Sid Meier's Civilization VII

I don't know what it is about this version, but it just sparks no joy to play.

I've held off on reviewing this game for a long time, but seeing the deluxe edition on sale for 50% off, and STILL costing $50 on sale, pushes me to the point I have to. When I went from Civ 5 to Civ 6, I still recall missing Civ 5, but that honestly faded pretty quickly once I got more used to it. I could feel the polish, I could feel the improvements, I could feel it being a better game. I've tried and tried to get into this game, but it feels like I fight the game itself more than the enemies. Some changes, like not having to manage citizens, feel good. But trying to figure out what is going on in the UI. Keeping track of the myraid of systems and unintuitive processes/steps/trees. I guess the world is really beautiful. But it might as well still be the fog of war for trying to figure out what's going on. I hoped the Test of Time update would improve things, and there's some things it did, other things it made worse, and it just crushed my faith that this game would be brought to a point where I once again would stop missing the previous iteration. $50 is what I would pay for it baseline maybe. As a HALF OFF sale price, it's an insult. The game has been out for well over a year, with lots of DLC for you to sink money into as well, and a major update that revamped a lot of it, and STILL feels like it misses the marks badly. I've gone back to CIv 6, and I'm having fun again.

While I have been playing the Civilization games since its early concept (Sid Meyers Civilization); I must say I have enjoyed each and every one. This game I feel is too restrictive and I just do not enjoy as much as Civ 6. I must admit the graphics are improved but I especially do not like the ages set up. I purchased this on sale during this summer sale so it was less expensive, however; I would strongly urge anyone who is thinking about purchasing this game to wait until it is less than $20.00!

THe "security" features are unbelieveably annoying, and this is a half baked game at most

Just doesn't scratch the same itch as previous civs, game play is not as fluid and I often find myself getting annoyed which is exactly the opposite of what I want in this game.

I must admit that my first Civ game was the "call to power" produced by Activision, but since then i played every civilization game starting from Civ 2. Picked this mess up after the most recent update hoping they fixed things and made it at least playable. Well it is playable, but it is not a civilization game. They have taken a hero based rogue lite, like "slay the spire", and gave it a civilization coat of paint. Either because some one really wanted to make a rogue lite or they were trying to make something that will not crash on Switch every 2 minutes. Don't believe me? The primary focus of this pile of trash are "heroes" rulers. You pick your ruler and a starting "weapon" civilization. While playing as your "hero" you advance through the "stages" ages, and face a "boss" crisis. Depending on how you played through the age and the crisis you unlock different weapons to play in the next stage, and you unlock mementos to make you next playthrough easier. There are many more points like this you notice while playing. On top of it basic civilization gameplay like Science, diplomacy, economy is severely nerfed. Science pool is laughably small, where used to be a huge tree now lies a bush with maybe 50 choices spread across 3 ages. Diplomacy becomes click on your neighbor every 9-12 turns and renew "improve trade relations". etc. I tried both age transition methods, do not like either. They are just a reset point to free up ram on the switch because feraxis does not want to bother and have 2 versions of this game one for PC and one for console. The game looks ok and as long as i use vulcan it does not crash, but if i forget and use the default aka Dx12 it crashes every hour on the dot. I do not want to play a Switch hero based rogue lite on my PC. I do not want a civilization game that stops me every 2-3 hours to do an age transition just so handheld switches do not melt and it can be fair to the poor ai players. I want the continuous raw experience of civ 2 - civ 5. I want to be able to have tanks, nukes and airplanes (or the fusion tanks and space cities from "call to power") while the ai barely has enough technology to make gunpowder at best. Should have waited another year to buy it on sale for $10 + 50% off dlc.

Doesn't allow domination only victory. I went back to 6 because of this

When the game came out in 2025 it initially hooked me pretty well for about 50 hours. Some of the CIV core is still there. However now after 1 and a half year later, I can't force myself to play it. In the past whenever a new Civilization was announced I got excited. My mind started to think about the strategies that I could try with that civ. Here? It doesn't matter. The feeling of starting a new game is totally gone. They got so focused on trying to "make people finish their games" that they killed the enjoyment of "starting a new game". UI choice is still so so. I think it's the font and the spacing between elements. 3D Characters are still so so. Graphics (map, etc) it's fantastic, so at least they landed the visuals. Yes. Every new CIV introduced a new change. Hexes, non-stacking armies, etc. But changing civs during the game makes no sense. It's completely disconnecting you from what you are trying to build. It might have worked if this was NOT Civ and it was some kind of "roguelite" game that gives you randomization, unlocks and progression, but not in CIV. SAD

I probably would have recommended this game until they asked $30 for DLC while core gameplay mechanics are still being completely overhauled and fixed. This game should have been delayed by at least a year so that basic things could be fixed and devs could have the time they needed to work. This latest cash grab lost the Civ franchise so much good will.

Dont waste your money, just get Civ VI