretty static. The exploration age seems to be the dark ages to about the Napoleonic era, but that seems like a too dynamic period of history to be squashed into one age. 500 AD and 1815 are worlds apart. Then this gets even worse in the final era, which seems to be the beginning of the industrial revolution to the modern day. The world in 1830 vs 2024 is also very different. I just feel like they needed to add a Medieval era between Antiquity and Exploration, and an Industrial era between Exploration and Modern. I mean, I guess I'll see how it plays but I really hope they are planning a DLC that add extra eras. With regards to the mid to late game being "boring" I think that they are assuming that everyone plays 6 and 5 the same way. I never play a full game, I always choose the starting and ending era at setup and tend to play a game in a particular era. Medieval and Napoleonic sort of eras tend to be my favorite eras to lock the game into. Another issue with their limited ages of just 3, is the fact that certain nations won't be playable if they weren't around in early antiquity, the dark ages, or the start of the modern era. What about nations that arose during the middle or end of those broad time periods? The USA for example was formed what would be the Exploration era in the game but wouldn't be playable until the modern era. It seems just too limiting to me.
Good to see another CIV shilling hard here! This video succeeded in sucking what little excitement I had for this game. Devs fucked up with all design decisions and now they're rushing make excuses because it's too late to do anything else. This will not be pretty. Makes me excited for CIV 8, after this shit show the game will have a completely new team, and you can guarantee the marketing will talk about "Correcting the mistakes of the past 2 games and get back to what our players actually want."
I think the civs changing is fine as long as they are historical kinda??? Like how you showed Napoleon and Augustus both having Rome go to Norman’s go to French empire. That is just a lot more strategy then having one civ . But the whole India becoming Mongolia is kinda weird and stupid.
Having your identity (your civ) changed to this degree… It feels like losing. If I want to play another civ, I restart. Not finishing the game is a valid way to play. Playing the CIV series of games has always been about the process, not the destination. This looks like they have fundamentally misunderstood both why and how people play civ.
exactly
Why and how *YOU* play Civ. Other people can play for the destination more than the process.
@@MunchKING Thank you, master obvious. Now, can you make the leap to the conclusion?
@@kristianpettersen3962 That just because you don't like it doesn't mean that millions of people will also not like it??
@@MunchKING I think you may enjoy your argument with the person inside your head more without me interfering. Fare well.
I wish they would just give you the option to play 'Classic' mode, where you don't HAVE to switch civs... Or maybe another idea is you could morph into "Medieval Egypt" once you get to the "Exploration Age", and then "Modern Egypt" as the last age. Just an idea
As a modder of Civ 6.... I'm gonna share what a modder friend of mine told me, so take it as his words, but said in my way:
He said that the civs with the most game-changing bonuses are usually the ones whose bonuses usually show up in the early game, so this is civs like Sumeria, Egypt, Babylon, etc, mainly I presume thanks to having the advantage of being first..... and he says that mid-game civ bonuses have to be really strong for them to be relevant. I asked him about late-game bonuses, which he told me that they were flat out useless. (Anyone who's a longtime player of civ, pls feel free to confirm/debunk this.)
Addressing his concerns, I think the way Civ 7 is making their game here, it has the potential to solve this existing dilemma... though I continue to remain cautiously optimistic about it. No opinion-jumping from me for now, we will get our final answer when this game is officially released. (Tho I can't deny being super excited for it tbh, the navigable rivers & army commands function has me hyped! :>)
He is right (tough the examples used are not quite on point) because of how snowbally a weak early game bonus is worth just as much a strong late game bonus.
I highly disagree with the first paragraph, I can only speak for Online speed Multiplayer that ive played since 2016 thousands of hrs, for me and many others it the total opposite and early bonus civs have the major disadvantage for the majority of the game past the mid-game era and often fail to keep up with mid-late game civs like Germany, USA or England, who have much more favorable economic bonuses
A Good player will need early era bonuses/units to be successful in a early-mid game war
A Pro player will not need these and alone use economical supremacy to overwhelm the enemy
I see great opportunities for modders in civ7!
Modders can make to those civs that actually did live through the history, alternate versions to different eras! (For those who want to stay playing the same civ) and in my own eyes more different options in each era that are as historical as possible.
Rome, Venetsia, Italy option! And many many more similar, where the civ transition is as smooth as possible!
Modders can do ”wonders” with civ7!
@@FriedrichBarb This is because Civ VI multiplayer is balanced in a strange way due to how the tech tree development works (you're incentivized to NOT advance the tech tree as quickly as possible but instead slingshot with +build charge setups due to how worker costs work). This doesn't apply to online team games (where you do indeed need early war bonuses to fight) or offline play (where you are fighting against enemies with number superiority). It also doesn't apply to all of the other Civs, and it will likely not apply to Civ VII due to there not being workers at all.
nothing about denuvo, nothing about the prices, nothing about the immense advantages u get for preordering.
no gameplay of any game could make me purchase this games with so much BS layered above it.
usually i just get those games when they are cheaper after 2 years in a steam sale, this one i either dont bother or actually pirate it, once people got through denuvo.
I still don't see why they needed to change all the civs at the turn of each age. Why not just allow the player to choose new civ buffs? This would have preserved a sense of continuity in the midst of evolution.
I also don't think that the changing civs concept accurately reflects the historical reality. The evolution of one civilisation into another happened over prolonged periods of time rather than suddenly, and it usually followed the collapse of the previous civilisation.
exactly, just give more bonuses that unlock through the ages. their civ changing could also have been better managed, and kept to more realistic outcome, but that would require having a lot more civs, and progressed versions of the same civ for a different age. ie Celts as a starting civ with multiple choices for leaders, then you can choose to progress to either the Kingdom of france or britain and then modern france or england depending on your first choice, i also think this would benifit from more eras than simply going from classical straight to exploration, but again that involves making even more content. egypt could be a bit tricky because it stopped being an independant country for long periods of time, but there are certainly better ways of doing it than having them turn into mongolia.
@@victorscheffers3890 I also think that Firaxes is kind of stepping into a minefield with this new mechanic. In some cases, the question of whether a particular civilisation is a true successor, or heir, of a previous civilisation can rouse passions even today. For example, I know for a fact that many Modern Greeks would not be happy to see Byzantium evolve into the Ottoman Empire. Firaxes has to be very careful in choosing which civilisation can evolve into which else they risk angering members of the player-base. Once again, it would have been so much simpler to just allow players to choose new buffs.
I think they're trying to simulate this collapse of the previous civilization through their crisis system, though I'm not entirely sure how well that will work. Then on the other hand, how would you want the civs to change in a way that wouldn't completely blow the complexity of the mechanic out of proportion? I mean the same could be said for any feature in the game, where in reality innovations happened over periods of time, and then also had to spread around the empire/get established, but in the game you klick on a technology and after a few turns your whole empire immediately has access to those. If you'd make the Civs even less defined and have them basically be just a name for your empire that permanently just changes it's modifiers, it would make people complain even more about the lack of identification and continuity. I think Millenia did something similar to what you're suggesting, where you could choose a Nation/Civilization, but also seperate from that your "Civ ability"/Civ modifier, which made the Names of the Civs be basically redundant, as they weren't a civ that had it's own identity through it's modifiers(and by extension of that, it's own playstyle) but just a Name for an AI that just behaved randomly, without having any uniqueness to it.
@@JuGsa I suppose one way to resolve that issue would be to give each civ some unique buffs to choose from in addition to some stock standard options.
@@rosskourtis9602 But that's almost the same as it is now, with civs unlocking their unique units/buildings/districts/mechanics with certain technologies. There's mods for Civ 6 that do exactly what you're describing here, giving each Civ more unique bonuses units/buildings or districts, and while they still make every Civ more interesting in certain/more eras, you run into the same problem again, where you can't give Babylon any unique bonus beyond the Antiquity age, and the same with America not really having any sensible bonuses for the Antiquity for expample. And I don't really understand the argument with the true successors. I mean you can just look at the history to decide if a certain culture/civilization replaced another in a certain area. Doesn't matter if they are legitimate successors to the empire that was there before them or not, that doesn't change the history of what actually happened. I mean the HRE was also not really a legitimate successor to the Roman Empire but it would still make sense as a Civ to choose as Rome, considering the geograhical position and the identification of the HRE itself as a successor to the Roman Empire.
I still can't get behind the Civ swapping mechanic. I pick a civilization in these games because I want to commit to playing that Civ and because I enjoy the personality expressed through the leader. It's a shame that they seem to be set in keeping this mechanic and I may just stick with 5 and 6
There is only one question: Why does Firaxis not listen to it's user base?
Because they complain a lot before every new Civ game?
If they listened to the user base, we'd still have squares instead of hexes.
depends who they listen to. Not a good idea to listen to vocal minorities either.
I found myself restarting civ games every time I fired it up. If you reload an old save and try to continue after a week or so, it's just an unwieldy mess and you have no idea what was even going on with each city and unit. So I just restarted every time and played for as long as I had time and energy. Eventually, I just started playing on very tiny maps with one other civ. That way, I had a chance of actually finishing a game in one sitting, and not having a hard drive full of old saves. Hopefully, the new system fixes these issues.
SAME. For me, the early game was always the most fun, because it had the least amount of microing. I’m not surprised about half of players finished a game, because the late game really turns into a slog-and don’t get me started on domination victories.
Honestly I like the civ switching if it means late game improves. I’m so tired of having to wait 2 minutes between turns because there’s so much crap the system is dealing with towards the late game. It needs serious improvement.
It's a good thing that it's not civ 6 2.0
The one thing that is seriously missing in the civilization series is the option to have a historical start on Earth, the Romans in Italy, the Mongols in Mongolia etc etc. It is quite obvious that there are different start locations when you cycle through at the beginning, but none of them are historical. Such a shame.
? True start map?
There's literally true start maps lmao
@@dwhizzel6471 And the problem with those in Civ 6 was all the people clustered in Southern Europe. :p
I want the micro management - if they wanted to fix that just allow more automation for those players that won't want to be bothered rather than remove it for those that do - and the whole 'ERA's fixes the late game' is utter Bollix thinking - why do i want to get ahead in the early age when i get essentially reset when switching to a new age. Also why have to switch to a new civilisation , wouldn't it be far better to pick up traits depending on how you played previously in the game and keep the general traits of the civ you started with i.e. you used chariots a lot - you get a trait allowing flanking and fast attacks, you always build libraries you get a bonus when building universities
Will ARA-Untold story coming out first effect Civ 7 sales as so far ARA looks a better game ?
Good question. I’m keen to check Ara out asap
Civ players' core audience is pretty die-hard, so I don't think so. I have so much faith in the franchise, and pretty much everything so far sounds incredibly exciting.
@@nealdoesart Not only players but streamers too. Players are theory-crafting etc in reddit civ for weeks already.
Some streamers that "hated" humankind (hate is may be too strong word) are doing 180 and pretending they didn't like the civ change in humankind only because of something something and now they are all onboard for civ7.
Anything to do with Brad Wardell will be overhyped rubbish.
@@BlabBlab4723 I dont have any issue with Humankind doing ages. It was new even if poorly implemented. I actually prefer Old Words approach though
There are plenty of multi-culture civs in existence today. I'm glad to see this coming to CIV VII.
Still hasn't convinced me this is a good idea. One of my primary complaints about Humankind was its tendency to snowball in late game - typically another civ would outperform everyone, and there would be no catching up. But Humankind had ages and it had civ swaps - that was its selling point, that was why it was supposed to be a "Civ killer". It didn't fix snowballing. It didn't make the late game interesting, because civs snowballed so fast I never got to late game units. So I still fail to see how this "new" Civ isn't just a Humankind retread.
In fine with ages, im not fine with changing civs. Id much rather they make every civ have its own version for each era.
I wanna just play poland but im fine with ancient poland mechanically. To me the point of civ is that you are making an empire so powerful it literally never dies because that's the real fantasy.
My only issue is that Civ adopted the worst feature from HUMANKIND, that is, diverting civs throughout the game
almost every change in civ7 came from humankind.
This approach appears to be better done than humankind and for civs like America I think it makes perfect sense. China no so much since they've always been around.
now i can't wait for CIV fanbois that hated Humankind go 180 and say "damn this feature in civ is really good"... while they literally hated humankind... even tho it was a good game.
The problem was Humankind didn't do it well, not that it was a bad idea.
@@portman8909 this is my issue, it makes sense with some civs, but not all. I flat out hate the whole concept of this
The civ switching is absolutely absurd, but hey if your thing enjoy it
The 50% of players have finished a campaign stat is kinda moot. It took me over 500 hours of Stellaris to see the game end screen. I've got a lot of hours in CivVI and I think I've finished the game in maybe 5% of my runs. It's a long game and sometimes you get so far ahead you need to start a new game on a higher difficulty
Here come the corporate fanboys bootlicking the removal of the game's foundation (they will join the hate when the game turns out to be bs and say they always hated it)
Every single Civ became a good complete game 1-2 years post launch. People losing their minds before release is hilarious delusion.
The problem with the ages is its not a slow transition, its, you finished turn 200, now you are someone different for the next 200 rounds
You make very good points for why not to play Civ VII if you're a Civ VI fan. Can't wait for ARA History Unfold to come out in 9 days time and have even more eras and even more micromanagement than VI (things that make that game fun for me) while not punishing you for playing well by making the AI catch up to you by having them progress at the same rate as the player and you can play with ONE civilization from beginning to the end
I mean, I'll happily try it. Maybe I missed something, but why exactly has the actual civ change after an age? The existing civs could just get changes and bonuses based on age objectives, no? I just find it pretty immersion breaking if all the civs suddenly change name