Sid Meier’s Civilization VII

[The Meal]

There are five pacing settings.

[Unagi]

Based on the feedback I've seen so far I'm inclined to hold off on Civ7 for a while. Humankind might scratch that itch in the meantime.

The reviews for Humankind are not that hot. From what I read.

[Unagi]

so I'm ultra-wealthy and have 7 cities to their 3 or 4.

All cities? or combo of cities and towns?

[YellowKing]

All cities? or combo of cities and towns?

All cities. I upgraded all of my towns.

[Edit} According to the IGN guide you shouldn't upgrade all your towns to cities, but I don't know WTF I'm doing so it's all good. I still haven't reached my settlement cap so I'll be plopping down a few more towns soon enough.

[Baroquen]

I'm into the exploration age now. My previously busy continent is now relatively empty. I have consolidated my troops from various cities into armies under my commander. I've taken one of Napoleon's remaining cities, and am on the move to take out the rest. Also two independent hostile cities are now history. It would have been nice to nurture them into city-states, but I was low on influence and it was easier to just disperse them. The science (and culture?) rewards were nice too; I think it was +150 and +200.

In Civ VI (and most/all previous Civ games) ocean tiles were locked behind tech discoveries. This time, it looks like can roll the dice and try to get past the ocean tiles before getting the corresponding tech.

I'm still on my first game so I don't know about custom game options yet. I've unlocked through gameplay, a few of the playable civilizations. Normally I love unlocking content in games. Unsure if I feel if these should just be available to us though.

My play has slowed down since the first session. Then, I just made every choice on a whim. Now I'm thinking too much, and it's taking time since I'm unfamiliar with the new game. But about to jump back in, and hope to maybe finish the second age. Still fun so far.

[Max Peck]

Based on the feedback I've seen so far I'm inclined to hold off on Civ7 for a while. Humankind might scratch that itch in the meantime.

The reviews for Humankind are not that hot. From what I read.

I didn't find it particularly engaging, but it wasn't a bad game per se, especially for free. Of all the relatively recent Civ-likes that I have, I'd say the pick of the litter for me would be Ara. Millennia and Humankind are OK but not great, but Ara is quite good. The only problem with Ara is that it starts off slow and can feel very like a Civ clone until you get going with city development. For me, it was the city and supply chain management that really set it apart.

I still have no actual opinion as to where I stand with Civ7. After I literally rage-quit over the start menu last night, I just spent the rest of the evening listening to music on Twitch instead of gaming.

[wonderpug]

Jose Rizal caught my eye. The title above his name (Pambansang Bayani) seemed vaguely Filipino to me, so I looked him up. Turns out he is! I think this is probably the first time I've seen a Filipino character in a video game. I've never been one to search for cultural representation, but honestly it's quite inspiring to see a leader from the country of my birth in a game, let alone a Civ game!

And then when I picked him he started speaking in Tagalog! That's so cool!

Half-Filipino here, I’m so glad you mentioned this! I’ll definitely be choosing him on my next play.

[wonderpug]

There are five pacing settings.

[Max Peck]

There are five pacing settings.

My brain went to exactly the same place.

[$iljanus]

Jose Rizal caught my eye. The title above his name (Pambansang Bayani) seemed vaguely Filipino to me, so I looked him up. Turns out he is! I think this is probably the first time I've seen a Filipino character in a video game. I've never been one to search for cultural representation, but honestly it's quite inspiring to see a leader from the country of my birth in a game, let alone a Civ game!

And then when I picked him he started speaking in Tagalog! That's so cool!

Half-Filipino here, I’m so glad you mentioned this! I’ll definitely be choosing him on my next play.

Pinoys represent!

[Kraken]

Based on the feedback I've seen so far I'm inclined to hold off on Civ7 for a while. Humankind might scratch that itch in the meantime.

The reviews for Humankind are not that hot. From what I read.

The price is right. I'll give it a look-see after I finish my current game of Stellaris.

[Unagi]

All cities? or combo of cities and towns?

All cities. I upgraded all of my towns.

[Edit} According to the IGN guide you shouldn't upgrade all your towns to cities, but I don't know WTF I'm doing so it's all good. I still haven't reached my settlement cap so I'll be plopping down a few more towns soon enough.

Also, I think I read that only Cities carry over, so - you also had that going for you.

[Unagi]

There are five pacing settings.

My brain went to exactly the same place.

same

[Unagi]

Based on the feedback I've seen so far I'm inclined to hold off on Civ7 for a while. Humankind might scratch that itch in the meantime.

The reviews for Humankind are not that hot. From what I read.

The price is right. I'll give it a look-see after I finish my current game of Stellaris.

Yeah, I read that 'all the pieces are there, but it just isn't fun for some reason' - - so, not sure how that can/should be taken, but we all know 'that game'.

[ydejin]

All cities? or combo of cities and towns?

All cities. I upgraded all of my towns.

[Edit} According to the IGN guide you shouldn't upgrade all your towns to cities, but I don't know WTF I'm doing so it's all good. I still haven't reached my settlement cap so I'll be plopping down a few more towns soon enough.

Also, I think I read that only Cities carry over, so - you also had that going for you.

I don’t think that’s right. While I haven’t reached that point in the game yet, I’ve watched far, far more Civ7 preview gameplay than I should have. All settlements (cities and towns) carry over to the next age. But they all revert to towns except your capital, although I believe you can spend points to upgrade some of them (although I may be confusing late era start —e.g., starting a game in the Modern Age—as far as the ability to spend points for upgrade goes).

[Unagi]

But they all revert to towns except your capital,

Thank you! - this is probably what it was I had read.

[YellowKing]

This is a really long video, but I found it super helpful. This guy goes through almost every aspect of the game while actually playing and explaining why he's doing what he's doing. A lot of it may be a bit basic to Civ veterans, but the video is well indexed so you can jump around to the subjects that interest you. I thought he did a great job explaining the new features in Civ7 and how they work, as well as providing general strategy tips. He answered a lot of questions I had about how towns and cities work, how assigning resources works, how town specialization works, etc.

[Unagi]

Has anyone seen a quicker resolution to the unrest in anexed town when you park a commander in it? I don't think I see a difference.

[Max Peck]

Does the game provide any biographical information on the leaders? There are a couple of cases where there are two different versions of what appear to be the same person, but no explanation of why that is. The only information provided in the leader screen during setup for any of them is given in terms of game mechanics. A little flavor would have gone a long way here.

[gbasden]

The next path goal, however, is to establish a settlement in a distant land (across the ocean), and that's easier said than done. Your boats take damage when crossing deep water (don't remember that from Civ 6), so it's a bit of a pain to explore. I've been spinning my wheels trying to get a settler over somewhere to find a place to found a new town.

There is a technology that removes the open ocean damage a few steps up the tree. That said, on my map I manage to hopscotch between small islands pretty successfully.

I ended up playing about 10 hours yesterday, so it got it's hooks in me. I do feel like it was simplified for the console crowd, but I understand the economic imperatives. Still, I enjoyed the age transition and Augustus went from the ancient age leading Rome to running Spain, which felt like a historically plausible option as the empire fell apart.

[gbasden]

Has anyone seen a quicker resolution to the unrest in anexed town when you park a commander in it? I don't think I see a difference.

I haven't noticed a difference either.

[ydejin]

Jose Rizal caught my eye. The title above his name (Pambansang Bayani) seemed vaguely Filipino to me, so I looked him up. Turns out he is! I think this is probably the first time I've seen a Filipino character in a video game. I've never been one to search for cultural representation, but honestly it's quite inspiring to see a leader from the country of my birth in a game, let alone a Civ game!

And then when I picked him he started speaking in Tagalog! That's so cool!

Half-Filipino here, I’m so glad you mentioned this! I’ll definitely be choosing him on my next play.

I'm playing as Jose Rizal in honor of my Filipino inaanak (goddaughter).

[ydejin]

Does the game provide any biographical information on the leaders? There are a couple of cases where there are two different versions of what appear to be the same person, but no explanation of why that is. The only information provided in the leader screen during setup for any of them is given in terms of game mechanics. A little flavor would have gone a long way here.

There’s a relatively extensive amount of text on each leader in the in-game Civilopedia. For the leaders with multiple personalities there’s only a single combined biography, but it does touch briefly on why historically they might be considered to have different “aspects” although it doesn’t seem to spend that much time on this (~1 paragraph of the larger biography).

Hard to say for sure how much text something read on the TV screen is (playing on Xbox Series X). But I’d guess the biographies are roughly between a 1-page to a 1.5-page report worth of info on each leader.

[ydejin]

Has anyone seen impressions on how this plays on consoles? Civ Revolutions is the only time I've played a Civ game on a console, but I'm tempted to go that way with this one as well if it's not a horrible experience.

I’ve got about 80 turns in on Xbox Series X. It could all go south when I hit the exploration or modern age. But so far, it generally works just fine on consoles. In fact, it sounds like I’m having a better time of things than the PC players.

There’s always a bit of awkwardness playing a strategy game on consoles, so I won’t say it’s a perfect experience. But on the general “PC strategy game ported to console” scale, this is one of the good ones. There are the usual complaints that the PC players have that there just isn’t quite as much information presented as you’d like.

The one annoyance I haven’t figured out yet, that I suspect doesn’t happen on PCs is I cannot figure out how to interact with a city if a unit is in the city center. Clicking on the city selects the unit — I cannot figure out how to select the city the unit is sitting on. My workaround is select another city and then right or left-trigger to switch between cities until I get to the one I want. It’s very odd.

I was a little nervous when I heard some talk about performance issues on PC, but so far, it’s been just fine on the Series X. We’ll have to see how things act when I’m in the Modern Age, but that could be a week away. At least so far, I’m happy with the Console port of the game.

[raydude]

Jose Rizal caught my eye. The title above his name (Pambansang Bayani) seemed vaguely Filipino to me, so I looked him up. Turns out he is! I think this is probably the first time I've seen a Filipino character in a video game. I've never been one to search for cultural representation, but honestly it's quite inspiring to see a leader from the country of my birth in a game, let alone a Civ game!

And then when I picked him he started speaking in Tagalog! That's so cool!

Half-Filipino here, I’m so glad you mentioned this! I’ll definitely be choosing him on my next play.

Pinoys represent!

I knew I wasn't the only Pinoy here! You guys rock! Also shout out to ydejin playing Jose in honor of his goddaughter.

Back to game impressions:
I'm only on turn 37 but that's due to not having enough gaming time and needing to get some coding done before a big spacecraft test in Japan.

Pumped out another scout for a total of 2 and a settler. Bravo Scout found a great spot south of my capital with access to several resources. Unfortunately it was also the site of a hostile independent who already had two military units out. They proceeded to chase and utlimately kill Bravo scout. Settler is definitely not going south. Instead he head southeast toward some plains near two wine tiles and some other resource stuff. Started construction of a "Burning Arrow", Mississipian civ archer unit since the hostile independent is way too close for comfort.

Alpha Scout bumped into Napoleon and we are making some friendly postures (Open Borders, Local Celebrations, etc). Soon after that I met Confucious and Ben Franklin. I'm being nice with all of them for now. Although playing Jose I'm probably going to go meta and be hostile to any Spanish civ. No colonizers for me, thanks!

[Max Peck]

Does the game provide any biographical information on the leaders? There are a couple of cases where there are two different versions of what appear to be the same person, but no explanation of why that is. The only information provided in the leader screen during setup for any of them is given in terms of game mechanics. A little flavor would have gone a long way here.

There’s a relatively extensive amount of text on each leader in the in-game Civilopedia. For the leaders with multiple personalities there’s only a single combined biography, but it does touch briefly on why historically they might be considered to have different “aspects” although it doesn’t seem to spend that much time on this (~1 paragraph of the larger biography).

Hard to say for sure how much text something read on the TV screen is (playing on Xbox Series X). But I’d guess the biographies are roughly between a 1-page to a 1.5-page report worth of info on each leader.

I finally figured out that the alternate versions are the "leader personas" that come with the Deluxe/Founders content packs. Reskinning existing leaders instead adding new ones feels lazy, but that might just be me.

It's good that they have biographies in the Civilopedia, but I still wish there was some flavor text for them in the set-up screen to make it more interesting while picking which one to play.

My current Civ7 Grumble of the Day™: Wait, I can't automate scout exploration? Early on there isn't much else to do other than push my scout around the map, but at some point that's going to get tedious.

[Baroquen]

There hasn't been auto-scouting in awhile, has there? I don't think it was in 6 (but I don't use it, so it might have been there). That one takes too long to load up to check though.

Some other random thoughts, as I'm about halfway through the exploration age -

This one loads noticeably faster. A plus.

I think I'm liking diplomacy and the options available with influence points. I like the diplomacy in 6 too, but I almost felt guilty about gaming the system sometimes.

After the initial settling in, this definitely feels like a Civ game, warts and all. Meaning, yes, I can see the 'rough' nature of the new release. I can see UI issues that I hope they fix, but nothing that's deal-breaking.

After that one weird freeze while autosaving 10 turns in (I mean, nothing has even happened in 10 turns!), I've had no freezes/crashes/etc. Very stable.

If the Ages was meant to avoid mid/late game stagnating, I'm not sure it's working. Not that it's bad, but I'm getting the same Civ session burn-out that I was getting with 5 & 6. But that's something I experience with most games as I'm getting older. And OTOH - the 'one more turn' effect has hit me too.

I wish winning conditions were clearer like in Civ6. I don't know if it's mandatory to get through 3 ages. And I can see the rankings and the paths and all of that. But I've eliminated two other leaders completely (and one just disappeared somewhere around the end of the first age..eliminated by an unknown leader?). And the path information just leads to the Golden Age results. I need to learn more about this, but I don't want to. I just want to play.

I miss the loyalty mechanic. I can't believe I'm saying that, as it was annoying in Civ6. But it made sense, and kept expansion in check. In my current game, every time I cornered Napoleon, he twice snuck a settler out who randomly started another city halfway across the continent. It was often in the middle of my cities, which would have never happened before. I've seen unhappiness lead to revolt and city flipping, but not entirely because of location, like previously. Chasing Napoleon, it was kind of like Whack-a-Mole.

Lastly - I like leaders being associated with their historical countries. Like when talking about Napoleon, I kept starting to type the French. Honestly, I have no idea what civilizations he was leading in the two ages. I can't wrap my head around this. I think I'd prefer if they had kept the traditional country labels and let the different age load-outs be called something else (Cultures? Philosophies?). I just miss the country anchors.

[msteelers]

The one annoyance I haven’t figured out yet, that I suspect doesn’t happen on PCs is I cannot figure out how to interact with a city if a unit is in the city center. Clicking on the city selects the unit — I cannot figure out how to select the city the unit is sitting on. My workaround is select another city and then right or left-trigger to switch between cities until I get to the one I want. It’s very odd.

On the PS5 you have to select the city and then hit the square button.

I was up way too late last night playing this. I’m currently into the modern age. I’m a bit bored, but the game is on the lowest difficulty setting and I wiped out all the civs on my continent and there were only two civs on the other continent. Now there’s just one. I’m torn between taking them out and presumably winning, or keep building my civ up.

[Max Peck]

There hasn't been auto-scouting in awhile, has there? I don't think it was in 6 (but I don't use it, so it might have been there). That one takes too long to load up to check though.

I don't remember if it was in Civ6, but it's been years since I played it. At some point it just became too unstable and would start crashing after getting a few score turns into a game, and I just gave up on it. Nonetheless, it's a QoL feature that I expect in a contemporary Civ-like, and it is present in other games like Ara. Early on there may be interesting decisions to be made in terms of where to explore, but as the fog of war recedes it just becomes tedious and grindy to manually manage scouts. I just want to send them out and have them report back when they find something interesting.

Speaking of fog of war, how does the game handle that for age transitions? Does the current exploration level carry over, or reset? I'd hope that when you start the modern age the map would be fully exposed, even if you hadn't manually explored every nook and cranny in the previous ages.

[YellowKing]

I abandoned my first game because I wasn't able to find a distant land settlement and was falling way behind militarily. But I didn't mind all that much since I had learned a lot since my first playthrough and wanted to retool my strategy anyway.

Second game is not starting out well. I got put on a really tiny continent that is crammed with Civs, so I'm having a really hard time expanding. I was trying for a Science victory but I'm already way behind despite focusing on it and rushing the Science path. So I may ditch this session too.

That may sound like I'm getting frustrated with the game, but I'm really not. I enjoy the learning curve, and every failed session I learn something that I will change with the next playthrough. The guy in the video I posted said he had 200 hours in the game and only hit the Exploration age 3 times. So I'm not the only one who is constantly resetting to try something new.

[msteelers]

I haven’t finished a game yet, but I think leaders get xp that carry over from one play through to the other. Do you need to finish a game to level up?

I would hate to get stuck in a game but feel like I need to stick it out for XP.

[Brian]

On my fourth restart.
I was doing pretty well in game 3 but I kept discovering things that made me say, "Well, I wish I would have known THAT all this time."

So, game four in progress.

[ydejin]

Speaking of fog of war, how does the game handle that for age transitions? Does the current exploration level carry over, or reset? I'd hope that when you start the modern age the map would be fully exposed, even if you hadn't manually explored every nook and cranny in the previous ages.

I haven’t finished the Antiquity Age yet, but as I understand it, you’ve got everything explored that you’ve already explored. The main difference going to the Exploration Age is you can now start crossing deep ocean hexes (at first by taking damage each turn in it, later getting the technology to avoid damage).

As far as the Modern Age goes, keep in mind that the Modern Age starts in the Napoleonic Era with the Prussia and the French Empire (complete with Old Guard with muskets). In one of the developer live streams they mentioned that when you complete the “Launch Satellite” project on your way to the Science Victory, the entire map is visible. Not sure if that means you know what the terrain with no more blank covered terrain tiles or if you also see every unit moved by every player.

[Max Peck]

I'd imagine/hope that there are diplomatic means for revealing the map as well.

[Baroquen]

I'd imagine/hope that there are diplomatic means for revealing the map as well.

I know there's one available in the Exploration Era. My alliance mate offered to share world maps (over a few turns). Not sure about other options, as I was playing for a Militaristic/Domination victory.

Speaking of - my first game is complete. When I knocked out my opponents last settlement, it said the Exploration Era ended, but the game was over, so I never made it to the modern era. So this morning, it felt like things were bogging down, but it turns out that my military was pretty strong. So I just went on the offensive, and steamrolled. I was probably on the easy setting, so I'll ramp up next round. I'm also going to try an alternate victory condition though I don't know if I'm going to pick one before I start, or play it by ear, since that flexibility is one of the perks the game has been touting.

The carryover XP and leader XP is interesting, but it's mostly bland cosmetics so far. I think I'd rather have a nice straightforward Hall of Fame like old versions.

BTW - for those who care, there are twitch drops for this. So far, 2 different banners.

[ydejin]

The one annoyance I haven’t figured out yet, that I suspect doesn’t happen on PCs is I cannot figure out how to interact with a city if a unit is in the city center. Clicking on the city selects the unit — I cannot figure out how to select the city the unit is sitting on. My workaround is select another city and then right or left-trigger to switch between cities until I get to the one I want. It’s very odd.

On the PS5 you have to select the city and then hit the square button.

Yep, that was it. Thanks!

[Lassr]

Just reached my first age change. 4 hours in and I still not sure what to think. Gonna have to watch more videos on this, and try to grasp what I'm doing. I'm still a bit lost.

[ydejin]

I haven’t finished a game yet, but I think leaders get xp that carry over from one play through to the other. Do you need to finish a game to level up?

I would hate to get stuck in a game but feel like I need to stick it out for XP.

I don’t think so. I just finished the Age of Antiquity and popped back to the main menu and it shows my level progress. So definitely finishing a single age works. I can’t say for sure what happens if you quit the game before an age ends, but my suspicion is that if you explicitly “Retire” via the “Retire” menu option, that will trigger earning all your XP for that playthrough.

[YellowKing]

I can confirm that retiring a character through the Retire option does keep XP. I retired my Napoleon and Isabella games since I don't plan on finishing them, and it gave me XP at the end. And both of those were retired in Antiquity, so it's not just XP from finishing the age. My Napoleon is Level 2 now despite me never having finished a game with him.

I started a new game with Tecumseh and I REALLY like him. I love Native American history anyway, and he fits my playstyle to a tee - militaristic and special ranged units. He also benefits from allying with independent states, which is an aspect of the game I ignored in my first playthroughs. Now I'm actively pursuing them, which has taught me a lot about how they work.

[El Guapo]

Predictably caved the other day and got the $100 version to start play early. Playing my first game as Ben Franklin of the Han. Having a lot of fun and things are going well - started out focusing on science, but wound up skewing military as often happens to me in these games, completing the "militaristic" path in Antiquity. Of course, struggling with the settlement cap with the additional settlements that I captured, so I'm now starting the Exploration Age already above the settlement cap. Switched to the Inca at Exploration, which I unlocked by having lots of settlements near mountains.

Definitely having fun so far, obviously a lot of mechanics still working through.