Now that Sid Meier’s Civilization VII has been out for a few weeks, the shock and awe of many changes has settled. Or has it? Prior to the release of Civilization VII, it had already struck gold. Since its official launch on February 10th, the game has already had 3 rapid patches on PC to fix immediate bugs and other required updates. Update 1.1.0 is on its way to bring “UI improvements, AI tweaks, and more including a round of fixes for console” to bring them back in line with PC and re-enable cross-play multiplayer. So while they are quick at work on updating the game, how does it actually play in its current form?
Changes from Civilization VI
Let’s cover some of the big changes that people may have already heard, but are worth repeating. These changes impact the game play loop and perhaps some strategies people may be used to using.
Civilization VII is played in up to three ages. A full game will start in the Age of Antiquity, progress into the Age of Exploration, and end in the Modern Age. These are all longer ages with their own unique goals and legacy paths. Legacies will improve how you do in the later ages so you can choose between 0-4 legacy paths to follow. The paths are Culture, Military, Science, and Economic. The first two ages will also end with a crisis for you to resolve and they will intensify. Depending on your style, these may be easy for you to ignore or they may ruin a solid run.
You’ll no longer be with one civilization forever. This also means your leader does not have to match the civilization and often, will not. If you’ve ever wanted to play Harriet Tubman of Rome or Lafayette of Greece, this is your chance. Your leader will stay with you for each age, but your civilization will change as you move through the ages. As you play in the Age of Antiquity, there will be ways to unlock future civilizations to play as. Some of the unlocks will be based on what you’ve built during the previous age. Others will be historically based such as where your leader is from. Each has it’s own condition so it’s worth looking into if you have a very specific path in mind.
The map covered in fog is no longer the map you’ll explore. Instead, you’ll find the map is full of tiles that will be face down until you explore them. This gives you an idea of how big the map may be and how many spaces away you can send your units. As a negative, it’s not the most aesthetically pleasing view. While it isn’t something awful, the layout can feel a bit confusing. Some tiles will have golden symbols on it but these mean nothing.
Scouts can no longer self explore.This means you’ll be manually moving your scout each time around the map. This isn’t a huge deal to many as you may want to be more in control. However on the flip side, allowing the scouts to be independent allowed players to focus on other aspects.
There are no barbarians, but you will encounter hostile independent villages. One of the bugs I encountered that has since disappeared with the three patches was related to these villages. My first game I was attacked by three hostile villages with no way to end this. There was no way to take them over, take them out, or befriend them. This would have been a chief complaint if this review was pre-patch but this is no longer a concern. The independent villages are essentially city states from the previous game with more flair. You can still become Suzerian of them by asserting your influence.
Settling a new area makes them a town not a city after your first settlement. Towns do not have production in the way cities do which means gold is important. You can convert a town into a city using gold. The first few won’t be too costly, but as you convert more, the cost will grow. Keep in mind, these will revert back to towns in the next age. Not ideal, but at least they don’t disappear.
Builders no longer exist in Civiliation VII. Improvements to the tiles will now be built when you expand your city or town. The city/town tiles will have a farm or a mine as you expand. You can change them to urban tiles by building other additions such as a library, garden, market etc. The game will warn you if this builds over a pre-existing building as each urban area will only have two slots.
You’ll also notice you have a settlement limit. The game doesn’t actively stop you from building another settlement. Anything above that limit will cause a crisis in your civilization.
This is not an exhaustive list of changes, but they are quite noticeable at the start. You’ll notice these changes before you even get deep into the game.
Game Play Loop
The game starts as all civilization games do. You settle on a new piece of land, claim it as your own, and build out from there. You can choose a scout or a fighting unit to start as you build your small starter city. Build as you choose, explore, listen to your advisors (or don’t). The choices are yours.
As you meet your first fellow leader, you’ll notice there are now many different ways to interact with them. It’s enjoyable that you can decide whether your relationship with them can move to be friendly, neutral, or hostile right off the bat with choices you make as a leader. Use your influence to sway them or to spy on them. Yes, you can start spying much earlier than in previous games.
The part of the game play loop that feels very odd is the move from one age to the next. Wars do not carry over as you cross into the next age. While the leader will still be furious with you, you’ll notice there is no active war going on. Another aspect I didn’t fully enjoy was the fact that the Independent Powers and City-States are unique to the age. This means that the only way to keep them moving into the next age was to incorporate them into your empire. This takes 10 turns and influence point spending to get them to join you. Villages who don’t join an empire will be lost to history.
At the end of each age, you’ll also unlock new items based on how well you are doing. Unlock mementos to use with other leaders in future games and banners to customize your account. As you prepare to begin the next age, you’ll choose your next culture. Some will have very specific ways to unlock them and you’ll also get the chance to change the mementos on your leader. Mix and match your leader, your civilization, and your mementos to keep your opponents consistently on their toes.
Your four paths to victory are Military, Economy, Scientific, and Cultural. Within the ages, your advisors will share the steps to take towards victory. They do lay it out pretty quickly and easily for all to work towards. The steps to win the age are broken out into 3 more achievable goals. You can choose to track just what you want to win with or choose to follow all four. The true problem with tracking all four on your screen is that the text under your journal on the left hand side will very quickly become difficult to read with everything else on the screen. If you “win the age” you’ll be greeted with a fun short video as a reward.
Keep in mind during this game play, you won’t be able to go all the way from learning writing to launching spaceships. Civilization VII locks certain technologies (and civics) behind each age. You will not be learning about flight in the exploration age. Sorry but you won’t be winning this game in 1200 so buckle up.
Things you may miss
There are a few things that I do miss from Civilization VI that didn’t quite make it into the new game. This one is a bit silly, but I do miss the fluid building of wonders when your civilization finished them. The stacking way they are built is fine. It just does not feel quite as beautiful to watch and it is easy to skip these animations.
I also felt that religion in this game felt extremely lacking with the exception of the bonuses it can give you. While I understand that having religion as a path to victory can feel divisive or unrealistic (in a game where leaders live thousands of years), not investing in the religion you begin seems to have no real consequence. Each game that I played, I would found a religion and typically let it go by the wayside.
Previously mentioned was how scouts can no longer explore on their own. This is one example of automation that has been removed from the game. For one, I am quite happy you can’t just click on a future technology and let the AI take you all the way to the end of learning this. However, I do know quite a few people who will miss this feature. It is the same with civics, you’ll have to look at the civics and tech trees and pick your next one each time it pops up.
I do miss petting your furry companion as a scout though. Can we get that back for a bit of flavor back into the game?
When you get great people into your civilization, I do find it quite difficult to find the building they need to complete their task. While your explorers will have highlighted tiles to go digging or studying, great people will need to find those universities or museums on their own. I’m really hoping this is something they patch in later as looking for some of these spots once your civilization grows large can be quite infuriating.
The game also will not hold your hand with what everything does. Often times you’ll have to go through the Civilopedia and read through a lot of text before getting to your question. While previously you could hover over areas or units to get a feel for what they did, expect to do a bit more searching and studying this time around. Of course, after a few plays, it’s fairly easy to get into a rhythm and know your next best steps.
Aspects to Appreciate
Admittedly, there are aspects I thoroughly enjoy. Occasionally you will have narrative pop ups in which you’ll have to make choices. Some of these will be longer term stories that will follow your civilization. Others will give you quick options that will have you pick between options like additional science and culture or getting a relic.
Speaking of relics, anything that can be featured in a museum or palace can now be placed in an archive. I recall plenty of games in older Civilizations there would be many times where you’d have great people running around with nowhere to place their great works. Now these works will go into storage until you build the appropriate building and you can move them into the location.
The narrative aspect feels much stronger in the game and that goes for the nameless citizens as well. The happiness values in Civilization VII are not something to overlook. A very happy civilization has many more celebrations. The celebrations may sound silly at first, but once you realize the bonuses they can give you for ten turns, they can be a key to victory, depending on your chosen track.
Final Thoughts
Civilization VII is a solid game while still having a few flaws. As with these types of games, expect the flaws to be patched out or replaced with new features in DLC. It is still absolutely the game that you can lose many hours to. While the cross-play multiplayer is not quite up and running yet, now is the time to play solo and learn your best strategies. While it may not end up being a fan favorite, the series must go on. Civilization VII is a fresh take on a series while remaining somewhat true to it’s core. It may not ask you for just one more turn just yet but you’ll be asking yourself what time is it during your marathon sessions.
Sid Meier’s Civilization VII was reviewed on PC. Available now on PC, Steam, Xbox, Nintendo Switch and PlayStation.
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