Civilization VII coming soon!

[Babale]

Oh, I haven’t played as much of it as I would like yet (because I have a young kid who gets me up in the middle of the night still, and I mentally can’t get into a fast paced realtime game when I only have a few moments for gaming here and there) but Age of Empires 4 did to the Age of Empires 2 formula exactly what I wish Civ had done instead.

AOE2 was very much like Civ IV or V. Every faction had the same roster, give or take a couple units, and some minor bonuses that adjusted how they do things. Civ IV civs were barely different from each other (a unique unit, a unique building, and the leader’s two traits, IIRC?) while Civ V had Venice, which was pretty dang different, but not much else. Civ VI experimented with slightly more differentiated Civ traits and leaders having more unique to them too.

What AOE 4 did and what I would have loved to see Civ VII do is go all in on differentiating Civs. Each Civ has unique resources, multiple unique units (in fact each Civ might have its own full roster?) and unique mechanics (Mongols can move their town centers, Chinese have a unique Tax Collector who goes around their buildings and boosts them, HRE gains bonuses for having farms around churches, etc).

I think Civ could do something similar without going quite as far. For example you could have “classes” of Civs - Nomads (Huns, Mongols, Scythians), Maritime (Venice, Polynesia, etc), and so on; these classes could unlock unique mechanics and unit trees; and then individual Civs could give their class a unique spin.

I also wish they went heavier on the alt history aspect. Instead of Romans having a Legion replacement for the Swordsman, I’d have loved it if Romans had boosted heavy infantry. Before Iron Working and Swordsmen, maybe their Ancient era unit is replaced with a Hastati, and then you get your Legion, and then with Steel/Longswordsmen you get a Praetorian or Heavy Legionnaire or whatever; and then with Gunpowder your Musketmen are unique too (“what would the Roman legion have done with guns if they had them?”), all the way to unique Roman modern infantry units.

Meanwhile maybe the Aztecs buff their light infantry so in the modern era we get mechanized infantry with slight bonuses and an Eagle Warrior motif.

[Cardigan]

@Quimby

I recently read Sid Mier’s auto biography and it has made me want to play one again.

Any interesting factoids about Sid you can share?

[Quimby]

@Cardigan

Any interesting factoids about Sid you can share?

My brain is sometimes like a sieve and nothing specific is coming to mind other than I really enjoyed reading it. I recall he had an interesting life and talked some about game design and the business side which was interesting. It’s worth a read if you like the series.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@RickJay

Having thought about it I’m honestly of the opinion that part of the problem is that they added too much. Civ I-II-III were much simpler games, and they were better. There were some additions later in the series I liked - borders are an absolutely central part of the game. City states aren’t a bad idea, though they occupy way too much territory. Those are cool things. But there’s just too many goddamned mechanics in the game. I find assigning diplomats insanely boring, religion is just terrible and dull.

What game are you playing? City states take too much room? You know you can fiddle with all that to make a game you want in Civ-V including map size and number of city states. Don’t like city states? Get rid of them.

I have played a lot and there are some fun twists you can play. Alexander has a bonus with city states. And there are other bonuses you can get which buff you with city-states. I ran a tiny empire (three cities) and got all the city-states (most of them anyway) on my side and won the game.

In another game religion saved me. I started in a bad spot and didn’t grow much with lots of opponents around me so I leaned in to religion and got a religion victory. Other games I have played I mostly ignored religion and that worked too.

That’s what’s great…culture or military or religious victory are all on the table and you can do whatever you want. If you think religion sucks then fine…don’t bother with it.

[Pleonast]

@Babale

If you think about a game like Civ, that represents something (in this case the development of human civilization), there are two design philosophies you can take.

First is the Arcadey approach, which a lot of focus on game mechanics and balance.

Second is the Simulationist approach, where your game mechanics are about creating realistic scenarios that resolve based on similar factors to real life.

Good description.

I think my problem with Civ is that I prefer the simulationist end of strategy games. When Civ gets too arcadey, I don’t have fun. But when it starts becoming more simulationist, I quickly decide to play an actual strategy sim from Paradox. (And Paradox covers the genre well.)

[Babale]

@Pleonast

But when it starts becoming more simulationist, I quickly decide to play an actual strategy sim from Paradox. (And Paradox covers the genre well.)

Yeah, precisely.

The drawback to Paradox games is that the world is so set. States are pre drawn on the map, and arranged into countries (or under counts and dukes and so on) the same way every time. Different start dates help but only so much.

What Civ has over Paradox titles is the freedom of an empty map that gets filled. Even on an Earth map, different Civs will put down different cities in different games each time. And the Earth map feels different if you populate it with a bunch of ancient era Civs vs if you populate it with Civs that were around in more modern times, etc.

Stellaris is the only game that isn’t like that. Maybe what I really need is a historical version of Stellaris.

[Miller]

@Babale

Now, my ideal placing on the scale for a Civ game is not the same as for a Paradox game (and not all Paradox games are equal; I love Stellaris, where everyone starts off with a planet and the same number of pops, unless they took a special Origin).

Nitpick, but unless you fiddle with the default campaign settings to turn it off, a certain number of civilizations in Stellaris have “advanced starts,” where they begin with a couple extra systems fully colonized, a few basic techs, and some bonus ships and minerals.

[Babale]

@Miller

Nitpick, but unless you fiddle with the default campaign settings to turn it off, a certain number of civilizations in Stellaris have “advanced starts,” where they begin with a couple extra systems fully colonized, a few basic techs, and some bonus ships and minerals

True, but an Advanced Empire in Stellaris has like 2 or 3 worlds and some extra techs and ships; the difference between that, or a Ringworld origin start, and the base Stellaris Civ is far smaller than the difference between the British or Qing Empire and Dahomey or Cuba in Victoria 3, or between Charlemagne and the Jewish Count Gideon of Abyssinia in CK2.

I did have the thought the other day that the British in Vic 3 are a little like a Fallen Empire, but the difference is that while they’re as far ahead as a Fallen Empire starts, they also aren’t fallen, and can be just as active as the player! Which is quite terrifying.

Likewise, a “historical Stellaris” could start everyone off as early farming communities, and give you the option to make a couple nearby Civs into Bronze Age kingdoms instead.

[RickJay]

@Whack-a-Mole

What game are you playing? City states take too much room? You know you can fiddle with all that to make a game you want in Civ-V including map size and number of city states. Don’t like city states? Get rid of them.

I like city states as an idea but the amount of map space each one occupies is too large. They should be limited to the space they occupy or, at most, one hex out.

[Lantern2]

There is no question that this is the most radical break from the Civ formula in the entire series and while at first I found it offputting, now I am more wait-and-watch to see if it actually delivers an interesting gameplay experience.

It’s good that they are trying out something radical. The fact is that there are Civ 4-6 are three perfectly good traditional Civ games which will still be around and each having different areas of strength. It was time for something new.

[Babale]

Towns sound interesting - like puppet cities from Civ V but better, I think.

They don’t count against your (soft, upgradeable with tech) city cap.

All their production is turned to gold, and you buy buildings instead of constructing them.

You can grow them out or - and this is the part I find most interesting - you can send their growth to one of your major cities, sending its pop higher and higher.

[Babale]

So is it bad that part of my excitement about the release of Civ VII is that it will free up Firaxis to start on their next game which I swear to God better be XCOM 3?

[nightshadea]

the thing I hate is it will take 3 or 4 expansions and 4 or 5 years for them to add remove or tweak this and that until they get the game they want … so do you wait or buy it at launch ?

[RickJay]

My bud and I have been playing a game of Civ VI this week, which has helped remind me how much I dislike Civ VI and pray Civ VII is different.

[nightshadea]

what killed me is you couldn’t just make auto-build units like the old settler/engineers I mean the traders building the roads might have been more historically correct but … and the district thing I didn’t care for either and I thought some of the wonders were lackluster also not to mention the building too far away penalty sucked

[pulykamell]

If I’m not a fan of micromanaging, would any of the Civ games be good for me? I suppose I or II? Every time I see someone play Civ, it just looks like too much for me. Or are there any other games of this type I might enjoy? Something deeper than Risk, but not as detail oriented as Civ seems to be to me. I tried one of them once, I think it was IV or V, and said this is just too much fiddly detail for me.

[silenus]

Try Civ III. That’s my default time-waster. Every iteration after that one is too anal for me. I want to build an empire and conquer the world without having to micromanage every little bit of it.

[RickJay]

They get more tedious as they go and VI is really bad, featuring a huge number of mechanics that aren’t really well connected to each other.

If you don’t mind older graphics Civ II is a perfect game, really, a pretty strong contender for the greatest game ever made for the PC. And it is easily modded if you want to add some units or whatever.

[Whack-a-Mole]

Honestly it has been a while since I have played a Civ game but IIRC, in Civ-V at least, you could automate a lot of stuff and have little need to micromanage. I mean, there is always some attention and work to be done each turn but no need to go to every city/unit and fiddle with something.

Also, some mechanics you can largely ignore. If you are not working on (say) religion you can mostly ignore it (barring a little attention to another Civ maybe trying to use it against you).

While there may be a lot of things you can do you do not need to attend to it all. There if you want it or ignore it.

But, it still takes thought and attention. If Doom is more your thing (run-and-gun with little thought to anything else) Civ may not be for you (personally I like both…each has their place).

[Jophiel]

I very much enjoyed Civ II and it’s probably still my favorite Civ game.

A brief Google suggested in a few places that the Age of Wonders series was a good Civ-esque game with less micromanagement. I have not played them so this isn’t from experience but they might be worth looking into.