Civilization 7 is in development

[haphazard1]

Very good points, sunrise. Particularly the fiscal year aspect. Civ 7 still kind of looks like an empire building game, but given the way the ages and victory conditions seem to work it really isn't. Can you actually win the game in the traditional manner, by conquering all your rivals? Is that even possible, or will they respawn with the next age even if killed? I have not see anyone mention killing off a rival empire yet.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Very good points, sunrise. Particularly the fiscal year aspect. Civ 7 still kind of looks like an empire building game, but given the way the ages and victory conditions seem to work it really isn't. Can you actually win the game in the traditional manner, by conquering all your rivals? Is that even possible, or will they respawn with the next age even if killed? I have not see anyone mention killing off a rival empire yet.

Two AIs were killed off in my demo game, one by myself and one by one of the robots. You can win by eliminating all other players and just saying "fuck it" to the victory conditions.

[Japper007]

I feel the lack of scale yeah. Just when you are about to break into the big leagues, you're past the point where happiness is a problem and can finally actually start filling the space, the game slams on the breaks, Age Transition time!
 I never have the feeling my city is more than just a hamlet. A city could only have your unique quarter and maybe a library and academy after the entirety of Antiquity! I'm pretty sure the village I grew up in was up to that level of development (more because it also had a market and a shopping center, which would be a Modern Era CITY in 7 ) and it was a rural dump. 

It's also weird that the Age mechanic doesn't even do what it sets out to do. If you manage the transition well, you basically just keep snowballing. You'll still have your armies and settlements, and maybe pick up some nice bonuses even. And the AI which is supposed to be able to rubberband back due to it, screws up the transition (doesn't get age objectives, even with the absurd yield boosts on higher difficulties) and gets reset to the stone age.

Still though, I'm having fun. Took a few days off work to play last week, and I think I got my money's worth, with some new combos still to try in the coming weeks. (The tragedy of finally having the money to drop on a new game, but not the time ) I actually think it is fine from a replay perspective, a bit better than civ 6, where you do the same thing every time (I.e. Commercial Hubs, Campuses, Industrial Zones, coast to victory, at least against AI). Your start can have a lot of effect when it comes to wonders, what resources you get, what neighbours, all interesting. Maybe I'll rethink that after a few dozen hours more.

[Borsche]

I think their biggest concern is to prevent a player from having to manage like 20+ cities. Which is an understandable concern, I've had games of Civ3 and Civ4 where that kind of bloat could feel really tedious. And especially in the late game, as the commerce and production of each city could balloon to where cities could feel homogeneous (or at least much more so than they would feel in the early/mid game).

The easy solution is to just get the player to play on smaller maps. The difficult solution is to streamline city management while fostering a more interesting decision making environment (particularly in the late game).

Firaxis's design philosophy, however, mostly seems to be to trying to aggressively cap expansion. Keep the player down to 4-6 cities, whether there is room for more or not. This has the added benefit of not having to care if the AI doesn't/can't expand - they only need 3-4 cities to technically compete with the player anyway.

The funny thing is, I don't think I'd mind that design too much if the 4-6 cities would actually fill in all the empty space on the map (and if the AI would also expand to 4-6 cities instead of being stuck on like 2, or 1). It's mostly an aesthetic complaint to have huge swaths of unfilled land on the map, but from a mechanics perspective, that is land that should be exploitable by the players. Towns help with this a lot, but again, the AI barely settles anyway so you don't even get that.

[Magic Science]

I'd like to lodge a preemptive complaint that Civilization 8 has some really good ideas and playing it is mostly fun, but was obviously not well tested, has a UI that ranges from opaque to openly hostile, and sports an obviously incompetent AI which will seriously hinder replayability even as ~2/3rds of the current bugs are ironed out in patches and $60 expansion packs over the five-odd years following release.

Hold that thought until 2036.

For whatever reason, Firaxis really seems to dislike building large empires in their empire building games.

So do we in most big Pitbosses. Though I would agree that "three cities" is much too small.

[luddite]

Hi all! Just finished watching Sulla's videos about civ7, plus some other reactions to the game. I haven't played it myself, but it seems pretty bad. How come a company can afford $100 million to make a game, but can't spare anything for basic playtesting? It's ridiculous.

To be fair, most of the civ games arrived in a somewhat rough state and got pached up later through updates, patches, and community effort. I think even civ4 at its launch had a somewhat weak AI, which got improved a lot from a community effort getting incorportated into BTS. And civ7 does seem to have some interesting ideas so maybe it'll eventually get polished into something good. But it seems like it will need a *lot* of polishing to get from where it is now to something I'd actually want to play, let alone spend $100 on.

I know I'm preaching to the choir here but 1UPT just does *not* work for a civ game. It completely removes a fundamental part of the game (increasing production) severely handicaps the AI. But I'm starting to think that a lot of players *like* having a weak AI they can beat up on.

That said, I'm sort of sympathetic now to their rubberbanding mechanics. Going from 2 cities to 3 is just more fun than going from 22 to 23, all while micromanaging everything. I really feel that more now that I'm older and have less time to play games. Still, I feel like that could be fixed by some basic UI and quality of life improvements, not changing the core gameplay.

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?

[Gavagai]

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?

TO THIS DAY I remember landing a stack of 8 Tanks on an island occupied by a backwords AI and having them immediately killed by a Chariot. And that happened what, 30 years ago?
Yes, I will be happy to read Civ1-related content, it will always have a special place in my heart.

[T-hawk]

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.

[MJW (ya that one)]

UI is low priority, so it doesn't have to be done well, but it still has to be done. Otherwise Civ7 wouldn't have 51% Steam rating. I believe that UI is done last and Firaxis didn't finish because the game was released to get in before Take-Two's end of fiscal year.

[haphazard1]

UI is low priority, so it doesn't have to be done well, but it still has to be done. Otherwise Civ7 wouldn't have 51% Steam rating. I believe that UI is done last and Firaxis didn't finish because the game was released to get in before Take-Two's end of fiscal year.

This seems like an odd attitude for devs to take. The UI is the thing the player will spend 99% of their time interacting with; if it is not good, the game experience is not going to be good. UI should be a high priority to get right.

It certainly does feel like the game was rushed out the door. Some of the things Sulla and others have noted, with certain screens just not working properly or having text cut off to one side, are just ridiculous to have not been caught and fixed before release for a $100 game. Other things like the tiles not being visually distinguishable at a glance are just poor choices, and not outright broken. But they still should have neen polished before release.

Too much of the interface is focused on looking pretty rather than on conveying information to the player.