Civilization turned into Humankind? Well, I'm not a fan AT ALL.

[MaxiTB]

I have played and bought every Civ game since the original and yes, I still have the hundreds of pages long manual with interesting bits and drawings of the first game (heck, I played Civ on the Amiga and avoid researching Gunpowder because a disk swapping nightmare followed every time). But I'm not going into the value discussion that's another topic.

One of the core concepts of Civ has always been of bringing a permanent identity through time to the stars. I don't call them civilizations because obviously it makes no sense for an "American civilization" to exist 500 years ago, but obviously here we go, that's just how civ worked from the start and allowed for awesome alt-history experiences. Add some generated maps and you got the full multiverse experience anchored on this one identity.

In Civilization (1) and I think also it sequel this identity was purely cosmetic; later the identity was enriched with game mechanic effecting stats. I didn't mind the change, often the stats were pretty arbiritary and mostly based on American cliches about other countries (but again, Americans 1000 years ago), it strengthen the core concept of an identity through time in an unknown space, so even if often cringe, it was for sure not a bad change.

However then Humankind came along a few years back and honestly I was interested in their concept of mixing civilizations before launch. Until I played it and boy, it's a concept that robs the game of all it's primary emotional anchor. After the second switch you basically loose all your investement and it become the chore of baby sitting this generic mishmash of random stats. In fact while I have started Humankind dozens of times, I haven't finished a single game yet - I just lost interest over time because instead of "Leading the Cree to the star" you have basically "Save slot 2".

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Civ 6 is perfect - far from it. I privately mod most of my games and Civ was always a prime example and all my fellower modders know what a mess Civ 6 is sometimes under the hood of missing and sometimes worse half implemented, buggy features. But even if you are just a regular player of the game I'm pretty sure you have a couple if not hundreds of ideas to improve the existing series of games without completely changing it's core identity. Personally I didn't like the district system because it's super restrictive and after a while you really stop carrying about it. I would have preferred for the next game if maps are by default at least double the size and you place your buildings on a tile (and then upgrade them for example from workshop to factory to industrial complex). That would greatly reduce the randomness you sometimes encounter. Addtionally I would have actually like to see strategic resources being expanded - why don't you need iron plus niter as upkeep for your tanks (spoiler it has something to do with the half implemented features I mentioned) which makes more sense? But that is just two out of dozens of improvements I personally came up with that keep the core concept of mentioned intact.

So look, personally I am not going to bother this game after launch like every other game, maybe I give it a tought after I have seen some online influencers giving it a bash for a few days - heck, I think I wait till the first few expansions come out right now. While I'm all for innovation, iteration and spicing up gameplay in various ways, I think it's important the let a car be a car and not turn it into a boat named a car. And games are not different - it ain't Doom if there are no hell monsters, it ain't Baldur's Gate if you turn the city into Night City and for me it's not Civilization if I can't guide an identity through time and then look back on how far they have come.

[EarlSkrubb]

Diposting pertama kali oleh The Gray Fox:

Diposting pertama kali oleh EarlSkrubb:

and you say no one, but all I'm seeing is a loud minority. like always. You're an old man who doesn't like change, we get it.

the reception to the changes was overwhelming negative here. overwhelmingly negative on youtube comments and live stream, overwhelmingly negative on reddit, and overwhelmingly negative on civfanatics

why can't you Humankind fanboys accept reality and see that YOU'RE in the minority. not me
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/poll-what-do-we-think-of-the-change-to-playing-multiple-civs-per-game.691352/

that all looks like a loud minority

[EarlSkrubb]

Diposting pertama kali oleh The Gray Fox:

Diposting pertama kali oleh EarlSkrubb:

if you don't want it, go back to playing Civ6

if you want it, go back to playing Humankind

Nah, I'll just get Civ 7 and play it there while you complain in the steam threads

[EarlSkrubb]

Diposting pertama kali oleh The Gray Fox:

Diposting pertama kali oleh EarlSkrubb:

that all looks like a loud minority

you are the minority

No one was asking for Civilization to rip off the failure that was Humankind.

cope

[Spacesuit Spiff]

HK had some cool ideas that I was hoping to see here. Outpost cities, neolithic era, heightmap (this might be in the game, hard to tell whether it's a legit heightmap or just fake cliffs atm).

This definitely feels like a "monkeys paw curls" sort of response.

Civ swapping should be explored in a fantasy game, then it would have a lot more material to pull from, and you wouldn't get that weird tension of Game Civ != Real Civ. I like the idea from a gameplay perspective, but trying to shoehorn your playstyle into a real-world nation doesn't seem workable.

[EarlSkrubb]

Diposting pertama kali oleh The Gray Fox:

Diposting pertama kali oleh EarlSkrubb:

Nah, I'll just get Civ 7 and play it there while you complain in the steam threads

yeah you'll be part of the 500-1000 people a day still playing down the line while everyone goes back to Civilization 5 and 6 after it fails like Humankind

I thought you were an old man fearing change, but I'm starting to think you might just be a kid.

[Literally Me]

I'm beginning to wonder how many forum pages you two would be able to fill up if no one stopped you.

[SBA77]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Apples:

Diposting pertama kali oleh EarlSkrubb:

I agree with your point tho, if you want to keep the same Civ, you should be allowed to, I think you could in humankind, but I don't recall

You could, but i'd want that as a game option, for all Civs on the board, i typically stick with the civs of antiquity, and i defo didn't like it in HK where the Greeks turned into something crazy like the Mongols.


Nothing wrong with options people can choose tho :)

I'll just throw in there that HK's culture swapping probably more represented the various dynastic and regime changes that today's civilizations have gone through throughout the ages rather than something more literal.

Anyway I'm fine with letting you turn your Aztecs Japanese as long there's a more historically authentic and accurate option, so that I have the option to make my Classical Era Persians into Samanids in the Medieval Era instead of Franks.

[Finwickle]

Diposting pertama kali oleh SBA77:

Anyway I'm fine with letting you turn your Aztecs Japanese as long there's a more historically authentic and accurate option, so that I have the option to make my Classical Era Persians into Samanids in the Medieval Era instead of Franks.

Well, they do write on their website[civilization.2k.com]:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Firaxis:

During an Age Transition, there are a few factors that determine which new civilization you choose to play as. This includes any historical connections between your previous and future civ, your choice of leader, and even certain gameplay decisions that you made in the past Age. Across your game, you might want to stay as true to history as possible, only selecting civs that have historical ties to each other, or you might switch to civs that fit your strategic needs.

We'll just have to see how it will work out.

[Centipede]

I don't want to talk bad about Humankind because I haven't tried it, but I remember my first two thoughts when I heard of it were

'Oh neat, they're making a new Civ like'
'Ah ok, they want me to change the Civ I start with. Don't like the sound of it, I'll pass.'

I can't help but wonder what made Firaxis think this is such a great marketing angle.

[SBA77]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Finwickle:

Diposting pertama kali oleh SBA77:

Anyway I'm fine with letting you turn your Aztecs Japanese as long there's a more historically authentic and accurate option, so that I have the option to make my Classical Era Persians into Samanids in the Medieval Era instead of Franks.

Well, they do write on their website[civilization.2k.com]:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Firaxis:

During an Age Transition, there are a few factors that determine which new civilization you choose to play as. This includes any historical connections between your previous and future civ, your choice of leader, and even certain gameplay decisions that you made in the past Age. Across your game, you might want to stay as true to history as possible, only selecting civs that have historical ties to each other, or you might switch to civs that fit your strategic needs.

We'll just have to see how it will work out.

Um, if the releases from the articles are to be 100% believed they've already broken that. IGN's video stated that Egypt's natural path is to turn into Songhai which then turns into Buganda. Because as we all know Ugandans famously descended from Nigerains who famously descended from ancient Egypt :p

This might just be a limitation of the alpha or prealpha state Civ 7 is in right now and this might be a place holder path because they simply don't have the other Nigerian and Ugandan civilizations in yet, but if this is representative of Firaxis's idea of a "natural path" for the civ changes and "stay[ing] as true to history as possible" then I'm sorry but they're doing it wrong. That needs to be fix that, especially if they are going to keep this claim of being historically accurate and teaching people.

[Star Paladin]

Here we go again. I have been playing Civ since the very first one. And EVERY new version there are itchbays complaining before even playing 1 minute of the game or watching 1 minute of the first review.

5 is my favorite so far, but as usual, before that came out there were people ithbaying and complaining how bad it was going to be.

[Centipede]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Star Paladin:

Here we go again. I have been playing Civ since the very first one. And EVERY new version there are itchbays complaining before even playing 1 minute of the game or watching 1 minute of the first review.

5 is my favorite so far, but as usual, before that came out there were people ithbaying and complaining how bad it was going to be.

Are positive impressions without playing allowed or are you also forbidding those?

[Star Paladin]

DURP. Never said that Cent, stop shoving words in people's mouths.

[Centipede]

Well, alright. I was just trying to point out that hype and complaint are two sides of the same coin, and they gotta happen before playing.

[Zevkk]

Diposting pertama kali oleh EarlSkrubb:

Diposting pertama kali oleh The Gray Fox:

the reception to the changes was overwhelming negative here. overwhelmingly negative on youtube comments and live stream, overwhelmingly negative on reddit, and overwhelmingly negative on civfanatics

why can't you Humankind fanboys accept reality and see that YOU'RE in the minority. not me
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/poll-what-do-we-think-of-the-change-to-playing-multiple-civs-per-game.691352/

that all looks like a loud minority

CivFanatics has been around forever and it's probably pretty good metric for how the 'hardcore' crowd feels overall about the changes. Not really going to capture the 'casual' demographic, but I also feel like what's being overlooked is that the CivFanatics people will be the ones who stick around a month after launch, whereas the others will jump to the next game or return to old favorites.

I definitely don't agree with the earlier comment that someone in this thread said with 'neutral' representing being 'ok' with the change. It's, at best, ambivalence. You would either ignore it outright or split it to include it with both sentiments, which leaves 25.8% Positive - 53.2% Negative or 36.3% Positive - 63.7% Negative.

Regardless of whether the overall sentiment is slightly positive or negative when including the casual crowd, it's very clearly a polarizing and controversial change, which is usually not something you're going for when you're trying to release a 'safe' AAA title.