Civilization VII review: A major overhaul solves Civ’s oldest problems

Not all changes will be popular, but it's a great launching point for a new age.

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[OptimusP83]

Edit: Duplicate post. Did we lose the ability to delete our posts with the new forum?

 

[SplatMan_DK]

Right. So I got the Founders edition as a gift from my wife, who also gave me the two prior versions of the game.

Spent the last couple of days playing it. I read this review before the game was available for all us ordinary folks.

Personal opinion: This is NOT the Civ you're looking for. Sadly. :-( And going by the Steam reviews, most fans of the franchise agree.

It's seriously dumbed-down in so many places, the UI is beyond clunky (it's outright terrible because it's obviously console-focused), and there are just way too many mechanics that lock you in to certain "paths" that you absolutely have to follow unless you want to loose.

It's like the worst parts of a Paradox game (famous for conflating "fun" with "amount of complex mechanics"), with a sprinkle of Civ graphics on the top.

As of right now the Steam reviews have tanked, with a massive 50% of reviews being negative.

I am beyond the point of refunding it. But it honestly feels like a huge disappointment. Especially at its ludicrous price point. How this thing ever got a Metacritic score of 84 is unfathomable. My only hope is that they fix it somehow - they have saved other problematic releases before.

What a huge disappointment. If you're a fan of the franchise and haven't bought it yet, give this one a hard pass until they fix it.

 

[Marad the Mad]

I've been playing Civ since it came out for my Atari ST and I've got quite a few hours under my belt. All things considered, I'm in it for the fun not the cut throat competition. I enjoyed IV but I really love V, (21,000+ hours) and didn't care much for VI or Civilization: Beyond Earth in the least. I'm hoping this will add a fresh flavor to a venerable favorite.

 

[mludd]

Just bought the game on Steam, played for something like 15 minutes before I uninstalled and made a refund request.

This game is nowhere near ready for release.

For shame, Firaxis.

Edit: And just to be clear, I've played every Civ game and Alpha Centauri. I probably have over 10k hours played in total. Hell, I have ~1500 hours just in Civ5. But this game doesn't feel like a proper Civ game and it feels painfully unfinished on top of it.

 

[Gibborim]

Sitting in the bottom half of a "Mixed" rating on Steam. Not a good sign. Maybe I'll buy it in two years for $20 after they've righted the ship.

 

[sl0th]

@SamuelAxon Did they removed barbarians from the later ages? It never made sense for the barbarians from the arctic to suddenly attack with battleships when you reached that technology.

He covers that in the review.

 

[ArcaneTourist]

Another Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (SMAC) fan here. It was a spiritual successor of Civ II, but despite the name, the design owed more to Bryan Reynolds than to Sid.

It's been several years since I played, but if you've played in the past and want a revisit, take a look at the various gameplay overhauls, AI overhauls, and faction mods at civfanatics.com.

The fungus and mind worms always reminded me of David Gerrold's War against the Chtorr series of novels which describe the earth being assaulted by plagues and then being terraformed transformed into something alien.

 

[Deleted member 1081629]

Not a lot of Incans, Carthaginians, Gauls (by name) around these days.

And?
One of the funniest things I've seen in Civ4 (on the huge 18 civs earth map) was the Inca nuking a German invasion fleet in the middle of the atlantic ocean (no pollution!! Woohoo!!) before invading and conquering Germany and Russia - even as China conquered south america from across the pacific, which left a still fairly strong Incan empire centered on their new capital city of Paris.

But I'm one of those "wait, there's a scoreboard?" Civ players. My biggest complaint of Civ4 is that with my playstyle the average game is only a meager 40ish hours long.

But anyways, thanks to the @SamuelAxon for the writeup!

 

[Deleted member 543677]

You mean the Flying Spaghetti Monster, right? RIGHT!?! RIGHT!!1?!11?!

Die, heretic.

In the name of his noodly goodness, ramen.

Now he meant the Fighting Spaghetti Monster, the unit unique of the Pastafarian civilization, which ties down unit in spaghetti after successfully attacking them, which makes them unable to move the following turn, and more vulnerable to attacks.

 

[Deleted member 543677]

Each leader has had a series of parameters governing their behaviour since the very first Civ. These bias the decisions made by the in-game AI to somewhat reflect real-world personalities.

Overall, these behaviours seem reasonably sensible and well-thought-out.

In fact, Gandhi has actually always been a less-aggressive leader, but in Civ V, as an in-joke, he was given the highest possible rating for "Build Nuke" and "Use Nuke".

Maybe this was purely a joke. Maybe it was to introduce an element of surprise when a peaceful leader would start getting nuke-happy. Or maybe it was some kind of commentary on the nuclear testing standoff in the subcontinent that had been all over the news a decade earlier.

Whatever the reason, this spawned memes, and led to an urban legend that he had always been nuke-happy (supposedly due to a programming bug in the original DOS Civ). There's no record of this happening, and the developers claim it is an urban legend, but the meme became so prevalent that in Civ VI, they kept the nuke-happy behaviour from Civ V.

I'd personally prefer fewer leaders, and fewer Civilizations, but with more distinct personalities and civilization traits (as in Alpha Centauri), but I can see why they would opt for broader geographical representation and a simple rules-based biasing of the AI instead.

Ghandi and the nuke actually stems from a much earlier bug (Civ II iirc), where Ghandi having a -1 modifier compared with other leaders on the aggressiveness scale. (Or perhaps a +1 bonus on friendliness), caused a integer underflow upon acquiring nukes which inflicts a -1 to aggressiveness, and so Ghandi would turn against anyone who had previously maxed out in friendship with him.

Consequently, when Ghandi appears in Civ, fan tend to expect some shenanigans around it. I think Civ VI Ghandi has a diplomatic agenda around nukes too.

Edit: I stood corrected, the urban legend has apparently been disproved !

 

[torp]

Old World is $9.99 on GOG right now and its MacOS compatible. Its become VERY close to an impulse buy for me right now...

Oh thanks, I just snatched it.

Ohhh great tip! Just the standard edition (the DLC adds $50 on top) but still, a free civ-like game is excellent, excited to give it a whirl.

Same for old world… base game is 10 but there are quite a few dlcs. I’ll find out if I want them by the next sale…