Civilization VII – Civ switching, the whole controversy

By | August 24, 2024

Civilization 7 has been announced, and the whole forum knows (nearly) only 1 topic: Civ switching. In Civ7 you pick a leader, and one civilization from the antiquity to play through the antiquity. When arriving to the age of exploration, you will stay with your leader, but pick another civilization (from a set of exploration age civs), and the same for the modern age. Some of these civs are marked as being the “historical choice”, based on your previous civ.

As expect, a part of the forum is livid, with the main thread racking up 40 pages already, and this is a short summary:

Our member paisley_trees, a history student and civ enthusiast, has been discussing this in-depth (see video and thread here), in a very balanced way, and made alternative suggestions for the wording. The wording of “historical choice” has also caused issues from a Native American point of view, as there are concerns that colonized people might be replaced by colonizers (there is currently no indication that this will happen). The video and its suggestion addresses this.

It seems that roughly 50% of the forum population would prefer if you could keep your civ (and another 25% really don’t want to have this mechanism), but on the other hand, 75% will anyways still buy Civ7, even if they might not like this mechanic.

This has obviously contributed to the civ communities main hobby before a new release, which is guessing for new civilizations. We might (not confirmed) be getting 15 civs per age, in total 45, of which 15 have already been revealed or identified. A separate thread is currently discussing which civ might be following whom. The community manager Sarah has also confirmed that new in-depth reveals will be coming, and we are looking very much forward to hear more about the civ-switching (although we don’t know if the first reveal will be about this).

And that is the “short” summary.

Sullla’s AI Survivor Season Eight – Wildcard Game 2

By | August 22, 2024

AI Survivor is an annual competition of all Civilization IV AI Leaders by long-time Civilization enthusiast and streamer Sullla.

In what I now call “The Year of the Peacemongers” Pericles of Greece won a space victory in Wildcard Game 1. Pericles is the sole leader to advance to the Playoffs from this matchup. The only true warmonger on the map, Catherine of Russia, was quickly dispatched early game. Poor Hatshepsut (Hatty) of Egypt failed once again to score any points this game, despite getting out to a very impressive start. Hatty was eventually excised from this game late by Zara of Ethiopia, who played strong but not enough to overtake Pericles’s tech lead. Hatty remains the only leader never to score a point in AI Survivor. Surprisingly, raging barbarians were not very impactful on this map except for Asoka, who did have some early issues. Read more about the first wildcard game here.

Wildcard Game 2 is a reverse makeup of leaders than the first Wildcard Game. Almost all the leaders are either warmongers or at least aggressive, except for Washington of America. Suryavaram of Khmer is the most decorated in this matchup, but this appears to be anyone’s game. Raging Barbarians are again online for this matchup so expect some earlier shenanigans from those uncivilized brutes. Be sure to make your picks in the picking context.

Sullla’s AI Survivor Season 8 continues Friday, August 23rd on Sullla’s Twitch Channel at noon EST.

We welcome you to join the fun by discussing here

Civilization 7 gameplay reveal, release date, Deluxe and Founders edition, pre-order bonus and more!

By | August 20, 2024

The Gamescom opening has given us a lot of information about Civilization 7!

Discuss the trailer with us here.

Discuss the different versions, pre-order bonus and release date (Feb 6 2025) with us here.

Follow the whole reveal discussion here.

Watch the Civ VII Gameplay Reveal and Discuss in the Forums

By | August 20, 2024

The Civ VII gameplay reveal is happening today! Prior to that is the Gamescon Opening Night Live event, which promises to have at least a mention of Civ VII as well. Watch them via these links!

  • Gamescom Opening Night Live Civilization VII Gameplay Reveal Trailer –  August 20 at Twitch.tv/gamescom at 11:00 AM PT / 2:00 PM ET / 8:00 PM CEST
  • Civilization VII Gameplay Showcase, featuring over 20+ minutes of gameplay details –  August 20 at Twitch.tv/FiraxisGames at 1:30 PM PT / 4:30 PM ET / 10:30 PM CEST

Can’t watch it live or want to discuss your favorite details with fellow CivFanatics? Head to the Civ VII forums! They are sure to have many posts discussing every aspect of what is shared!

PolyCast 437: Starting to Get Rolling

By | August 19, 2024
PolyCast Logo

The four-hundred-and-thirty-seventh episode of PolyCast, “Starting to Get Rolling“ is now available for streaming on the PolyCast YouTube Channel. This episode features regular co-hosts CanusAlbinus, Stephanie “Makahlua”, Phil “TheMeInTeam”, and Jason “MegaBearsFan”. Topics for this episode include:

News
00h01m24s | August 20th Civilization VII Gameplay Reveal
00h08m00s | Study the Past, Civs 4,5, and 6
00h17m30s | July Challenge of the Month: Live Yongle Reaction
Forum Talk
00h21m49s | AI Navies
Research Lab
00h31m06s | Civ VII: 1UPT or SOD?
00h42m01s | Civilization VII Top Unique Unit Requests

NOTE: This Episode was recorded on August 3, 2024.

PolyCast is a bi-weekly audio production recording live every other Saturday at 12 Noon US Eastern Time throughout the year, in an ongoing effort to give the Civilization community an interactive voice.

RSS feeds should be active again, as well.

Join us here for the discussion!

Civ VII: 2K Account Required for Online Play Only

By | August 18, 2024

Astute CivFanatics had noticed on Civilization VII’s Steam page that Civ VII “Requires 3rd Party Account: 2K Account,” leading to questions of whether that was a hard requirement to play the game. Firaxis has now clarified that the 2K Account will only be required for multiplayer, and will not be required for single-player or launching the game.

Combined with the earlier news about Civ VI no longer including the 2K launcher, and the same applying for Civ VII, this has provided some degree of clarity about Civ VII’s requirements ahead of the Gamescon announcements expected next Tuesday.

Discuss this multiplayer-only 2K account requirement in this thread.

Ara: History Untold: Dev Diary, Ep. 23 – Diplomacy

By | August 16, 2024

And we got the dev diary #23 for Ara, this time about diplomacy. As in Civ, you can propose trade (and research) agreements, declare war (different types though), denounce them, and give gifts to other nations. You get also some more options like connecting your empires via road, or complete narrative events which influence the diplomatic values. As also in Civ, each leader will have a different personality, and will favour different traits of other civs. For more info, just check the video and comment here.

New Civ 7 logo found via Steam

By | August 16, 2024

Our sleuths have found a new Civ7 logo, which looks quite interesting and leaves a lot room for speculation. And we also found the Civ7 desktop icon! Want to know more? Check our thread.