Civilization VII - 8/10 GS, 80MC

Dang, thought it would do better than that. The last game had high scores. Thoughts, SW? Will you be checking out Civilization VII?

Wait 8 is not high?

Anyway, I haver never played a civ game, don't think I'll be starting now.

Looks pretty good. Been quite awhile since I’ve played a Civ game. Wouldn’t mind checking this one out sometime but it’s not really high on my priority list right now.

As someone who played II, V, VI, Beyond Earth, and Alpha Centauri, I'd recommend you wait for all the expansions before jumping in. They always change and improve the games by a lot.

Me? I think I'm done with the series.

I actually preordered the founder's edition last year when this was all announced so I'm glad to see it's being well-received. Looking forward to trying this game out on Wednesday to see how Firaxis changed the formula up.

I don't think there's been a Civilization (or Sid Meier) game I haven't managed a few hundred hours out of, haven't played for years. Hell, I've got STALKER 2, Indiana Jones, and a bunch of other great games installed but I've been playing Civ 6 this past month lol.

Sounds like they made some big improvements to Civ VII and the only real criticism (in a diff review) was that it was maybe a little too streamlined, but the reviewer had a hint of "older games are better because they're older" so I took it with a grain of salt.

Anyway, super looking forward to it.

Same here. I totally forgot about the early access part, so I was expecting this next week.

It appears Eurogamer was not pleased in their review.

I did have a sensible chuckle at this bit in the review though.

"As a child, I played an old copy of Civilization on a yellowed second hand machine while recovering from surgery. When a city was happy, a gentle tune played as people paraded past their town, proclaiming "we love the emperor". In Civ 7, you make Number Go Up until you get 20 percent more of another number. Angry Civ-izens would rampage across that same town, and might declare independence. In 7, they burn down the library and the exact fucking buildings you need to produce things that would make them happier."

Just...one...more...turn! And same, I still have Indiana Jones to complete but last night I reverted to playing Warhammer 3 TW. lol

I'm curious what time it will unlock on Wednesday.

I'll be getting it once the DLCs are out. Just like what I did with Civs V and VI

Played a little bit of it last night with the early access and I'm pretty... Bummed by the mediocre user interface. It feels like this was initially designed with a console interface in mind, and then ported to PC. :(

@Stevo_the_gamer: Yeah, it feels unfinished.

It's a shame, because there are a lot of smart changes to the underlying mechanics. They're just presented in confusing or ugly ways.

And the map types and map sizes! What the frick. :(

Like every Civ game, I'll wait for the complete package. Any Civ game past the third is utterly naked without all the DLC.

NAKED.

Honestly, that what this feels like. Naked. Or what @Planeforger said, it really feels unfinished like they needed another year to polish the product. I've got about 3 hours into it and I have to keep telling myself... don't request a refund... it has to get better... right? Only way to go is... up? Oh blimey...

I pre-ordered Civ 7 on the PS5 and now I’m a little concerned about what I’m reading about.

I've finished 1 and a third games so far, and the more I play, the more I like it.

Yes, the UI is jank and glitchy and needs a rework. That's my biggest problem with it so far.

But there's a bunch of things I like about it too:

• I really like how they merged barbarian camps and city states, and simplified that envoy system into a universal Influence currency used for all diplomacy. Now it feels important whether I make a trade deal or placate an angry neighbour, since I might want those points to incorporate a city-state instead.
• As weird as it is inventing The Wheel II, I like the specialised techs and cultural things. You can either get the baseline tech to advance further up the tree, or you can invest more research to get more out of that specific tech. It's another layer of small but meaningful decisions.
• It took a lot of getting used to, but I now enjoy the whole three age/civ changing feature. The mounting crises force you to pivot your strategies or rush through the paths as quickly as possible. The change in ages is a small reset button, so the game doesn't just creep along in the same direction from year 1 to finish. Each new age brings different gameplay mechanics and goals, which also adds variety to a long game. Plus the change in culture stops feeling jarring after a while.
• I like that civilian units tend not to get blown up as much. The migrant is a nice new unit, too.
• I like that building settlers is now fairly quick, and that you have a choice between town or city, and the way the cities sprawl and urbanise their areas.
• I like that changing continents is actually important this time.

I'm sure there's more. The gameplay is mostly solid, in that Day 1 Civ way where it'll obviously get expanded three different ways. I'm enjoying it, even if the tooltips obscure important information and the text doesn't fit in the boxes and so on.

I'm an old school Civ player. I cut my teeth on the original Civilisation (oh sorry, I mean 'CiviliZation'. North Americans eh lol) on an Amiga A500+ with 1Mb RAM.

Anyhoo. this thing about the game soft resetting when a new Era starts? I'm not sure I'm all for that. Hmmm...

It's still honeymoon period for me, but I don't hate the change.

It's not a full reset, and you have some agency over how the reset works. For example, if you were economically successful in Era 1, you can spend your economy points to stop your cities from reverting to towns during the reset. Or you can spend them to keep your income boosts, or to gain a new skill on your leader's skill tree. Everyone will lose something, but you can influence how much you lose.

Your choices during an Era also influence which civs are available next Era (you usually have 3-6 ish options), so there's some continuity and agency there too. You can't switch gears to a completely different nation without laying the groundwork first.

Just played it for the last two hours and I’d give it a 8/10 as well as GS. Pretty decent game.

For anyone not liking the rectangular continents, I recommend the Fractal map setup. It adds inland seas and land bridges that make the world feel more natural.

Still enjoying the game, btw. It has a steeper learning curve than previous games, but I'm at the point where I think most of the changes are for the better (besides the weak UI and the slightly dull victory conditions).

It's missing content and I'm sure we'll pay a bunch for a 'complete' game (like with the previous games), but I'm enjoying what we have.