I love 4x games (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate). These are the types of games where you start out building up a civilization and usually clash with other players on the road to ultimate domination. No game series is more synonymous with the 4x genre than Civilization. I started playing Civilization 3 over a Christmas Break during college, and I was hooked. I’ve been playing it ever since. I got the early access to Civilization 7 and have played it all weekend. I achieved a victory with every type of victory condition. Naturally, I have some thoughts – good, bad, and neutral.
In the neutral area, I wanted to highlight some changes I found interesting. First, you no longer inherently play as a traditional “leader” in the game. For example, you can play as Harriet Tubman for the United States. She did not hold political office, but was obviously a leader in the abolitionist movement. Another example is Confucius, a renowned philosopher who, while influential, was not a traditional leader of China. I like this change as it is cool to learn about non-traditional leaders, and it also allows the game to highlight leaders who impacted a nation without having a formal title. Another change is the split into three distinct game phases (called ages in game): Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern. You’re leader will remain the same throughout these ages, but your civilization will change. You now change the civilization you play as in each age – though there is a throughline. For example, you can start with the Mississippian civilization during Antiquity. When you enter the Exploration age, you can become Hawaiian, Incan, or Shawnee based on your choice. Later, when you enter the Modern age, you can again pick another civilization that will be relatively historically accurate. However, these choices can also be influenced by your leader. As you go into the Modern Age, if you are playing Harriet Tubman, you can always pick to be America – regardless of past choices. Another major change I noticed is the use of 4 types of “storylines” that allow you to progress the game: Economic, Cultural, Militaristic, and Scientific. There are specific objectives in order to progress these storylines. For the first two ages, your progress will give you benefits in the next age. In the Modern Age, these are used as the win conditions for the game.
For the good, I love the way your civilization can change over the course of the ages. I know it is a game, but part of me always hated playing as the Roman Empire during the end game, or America during the early age. It adds an element of historic accuracy that I love. In Civilization 7, they removed workers. The turn-to-turn updates that required workers was tedious in previous games, so putting that functionality into traditional city growth is something I welcomed. Combat has been made easier with the use of Commanders. Now, a commander can hold together and coordinate 5 different military units. This makes the military aspect of the game much more easy. I love how easy it is to understand the victory conditions for the Cultural and Economic win conditions. It is much more obvious than it was in previous iterations of the game.
However, there are some drawbacks to the new game. In terms of historic accuracy, it can sometimes be jarring to see a leader that is obviously tied to a civilization being the leader of another civilization. For example, when Harriet Tubman is leading the Incans or the Hawai’i civilizations, it is strange in a way that being the Roman Empire in 2050 was in previous iterations of the game. How does Hawai’i relate to her role in the Underground Railroad? The storylines are very prescriptive, which can lead to feeling that the game that is supposed to be open and explorative leaves you only a handful of ways to win. As an example, in order to win the Cultural Victory, you need to complete the World Fair in the Modern Era. In order to do that, you need to get artifacts from the map. And in previous eras, you need to spread your religion and build wonders. However, it would be nice if there were more than one single way to get there. For example, in the exploration era, it would be nice if, in addition to spreading your religion, you could also do other things to complete the objective. Finally, I think one last thing that could be improved is the pace of the game. It feels like the turns take a while to process, and I have a fairly high powered computer. It also seems like, while replacing workers to reduce the turn-to-turn tediousness, there are a lot of choices to make in expanding your cities every few turns. My cities expanded every few turns and I had to place a new population inside the city. If there was some way to cut this down, that would also be helpful.
Overall, I really like Civilization 7. The game will continue to evolve and expand as new DLC comes out, adding new leaders, civilizations, and tactics. I hope 2K continues to improve on the game. Currently, I give it a 7/10 but believe that it could increase as more is released.
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