Sid Meier's Civilization

[Smashed & Slamed]

Are they still doing 1upt? (One unit per tile) Guarantee you half the problems of modern Civ AI stems from this retarded decision in V alone.

Nah Humankind is not 1upt and the AI is beyond retarded.
The problem is that game devs are too stupid to program a functional AI for even the simple layered complexity of a modern 4x game. The AI doesn't just fail because of unit pathfinding. They like putting their cities too close to each other, improve the wrong tiles, build too many cities even when the game has penalties for too many cities, research the wrong techs, build the wrong buildings, build the wrong units, place the units wrong.
The reason Civ 2 had such good AI is that it was running a very simple and very homogenous rule set that simple coding rules could provide for a competent AI.
In 5 years we might see machine learning based bots finally capable of giving some modicum of challenge.

 

[Mayor Cody Travers]

So they have it that you change Civilizations per era, because as they said, they don't like having early game Civs and late game Civs. But you can't change the leader, so what's stopping there being early game leaders and late game leaders? It shows that the leader has a skill tree that they can develop, and this courtesy couldn't just be done to the civilization?

Spoiler: 'tism tax on specific Civs vis-a-vis "immersion."

You reminded me somewhere else on the forum a long time ago something like this was discussed in terms of "immersion", and I replied since "Civs" are de-facto more like "Peoples/Nations" in the game why they can't just look to nearest equivalents of the time period best they can:

-Ancient Phoenicia hasn't survived to the modern age as a nation/state/concept, and the ancient Egyptian ethnicity managed survive via the minority Coptic people in the modern Egyptian state, for example. But... why not just use modern Lebanon (which apparently has unique genetics versus other Middle Eastern nations, indicating Phoencian genes may live on?) and modern Egypt as your 'modern" examples in terms of aesthetics or maybe unique unit/ability/etc. when possible? Assyrians nominally survive on, but Babylonians can just copy Middle Eastern styles and specifically Iraqi ones when possible. I am also truly surprised they continually focus on Achaemenid Persia and not all of Persian history, IE Iranian history, past that when they have a wealth of history and potential as much as China does that Civ gladly swipes from.
-Conversely, modern America didn't exactly exist during the classical age. But modern Americans, memes aside, are primarily white and primarily Germanic within that and primarily Anglo within that... just copy-pasta Anglo-Saxon aesthetics, IE the far-off ancestors of most Americans, with some convenient red/blue/white color trim, stars/stripe flair, or something to indicate "hurr ancient 'murricans" for gameplay purposes. I DO understand how ridiculous that can seem at first! But try distinguishing between ancient Germanic tribes of the time outside language, which themselves barely got out of dialectal proto-Germanic, and you'd have an equally tough time making them all seem unique from one another. Especially if you're doing Civ-style "ancient English', "ancient Germans", "ancient Dutch" aesthetics for THOSE specific nations themselves (how can you set apart the Salian Franks that became Netherlanders against the Riparian Franks that established the singular Kingdom of Germany that eventually became the HRE thence modern German Reich thence Federal Republic?).

I definitely am on the side of Civ needing to feel more like an immersion than a board game. But to sidestep the inevitable talk on "X nation didn't live on or exist in Y period", I'm fine with fudging things here and there IF they put in the work to make a sensible equivalent like looking at onetime ancestral or descendant ethnic groups/cultures.

 

[Verpa Teutonica Ingens]

But try distinguishing between ancient Germanic tribes of the time outside language, which themselves barely got out of dialectal proto-Germanic, and you'd have an equally tough time making them all seem unique from one another. Especially if you're doing Civ-style "ancient English', "ancient Germans", "ancient Dutch" aesthetics for THOSE specific nations themselves (how can you set apart the Salian Franks that became Netherlanders against the Riparian Franks that established the singular Kingdom of Germany that eventually became the HRE thence modern German Reich thence Federal Republic?).

Sounds like an opportunity to implement the "switch to a different civ at specific points" mechanic in a form that isn't just an example of "people and cultures are interchangeable widgets" doctrine. Start a game playing as Germanic tribesmen, then at some point you get to choose "Do I want to become Dutch, German, Anglo, or Norse?". The Norse option could split into Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, or Icelandic, while the Anglo option could later split into American or British.

This could be further refined by adding breakaways: if your civ becomes too big, parts of it could diverge in culture. Ideally, this would be implemented in a way that provides an enjoyable challenge and doesn't just punish the player for succeeding.

 

[Smashed & Slamed]

Sounds like an opportunity to implement the "switch to a different civ at specific points" mechanic in a form that isn't just an example of "people and cultures are interchangeable widgets" doctrine. Start a game playing as Germanic tribesmen, then at some point you get to choose "Do I want to become Dutch, German, Anglo, or Norse?". The Norse option could split into Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, or Icelandic, while the Anglo option could later split into American or British.

If we remove the "people are all replaceable golem" shtick the civ switching feels like a poor implementation of civ development that space 4X and grand strategy games have. Growing your civ and and picking bonuses that are appropriate to your environment and time which are also tied to aesthetic changes seems intuitive.
I don't know why Humankind and Civ VII have to throw the baby out with the bath water. Traditions and Governments in Civ V and VI achieved that to a great extent. Caveman 2 Cosmos a really bloated mod that runs like ass tried to do that and I liked their approach as you spend the game trying to find unique bonuses and preserve them through the ages. At one point I had wooly mammoth cavalry in the ancient era, too bad the AI is too stupid to keep up.
It also undermines the point of Civ's style of 4X. You pick your civ, because you like that civ aesthetics and their bonuses and have a strategy in mind. The casual sorts will feel bummed as they won't get to keep playing their favorite civs while the try hards will simply b line the optimal combo. You also make work worse for yourself as now you don't just need to balance 12 civs, you need to balance 12 civs that can turn into 12 other civs with bonuses that will over lap or obsolete each other.

 

[Computer God Autism]

-Conversely, modern America didn't exactly exist during the classical age. But modern Americans, memes aside, are primarily white and primarily Germanic within that and primarily Anglo within that... just copy-pasta Anglo-Saxon aesthetics, IE the far-off ancestors of most Americans, with some convenient red/blue/white color trim, stars/stripe flair, or something to indicate "hurr ancient 'murricans" for gameplay purposes.

Realism Invictus tried something similar by making the flavor text for Ancient-era America be Vinlandic settlers. While obviously held back by the limitations of what Civ 4 hardcodes regarding Civs, they tried to design civs to be broader civilizational categories than just specific states; e.g. Macedonians, Byzantines and modern Greeks are all represented in a broader Greek civ.

 

[Mayor Cody Travers]

they tried to design civs to be broader civilizational categories than just specific states; e.g. Macedonians, Byzantines and modern Greeks are all represented in a broader Greek civ.

Fantastic example, it's on par with what I tried to point out with the Persians/Iranians and Chinese in my post! Obviously Macedonia as part of Ancient Greece, Byzantium as "Medieval Greece", and 1821 onward as "Modern Greece" - but all of them indisputably part of and representing different eras/aesthetics of a singular "Greece/the Greeks/the Greek People and Civ" you the player are controlling in your playthrough.

The vast majority of the core and evergreen nations and civs used every game have broad enough history to either go through all eras comfortably or fudge it with ancestors/descendants as I suggested. Brazil can be Romance-speaking Lusitanians with Roman architecture for "Ancient" Brazil and copy medieval and renaissance Portgual for those eras if need be. Roman Gaul as "Ancient France" (or Celtic Gaul, but France speaks Romance since Caesar, so...). And so forth, and so forth.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I've talked (probably earlier in this very thread) about Civ changing before.
The most logical way is, as noted above, to have civs evolve based on a geneaology that makes some kind of real world sense (doesn't have to be 100% literally accurate).

The downside is that some civs birthed way more civs than others (especially from era to era), basically everything in Europe and the Middle East genealogically descends from Rome, for example.

 

[Foxxo]

Are they still doing 1upt? (One unit per tile) Guarantee you half the problems of modern Civ AI stems from this retarded decision in V alone.

No they are not. You can now stack six units under a single guy, so Civ 4 combat is what they're going for.

The difference is going to be that all unit XP goes to your Great Generals instead of the units themselves, so you can shuffle the XP around.

Oh, and that they appear to be leaning towards the stupid Front system from Victoria 3 (or HOI4, the most overrated game ever made), or at least that they're making zone-of-control a LOT bigger and more tedious. You know, reducing strategic depth to mere menu options so that the awful AI looks less bad.

One thing I REALLY don't like the look of in 7 is that they appear to have scaled down the world massively. Ancient cities can now have metropolitan urban sprawl, implying that a hex is absolutely nothing in size. Battle can now damage entire hexes to unusability, implying that hexes are now the size of small towns at most. And I can only assume that the map will have the same amount of hexes as before, sans the whole "half the map is only unlocked at the Age of Exploration" thing.
I guess it didn't bother me in 6 because... the artstyle, maybe? I'm not sure.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

The civ devs are defending the culture change mechanic

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Some examples of a civ change mechanic based on historical logic:

Romans --> Spanish, Franks, Venetians
Goths --> British, Germans, Norse
Zhou --> Song, Japanese, Koreans

See, it may not make perfect real world sense, but if you approach it more as culture groups that evolve within their own groups, it isn't as offensive as Aztecs becoming Australians.

 

[Verpa Teutonica Ingens]

Aztecs becoming Australians

G'DAY MATE! *rips out New Zealander's heart* AH SHE'LL BE ROIGHT MATE! D'YA REALLY NEED A HEART T' LIVE?

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

G'DAY MATE! *rips out New Zealander's heart* AH SHE'LL BE ROIGHT MATE! D'YA REALLY NEED A HEART T' LIVE?

Reminded me of this.

https://www.amazon.com/Come-Shore-Will-Kill-Eat/dp/1596911271

The White woman that wrote this married a New Zealander.

 

[Lurking no more]

At least for my two cents, I've come to decide that I don't like the idea of civ switching. I think it's better to have a set "character" you play as and fight against throughout the game, rather than switching throughout. It's more satisfying to finally kick Montezuma's teeth in if he's been a pest throughout the whole game than to defeat Santa Anna later on (EDIT: just in case, I know that Civ 7 has the same leader throughout, but I think it's retarded that you can have Napoleon lead the Mayans. This is aimed towards more reasonable civ switching ideas.) What I think I would do is to have a broader civilization, and then have smaller nations within it, somewhat similar to multiple leaders from Civ 6, which I think was a largely missed opportunity.

For instance, you could have a broader Anglo Civ, which as a bonus would give you gold upon conquering a city on another landmass than your capital (which would be able to somewhat represent British imperialism, American interventionism, and loosely represent the Anglo conquest of the island) and some sort of ship within the Rennaissance/Enlightenment/Industrial Age (depending on how fine the eras are, representing when the two extant Anglo states started to become the dominant naval powers). Then, within the civ would be the American and English nations, and possibly the Anglo-Danes under Canute (I feel like having both the Anglo-Saxons and the English could be redundant, since the one entirely became the other, even though it was through a massive culture shock from an invasion of a foreign culture. Canute would somewhat represent the Anglo-Saxons anyways, the Housecarls have a reputation as the Anglo-Saxon elite soldiers, even though they were a late addition from the Danes.) Each of these nations would then have their own bonuses, such as the aforementioned Housecarls for Canute.

Theoretically, this larger civ could be made even larger, and represent the northwest/north Germanics all together, as they all shared a large degree of cultural exchange at various points in history and all should be encouraged for overseas conquest, but I think that's too broad a brush. Assuming that you don't do that, similar to how Civ 6 allows one person to lead multiple civilization, you could have Canute and his Anlgo-Danes be under both the Anglo and the Scandinavian Civilization.

 

[Sweeter and Savoury]

Meh the more I look I to civ 7 the more I think it will be another failure.

I think the dev's just looked at Humankind and said "let's just make that"

Civ 5 is ideal playwise IMHO as it hit that nice sweet pot so rather then just copy/paste something new how about spending that time and money actually fixing your retarded AI so games are...I dunno...fun?

 

[Scale Smerch]

No they are not. You can now stack six units under a single guy, so Civ 4 combat is what they're going for.

You sure about this? From what I've seen it indicates you can move units together under a general to get around things like terrain chokes, but it ultimately still obeys the single unit per hex rule in terms of combat - i.e. your six unit stack splits up when you actually want to engage something.

To be fair though I might be thinking wrong and remembering the wrong clips; there's a lot of deviating behaviour the moment you have a one general stack engage another which hasn't been elaborated upon so far to date.

 

[Foxxo]

You sure about this? From what I've seen it indicates you can move units together under a general to get around things like terrain chokes, but it ultimately still obeys the single unit per hex rule in terms of combat - i.e. your six unit stack splits up when you actually want to engage something.

To be fair though I might be thinking wrong and remembering the wrong clips; there's a lot of deviating behaviour the moment you have a one general stack engage another which hasn't been elaborated upon so far to date.

I'll be honest, I didn't pay too much attention while flipping through the main gameplay trailer. I noticed some "battlefield damage", though.

Meh the more I look I to civ 7 the more I think it will be another failure.

I think the dev's just looked at Humankind and said "let's just make that"

Civ 5 is ideal playwise IMHO as it hit that nice sweet pot so rather then just copy/paste something new how about spending that time and money actually fixing your retarded AI so games are...I dunno...fun?

I mean, 6 has more players than 5 now. 6 and 5 are quite opposite in their philosophies, despite having more-or-less the same dogshit combat system and the same dogshit hexes.

6 actually fixed a couple of 5's combat problems, such as through bringing back Armies from CIVILIZATION REVOLUTION FOR THE NINTENDO DS. Not that the combat in 6 is good, aside from maybe with Barbarians; the AI in 6 typically punts me out of the game by being either completely unresponsive, or far too aggressive with city placement.

Maybe I'd like 5 more if it could be played on the Switch... or on a computer.

 

[emosimp7]

What would everyone say is the order of best civ is nowadays. It seems like everyone is leaning towards
4 with mods>5 with mods > 4 > 3 > 5 > 6 > 2 > 1

 

[OutInTheRain]

I think the civ evolution idea is them trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist. Some civs have a powerful early game, while others a powerful late game. I think as mentioned before, you would have to vague with early era civs, keeping them to things like Celt or Slav and having them refine later on. What I would like to see, other than AI improvements is battle and warfare improvements. Even though Civ seems to want to move away from it. Like you build your army stack and it moves to a smaller tactical map to fight it out. With a set number of movements per turn. Early age battles going quick. Late age, industrial warfare battles taking forever.

Of course, like I said, this would require an AI overhaul.

Also give me some larger maps. As well have it so when I take a city in a defensive war, I'm not turbo-hitler for 4000 years. Seriously Frederick, you earned that shit.

 

[Pierre D'Olnique]

Bought V complete a little over a week ago, having previously only played IV (My dad's favorite game ever) and II. Naturally, the first thing I did was choose Poland and go for the space victory, which I didn't manage to get because I crushed everyone with my culture. Got it on the second attempt on a 1v1 map starting in the modern era.
Seems like the removal of unit stacking was met with a ton of criticism, not sure why. I for one am glad I don't need to shit out a metric ton of longbowmen to defend every single city, and vice versa, don't have to bring 3 tanks to bring down a single longbowman only to realize there's 20 more layers of them.
One thing I massively hate is the apparent inability to prevent foreign missionaries/prophets spreading their shit in my territory (without declaring war) while the AI gets to KILL my missionaries without consequences. Last game had fucking jeets just instantly convert my biggest city which pissed me off to such an extent I wiped them off the map with a swarm of ships of the line and ironclads.