Civilization VII

[Dramadon]

Your review doesn't make me want to run out and start playing this. It sounds like a micromanaging nightmare. Maybe between 5 and 6 they've just have done the best possible ways to organize these types of games and everything else is just less fun. I mean, I can't think of ways to make those games better either so I guess it's good I'm not on the development teams.

[Wool]

It's still pretty fun. Most (not all) of the new systems they came up with can be pretty interesting, there are just so many of them. On one hand, it lets the player choose what they want to do and not bother with the rest, but on the other it sometimes feels like too much is going on.

I still think it's worth trying, but yeah it isn't something you should rush to play.

It sounds like a micromanaging nightmare.

It can be, though I didn't even mention the most micromanage-y part. Resources are basically loot now that once you gain you can equip to your cities to give various bonuses. It's a fun system, at first. Once you have 20 cities and 50+ resources it starts to become a burden. You also can't swap equipped bonuses except on turns when you acquire a new resource or a new resource building, which is kind of annoying.

Still not as bad as a lot of other games in the genre though.

[Wool]

Later this month, on May 19th, Civilization VII will be getting a major update that they are calling "The Test of Time". This is an overhaul of the entire game meant to address player concerns and criticisms over the past year. While there are many small general balance changes, when you look at the biggest changes it seems like the primary focus is on making all of the eras in the game feel more connected. In past Civ games, playing through all the eras feels like a single game, while in Civ 7, each of the three eras feels like three different games stitched together.


The biggest three changes they are talking about are:

- You can now play the entire game as a single civilization. They are reworking the way era and civ bonuses work by allowing you to customize the civ you are playing as. Where before each age you picked a new civ and got new bonuses, now in each era you can either double down on your original choice or pick units and bonuses from another civ that was designed with that era in mind.

- New victory system. As I mentioned earlier, it seems like they are changing this to make it feel like your final victory is something you worked towards the entire game. In the current version you work towards a victory for each age, with each one giving you bonuses in the next.

- A new system referred to as Triumphs is replacing the Legacy Path system. As far as I can tell, the primary purpose of this change is to give players more flexibility instead of forcing you down a path.



When I first heard about these changes earlier this year, I was nervous. As disappointed as people were, I do not think making this game more like the old games will make it better. Those games already exist. Trying to pretend this game is something it is not would only make it fail at both.

Still, I remain hopeful that these changes make the overall experience feel more fluid. I'll probably try them out, as I already replayed this a few months ago so that I could compare the new system with the old, but it might be another month or two before I've played enough games to talk about it.

[Dramadon]

Later this month, on May 19th, Civilization VII will be getting a major update that they are calling "The Test of Time". This is an overhaul of the entire game meant to address player concerns and criticisms over the past year. While there are many small general balance changes, when you look at the biggest changes it seems like the primary focus is on making all of the eras in the game feel more connected. In past Civ games, playing through all the eras feels like a single game, while in Civ 7, each of the three eras feels like three different games stitched together.


The biggest three changes they are talking about are:

- You can now play the entire game as a single civilization. They are reworking the way era and civ bonuses work by allowing you to customize the civ you are playing as. Where before each age you picked a new civ and got new bonuses, now in each era you can either double down on your original choice or pick units and bonuses from another civ that was designed with that era in mind.

- New victory system. As I mentioned earlier, it seems like they are changing this to make it feel like your final victory is something you worked towards the entire game. In the current version you work towards a victory for each age, with each one giving you bonuses in the next.

- A new system referred to as Triumphs is replacing the Legacy Path system. As far as I can tell, the primary purpose of this change is to give players more flexibility instead of forcing you down a path.



When I first heard about these changes earlier this year, I was nervous. As disappointed as people were, I do not think making this game more like the old games will make it better. Those games already exist. Trying to pretend this game is something it is not would only make it fail at both.

Still, I remain hopeful that these changes make the overall experience feel more fluid. I'll probably try them out, as I already replayed this a few months ago so that I could compare the new system with the old, but it might be another month or two before I've played enough games to talk about it.

I disliked the separate civilization idea so much in Humankind that it really stopped me from even checking this game out. I knew I wasn't going to like it. I do think there is a middle path that might work though. First, you keep the same civilization but maybe make a smoother transition to the new civ. Maybe you choose some paths for technology or units or something and gradually the game converts to the new civilization. Kind of like how eventually Italian replaced Latin as the language in Italy. That would certainly feel more like a natural shift. I will keep an eye out for these changes. Maybe it will make the game something I want to buy but right now, I still play Civ V and Civ VI.

[Wool]

That's a pretty cool idea, although I think there is a disconnect that is always going to be a problem no matter what approach you try to take. We take it for granted now, but Civ has always been a little goofy. France making Pyramids or tanks in the 1800s, etc. All in the name of being accessible, replayable, and fun. This is the same sort of thing. They can't make the system too complex or it interferes with the simple nature of their games. It needs to be as clear as possible what your choices are and what the consequences will be.

I sort of wonder if the Civ swapping feels bad because of "realism", or if its because it completely changes the idea of what you are playing as. In Civ 7 and Humanity you don't play as a Civilization, you play as a Leader that themselves shape the civilizations from history that they(you) choose. Egypt isn't the name of the character you are playing as, it is their rpg character class.

Anyway, whenever I play I always try to pick plausible historic connections between the Civs I play as. Rome leading into Spain into Mexico for example. It probably isn't optimal but I enjoy it more that way. I enjoy playing out a story, even if it isn't a narrative based game, I guess.

[Wool]

I wasn't able to make time to test the new update when it came out, but I've played through a few games this month to get an idea on how the game is different now. I don't think people want to read a long rambling mess, so I'm going to try to sum this up as succinctly as I can.


The core feels the same and is still engaging. They have successfully made the game feel like a cohesive whole rather than three parts stitched together, but I feel like it's lost its identity in the process, so I couldn't tell you if its better.

They changed the victory system to just be a point based system, where you get points for doing things throughout the entire game. This means you can win the modern era without completing things you would normally expect from a civ game. You don't need to launch a space mission to win science victory, or go to war to win on domination. The old system gave you clear goals to accomplish each age for bonuses in the next, while the interface tracking the various score victories in the new system is not very intuitive in my opinion. Points are acquired from various sources, including techs, wonders, and special projects. For example, a tech might give 3 innovation points, while a space mission would give you 15.

With the era and victory system overhauled, they also de-emphasized the challenges. Before you could "win" as many of the victory conditions for each era as you could before the era ended (building 7 wonders, acquiring 12 scientific relics, etc). You can still do these challenges, but you can only pick three bonuses going into the next age, so there isn't a lot of reason to do as many of them. They also offer a broader variety of challenges, so you can completely ignore era specific mechanics. For example, in Exploration you could continue to just keep making wonders for culture instead of spreading a religion.

The system for playing as the same civ for the entire game works well. There is an apex age in which they get unique units and buildings, with them just upgrading their unique buffs in each other age instead. Egypt might get +1 to culture and production on rivers in one age, then +2 in the next.

[Wool]

A few weeks ago they announced both what their next free update was going to be, as well as their ideas on what the first paid expansion was going to be. I wanted to finish my Test of Time runs before posting or commenting on this.

The free update is being called the Arc of Tomorrow update and will introduce the Atomic Era. It will supposedly focus on nuclear proliferation, proxy wars, and the movie industry for culture.

One of the main criticisms of the main game was that this was not present at launch, so it being a free update is arguably a good thing. Though I wonder at implementation. In the previous system, a new era with new win conditions made sense. But now the game ends in the modern age when your score is high enough. I've won as early as turn 34 in one of my games.


The expansion is called Earthrise and will focus on humanity's study of the night sky and solar system across history. I don't think they have given any more details than that yet.