“One More Turn” but not “One More Game” - Revisiting my first impressions of Civilization 7

[CGPanama]

I have been a die hard Civ player since the first iteration. After completing my first five games of Civ 7, I took a pause to wait for the Update to release this week. During that time I wrote down my thoughts to revisit my initial impressions of the game when it was first released. Then I sat on it until I could play the update to see how it changed my feelings. In short it didn’t, so I am posting these thoughts now to share my current state of the game.

TLDR
/// I originally posted in the poll a review score of 8 out of 10. I found my first play through to be genuinely enjoyable, and accomplished two things I really wanted out of this game a constant “One More Turn” feeling and not needing to grind to the end for victory or defeat (I am a completionist, after all). After 5 (now 6) complete games, I am lowering my score to 5 out of 10. While the elements I enjoy are still there, I discovered something that I never thought I would feel…. A loss of a “One More Game” feeling.

What’s Not In This

There are things that obviously need work: UI, chief among them. But I am overall happy with many of the new core concepts (ages, split leaders/civs, etc). If I don’t explicitly mention it below, I probably really enjoy that element of the game so please don’t pile on with topics covered in other threads. The following is just my opinion on what is not working and I respect others who may not like some of the other choices the game developers came up with, but I do!

My Complaints

1. First and foremost, after 5 games I found that the game mechanics all feel the same. And it is not just one thing. The leaders, civs, mementos, buildings, units, resources, wonders, religions, policies all blur into each other. Build one thing or another, and it just doesn’t feel like it impacts the game play. Unique units don’t feel unique. Natural wonders don’t awe me. Wonders just blur into the background. Half the time, I am not even sure why I am choosing to build a particular building, or focus a town a particular way. It never seems to make a difference.

2. What is even worse is that the games all feel the same. Each age plays out the same. I might choose different legacy paths, based on what opportunities I am presented with. Then I breeze through each crisis. Wars I can fight off the enemy. Lose a town, gain a town ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Choose a new civ for my leader. Send cogs and settlers to grab some resources during exploration. Breeze through another round of crises. Choose a new Civ. Pick a Victory Path and aim for it. The sameness of each game makes them feel like shadows of each other, nothing exciting and new.

3. There are complete areas of the game mechanics that look interesting but I never bother touching because I don’t need to. Diplomacy I touch sometimes, but mostly wait for them to offer. But Espionage I never bother with. Don’t even seem to need to care about countering. Late age units and buildings have little impact, I just build what I want while I wait for my legacy path to complete. This is particularly true with air units. Rarely build and never use. I’ve started to skip the Ideology tree. Don’t need it, and selecting one invariably causes a bunch of civs to declare war on me.

4. Finally, I have always built up slowly in difficulty levels from base to Deity. Depending on the version of Civilization it might take me months to get to the point where I can beat Deity. With Civ7, it took me 5 Games to get to Viceroy. All five games were victories. My 6th game played after the 1.1.0 update was played at Deity. And it was a victory as well. While the Viceroy and Deity games had a feeling I might be beaten by a civ following a different victory condition, they never closed the gap. All four victory conditions, whichever I chose always got me the win. I never had to min/max my game play or worry about fine tuning choices. I just played a pleasant game to the end. Was it fun? Yes. But definitely not a challenge.

What is needed

The game needs each age to have meaning. The decisions that you make including late age buildings, units and policies need to affect not just the crisis but also the next age. This also means that the world system itself must feel unique for each leader and civilization. When I build a Revenge as England, it must affect the gameplay not just be a reskin with a superficial boost. Wonders, Religions, Ideologies, Espionage, etc. all must feel like impactful decisions, not something to click past.

And the world must be allow to breathe. Instead of each map feeling identical, let there be unknowns again. It would be nice if sailing to the west might not find a convenient island chain exactly the distance needed to survive. What if it wasn’t there and you kept losing ship trying to find the new world! OR HECK what if there was no New World! Bigger Maps, more variety, better generation all must make it feel like I am discovering something new. The first game of VII felt so good because everything was new. But by game 6, I was no longer being surprised.

And last, the challenge needs to be upped. Either the AI improved or the gameplay tweaked to make this a harder game to beat. I role play my games, so I normally struggle at the higher levels because I don’t optimize to win but to create a story for my world. If I can just wing it through, then this game will be easily beat by those who exploit the mechanics.

Summary

Civilization for me has always been a way for me to live the history of my leader and civilization. STORY being the key part of history. I want to read a new book every time I pickup a game, and not reread the same story game after game. And that is what 7 is for me now. Sure, like a good book I will pick it up again for a re-read. But as it stands now, while Civ 7 still gives me a “One More Turn” feeling when I am playing it, but when the game is done I don’t have the urge to hit New Game immediately after. This is the first Civilization game that does not make me hit “One More Game”.



Thanks for listening to my 2 cents.

 

[Disgustipated]

I kind of agree with you on uu's and wonders not having a big impact. I'm enjoying the game, I certainly won't stop any time soon. I'm playing a 2nd game (not civ7, the wording looks weird) at the moment too, but after a while of playing that game, I find myself thinking of Civ 7 again. So I went back to playing on Thursday and Friday. But I'm holding off on DLC for now, it's too pricey for what you get. It essentially is day 1 dlc which I don't like on principle alone. Not to mention I'm not doing playing all the original leaders.

I guess they were worried about overpowered things that Civ 6 had. Like Forbidden Palace in Civ 6 being so strong, not to mention Big Ben. And some of the uu's were quite strong as well in 6. I still remember how powerful Adam Smith was before a patch nerfed him. As it is, things do seem kind of bland and run together. Sometimes I optimize so much I run out of things to build and just do culture/science. In fact, it may actually be more beneficial to run that by the middle of the age rather than building buildings. But I still build most of the buildings except happiness ones if I don't need happiness.

 

[johnny_rico]

i thoroughly agree here. I've already started playing a different game altogether which is a first for a freshly released civ title (aside from V; which i didn't care for upon release [but became great with expansions] and IV is my favorite title in the series). I'm sort of in shock i'm not interested in firing up another game of civ7.

I've started to avoid the objectives in the first two ages to just do what i want. It helps but every game still plays similar. The choices add little variance to the experience because the maps are so similar; they have to be for the sake of the treasure fleet economic legacy path. I also don't like that strategic resources are no longer strategic as there is no penalty for not finding them.

There isn't much that stands out as unique or memorable in any of my games thus far (Trung Trac, Ben Franklin, Xerxes, Augustus). They've all followed the same pattern and i don't believe the leader or civ traits contributed significantly to the victory. Part of it is also how quickly and vastly yields can change. On one turn, i'm making 167 science per turn and five turns later it is over 300. No idea how it jumped so rapidly

It could be argued that all civ titles have this in common but civ7 feels more like a simulation than a game. Anyway, your post really struck a chord with me. thanks

 

[DocRock]

Just my cents: I agree with you and after the first DLC I changed my Steam review to "not recommended" as this is just some cash grab by Take2 that I will not support.

Anyway, I have the feeling that all the "impact" is cut out of the game because it's a boardgame. Imagine playing a boardgame night with 6 players. You don't want the Isabella player to start with a significant advantage. The problem is that these imbalanced advantages are a lot of fun in a single player game. They define the Spanish civilization. And this also applies to awesome UU like the Keshiks, Camel Archers or UBs that define the style you play significantly. Or think of Petra, you could wrap a whole game around building it and earn insane yields.

But all this doesn't relate to a boardgame and I think that's the reason Civ 7 feels so strangely disconnected and unimpactful.

Edit: while thinking about I realized it's all aspects of the game. You can basically found your city anywhere, the differences are a joke compared to (for example) Civ V. Everything works, Tundra, Desert, Coast, whatever. There is no joy in starting on a desert floodplains salt area as those do not exist. There are no missing strategic resources because it would be unfair to the other boardgame players if they lack oil. There is nothing that has a truly big effect on your game, it's all a flatline.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I certainly don't feel quite so critical but I do understand where you're coming from, to an extent. What I would add is that I felt the same way about vanilla Civ 5 and 6 though, they both felt a bit empty at launch, so I'm not overly concerned about Civ 7, I don't think there is a fundamental problem.

That said, I think the biggest issue for me at the moment is the balanced biomes; it doesn't feel different to start in tundra vs desert vs plains, and that contributes to this feeling of every game being similar. What we need, imo, is more asymmetry, and generally just more stuff to play with, more things that provide opportunities for unusual strategies.

 

[evonannoredars]

And the world must be allow to breathe. Instead of each map feeling identical, let there be unknowns again. It would be nice if sailing to the west might not find a convenient island chain exactly the distance needed to survive. What if it wasn’t there and you kept losing ship trying to find the new world! OR HECK what if there was no New World! Bigger Maps, more variety, better generation all must make it feel like I am discovering something new. The first game of VII felt so good because everything was new. But by game 6, I was no longer being surprised.

What map script are you using? Because I had the same issue until I switched to fractal which, at the cost of basically never seeing an inland cliff, has MUCH more interesting generation.
You likely will be able to reliably reach the island chain by setting out from the eastern/westernmost points, but reaching the distant lands is another matter entirely. In my previous game, it was africa-shaped and I had the misfortune of trying to cross twenty tiles of empty ocean.
Even my home continent was extremely interesting, comprising of three separate landmasses; one large southern continent and two medium sized northern islands next to each other (about the size of the continent when combined), with a stretch of ocean between them and only a couple chains of coast making it crossable.

Hopefully with time they'll improve the other maps because yeah that excitement of the exploration age faded fairly quickly with the predictability of the other scripts.

Also wrt natural wonders they should count for a +2 adjacency imo bc having them grant the exact same adjacency as a mountain doesn't do much for making them feel special (and some of the effects aren't always enough to make them feel worth aiming to settle at).

 

[protocol7]

The YnAMP continents++ is pretty decent.

 

[reyaik]

I have more mixed feelings on the points. I think that the game has a large replayability value. There are a few things that are still underdeveloped, like diplomacy, age length, victory condition balancing, AI behaviour for instance. But the leader-civ mixing and even with the existing map scripts, I find there enough content to motivate me personally for another game and another turn. I would say that from a "game design" perspective (a purley artistic one), I find many aspects quite genius and really well thought through. "Game design" is however not the same as "gaming". The victory conditions in particular to my mind are neatley organised, running across the three ages which itself is a neat design. While I don't feel that my play-throughs are rail-roaded, I do think this neatness is on the verge of "overdesigning the game". If you think about games like Beyond Earth and Colonisation they were smaller and felt smaller in scope for the gaming experience, because they followed a pretty clear game scenario and hence came with a clear game design (and in fact Alpha Centauri was/is actually totally similar in this regard). Yet what that means is, the sandbox feeling is a bit lost in this Civ iteration and that surely can over time limit "gaming" play time. I could see how personally I can get 500 hours out of this iteration, but wihthout significant new content the "gaming" experience might just stop there for me.

 

[kaspergm]

Anyway, I have the feeling that all the "impact" is cut out of the game because it's a boardgame. Imagine playing a boardgame night with 6 players. You don't want the Isabella player to start with a significant advantage. The problem is that these imbalanced advantages are a lot of fun in a single player game. They define the Spanish civilization. And this also applies to awesome UU like the Keshiks, Camel Archers or UBs that define the style you play significantly. Or think of Petra, you could wrap a whole game around building it and earn insane yields.

I agree very much with your points here. Just to add a few more thoughts:

• There's an important distinction between powerful and overpowered. Just because something is powerful, it's not necessarily overpowered. Like you say, the game needs to have powerful elements to give the player something to strive for. Obviously the challenge for developers (and one they haven't succeeded very well in avoiding in previous games) is avoiding snowballing so that the player who gets to the first powerful things get an advantage in reaching the next ones. I'm not sure all of the examples you list are necessarily overpowered (Petra, for instance, I would not rate overpowered, but also see below).
• There's also an important distinction between being situationally overpowered and universally overpowered. Obviously things that are universally overpowered must be avoided. Adam Smith and Big Ben* probably fell in this category (Forbidden City less so imo., but it was borderline case). On the other hand, I don't think things that are situationally overpowered are inherently bad - sure, if they are so overpowered that they guarantee you the win, yes, but things that are situationally very powerful is not a problem imo. Petra falls in that category imo.: Yes, it can be extremely powerful, but you need the very right circumstances for it to be so, and even then it was hardly game-breaking, and there was always the chance that someone else would grab it before you got to it.

Anyway, I think this thread ones again confirms to me that I did the right thing by not buying Civ7 (for now). On a sidenote, I just installed Civ5 Vox Populi the other night, and I haven't had so much fun playing a civ game in years. I ended staying up til 2 AM fridays night and 1 AM last night playing (and I never go to bed later than midnight), and I had completely forgotten how addictively fun Civ can be. I mean I have enjoyed Civ6 over the last years and played it regularly, but I did not realize how incredibly boring much of that game was compared to earlier installments.


* Interesting thing about Adam Smith and Big Ben: The reason they were overpowered was not so much their bonus in itself (ok the gold bonus of Big Ben was stupid, but apart from that...). If you had had a great person giving a military slot or a diplomatic card slot, they would be powerful, but not overpowered imo. So the case of Adam Smith points to a problem with the balance between the different card types more than a problem with the great person (or wonder) bonus itself.

 

[DocRock]

I agree very much with your points here. Just to add a few more thoughts:

• There's an important distinction between powerful and overpowered. Just because something is powerful, it's not necessarily overpowered. Like you say, the game needs to have powerful elements to give the player something to strive for. Obviously the challenge for developers (and one they haven't succeeded very well in avoiding in previous games) is avoiding snowballing so that the player who gets to the first powerful things get an advantage in reaching the next ones. I'm not sure all of the examples you list are necessarily overpowered (Petra, for instance, I would not rate overpowered, but also see below).
• There's also an important distinction between being situationally overpowered and universally overpowered. Obviously things that are universally overpowered must be avoided. Adam Smith and Big Ben* probably fell in this category (Forbidden City less so imo., but it was borderline case). On the other hand, I don't think things that are situationally overpowered are inherently bad - sure, if they are so overpowered that they guarantee you the win, yes, but things that are situationally very powerful is not a problem imo. Petra falls in that category imo.: Yes, it can be extremely powerful, but you need the very right circumstances for it to be so, and even then it was hardly game-breaking, and there was always the chance that someone else would grab it before you got to it.

Anyway, I think this thread ones again confirms to me that I did the right thing by not buying Civ7 (for now). On a sidenote, I just installed Civ5 Vox Populi the other night, and I haven't had so much fun playing a civ game in years. I ended staying up til 2 AM fridays night and 1 AM last night playing (and I never go to bed later than midnight), and I had completely forgotten how addictively fun Civ can be. I mean I have enjoyed Civ6 over the last years and played it regularly, but I did not realize how incredibly boring much of that game was compared to earlier installments.


* Interesting thing about Adam Smith and Big Ben: The reason they were overpowered was not so much their bonus in itself (ok the gold bonus of Big Ben was stupid, but apart from that...). If you had had a great person giving a military slot or a diplomatic card slot, they would be powerful, but not overpowered imo. So the case of Adam Smith points to a problem with the balance between the different card types more than a problem with the great person (or wonder) bonus itself.

Just a small note (while agreeing with everything you said): I was referring to Civ V Petra, not VI (haven't played that game long enough). A Civ V Petra in a desert start city with a lot of hills could be extremely gamebreaking. But it was also a lot of fun.

 

[aelf]

It's strange, but I can't stop playing. In some sense, yes, each game isn't too different from another, but it was that way on higher difficulties in Civ6 too. So is Civ7 any worse? No, in my opinion.

But what you build does make a difference. I've played a game where I did something different from the usual (i.e. not trying for scientific legacy paths), and that had real consequences on how the game turned out. Could I still win? Yes. Is that a bad thing? Frankly, no. If you punish players from deviating from a standard strategy, that would limit play styles. At the same time, there are still trade offs, like I wasn't able to even research half the techs in the age, which meant I couldn't do some things I normally did.

I agree, though, that wonders and natural wonders are underwhelming. There are a handful of good wonders, but the rest are just slightly souped up buildings. On the plus side, they seem a lot quicker to build.

 

[Siptah]

I agree, though, that wonders and natural wonders are underwhelming. There are a handful of good wonders, but the rest are just slightly souped up buildings. On the plus side, they seem a lot quicker to build.

Wonders are less impactful and generally much cheaper, which goes somewhat hand in hand. I think this is also a consequence of the civ-associated wonders. In two years, there will be so many wonders available in each age (every tech or civic will have one at some point), making them more impactful would turn the game into a game that revolves much more about wonders than about anything else. Yet, I also feel the downside as there is much less of an emotional reward for completing these kinds of wonders.

 

[beorn]

I'm enjoying the game a lot more than you are. In fact, add me to the group reporting that report that they can't stop playing.

However

The decisions that you make including late age buildings, units and policies need to affect not just the crisis but also the next age.

This I agree with. While I very much like the impact of the ages on the beginning of the second and third age, I do not like the impact on the end of the ages. Those parts of the game become very "board gamey" with attention to stuff that draws me out of history and my "leader of a nation" role and devolves into doing dumb stuff for points. With a sense that none of it matters beyond the points, the end-of-age will erase it all.

 

[aelf]

Wonders are less impactful and generally much cheaper, which goes somewhat hand in hand. I think this is also a consequence of the civ-associated wonders. In two years, there will be so many wonders available in each age (every tech or civic will have one at some point), making them more impactful would turn the game into a game that revolves much more about wonders than about anything else. Yet, I also feel the downside as there is much less of an emotional reward for completing these kinds of wonders.

Some are still really good, though. Like Angkor Wat is pretty awesome, and of course Gate of Nations. Maybe House of Wisdom if you're going heavy on relics?

Once I'm done with all the achievements for building civ-related wonders, I imagine I'll be beelining for a few almost all the time.

 

[Siptah]

Some are still really good, though. Like Angkor Wat is pretty awesome, and of course Gate of Nations. Maybe House of Wisdom if you're going heavy on relics?

Once I'm done with all the achievements for building civ-related wonders, I imagine I'll be beelining for a few almost all the time.

Yeah, agreed. Some are really good (or at least really good under specific circumstances). House of Wisdom, Nalanda, Great Stele, Angkor, Emile Bell, El Escorial, Weyang, etc are all worth their cost and much more if you are playing accordingly, and make sense to beeline for even.

 

[StargazingDog]

I definitely still have the "one more game" syndrome.

I think the biggest issue for me at the moment is the balanced biomes; it doesn't feel different to start in tundra vs desert vs plains, and that contributes to this feeling of every game being similar.

I played a game as Catherine and thought, "tundra start will be tough". Nope. Felt like any other game. It's difficult to even know what terrain is tundra. It all looks and feels the same. A tundra city in previous games felt like a city in the tundra.

 

[StargazingDog]

Those parts of the game become very "board gamey" with attention to stuff that draws me out of history and my "leader of a nation" role and devolves into doing dumb stuff for points. With a sense that none of it matters beyond the points, the end-of-age will erase it all.

I feel like a broken record as this point, but you don't have to do this. Just play through game as you normally would. That said, I suspect if a civilization was falling apart as the ages attempt to replicate, the government and citizens would certainly behave in a short-term minded fashion.

 

[CGPanama]

Part of it is also how quickly and vastly yields can change. On one turn, i'm making 167 science per turn and five turns later it is over 300. No idea how it jumped so rapidly

True. I rarely even look at yields, and occasionally late game will compare all of the leaders yields at the top of the screen, and they will generally look close (each ahead in some areas but behind in others). But despite that it seems without effort I can carry those yields to a victory.

 

[CGPanama]

Anyway, I have the feeling that all the "impact" is cut out of the game because it's a boardgame. Imagine playing a boardgame night with 6 players. You don't want the Isabella player to start with a significant advantage. The problem is that these imbalanced advantages are a lot of fun in a single player game. They define the Spanish civilization. And this also applies to awesome UU like the Keshiks, Camel Archers or UBs that define the style you play significantly. Or think of Petra, you could wrap a whole game around building it and earn insane yields.

You raise a great point. Is this version of Civilization designed more for multi-player. I rarely play MP (occasionally with a friend or my daughter). Maybe the evening out of advantages is to make MP more interesting at the cost of single player. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Edit: while thinking about I realized it's all aspects of the game. You can basically found your city anywhere, the differences are a joke compared to (for example) Civ V. Everything works, Tundra, Desert, Coast, whatever. There is no joy in starting on a desert floodplains salt area as those do not exist. There are no missing strategic resources because it would be unfair to the other boardgame players if they lack oil. There is nothing that has a truly big effect on your game, it's all a flatline.

I forgot to mention the biomes, but yes that is another feature that just blends together. When I see a build that calls for jungle or desert I have to stop and search to see if I even have one in my area.

 

[evonannoredars]

I definitely still have the "one more game" syndrome.


I played a game as Catherine and thought, "tundra start will be tough". Nope. Felt like any other game. It's difficult to even know what terrain is tundra. It all looks and feels the same. A tundra city in previous games felt like a city in the tundra.

I feel like having an attributes-like system for terrain couldve been interesting, with specific yields/lack of yields for different terrains. No default gold on desert unless you're Egypt/Hatshepsut/Songhai/etc, then +2. The base yields that different terrain types have are really small compared to the yields you'll be stacking on top of them, although jungle towns will have a bit more science, it's too little to be obviously more science-y and affect gameplay.