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Civilization 7 Is in Development
- IceHegel 4y agoHope they’re thinking more Civ V than Civ VI.
- xedrac 4y agoYeah, I really didn't like the feel of Civ6. It felt a bit too confining? I'm not sure exactly why.
- chaostheory 4y agoBecause they streamlined it too much so that even weak consoles like the Nintendo Switch can run it. I love the Switch, but don’t cripple Civilization so it can run on it
- the_only_law 4y agoA lot of strategy games have been doing this recently and I don’t get it. Paradox decided to release CK3 on console, but it lags so far behind the PC version (which itself already lacks content) and I haven’t bothered to try it. Now I hear that AoE2 is being ported to consoles and it just doesn’t make sense at all unless you’re planning on requiring the player to hook up a keyboard and mouse. I don’t see any way a controller can provide a good RTS experience.
- noncoml 4y agoYou like digging your own roads? I think the workers concept is vastly improved in VI I agree with you on the cartoonish leaders though.
- LeoPanthera 4y ago"Caravans build roads" mod for Civ V. :)
- hypertele-Xii 4y agoYou like founding your own cities? Building your own buildings? Moving your own units? Of course I like digging my own roads. I get to decide exactly where they go. That's the game.
- marticode 4y agoI actually do. Part of the appeal of the Civilization franchise to me has always been the ability to model the landscape and shape to get geography of my civilization. Civ 6 kind of break that and makes it worse with all the wonders scattered all over the place
- IceHegel 4y agoI like digging my own roads.
- binarycrusader 4y agoI hope they’re thinking more Alpha Centauri ;)
- enraged_camel 4y agoI can’t believe there hasn’t been a modern remake of that.
- iguessthislldo 4y agoDoes Beyond Earth count?
- chaostheory 4y agoWasn’t it just a bad mod of Civ 5?
- Z_I_F_F 4y agoThey basically did with CIV Beyond Earth. It was very mid.
- Apocryphon 4y agoCheck this out: https://github.com/afwbkbc/glsmac https://github.com/afwbkbc/glsmac
- chaostheory 4y agoI still can’t believe no one has made Alpha Centauri into a sci-fi Game of Thrones. The story and plot are great.
- vikingerik 4y agoThe big problem is that Electronic Arts owns the rights to SMAC, and they're not interested in doing anything with the intellectual property.
- BlueTemplar 4y agoThere's Pandora that is a much better attempt than Firaxis' Beyound Earth, but if I may suggest, you shouldn't expect lightning to strike the same spot twice. You can however hope that, just like with Civ1 (=> Civ2) => SMAC(X), someone will be inspired enough to take some of the best aspects of it in a somewhat different game : https://www.wargamer.com/shadow-empire/review https://www.wargamer.com/shadow-empire/review
- imer15 4y agoIV > VI >>>>> V
- IceHegel 4y agoInvert
- geenew 4y agoGood news Edit: This is objectively good news, given the creativity demonstrated throughout the game's history.
- hypertele-Xii 4y agoHN works like this: If you approve of something, but have nothing substantive to add, upvote and move on.
- TechBro8615 4y agoFinally. I hope they allow me to play it on GeForce Now.
- corbulo 4y agoDid Civ6 end up being good? Civ games usually only beat their predecessors once the last expansion comes out. I stopped playing 6 after the climate change DLC. Was pretty underwhelmed. Has it matured now like 5 did?
- oefrha 4y agoDistricts mechanics is great, I can’t imagine going back to the old everything in city center model. Loyalty mechanics is a mixed blessing, after so many years I can’t say whether I like it or not. I find climate mechanics a nice yet minor addition. AI is crappy as ever. But since you only stopped playing after Gathering Storms you should already know what I said above; the game hasn’t changed much since, even one major bug was left unfixed. Secret societies are fun but not at all balanced.
- corbulo 4y agoEverything you said was basically my impression of the game when I left it. I didn't know about the last part, it doesn't surprise me they underdelivered on it.
- oefrha 4y agoTo be clear secret societies is an optional game mode, and it’s not half bad for what it is, especially if you enjoy overpowered gameplay.
- NhanH 4y agoInteresting, how is secret societies imbalanced? That wasn’t my impression and I still play the game somewhat recently (certainly no more imbalance than the different civils themselves)
- oefrha 4y agoVampires combat strength is calculated as base strength of the strongest unit you have trained, plus 1 for every unit that has died in an adjacent tile (bonus from barbarians capped at +10). They don't normally die either, they retreat when brought to 1HP. You can intentionally sacrifice scouts around them to boost their CS. So you can realistically have unstoppable +30 CS vampires by mid game (as comparison, tank is +35 over a knight, two eras earlier), and unlimited CS by end game, as if you need an end game. Did I mention they also gain a -5 CS aura by industrial era? Their only weaknesses are lackluster movement (2, made up by earlier "airports" i.e. vampire castles), weaker passive healing (-5 HP per turn, made up by +50 from pillaging), and inability to form corps/armies (but you can get way more than +17 anyway). Another big source of imbalance is of course the AI's inability to use any of the secret society powers effectively.
- janalsncm 4y agoIt would be really interesting if some of the advances in AI could make their way into the game. Make the gameplay more human by incorporating recent advances in ML-based gameplay e.g. Diplomacy and Poker. Create more variety of dialogue using transformer models. Make in-game diplomacy more nuanced. There’s a lot that could be done.
- corbulo 4y agoThats actually a great idea. Imagine actually being able to talk Ghandi down from nuking everyone!
- dangoldin 4y agoI read an interview a while back with a game developer who was asked why video games have historically had so much fighting and he responded with "it's easy to write." Take away is that as AI improves we will move to a world where conflict in video games will be very different - your example but also imagine being able to actually have to argue/convince characters in games using free form speech.
- corbulo 4y agoExactly! Imagine word choice making the difference. Looking not too strong nor too weak. It would make for a really compelling game. Given Civ's AI track record my hopes are high but expectations low.
- XorNot 4y agoA large language model tied into a Civilization game as the game's diplomacy engine would be a hell of a thing.
- hypertele-Xii 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fa%C3%A7ade_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fa%C3%A7ade_(video_game)
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- none_to_remain 4y agoI hope they optimize the thing. I played one game of VI and felt the gameplay was an excellent fixup and polishing on the changes introduced in V, but it had gotten so slow that I was done after one game.
- hadlock 4y agoNot at all surprised. They will be making Civ sequels a hundred years from now. Tropico sequels too, probably.
- alexashka 4y agoCiv needs to be moddable and they can get a little percentage of every mod sale. Then this franchise will be actually good rather than something people play for a week or two and forget about. I want an invention tree that's thousands of items long based on actual human history, not an invention tree that's optimized for what a 15 year old will find 'fun' within the first week of play. Civ is an unfortunate lost opportunity to make educational content that'd make people want to go read a history book afterwards. Or maybe it's just me :)
- lfowles 4y agoEurope Universalis is the one that made me actually want to learn history more. Civ was just a game with some historical names attached to units and buildings in comparison.
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- raincole 4y ago...what do you mean? Civ is very moddable.
- alexashka 4y agoI had to look it up. There are a bunch of mods, wow. I stand corrected, sort of. The UI to browse these mods is something out of a geocities website from the 1990s. I should've been more specific, I meant modding that enables creators to actually make money and gets promoted by the game developer - not a dark corner that hasn't been updated in 30 years where you can click an image but can't get to the next image without zooming out. That's not modding, that's, I don't even know what to call it - a historical artifact by people who don't seem to be aware of what century we're in.
- as_bntd 4y ago> The UI to browse these mods is something out of a geocities website from the 1990s. Is the Steam Workshop that bad for Civ?
- bornfreddy 4y agoIs there some way one could play Civ 1 again?
- cwillu 4y agohttps://archive.org/details/CIVILIZATION_201902 https://archive.org/details/CIVILIZATION_201902
- ravagat 4y agoWow, thanks for the share
- bornfreddy 4y agoThank you thank you thank you!!! :)
- kzrdude 4y agoMac OS / System 7 on the web was shown off on HN "recently" because it's kind of cool. I got stuck playing a few turns! it has many games including the Civ I for mac from my childhood. It has some file transfer capacity, not sure if it works well to save progress... mostly a curiosity! https://system7.app https://system7.app
- AtlasBarfed 4y agoThere's freeciv too, although it is more of a civ2 variant
- voidfunc 4y agoThey need to really work on the Civ AI especially the military AI. The games are super boring once you learn the AI is basically garbage at managing armies. Also the late game needs to be more meaningful. A lot of players never make it to the later ages because victory is achievable quite a bit sooner unless you're plating for science victory.
- jasonkester 4y agoI bought the original when it came out and, together with Master of Orion, it ate so much of my life that it added a year to my time at university. Since then I've bought every new Civ as it came out and maybe played through two or three games before abandoning it. None of them capture the original, but rather just add more and different crap to micromanage. They're just not fun. The big exception is Alpha Centauri, which is essentially a Civ 2 remake with good automation of the boring stuff. Over the years I've probably played that even more than the original. The other surprising exception is Civilization Revolution 1 for the iPad. It stripped out manual terrain improvement entirely and left a really fun game behind. Sadly because it's in the apple ecosystem you can't get it anymore. It only runs on iOS 8 and below, and has been replaced in the store by Version 2 With Microtransactions and Pay To Win. I keep an old ipad on life support just to play it. But yeah, the mainline Civ games have been (for me) a chance to pay $60 every few years, get excited, and be disappointed. I think I might finally break out of my cycle with this one.
- xref 4y agoI dunno, just based on how much studios believe they need to deliver in a AAA title. You seem like you’re craving a simpler experience than the enormous budget and revenue expectations dictate will get created.
- jasonkester 4y agoYeah, they kinda screwed themselves by getting the first one perfect. The ideal sequel would be "Civ 1, with new graphics and better automation". Then iterate on that every few years.
- yyyk 4y agoIt should first take the good parts from the previous 'classic' games: CIV IV's modability, CIV 2's Throne room, somewhat more random combat (a bit like original CIV but not as much), a half decent AI... and don't rush it.
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- anon223345 4y agoHopefully they fix multiplayer.
- nicolas_t 4y agoSlightly out of topic, does anyone know any good mods for Beyond Earth to completely recreate Alpha Centauri? I tried Beyond Earth, really didn't like it but I absolutely loved Alpha Centauri
- BlueTemplar 4y agoSlightly out of topic too- (AFAIK, no, but it has been years since I last checked) -but you might be interested in Shadow Empire : https://www.wargamer.com/shadow-empire/review https://www.wargamer.com/shadow-empire/review
- nicolas_t 4y agoThanks for the recommendation, yes it does seem right up my alley :) I'll give it a go
- pavlov 4y agoThe Digital Antiquarian, a brilliant blog that’s been chronicling gaming history in exquisite detail, just wrote about Civilization II as part of a series on strategy gaming sequels: https://www.filfre.net/2023/01/sequels-in-strategy-gaming-part-1-civilization-ii/ https://www.filfre.net/2023/01/sequels-in-strategy-gaming-pa...
- Semaphor 4y agoI played Civ II, Civ V, and VI. After the disappointment that was VI, I'll either wait for a <$10 GOTY sale, or for them to announce that they'll release a proper SDK again that allows modding as it did for 5. Otherwise, I'll just keep playing Civ V with Vox Populi fka community balance patch.
- istinetz 4y agoVox Populi is my jam. It's ridiculous that a handful of dedicated fans can improve an AAA game so much.
- csomar 4y agoAfter playing Europa Universalis, I don’t think Civ is doing it for me. Here are a few issues: - You can’t automate many tasks. This is especially true in Civ 6 where you have to re-select everything. I’m not certain who thought this is a good idea. - As you progress in the game, the turn time become ridiculously long. - For it to be reasonably fast, you are limited in term of map size and the number of opponents. - The AI is dumb. After a few plays, the game is pretty much predictable. Europa Universalis covers all of these shortcomings and more. However, it’s not turn-based and it’s still stuck in the 1700s, so no new technologies. Climate change, for example, is an interesting addition and adds spice to the game. Still looking forward to Civ 6. Will be playing at least a couple times to see their progress.
- Karrot_Kream 4y agoI played Civ I-IV and then discovered Paradox Interactive's games. Just stopped playing Civ after that. I've played some games of Victoria 2 that are so interesting I chat about them with history nerds around dinner.
- MaxikCZ 4y agoI think Paradox studio is the real underdog, and everyone loving Civ games should check them out. I love the 4x concept and tried almost all major games in this category, but left after one or two playtroughs because there was always something pushing me away. Usually its the need for mocromanaging everything on huge scales in longer games. Im hooked on Crusader Kings 3 for a year now, and want to get into Europa Universalis and Victoria 3 afterwards
- atchoo 4y agoYup no turning back now after supping on CK3 wine. I tried EU4 but graphics/text-rendering issues meant I just couldn't play it. I look forward to an EU5 with a CK3 quality make over. Sounds like we might have to wait a year or so Vic3 iron out all it's issues.
- BlueTemplar 4y agoIt's funny that you would call PDS the underdogs, because while Civ still has (some) of its former glory left and so is still a bestseller, the many PDS games are together probably at this point leading in terms of funding and popularity. And almost everyone else is far behind. To use a metaphor, in the «slow strategy video games» sector, Firaxis/TakeTwo are akin to the creators of Avatar for movies, while PDS/Paradox are Marvel/Disney. (note, high funding & popular ≠ good)
- snickerbockers 4y agoI like civ but there hasn't been a good civ game at launch since civ 4. It always feels barbones and incomplete without the DLC expansions.
- ofrzeta 4y agoCan't get any better than Civ 3 :)
- eric-burel 4y agoSorry I developed a Dwarf Fortress addiction in the meantime so I don't have time for this anymore It's not you Civ, it's my dwarves
- atchoo 4y agoSimilar for me but with Crusader Kings 3. I can't imagine playing Civ now without murder, marriages, a dynasty to care for etc. Crusader Kings has prompted me to read dozens on history books due to how engages you with real historical events in a way that no Civ ever has beyond checking a wiki page on a world wonder or some such. My perfect game would be Crusader Kings with a bit of Civ flavour: add the tech tree, world wonders, exploration and more freedom for where to found cities and I would be over the moon.
- lores 4y agoHave you played Old World? Created by the Civ 4 designer, and more of a Civ-with- CK elements than the reverse, but I've stopped playing Civ since it came out.
- atchoo 4y agoI haven't heard of it, I will take a look, thanks. I remember being very disappointed in Civ 5 compared to Civ 4 but I can't now remember much about it. I think I liked the slime-mould like spread of culture/religion compared to the simplification in 5. Was there also unit stacking?
- damiankennedy 4y agoHave loved every Civ since 1 but it seems theres certain fetures that they'll never change/improve like battles and wonders. I also thought the graphics in 6 were a backwards step and the world council too much of a break in the flow. Lately I've been playing Humankind and really enjoying it. You have epic battles involving land, air and sea units. You choose a wonder and have to finish it before choosing another.
- Thorentis 4y agoCiv 4 was peak Civilisation in my opinion. Everything about it felt polished, fun, and intentional. Great music and voice acting, wonderful expansion packs, great multiplayer that didn't require any other service, great scenario and custom maps.
- rvnx 4y agoand then they had this weird idea that a successful strategy game should abandon everything and, instead, should become a micromanagement game with very little possible automation (the builders system instead of workers)
- the_only_law 4y ago> and then they had this weird idea that a successful strategy game should abandon everything and, instead, should become a micromanagement game with very little possible automation See also: Victoria 3
- becked 4y agoThe Civ 4 game designer recently created Old World, which is great; it has that same sense of intention, fun, and polish. Definitely recommend it.
- hnarn 4y agoLet’s hope they learn from their mistakes considering the Metacritic scores they’ve gotten for the past three iterations: Civ 4: 94/8.2 Civ 5: 90/8.0 Civ 6: 88/7.0
- jszymborski 4y agoI think this might be a function of their DLC model, where they launch a barebones game and flesh it out over two expansions. Civ V and VI vanilla are so much more boring and incomplete without their expansions
- BlueTemplar 4y agoCiv4 had two expansions too, though it perhaps didn't release in as such sorry state as Civ5 ?
- ravagat 4y agoWow, I still have Civ 6 gathering dust and queued up. While I'd like to make time to play again, I just have no priority for gaming anymore.
- aflag 4y agoI hope they do a UI overhaul. I've many times thought I had one army selected, but it was another and did the wrong thing. If it would just start a new turn with the same thing you had selected in the previous it would be an improvement already. Also, I feel like selection could be more RTS like and you could select multiple units to do the same thing. To name a few things.
- humpydumpy 4y agofunny how they are at 7 already. Maybe they can finally release versions 5 and 6 without DRM? I would pay for them, as I had a lot of fun with 1-4. But I never considered going to DRM darkness for 5 or 6
- ryanmcgarvey 4y agoMy biggest gripe about the Civ series is that it felt empty after a while. I love hearing the stories other players experience when playing, but there was never a good way to recreate and share those experiences. What Civ needs is challenges and leaderboards. Pre-configure scenarios that everyone can play and compare their experiences together. Score each play on a number of criteria (cities built, fastest tech, army size, etc), and maybe even have custom achievements for that particular scenario - like how fast you fully explored the particular valley the scenario starts you in, or how quickly you defeated the aggressive city state that starts next to you. Not only should randomly generated maps be shareable, but Sid Meier should have weekly scenarios that involve hand crafted challenges. Not just normal games with the AI trying to act like a human, but the AI existing as part of the map. Example: at turn 50, an aggressive hoard comes down off the mountain attacks your civ. When you reach the other side of the mountain, there will be a Civ with 4 cities and an advanced army. You have certain diplomatic options available (like a quest to fulfill) or you can try and challenge them. How you handle these various challenges will impact future scenarios. The important thing is that the AI isn't trying to play the same game. It's just there as part of the map to give the player an interesting experience.
- Terretta 4y ago> Civ series felt empty after a while Want to replay your favorite old map from Civ 7? Sorry, the servers have been turned off, back to Civ 17 and the Season 3 Persons Wonders and Specialists pack for $79.95... Not everything has to have "multiplayer elements". Keep great single player games offline.
- Mezzie 4y agoAgree. And as an aficionado of sandboxes and software toys who's been playing Civ since Civ I, it would feel far emptier to me to turn Civ into yet another PvP/meta/challenge oriented snoozefest.
- ryanmcgarvey 4y agoForgive me, I may not have worded that correctly. By empty, I simply meant that the game stopped being interesting after a while. The single player game was only so replay-able, and multi-player is a very different game that doesn't suit me. What Civ has is a great community, but that community had no way to experience content together. Hand crafted scenarios that people can play simultaneously and share their experiences isn't a multiplayer element, it's a community element.
- bob1029 4y agoI don't mind Civ6 for solo play, but for multiplayer it's a no-go for me. Turn lengths get to be so goddamn long because everyone is worrying about all the mini-game mechanics. Civ5 is what is used for multiplayer in my group. The mechanics are simpler and there are far fewer decisions to make as you get into the end game. If I was going to make a 4x, I would make multiplayer the #1 priority and I would focus on the turn length. There are plenty of 4x titles out there if you and a buddy want to burn an entire afternoon playing through one turn each.
- nerbert 4y agoYou can significantly reduce turn length by activating "quick movement", "quick combat" in multiplayer (all players must activate it).
- Mobius01 4y agoCiv V had such beautiful presentation, with art deco visual themes, wonders presented as beautiful paintings and wonderful music. I’d like to see that again. It would be great to see some of the recent advances in AI text generation enrich the game. It would make the games more varied.
- db48x 4y agoYea, I really enjoyed the art style of Civ V. They put a lot of thought and effort into it, and I really love Art Deco. I would love seeing more games with that level of focus on specific styles.
- BlueTemplar 4y agoYou love Art Deco ? Hmm, then you might enjoy this ! Surprisingly good soundtrack : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bqCz5wd_T0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bqCz5wd_T0 https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/magic-story/episode-1-homecoming-2022-03-28 https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/magic-story/episode-1-home... https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Streets_of_New_Capenna#Magic_Story https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Streets_of_New_Capenna#Magic_Sto...
- db48x 4y agoI’ve no particular interest in MTG, but I do like that architecture.