I rarely write reviews for any reason, I'm too lazy. But I find it extremely paramount to write on this one.

I've been playing Civ for about 20 years, it was one of the first video games I was ever exposed to. As an experienced player, I can say that a lot of the changes in here are super interesting and have a lot of potential. The city growth and town mechanics are neat, the new independent settlements rework establishes a refreshing take on the city-state and barbarian dynamics of previous releases, army formations and combat are streamlined in a reasonable way (as opposed to how other things are streamlined), leader diplomacy is a lot more satisfying and sensible, and I really love how all pending tasks and actions are shown as icons in the turn wheel at the bottom and you can select any one of them without defaulting to the primary one the game has selected for you. The game looks visually decent and the sound design and music feels nostalgic and well done. In general a lot of intriguing overhauls and changes make it clear that there is something here.

But this thing is more than rough, more than I remember any other Civ release being.

The UI is terrible. I can't find any of the information that's relevant to my gameplay ever. Notifications are both annoying to click through and simultaneously disappear without any reason. Tactility and telegraphing normally communicated through sounds, camera adjustments, and musical cues are either missing or have regressed into some sort of minimalist alternative. In general, I have to agree with most criticisms on this game, that it feels console-first and hardly geared towards the PC user-base, which I had imagined is the primary user-base. This is not to mention the whole 2K account integration is so annoying and the fact that elements of the game seem to be barred from access until you've done the whole integration process is just a really terrible precedent.

Crucial, BASIC things are COMPLETELY missing. You can't automate explorers. A lot of key command either don't exist anymore or are completely hidden to the player and you just have to try old combinations that you remember from other games. YOU CAN'T QUEUE YOUR TECH TREE AT ALL. There's no quick movement / combat. All advanced options to customize the map, start parameters, and overall game rules are just COMPLETELY gone. Customizations of all kinds are gone. I haven't found a way to rename cities, units, or anything like that.

So many things about this game are a step back. You are actively PUNISHED for doing well, as with each age/era so much of the stuff you've worked hard to develop is removed, exchanged, or nerfed in some way. So much of the tech tree feels useless, as you're basically able to work tiles and gain resources without much strategy involved at all. There are so few penalties or consequences for making decisions, you can essentially just spam every option, production, and purchase whenever you feel like and you'll still be an unstoppable force at least against the AI. The amount and variety of Civs at launch is LAUGHABLE. Narrations are delegated to being very short blurbs with almost no intrigue whatsoever, while simultaneously introducing UNSKIPPABLE CUTSCENES to a 4X which makes absolutely ZERO sense. The victory conditions for each age aren't necessarily confusing, but they feel so unnecessary and different from the core advancement principles that Civ has tended to build itself on for years, in a way that feels remarkably counterintuitive.

One of my biggest points of contention I have with this game is the Leader/Civilization dynamic. You are locked into choosing a leader and civilization SEPARATELY. This means you can choose completely non-historic combinations of things. In my current playthrough, I did the first of three ages (the Antiquity age) as Harriet Tubman ... of the Aksum. Once the Antiquity age ends, and you enter the age of Exploration, you have to change what civilization you are AGAIN. The best option for my playstyle so far as I could tell was choosing the MAJAPAHIT? This makes no sense. There is a novelty to it, sure, and I could see some fun gameplay ideas happening as a result of these discrepancies. But being locked into HAVING to do something like this is more than just immersion breaking. It's weird at BEST, and completely messes up everything otherwise. Having to adjust to completely new civ bonuses and contexts with EVERY ADVANCING AGE just feels even more and more punishing for no reason.

There is SOMETHING here. The environments look great, the game feels less cartoonish like Civ VI attempted to be, and there are exciting mechanics and ideas here worth exploring in the long-term. But calling this "unfinished" is generous. Core features are missing and so much backwards regression has been taken. It's not impossible to play, but it's frustrating and barely feels like a Civ game. I am absolutely of the belief that a game HAS to be great without any mods whatsoever, that mods should be delegated to the roles of personal preferences and experimentation. I won't say "wait for mods". I would say wait for this game to be decent, because it's not.

TLDR: Bare bones shouldn't have been released in its current form needed more time to add basic features, ESPECIALLY for this egregious price.

Mechanics are fine and change is necessary and will always divide the community at the start (civ 5 to 6), this isnt my problem. My problem is there is 0 customisation to the game your about to play, I can't change resource distribution, change my map size beyond 3 types (really...) or even pick something as basic as a f***ing map... really theres no variety in map choice. Don't even get me started on no quick combat or quick movement, makes the game feel clunky... let alone this awful UI.

Game needed another 3 months to add these basic features, anyone who uses the excuse 'early access' for the exclusion of the most basic features is deluded. I haven't even mentioned some game play flaws as largely I expect these with an early access same with the bugs and crashing that does occasionally accompany this game.

4/10


Edit 1: Just won on 20fps with a 4080 might I add (Late game performance is utter S**t) and there isn't even the famous 'One More Turn...' button, incredibly disappointed again

Good, but probably wait until the game gets updated.

The UI looks and feels like it was created in the alpha stage of development and was never refined / improved. The game's new mechanics are pretty interesting but having to slog through this terrible interface makes it not worth the effort. Needs a few more months of refinement for the game to be enjoyable.

A couple minutes in and it's just... so blatantly unfinished, especially by Civ standards. The UI is total slop, everything looks super janky, the resource icons are like stock images from 1998. There is no discernible aspect of care put into the game, and that's something I never expected from Firaxis. Comparing this unfinished mess to the Civ VI release is night and day. Civ VII needs a complete visual overhaul of the UI at minimum to even begin to warrant the atrocious $70 price tag. Sid Meier personally spit in my mouth and spanked my bottom with this game's release and I did not consent.

pog

I am leaving a positive review. I have only played little at this point but that doesn’t seem to be a reason not to leave a review, anyway.
I love the new, the feel, the music, the new graphics.
UI needs a LOT of polish, although in my opinion, it is not worse than Civ VI at launch (apart from some purely visual annoyances like nonsensical alignment and teeny tiny fonts).
My only main gripe is the lack of large and huge maps, and the lack of custom game configuration, such as enemy leaders, victory conditions, etc.
I hope this will get added soon.
But do I recommend the game even as it is? Yes, yes I do.

Look - the fundamental changes in Civ 7 are fine. These games need to innovate and change in order to evolve. It was the way with 4 to 3, 5 to 4, 6 to 5 and so it is here, and that is absolutely fine. The game plays alright from my 20 minutes as of writing. However....

The negatives that should *never* be sacrificed are:
- UI for PC. It is unfortunately very poor here and feels ported over from console in the worst way possible. Why do I have to cycle through each individual map type in game selection instead of being able to see a list of details? Civ 6 had this aced? Firaxis, this is a huge step backwards here. Let alone navigating through the settings menu... It's atrocious.
Why can I not choose my own resolution UI scale? I play on Ultrawide - I should be able to scale everything down by roughly 20%.
- Narrow selection of Map types to choose from - literally 3 or 4. And the biggest map size you can go is... Standard. Really, Standard? That's where you chose to put the limit?

Based on those two items below I am pretty close to refunding and getting the sea legs on. I think KCD2 deserves the money here more than Civ.

Edit: The Developer response is somewhat reassuring. However it doesn't change the fact that at this price point it feels like a kick in the nuts. @CivGame I hope that the UI changes for PC are fast tracked extremely fast. Thank you for responding.

Jeez. This is a tough one. I see a lot of negative reviews and to be honest most of them seem really fair in their critique, specially regarding the UI and how much of a step back when it comes to QoL this is from precursor games like Civilization 5 and 6. However, ignoring this giant, stinky pink elephant in the room, we can move on into what is a really great game. It is very fun so far.

Just in case, let me be clear on this:


The reason for this statement is because the game moves away from long standing formulae that have been around for a while. I'm sure there is a myriad things to consider but the changes that I've noticed the most on my current playthrough and limited playtime are as follows:

• There is no workers.
  
• You cannot make use of unworked tile yields, even if these are inside your borders. You need to improve the tile first.
• Improving tiles will cause culture bombs on tiles adjacent to the one which was just improved. Culture output no longer has an effect on increasing borders.
  
• Game feels much slower, which may or may not be a good thing. A lot of people I know enjoy playing on marathon speed.
  
• Combat is a lot different now that units are no longer promoted. Instead, the Army Commander unit gets all experience and promotions.
  
• Settlements need to be upgraded to cities before you can have more control over their development. Before that, they start off as towns, which can only benefit from gold expenditure.
  etc, etc, etc...

Basically, the game just plays a lot more different than Civ 5 and 6 put together. This may be a turn off for a lot of people, specially the fact that now you need to select a Civ Leader on top of the civilization itself, which changes as ages progress through the game. Changes like these are always very polarizing for the community; like the design choices made in Civilization 6 and the introduction of districts. Nevertheless, this is a great opportunity for the series as all these changes are a joy and a breath of fresh air.

What I've enjoyed the most so far is how much more dynamic each age feels. It's less about clicking next turn waiting for the cool stuff to happen or your buildings to finish being done. Instead, you are actively planning, working towards a goal or waging war/defending yourself. I feel much more involved in the game, as odd as it sounds. For example, the addition of influence as a resource you can spend in several actions gives diplomacy a turn for the better because it gives you a lot more flexibility on how you want to play around with your opponents or allies. Combat is a lot more interesting with the changes to terrain elevation and the addition of commanders. Also, speaking of armies, thanks to the addition of ages and how these work there is no longer the issue where you could have an army of swordsmen fighting a tank crew, which was something I absolutely hated on the previous entries before Rise & Fall kind of addressed this in a lowkey manner.

Another aspect I have enjoyed a lot is how the challenges for every age feel quite distinct and rewarding, not only because they push you towards a victory condition but your efforts are rewarded in other ways, like the attribute points you can use to customize your leader. Your Leader keeps on evolving, just like your civilization. It's no longer boring once you are past the age where your Civ unique unit is relevant. No. You are ALWAYS relevant in a direct and fun way.


This isn't to say the game's mechanics don't have any shortcomings. Religion feels quite barebones compared to Civ6 and there is many QoL aspects that should be added at some point... The most awful of things I've encountered so far is how you will never get a notification when any of your soldiers or units is attacked in the map, lol. You only get a notification when they are dead. Getting into the diplomacy screen, specially for city-states/independent people is a chore and sometimes impossible.

Which brings me to the next point: The visibility in the game is a mess... It takes so much more effort to get the information you need in the game. Where is this army from? Where are they? Can I talk to them? Etcétera.

Game is amazing and I'd ask people to give it a chance... when it's ready. It's okay, but not great in it's current state. It has a ton of potential and could be my new favorite Civilization game (I've been playing since Civ3) but all that potential is buried under a lot of annoyances that are difficult to ignore.

If you are like me and can tolerate the shortcomings because you find the game as fun as I do, I applaud your bravery and patience (and wallet). If not, it's totally fair and we should hope that these issues are ironed out soon, specially considering the price tag and the fact that we are having a DLC drop in like a month if my memory serves me right.



Game is good. Mechanics are fun and definitely a step forward in the right direction. UI needs rework. Need more QoL stuff. Some features are somewhat barebones, but that's just classic Civ at launch.

I have as much faith in this game as a Lavra district surrounded by mountain. :v

Narrator is cool and all but Civ5 had best narrator and quotes. Fight me.

This is not a Civilization game. This is terrible. I tried to give it a shot but here are my issues:

1. Leaders and civs feels very disjointed. If you like immersion this game is NOT for you.
2. You can just feel the game was built for consoles.
3. Maps are SMALL. Biggest size is STANDARD.
4. You get 3 or 4 options to customize your game.
5. Cannot turn on or off victory conditions.

Positives:
1. The growth building system is actually really cool.
2. The army system is pretty decent.

Overall: Wait for a sale or pass.