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If your time with foundational PC strategy 4X game series Sid Meier’s Civilization consists of exactly one save file that ended somewhere in the Middle Ages, don’t beat yourself up, for you have plenty of company. When they got hold of detailed audience data for Civilization 6, Firaxis creative director Ed Beach and executive producer Dennis Shirk were dismayed to discover that fewer than 40% of their players ever finish a single game. Hence, to some degree, Sid Meier’s Civilization VII‘s new Age system, which is designed to counter feelings of exhaustion by smashing the chronology up into more digestible chunks, with something of a Civ power level reset between Ages to stop you feeling like you’re either hopelessly behind or so far ahead that ultimate victory is guaranteed.
That 40% figure comes from an interview with the New York Times, which pairs Firaxis insight with thoughts from academics and third party designers about Civilization’s pretty well-rehearsed colonialist leanings. While the data refers to Civ 6 specifically, I’m pretty confident you can apply these findings to Civilization games in general. There’s ample evidence to the effect that most video game players leave games unfinished, and 4X games in particular are arguably most fun at the outset while the world is still a mystery.
Among the NYT’s interviewees is Indian game developer Nikhil Murthy, whose current project Syphilisation is both a post-colonial critique of Civilization and an investigation of Civ play possibilities buried by the mantra of Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate.
Amongst other things, Murthy comments that Civilization’s endgame-focussed “winner takes all” mindset has a flattening effect on all the fun you can have with its systems. New School professor McKenzie Wark elaborates upon Murthy’s argument with the thought that the most intriguing Civ players are the “trifling” ones who don’t really care about victory. “You’re just interested in exploring the rule set,” she told the paper. “So your civilization inevitably gets defeated, but you find little affordances as you go along.”
The NYT piece is too brief to go into much detail here, sadly, but it reminds me of my own roundtable chat about 4X design with Murthy, Paradox Interactive’s Ryan Sumo and Civilization lead designer Jon Shafer from 2023. At one point in that conversation, Shafer recalls that during his time at Firaxis, designers frequently heard that players enjoy “that first X-and-a-half, the exploration part and the initial expansion part, before you’re really in competition”.
Civ7 creative director Ed Beach also alludes to this in a developer diary about the Age system. “From our perspective, not finishing the game is a signal that players are hitting points where they’re no longer having fun,” he writes. “We want everyone to have a great experience from start to finish. We know that players often feel the beginning hours of Civ are magical, and we want to make sure that every part of the game feels just as epic and exciting as that initial rush.”
I can’t tell you whether Firaxis have succeeded in this with Civilization 7. Our review remains forthcoming. But I am certainly among the players who favour the early game and prefer tinkering about as a mid-rank Civ to assuming a position of monotonous economic, cultural or military dominance. How about you, reader dear?
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