In my previous post, I discussed my thoughts regarding the new "Test of Time" update for Civilization VII. In summary, I feel that it does not really address the main problems that I had with the game since its launch. My core complaint with Civilization VII is the arbitrary and jarring nature of age transitions, and how they skip over large periods of the in-game history. I've also previously written about suggestions that I have for improving age transitions, and some of those ideas have been added to the game by Firaxis in its patches over the past year and a half. But now that "Test of Time" has made a major revision to the core design of Civilization VII, in the form of both civ-switching and in the new Triumphs and victory systems, I want to re-visit the idea of improving age transitions.

So what else could Firaxis do to fix these remaining problems, now that the vocal subset of civ-switch-haters have hopefully been appeased? Well, I already proposed one possible solution in my previous video about Ara and Civ VII. I'm not going to repeat all of that again here, even though a lot of this video is already rehashed from that previous script. But basically, I had proposed that perhaps Civ VII (or Civ VIII) could take a page from Ara's playbook, and use the crises as a true "boss fight" at the end of an age that actually culls out civilizations who fail to resolve that crisis.

I don't want to rehash that entire idea, but I do have one idea for expanding on it in a way that utilizes the new Test of Time gameplay. Instead of be eliminated from the game if any civ fails the Age transition crisis, the game could force that civ to change civilizations at the age transition. The idea here being that the failing empire collapses sufficiently such that its old culture and governance did not survive the crisis in-tact, and new culture and governments have taken over. The crisis resolution could even be tiered, such that at the highest tier, your empire survives and you're allowed to keep the same civilization into the next era with all your dedications. The middle tier would require switching civilizations, and you would not be able to select as many dedications. At the bottom tier, your empire collapses entirely, and you are eliminated from the game.

That's one idea which combines the Test of Time concepts with the design philosophy of Ara's act scoring. Floundering civs being forced to transition between ages would add context to the civ-swapping that might make the idea more palatable for some subset of players who disliked the civ-switching mechanic at launch. Further, adding player elimination would expand upon the idea of the crisis itself being a "Test of Time", acting as a sort of "great filter" that decides which civs survive and which civs die out.

How well an empire performs in a crisis could mechanically determine whether they must switch civs.

Player elimination would also have some of the benefits of Ara's design, which would be that it would free up space on the map for the surviving civs to expand in the following ages, without necessarily having to resort to military conquest. It could also tie into other Civ-specific systems, such as providing new open spaces for Independent Civilizations and city states to emerge, and it could be tied into the archaeology systems of the Modern Age.

But that still doesn't necessarily address the fundamental problem of the ages feeling like they end prematurely, and skipping over chunks of history. So to that end, I have more suggestions.

Settlers of Catan is a monument in the history of tabletop board gaming. I've even heard people talk about Catan as if it is the "Jesus" of board games, and that the history of board games can be broadly divided up into "before Catan" and "after Catan". It was the first German game to receive mass commercial success and popular acclaim in the United States. In a time when most American tabletop gamers were still playing Monopoly, Risk, and Stratego, Catan almost single-handedly popularized the "Eurogame".

But I've never, personally, been big into Catan. I own a Star Trek version of the game, which was gifted to me, but I've never owned the original Settlers of Catan or any of its themed expansions or revisions. I've only ever played Catan with friends who own the game, and I've always felt very "meh" about it.

Players will build power plants and must manage pollution and climate change.

But when I saw the announcement earlier this year of a renewable-energy-themed edition of the game, called New Energies, I was a lot more interested. I'm very enthusiastic about environmentalism and renewable energy. In fact, for those who don't know, my day job is a software engineer working as a contractor with utility companies regarding energy efficiency, renewable energy, and demand response programs. You know when your thermostats sets your air conditioning 2 or 4 degrees hotter on the hottest days of the year? Yeah, that's what I do. (It's intended to reduce the demand on the grid and prevent brownouts from excessive air conditioning use, so that you don't loose power entirely and have to go without any air conditioning at all!). So I have both a personal and a professional interest in the subject matter of New Energies.

I actually bought this game the week of its release, and made a concerted effort to play it promptly, instead of letting it sit on my shelf, still in its shrink-wrap, collecting dust for 2 years. Actually, it can't sit around in its shrink-wrap, because it doesn't come in shrink-wrap. In keeping with its environmentalist themes, Catan: New Energies does not include any plastic in its components or packaging. All the pieces are bio-degradable wood and cardboard, and all the tokens and cards came wrapped in recyclable, bio-degradeable paper sleeves and bags. And there was no shrink-wrap; the game was sealed with 4 pieces of circular industrial tape on each side of the box. So Catan Studio gets brownie points from me for walking-the-walk in regards to its environmental theming!

New Energies commits to its environmental theme, and include no plastic in its components or packaging.

And the components are generally very good. There's a cardboard insert for all of the game components that helps speed up set-up and tear-down. My only complaints (components-wise) is that the draw bag for event discs might be a bit over-sized, and there aren't any player aide cards that outline the turn sequence, environmental event effects, or endgame sequence. It's always helpful to have something like that for player to follow along with while I explain the core rules. Yes, the costs of all the player actions are shown on the player boards, but it's real easy for new players to miss certain actions, or not understand what the symbols mean without any kind of textual description. Thankfully, the general turn sequence for Catan is relatively simple and straightforward, so it's still fairly manageable to explain the rules without such player aides.

While I was searching the PlayStation Store for some VR games to play on my PSVR2 headset (and on a PS4 VR headset that a friend let me borrow, since the PSVR2 headset isn't backwards-compatible), I stumbled upon an old sci-fi game that had apparently slipped under my radar when it released back in 2016. That game is a near-future space disaster game called ADR1FT. Unfortunately, this particular game doesn't have PSVR support, even though it apparently does have PC VR support, but it looked pretty and intriguing, so I bought it anyway.

Space station by Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich

In ADR1FT, the player plays as an astronaut who is a survivor of a catastrophic disaster aboard an orbital space station. The entire station has broken apart, and even the sections that are still intact are without power or life support. It is up to the player to explore the debris, look for any other survivors, and restore enough power and computer functionality to escape back to Earth in an Emergency Escape Vehicle (EEV). Personally, I think it's silly that an Emergency Escape Vehicle would be rendered useless in the event of an emergency that disables power and computer functionality. Kind of defeats the purpose of such a vehicle. One would think that such a vehicle would have an independent power supply and computer, and some way of detaching or ejecting the vehicle without the station being powered -- like, I don't know, some kind of explosive decompression of the clamps that attach the escape vehicle to the station, which works based on simple physics, rather than requiring power or computers.

But whatever, suspension of disbelief. I have to restore power to the main computer to get the escape pods to work. Fine. I can live with that contrivance.

The space station debris hovering over the Earth is a striking visual.

The space catastrophe itself is loaded with striking visual details. From the vistas of the Earth spinning below, to the fields of debris suspended in space, to water bubbles floating around certain chambers, ADR1FT really sells the look and feel of being trapped on a near-future destroyed space station. This includes the feeling of isolation, loneliness, and hopelessness of being trapped in space. In fact, it might be too good at selling this aesthetic, because it does so to the point of occasional frustration.

This will be the second part of a 2-part Retrospective on Civilization VI. The first part features my personal list of Top 10 Good Ideas that Firaxis put into the game, and this second part will be the Top 10 Bad Ideas. If you haven't read the Good Ideas yet, then I highly recommend you check that out first, as there will be several topics in this list that will build on what was said in the previous list. In fact, there will be some topics that are appearing in both lists, so I hope you'll read the good things that I have to say before reading the bad.

I also don't want to be a complete downer, and would like to provide constructive feedback. So wherever possible, I will try to make suggestions on how I think Firaxis could improve on some of these ideas if they chose to revisit them for future games. And some of these ideas are certainly worth re-visiting.

With the New Frontiers Pass for Civ VI over, an "Anthology" edition of Civ VI on sale, and no news at all regarding future DLC or expansions, I'm assuming that Firaxis has finished with Civ VI. As such, I want to look back on the game and reflect on the things that I liked most about it, and the things that annoyed me the most.

After the lifespan of Civilization V had ended, I wrote up a pair of retrospective blogs about my personal Top 10 Good Ideas and Top 10 Bad Ideas that went into that game. I'll be doing the same thing now with Civ VI.

I want to stress that this is a list of 10 good and bad ideas -- not necessarily good and bad mechanics. Some of the good ideas will be ideas that I like in principle (or on paper), but which might need more iteration before they truly work as intended. In contrast, there may be some bad ideas that work fine mechanically, but which hurt the "flavor" or theming of the game, in my opinion.

This is, of course, a subjective list of personal favorite and disliked concepts in the game. I'm sure there will be a lot of disagreement, and some of the things I write here will probably be somewhat controversial with the rest of the player base. So I'm interested in reading others' feedback. So if you agree with any of my points, or you vehemently disagree, feel free to post a comment and share your thoughts.

This first post will cover my personal Top 10 Good Ideas, and I will follow it up with the next post being about the Top 10 Bad Ideas.