The Exploration Age is Completely different in Civilization 7 - Civ 7 Exploration Age Analysis

[@TherealWashtali]

Hey Potato, you mentioned recently that you've been having a rough time lately. You are not alone man, thanks for continuing to make videos and keep plugging even when it's hard.

[@iptf]

I agree with this post. Keep going Irish potato man!

[@drjonritz]

Had no idea. Hope you get through it quick, and it's better on the other side.

[@EkayYT]

Potatoes are delicious.

[@Wolf-Nyan]

missed opportunity to say "and keep churning even when it's hard" joke aside, we're all here for you potato

[@Ffourteen]

Religion in Civ VI felt like all or nothing. I have to rush religion to get the bonus that synergizes with what I'm doing or don't even bother with it. This is something I can engage with as much as I want to, I'll get rewards for it even if I didn't focus on it. Also I like that it is contained to one age, I'm not churning out missionary after missionary after missionary at the same time I'm trying to build a spaceship.

[@SavageMatty]

@@Ffourteen once I realized religion was an easy way to win I started removing that win condition entirely

[@Velahra]

This is my takeaway as well. It does feel like you lose some of the fun personal civ roleplay identity that you can make by building your civ around a religion. But by making it strictly an expansionism mechanic instead of a bonus to home cities, it turns it into an optional gameplay path. Instead of being something that you must take, even if you don't interact with it, just for the extra passive yields. The absence of a faith resource further reinforces its new, more optional status in this build as well, at least in my mind.

[@davidleatherman1958]

One might say you had to *devote* yourself to it?

[@quent8944000]

Religion was bad in Civ 6 I hated the spam and religious combat 😅

[@Velahra]

20:27 To add an outsider perspective - I do actually enjoy the idea of the resource management minigame. I am really bad at visualizing abstract concepts - things like amenities never fully clicked for me. So being able to directly see what resource is going where makes a lot more sense to how my brain works!

[@Sco10]

@@Velahra yeah I never noticed what having/not having amenities ACTUALLY did. Like I tried to make them go up with Scotland and sort of noticed production and stuff felt high...?

[@myracelium9671]

I'm sorry but I don't see how removing something that faded away over time (like pantheons) is a bad thing, its in line with the ENTIRE theme of 'history is built in layers' IMO it was always weird to have a fully built up Catholic Spanish run and still have them worship some random river god from 3000 years ago

[@emylily8266]

while it's strange to have them worship it, old pagan beliefs still impact people to this day. We're still filled with superstitions from that era and special holidays related to it. Pantheons taking a different meaning under organized religion still makes sense.

[@incantrix1337]

But you just described Catholicism

[@bronzeox]

Also even if the beliefs don't hold, they impact the culture still. Having +1 production from fishing boats in the modern age isn't because the people believe in a river god but because they descend from people who have been fishing for centuries.

[@jesperengelbredt]

You keep the special abilities that your ancient civ has, even though you change to another civ twice. They even praised how you build your civ into a unique combination of stats and abilities with persistant choices that add up to create it. Why shouldnt a pantheon stick over time when ancient civ abilities do?

[@DongusMcBongus]

About things being hard lately. My dude. I’m JUST on the other side of perpetually being kicked in the nards by life since 2022. And things are FINALLY starting to look good. I’m saying this because that’s the period where I found this channel and the content really helped during a rough time for me. Thanks for everything and just know WE are rooting for YOU!

[@_Charles_LeClerc_]

@@DongusMcBongus thanks 😊

[@_Charles_LeClerc_]

Thanks 😊

[@kiranearitachi]

This is the main thing I'm excited for this age sounds so much fun and a reason for me to build naval units

[@jamesjiao]

Agreed. Naval units were always an afterthought for me in Civ 6.

[@patrickearlpastrana9006]

Man I always liked the idea of being a Naval power in an empire building game. This might finally do it

[@quandangle9397]

@@patrickearlpastrana9006 yeah same, larping as great britain with absolute naval supremacy would be LIT

[@rodrigopaim82]

I would basically build one or two just so I could fend off barbarians until I got late game where battleships and missile cruisers would destroy any coastal city in range... It is gonna be great to play with naval in the mid game

[@Army1SGRetired]

⁠@@jamesjiaoand many other 4x games unless you’re playing a Pangea map. Queue the Family Guy episode goofing on Aquaman.

[@Hazlius]

Disagree strongly with Potato on some of the religious points made in the video. I understand that it’s disappointing to lose a gameplay feature, but religion as a tent-pole feature in Civ 6 never made sense to me and is a major reason I never jived with that game. To Potato’s point, religion added an extra layer of complexity to play with and plan interesting strategies around and that is a layer of FUN, but I disagree that it’s a necessary addition to the game at the complexity it was at in 6. The idea of religious conversion, conflict, and high-profile relevance being restricted to one age makes more sense to me, (I think it could even fit better in a “middle age” in between antiquity and exploration) as you don’t really see major civilizations changing religion in the modern era, or really in antiquity before institutional organized religion developed. The idea of converting a modern American or China or whatever to a new majority religion just feels stupid to me. Maybe they’ll release an expansion at some point that adds a “middle ages” time period with more religion mechanics and crusades and what not. So with religion just restricted to one age (for now) I can see why they’d want to spend less time on developing a deeper system of adjacencies, linkages, etc. I also think, a lot of the beliefs and enhancements that Potato is missing were about faith generation, a currency that has been removed (to my great pleasure) so the lists feeling more “bland” or less impactful, makes some sense. I also think, with how the Civ 6 religion meta developed, there were some beliefs that were just objectively better and some that were unusable in almost any circumstance. A more bland list could mean potentially a more balanced/situational list. We’ll have to see how it plays, but tbh I prefer this system massively to Civ 6.

[@alexayers8904]

I think 6’s better-but I think 7’s done in a way to develop its own character down the line. Plus, I think 7 has a decent amount of complexity that religion was basically going to be paired down. I almost thought they had nixed it. I think it could use some carryover effects, though. Like, pantheons maybe becoming a social policy. Same issue is with codices, imo, that you’ll have with relics-they kinda just “go away”, unlike the other pathways’ bonuses.

[@AvishaiGreenstein]

7 takes a hard turn from 6 in its core philosophy. In fact I think 7 is breaking with the philosophy of the entire genre. 6 (and all 4x games) is a game about piling layers of bonuses on top of each other to efficiently reach the ultimate victory condition in a few hours. 7 is a game about constantly winning points towards various victories, creating efficiencies is still a big part of what you do to win but not actually how you win. Religion is a perfect example of this. In 6 its a support mechanic to create more yields to support other victory conditions. In 7 its an actually different gameplay mechanic where you win by actively converting. I really believe that we will see many of the current content creators around the game be unhappy, it simply will not play the same way.

[@benabaxter]

Strong disagree regarding religion mattering less in an exploration age. Religious conversion was a dominant factor in human history from Clovis to the Scramble for Africa. Conceptually, that is Civ VI's Exploration Age, even slightly beyond it around the edges.

[@Hazlius]

@@benabaxtersorry if it seems like I’m saying it matters less in exploration! Not my intention. Religious conversion is HUGE in exploration and makes perfect sense. I’m just thinking, in terms of religious wars, crusades, and mechanics with extra religious units like in Civ 6, Civ 7 by design would want to restrict to an age/time period where it’s most relevant, which could still be exploration age, but I also think it could be fun to add a more “medieval” or “Middle Ages” age to the game. I don’t know if they’ve ruled out extra ages, but it’s fun to think about.

[@Hazlius]

@@AvishaiGreensteinthis is a great point! In a lot of ways, on paper Civ 7 feels more like a board game than a video game, and it seems to be taking more of its DNA from outside the franchise than from previous Civ games, which is absolutely a valid complaint for those that really love the identity of Civ. Personally though, since Civ 6 never really worked for me (despite hundreds and hundreds of hours in the game) and since I love board games with similar victory mechanics to Civ 7, I’m looking forward to giving it a go. ❤

[@wanyaisneed3972]

I disagree with the religion thing. Like in civ 6 most of the time religion was a means to stock pile faith for culture victory or for a crusade push i a war game. Other times you really didnt care or only cared enough to defend it. If everyone is going to get a religion, then its important to make a reason to play around the religion. The bonuses being mostly for spreading the religion rather than simply having one make that incentive to at least be actively engaged with the system.

[@JuniorOliveira-lp4fo]

His whole point doesn't make sense, how is getting more food in tundra tiles related to a religion in any way? Religions should be based around followers, that's why they're relevant culturally for a civilization in general. The problem is he's so Civ brained that a more simple and realistic view of religion is seen as a downgrade because "it doesn't buff enough" or "it's not as relevant".

[@wanyaisneed3972]

@@JuniorOliveira-lp4fo I wouldn't go that far. Like I get it that there two real high points in creating a religion specifically in civ 6: the race to forming the religion and using the faith afterwards to as a form of currency to win the game, whether it be combat units or naturalists and rock bands. It also didnt help that the time when you were supposed to be engaging in religious conquest was the most fun part of civ 6, the real expansion era and when you starting cities were really setting up their important districts and doing builder management and there wasnt a lot of depth for religious focused wins other than hitting theocracy. I understand he doesn't like that theyre removing the two religion highs of the game, but i disagree with the characterization that religion was fun in it of itself, and not just a means to an end in most playthroughs you bothered wit it. And while they were more useful, from a game design perspective, passive boosts from religions that scaled just with you allowed you to just stockpile faith for the late game if the ai deided to just not bother you in the game.

[@JuniorOliveira-lp4fo]

@@wanyaisneed3972 But it doesn't need to be fun in that way, it can be fun in other ways. That's the point. You can kinda break the game with boosts that don't make sense in civ6. that's why its annoying McWhiskey, he sees it as losing a buff instead of seeing it as a gameplay mechanic.

[@Hazlius]

@@JuniorOliveira-lp4fohe’s upset about losing the gameplay mechanic that added an extra layer of complexity and fun for him. Even if it isn’t “realistic” I think it’s fair for Potato to be upset about losing a feature he found it fun to play with. I disagree with his reasoning, I disagree with the idea that it’s an important feature to have or that the game needs that level of complex religious mechanics, but I don’t disagree that it SUCKS when a game removes a thing that I had fun with, so I see where he’s coming from in that sense. Hopefully he’ll find that other aspects of the game fill the space he feels is missing that religion had filled, but I’m certainly not going to miss the Civ 6 religious system.

[@AvishaiGreenstein]

@@Hazlius I think this incentivizes more complexity then civ 6's system. It rewards you for going out and doing the thing. As opposed to in 6 where it was just yet another way to get yields that will eventually go towards building a space ship.

[@Dunkle0steus]

Hope things take a turn for the better for you, bud

[@molorbuuch4218]

Carl and Ed looked so uncomfortable in the beginning.

[@therexbellator]

Having seen them many times in past livestreams like the ones for Civ 6's various passes, I'd say that's just how they look tbh; they've always been a little awkward and probably not super comfy being on camera being broadcast to thousands live. It also doesn't help that most of these streams seem to be totally unscripted and unrehearsed judging from how they awkwardly try to demonstrate in-game stuff.

[@mattbryan9178]

Often a good sign for the game if the people in charge aren't hired for being overly charismatic and perfect on camera. That should mean they actually know what they are doing technically instead.

[@diazinth]

The +50% gold to buy naval units might be there to avoid the stacking of -33%'s that lead to free stuff at times. (Edit: which you mention nearly an hour later)

[@CraigNull]

Is this equivalent to only needing to pay 2/3 the listed price?

[@mlsasd6494]

@@CraigNull for just one buff its equivalent, however if you have multiple buffs it differs. Lets say you have +50% and + 50% you have +100% which is comparable to -50% cost. If you have -33% - 33% you have -66% which is more and in the extreme +150% is 2/5 the cost while -99% is basically free.

[@craigwil1716]

I vastly prefer religion being more focused on spreading it and needing to actually engage and interact with it beyond the initial founding. It feels more engaging to actually need to interact with other players rather than just hyperfocusing on my own religion. I felt like I never wanted to go out and spread my religion, only keeping my religion within my own cities. Religion and Culture like tourism always felt linked and too similar to me.

[@chrisdaignault9845]

Dropping the pantheon means your choices in later ages mean more. Keeping all the stacking bonuses through every turn of the game is why other civ games snowball so hard and why late game turns take so long but accomplish so little.

[@CAG83]

I think I'd like it if they reduce the pantheon bonus's power, but not eliminate it. It really hurts when some of your choices from previous ages don't matter at all anymore.

[@jesusestevez8178]

"Welsh people look away, New Zealanders too." Completely took me out lol

[@PaxKishania]

Naval gameplay has always been so mediocre in Civ. Even on more naval-oriented maps (like archipelago), there has been little incentive to lean heavily into building a navy unless you're going for outright conquest. Civ6 sort of tried with more naval civs and requiring naval techs to get to industrialisation (to mirror the historical importance of navies to that process) but Civ7 will finally make it a central part of the gameplay.

[@Jack_Gibby]

I really like the idea of "one-tricking" a particular civ and that gives you rewards or personalisation options. I'd love to identify with a civ and it would add a lot to multiplayer.

[@09ALPHAROGUE]

A pristige style system is interesting, kinda like the pantheon system in Age of Wonders 4, to give you incentive to actually finish and not abandon games to have outside meta progression. Just as long as having it doesn't give a massive advantage in multiplayer.

[@DSJaha]

Not having piracy in a game where treasure fleets exist is criminal. Also treasure fleets move too fast to be intercepted

[@GreekRoyalty]

Gotta save some things for DLC, friend

[@4thdimensionalexplorer]

My favorite way to play is to risk everything and claim a distant continent for myself. It rarely works out well on harder difficulties but it's just so fun when it works out. Exploration age is often peek civ for me so I'm glad they are putting more into it

[@Merrinen]

"If we ever going to have a lake civilization this would be a great map for them." Oh does this mean FINLAND is confirmed?!?

[@superuniverse5974]

That would be amazing

[@MegaHuntress]

You could have a "Vikings" Civ and/or leader with War and Economy focus. They start with a a costal bias unlike most other civ who have River bias. The vikings outside of piliging were also fishermen and traders. So they could have +1 gold bonuses from water tiles (similarly to Egypt +1 production from rivers) which could help kickstart a war economy. As a special unique you might have a berserker who get bonus power outside of your boarders. Or unqiue longship that can do coastal raiding somehow. As for unique buildings you could have a special "longhouse" building or a "Stave Church" Altar. Combine them both ( or with a another culture building ) And you could combine into a Unique Urban districts called "Thing" or "Allthing" if its unique to the capital. You could then have them turn into "Sweden" who could be a Military civ for once( instead of diplomatic ) With a focus on great generals with under Gustav Vasa as its leader. Sweden did take a few American colonines in the end of the age of exploration. But Sweden mostly fought around the home country and was big fish in a small pond of around the Baltic sea. They were somewhat famous for its military expansion and navy around that time. You could give them some science/economy/some unqiue great people bonus from expanding to help with the exploration age theme. but they could possibly have a unique playstyle like Mongolia too who can win from fights on the home continent. And in the Modern age Sweden could then turn into Finland. Finland around that time had just declared independens after being anexed by russia after after Finland separated from Sweden in 1809. Finland's key economic sector is manufacturing, and their main export is somehow Refined Petroleum despite not haveing any oil in the homeland. Give them some Oil related War benefits like stronger airplanes and/or the slower heavy ships class. And slap on some economical benefits from miltary resorces ( like oil ) if they do not originate from the home country. Finland could then be a defensive economic powerhouse which helps finish Operation Ivy ( The hydrogen bomb ) or transition into a economic victory ( World Market ) .

[@Freyalise50]

i feel like the religion gameplay is a consequence of the ages solution to snowballing.

[@Crowbar]

One thing I noticed which I haven't heard mentioned before is that population count of cities is significantly higher in Civ 7. It seems like in late game 40 pop cities will be normal.

[@MrDanlancelot]

Potato: I know a lot of people didn't like Religion in Civ 6 Civ dev: We're scaling back and simplifying Religion in the new game Potato: *shocked Pikachu face* Fitting it into one age and making it less needlessly complex and involved sounds great to me

[@tomw4955]

11:30 "Look at those Sheep! Welsh people look away... New Zealanders too." It took me a few secs to get this... Thanks potato I spilled my drink. XD You are so Stupid. I love it.

[@hollys.garard8451]

Thanks for all you do, potato~! You're a good dude and you deserve to take as much time as you need~! Be safe~!

[@sarkham92]

i could comment a lot but the one most important thing that worries me most is that they always show continent type of maps so it fits nicely into the age progresion, but about other types of lands? pangea, islands etc. How will age progression and map size behave on those types? are those removed? they also dont mention multiplayer a lot

[@klaxxon__]

I'm thinking how do all-land or mostly-land maps work

[@mlsasd6494]

I think pangea wont exist anymore. Just does not work woth the gameplay For islands i think you could have homeland islands and far lands islands

[@2gtomkins]

33:00 The buildings from the old age lose their adjacencies in the new age, and revert to only their base yields. Specialist yields seem to be dependent on adjacencies as well, so they also drop.

[@jedfromyourlocallibrary]

Take the time you need to rest and deal with whatever you’ve got going on, disembodied voice of Potato. Things are tough; we’ll figure it out, but not without rest.

[@2gtomkins]

13:20 Later on, perhaps in the Modern livestream (my memory is far from perfect), we find out that there are civs that start in what are the Distant Lands to you (Only as advanced starts? Not clear), but your home land mass is their Distant Lands for game mechanic purposes.

[@lovyNOM]

it would be cool it have a mechanic where if you have a friend joining a game late then they start in the new world. So they have a whole contentment to themself to help them catch back up, and are separated from other players to help protect them from conquest, but they are behind technologically. Could create an interesting dynamic

[@elm9607]

Love these vids regarding civ 7!

[@gman7177]

Didn't they say the UI was a work in progress after all the testers complained about it? But it doesn't look like anything has changed? Really not a fan. Many of the icons look like Google clipart by different artists with different styles. Looks amateurish almost.

[@maxlipiec]

Keep in mind the game comes out about a month and a half from now and that livestream came out on a WIP build back in November. A lot can change in that time.

[@brewtal85]

If not changed by release , I’m sure will be a mod released swiftly with nicer looking text and icons at very least

[@Greymantle063]

I miss board gaming a ton. I grew up with board games, had a great group of friends to play with.

[@belovedwarrior3192]

Board Gaming is still a thing and I imagine if you search you can find people to play with, especially if willing to look into doing it online (I don't mean digitally)

[@Greymantle063]

@@belovedwarrior3192 I might have to resort to that. I really miss the face to face part of board gaming.

[@schwingedeshaehers]

depending on where you live, if there is a small (board) game shop, ask there, if they know some open game groups

[@belovedwarrior3192]

@@schwingedeshaehers For me there is a small shop about 30 minutes away to go and play TCG games and probably board games too. I guess if you have the money open up your own shop and then you will always have a place to do that

[@russelljacob7955]

I like that they really really listened to the player feedback. So you can keep playing the leader and maintain that concept like being expansionist Isabella, or you can convert some other direction.

[@2gtomkins]

40:20 Overbuilding is important as early as you can manage it early in a new age because, not only are their base yields higher, buildings from your new age get adjacency bonus yields. The old building, because it is from the prior age, no longer has adjacency. An advantage for overbuilding is huge.

[@Shatoswolfdemon]

Two comments for this video so far. Religion sounds better in my eyes, I hated civ 6 religion and this sounds more like what I wanted to see from religion. Secondly they said the production bonus from the event was until end of era not the entire game. Might have been a bad choice of words but if you misunderstood I wanted to clarify.

[@Chinag]

RE: Cities should have 4 workable tiles. I know Civ 5 has that plausibility as there's a fair certain amount of mods that does that, i.e. Vox Populi overhaul modpack lets the capital have 4 tile radius when you finish the tall social policy tree. It's... super underwhelming to be honest! Remember that 1 pop = 1 worked tile, and the 3 tile radius gives you 36 workable tiles for the city which is a lot of tiles to choose from. Adding a 4th ring is more about reaching a pretty good resource tile in the 4th ring than actually working on all the new 24 tiles. There's also a certain point where working a new tile is not worth it on a super high pop city and would be better as a specialist. I think the new building=district will be good enough to make cities feel large. Especially with walls, the "city center" will be moving around as you build more districts with the wall outline

[@dillonrodriguez1575]

I so want a currency mechanic in the game, instead of gold as the economic aspect. Like each civ has to develop a currency, have it backed by like a resource or something they produce and have to get it to be either the only currency used or have the highest value as a wincon. Idk someone smarter than me can flush it out, but that seems on theme

[@GreekRoyalty]

Sid Meier's Fiat Currency Simulator

[@AvishaiGreenstein]

I see the deep influence of board games now. Religion is now a actual gameplay mechanic designed to create conflict. In civ 6 it was a makes numbers go up, put in your investment and then passively collect. Now religion is an actual active mechanic. The point is to go out and convert cities and the bonuses incentivize this behavior for you and for the AI.

[@deosilic]

I can’t wait for your Civ VII tutorials!

[@Hp-Nerd]

The dev team must have had a lot of fun testing these

[@trengilly01]

For the Events system Civ VII really just needs and enable/disable option in the game settings. Seems like an easy fix that would let everyone customize the gameplay to their liking. For example Old World has this setting letting players choose.

[@pagemore3442]

I am glad that religion got dialed back … felt compulsory in Civ 6, and I am not a fan of compulsory religion … as a rule

[@jamesleist1139]

Boardgaming channel would be dope potato...I want to see you playing TI4 lmao

[@weeaboobarko]

Cross platform saves is probably more relevant to you than you'd think, just because it means if you have a save file, or you do any series playing viewer save files any console players you have watching can take part in that

[@SIZModig]

CIV VII visuals are so muted, give me good contrasts! If they don't launch with a Settings options to increase contrasts I pray that someone makes a mod to make it look better.

[@michaelsoo]

Dragging the Welsh out the gate. 11:15

[@backatcha00]

Potato, I would watch your boardgame channel. Thanks for all you do.

[@busybard]

9:52 You know there are several Civilization-type board games, right?

[@Crowbar]

People are constantly criticizing the UI and I understand where they are coming from, some screens really look unfinished, but all in all I personally think the new ui looks sick. It looks clean while not looking generic, it still feels like a civ ui with personality. Some windows just needs a tiny bit of polish.

[@moisheshekelberg7632]

@Crowbar I think part of the UI looks good, part looks hideous. The resource icons and the all black with hints of gold on some of the UI looks like it's between CIV 1 and CIV 2. I dearly hope they fix it.

[@GreekRoyalty]

If it can't be pretty, it should at least maximize practicality. Don't know why the text can't be a bit bigger and easier to read.

[@RobertLey60]

a more than 2 hour long vid? Thanks papa!

[@ravous246]

I get why potato is annoyed by the religion part, but im kinda happy with it. I always felt pigeon holed into fast tracking religion, and if you didn't get it, it's a feels bad, so sad moment. Or you ignore the shit entirely. With civ 7, you can interact with it as much or as little as you want, it seems. And i quite like that.

[@zackcrow1776]

They did specifically say the religions were one of the areas that they were likely to make changes to before the game went live so I wouldn't focus too much on the specific beliefs from this stream

[@drjonritz]

Stacking discounts can lead to nearly-free things. Thinking of Mali and Segubas...

[@TheRoad_MostTravelled]

I'm so happy your doing this Potato. Hope things are well, but keep the Civ train coming.

[@alexayers8904]

How I see Religion in 7 (as someone that enjoys and think people undervalue it in 6): I think the Devs wanted room to improve Religion (and Great Works, too), so we get a thin, divided version at launch. And also nothing too cumbersome for those that don’t particularly favor Religion gameplay. I do hope they work on carrying more stuff over across ages. As it feels weird that Codices just vanish, but the Wonders and Resources in the other legacy paths clearly persist. Perhaps Pantheons could become a unique Policy Card.

[@xylorp]

hey potato, just remember that winter is always cold like this

[@galexian_]

Who would win? *a system of many hormones and processes and even an internal clock to keep a fragile sleep cycle and its human awake and asleep* *one potatoey fella*

[@2gtomkins]

2:41:00 They have ruthlessly pared back features from 6, presumably to make room for the many features they have added and modified to make age transitions what you focus long and medium term strategy around. Pantheons disappear in the transition to Exploration, and you have to start over with religion. The Antiquity tech and generic civics tree both go away, as do your ability to build or slot anything unlocked by them. It's as if they never existed. Buildings from the earlier age are left, but they lose their adjacencies, resulting, at least in this livestream, in paring back your culture and science output by nearly 50%. At least some of your cities get demoted to towns. The overall paring back makes whatever you have managed to carry over to the new age that much more important. These are your traditions, whatever you get with your legacy points, as well as however many settlements, commanders, and units you built. And given what Ed Beach said in response to the question about loyalty, I suspect that at least some of the crises will see you losing some of your settlements. Overall, they seem to be changing more from 6 to 7 than they changed from 5 to 6. The paring back with age transitions seems especially bold, as the fan base is going to have a lot of anxiety when it is more widely recognized just how much age transitions will set you back. Pantheons gone, religion side-lined, the crises potentially looking a lot like Dramatic mode from 6, many of your yields pared back dramatically during a transition that resets everyone to starting a new tech and civics tree... Yikes! I would be very worried if this set of devs did not have an excellent track record of integrating a complicated set of mechanics into a coherent whole. You can only get that right with exhaustive play-testing, and they seem to understand and practice that. We're just going to have to accept the loss of a lot of neat stuff from 6, a loss that will prove well worth it if they pull off this whole complicated age transition thing,

[@pamsp]

commenting about 13m, I agree it could be cool, but it would be very difficult to do it. One of the main things I notice in civ 6 is that what was supposed to be the age of colonization it barely has any effect because since civs spawn in all continents, there is very little free land to be colonized. From what I understood, the map will actually grown from Antique to Exploration, so this will generate a ton of free area for people to colonize.

[@thumper8684]

Why oh why, would someone playing a narrative game open up the wiki site to look up an event chain? Do what looks most interesting and nine times out of ten it will reward you.

[@danieltatar7575]

I was gonna comment the same thing. I've played my fair share of Stellaris, and the only time it makes any sense to do it is if you're 100s of hours into the game and min-maxing at the highest difficulties. I get that optimization is the only thing that's fun for some people, but exploration of the game is equally or more important for many others. (And off the top of my head, in Stellaris, even the min-max question is more about whether you should complete an event chain, not which path to pick.)

[@admiraljohan7152]

PMcW saves up from the civ 7 content drought.

[@ruibarian5187]

I feel irrationally hyped for this game.

[@TNM001]

they are ignoring Legends because its an online registration feature that was mentioned when presenting the preorder stuff, i cite "Each leader possesses a unique ability and can further be improved with customizable attributes earned through gameplay". its not clear if only in MP or not.

[@CAG83]

I love a lot of changes about Civ 7. One big issue I have though, is how blatant the hexagons are at times. Coastlines and walls in particular feel like they're yelling at you, "these tiles are HEXAGONS in case you forgot." Hexagons are bestagons, but I want the game art to be smoother. Civ 5 had smoother edges for Pete's sake, and that was 15 years ago. Same thing with the minimap. Civ 5's minimap was better than Civ 6, and now Civ 7, in the year 2025.

[@SergeySklonin]

I'm assuming "+50% A towards B" is a way of wording this to communicate how same bonuses stack together. For example, "-33% gold cost" means you pay 2/3 cost. If you have this twice and they stack, this results in 1/3 cost, and 3x stack means 0 cost. You can even go negative. With "+50% towards" you pay the same 2/3, but when you stack multiple bonuses, this will go 2x: +100% => 1/2 cost, 3x +150% => 2/5 cost, 4x +200% => 1/3 cost, etc.

[@BigPurpleCarrot]

How does a +50% cost towards mean you pay 2/3 cost? Talk to me like I'm a dumb ass

[@sjc9832]

​@@BigPurpleCarrotsomething costs 90 gold. You put 60 gold towards it. The bonus puts 50% extra towards it - 50% of 60 is 30 gold. So you've bought a 90 gold thing for 60 gold, 2/3 the base cost

[@BigPurpleCarrot]

@@sjc9832 What? That makes no sense. Where has the 60 come from? If something costs 90 gold I need to pay 90. So if something put 50% towards it it'd be 45.

[@Jfrost9101]

​@@BigPurpleCarrot Gold was maybe a poor example, lets try Production. Something requires 90 production to build, and you have 6 production in your city, but you have a bonus that gives +50% Production towards building it. As a result, where you would normally be taking 15 turns to build it (90 / 6 = 15), you are instead taking 10 turns (6 * 1.5 = 9; 90 / 9 = 10), which is 33% less time.

[@BigPurpleCarrot]

@Jfrost9101 Ah I see, perfect explanation. Thank you

[@robertstimmel1100]

I agree that sitting at a desktop has always been the best way to play Civ. Civ 6 is one of my most-played Steam games. Close to half of my playtime has been on Steam Deck. It has surprisingly good controls. I wish other 4X games had such tight Deck controls out of the box

[@Hjorth87]

Just wanted to share a little gem with some fellow civ fans: My current vox populi civ 5 playthrough just involved an interesting 3 way war between Rome, the Ottomans and the Byzantine empire. Talk about confused identities.

[@therexbellator]

Sheesh petition to rename yourself Potato McWhiplash from the way you go from being excited over one feature to souring over another and back again. Firaxis has been rebuilding Civ with every new launch and sometimes features get reworked or removed, religion being dramatically reworked is par for course. I get that these analysis videos are your raw, unfiltered reaction but you're way too quick to make assumptions in the moment; even Ed Beach said to take the religious tenet values with a grain of salt as they are going through a balance pass, yet you jumped all over them anyway. That said, for the sake of balance, I will say this: I do like a lot of what I see but - my - main concern for Civ 7 is that evolving from one civ to another is going to feel like three mini-campaigns rather than one contiguous one. I get that there will be legacy bonuses and old cities will remain ("history is built in layers") but that on its surface doesn't convince me it won't feel disjointed. I hope I'm wrong though but I won't draw any conclusions until I'm actually playing.

[@benabaxter]

Did you notice that Greece had its own narration and ending screen? That's nifty. It seems like it might be particular to the victory type, too.

[@kolicgames4750]

Why do the graphics look so nice, but the leaders look like they got farted out of a Snow White remake?

[@MrBobbyz24]

How can a potato have a personal life?

[@DavidSmith-mt7tb]

Imagine a survival 4x style game based on that concept. Like you build up a little civilization fighting other local area tribes with similar technology and then get invaded by more technologically advanced civs.

[@SIZModig]

Regarding Trade Ports, I think it'd be fine if your capitol was one, or started with that ability - if it wasn't located on the coast then you would have to build the building in question as a drop-off point, in another city if need be (otherwise landlocked capitols are too penalized).

[@kadenmccann3350]

I disagree with the Religious point that you made. And I think the adjacency districts bonuses will exist but seem to be more building-centric. The incentives are in the right place. It is simpler which I understand your frustration about, but it is not a system I would consider wrong for the game to have.

[@thefmsrinder6324]

A lot of the religion gameplay in Civ 6 didn’t even revolve around spreading the religion, which became totally unrealistic, it became about hoarding passive bonuses not even related to religion. I 100% agree with you.

[@misterthegeoff9767]

regarding Linux support, Steam Decks running Steam OS are using linux so if you are supporting running the game on steam decks you basically get Linux support for free. I'm also sick enough of Windows that I'm trying out Linux on some of my devices and Civ games are one of those games that I might want to play on my linux laptop while out and about not just on my home gaming rig

[@Pegaroo_]

Exactly why does microsoft need to be involved when I'm playing civ but even if there wasn't a native linux build proton is a thing. It will be interesting to see the performance differences between native and running it via proton. Steams linux is above 2% now, that's higher percentage than any of AMDs GPUs (individually) and once valve officially release SteamOS I can see that number more than doubling over night

[@MegaHuntress]

2:00:53 There is a Theology tree so there might be some more depth to religions outside of "spread for x bonus"

[@belovedwarrior3192]

I wonder something when you move on to the new age do you have to replace the old ages towns and cities? I think it would be fun if we can keep one or two of them. I can understand that it will limit what you can do but it would still be fun.

[@johnismynameful]

Bonus towards maintaining building. Sounds like it works like production cards in civ 6. +50% prod to settlers is 33% reduction in production price

[@MoonLiteNite]

1:34:55 I think the idea is you target those that don’t defend their own religion and you get massive rewards if you find such a target

[@traski999]

So with how you build out cities, with granaries and the like being actual tiles instead of being built into the main city tile, does that mean that glorious one tile island cities are a thing of the past? :(

[@alexayers8904]

Given the soft cap, I don’t think many one tile Towns will be worth it (and Cities even less so).

[@Eric-sy1xu]

Potato id watch the Hell out of you playing boardgames with Elaine & Efka from No Pun Included

[@michaeljavon8713]

9:50 I'd love to see some board game content! Based on what I know about you, Root seems like it would be right up your alley! Check it out!

[@JamesWinterbottom-i3d]

How will this work on Pangea map?

[@Bobsob]

The only thing I don't like and this is very nitpicky, are those metal cloud of war tiles. I really hope you can just make them black.

[@abraheron]

One of the premium (founders?) pre order bonuses is a fog of war tile skin iirc, so I think there will be ways to change those cosmetically, and hopefully more ways in the future

[@travisty222]

I have hope that as the devs get feedback, they'll adjust things like religion and the events system. Remembering where Civ VI started and where it is today, there's massive improvements. Civ VI wasn't good/better than V until the first DLC (IMO).

[@MagisterCobb]

Is Firaxis going to give you or some of the others that were invited to preview the game in Maryland an advance copy? We are about a month away and I would love to see some "Let's Play" videos! Thank you for your work and effort on this channel.

[@theirongiant74]

On first impression the biggest win is that tiles under fog of war aren't sepia toned, i fuckin' hated that.

[@seasand6705]

Yo. I'd watch the hell out of a channel of you playing board games with friends. Not many creators record full board game sessions in a more casual environment. Usually there's a teaching angle to them. Sometimes i just want to watch a game being played

[@berkbiggler]

In this video you have brought up the idea of having a distant civilization becoming dominant over civs that the game started with (at least from the players perspective). I also recall one of your Cree playthroughs where you invited people of indigenous background to share some thoughts around their experiences vis a vis European cultures and the historical interactions that occurred. I am assuming this comes from the English take over of Ireland and you feeling a bit of understanding of what indigenous people went through during European expansion into the New World. If I am wrong please feel free to correct me. If this is the case (and you don't mind me asking) then can I ask how has this impacted you and the Irish identity in general? I have been fortunate enough to have enough exposure to indigenous history to have a decent grasp on the impact there but my knowledge around Irish culture is somewhat lacking. Would you mind sharing your thoughts on that?

[@Nikita-vf7rc]

Would love to see a board game channel as well. I’d join you to play too! :)

[@descendency]

20 days? Your editor might need a new computer for making videos 🤣

[@ronanwaters4]

Can't imagine that it's exactly quick to edit together a 3ish hour long video.

[@Muthoz_CottoncuddleRex]

@1:48:31 Its for the Age, so during the Exploration Age.

[@dherko]

Hope all gets better soon! What version of the game is recommended? Is the founders worth it? Does it give you all the upcoming DLC?

[@aesemon5392]

3:42 40 days before release, it's still work in progress. Should be QA tested and patching now surely.

[@brainrot-z4y]

I think the issue with gutting the religion system is in both civ v and vi the religion is how I tell my story as a player across the entire game. Did I get the beliefs I wanted? What kind of angle was I aiming for? Did I even get one at all and do my choices from before come to bite me now? By scrapping it and replacing it with telling a story through these historic districts its the type of change that radically alters the game maybe past that 3/3/3 split civ likes to do on new titles and I think this is the type of change we just need to sit in and play around with to see if that hole is filled the same way (also kind of bummed atm though)

[@ars2High]

is Carl a robot? Dude has that 1000 yard stare when he isn't talking

[@jakobraahauge7299]

How do you help feeling just a bit underwhelmed with Civ7 - do you have some good tips?

[@castanzofranzman2013]

Wait to try the game

[@themrfriend]

"It feels like they're taking a feature out of the game." I wonder if they'll try to sell it back to us in a future expansion...

[@keremgul8394]

I feel the same about religion and events applications. I like the addition of mechanics for the naval. I hope the complexity of government and city managements covers the changes from civ6. The major difference of civ from 4x games is it is basic and simple for start and gets complex in what degree you want, I think. Potato I am wondering your opinion about civ7's current state compared to civ6. Do you think that it is closer to civ6 vanilla or civ6 gathering storm? In the religion part I think that because it was a victory condition and now it is just a mechanic? Hence maybe they will add a lot of new features throughout. What do you think about that, it will be decisive for me to buy this game. (student)

[@Abyssionknight]

I agree with you that the religious beliefs don't feel particularly interesting, though thematically in an age all about exploring, and starting a religion it makes sense to give bonuses associated with expansion. Also worth keeping in mind that the later bonuses might be the more interesting ones that we're both looking for. Also I personally like the idea that just like civs fade overtime, religions evolve and change as well. After all you look at the real world and it's the same. Like even look at catholicism in the last 30 years and you'll see some of their positions have changed radically from what they used to be.