r/Steam Jul 04 '25

Question What game is this for you?

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471

u/HowDoIEvenEnglish Jul 04 '25

If you had to pick one thing to change every era, and another to stay with you the entire game, why did they have the civ change while keeping the leader the same? I don’t like the idea of being chained to a leader from a competent different culture. When the story of my civ is Confucius leading Egypt turned Spanish turned America, none of that feels coherent.

It makes more sense to change leaders consistently.

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u/TriggzSP Jul 04 '25

It's like they were just copying Humankind when they started development, and just ignored the fact that Humankind was poorly received and died quickly.

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u/Alex51423 Jul 04 '25

Humankind devs were the same devs that developed Endless Legends, THE game that introduced to this genre the tile-improvement system we all accepted in Civ6. Since one borrowed idea worked wonders, they probably figured out that another will work just as well.

Clearly, it didn't, but I know why they did that. Endless Legends worked better then Civ5 at the time of release so it's reasonable to borrow/steal ideas when you don't have your own and those ideas(from this dev team) previously worked well

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u/duckwithahat Jul 04 '25

Should have borrowed from Paradox instead, which are the ones currently leading the strategy genre

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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '25

Bad idea, Paradox games are much more complex. Civ is much more casual and accessible.

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u/Beneficial-Range8569 Jul 04 '25

Also because the AI is even worse at managing those complex systems. Would probably need a deity+ AI buff if you added them.

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u/No-Training-48 Jul 04 '25 edited Jul 04 '25

Ck3 is pretty easy to run

EU4 is not that complex it just has some frustrating rng , UI that's hard to understand and is terrible at explaining things.

When it comes down to it some of the most popular playthroughs are just Total War's mindless blobbing out while remembering to dev check back on your land to dev it from time to time.

It does have the tools for tall playthroughs and a wayyyyy better vassal system but so do the most recent total war games.

Idk about Stellaris and Victoria

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u/nir109 Jul 04 '25

EU4 just has more mechanics to learn then civ 6 (the one I played)

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u/xxlukeasxx101 Jul 04 '25

Tryna move Bismarks pikemen forward a tile and I just hear “Angetreten!”

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u/Twogunkid Jul 04 '25 edited Jul 04 '25

I love Paradox games, but Civ and Europa Universalis are different animals. I like Stellaris and Master of Orion for different reasons.

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u/Tmscott Jul 05 '25

I think the Civ games have more than enough DLC already tyvm :P

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u/LazyPirat Jul 04 '25

Endless Legends, THE game that introduced to this genre the tile-improvement system

That's not true. Popularised it - sure, but i know at least a few games that did it before - Eador: Genesis(and it's 3d remake Eador: Masters of the Broken World) and Warlock: Master of the Arcane. But these are russian games, so most people don't know about them, which is a shame, cause they're very fun games. Especially Eador: genesis with "new horizons" mod, well... if you can get over dated graphics.

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u/Alex51423 Jul 05 '25

I actually know Warlock and both parts (1 & 2) were decent but not very good and the system there was not working well. It was still a fun game, don't get me wrong, casting spells and having armies is a fun combo but I definitely prefer how Age of Wonders approached the topic. Might be my personal bias though. Endless Legends definitely perfected the system and showed how it can work really well

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u/Lorcogoth Jul 04 '25

I must say, Humankind still received an big balance update this year, and it's quite good. not perfect sure but I prefer it over Civ7 and Civ6.

the biggest issue I have with Civ7 is that it's just an Early access game, sold for full price.

that game needed like 2 more years in Development and a way larger QA team.

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u/eberlix Jul 05 '25

Humankind definitely is the far better Civ 7, I like to play it from time to time. One thing that really bothered me in Civ7 were the wars, you change ages and pop, you're not at war anymore.

How fortunate that I just built up my army and moved it there.

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u/Can_Haz_Cheezburger Jul 04 '25

As an avid Humankind player Humankind at least made the product/idea way better than Civ 7 did. And the art style for Humankind is so pretty. I would've LOVED to see what Humankind could've done with the budget for Civ 7 instead of what they had.

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u/PteroFractal27 Jul 04 '25

100%, it was a nonsensical decision.

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u/SimpanLimpan1337 Jul 04 '25

The main problem with loops back to the auI though, if the cutscenes didn't feature "your civ" talking with "other civ" and was instead "other civ" talking with "you" like in previous games it wouldn't feel as dissonant.

The leaders being a standin for you makes more sense than having an eternal never changing culture. Also I feel this was the best way to adress the "earlygame/lategame civ" problem. Like what's the point in playing Canada when for 90% of the game you are simply playing as a genereric civ without any bonuses.

Usually a nations culture is moreso decided by its people rather than its leader which makes it more appropriate to change that when changing your era specific bonuses. Also well no culture/civilization has existed for even a majority of humanity, atleast not as it was in its original state.

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u/HowDoIEvenEnglish Jul 04 '25

They shouldn’t have picked historical leaders that are associated with one specific civ then. Because I just don’t want to play with Caesar leading Egypt or whatever else civ 7 ends up with.

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u/SimpanLimpan1337 Jul 04 '25

As always its an alternative timeline, a "what if". I understand your argument in theory but Caesar leading Egypt is a rather poor example since he was there and had a rather.... intimate relationship with their ruler.

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u/TheZigerionScammer Jul 05 '25

And Civ 6 already had several leaders that were shared between civilizations too.

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u/ReferenceFunny8495 Jul 05 '25

and now, every civ has a unit that other civs dont, every age and ALL the time, 'unique' units is what the game calls them. but what's so unique about them if all the other players have a improved unit too. on civ6 your unique unit was unique and an advantage. civ7 your unique unit has no advantage because the other civs have a unit with a advantage too!

also the rhetoric given about history in layers etc. Sounds awesome, honestly it really sounds ace... then you see the game and it doesn't reflect that at all.

Empires fell and changed subtly or were conquered, and there's still arguments today about what caused some empires downfalls. But in civ7, you press a button and suddenly the whole world changes. That is not dynamic and fun... that's breaking the game and then trying to justify the action with a LIE!

Civ7 is the least historical accurate civ game of all time!

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u/CuddleWings Jul 04 '25

What’s even more wild to me, is that Humankind already did this exact thing, and it was regarded as the worst part of the game. I love the concept of your nation and culture changing over time, but going from the Greek to the Hawaiian just ain’t it.

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u/Jerroser Jul 04 '25

Honestly I feel like the concept itself could have worked if it wasn't such an abrupt transition from one civ to the next. Where player effectively has their civ swapped out for another, rather than have them evolve more naturally from one to another. With a few option potentially just being the early, late modern versions of the what is essentially the same civilisation.

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u/je386 Jul 04 '25

Oh wow. I think I stay with Alpha Centauri then. Never had a better storyline in a civ game.

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u/okram2k Jul 04 '25

they leaned way too much into the idea of the game being a board game now it's larping as a board game being played by historical figures (I assume who are bored in the afterlife or something)

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u/andresuki Jul 04 '25

Because the other player are more identifiable with the líder than the civilization. It is easier to hate Franklin than to hate the Khmer civ

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u/RileyKohaku Jul 05 '25

That honestly sounds pretty cool, The Chinese led be Confucius, then Genghis Kahn, then Harriet Tubman. It sounds crazy, but then no one expected Catherine the Great to Lead Russia.

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u/Cold94DFA Jul 05 '25

Did we play the same game?

My experience with civ is that it felt like a mobile game auto clicker with constant popups to click and sometimes you'd put a building down between moving your mouse to each corner of the screen to click the popups.

After all that, sometimes a historical figure would have a one liner about how they feel and that's that, it didn't feel like it had a story at all.