Civilization 7 Review: A Grand Redefinition of the Series

A new era of Civilization is here. The vibrancy and playfulness of 6 has given way to something more brooding. It’s no mere facelift. Civilization VII’s darker aesthetic is the platter serving up some fundamental changes to the franchise. Dare I say, the biggest course shift since Civilization IV, nearly two decades ago. 

Trade. Exploration. Culture. Diplomacy. Cities. Independent powers. Firaxis has reworked nearly every key aspect. But that’s not even the big ticket. The crucial change comes with deconstructing the whole concept of Civ. You aren’t leading an empire through history. Here, you’ll have a persistent leader, and your nation will change across the ages. A bold - and let’s be honest - controversial choice.

This to me is Civilization at a crossroads. VI was a huge success with 8 years of support. I wouldn’t blame Firaxis for taking that blueprint, changing just enough to make it feel reinvigorated, and slapping on a fresh coat of paint. But this isn’t that. This is pretty outrageous, and I respect it. 

I went into the game skeptical. These new features - ages, civ switching, the event system, stacking nation bonuses - they’ve been seen before in other 4Xs to varying degrees of success. Whether it suffered the same pitfalls or overcame them - would these changes take away from it feeling like a Civ game? Would the degrees of separation make it an outlier, rather than a step forward? 

I was skeptical, yes - but open to change. Yet, my first few hours with the game were not easy sailing. However, somewhere along the way all these dramatic changes - they clicked - and I got carried away by it. Several games later, I can comfortably say I am onboard with most of this new approach. 

Ages of Change: Civilization’s Biggest Shake-Up Yet

So, Civilization. You pick a nation, and carry them from early steps into a future setting. That is no longer the case. The time frame now cuts off in the mid-20th century, and the timeline is split into three ages. Antiquity, exploration and modern.  Once an age draws to a near, a crisis occurs to add further fuel to the fire, straining your nation in its final days. There’s a good range of these, and I like this as a system - it throws a spanner in the works and requires you to think on your feet, while adding some flavour and storytelling. 

Each age brings new mechanics, aims, and a distinct feel. Firaxis have stated that they want an age to function as individual self contained matches, and you stitch them together to make a ‘full campaign’ so to speak. 

You can start later in the timeline with a bit of a head start, and finishing an age gives a natural stopping point if you aren’t feeling it. Though you’ll still earn rewards to put towards the game’s meta progression system. 

These ages are the defining feature, but building a 4X around this concept has been done before. Humankind, Ara: History Untold, and Millennia were all built around a similar concept - and each fumbled the bag for one reason or another. 

Civilization VII has struck a good balance with it. Rather than tack the age system on to simply break up the game, it’s built in as its foundation. They have their own systems and focus points. Legacy trees can be seen as victory paths. In the final age, they’ll win you the game, but earlier on you’re completing these objectives to set yourself up with bonuses to carry forward.

You’ve got direction, and you’re engaging with the world in new ways. You’re scrapping with neighbours in antiquity, scouring for new lands to colonise in exploration, and knuckling down to become an industrial powerhouse in the modern era. It’s not simply a new offering of techs and civics, but fresh mechanics to engage with and playstyles to adopt at periodic points during a match.

A criticism I’ve had of recent 4Xs is that system bloat as a game progresses. This does a fine job of reducing that. Each age wipes the slate clean. Some mechanics are relegated, or have reduced importance. Outdated improvements and buildings aren’t offered anymore. Older civics and techs are removed. The game gets streamlined. You start again and take those early steps once more - and slowly more systems are introduced atop a blank canvas. They aren’t all placed precariously one on top of each other leading to a convoluted late game mess. 

Civ Switching: Strategy, Adaptation, and Tough Choices

Ages provide the means to play reactively. You have the option to pivot and focus on other legacy paths. Go from a warmonger to a cultural icon as times change. That’s in part down to the interage resets - but mostly down to your Civilization changing. 

Each age, you change your nation. In some cases it’s a natural progression based on geography or history - say, Egypt into Songhai. However, you might fulfil extra conditions - allowing an additional choice based on how you’ve played. You might break from the expected path, going Songhai into Siam. 

Most civs will have a logical step into the next age, but the ability to change gear and go in a different direction gives you the means to really adapt to the world around you. A war declaration against you might ruin plans to colonise the new world, and let economic dominance slip away. So, you can focus instead on your homeland, relegate that economic civ you were eyeing up for the modern age and instead push for a science victory. You can have an idea of how you think you’ll want to end a game when you start, but there are no guarantees. 

Each Civ has their own quirks, strengths, civics, and in most cases, unique approaches to gameplay. This goes beyond flat bonuses - you’ll play the game differently depending on who you are. The event system provides further choice - offering quests, objectives, and flavour depending on who you’re playing as. 

At the top level, there’s plenty to separate nations based on unique units, improvements and bonuses - but the events and exclusive civics separate things further. There’s a familiarity and ease of access if you want to experiment, but as you play a civ, their power and capabilities unfold. 

Now, I wouldn’t go as far as to say this provides asymmetry - but it certainly separates nations more than past Civilization games. It’s a good balance, nations feel similar enough on paper, but as you dig down, they’ll play out quite differently. 

I know the Civ switching mechanic has been a point of contention, and I’m sure many won’t be happy with it. I had my worries going into it - but it is handled well. You’re sticking with the same civ long enough that you grow attached to them. They have mechanical identity - and plenty of flair and flavour. 

The Face of Your Empire: Leaders Take Center Stage

While you bid farewell to nations past, the consistent identity of your empire persists through your leader. Compared to other games in the series, they are in the forefront much more.

You’ll see them quote unquote ‘negotiate’ with other leaders, react to declarations of war- and you’re constantly reminded they’re present in the game past the loading screen. They don’t speak much - but then - neither do the other leaders. This was off-putting initially, but I came to appreciate it. Given how frequently you’re interacting with other leaders, making deals, setting in motion diplomatic treaties - hearing the same voice lines over and over would start to grate. A little gesture provides that flair, and any spoken words are reserved for key moments - meetings, declarations of war, and peaceful resolutions. 

This was what softened the sting of civ switching. Yes, that part of your identity is shifting and that can be jarring. The consistency comes from your leader. It keeps you grounded. And they’re not just a poster child. 

Each leader has unique perks, abilities, bonuses - and the more you play as them, the more things you unlock. Be these little cosmetic gubbins, or mementos to take into future games - little perks and bonuses to hone your gameplay style further. 

The Legends system, the game’s take on meta-progression, was something I was very happy to see. Not a selling-point by any means, but it’s nice to get something back from your games. I never thought I’d want meta progressions in a 4X until I played Age of Wonders 4 - but now I’m sold on the concept. 

So ages, civ switching, leaders - what I’d consider the three defining aspects of Civilization VII - they’re implemented tastefully. It seems Firaxis has studied the rest of the class, noted what works and what doesn’t. They’ve avoided pitfalls that hampered other games. How they would handle these features was my main worry about Civilization VII.

These may be the major changes, but the novelties seep into all other layers of the game - from exploration all the way to extermination. They’ve taken a look at the pillars of the genre, and reinforced some key aspects. 

Uncharted Territories: A Deep Dive into Civ VII’s Exploration Phase

The initial exploration phase of a 4X is compelling, and VII delivers on that. There’s a diverse range of biomes available, the landscapes and visuals of the world are fantastic, and they’ve pulled an interesting trick with cliffs giving an illusion of verticality here and there. 

Different nodes on the map provide small story beats and early bonuses to whoever gets there first. Be they ruins in the world, tribal gatherings, or shipwrecks littering the seafloor. Barbarians are gone - in a sense - and their function is replaced by independent powers. Some of these will attack on sight, but peace is an option. Negotiations can make them friendly, and if they like you enough, they’ll declare you suzerain of their budding state. 

I like this approach, and the bonuses are interesting. There are incentives that reward diplomatic play, however the implementation is a bit one-dimensional. You can’t flip city states who’ve pledged their allegiance elsewhere - which essentially makes it a first come first served system. But if you miss out, well, they’ll all disappear under mysterious circumstances when the age changes, so you’ll have another shot later. 

The starting map is quite small, but VII’s big trick comes as you move into the exploration age. The map expands, and a new continent gets added - along with more resources, discoverables, friends & enemies. I think this is a fantastic addition. It reinserts that exploration phase back into the game, and gives a second rush to settle and discover. It addresses an oversight in the genre, and it's a great step in the right direction. My reservations with it, is that it’s held back somewhat by the map generation. After experimenting with the map presets types, aside from fractal - most weren’t that interesting. Essentially boiling down to two large continent sized blobs.

Despite that gripe, it’s a good system that can only get better - yet it’s still not my favourite addition to the exploration phase. Two words. Navigable. Rivers. Honestly, this makes me so happy. Rivers play a big role. Whether that’s as an exploration route, or as a feature in your cities. I’d like them to be a bit longer, but I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth. 

All in all, the exploration aspect is treated well, the world is interesting, and you’re re-engaging with it in new ways as the ages pass. But as the world changes, so do the powers around you, and there’s a delicate balance to be kept there. 

Redefining Power Plays: Civ VII's Overhauled Diplomacy and Trade

VII has taken a step back and rethought its approach diplomacy and trade. Gone are the individual deals for items, gold, agreements - instead you’ve got endeavours, sanctions, and espionage. Ways to help or hinder opponents, and provide ongoing bonuses to your cities - or simple disruption for your enemies. 

Diplomacy has always been a bit of a weak spot in the series - and while this isn’t a comprehensive system, I like its implementation. You feel the impact of the agreements with other empires, and it's worthwhile to engage with. Because it’s simplified, so to speak, the AI uses the system with some competency. That’s an ongoing theme with the game, and it applies to trade too. You aren’t making deals for X vs Y - you’re sending traders to cities and getting resources back. The AI can handle this. It can’t be manipulated. And so, it engages with the systems properly. 

Smarter but Still Imperfect: Civ VII's AI Gets a Much-Needed Upgrade

This is felt across the game, and gives reason to a lot of the changes. There are no builders. Unit types are streamlined. Great people aren’t really a feature. There’s less to trip the AI up, and that in itself makes the computer feel more competent. In terms of the genre, it’s still trailing behind - but for a Civ game, it felt decent. There’s still some questionable decisions made, and parts of the game it doesn’t really engage with. Sometimes, they’ll declare war on you from a distant continent, but they'll never actually follow up on it. But they’ll engage with diplomacy, they’ll engage with trade. They’ll use the tools at their disposal when at war - even trying to wrest control of the seas during a conflict - which is good to see. 

It’s still early to say for sure, but it feels like an improvement, albeit, with a few blind spots here and there.

Cities Evolve: Civ VII's New Take on Urbanization and Town Building

I mentioned before about the lack of builders, and that shadows one of VIIs biggest departures from the series. It’s cities - or rather - lack of. See, when you send a settler out, you don’t get another city to work with - you get a town. Not just a matter of semantics, towns function differently. They’ve no production queue, a reduced pool of buildings, but contribute gold passively - and they can be specialised to hone their purpose. 

Hitting growth milestones lets you place an urban or rural improvement. So all those mines, quarries, farms, woodcutters which your builder used to make - they’re all handled by cities now. 

You aren’t creating districts, but individual buildings into urban slots. These can be paired together, and outdated structures can be built over. There’s some adjacency bonus, but it’s not as defining as VI. Those juicy yields will come from specialists, which can be placed when you hit population levels. 

It feels more forgiving than the district system of its predecessor. If a mistake is made in one age, you can build over it in the next. Visually, it creates something striking. Sprawling cities, swathes of rural land - and improvements built along rivers fills me with joy. Sadly, smaller rivers just get paved over, but major ones become a feature of your city. 

Having some towns working passively, funneling resources into cities - it creates an interesting balance between playing tall and wide. You can convert your towns into cities if you want, or just have them passively producing food and gold to improve a few key locations. 

From Passive Bonuses to Strategic Trade: How Civ VII Handles Resources

The passive nature of towns means you can expand without spreading your focus too thin. And you’ll need to keep pushing out your borders to snatch up resources. I’ve been really enjoying the new approach here. Some of them give passive bonuses to your empire, others can be slotted directly into cities - and their effects change depending on the age. As a game progresses, new resources will be unveiled, so a seemingly pointless bit of land could turn out to be very lucrative in a few hundred years. 

Resources aren’t required to build units - but they do provide bonuses. For instance, you don’t need oil to build tanks and battleships - but every oil you have will give them a combat boost. They’re good to have, but there isn’t a frustrating standoff when you’re stuck on a continent with one source of oil. 

And if you don’t have something, you just trade for it. Send a merchant to the settlement that’s resource rich, and said resources will become available for your empire. No messing around. A system simplified, but improved. 

However - there’s one glaring issue that hampers all this. The UI. I had problems in that whole area throughout the game, but the resource interface was one of the main offenders. It’s cumbersome, poorly laid out, and reorganising and redistributing goods is a headache. This is a part of the game I like, and I want to engage with - but currently micromanaging it is monotonous.

Generals and Chaos: A Fresh Take on Warfare in Civ VII 

But, before I stray too deep into UI & UX territory and bore everyone to death, let’s circle back to a part of the game that will be on the radar of most - warfare. If you’re guiding an empire through a few thousand years, you’re going to have to crack a few eggs along the way. War in Civilization VII doesn’t stray too far from the series formula - but there are some noticeable changes. 

The obvious one being commanders. Generals & admirals on your front line who’ll earn experience and levels. They can specialise into various fields, and these dictate the flow of war. The right general in the right place can turn the tide, and their field of command means their placement is crucial. They can be reinforced from a distance, meaning you can keep funneling troops into the fray from your cities, without having to manually send each unit across the map, and that’s a great feature. 

I’m fully on board with these changes on paper, and I think it’s a great idea thematically - but it runs into some problems. Firstly, it’s just fiddly. More than a few times I accidentally swapped units around instead of repositioning a commander, and yes, that may be a skill issue. But it brings me on to problem number two. As I said, you can specialise your generals. You might have one who’s best parked up with your ranged troops, one who provides defensive bonuses, and one who you’re reinforcing with troops. Trouble is, you can’t tell which is which at a glance. You have to go into their skill tree, which is pretty irritating. Some iconography, or the ability to rename them would help this out. Yet, that really is one of the big issues with combat. Readability. 

Units are so detailed and fit in the world around them, which is great when you’re sitting there and admiring them - but it becomes a pain when you’re rolling across the continent, as troops blend in with busy urban tiles. Then there’s the bugs. These might be little visual glitches, or phantom soldiers left on tiles after movement - causing more confusion. I kept running into frustrations - especially in the later ages - which is all such a shame ‘cos the bones are there to make this an engaging combat system. 

There are fewer units, so it’s clear what does what. Unique units upgrade through the age, so they have impact for longer. Combat animations are great, and every unit is so detailed. I know I won’t be the only one zooming in and getting excited about minor intricacies on different unit styles. 

Because of this visual flair, it does feel excellent to sweep across a map with your army. Coordinated attacks feel satisfying, and generals have real impact. Air and navy support plays a huge part - it’s got all the pieces there to make it a really satisfying experience, just the basic mechanical functions need some work. 

And if that happens, war in the game will be incredibly satisfying. The new approach to military victory is far more engaging, and in the modern times when tensions are at their highest - one declaration of war can set off a chain reaction that drags the whole world into conflict. Nations separated by ideologies, or old alliances. 

It doesn’t feel like wars are an isolated instance in the world. You can lend support to conflicts, and the AI will stick together to try and divide and conquer. It feels like a powder keg waiting to go off. Chances are that spot of cheeky expansion can turn into absolute carnage featuring everyone on the continent. 

The Gravitas of Civilization VII: A World With Personality and Prestige

And when that happens, it feels good. It feels grand. Dramatic. There’s gravity to it all. The heavy boom of artillery, and the roar of dive bombers - it drags you in. That’s something the series always had going for it. In terms of personality, production quality, sound, visuals, attention to detail - it’s second to none. And this is no exception. 

Yes, I’ve had my fair share of issues with the mechanical parts of the game, but I cannot fault its personality. It’s moodier and more serious than its predecessor, and while preference for that is going to be subjective, the quality of the visuals, the music, the animations, the cities and the world cannot be dismissed. 

While I do miss Sean Bean and his fondness of pigs, Gwendoline Christie does a fantastic job as the narrator. Every line has a dramatic sting, and feels weighty. It enunciates the more serious tone the game pushes. 

But as with every Civ game - the ‘feeling’ of it, its aesthetic and stylings will be a divisive factor. Personally, I prefer this over the vibrancy of VI - but if you don’t agree, that’s okay. Everyone’s got their own tastes, though I will say a lot of the details I didn’t like - the lack of voice lines from leaders, the diplomatic theatrics, the tiles replacing fog of war - I moved past them all within my first game, and came to appreciate this as a sum of its parts and intricacies. 

Firaxis Takes a Risk - And It Pays Off

There’s a lot Civilization VII does really well. Firaxis has gone back to the drawing board to break down dug in systems. They have changed the Civilization blueprint. It puts it in line with more unconventional historical 4Xs, and in most cases, this does it better. 

The late game bloat, lack of exploration past the early game, and attrition caused by constantly stacking systems on top of each other - this takes problems that plague the series and beyond - and tackles them. Some are solved, others are addressed and improved. It is refreshing. It doesn’t feel like the same old with a new coat of paint and some fancy systems, but a new direction. Civilization at a crossroads. 

I was fully on board with most of the systems. Others, I could see what they were trying to do, like with city states and religion - but they fell short somewhat. Despite that, this doesn’t feel like a stripped down version of the game. Aside from a fourth age, I didn’t feel like there were any glaring holes that needed plugging. This to me is the most feature-rich and complete day one Civ game since IV. 

So much of it is compelling, but there are forces working against it. Some of the systems, legacy paths, and features felt underbaked - but most of my issues came from silly things. Glitches, bugs, systems not interacting properly, or crucial info hidden away somewhere. A UI that - while stylish - puts form over function and requires you to tunnel in to find basic info. The overly basic minimap and lack of tactical map further hinders your ability to navigate around and find what you need. 

And I don’t want to open this can of worms too much ‘cos I’m here for the game and not its publishing practices - but the pricey editions, day one locked content, setting themselves up for an aggressive monetisation plan - I know this is becoming the norm in AAA gaming, but it frustrates me - and I pray we don’t see things spiral out of control.

But, again, I’m not here to review publishing strategies, but the game itself - and Civilization VII really is a damn good game.