Civilization 7 is in development

[Japper007]

Haven't done so myself (I couldn't bear the tedium) but I saw someone on Reddit mention it was possible to conquer both continents and finish the game in Explo (can't be earlier, you CAN cheat your way across the ocean but nothing there is interactable, or so I've heard). It requires some pretty deliberate avoidance of wincons though, like raising everything in Distant Lands to avoid triggering conquest and ending the age. And sandbagging you research/development so you don't "accidentally" complete science or culture goals. And not cashing in treasure fleets...

Sounds like hell to me lol, but might be a challenge/variant oppertunity

[luddite]

How come a company can afford $100 million to make a game, but can't spare anything for basic playtesting? It's ridiculous.

Because 90% of the Steam pubbie player base never notices and doesn't care.  I've watched one of my casual-gamer friends play Civ 6.  All he ever does is respond to whatever button in the UI is prompting something.  He never clicks on a city to look into it other than when a completed build is prompting for it.  Doesn't think about the relative order to move units in a war, just has each act whenever the game prompts, has no perception of when he could move another unit out of the way of that one first.  Has absolutely no idea of the relative value of great people or saving space for districts or anything like that.  He plays Civ like it's Cookie Clicker, just click on whatever lights up, with a thin veneer of role playing.  Any playtesting would be completely lost on him.  And Firaxis knows how much of their pubbie player base is like that.

I always wondered whether it would be a viable business model to make a very expensive game for a limited base of hard-core players. If there was an improved version of Civ 4 on the market with a very strong AI, I would pay 500 bucks or even more. I very rarely buy games, so when I do, I do not mind the price tag. I wonder if there are enough people like me to justify the investment.
(Perhaps, such games already exist, I just do not know of them. I imagine such projects would not get much publicity.)

Isn't that just a fan mod? The original AI for Civ4 wasn't so good, so fans (or maybe just one person? I'm not sure) made a mod to improve it, and that became the default AI for BtS. I know thhere have been some other efforts too. But there's probably not a big market for people who want a brutally difficult AI.

[TheArchduke]

Well. Just my 2 cents here. I am not overly enthusiastic about CIV VII. I actually played other games since release which only shows that I am not caught like I was by IV, V and VI.

CIV VI had the district puzzles, CIV V had the modern era I enjoyed, CIV IV the sandbox and freedom.

I am really missing something with CIV VII. I have yet to play the modern age.

Not recommending it.

[shallow_thought]

I'm sure that's right, but I was shocked by how many ideas came directly from Fall from Heaven, again from 15+ years ago. Two that immediately come to mind are town production (appears to work exactly like Kurio settlements) and unit XP/promotions (works exactly like Luchurp promotions). I didn't take notes but I think there were others as well.

As soon as I saw the crisis intro text in CMF's thread, I recognized it immediately:  It's just the Armageddon Counter from FFH2.  Except you can't prevent it from ticking up every turn no matter what, can't reduce it, accelerate it not by actions that would tend to exacerbate or lead to a particular crisis by in-game or roleplaying logic, but by achieving any partial victory conditions for the Age, and can't even win the game before it hits.  Although maybe you can win a game with just one of them?  Does anybody know ... is it possible at least in principle to conquer the entire world in the Exploration Age without ending the Age on the way?  If so, do you win a conquest victory?  Or do you have to go through the motions of completing the third age of the game as the only civ left?  (In which case ... would it even be possible to win a military victory given there are no opposing-ideology civs to conquer?)

To expand on that: the Armageddon Counter is _interesting_; it puts a clock on you that can push back against by eliminating the Ashen Veil holy city, burning down evil Civs (with the additional complication that doing so may strengthen Hyborem in the short / medium term), killing Hyborem, running inquisitors against Ashen Veil cities etc. And even if it ticks, it hurts but you can fight back. The game only risks becomes boring once you've beaten the counter - and even then a being backstabbed by a Calabim Decius who can run his commando units all over the place, or by a Kandros Fir with a massive, Financial empire built up while you were doing the hard work of beating back the Counter can add a bit of challenge even at Prince. I don't get the impression Civ VII has anything similar.

[haphazard1]

Some kind of mechanic similar to a FFH Last to First challenge would have been more interesting than the forced rubber-banding of the age transitions. Start the new age by having the player take over one of the independent city states, maybe? They already broke from the 'rule a single civ from start to finish' aspect and take away a bunch of what you have built, so why not?

[Qgqqqqq]

I do want to say that I think it's a stretch to say that these are explicitly FFH2 influences. I feel like the idea of having small cities with limited functions supporting large ones, having a counter with bad things at the high end, units receiving promotions from others etc. are not unique, especially insightful, or invented by FFH2. It seems more likely that FFH2 built out Civ in interesting ways, and Civ VII has landed in similar directions responding to the same impulses.

[shallow_thought]

I do want to say that I think it's a stretch to say that these are explicitly FFH2 influences. I feel like the idea of having small cities with limited functions supporting large ones, having a counter with bad things at the high end, units receiving promotions from others etc. are not unique, especially insightful, or invented by FFH2. It seems more likely that FFH2 built out Civ in interesting ways, and Civ VII has landed in similar directions responding to the same impulses.

I think that's entirely probable, but I do also think that FFH is an example of the counter mechanic being done better, and a fair while ago. I would also say, in the interests of faireness, that FFH also had terrible, terrible AI in its initial form, and needed community care and attention to fix that.

[sunrise089]

I do want to say that I think it's a stretch to say that these are explicitly FFH2 influences. I feel like the idea of having small cities with limited functions supporting large ones, having a counter with bad things at the high end, units receiving promotions from others etc. are not unique, especially insightful, or invented by FFH2. It seems more likely that FFH2 built out Civ in interesting ways, and Civ VII has landed in similar directions responding to the same impulses.

I think “landed in similar directions” is very generous. There’s no crime in copying a mechanic, but I don’t think they came up with hexes organically in V (or claimed to) and I don’t think small scale mechanics are any more certain to have been organically developed. 

You’re probably better versed in this so let me ask you, do you have 4x game examples of the mechanics you site from pre-2005? Note FFH was very prominent, so much that Firaxis brought it in-house for BtS via one of the game’s scenarios.

EDIT: to be clear I think there is plenty of new and unique content in VII. I don’t think the devs have done anything wrong. I do though think there has been a lot of victory lapping in the gaming press over ‘innovations’ such as bringing back the Unrestricted Leader option and acting like it’s a big innovation. I think given the questionable ethical relationship between developers, publishers, and the gaming media it’s sensible to have some skepticism about some of the ‘purity’ of the game design, especially when items such as UI issues make it clear the game was rushed, at least in some areas.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Trip explicitly said that hexes came from Panzer General.

[MJW (ya that one)]

As I predicted the Steam rating went down, but only by 1%. 50% Steam rating. Beyond Earth has 60%. Now that rating got inflated got inflated by casual players picking up the game for cheap and liking it because they have lower standards (recent reviews scoring 77% is evidence of this). But losing to Beyond Earth by 10% is still pathetic.

Trip's At the Gates has 39% steam rating.