Change is almost definitionally not cozy, though, and Civilization VII changes quite a lot —especially about the game’s overall structure.
This review is based on two full-length playthroughs of all three ages of Civilization VII, plus a little extra dabbling—a total of about 35 hours.
The ages of civilization Civilization VII overhauls the structure of a Civilization game more radically than we’ve ever seen.
Launch content is light Civilization VII offers arguably the most complexity, depth, and breadth of systems of any Civilization game pre-expansion.
Systems-wise, Civilization VII is the most complete pre-expansion package we’ve seen in a long time.
Although not every change will be welcomed, it’s a fantastic beginning for a new era.
3 февр Samuel Axon. 2025 ³. 16:00.
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Nowadays, a lot of people talk about cozy games, and Civilization is unquestionably my own favorite. It’s soothing to lose yourself in a state of flow, late into the evening, making “a series of interesting decisions” for “one more turn,” then another.
However, change is by definition uncomfortable, and Civilization VII undergoes significant changes, particularly with regard to the game’s general framework.
To be honest, I’ve long believed that Civilization IV marked the series’ pinnacle. However, if you spend a few dozen hours playing VII, you might find that it is at least as good as Civilization V, and with a little more polish, it might even top IV.
This review will go over all the significant changes, evaluate whether they are worth the trade-offs, and discuss why VII might be the greatest Civil War game in recent memory.
The contents table.
Civ players of a particular type.
The games in the Civilization franchise appeal to a wide variety of players, and their needs and desires vary. I think it’s important to make clear what kind of Civilization player I am so you can understand my perspective and choose the appropriate filter to apply.
Every year since the release of Civilization II, I have played at least a couple of Civilization games. I believe I have worked in the franchise for 2,000 hours total. During the Civilization IV era, when I played weekly hotseat games with my college friends, I played the most, avoiding Civilization III. I often played the scenario from AD 1,000 by myself. A bit less than IV, but still, I kept playing Civilization V. I wasn’t as fond of Civilization VI when it was released. After the first fifty or so hours when it arrived, I’ve played maybe two complete games every year.
I have typically played on easy to moderately challenging settings and have relished the inevitable victory march. While Steam achievement-hunting, I did progress through the difficulty levels in V, but I preferred a more laid-back strategy.
I haven’t played other 4X games for very long. I became really engrossed in Endless Legend for a few weeks, but it didn’t last. I’ve only spent a few dozen hours playing Stellaris, but I spent a lot of time playing Master of Orion II in the past. On the other hand, I played Alpha Centauri nonstop. The Battle of Polytopia is another one of my favorites.
Just know that I’m approaching this from a different perspective than you are if VI was your favorite Civil War game, if you play on Deity all the time, or if you’re a dedicated player who puts in 5,000 hours annually. However, I hope you can still sort through that and find what you’re looking for here.
This review is based on two full-length playthroughs of Civilization VII in all three ages, plus some additional experimenting, for a total of roughly 35 hours. Though I briefly tested the game on a Steam Deck, I primarily played on a Windows PC. The versions for Mac, Linux, and console were not made available to me.
Let’s get started.
The period of civilization.
The structure of a Civilization game is drastically altered in Civilization VII, unlike any previous Civilization game. While the “eras” of earlier games (Ancient, Classical, Medieval, Renaissance, Industrial, Modern, Atomic, Information, and Future in VI) served as a loose framework for the game’s development, VII reduces everything to just three and refers to them as “ages”: Ancient, Exploration, and Modern.
The boom/bust system of the dark and golden ages in VI should not be confused with this. ).
However, VII’s eras are presented and play nearly as different games as those of the past. Ages do more than simply indicate the passage of time; they also bring about major changes to the game’s map and objectives, with a summary screen appearing at each change.
Every era has its own buildings, units, tech and culture trees, and even distinct game systems and conditions for winning. Although there are some more fundamental uses of religion in Antiquity, the system of using missionaries to spread religions throughout the world and monitoring the religious composition of cities is unique to Exploration.
historic routes.
Economic, military, scientific, and cultural victories are represented by the distinct “legacy paths” of each age. These routes consist of a series of tasks that must be completed in order to accrue points, which are then totaled at the conclusion of the age to establish rankings and determine which bonus options you will have available to you if you proceed to the following age.
For instance, the Modern path uses city production to construct large flight and spaceflight projects, while the Science Legacy Path in Exploration uses specialists (urban population who increase the yields of tiles that have already been developed) to optimize city districts with very high yields.
When enough progress is made (either in one path or all of them), all players go from one age to the next at once. The route to the game’s ultimate win conditions is the last legacy path for Modern.
There may be a “crisis” that impacts everyone as an age draws to a close. For instance, towards the end of Exploration, the plague starts to spread globally. Each crisis has its own special gameplay features, such as “crisis cards,” which require you to choose between various detrimental consequences your civilization will experience while you work to solve the issue.
You can use “legacy points,” which you earned by following the legacy paths, to select specializations for your civilization or earn bonuses when you begin the next age. The crisis ends when an age is finished, and a recap screen appears.
Another significant change to the game’s formula is that you can choose a new civilization for the following era.
civilizations and leaders.
When you launch a new game, you choose a leader to play as, just like in all previous games. This leader has special mechanics or bonuses that influence how you would play the game most effectively.
However, leaders are no longer associated with particular civilizations as they formerly were. You can take on the role of King Benjamin Franklin of Persia. Although it is obvious that the developers intended for the leaders to work in some mechanical harmony with historically relevant civilizations—these pairings are even given special labeling in the civilization-selection screen—those who are concerned with historical accuracy will not like this change.
But when an age shift occurs, you must choose a new civilization entirely, and not just any civilization. The list of possibilities is influenced by multiple factors. The majority of those factors depend on the civilization you chose and the accomplishments you made in your previous era. Once more, the game guides you toward civilizations that make some historical sense (I switched from Isabella leading Rome in Antiquity to Isabella leading Spain in Exploration), but in certain situations, you can choose to do something different.
This is consistent with the general idea of Civilization VII, which is to model the layer-by-layer construction of cultures and cities in our own world. For instance, before the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings erected their own settlements on top of it, London was a Roman city.
If you want to optimize your districts, you can “overbuild” buildings that are relevant in later ages to replace those that were specific to an earlier age. This, incidentally, helps solve the problem from VI of having to work around legacy decisions.
Does it still work and is it Civ?
The game designers were able to improve the bonuses, units, and buildings of civilizations thanks to this contentious modification. They can be closely linked to age-specific mechanics because they can be age-specific. The long-standing balance issue in the franchise, where some civilizations have an edge in one area of a game’s plot but are weak in another, is also addressed.
Similar to this, the designers are able to improve and balance specific gameplay systems to improve interactions between the three ages by erecting sturdy guardrails around each of them. Creating a system that must remain relevant and engaging throughout the entire game is far more difficult than creating one that must only be enjoyable in a specific situation. Since some things that are no longer relevant are eliminated from the field, the modern era feels less overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information to keep track of.
It serves as a rubber-banding or catch-up tool as well. For a long time, civilization has been criticized for its games’ propensity to escalate too quickly. For some, taking the lead in the first few eras could virtually ensure the outcome, making the second half of the game seem like a futile exercise.
That’s not as much of an issue because the age transitions in VII placed all civs on a level playing field in terms of tech trees and other components. Even though they aren’t as game-defining, you can still use era points to make your earlier achievements or failures more significant. Furthermore, your old age settlements and territories are still there.
Pedantry about historical accuracy is not the only drawback. Above all, the final fifteen or so years of life can be rather discouraging.
This is because the hard reset that occurs so quickly after you acquire buildings and units late in an age’s tech or culture trees makes them largely irrelevant. In addition, I discovered that I was motivated to impede the advancement of my civilization in order to postpone age transitions and prepare everything for the beginning of the next one, which seems strange and unexpected.
Farewell, busywork.
Another noteworthy change to the civilization formula is the elimination of workers, or builders in VI. You can make improvements from the city view every time the city expands, rather than having to order a unit.
On the one hand, this is a simplification at a time when many people want to play more intricate and sophisticated grand strategy games. However, I think it’s a positive change. As the size of your empire increased, workers always became cumbersome, and many players simply decided to automate them by later eras.
Additionally, the modification enables the construction of rural improvements to more seamlessly blend in with the urban district system that was first implemented in VI and improved upon here.
Unit-based busywork is also decreased by other refinements. The fact that IV is the final game in the series with “stacks of death,” in which you stack numerous military units onto a single tile and move them collectively, is one of the reasons it’s my favorite.
In my opinion, the substitution of a one-unit-of-each-type-per-hex strategy for stacks of death in V made moving armies in the late game an incredibly tiresome process that wasn’t worth the extra tactical complexity.
With VII, Firaxis has found the perfect compromise. Together with a military commander unit, you can now fit up to five units into a single hex-occupying group. Before deploying all of them and giving them individual orders in combat, you simply need to move that one unit to the front line.
The fact that rivers are completely navigable by naval units is another fantastic change that greatly facilitates mobility. ).
Large city, small town.
Hex improvements are now managed through the city view, as I mentioned. There are still a few more city changes to discuss. To begin, newly established settlements are initially towns rather than cities. Normal town production of buildings or units is not possible, but you can use gold to buy a subset of options.
They have a variety of specialization options that allow you to customize how they benefit your broader civilization, and they grow according to the same rules as cities. The more they expand, the less gold it costs to turn them into cities. Regardless of age, there are advantages and disadvantages to each classification, and you will nearly always choose a balance.
Age, civics, and technology all have an impact on the settlement limit. Beyond that point, it is nearly never worth it to capture or establish towns or cities because doing so carries severe penalties.
I thought these systems were good overall. Although they are significant changes, they seem normal. About them, I wouldn’t make many changes.
This category of “towns” also applies to what were formerly referred to as city-states. The idea of independents is a combination of city-states and barbarians. They are either friendly or hostile AI civilizations that only exist in one settlement. Because it enabled me to gradually make friends with independents, use diplomacy to turn them into towns under my control, and eventually elevate them to cities within my civilization, I truly enjoyed this system. The progression is satisfying.
Influence is a new yield that you spend to court independent settlements. This is the basis for a major overhaul of the game’s espionage and diplomacy systems.
How to influence people and make friends.
I detested VI’s use of diplomacy and war fatigue, particularly during launch. It seemed to me that the AI was constantly trying to lure me into conflicts, and if I ever retaliated in kind, it would be too hard to keep all the AI leaders from betraying me because they didn’t like what I was doing. Instead of interacting with the mechanisms the game had in place to handle all of that, I would frequently choose to ignore diplomacy and wind up at war with practically everyone.
The method used by VII is far simpler. As previously mentioned, influence is a new yield that coexists with gold, science, and other things. Some structures and the like passively produce it. All of its applications are related to influencing your interactions with other powers on the map, though they are not all the same.
It can be used to gain the respect of independent cities, levy their armies, or eventually integrate them into your society. You can use it to condemn other rulers or make trade offers to them. Additionally, it is a resource used for espionage, such as interfering with space race production or stealing technologies.
But that’s not the end of it. When other leaders present you with a deal of some sort, you have three options: use your influence to stop the deal from happening, use it to accept the deal on terms that are marginally better for them, or use it to change the terms of the deal so that it is much better for you both.
Most importantly, it contributes to a war support system. In the event of a conflict between two civilizations, all of the game’s leaders—not just those two—have the ability to use influence to back one side. Significantly less war fatigue and fewer diplomatic repercussions for the war’s continuation affect the side with the greatest support.
You can position yourself much more favorably if you have high influence yields and devote all of your energy to supporting a war that is strategically significant to you.
It is incredibly effective and combines many of the different systems that Civ has tried over the years into a single, cohesive system that is much simpler to use and comprehend than before.
This is my favorite of Civilization VII’s major additions. For the first time, diplomacy is enjoyable to me rather than a chore.
Steam Deck, small complaints, and future aspirations are the grab bag.
These are the main areas of change in VII, but let’s quickly go over a few noteworthy items that don’t neatly fit into any of these categories.
Support for controllers, consoles, and Steam Deck.
A footnote in the illustrious history of the Civilization franchise, consoles have always existed. Civilization Revolution was a simplified version of the game that was released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Though it wasn’t the desktop PC Civ experience by any means, it was better than you might imagine if you approached it on its own terms. ).
Though they were not very good, Civilization VI was ported to the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Switch. Although the game could be played, the ports were undoubtedly a last-minute addition.
So, it’s interesting that the PC, Mac, and Linux versions of Civilization VII will be released on the same day as the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch versions. In addition, the game has Steam Deck Verification, which wasn’t even a thing when the last Civilization game was released.
The console versions were not available to me during this review period, but I was able to test it out on Steam Deck, which allowed me to get a feel for how it functions with a controller interface.
Selecting tiles is done with the left stick, and changing the zone the left stick affects and moving the camera are done with the right stick. While you can zoom in and out using the left and right triggers, you can select something by tapping A and back out by tapping B. You can access the tech tree and various leaders with whom you can negotiate by pressing the right bumper, which displays a radial menu. Direct shortcuts to frequently used features, such as mini-map options (yields and so forth), are provided by the remaining buttons.
Though it’s obviously not as natural as using a mouse, it works fairly well and is a significant improvement over the mess that the console versions of VI offered.
On low settings and the Steam Deck’s native 1280×800 resolution, the game appeared to function fairly well most of the time. However, in the late game, zooming in on expansive, expansive cities was an exception. In that case, I noticed some stutters and framerate chugging. In a turn-based game, that isn’t a game-breaking issue, but it is a pain. More performance optimization might be added in the future.
You’d be better off playing on your laptop when you’re on the road, as the performance is erratic enough to make me not recommend using Steam Deck. The controller setup, which is also available on PC, is good enough, though, that I have high hopes for the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions. However, considering that the much more potent Steam Deck barely makes it through, it’s difficult to imagine the game functioning well on the Switch.
There are many UI bugs at launch.
It’s important to note that I’ve encountered some irksome UI bugs, as I think the version I’m currently playing is the day-one release version (or very nearly so).
Take the following example.
To get ranged military units to fire on units in other hexes, I sometimes have to deselect and re-select the unit or click multiple times to get it to register.
I simply couldn’t make trade routes in one game. Nothing would happen if I clicked on the target city after choosing the merchant. There was no explanation for why it wasn’t working, so it’s possible that this wasn’t a bug and that there was a mechanics issue in the game that prevented me from doing it at this point.
In certain cases, such as the religion panel, both zooming the map view behind the list and scrolling the list within the panel can be done with the mouse wheel.
Even though this type of issue will most likely be resolved quickly, it’s still wise to be informed if you intend to play on launch day.
There is some unsteadiness in the balance.
Similar to other games of this type, some systems will require some post-launch improvement. Most significantly, there seems to be a huge imbalance between production and the construction of units or buildings with gold. By the middle of the Exploration Age, I was spending gold on far more items than I was waiting for them to be produced. In the late game, you simply have too much gold. I think Firaxis will control this.
There is little launch content.
Of all the Civilization games released before the expansion, Civilization VII arguably has the most intricate, comprehensive, and deep systems. That’s fantastic! However, there are a few standards that aren’t included, like the World Congress or nuclear weapons, which I suppose will be added in later versions. There is more here on day one than usual, though, in contrast to previous games.
The content itself, however, is rather basic. Although there aren’t many leaders at the moment, Firaxis’ roadmap indicates that many more will be added in the coming months.
Moreover, the roadmap makes no reference to scenarios, and there are none at all. That’s disappointing because scenarios were always some of my favorite parts of previous games. I’m hoping Firaxis will soon reveal some plans in this area and that we won’t have to wait for a paid expansion to get something that was typically included in the main body of previous games.
However, this iteration includes some new features to make the game more engaging and reward prolonged play. For instance, a leader can level up by completing an age with them, which gives you access to modifier cards for use in subsequent games with that leader. These are merely minor additions that make it worthwhile to revisit them; they are insufficient to significantly increase their power. In addition, there is a vast collection of tasks to finish.
Additionally, Firaxis says it plans to address the relatively basic features of multiplayer within a few weeks of launch.
Cities cannot have their names changed.
It seems like such a glaringly obvious omission that I almost think I’m just a fool who hasn’t been able to find the right thing to click, which is why I’m scared to even write this out. However, after much searching, I’m fairly certain that cities cannot be renamed. That’s really confusing.
An era of change.
Change may not be comfortable, but some of these changes have significantly helped to combat some of Civilization’s most persistent annoyances, including frustrating diplomacy, late-game fatigue, and snowballing.
You’ll be annoyed by the separation of leaders and civilizations if you’re coming to Civilization with historical accuracy in mind. However, it is not new, as this game is notorious for Gandhi’s nuclear-weapons-wielding bellicosity. Although I had a humorously similar experience with Harriet Tubman adopting a brutal, scorched-earth approach to diplomacy, it is noteworthy that Gandhi is not a leader in Civilization VII. ().
The game’s strategic depth is increased, and some classic balance issues are resolved, making it worthwhile.
Here, Firaxis has given Civilization a great deal more structure. Because the game’s objectives are much more clearly stated within ages, it is not as sandboxy as earlier iterations. Thankfully, it does away with the arbitrary goals that dominated VI’s dark/golden age and eureka systems, so I think it’s a happier medium.
Making another Civilization game with the guts that have been in place for 34 years was always going to be difficult. Despite the fact that the structural changes are arguably radical, I think VII feels more like a return to form because it has more merit and benefits than VI.
We haven’t seen a pre-expansion package as comprehensive as Civilization VII in terms of systems. Though there are many improvements and additions I would like to see, overall, I think it’s good. The best 4X game available right now is still this one.
After it launches on February 11, we’ll see if any upcoming expansions and mod support can make it the greatest Civilization to date. Though it hasn’t arrived yet, there are many reasons to be optimistic.
The positive.
A Civilization game’s overall arc has long had numerous issues that the ages system helps to resolve.
Diplomacy is better now than it has ever been thanks to influence yield.
Building city districts are transformed into the complete realization of what VI was implying but never accomplished through adjustments and additions.
With expansive, complex cities and intricate leaders, the visual presentation is superb.
Without sacrificing depth, a few additions simplify the franchise’s irksome busywork.
The negative.
Despite the robustness of the systems, there is little content and no scenarios.
Age’s last few turns feel unsteady.
For some reason, you can’t rename your cities.
the unpleasant.
It might be worthwhile to wait a few weeks before getting started due to a few bugs and balance problems.
Senior Editor Samuel Axon.
Samuel Axon works at Ars Technica as a senior editor. He discusses mixed reality, AI, gaming, entertainment, software development, and Apple. For almost 20 years, he has written about technology and gaming for publications like Wired, Vice, PC World, Mashable, Engadget, and Polygon. In the past, he oversaw editorial for the TV network CBS, operated a marketing and public relations firm in the gaming sector, and worked at the creative firm SPCSHP on Samsung Mobile’s social media marketing strategy. He is also a freelance software and game developer for Windows, iOS, and other platforms. He studied software development and interactive media at DePaul University.