Civilization 7 is in development

[Brian Shanahan]

A friend of mine had an interesting take on this report: he agrees with you when you say that "the game's systems are too complex for the AI to understand". But he would also chop five words off that sentence.

The same friend also felt the age mechanic was to prevent snowballing, so games aren't decided in the first few turns and the rest of the game is a formality. On paper at first anyway,. And uh, yeah, definitely not the case.

All in all, I said it before and I'll say it again: Humankind is a weird place to have cribbed from considering it wasn't even well received, or wasn't groundshaking at best.

I would say that the game is complicated, not complex. Largely because there's only one (intended) right way to play it. There's a lot of inputs for the game but realistically only one outcome, rendering it complicated rather than complex (complexity is about outputs, complicatedness about inputs), and much of the game simply pointless busy work (but then again, so were 5 & 6 and BtS)

[yuris125]

Thank the gods that at least Endless Legend 2 looks great, and will still get an entire Beta/Early Access track before release. Strategy gaming seemed to be bouncing back recently, but when was the last actual good release without endless DLC scumminess and barebones mechanics? Endless Space 2?

Age of Wonders 4? Haven't played it myself yet but heard it's good

Before that, Old World. Unless you're fundamentally against any kind of DLC

Honestly we haven't seen DLC scumminess in the 4X world at all, apart from Civ

[luddite]

I'm done with Firaxis in the 4X space, they won't get my money next time. I feel scammed.

I wonder if Firaxis even wants to make 4X games? It almost seems like they're ashamed of their 4X origins. Much more hip and cool to make adventure/role playing/story games, which seems to be what they're doing. They're doing everything they can to tone down the 4X elemants in each succesive version of civ.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Thank the gods that at least Endless Legend 2 looks great, and will still get an entire Beta/Early Access track before release. Strategy gaming seemed to be bouncing back recently, but when was the last actual good release without endless DLC scumminess and barebones mechanics? Endless Space 2?

Age of Wonders 4? Haven't played it myself yet but heard it's good

Before that, Old World. Unless you're fundamentally against any kind of DLC

Honestly we haven't seen DLC scumminess in the 4X world at all, apart from Civ

Age of Wonders has scummy DLC. I'm looking at you Swift Marchers trait. Pay to win!

[Japper007]

I played a few games of Age of Wonders 4, but it got repetitive quite quick. Ironic given that the main selling point was the massive customization...

[Japper007]

Snip

Snippity Snip

Honestly we haven't seen DLC scumminess in the 4X world at all, apart from Civ

I mostly meant that as an addendum to barebones releases. Almost every strategy game these days cuts out what would be considered base game mechanics, and then surprise surprise it's the first big DLC update. I view so called Grand Strategy games as basically 4X too, which makes the two big dogs in the 4X game (Firaxis and Paradox) guilty of this practice. EUIV is pretty much unplayable without DLC, so is Stellaris, so is every Civ franchise title since 4 (Beyond Earth literally doesn't function without Rising Tide as of my last time installing it)

[yuris125]

Ah yes, to me Paradox games are really a different genre from 4X (except maybe Stellaris). But if we include them, they definitely are guilty of this approach

[LKendter]

I'm hoping when I get Galactic Civ4 sometime in the distant future that it is a good 4X. I played a lot of hours with GC3

[MJW (ya that one)]

I played a few games of Age of Wonders 4, but it got repetitive quite quick. Ironic given that the main selling point was the massive customization...

AoW 4 is basically AoW3 with a new coat of paint and the BS removed. Healing past what you started with (by adding the temporary hp mechanic), stack-splitting the AI (by adding sieges and allowing armies to reenforce beyond one hex + capping the number of armies on each side to three), XP grinding, making so your leader doesn't have to give up his turn to spellcast--so you are not at a disadvantage by having him in battle and removing the ability of necroing Units you didn't control--so you cannot get tier 4 unit on turn 5.     

So if you were bored with AoW3 AoW4 won't help much, even though it is a better game.

[Japper007]

I played a few games of Age of Wonders 4, but it got repetitive quite quick. Ironic given that the main selling point was the massive customization...

AoW 4 is basically AoW3 with a new coat of paint and the BS removed. Healing past what you started with (by adding the temporary hp mechanic), stack-splitting the AI (by adding sieges and allowing armies to reenforce beyond one hex + capping the number of armies on each side to three), XP grinding, making so your leader doesn't have to give up his turn to spellcast--so you are not at a disadvantage by having him in battle and removing the ability of necroing Units you didn't control--so you cannot get tier 4 unit on turn 5.     

So if you were bored with AoW3 AoW4 won't help much, even though it is a better game.

I've played both... empasis on played there. (as I recall we even did a succession game together right MJW?) I personally wasn't even that bothered by such "bs", I tend not to care in a mostly Single Player game, just that basically every game comes down to "unlock tier 4-->spam tier 4-->win" no matter what flavour you picked for your wizard/faction. Just not enough actual mechanical difference, everything is the same with some slight tweaks to stats.