site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1748 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 20, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Just reminded of why I cannot play video games (at all). Whole weekend and part of this morning were taken up by civ, when I should have been doing other things.

Filthy addicts... :P

Was it a good campaign, at least? What civ did you play?

Maori on the classic Terra map. Got the whole continent to myself and got to play a nice relaxing dev game.

Sounds like Civ 6? I'm still on 5 (by choice). Skeptical towards 7 too.

Civ 7 looks so bad. It's not even Civ any more, just another game with Civ branding. Then on top of that you have the legion of bugs that it launched with, and... yeah it's not a good look for Firaxis. People try to defend the game by saying "oh the new Civ game is always controversial on release", but I was there for Civ 5 and 6. Neither was even close to being as negatively received as 7 has been.

And don't even get me started on the sheer level of "diversity hire" leader picks they sunk to. This problem was in 6 as well (looking at you, Catherine de Medici), but 7 takes it to the next level. It's ridiculous.

Civ 7 heavily cribbed off competitors like Humankind, and for all the wrong reasons.

The ability to change civs could have been so good. All they needed to do was to be sensible about it.

Start as Rome in the Classical era? Become some kind of post-Roman state in the medieval era, be it Byzantium, France, Germany, England or, if you want to stretch it further, the Ottomans.

Go English? Get the option to remain that way post Enlightenment, or perhaps fork off to America.

You could add more leeway, especially for dead-end states, but avoid absurdities like Caesar running China, or America being a thing in the fucking Stone Age.

The idea of their being an ebb-and-flow to progression, with setbacks at the end of each era, that works great in theory for preventing rampant snowballing, but the current execution is utter ass.

Sigh. I'll go back and look lovingly at my copy of Civ 4. Last entry I wholeheartedly enjoyed.

Yeah, I agree that those sounded good in principle. That's why I was excited for Humankind when it came out, because I thought the idea of growing your civilization over time could be a really fresh take on the genre. In practice it didn't turn out so well (at least to me, and it sounds like to you) because the lack of identity just made civs feel soulless and disconnected from any historical flavor.

Accordingly I was already skeptical with the direction for Civ 7, because they were building on ideas that I already knew I didn't like when they were in another game. And unfortunately it seems like they too have gotten things completely wrong flavor wise (seriously, why does Firaxis think that the leader is what we players care about??). Not to mention the harsh age resets, which seriously undermine the core thing people like about Civ (building stuff up over time).

I find it especially galling because according to Firaxis, this all was in service of trying to get people to finish more games of Civ, since stats show most people don't finish the game. But I do! I find the entire arc of a game of Civ fun, and while the late game isn't quite as good as the early game, it's still really fun to me. So with Civ 7 they are trying to solve a problem I don't agree that the game has, by using methods that I don't like (and which go against the core identity of the series). It's very frustrating.

I find the entire arc of a game of Civ fun, and while the late game isn't quite as good as the early game, it's still really fun to me.

Which one do you play? I find the late game of 6 to be quite a drag, and 5 isn't much better. Early-game civ is easily 10x as fun for me.

Early-game civ is easily 10x as fun for me.

I agree. Everything has got higher stakes in the early game. Things that later seem like insignificant motions to go through, like securing a new unique luxury or defending/taking a city, or getting a trade route going to boost your growth, are very fun in the early game. Because it matters and because the future of your civ is uncertain and at risk.

I think you can use mods to help with this though - sort of. You can cap the tech at a certain age, or cut the build times by half or more, which effectively makes the early game last longer if you play at a slower game pace. Here's one such mod: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=664327211

Now you can e.g. conquer the world long before the modern era.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats