Sid Meier's Civilization VII

Many things are different in Sid Meier's Civilization VII, although in this 4X strategy game from Firaxis Games and 2K Games (Take-Two Interactive), players will continue to establish a civilisation, build cities, construct wonders, expand their territory, conquer or cooperate with rival civilisations in the pursuit of prosperity, wealth and power.

Many things are different in Sid Meier's Civilization VII, although in this 4X strategy game from Firaxis Games and 2K Games (Take-Two Interactive), players will continue to establish a civilisation, build cities, construct wonders, expand their territory, conquer or cooperate with rival civilisations in the pursuit of prosperity, wealth and power.

While the basic concept remains the same, eras with big changes - like in Humankind - make their way into the game. There are three eras with their own objectives (Ancient, Exploration and Modern), and each brings a radical reset during game. You can think of it as playing three smaller civ games in one session. Each era is about reaching certain milestones, such as scientific, cultural, military and economic. All civilisations are competing for these milestones and are contributing to them.

When all the conditions for an era transition are met, an era change takes place. At this point, players choose a new civilisation, a new tech tree is available, new resources appear on the map, city-states change and even wars end. By the way, before the era changes, you have to ask yourself what you want to achieve and whether it is still worthwhile.

However, as a reward for the successes of the previous age, some bonuses can be taken. This reshuffles the cards in a game and, more importantly, resets particularly strong empires so that the other civilisations can catch up - compared to the other Civ games, this is a major change that takes some getting used to. It's a bold decision, but perhaps a little too radical when you look back on the series. The change is a bit too drastic, especially for the powerful empires. Perhaps a less radical reboot would have been better when changing eras, especially as each change is accompanied by a crisis event. Still, it is a bummer that it ends after the third era, and it seems pretty certain that there will be an add-on, perhaps with the post-modern era.

Yes, you change the civilisation after an era change, but you keep the leader you chose at the beginning. Each leader has a set of abilities and can be enhanced with customisable attributes earned through gameplay, allowing to reinforce or pivot strategies from one age to the next. By the way: It is possible to select leaders and civilisations independently to mix and match gameplay bonuses, with civilisations favouring leaders with certain attributes - which can lead to some strange combinations, at least from a historical point of view.

In the Modern Era, it's all or nothing. Here, milestones must be reached before the corresponding types of victory are unlocked, again in the categories of Science, Culture, Economy and Military. Some are easier to achieve than others, but that's not unusual.

There is also better control of the empire's resources, which can be conveniently allocated via a distribution menu; commanders group and improve armies, which improves tactical battles and simplifies movement around the map, while commanders are now the only units that can gain experience; there is also a new district by district approach to sieges, with defenders incentivised to build walls around vulnerable areas and the game gives proper flanking bonuses, so the direction of attacks matters.

City expansion works in a more controlled and organic way, with good city growth, each time the population increases, a tile can be selected for the city to expand on, which automatically builds a modernisation because there aren't any worker units any longer, and there is no more fiddly/puzzling around with districts, buildings such as granaries or libraries can be built directly on the map tiles (wonders too). Each settler unit initially creates a town, which has no production capacity of its own (it only produces gold), and can be expanded into a fully-fledged city if the empire has enough city slots and/or happiness. Influence is a currency that can be used to pursue your own diplomatic goals or to harm your opponents (espionage), and then there are the Civics, which represent a new cultural, societal or ideological advancement for a civilisation. Religion does not come into play until the second age.

Overall, the gameplay has been streamlined in a few areas, but for the most part this feels appropriate, and there are still more than enough ways to manage the empire, not to mention the occasional minor narrative events that occur during gameplay. Last but not least, the new look, which is less cartoonish than Sid Meier's Civilization VI, is also good. Only the beautifully animated leaders are surprisingly tight-lipped.

Civilization VII also rewards progress over multiple playthroughs, regardless of victory or defeat, with Legends and Mementos. The Legends system allows players to level up along the Foundation Path with each Leader, or the Leader Path for each Leader, by completing Challenges that reward players with Mementos and Cosmetic Collectibles that persist across campaigns. While leaders have two memento slots, there are nearly 100 mementoes to earn, giving players extra units, attribute points, resources and more.

The developers have also improved the adaptation of the interface for handheld devices, thanks to the popularity of its predecessor on these machines. However, the desktop PC version of the game has suffered somewhat and now has a clunky and often cumbersome interface with too few options. It lacks the quality of life and convenience features of its predecessors, such as the automation of explorers, etc., and too few map options. At least the developers have promised improvements, and the gameplay balance and performance can also be improved in later sessions. The same goes for the behaviour of the AI, which is already a little better than it was at the launch of its predecessor. All in all, the game seems to have been released a little too early, but both Firaxis and 2K Games have already made it clear that they will be supporting the game for a long time to come and expanding it with DLC.

The developers' roadmap includes cooperative teams for multiplayer games, expanding multiplayer to eight players for all ages, the ability to customise city and religion names, a wider variety of map types and hot seat multiplayer. But the "top priority" is to improve the user interface: "Several key features that we've seen you ask for will be included in upcoming patches as free updates, and we'll continue to work with the community to improve and add to the game" the developers said. "Work is already well underway on Patch 1.1.0, which includes fixes and adjustments that were already on our radar. This list includes quality-of-life UI adjustments, ongoing AI balance and improvement, adjustments to diplomacy and crises, plus additional bug fixes." Modding tools will also be made available later this year.

Sid Meier's Civilization VII will be available on 11 February 2025 for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, and Mac and Linux via Steam. Physical copies will be dual-gen on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S, but physical copies on PS5 will not be dual-gen on PS4 as Sid Meier's Civilization VII is digital-only on PS4. There are also two other editions. The Deluxe Edition includes Advanced Access to play the game from 6 February 2025, the Tecumseh and Shawnee Pack, the post-launch DLC Crossroads of the World Collection and the Deluxe Content Pack. The Founders Edition includes all content from the Deluxe Edition, the post-launch Right to Rule Collection DLC and the Founders Content Pack. The Founders Edition is a digital-only edition and will only be available until 28 February 2025.

Conclusion

Sid Meier's Civilization VII has plenty of good ideas and takes a lot of risks with changes to established systems, but it still feels like a typical Civ game - one that came out a little early and could have used a little more fine-tuning and options, a smoother integrated help system, and a better UI. But there are already promises of improvements.

Features

• Classic Civ gameplay with more dynamic sessions due to era transitions
• Many small improvements and tweaks & good visuals
• Will be continually improved and expanded