Civilization 7 is in development

[Brian Shanahan]

On that note, I recently went back and replayed the original Civ for the first time since I was a little kid. That game has probably the most brutal and elegant solution for stacks... you can do it, and it's definitely a benefit to have a big stack with more units, but it's also a big risk because one defensive loss kills everything. In many ways I was surprised by how well the original Civ holds up and how it solved many of the problems that later civ games still seem to be grappling with. I'm wondering if anyone would be interested in a thread about that game?

Me, me, me, me, memememememememememe!

[haphazard1]

Count me in as very interested in a possible Civ 1 thread, luddite.

[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.

Yeah... well, I guess from a corporate perspective that makes sense. The market for casual playing games is much bigger than hardcore strategy games, after all. But it doesn't even seem like they did a good job of that? The in-game events for civ7 just seem random and punishing, not fun at all. The age changes don't give any kind of cgi or story, they just delete your cities and units. Noone is going to like that!

[luddite]

Also, thanks for the people saying they'd be interested! I posted it here: https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/show...?tid=11319

[Magic Science]

Thread newly relevant: Firaxis Slowly Losing Ability to Make Small 2D Images by SevenSpirits.

[Brian Shanahan]

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.

Yeah... well, I guess from a corporate perspective that makes sense. The market for casual playing games is much bigger than hardcore strategy games, after all. But it doesn't even seem like they did a good job of that? The in-game events for civ7 just seem random and punishing, not fun at all. The age changes don't give any kind of cgi or story, they just delete your cities and units. Noone is going to like that!

I would consider myself to be mostly at the casual end of the gamer spectrum (I generally play single player games at a lower level than I know I can simply because I like non-stressful games), and yet I can see that Civ 7 is not really one that's going to have any sort of long term interest for more casual players.

[Borsche]

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.

Yeah... well, I guess from a corporate perspective that makes sense. The market for casual playing games is much bigger than hardcore strategy games, after all. But it doesn't even seem like they did a good job of that? The in-game events for civ7 just seem random and punishing, not fun at all. The age changes don't give any kind of cgi or story, they just delete your cities and units. Noone is going to like that!

I would consider myself to be mostly at the casual end of the gamer spectrum (I generally play single player games at a lower level than I know I can simply because I like non-stressful games), and yet I can see that Civ 7 is not really one that's going to have any sort of long term interest for more casual players.

I expect casual players to be much more at the 'roleplaying' end of the spectrum, and I really don't think Civ7 does a good job at facilitating that despite it being a primary driver of their design.

[Gavagai]

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.)

[Sullla]

These do exist! The classic example is tabletop wargames: extremely complex, extremely expensive, extremely niche market. Someone like me who enjoys the Civilization series is a filthy casual to those diehards.

[RefSteel]

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?)