I am a rather avid fan of Sid Meyer's Civilization series of games. I played the very first game back in 90s. Later I played 4th and 5th parts too. There is always that 'one more turn' attitude, desire to do more and more.
Not all games in the series were equally enjoyable, however. 2nd and 3rd were rather meh. Some fans liked 6th but most disliked the 7th. Reason for that are innovations borrowed from rivals like Humankind and Europa Universals, particularly the former. Changing civilizations between eras breaks the game's most fundamental foundation, the idea of taking one civilization and taking it through the ages into the future.
As much as I understand Firaxis desire to not fall behind the competition. EU grew very popular by being much more realistic than Civ and Firaxis wants some of this popularity back.
In my opinion however, Civilization is better off not imitating either Europa Universalis or Humankind. I say that as Europa Universalis very avid fan, someone who would normally be biased towards my favorite game. Yet I think Civilization should follow a different path. As much as people like to label both of these games as being of 4X genre, in reality Civilization and Europa Universalis are different; different if not as apples and oranges, then at least like apples and pears.
To explain why I need to emphasize that each game has a certain key element that defines it in the minds of players. This key element is why people keep coming back to the game. It can be anything really, typically it's something simple, basic. It is either a satisfying core game mechanic that people cannot have enough, or, occasionally, it's a story, character or certain key feature.
For example, in Doom series of games if was satisfaction from shooting monsters, from shotgun specifically but with other guns as well. It never gets old. That is why there are so many Doom clones, they gave birth to the entire genre called FPS. And within FPS games that stay closest to original formula, like Painkiller and Serios Sam thrive despite their simplicity and flaws while more sophisticated games that try hard to replace basic satisfaction of shooting monsters with something like complex tactics or horror elements or something else often fail. Even official sequel, Doom 3, fell prey to this problem by straying too far from the original formula that made it popular.
In case of Europa Universalis, it's the map. Realistic map that reflects actual borders as they were back at the game starting date, with all the minor OPMs of Holy Roman Empire and elsewhere are fully represented and playable. This is the core of the game, the reason why core fans come back to this game over and over again.
It works, because looking at this 4D Chess chessboard, that looks exactly like the one someone like Niccolò Machiavelli, Charles V or Cardinal Richelieu used to look at when they plotted their way to greatness and plot your own way towards domination over Europe and the world never gets old.
Critics complain that its a map painting simulator, that all states are the same and have no flavour, that game is biased towards Europe and many other things, but none of that matters. In game of chess all pawns also look the same, but it does not make game any less enjoyable. What matters is not what colour the pawns are, but where they are located on the board.
Even developers themselves sometimes get too bored at recreating this 'Voltaire's Nightmare' over and over again and experiment with something like random new world or far-fetched alternative history scenarios. Despite their best efforts these game mechanics end up being largely ignored by their player base. Some argue it was because of quality, but reality is that such ideas stride too far from the core gameplay feature that keeps players coming back this game over and over again. Map just has to be the real thing and all the HRE statelets, that differ from each other only by their location on that map and colour of the bendy line on their flag all has to be on it, or magic breaks.
So then what is this core gameplay element in Civilization games is? Its simple: to play a role of a great leader that will lead his tribe from the stone age to space age and transform them from primitive people into advance civilization with science, technology, culture, religion and what not. There is unparallel power and greatness in it, arrogance even. This feeling is what makes people come back to Civilization games over and over again.
That is why making players change civilizations mid game is so game breaking. It just breaks this illusion. No matter whom you chose to play, you do not want to be told that you cannot take these primitives past certain point and have to transform into something more advance. Aren't you a great leader capable of shaping civilization to your liking, why game in such an abrupt and rude manner tells you that people you chose to take to greatness are not capable of it and has to assimilate into someone else to continue? Its cock blocking, ego crashing. Games are there to nurture your ego, not crush it. Games that nurture ego gets players to death and those that crash it are hated no matter what other merits they may have.
Fundamentally Civilization, like any game really, is about you. You chose the civilization based on your personal tastes and preferences. Its not about the people you lead, its all about the throne you want to sit on, crown and mantle you want to wear, what kind of palace walls you want around yourself and finally what kind of society you want around it all to work tirelessly on providing you with all that. The very first Civilization game had this long deprecated feature that I enjoyed using a lot that allowed you to choose improvements to your palace. That is why when you are told that crown you have chosen is too outdated for times ahead and you have to swap it for another, its a step too far.
That is why civilization leaders are so important too, they are your real rivals for greatness, not their people. You each have your own people serving you, but you are out to prove other great people that you are the greatest of them all. The more famous and charismatic they are, the greater is your glory in beating them. Outfighting Napoleon and Alexander the Great certainly feels much more satisfying than beating some random tribe leader like Boudica, that no one heard of. That is why leaders matter more than civilizations they lead. In fact in the original game all civilizations were the same with exception of name and colour on map (even each colour was shared by two civilizations). However each civilization had a distinct leader that was promptly displayed in the middle of the screen whenever you dealt with them.
The leaders are the anchors through which players saw other civilizations. The most charismatic of them made their way into all the sequels and those who did not made it were missed by fans and sometimes added with expansions and DLCs. Some of these leaders were controversial and were poor representations of people they were supposed to lead. Take Stalin for example. However if you think of it, nearly every famous leader was somewhat of an outlier among his people and even their other leaders, that is what made them famous in the first place. Stalin was there not to represent Russians, but to indulge fantasies of American communists about 'creating autocratic communist utopia with strong hand'. Russians would play as Rome or Greece anyway to indulge their dreams of restoring glory of these great self-indulgent and rich empires.
In view of the above the way forward for Civilization franchise is not in greater realism but in greater indulgence.
Leaders should be made front and center of the game, just how they used to be in the original game. Civilizations should be build around leaders as a reflection of their character and mythos. In case one civilizations had several interesting leaders, instead of choosing between them or letting player pick a leader of their choice, game should simply create two different versions of the same civilization. Not only it will be more historically accurate as Egypt under Cleopatra was a drastically different place compare to how it was under Tutankhamun or Ramses III, you might as well consider them different civilizations. As a bonus, players will be able to pit these different versions of the same civilizations against one another to find out which is the strongest. It will also allow famous leaders of otherwise obscure civilizations, like Vlad the Impaler or Llewelyn the Last, or people that are hard to tie to any particular civilization, like Che Guevara, Bolivar or Timur the Conqueror, to be added into the game. Furthermore, it will allow the game to create civilizations around heroic figures that are hard to tie to any particular civilization.
That leads us towards next idea, mythology. While historians cannot decisively say if someone like King Arthur existed or not, its undeniable that he is well known and popular figure in people's imagination. So popular that even Japanese feature him in their anime. Thus making King Arthur lead his own version of Britain would likely be popular with players. It can be justified even from historical accuracy point of view. Pre-Saxon England had many petty kingdoms, even modern county was their own petty kingdom back then, its not a stretch to assume that one of them was led by a King Arthur who had a Round Table and a dozen knights. Other mythological figures like Odysseus, Heracles, Gilgamesh or Amaterasu can all lead their own fractions.
Finally, to further enhance leaders, one might add various events related to them. Currently leaders only have dialogue lines related to various game mechanics. Nothing particularly expresses their personalities and mythos, that got people interested in the first place. To rectify that we can make leaders reenact various scenes from their lives, interact with other characters, who lived in their lifetimes and even other leaders. For example, it would be much more flavourful if Caesar will say his famous 'the die is cast' when declares war or ask Brutus to not sneak on him with an knife. Furthermore we can even create romantic relationship between him and Cleopatra with all the drama that ensues. Some events can be made humorous and others more sober or heroic and so on. Some of the events can even relate to mythos that exist only among Civilization fans, for example Gandhi's obsession with nukes. These can be made optional for those players who do not enjoy such frivolity.
Just like that with new leader-centered approach you will not only be able to make Civilization franchise much more accessible and engage new players but also do a better justice to history. I hope Firaxis will hire me as Game director so I can implement these.
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