Sid Meier's Civilization VII

[h1] This Game Still Aint It [/h1] I've never hated a Civ game in my life, but here we are. I've played every single iteration back to CIV 3. This game just doesn't feel like it has the required moving parts to feel like Civ. Civ despite it's complexity was a game that understood it took time to play, and didn't go out of it's way to waste it. I keep giving this game a chance with the updates but, [b] There has never been an installment that dares you to enjoy it as much as this one. [/b] We're not talking about difficultly. We're talking about design decisions that make you realize you might have something, anything, better to do than play a video game right now. Even after all the needed polish updates since launch you can still clear a hostile settlement only to have a hostile warrior spawn in the cleared tile the very next turn. You can still only be 20 turns in and sanctioned blitz to the point you'd rather a diplomatically delegated kick to the d*** than get hit with one more. If you're a long time fan as of July 2026 this game still isn't it. And it may never be. [b] If you want a red flag just look at how many paid dlc items this iteration has compared to what it's predecessor did at this point in it's lifespan. [/b] It becomes clear any design ideas weren't to build the next foundation of a great Civ game you could play for years. It's just here to make you hope the next nickel and dime you spend may be the one that gives you that feeling of accomplishment a game of Civ could give you. Something right now it is not capable of giving you.

Despite being a huge fan of the series—with 300 hours in Civ V and 150 in Civ VI—I cannot recommend Civ VII. I waited over a year for patches and bought it at a 50% discount hoping for the best, but the experience completely falls flat. The strategy and mechanics feel heavily watered down, leaving the gameplay loop incredibly boring compared to its predecessors. I genuinely struggled to force myself through just one playthrough.

Save your money and buy a copy of Civilization VI instead. This game, even with the updates, this game pales in comparison to its predecessors. I still play it some, since I bought it, but wouldn't miss it at all if it disappeared.

I originally had high hopes for this game. I loved Humankind, so I had was excited at the proposed innovations devs were describing in the leadup to the release. However, they have fallen far, far short of my expectations, and their behavior post-release has me skeptical that I can even trust them to release quality (if potentially misguided) games in the future. As it turns out, the dev's "vision" for the game broke what's been good about Civ for decades while also failing to deliver what they intended to achieve in the process. Now they're spending years scrambling to implement baseline, genre-standard functionality (maps larger than "medium", auto-scout, the ability to trade anything but cities, readable UI, etc.) while also painstakingly undoing "the vision" in a a misguided attempt to deliver on an acceptable Civ experience. The irony is that taking this approach is only failing to reach the bar while also removing anything unique about the game. Youtubers make videos every ~6 months about "whether Civ 7 is good yet" (every one I've seen has said "no"), but it won't ever be. The game was dead in the drawing room the moment the lead designer decided he'd implement the inability to snowball (ie, the periodic removal of military units, and resetting of city progress and tech trees) as a core mechanic to the game. Now it's just a matter of waiting out enough insultingly-overpriced DLC ($30 for a handful of civs, leaders, and wonders?!) for Firaxis to get the message that it's time to move on to Civ 8. Maybe they'll remember what players enjoy about their games and what a reasonable price point are by then.

Je crois que je totalise plus de 10000 heures de jeux sur tout les civilisation depuis le premier, et le VII est sans rivale dans son incompréhensibilité et ses frustrations. Le plus décevant de la série, et pourtant le précédent n'était pas folichons. Depuis le V, les créateur on perdu ce qui faisait le succès du jeux: des mécanismes simples et compréhensibles dont la cohérence permettait d'élaborer des stratégies complexes et intéressante. Au lieux d'améliorer les IA, il semblerai que tout est été misé sur : perdre le joueur dans une complexité des mécanismes n'apportant aucun intérêt réel le tout saupoudré de gadget graphique. Si vous voulez un clickodrome, il existe plein d'alternative gratuite. Cid, remets toi au travail !

One of the single biggest requirements for a strategy game is that it is easy to visually process. You should be able to tell what everything is at a glance. No matter how good it looks, it won't be playable if that criteria is not met and that is exactly what happened with Civ 7. The only thing needed to fix this is a strategic view that past entries had, but who knows if they will ever implement one. For as much effort as the dev team put into reducing the burnout from micromanagement that past games had, the art team just made it 10 times worse by replacing clicks with eye strain. The game is exhausting to play and it's also frustrating because you will repeatedly make mistakes from misinterpreting the map tiles. It's a shame because I really like a lot of the ideas in this game. I genuinely think that it can be better than Civ 6 if given the chance. It has the tools to solve most of the complaints that other reviewers have, it just needs the continued investment to grow. I do think like 80% of the issue is with the terrain. If someone made a mod for a terrain lens, it would go a long way, but it would make the game look terrible and you would spend most of the time in that mode lol.

Wow that age transition... I immediately quit the game after "Age Transition" like wtf? Why my wars end instantly? Why we all "Age Transit" together at the same time? This is not the Civ experience I was looking for.

Although there are some nice things about this version (pretty and the districts) it just doesn't feel like Civ anymore, with the age transition still very disjointed after the latest update. The "AI" still seems to be at the same level of VI or earlier, with very basic difficulty adjustments akin to much earlier Civ games. I gave it a good try, but just don't enjoy this version and certainly don't think the game is worth the price tag.