Sid Meier's Civilization VII

With Civ 5 and 6 being my most-played games on Steam, I was sent by curious friends as a canary in the coal mine to investigate the state of Civ 7 during this free week. What is the game like now after its infamous launch? Ultimately, it feels more like a competitor game that is trying to usurp Civilization's iconic status, giving a sense that the game is competing against itself--racked with uncertainty, which is not helped by the "options" added post-launch to tone down the original vision--rather than just being a Civilization game. I felt genuinely sad, given the many cool improvements within. It's not that I was having a bad time; I just didn't feel really compelled by a "story" of my civilization relative to others. To compare with Civ 6: the "board game"-ness has been toned down, but not removed entirely. There are adjacency bonuses, but they are harder to achieve given that city districts now must be placed adjacent to another district. While I love this change, making cities (the few true cities you will have) feel more organic, the adjacency bonuses are less impactful, so they're just kind of *there,* not feeling particularly significant like they were in 6. The visuals contribute to a sense of liminality, between being Civilization and an upstart rival. I find the UI both atrocious and unhelpful; information is rarely available when I want it. Furthermore, geographic features have a weird scale to them. "Mountains" appear as 15m-tall rocks, and "forests" are groups of 4-5 trees. This has a big effect on what the map appears as narratively; armies in prior games could be understood as representations of larger formations, given that they were surrounded by natural features that looked imposing. Now, given that the natural features look scaled in to the unit size, my "armies" appear as a group of guys fighting for a rock on a hiking trail, as the "mountains" are no longer imposing geographic barriers but a group of rocks. At times this led to some genuine confusion; why did my unit stop moving when it got into that group of five trees? Ah, that is a "forest." The era changes are the most controversial, and I find them still too jarring; tragic, given how baked-in they seem in the core of the game. I'm not opposed to organic civilization change; that would open up narratively significant possibilities. The era changes feel like time skips to different civilizations, rather than a real continuity from one age to the next. Given building obsolescence, automatic unit era upgrades, and the reset of most diplomacy, the last 10-20 turns of an era feel pointless. It's deeply ironic that the goal of era changes was to eliminate just clicking through to the end of the game, and now that will happen three times in a game. There are a number of positives: privateer ships being able to attack other vessels (treasure ships and merchants!) without being at war is absolute genius and gives them a real purpose. Cities, although harder to read at a glance, do look more like cities now. I also think resources operate better than in Civ 6; the six city luxury cap always felt a little arbitrary. Now, trade is significant as your cities open up more resource slots. I think this game could potentially shine at casual multiplayer. Unfortunately, it needs to be compelling enough for my friends to play on their own, so they can learn it; I did not really find the game to be as narratively compelling as past titles. The leader-civ disconnect and starkly changing civilizations really contributes to that, as well as civs and leaders largely feeling same-ish. Bonuses for the most part are +1 culture here or +1 science there; it never really feels like civs have unique playstyles, compared to past titles. Truly disappointing, in the sense that there are some facets, like the military and conquest, that make me not want to go back to Civ 6. I would pick this up for maybe $15 or preferably less, just to goof around with friends.

just not civ as ive always known it. i really wanted to like this but is got no depth

Being a lifelong crazy fan of Sid Meier's games (most of all Civilization, but not only), I bought the presale full collector package without expecting such a disappointment and I am so sad to eventually decide to write this review. I waited for a long while but it seems that the devs won't be adapted despite all the complains, so here I am: this is my worst purchase on Steam so far. Civ7 totally ruined the conquest style with the cities limit, and instead of trying to find a reasonable balance, they merely slightly increased the limit through technologies... This leads to an impossible limitation to handle your growth, and a choice to destroy cities you cannot afford, meaning most of them! That's really a pity because most of the new concepts were awesome and the logic was great, with the potential to bring a whole new experience. But if you can't play and face your foes, expand without burning all cities to ashes... What's the point? And how is that a more accurate management experience? If a Civ 8 ever happens, I'll need serious convincing that they learnt the lesson from the current debacle... All my regards to all devs for the stunning work on all other aspects, and wishing them to hold on for a better future.

I tried it on the free weekend. It looks like CIV but does not play as smoothly and feels clunky. It prevented me from getting the "just one more turn" experience. The happiest moment was, when I quit the game and uninstalled CIV VII.

I hate to be that guy but is there an overhaul mod that would just make this game civilization 6 without all the BS. The graphics are great and there are some really good ideas here but overall, this is just a terrible game and makes me want to go back to playing civilization VI.

The game is okay but it's just not as good as VI. Its missing a lot of features/units and even a modern era. It just has better graphics.

CIV 7 is unintuitive, complex, and difficult to understand. Perhaps someday I will master it, but right now it doesn't make any sense and forces decisions without adequate knowledge of the impact/effects. note: CIV 1 thru 5 were intuitive and easy to understand, but tricky to master. I don't remember much about CIV 6 except I didn't like it.

I've been a fan of Sid Meier's Civilization since Civ 1, and every time a new Civ came out, i bought it and played non stop for hours at a time. Naturally, i got this one as well. And don't get me wrong, it's not a bad game, it's just not a Civilization game. So If you're looking for a decent strategy game, go ahead... you'll be fine. If you're looking for a Civilization game, you'll be very dissapointed.