One year ago I released an article reacting to the full unveiling of Sid Meier’s Civilization VII. It was a bit of an unorthodox discussion compared to CGR’s usual output, but my desire for an excuse to ramble about history on the blog was just too great at the time. I ultimately came out of said article very skeptical about the game’s direction and as we got closer to the release date many of those fears I had were vindicated. The mixed reception among early access players was the final nail in the coffin which convinced me to stay away from the game all together.

Frankly I wasn’t sure if this review would ever see the light of day, but recently I received a free code for Civ 7 with a graphics card I bought through a friend(thank you Veritas). It’s also worth noting I was also able to get the Tides of Power DLC at no extra cost due to an additional limited time promotion. Despite being both a skeptic and a freeloader I’ll try my best to give the game a fair critique. Enough about my biases, let’s figure out if Civ 7 has what it takes to stand the test of time.

When discussing the gameplay, I’m going to focus primarily on what Civ 7 does differently from previous games in roughly the order new players will encounter them. When starting a new game the first choice the player makes is the leader they are going to play as, which is a huge departure from previous games where every leader was tied to a specific civilization. Every leader has unique abilities that suit them towards particular strategies, but they can also earn attribute points to unlock more abilities when the player completes relevant objectives. Upon completing a game leaders earn experience points and level up to unlock items called momentos which grant the player even more abilities when equipped for future playthroughs.

Decoupling leaders from their historical civilizations was one of the biggest hurdles for my enjoyment of the game at first because it drove my historian brain crazy when I encountered strange pairings like Napoleon leading Han Dynasty China in my very first game. Eventually I learned to embrace the chaos after I played my own ahistorical pairing, Queen Himiko and Greece for a double dose of diplomatic bonuses, though I still prefer more accurate pairings. Attribute points are an easier pill to swallow as they essentially make it easier to double down on, or pivot away from, certain strategies based on how the game progresses. Momentos on the other hand were simply a bridge too far and I never used them because they felt like cheat codes.

  Before we move on to the next subject I should also address the elephant in the room, the roster of playable leaders. Civ 7 consciously attempts to expand and diversify the typical leader pool by including more influential scientists, philosophers, and activists alongside the traditional heads of state to mixed results. Some cases like Benjamin Franklin and Jose Rizal are respectable choices, but others like Harriet Tubman and Ibn Battuta feel out of place next to historical giants like Augustus Caesar and Queen Hatshepsut. Influential heads of state are still the bigger portion of the roster so it’s not a deal breaker, but that 30-40% of deep cuts makes the roster feel underwhelming as a whole. DLC will probably help rectify this problem over time, though locking Genghis Khan behind a $30 bundle is robbery so wait for STEEP discounts if you really want to expand your options.

After choosing a leader to play as the player selects their starting age and civilization. The new Ages system is the most consequential change made by Civ 7, spitting the game into 3 smaller games starting in the antiquity age, moving to the exploration age, and ending in the modern age. Near the end of an age empires will also have to deal with a randomly occurring crisis which attempts to simulate the historical challenges that lead to the fall of empires and subsequent regime changes that often marked the end of an era. A crisis also imposes mechanical penalties on the player’s empire, but these penalties were so easy to mitigate that I rarely felt their effects.

Civ 7 boasted a whopping 30 playable civilizations on release, which is the largest starting roster in the franchise so far, and even more are being added with ongoing DLC. The catch is each civilization is restricted to 1 of the 3 ages(10 per age) so transitioning from 1 age to the next also means changing which civilization you’re playing as. Each civilization(regardless of age) includes a unique ability, 2 unique units, unique infrastructure, exclusive civics with unique policy cards, and a bonus towards building a specific wonder. The upside to switching civilizations between ages is that the player will always have access to impactful abilities no matter what stage of the game they’re in. The downside is the radical departure from the fantasy of leading a single civilization from the bronze age to contemporary times which is the core of Civ’s broader appeal despite being historically unrealistic.

Civilization switching works best when there’s a clear historical throughline between all 3 ages such as the Han, Ming, and Qing combined to create a decent representation of Chinese history, but still not a strictly comprehensive one. Then there are throughlines that still work if you squint really hard such as Romans, Normans, and Americans being a somewhat feasible route for the United States, but only if you hyper focus on the Normans conquering and ruling England in the high middle ages rather than their actual origins as Scandinavians who adopted French culture. Civilization switching really falls apart in cases where the civilization isn’t even given a tenuous connection between ages. Greece for example is relegated to Antiquity with no natural successors while Japan is in the Modern Age, represented by the Meiji Empire, without any proper predecessors. 

Beyond the historical critique, there’s also the gameplay issues where every age transition imposes a soft reset which gives struggling players technological and cultural leaps they didn’t earn. Not only does this eliminate the funny shenanigans of spearmen fighting tanks found in previous Civ games, but it also robs competent players of a tactical edge they actually worked for. Ultimately I believe these issues make civilization switching a net negative for the game and hopefully future updates will give us the option to once again live the dream of a Roman Empire that never falls.

Leaders and civilizations aside, there’s plenty that’s been changed to basic/universal mechanics as well. Settlements still passively generate food, production, gold, happiness, science, culture, and influence based on which buildings have been constructed and which tiles have been improved. The builder unit from previous games has been removed so tile improvements like farms and mines are now made whenever a settlement’s population grows. Title improvements also expand the settlement’s borders when placed next to an unclaimed tile, unlike previous games where borders grew overtime based on the settlement’s culture output. Constructing buildings turns tiles into urban districts, each one holding up to 2 buildings, but must be placed adjacent to other districts. Furthermore, if a new urban district is placed on top of an existing tile improvement, the population of that tile is refunded and placed elsewhere in the settlement.

I’ve chosen the term settlement very deliberately because as Civ 7 introduces towns which function differently from the more traditional cities. New settlements, unless it’s the capital city, start out as towns which can later be converted into cities by spending gold. Towns cannot produce units and buildings the way cities do, so their production yields are converted to gold instead. Gold can be used to purchase units and buildings in towns, but the selection of buildings is far more limited than cities. Once a town reaches 7 population it can be assigned a specialization to improve certain yields or provide new utilities, but the town will stop growing and send its food yields to connected cities instead.

The changes made to cities are ultimately still fairly close to Civ 6 with just enough streamlining to cut down on as much micromanagement as possible. If you enjoyed cities in Civ 6, you’ll probably enjoy it here too. Towns on the other hand are a good idea that stumbles in execution. Since towns don’t have a production queue I found it very easy to set and forget towns as city management, exploration, diplomacy, and war drew my attention elsewhere. At least with a production queue the game occasionally drags you back into the settlement to choose the next task, ensuring cities are always doing something useful.

Diplomacy with other leaders has seen a massive overhaul with the introduction of influence. Influence is a diplomatic currency which is spent on initiating endeavors, sanctions, and espionage with or against other leaders. Endeavors and sanctions can be accepted by targeted leaders at no cost to their own influence or they can spend influence to support or reject the action. Espionage is done secretly, but it can be discovered or even thwarted if the targeted leader has counterspy enabled. Diplomacy has always been something the Civilization franchise struggles to do well and while I think Civ 7’s take is mercifully simple to grasp it becomes dreadfully shallow once your empire is generating enough excess influence to support or reject virtually anything that comes your way.

On top of diplomacy with other leaders, influence also interacts with independent powers, which are Civ 7’s equivalent to city states and barbarians rolled into one. Influence can be spent to pacify hostile independent powers and to become suzerain of friendly independent powers for some nice bonuses. Independent powers are a perfectly serviceable continuation of the previous mechanics they combine, but one major flaw in the system is the fact that city-states are completely loyal to their suzerain once claimed with no opportunities to flip allegiances like in other games. If you don’t want your rivals to have a suzerainty over a particular independent power, your only option is to conquer or destroy it.

Speaking of conquest, commander units are the new and improved version of great generals/admirals and easily the biggest change to combat by far. Namely commanders can “pack” nearby military units into itself to ferry them across the map as a single unit and unpack them when it’s time to fight. Military units still become stronger when fighting next to the commander, but the commander also gains experience points and levels up to unlock new abilities as the units around them fight more battles. Packing units is an amazing addition that makes managing and moving armies so much better than moving each unit individually, but there is an argument to be made that it’s a little TOO good. When a commander levels up there’s absolutely no reason to invest in anything other than the assault skills first because they allow packed units to move immediately after being unpacked which is ridiculously overpowered. I do think commanders are conceptually a great idea that opens up a lot of strategic possibilities, though in practice the optimal strategy is so painfully obvious that it undermines a lot of potentially interesting choices.

So how do all of these mechanics change the way players actually win a game of Civ 7? There are 4 paths to victory presented to the player: Science, Culture, Military, and Economic. True victory can only be achieved in the modern age, but there are missions to complete in the antiquity age and the exploration age that provide long term bonuses to the associated victory type. It is still possible to achieve any victory type in the 3rd age regardless of success or failure in the previous ages, though it will be harder if those objectives aren’t achieved.

The science path requires the player to collect and display 10 codecs in the antiquity age, build 5 districts with 40 yields in the exploration age, and launch the first manned space flight in the modern age. Science has always been an important resource in past Civilization games no matter what victory type the player is looking to achieve and Civ 7 is no exception. Since players will want to invest in science anyway, following this victory path(even as a side project) is very easy. That being said, it’s pretty obvious the designers had no idea what to do with science in the first 2 ages. The codex hunt feels like a repurposed culture objective and the yield generation isn’t even trying to be interesting, but the space race being a Civilization staple just barely salvaged this path for me.

The culture path sees the player build 7 wonders in the antiquity age, collect 12 relics by spreading their religion in the exploration age, and finally discovering 15 artifacts to build the world’s fair in the modern age. Culture victory has never been my preferred playstyle in previous Civilization games and while Civ 7’s take is thematically satisfying, the execution isn’t anything exceptional. As a Catholic it pains me to say they absolutely gutted the religious mechanics from Civ 6, simultaneously watered down and more tedious at the same time. It’s also baffling that religion only matters in the exploration age when historically religion has been a major force in every era no matter what form it takes. Culture is still one of the better victory paths to follow in the game, but not even close to its full potential.

Military victory is all about controlling settlements to score points which are calculated differently in each age, but since I don’t want this to be a math lesson my explanations will be a little over simplified. In the antiquity age players only need to conquer other players’ settlements with no strings attached; in the exploration age players need to conquer settlements in distant lands, bonus points of they can spread their religion to those settlements as well; and in the modern age players need to conquer settlements from civilizations following a different ideology from their own and complete operation ivy. World domination has always been one of my favorite victory types in Civilization and while military victory in Civ 7 is less straightforward, it’s ultimately much easier to achieve. That being said, I found the exploration age much more frustrating than the others in this regard because the technologies that allow players to ferry troops across the ocean safely are a good way down the tech tree, meaning I often found myself anxiously sitting on the homeland coasts with a massive army just waiting for my ships to become sea worthy.

The Economic victory path is Civ 7’s brand new victory type which asks the player to slot 20 resources into their settlements in the antiquity age, control special resources in distant lands to send treasure fleets back home in the exploration age, and build railroads and factories to monopolize manufactured goods and establish a world bank in the modern age. This was easily my least favorite victory type because the pacing is agonizingly slow. It can take quite a bit of time to find all the resources you need and even longer to actually acquire them. Maybe I’m just outing myself as a bad player, but I found the process absolutely miserable and will probably never willingly pursue an economic victory ever again.

There’s honestly so much more I could touch on in regards to Civ 7’s gameplay, but for sanity’s sake allow me to summarize. The parts of the game that haven’t changed have been simplified for ease of play, but at the cost of strategic depth in many cases. The parts of the game that have changed are so radically different that they threaten to break the core concepts of the Civilization franchise. There’s certainly still fun to be had in Civ 7, but even at its best the game is underwhelming compared to previous games in the franchise.

So the gameplay in Civ 7 is a mixed bag, but surely the game’s presentation fares better with a titanic AAA budget backing it. Well unfortunately the game is also a mixed bag in that aspect as well. The graphics have shifted away from the cartoony stylization of Civ 6 in favor of a much more grounded, realistic looking game. The leaders have very detailed models and all speak in their historical languages, or the closest surviving equivalent we still have. Geoff Knorr and Roland Rizzo once again spearhead the soundtrack, giving every civilization extended theme music with culturally accurate instrumentation. It’s not a soundtrack I’ll be humming outside of the game, but each theme stands out in its own way and compliments the gameplay nicely.

The game’s map is also pleasant to look at and packed with charming details, but the game’s more realistic direction introduces a big problem that Civ 6’s cartoony artstyle never suffered. From a zoomed out perspective, the primary perspective of the gameplay, it’s hard to parse through a city’s infrastructure as most buildings have similar coloring and are often surrounded by smaller buildings that are purely decorative. The artstyle of Civ 6 exaggerated each building’s unique features and color coded them based on their function, meaning it was easy to tell where everything was in a single glance. I can appreciate what a more realistic artstyle brings to the table, but when the alternative has practical gameplay benefits I can’t help but feel like Civ 7 is taking a step back in this regard.

Last, but certainly not least, there’s the game’s presentation of history. More specifically I’m referring to the in-game history encyclopedia written by the developers known as the Civilopedia. The Civilopedia in the previous Civilization game was an absolutely egregious work of historiography, especially towards Catholicism which was relentlessly depicted in the most uncharitable ways possible.  Since the bar had been set in hell by Civ 6 I wasn’t looking forward to reading Civ 7’s edition of the Civilopedia, but those low expectations ended up working in the game’s favor. The new Civilopedia is still incredibly flawed, but it’s an improvement from what came before.

There was so much Catholic stuff I wanted to cover in the Civilopedia that it doubled the length of this review, so instead I’ll focus on the broader issues and save the rest for a separate deep dive article. For now I’ll just say that on the subject of Catholicism the Civilopedia still makes plenty of poor judgments, like changing the dating system to BCE and CE despite the fact they’re still using the Gregorian Calendar, but there’s also a surprising amount of instances where it gives credit to Catholicism where credit is due. As for everything else, I will be touching on some fairly contentious topics so if your feathers get ruffled easily consider this your warning.

The biggest issue is that the authors don’t do a very good job of hiding the fact that they are politically left-wing Americans with Marxist leanings. Don’t believe me? Well the article on progressivism, presented in-game as the final civic of the democratic ideology, cites Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as contemporary examples of progressive voices in politics, both of whom are very prominent socialists among American politicians. Furthermore, the articles on communism and socialism focus largely on the political theory behind the ideology and omit any mention of the unspeakable atrocities committed by the nations who actually put the theory into practice. The only scrap we do get of these crimes against humanity is done so very disingenuously within the article on fascism. Fascism is rightfully portrayed in a negative light, but it does so using the logic of ur-fascism, an intentionally broad definition of the movement that allows clearly non-fascist people or groups to be included under the label.

The Civilopedia uses this definition to accuse figures who predate fascism like Julius Caesar, Napoleon, and Napoleon III of being proto-fascists, which is absurd enough on its own, but where things get truly insane is when it claims Joseph Stalin had a little fascism in him despite the fact he was a communist who fought against fascists in World War II. It’s pretty obvious that the authors are trying to discredit Stalin as not being a “real communist” so they can still champion the movement without having to acknowledge the fact it produced the second biggest mass murderer in human history, beaten only by Mao Zedong who was also a communist and conveniently absent from the Civilopedia.

Another area where the Civilopedia falters is its sanitization of Islamic history. If you take the articles at face value, readers would come away thinking Islam was primarily spread peacefully through trade networks and was very tolerant of non-Muslims in its midst so long as they paid their Jizya(religious tax). The reality is Islam has been spread primarily through conquest and terrorism since its inception and non-Muslims, even the ones who paid the Jizya, were largely treated as second class citizens who were not given full legal protection against theft, murder, and enslavement. The Civilopedia is also concerningly interested in sexuality, with articles about historical homosexuals like Friedrich II having disproportionately long side tangents about their sexual escapades. In conclusion, while Civ 7’s Civilopedia occasionally presents a modicum of historical nuance that challenges popular stereotypes, the clear ideological bias on display ultimately makes it a very poor work of historiography and I would not recommend taking what it says at face value.

I would HIGHLY recommend you check out the supplementary article on “Civ 7 Vs Catholicism” for even more perspective on the depths of the Civilopedia.

Sid Meier’s Civilization VII is a mixed bag to say the least. It would be disingenuous to say I didn’t have fun with the game, but it’s so far removed from previous games in the series that it does far more to make me appreciate those older titles than it does to endear me to the new one. I would not recommend buying the game at full price, but even with a discount you’re probably better off waiting until after a few more updates have ironed out some of the more contentious elements. Admittedly I was fully expecting to hate this game when I committed myself to this project, but in spite of everything it gave me new ways to think about strategy games and that was definitely worth the effort.

About Gaius Requiem