Sid Meier's Civilization VII

To preface this I have 2500 hours in civ5 and this review is based on one game as Catherine and Russia. I tried this out during the free week to see if this was a good game after seeing the negative reviews for it. I love civilization so leaving a negative review for a series I love stings. I really dislike this game. To start beyond the ui which I think needs improvement and my distaste for the dark atmosphere of the graphics as the former can be improved and the latter is an aesthetic preference, there are fundamental design decisions that prevent me from enjoying this game. The ages system as well as the building districts/quarters are imo the worst aspects of this game and are fundamental to this game. The ages system is terrible and there is no redemption for it. I finally got a hang of the game had about 4 cities and my syncretism up (something I actually liked) everything just reset. It took me out of my civilization experience. I lost all connection to my civ. It felt as if I was no longer playing for fun and instead was just hitting next turn to get this game over with. All the planning and decisions I made before felt like they were pointless and as if nothing mattered. The only age that matters for winning is the last age as everything resets and all the contributions beforehand towards score are miniscule compared to the final age. It seems as if you are on predetermined rails and not building your own civilization. Your decisions don't feel consequential. Not even where you settle feels consequential. Resources at first seem really important, but they slowly become worthless. By the final age a factory resource gives a 3% buff, which why bother? It was painful having to look at the resource screen every time a new trade route was established by the end. In civ5 strategic resources were the end all be all. You fought over them, here it doesn't matter. Technology doesn't even feel important. Some techs in previous civs changed how you played and the pace of your development. Getting universities or observatories in civ5 first made or broke you. Getting a certain tech was felt meaningful and felt like a strategic decision. Here I could care less which tech I chose. None of them changed what I needed or how I played or influenced my decisions. I could say more on this but I will leave it there. For the districts and quarters it seems like they tried to pull something off from Humankind but failed even worse. At first planning your districts seems important but it in the end is meaningless. In previous civs you had your worker to improve tiles, here you just click and it improves. I think this is both a downgrade and an upgrade. Once you decide what to improve you are locked in and forced to work that tile and until another pop grows you can't change your decision. In previous iterations you could change what you were working. It is nice how you don't need a worker now, but not nice how you are locked in. If you wanted to go full production while strategically starving yourself to get a wonder it is no longer an option. I also miss my worker buddy sometimes, added flavor to the game and made it feel lived in. City placements don't matter due to the districts/quarters. You will run out of space and there is nothing you can do about it. The ages system comes in here as planning loses its meaning. As russia I get a unique building which improves yields in tundra on non district tiles, but everything will be developed so that building is worthless. More to say but this review is too long. Many features are undeveloped. Religion is undeveloped, diplomacy is undeveloped, even war imo is undeveloped. The game has certain design decisions which I disagree with and I believe are not fun as well as many undeveloped features. My main complaint is that this just does not feel like a civilization game; both civ5 and civ6 feel like a civ game even when I dislike certain features. I don't think I will be buying this game in the near future or ever. I was really excited and wanted to like it, but I just cant. 3/10.

It's been over a year now and this game still isn't good. Moreover, the fact that everything costs so much when its in this kind of state is a joke. Play the previous games, they're great. This one is pretty trash.

confusing and complex, too hard to get into doesnt work well on steam deck, too busy,

As of the current state of the game I cannot recommend it at all. The game made some bold changes over some core mechanisms over previous versions. Even if we leave these changes for debate, the game itself is extremely buggy, the multiplayer would just refuse to work and maybe it would spare you one successful loading attempt after trying 20 times. Just fix it please.

Civ VII is a sad step backward for a franchise that used to feel like a celebration of human history. The biggest issue is the way it pairs leaders with cultures. It feels careless at best and racist at worst, reducing entire civilizations to interchangeable aesthetics while separating leaders from the historical and cultural contexts that make them meaningful. Instead of making history feel richer, the system makes cultures feel like costumes that any leader can wear. That is not thoughtful representation; it is a shallow game mechanic that ignores the identity, history, and complexity of real people. Beyond that, the game simply does not capture the magic that made previous Civilization titles so addictive. Civ VII feels like a confused attempt to reinvent the series, and it loses much of the personality, immersion, and respect for history that made the franchise special. This should have been a proud new chapter for Civilization. Instead, it feels like a disappointing legacy.

Directly got raid by independent power in start at easy mode and it never stop sending troops. Production is weird The concept about town and after that city is weird Victories mechanism is weird Tree tech/culture are weird All seem off and unbalance in Civ 7! Stay on civ 6 people! Its farrrr better

bad