Firaxis Games has made some interesting announcements for Civilization VII.
Creative director Ed Beach shared this announcement in their latest blog update:
First, we’re testing some dramatic changes to the Legacy Paths and Victories in Civ VII. We want to open up the game and provide many new paths your empire can follow while achieving greatness and competing for victory.
Second – and this one’s been one of the most requested features from players – we’re internally playtesting ways to play as one civ continuously through the ages, allowing you to choose a civilization from any Age and guide them throughout your journey through history.
How Legacy Paths Work Now
The Legacy Path system is how Civilization VII players make progress in the game. Your actions earn points in one of four Legacy Paths.
The end goal is to earn a Legacy before an Age ends, granting you the status of entering a Golden Age. If you don’t reach enough progress to earn a Legacy, that Age will then be deemed a Dark Age.
Why Does Firaxis Need To Change Legacy Paths?
You aren’t tied down to one particular Legacy Path, so you can work towards different kinds of Legacies throughout the game. But therein lies the rub.
The way Civilization VII works right now, you can’t earn all four Legacy Paths in a single era. This limitation is clearly intended to keep players experimenting over and over.
But players may want a way to earn everything in a single game. So maybe Firaxis can open up a path for high level players to earn some superachievement.
How The Victory System Ties In
You earn Victories in Civilization VII all the way after you get to the Modern Age. You can consider these as later game goals, if they aren’t quite the endgame.
Victories are also tied to Legacy Paths. This is a change to how Victories worked in previous games. Civilization VII players may want a return to the old system for this one.
And this all ties in to the second big change Ed has promised.
Playing As One Civilization
Firaxis took another huge risk when they designed Civilization VII so that your own civilizations ended in crisis events. You had to jump to new civilizations after the Antiquity and Exploration Ages ended.
So now Firaxis is talking about returning to the old system. Making this change might make fans happy, but there’s a big question behind this promise.
Shouldn’t Firaxis Just Make Civilization VIII?
Is Civilization VII going to be OK if they make smaller changes to make it like older Civilization games? Firaxis might accidentally ruin the game for the players who like it the way that it works now.
Ed also announced that they would launch the Firaxis Feature Workshop, so that the players themselves could help them develop the game moving forward.
It’s not a bad idea, but it seems to be avoiding a self-evident truth. Firaxis could just go ahead and take what they learned here in making Civilization VIII.
Well, they may end up deciding to do that in the progress of trying this grand experiment. For now, you can join the Civilization Discord here for updates on the Firaxis Feature Workshop, and give Firaxis feedback now.
