Each genre has its “king;” a kind of extremely popular flagship franchise that the rest aspire to be. Fantasy action-adventure means The Legend of Zelda, survival horror means Resident Evil, hearing the word ‘FPS’ makes the name Doom pop into the brain, and you cannot be a fan of JRPGs if you haven’t played at least seven Final Fantasy instalments. Like so, Sid Meier’s Civilization has always been the king of 4X strategies for over three decades. Each and every entry had room for improvement, but generally there has never been a Civilization that was “just good.” Well, with Civilization VII that’s about to change…
For as long as Sid Meier has had a say in the development of a new Civilization, his modus operandi was to take one third from the previous one, add improvements in the next third, and leave the last third as room for new features, with each entry following that principle in one way or another. That doesn’t really happen with Civilization VII. It’s a major step backwards, with one of the key reasons being the fact that it has seen a release on almost every platform available, and as such, has been streamlined in a way that caters heavily to the console market. Yes, in a bad way.
The part that has seen the biggest change for this to be console-friendly is the simplistic user interface. Of course, change alone isn’t a flaw – it’s all about implementation after all. Well, sadly this hasn’t really traded a richer UI with a more enjoyable or practical one. Apart from a couple of buttons and levers now completely gone, lots of important info concerning resources, the tiles where units can move, and…pretty much everything are hidden away in sub-menus, and with tooltips many times being unhelpful.
The basic concept remains the same. Select a leader and then guide a group of people towards greatness from the ancient times to the modern era using economy, diplomacy, as well as the sharp end of a spear. Leaders are no longer tied to a specific nation and it’s possible to help, say, Isabella I of Castile lead the Achaemenid Empire of the Persians. It feels weird, but it’s not really a deal breaker. A somewhat more bizarre change is that there are many amongst the cast that are underwhelming as historical figures. Whereas Civilization VI had Cleopatra, Gilgamesh, Pericles, and freakin’ Saladin, VII introduces characters that, compared to what has been the norm so far, are “nobodies.” Oh, so you want to play as Napoleon? Too bad. He is hidden behind a registration wall!
Each game is now divided between three distinct Ages, so players will start at Antiquity, move onto the Exploration Era, and complete their journey in the Modern Age, which ends somewhere in the late ‘50s or so. Each Age introduces new mechanics and goals, and that is theoretically a nice new system. Unfortunately, once again the problem revolves around its implementation. Each time there’s an Age transition, a kind of soft reboot happens on a nation, ruining all the hard work in terms of construction, diplomacy, and economy. Additionally, progress in Ages is driven by missions that kind of force players down specific paths, whereas the beauty of Civilization has always been the freedom to eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate the way you want.
Would-be emperors are expected to do the same things again and again, no matter what tactic they choose to do, with many unnecessary limits that make it impossible to sidetrack from the linear path that was chosen for them. Imagine that you’ve reached the Age of Exploration, where you are literally told to travel all over the world and create more towns. Good? Good. Say hello to a nice penalty for expanding as there’s a very strict city cap!
There seems to be a lack of character anywhere you look, despite this trying to add a narrative spin, and generally looking and sounding quite good. Towns can’t even be renamed, creating a sense of disconnect with the world that one is supposedly shaping. Finally, some things don’t even make sense or don’t have the expected “realistic” effect. Irrelevant Number #1 is raised up by a percentage, thus happiness increases by 10%. People are unhappy? They destroy the very structures that were built to increase their happiness – two small samples of the many mechanics and rules that just feel random, whereas in past entries people would basically experience a simulation of how the real world operated.
Firaxis Games looked at three decades of successful titles and decided that it was time to risk it all and create something that feels like an imitation of the real thing. Those 10 years of development are also nowhere to be seen. Civilization VII was released untested and very badly optimised (some of the slowest loading screens in a strategy title), with the asking price being way too high for what’s on offer – and even higher if willing to get one of the many of DLCs or the Deluxe Edition. Then again, the price would be “okay” if the game wasn’t so darn unbalanced and full of questionable things.
The AI asks for the player’s capital in exchange for ceasefire rather than any other city; you are required to frequently replace buildings, but finding information whether something will change when doing so is far from easy; choosing another espionage action is forbidden when another one is in queue, whereas James Bond could single-handedly ruin the plans of the Soviet Union, prepare a dry martini, and make out with the secretary of the evil henchman while driving at 120 km/h – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Don’t waste your time or money with this when there are much smaller studios out there producing gems like Endless Legend.
