The latest in the Sid Meier Civilization series, Civilization 7, has been available on the Steam gaming platform for some time now and, despite mixed reviews, has been receiving regular updates that improve it.
It's a turn-based strategy game that lets you be one of the famous historical leaders like Catherine the Great, Confucius or NapoleonUnlike previous versions of this three-decade-old franchise, in Civilization 7 you have the option to pair your Leader with any civilization. Napoleon can be the leader of the ancient Persian Empire or the leader of Egypt. This unusual combination is what makes the seventh part of the franchise unique.
New era system
The game is divided into three eras:
* The Age of Antiquity,
* Research period and
* Modern era
While previous titles had distinct eras, this game further separated them with separate technological and civilisational branches. Additionally, each civilization is tied to only one era. Based on the decisions the player makes when moving to the next era, they must choose a new civilization to play with.
This allows Catherine the Great to command the Greeks in the Ancient Age, the Mongols in the Exploration Age, and the Mexicans in the Modern Age. These civilization choices are not entirely random. Depending on the leader you play and the civilization in the previous age, you have several unlocked options. Additional civilizations can be unlocked through your gameplay. For example, if you have three horse resources in your Ancient Age empire, you get the option to play the Mongols in the Exploration Age.
At the end of each era, players face a crisis. This crisis forces players to implement several new policies that bring negative results to their empire. This system serves as a kind of pace control. It prevents the so-called snowball effect, which gives players in the lead an unattainable advantage, while trampling those who are struggling while they are on the floor.
This system is very interesting because it allows players to focus on getting the most out of a given era with the potential for a complete turnaround in the next. Thanks to the three-era system and crises at the end of each, we have the opportunity to eliminate that “boring” part of waiting for victory that was a regular part of Civilization 6. The game is very dynamic and really gives players room to use their imagination and win in a variety of ways.
In addition to eras, in the seventh part of Civilization we also have a completely new resource, influence. Influence is a resource that is used to initiate, accept or reject various projects. This resource has completely changed the way diplomacy functions in the world of Civilization.
In addition to player-to-player projects, there are also projects reserved only for neutral city-states. Using influence, you can win them over to your side or fully unify them after a while, adding another city to your empire.
Influence is a resource that is also needed for espionage. If you plan to sabotage your opponent or steal from them, you need to prepare large amounts of influence. Finally, if you plan to declare war on another civilization, keep in mind that using this resource can give you a huge advantage. The so-called war fatigue is significantly reduced if you use influence to support your side in the war.
Rivers
Rivers are now divided into two categories. There are navigable and non-navigable rivers. Navigable rivers are a brand new feature that has delighted fans around the world. These rivers allow civilizations that prefer sea-based battles to settle deeper inland without losing access to the open seas. Non-navigable rivers are rivers like those from previous Sid Meier games, and provide cities built on them with potable water. The main difference is that rivers now run through the fields on the map, rather than between them.
Settlements
Settlements are now divided into large urban areas, or metropolises, and smaller specialized cities that serve to help develop metropolises. The capital city, or the first settlement a player creates, is always a metropolis, while each subsequent settlement starts as a settlement. A settlement can be upgraded to a metropolis at any time during the game by spending gold resources. After a settlement reaches a population of seven people, it can specialize in one of the special cities, such as a food city, a mining city, a military city, and the like. If a settlement specializes in one of the cities, it can no longer grow or develop naturally because it sends all food to nearby metropolises and converts all productivity into gold.
Of course, there are certain situations like world wonders and migrants that allow these cities to further develop even after they are specialized. Every specialized city has the opportunity to revert to a settlement, but if it was once a military city, that becomes the only specialization choice for that settlement at that time.
Leaders
As I mentioned earlier, leaders are not tied to any civilization. Leaders are now developed throughout the game using Leader attributes. These attributes are divided into Cultural, Technological, Economic, Military, Diplomatic, and Territorial. Each of these options has its own tree that gradually develops from small bonuses like one culture per age, to a five percent bonus culture across the entire empire.
Workers
Workers no longer exist. Now, fields within your borders are automatically upgraded. Upgrades are divided into urban and rural upgrades. Urban are the districts you build in your empire, and rural are all other fields that you have upgraded with a farm, mine, quarry, etc. Every time a settlement gains a new population, it has the opportunity to upgrade a new field within its borders. If possible, after upgrading a selected field, all surrounding fields within a maximum distance of three fields from the center of the settlement are annexed to that settlement.
Roads between settlements are built automatically, and if you plan to create a road from your settlement to another civilization's settlement, you can use a merchant who creates a road through his regular trade between said settlements. Merchants now bring special resources to your empire, and the city from which they import them receives gold. This system gave players control over the development of their empire as opposed to previously randomly selected fields and directions of development depending on the amount of culture generated per turn.
Barbarians
Barbarians have been replaced by independent settlements. These settlements can be friendly or hostile depending on the use of your influence resource.
Soldiers
Soldiers do not gain experience or advancement. They advance based on technology. Military commanders gain experience for every battle fought near them, so it is advisable to avoid fighting outside of their commander's territory. Highly experienced commanders can completely turn the tide of a battle thanks to their advancements.
Resources
Resources have been changed and are divided into resources that have a global effect within the entire empire (+1 DMG for cavalry) and resources that have an effect only on the settlements they are located in (+3 production in the settlement).
Great minds
The Great Minds acquisition system has been completely removed from the game. Now civilizations like Greece get their own special citizens called Logios who function like the Great Minds from earlier versions of the game.
Negative aspects of the game
These changes sound really interesting and promising, but when you start the game you realize that it has a lot of problems. What I had the opportunity to notice is that by far the biggest problem with the game is the poor user interface (UI). The game is much darker than its previous edition and therefore its visibility is reduced. When you add to that the insufficiently detailed UI, then we encounter a problem. You need to check things several times to make sure that you are doing what you really want.
For example, if you plan to build a library in your capital city, you have the option to place it on only a few of the offered spaces, but the game never explains why a library can only be built on those spaces. There are many similar, hidden rules that are also not explained, such as districts that receive a bonus if you build them near the center of a settlement. If you plan to create a trade route to another civilization, there is no option to check from which city it is possible to do this. Nowhere does it say the exact distance between cities, nor the number of current routes you have or can have.
In addition to the insufficiently detailed user interface, I would also highlight the unnecessary change in the game's colors. Civilization 6 had a clearly visible difference between resources. Economy (gold) was always yellow, science was blue, production was orange, and culture was purple. Following the same logic, the districts that we built to obtain given resources were represented by the same colors. Theaters were purple, and libraries were blue. Now, everything on the map is gray. When you look at your settlement and wonder where you built a district for science and where for culture, you have to spend precious time finding them in the very messy settlement in front of you.
Multiplexer
When it comes to multiplayer, or playing with multiple players at the same time, there is still the problem of file mismatches between players. and the game can get stuck in a constant “desink” loop. It’s great that there is a multiplatform option through which console players can play with PC players, but unless the notorious “desink” problem is fixed, it’s just another nice-on-paper feature that has no value in practice.
Summary
All in all, Civilization 7 is the latest in a series of excellent turn-based strategies from Firaxis and with enough time and polish it will reach incredible heights. I think the idea of different eras and leaders changing civilizations in each is truly remarkable.
This idea completely eliminates the “boring” part of previous games (the last 50+ moves of constantly clicking the “next turn” button to make your victory official). At the same time, you have the opportunity to achieve any type of victory at any time depending on the situation on the map and the resources you have. It is true that the best way to play is still to focus on one type of victory from start to finish and reach incredible numbers in the modern era of gaming, but the versatility option itself is what makes this game stand out as the best so far.
Since the game's official release on February 11, several patches have already fixed the UI issues. If Firaxis's uptime so far is anything to go by, we can expect a completely revamped and clearer game full of information and color by the end of April. After that, all that's left is the addition of new leaders and civilizations, as well as many other surprises that the team at Firaxis has in store for us.
performance
The performance required to play this game is:
Intel Core i3-10100 procesor,
8GB RAM memory,
NVIDIA GTX 1050 graphics,
Windows 10+ operating system and
30GB of free hard disk space
The price of the game on the Steam gaming platform is $70.
Evaluation
My final rating for Sid Meier's Civilization 7 is: 7
Bonus video:
