I have to preference this whole review with a little (lot?) of backstory. I am by no means a 'gamer' - I play video games pretty casually, and as a certified Old Guy, I grew up when you bought a game on a series of discs that most people now only associate with the save icon. I certainly don't play enough to really enjoy a lot of online stuff - I lose immediately to people who spend far more time than I do (that's not judgement, just fact), nor do I have the time or inclination to keep up with tons of DLC, season passes or whatever. Red Dead Redemption 2 is pretty much my ideal game - I can play for as much as my time and ADHD allows, put it down for a while, and pick it up again and it's still the same game.
All of that is to say - your milage may vary. But that's where I'm coming from.
Civilization - the first one - is the first video game I even remember playing. It hooked me instantly, countless empires rising and falling on that technicolor grid. Civilization II was even better. I missed III and IV mostly, as real life took over, and then I returned to put in literally thousands of hours in V (I prefer it to VI, overall, but VI definitely does several things better, but that's another story).
VII changes a lot - and that's pretty much the lens I have to write this review through. If you're new to Civilization, I don't know if VII is a good starting point - or not. It might be, but I can't speak to going into it with new eyes. On the off chance you're reading this and have never played it, my two cents is to grab a bundle of existing games and dive in that way. But don't shy away from VII, it has a ton of high points, but it doesn't exactly feel representative of the series.
All that being said, I'm going to break this up into sections, again - assuming you're familiar with the game.
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| Behold the might of my (current) empire! |
The Good:
The first thing I noticed is that this game is gorgeous. Civilization is not a game that really even needs great graphics, but some older versions don't really let you see your cities, or the terrain, and in this iteration, being able to zoom in and see, say, the Pyramids sitting in the middle of your city is pretty darn cool. Same goes for rivers, mountains, etc. Settlements now occupy more than a single tile, and expand as they grow, and you can see the improvements you've made on the map itself. It's just a pretty game.
'Goody huts' and Barbarians are my favorite change, in that they don't actually exist. Goody huts are replaced with narrative choices - they don't just grant you something free, they can start quests or make you choose between things. Sometimes they involve sacrifice of production, gold, etc for something else, or choosing between them and a more immediate reward. Likewise, formerly simple, reductive 'barbarians' are replaced with independent powers (this simultaneously replaces city-states, in a way) - some hostile, some friendly, and you can spend 'influence' on them for a variety of reasons (including befriending, and eventually, incorporating them into your civilization). These are probably my favorite updates - it adds a ton of depth where it was severely lacking before. It's fun and engaging and educational.
Navigable rivers is another brilliant addition - you can now sail inland on wide rivers, and build ports, harbors, etc on them, giving you flexibility with where you place your cities. There's not a whole lot to say about it, but it is definitely a fun addition.
But let's talk about the big change - Civ switching. In every previous Civ game, you picked your Civilization and that was it. If you picked Mongolia, Genghis Kahn was the leader, and that was it. Now, you pick your leader, and, separately, you pick your civilization. Each have distinct attributes, and choosing different leaders and civilizations will result in unique combinations. At the end of each age, depending on what you've done, different civilizations are unlocked.
The idea is that 'history is built in layers'. For example, Britain was once a small outpost of the Roman empire - and then became an empire of its own, which in turn gave way to America.
In my opinion, this is a very clever and deeper addition to the game. It makes for a more immersive game, and more reflective of actual history - while allowing for the 'what if' factor that makes the series so engaging.
The necessitated (I think?) a change in the Age structure - previously, you progressed at your own pace, driven by what technologies your civ has discovered. Now, each age ends after a certain number of turns - which is driven by several factors, like conquering other settlements or discovering new technologies or civics (more on that in a sec). Each Age has several paths you can follow - economic, militaristic, scientific etc. In all ages except the last, these grant you advantages in the next age (more on this in a sec as well, depending on how much you accomplished. In the final age, these are the victory conditions. I'm a pretty big fan of this, because despite the fact that I'm pretty pacifistic IRL, oftentimes Civilization just turns into Genocide Simulator for me, and in every previous installment, to achieve a military victory, you have to defeat everyone. But sometimes those other civs are my friends! So I don't want to hurt their feelings by committing wanton acts of bloodshed against them. Now you don't have to! You can keep your friends close while you mercilessly slaughter Napoleon and win the game. It's wonderful.
Splitting off 'civics' from 'technologies' is another great move which deepens the game. Functionally, this just gives you two separate tech trees. Civics also comes with it's own additional (much smaller) tree that is unique to your civilization - this is very fun all on it's own, but can add a ton of flavor when you eventually switch civilizations and will result in very unique combinations. Most civics and technologies now also have the option to 'master' them - instead of researching a new tech or civic, you can 'master' an already discovered one for additional advantages.
Your leader (the permanent part of the game) now has 'attribute points'. Most leaders start with a couple in the categories most suited to them (more on that below), and others can be earned with various narrative events. Depending on what you've accomplished along the previously mentioned 'legacy paths', you will frequently earn several at the beginning of each age. It adds a decent RPG- style element to the game, instead of your leader simply having static attributes, there is now some dynamism to what they can do. Coupled with the civ switching mechanic, it adds flavor and customization that previous games didn't have. It's a shock, to be sure, but after several games, I like it.
But it's not without flaws.
The Bad:
One of the stated reasons for all these changes is because the developers looked at that data and saw that very few game of civilization were played to completion. While I enjoy a lot of these changes/new features, it doesn't solve that problem, because, well, it's not solvable, and frankly, it's not a problem. Pretty much anyone who plays any game in the series with any sort of regularity will know by about 60-70% of the way through a game if victory is likely, or even possible. Am I going for a science victory and left my western settlements unguarded when Napoleon launched a surprise war? Did I not claim enough land early on and now have no income and am surrounded by larger civs with more resources? Etc, etc, etc. So if victory is out of sight, the 'new game' button is right there. There still isn't motivation to play a losing game through to completion. Which is totally fine! So don't throw fixes at something that's not broken.
I talked about the Age system up there a bit, and overall it's... fine? I think? I don't think you have to have everyone advance at the same time. and each age ends with a 'crisis', which makes for an interesting challenge, but is more of an annoyance, and it feels forced instead of organic like most of the narrative events in the game.
I also understand that they're trying to make the game 'chunkable', so you can just play one age and feel like you've played an entire game -again, to try to get you to play all the way through - but when you're playing the whole timeline (which is the only way to play, don't @ me), it makes the game feel broken up, and actually provides a jumping off point where a player might not feel inclined to load a save that's at the beginning of an age, so it actually works against the stated goal.
It also makes it super restrictive - for example, in the first age, you cannot, under any circumstances, cross oceans. That's fine, it's ancient. But part of the fun was racing ahead of your competition, via science, or military, or whatever, and getting advantages that way (or getting pissed off that Napoleon did that before you). So now if you've researched every tech/civic available, you're stuck researching 'future tech/civic', which grants you attribute points for the next age and hastens the end of the current age - the more I write, the less I like how ages are structured - which, sure, helps some in the next age, but I'd rather be able to settle in the 'distant lands' before everyone else.
For a game that is stunningly beautiful, no longer having cutscene (or whatever) for great works of art or music is a massive oversight. We get a beautiful map, animations of wonders being built, but any great work is just a side note? Super weak.
Oh, and having religion limited to one age is dumb and basically doesn't do anything outside of that? I feel like this should be its own victory path, or at least influential the way it was in V.
Conclusion:
I refuse to spend money on any new edition of Madden or The Show. It comes out every year, with rudimentary updates, barely improved graphics, and just isn't very good. So kudos for not doing that here and not letting the series be stagnant and repetitive. The changes are certainly dramatic, and resulted in the predictable response from a lot of players about how horrible it is. I'm not in that camp; I like new and different things, especially in a series I've played my whole life. They're not all good by any means, but I don't think any of them are downright horrible. I've played several games all the way through (and bailed on a couple) and enjoyed them all. My only major complaint is that it feels... simpler? For all the layers which are added through leader attributes, having a separate leader and civ, separate civics and techs, as well as civ switching, it feels more simplistic than earlier iterations.
I'm still gonna sink thousands of hours into it.
The Math:
Objective Assessment: 7/10. It's definitely on the 'good' side of average.
Bonuses:
+1 for being the prettiest Civilization to date
+1 for the leader/civ mechanic (sorry, I love it)
+1 for victory paths being better than before
Penalties:
-1 for trying to force players to play all the way through. Let me rage quit in peace
-1 for ages being simultaneous for all players
