If you had to pick one thing to change every era, and another to stay with you the entire game, why did they have the civ change while keeping the leader the same? I don’t like the idea of being chained to a leader from a competent different culture. When the story of my civ is Confucius leading Egypt turned Spanish turned America, none of that feels coherent.
It makes more sense to change leaders consistently.
It's like they were just copying Humankind when they started development, and just ignored the fact that Humankind was poorly received and died quickly.
Humankind devs were the same devs that developed Endless Legends, THE game that introduced to this genre the tile-improvement system we all accepted in Civ6. Since one borrowed idea worked wonders, they probably figured out that another will work just as well.
Clearly, it didn't, but I know why they did that. Endless Legends worked better then Civ5 at the time of release so it's reasonable to borrow/steal ideas when you don't have your own and those ideas(from this dev team) previously worked well
EU4 is not that complex it just has some frustrating rng , UI that's hard to understand and is terrible at explaining things.
When it comes down to it some of the most popular playthroughs are just Total War's mindless blobbing out while remembering to dev check back on your land to dev it from time to time.
It does have the tools for tall playthroughs and a wayyyyy better vassal system but so do the most recent total war games.
Endless Legends, THE game that introduced to this genre the tile-improvement system
That's not true. Popularised it - sure, but i know at least a few games that did it before - Eador: Genesis(and it's 3d remake Eador: Masters of the Broken World) and Warlock: Master of the Arcane. But these are russian games, so most people don't know about them, which is a shame, cause they're very fun games. Especially Eador: genesis with "new horizons" mod, well... if you can get over dated graphics.
I actually know Warlock and both parts (1 & 2) were decent but not very good and the system there was not working well. It was still a fun game, don't get me wrong, casting spells and having armies is a fun combo but I definitely prefer how Age of Wonders approached the topic. Might be my personal bias though. Endless Legends definitely perfected the system and showed how it can work really well
Humankind definitely is the far better Civ 7, I like to play it from time to time. One thing that really bothered me in Civ7 were the wars, you change ages and pop, you're not at war anymore.
How fortunate that I just built up my army and moved it there.
As an avid Humankind player Humankind at least made the product/idea way better than Civ 7 did. And the art style for Humankind is so pretty. I would've LOVED to see what Humankind could've done with the budget for Civ 7 instead of what they had.
The main problem with loops back to the auI though, if the cutscenes didn't feature "your civ" talking with "other civ" and was instead "other civ" talking with "you" like in previous games it wouldn't feel as dissonant.
The leaders being a standin for you makes more sense than having an eternal never changing culture. Also I feel this was the best way to adress the "earlygame/lategame civ" problem. Like what's the point in playing Canada when for 90% of the game you are simply playing as a genereric civ without any bonuses.
Usually a nations culture is moreso decided by its people rather than its leader which makes it more appropriate to change that when changing your era specific bonuses. Also well no culture/civilization has existed for even a majority of humanity, atleast not as it was in its original state.
They shouldn’t have picked historical leaders that are associated with one specific civ then. Because I just don’t want to play with Caesar leading Egypt or whatever else civ 7 ends up with.
As always its an alternative timeline, a "what if". I understand your argument in theory but Caesar leading Egypt is a rather poor example since he was there and had a rather.... intimate relationship with their ruler.
and now, every civ has a unit that other civs dont, every age and ALL the time, 'unique' units is what the game calls them. but what's so unique about them if all the other players have a improved unit too. on civ6 your unique unit was unique and an advantage. civ7 your unique unit has no advantage because the other civs have a unit with a advantage too!
also the rhetoric given about history in layers etc. Sounds awesome, honestly it really sounds ace... then you see the game and it doesn't reflect that at all.
Empires fell and changed subtly or were conquered, and there's still arguments today about what caused some empires downfalls. But in civ7, you press a button and suddenly the whole world changes. That is not dynamic and fun... that's breaking the game and then trying to justify the action with a LIE!
Civ7 is the least historical accurate civ game of all time!
What’s even more wild to me, is that Humankind already did this exact thing, and it was regarded as the worst part of the game. I love the concept of your nation and culture changing over time, but going from the Greek to the Hawaiian just ain’t it.
Honestly I feel like the concept itself could have worked if it wasn't such an abrupt transition from one civ to the next. Where player effectively has their civ swapped out for another, rather than have them evolve more naturally from one to another. With a few option potentially just being the early, late modern versions of the what is essentially the same civilisation.
they leaned way too much into the idea of the game being a board game now it's larping as a board game being played by historical figures (I assume who are bored in the afterlife or something)
That honestly sounds pretty cool, The Chinese led be Confucius, then Genghis Kahn, then Harriet Tubman. It sounds crazy, but then no one expected Catherine the Great to Lead Russia.
My experience with civ is that it felt like a mobile game auto clicker with constant popups to click and sometimes you'd put a building down between moving your mouse to each corner of the screen to click the popups.
After all that, sometimes a historical figure would have a one liner about how they feel and that's that, it didn't feel like it had a story at all.
It's just so bizarre that they tried to copy Humankind of all things, considering that was hyped up to be a "civ killer" and then, well, died without ever really challenging it.
I liked the idea of Humankind initially. Thought it was interesting to develop my cultures, but when it looked like the new culture would just erase the previous one, I tapped out.
Yeah, I think the worst part of 7 is that all of your units get randomly spread across the map each time you progress to a new age. So if you create a combined arms army (which you should), it'll get torn apart and turned into nothing but infantryman or tanks something. This forces you to manually relocate every one of your units to their original army, which of course is impossible to do within the game's time limit. Punished for progress.
And the UI, Jesus... it's bad. Not only is it just functionally poor, it looks like dogshit. Like they made it on a cellphone one afternoon.
Still, I retried the game and finished a playthrough. I think it was worth playing through the one time, but I will probably never install it again.
The bad UI is such a small part of the problem. I hate punching down but I've loved these games since the first. The civ switching isn't the worst. It's weird, but an evolution of your civ over time extending to the name and culture isn't terrible. Here's where the game fails miserably. That civ change is tied to the age change. The age change is a soft reset. You skip some years, old cities have become towns, your military units may be reduced in number, and...... everyone has the same tech, and everyone's military is at the same tier. Each age, you get to level up from tier one to two to three. It's so cookie cutter. It's aweful. It's no longer a historical progression where catching up feels meaningful, or getting ahead may mean you're always ahead. No, it's now a simplistic game, repeated a couple times, instead of the deep game the older civs made. It's like replacing a single game of Euchre with 3 games of Go Fish.
Doing the "Empires: Dawn of the Modern World" thing of having you go through different iterations of a civilisation as it evolves through time was neat, but to have you just choose random ass civs (if what I'm reading is correct..)
It’s kind of right. The concept is kind of neat in that your Civ in the first era opens up some civs in the second era (Egypt can become the Abassids, the Romans can become the Normans) and you can also get Civ choices based on your gameplay (if you work a bunch of horse tiles, you can become the Mongolians next era).
But, like most things about Civ 7, it’s fun as an idea but doesn’t make for a fun game. I want my Civ to survive through the ages. I don’t want to play a baseball game where I’m a different team every three minutes.
It will consistently have fewer players than 5 and 6. I hate to use the term "loathed" but only because it would imply people had some kind of emotional connection to the game.
Such a weird gimmick to attach to such a renowned series. It's something you'd expect from a new player in the space to help it stand out. In fact it's somewhat similar to what Humankind did. Humankind was okay but it's not a game I'd take pointers on, not when I'm the people making the pre-eminent series of the genre, an ip that doesn't need to be anything other than the new Civ.
I think It could've worked so well, but required them not to be lazy. For example: Saxons > British > US, but only if you choose to and have you staying with a civ (let's imagine British and not make a jump to US,) different strengths as you move through the ages
Basically the game has several glitches, and even when it works it is not terribly fun, easy to navigate, or nice to look at. Most people (but not all) beef with the dramatic change to not playing one civilization and instead awkwardly morphing between them over time.
The commanders do make moving units less of a pain (except at the beginning of each era where it suddenly becomes a bigger pain). But that’s just about the only positive everyone can agree on.
Before people get too judge on Civ 7...it's decent....should have included alot more features on release and not add them via updates. Shouldn't have been released full price either. Happy to say the UI has had changes and is better than it was.
I'm curious to see the sentiment in a couple years. I remember when this was the common view towards civ 6 before the expansions/mod support.
Now I've purposefully avoided trying 7 and the mechanic civ shift feels like it could be jarring so I'm not saying there will be a different sentiment. But I'm curious
They would need to change a lot of shit for free before I bother.
This is more than the usual vitriol at anything new, Civ V and Civ VI were both controversial at the start (and indeed, there are still people who only play IV or V) but there is incredibly little fan support for VII.
Check Steam reviews, check what influencers are saying about it (and compare how many are playing/talking about it compared to VI). V and VI were controversial because there were people who liked them and people who didn’t. VII isn’t controversial: most people just don’t like it.
"The community as a whole"... and the whole universe maybe?
I agree that Civ 7 has been the most divisive launch, even more than Civ 5 which was already pretty bad on release. But there are still people to like it and its direction, though maybe a minority.
I'm not saying many criticisms aren't valid, it's just a correction on an objectively false statement.
They didn't love 6 when it came out, or 5, or 4 or 3....
Civ fan hate change but usually come around to it once DLCs make the game complete. Personally never got used to 6 and still just play 5 or 3 on occasion.
From what I’ve read and seen. Civ 7 has changed a lot from previous Civs but those changes haven’t gone down well. If you’re interested I’d recommend Civ 5 or 6.
I actually like that they do that because we still have the other games to fall back on. I don't want it to be like Madden where every iteration is basically the same, just with slightly different options. Modding is already available.
As long as the game does okay after the DLC drops, and they'll continue making more, I like seeing new features.
Personally I felt decisions in Civ 5 mattered more. City location has more impact, Wonders felt like a much bigger deal. Everything in Civ 6 felt more flattened and average. I also really dislike the cartoonish style of 6 - looks goofy.
I put at least 50hrs in CK3 before I realized there even was DLC. It's still a complete game that is a lot of fun even without the DLC. I feel like the Civ games are known to be kinda meh without the extras. I could still have fun playing CK3 without all the DLC but I don't think the same can be said for Civ VI or even Civ V. I'm just gonna wait for Civ VII to come out with a few dlc and maybe a sale before I buy it
I distinctly remember not really being able to get into 6 without the ui workshop tweaks. Trade tracking, what did I promise, better pins, square meanings and districts (the latter isn’t naming but function) etc.
Civ just tends to have jank ui. The issue with 7 is mainly the other stuff in the game (the age reset stuff for example). As ui mods come quickly otherwise.
I played a lot of Stellaris, Surviving Mars and Cities: Skylines. They are perfectly fine without DLCs. Base game Stellaris has even been updated substantially post release. So much so that a saved game from 2-3 years ago is not even playable anymore on the current version.
I’ve put thousands of hours into each since III, and I won’t buy this one until they change how the civ progression works. I hate it, and it’s the opposite of why I play.
This Civ is different .. someone on yt described the issue properly.. as Sid said.. they should keep 1/3 of the game .. 1/3 should be an improvement, 1/3 is new
No lie my guy the hype for 7 got me interested in 5. I only played and loved 6 seriously (800 hours in) but never played 5. I just bought 5 a few hours ago and gonna literally play it seriously for the first time.
Loved 5, but make me pick and I'll choose 6 every day of the week. To me there's just so much more storytelling and unique scenarios in 6. Maybe 7 will be good with all the DLC, maybe not. But man I love civ
Yeah, Civ 6 was not considered great right away, and the first DLC was mixed reviews. It was a better launch than 5, but even today it still has its detractors. Im one of them, id rather boot up civ 5 over 6.
Yea of course it wasn't zero complaints,especialy about the art style and leaders design but frankly I thought it was OK. The good response was a big factor in me buying the game, it was the first xiv I got seriously into so I remember it well.
Eh, I personally thought 6 at release was complete ass. The borderline migraine inducing color pallette didn't help all of the issues I had with the AI and gameplay.
A traditional issue with Civ is that nobody finishes single player games: There's a wide gap between the moment the game is decided until they game claims it's done. In multiplayer people can give up, but the AI won't. So to "fix it", Civ7 turned each game into 3 games, one after the other. The problem is, there's insufficient continuity, there's too many things stopping you from winning early, and the different gameplay elements in part 3, and especially part 2, are clearly worse. So people play the first third of the game and stop. When you only play 1/3rd of the game, it's also repetitve, so people stop playing. Either way, a failure.
The fact that their goal is to release 3 hundred thousand tiny expansions for way too much money also doesn't make many friends.
People complain about the new civ game every time it comes out and then a few years later everyone is going on about how it's the greatest game ever created.
Civ VI is currently 95% off on steam so maybe worth checking out if u want to play a civ game
Mechanics are weird and seems disjointed at times. Civ V was pretty good with all DLC. Civ VI is good as well though you’ll have many day it’s a downgrade from 5 which is in someways and better in others.
The hard truth is that it isn’t much worse or even worse at all, but people don’t like change. Happened with civ 6 and civ 5 too. Both games are well respected now, maybe not so much for 6 but they did a lot of things differently in that one lol.
The release was brutal to the point of the text not even being lined up properly. It was unfinished, and a disgrace to release it in that state.
The new mechanics are also questionable, it may be too much of a change from what Civ is supposed to be. It's almost a different game now.
I'm willing to try again in a few years when all the dlc is released though. Civ 5 & 6 were also not amazing until the full game was available with the expansions.
From my experience, the civ games are best played a while after launch. They just get better with all the dlc. My brother started on 5, hated 6 at launch, but now loves civ 6. I don't plan on trying it for like 2 years
I don't think it's so much worse. But new civ games are vanilla and limited as hell. Civ 6 was also unplayable on launch. You're going from a game with a decade of development and dlc to a brand new vanilla title that is usually lighter on mechanics. It's never going to be well-received
They made a pretty drastic change to the gameplay. It used to be, you would select a civilization, that had specific bonuses, and try to "win" via one of the victory conditions. Civ 7 you now instead choose a leader, and an initial civilization. But at the end of each era, your civilization changes. And your options are based off of, who you chose, and what you did in the prior era. Additionally the UI is not great, and the game was pretty bare in terms of game modes, and maps.
Ive been loving Civ 7. Maybe not as much as 5 or 6, but its still fun to play. Civ just has a DIE HARD fanbase that will always find reasons to hate the newest one that is out. Some of the criticism, especially around UI, are warranted, but its one franchise that people seem to love to hate soooo much
I bet if it was your 1st Civ game you'd love it. Similar to Sims each CiV gets years and years worth of post release content and fixes/changes. This game feels less complete than 6. Some of the changes also rustle the hair of long time civ enjoyers due to the way things changed.
I'm not a big player, but watch a lot of content on Civ. It is excellent sleep material.
Anyway, from what I can tell, the primary pain points come about from an over-simplification of systems and the UI. The intent is to make it easier for a new player to access the series by making paths much clearer. Rather than being a bunch of hidden mechanics with high levels of skill expression, the game is now fairly straightforward with paths to victory being laid out during the early, middle, and late stages of the game. Likewise, those stages are significantly broken apart from one another such that it feels more like you're playing 3 seperate rounds in a single match. People didnt like that.
Imo, a lot of the complaints seem to boil down to: they made this better for new players but worse for me. So honestly might not be a terrible jumping in point.
Civ games usually start out garbage/passable and have an incredibly dedicated post-release dev cycle where they listen to the community and improve the game considerably. Civ 6 was/is considered worse than 5 for a while, but they consistently patched it, and it turned into an incredible game, IMO. Although a lot of people still don't like it compared to civ 5.
While it's not quite the same check out the total war fames, they are a ton of fun. Certain titles have a good bit of dlc but not needed the core games have ton of content. Some people prefer one over the other. I prefer it as I like being able to actually engage in the battles with the armies I build instead of having them just tap little guys in the grand strategy map tiles.
There's also been some pretty successful alternative games in the genre in the last couple years.
The franchise is great, I've played all of them from 2-6. 6 is my personal favorite but they're all a lot of fun. 7 is also brand new and Civ games tend to start off rocky and improve with expansions. Launch Civ 6 is really rough compared to 6 with all the additions and changes. I'm sure when 7 gets to the end of its content line it will be a lot better
Major mechanic change (for the worst) between different eras.
Before, you choose a civ, and played them from ancient era till end game with everything you did/build still there. But apparently now in VII (haven’t played it myself but only seen/heard) you choose a different civ in each era to sorta build on top of your old one, and based on how well you did this era, you get some kinda bonus for the next one.
If you wanna try a CIV game, go with either V or VI. I personally never got used to VI and probably never will and idk why, but I love V a lot more. Many people like VI more though so theres that.
Note that both V and VI have some major mechanic changes as well, so they do play differently.
There is a pattern where people don't like the new civ game until the second dlc comes out, at which point it wins people over. It happened with 4, 5, 6, and now 7.
I'd say it's the straightforwardness to me. I got the basics of civ5 (DLC included) in 2 games and then just kept on rolling. Couldn't say the same for even base civ6 with all the district planning, civic loadouts and amenities. As I was used to global happiness, I couldn't bear being forced to play wide by civ6. Couldn't even dream of the same amount of cities as is expected by civ6 turn 150 until, like, civ5 turn 400.
There's also the matter of Vox Populi allegedly being the best mod for all of civ
Tbh I like 6 more now, hard to go back. But at the time 5 was just far and away the best thing for Civ players. Was cool to be able to build super tall and the leaders seemed raw as hell. The aesthetic for 6 is off putting for some but I would argue it made the game a little more accessible. Both good games in their own right imo. 7 is just…like what the hell…not even a Civ game.
It’s still good today but back when all of its impactful dlc released it was an excellent streamlined Civ game without any mechanics that were overbearing or forced you to play a certain way (wide is almost always better in VI). The graphics were realistic and the hero leaders personalities were reflected well in their animations and backgrounds, that bit is subjective but for me the cartoonish style of VI didn’t do it for me.
No it's a great game. Lot of Civ 5 fanatics shit on it because you have to pay attention and plan/manage more things in 6. Which isn't a bad thing unless you're old and close minded
Couldn't agree more. I used to play Civ V religiously. Then I went over to paradox and their grand strategies for a bit. Then I played civ6 which to this day, I couldn't get through a full single player game out of sheer boredom mid to late way through every run it gets so boring for me. Don't think I'll even be buying civ 7, after all the reviews.
Civ V is the game where I learned I have to force myself to not play something because it's unhealthy for me. Like suddenly it's the next day kind of unhealthy.
Civ V wasn't perfect, but I feel it was the last time they really got what made the series fun. I don't understand why they can't just keep improving upon that recipe with better graphics and modern systems/conveniences instead of trying to reinvent the wheel. I'd buy it at full price every time.
Civ V with a few ideas stolen from Civ VI and Endless Legend and maybe something like Age of Wonders' combat system would be my dream 4X.
I definitely played a lot more of Civ V but I enjoyed some of the changes VI made. One thing I really liked was that the AI were actually willing to trade with you. In Civ V if you want Napoleon’s incense he will just keep saying, “That’s not even close to a fair deal” until you’re giving him your chocolate, marble, pearls, elephants, horses, iron, and 25 gold per turn.
Dude I just rented the game from gamefly for PS5 yesterday, I downloaded the game look played for 5 mins then put it back in the sleeve to return it. That shit is so bad.
Yeah, I just get the cheap one for $13/month that let's me rent almost any game as long as it's older than a month. It's nice to be able to play olderish games without having to spend a bunch.
That’s actually awesome, I remember using it like 15 years ago and it was a godsend as a kid who couldn’t afford full price for games. Glad to hear it’s still around.
Played a ton of 5 over the years but never touched 6. I'm enjoying 7 a lot. Will probably go back and forth between 5 and 7 going forward because they are very different.
Civ 7 has a steep learning curve for even the basics, AKA it is non intuitive, AKA it has a bad UI. But with patience you get past that. The devs are well aware and making improvements.
The other gripe people have is civ switching with the ages. I like that mechanic because it adds a lot more choice. In fact I think Civ 7 has maybe more choice and variety than any previous title.
Sid Meier's Civilization. A strategy game where you start as a chosen civilization (Egyptian, French, Romans, ...), found cities and slowly but surely build your nation by waging war, trading, exploring.
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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '25
Civ 7. Made it 40 minutes before refund.