Review: Civilization VII (PC)

Civilization VII is disappointing. To be clear, this doesn’t mean it’s not well-made, and I’ve enjoyed it enough, but it represents the most radical change for the series in perhaps its entire history, and as someone who has spent more than 1,000 hours in Civilization VI, not all of these changes are good.

It would take far too long to go into all the details about the many, many changes that 2K has implemented with this game, however, the overall impact is that it’s a much more streamlined and details-light game now. Some of the main ones I have felt really changed the texture of the game, however, include that you no longer need to meticulously improve your cities using builder units. Now, you automatically get improvements as you erect buildings on the tiles around your city. Meanwhile, individual units no longer get experience points, and while commanders do and they can form armies to march around the map, this makes unit management a much more straightforward project.

There’s a hard limit to the number of settlements you can own, and while there are now two types of them (Cities, which are the main hubs of your civilization, and towns, which contribute more resources but at the expense of production), because the hard limit is so low there’s not much empire micro-managing to concern yourself with. That inability to grow the empire to encompass the world does incentivise being more friendly to neighbouring civilizations (since you won’t be able to absorb them by conquering them), but interactions with those civilizations are largely limited to spending a diplomacy resource to try and sway their mood towards you.

There aren’t really city-states or barbarians anymore, either. Or to be more accurate, they’re basically rolled up into one. Dotted across the map are tiny tribes that are initially hostile to you. However, you can spend the same diplomatic influence resource points to start to sway them to your side. If you’re the first to hit a certain threshold, you will become that minor civilization’s suzerain, which gives you a lot of control over their militaries and development. From there, with some more goading, you can peacefully annex them into your civilization (if you haven’t hit your town/city cap yet). Or you can militarily destroy them and get a boost in resources, like you would if you captured a barbarian camp in previous Civilization games.

The single biggest change in Civilization VII, though, is the way it handles eras. In Civilization VI, when a civilization moved into a new era, not much really changed. The graphical representation of buildings became more modern-looking, but the civilization was largely continuous, and the turn after an era shift was a progression from the turn before.

Now, it’s almost like starting a new game. Firstly, all the minor states you’ve befriended are gone (unless you’ve annexed them). Most of your units are removed, too, and the ones you’re allowed to keep are dispersed around your empire. Indeed, you’re not even in command of the same empire anymore. While your leader remains the same throughout the game, when an era changes you need to pick a new civilization, with the options available based on previous decisions and what you achieved in prior eras.

So in the first campaign I played, for example, I started out choosing Himiko (the legendary first ruler of pre-ancient Japan), who led the Khmer civilization through the ancient era (no, not Rouge, the Empire that dominated South-East Asia from the 9^th to 15^th centuries). Then the empire changed and suddenly Himiko was queen of the Majapahit Empire of Indonesia.

Mechanically, I do understand why Firaxis did this. The Civilization series is famous – or perhaps infamous – for being something that you settle down to and never actually finish. I don’t know if there’s an official percentage out there (I assume Firaxis does actually have the math), but anecdotally, I might have finished 10% of my campaigns in Civilization VI, typically tapping out sometime just before the emergence of the modern era. Most of the time, the outcomes are pretty much set in stone by that point, and you know whether you’re going to win or not, making that last third act an almost shockingly dull grind at times.

This way, with a “soft reset” between eras, Civ VII does keep things a bit interesting, while you do still retain an advantage if you were dominating in the previous era. The move between civilizations and eras also allows the developers to add a bit of narrative context – exploration and colonialism become the priority in the second age, while political ideology dominates your decisions in the third. So there are some benefits to this approach and, again, mechanically this makes sense and is perhaps even a clever design decision in crafting Civilization VII into a game that people play to completion.

But I would also argue that, thematically, it sucks. From Civilization I right through to VI there has been a fastidious effort by Sid Meier (originally) and then the Firaxis team to make Civilization something educational. You would be able to choose a real leader and a real historical empire, and as a cohesive grouping come to know something about the real-history civilization. I’m not exaggerating on any level when I say that way, way back when I was a kid in school, Civilization II inspired me to learn about Genghis Khan, Saladin and Joan of Arc. Many years later, Civilization VI got me interested in Simón Bolívar (we don’t get exposed to much Latin American history in Australian education) After having my interest caught by these leaders and empires in the game, I went and read books and learned about them at much greater depth.

Civilization VII, meanwhile, treats all of these things as content. The industry that is totally, irreparably addicted to cross-over characters, mix-and-match appearances, and stuff being shoved into games where it just makes no sense (Hatsune Miku in Fortnite? I mean, cmon now), is now doing the same to Civilization. Now, it’s not about picking a historical figure and empire that interests you. It’s about min-max gameplay and finding the ideal combinations that will give you the best pathway through to victory. The knowledge and educational side of Civ VII has become as streamlined and mechanics-driven as the gameplay itself, and I personally don’t think it’s going to be as inspiring when now you’re encouraged to simply see leaders and civilizations for their statistical bonuses.

Overall, it’s hard to shake the feeling that Civilization VII is over-produced. It looks gorgeous and there seems to have been an obsession on the development team to make sure every one of the systems is perfectly balanced. But the other side of that coin is that it feels restricted and limited. There are fewer pathways to victory. Experimentation is discouraged. Developing an advantage is punished, and everything moves quickly to prevent you from ever getting bogged down in static inertia. It’s certainly the most accessible a 4X strategy game has ever become, but in its current state does it deserve 1,000+ hours of time to really learn and master it?

There are also some glaring technical issues. The biggest one, by far, is the limitations on the map size. If you’re the kind of person that liked to play slow-paced, epic campaigns over gigantic maps, you’re out of luck. Indeed, if you buy the Switch version of the game then you’re locked to “Small” being the largest map you can play on. It’s also a fairly buggy game, and the interface is almost shockingly ugly to look at. Again, the Switch version is particularly egregious, with popups constantly getting in the way of genuinely important information.

A lot of this can actually be fixed, mind you. It’s hard to remember back to the original release of Civilization VI, but it also had a shaky start until Firaxis started adding new civilizations, play modes and expansions to it. Turn them off now and Civ VI feels almost unplayable. So aside from the era changes, which are baked into the game and will always be contentious, Firaxis and the community will, no doubt, find plenty of ways to continue to shape and mold Civ VII into the future.

For now, though, I think it’s pretty telling that while Civilization VII certainly costs a pretty penny, I’ve already found myself going back to play VI when I want to play something that I enjoy. It’s simply not inspiring me, and given that this series above all others has, in a very real sense, shaped my lifelong interest in history, being uninspiring is perhaps the worst mistake Firaxis could have made.