🌍 Why Civilization VII Feels Disconnected Compared to Civilization V

[chrisgatt7]

Why Civilization VII Feels Disconnected Compared to Civilization V

I’ve been a long-time Civilization fan, and for me, Civilization V nailed the feeling of leading a nation through history. Every decision carried weight, every era felt like progress, and diplomacy, trade, religion, economy, city-states, and resources combined into an immersive journey across millennia. Civilization VII, by contrast, feels like a step back in many of those areas. While it has fresh visuals and some bold ideas, the game fails to capture that sense of guiding a civilization across the ages. Here’s why:

1. The Era Reset Breaks Immersion​

• Civ VII splits the game into Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern, essentially “resetting” your civilization every era.
• Alliances, grudges, and history don’t carry forward in a meaningful way.
• In Civ V, continuity mattered — betray someone in 2000 BC, and they remembered in 1800 AD. That made diplomacy feel alive and personal.

2. Diplomacy and Trade Are the Weakest They’ve Ever Been​

• Deals feel like clicking through menus, not negotiating with nations.
• Leaders face off in awkward, theatrical debates that feel forced and artificial.
• The system puts the spotlight on characters instead of civilizations.
• Trade is sterile: just number swaps, with no geography, routes, or risk. In Civ V, trade caravans tied directly to the map, creating stories and stakes.

3. Leaders Overshadow Civilizations​

• Civ VII makes leaders the main attraction, rather than civilizations.
• In Civ V, leaders were ambassadors framed in cultural environments (palaces, temples, war tents) that reminded you they represented nations.
• In Civ VII, it feels like a duel of personalities rather than the story of empires.

4. Weak Leader Selection​

• Example: America is represented by Harriet Tubman. While heroic, she was never a head of state or nation-builder.
• Compared to Washington (Civ V), who embodied America’s foundation and global rise, Tubman feels mismatched.
• Across the roster, Civ VII favors reformers or symbolic figures over iconic leaders like Napoleon, Caesar, or Shaka, who defined civilizations’ global impact.
• This weakens national identity and immersion.

5. Religion Is an Afterthought​

• In Civ V, religion was a major strategic layer: founding faiths, spreading influence, shaping diplomacy, and waging religious wars.
• In Civ VII, religion feels shallow and optional, with almost no impact on strategy.
• The spiritual and cultural depth of empire-building is gone.

6. Economy Is Broken​

• By midgame, you’re drowning in gold with nothing meaningful to spend it on.
• There are almost no financial trade-offs or strategic choices.
• In Civ V, money mattered — unit upkeep, building maintenance, and trade income forced you to manage resources carefully.

7. No Strategic Resources​

• Strategic resources like iron, coal, oil, and uranium were core to Civ V’s tension.
• Controlling them shaped wars, alliances, and expansion. You couldn’t just spam tanks or battleships without supply.
• Civ VII removes this entirely, stripping away one of the most immersive and strategic aspects of empire-building.

8. No Information Era (and Beyond)​

• Civ VII stops at the Modern Era, leaving out the Information Era and future-tech stretch that gave Civ V such an epic endgame.
• The late game in Civ V had satellites, internet culture, space programs, and nuclear standoffs — the “sci-fi edge” of human history.
• Without that phase, Civ VII ends abruptly, robbing players of the sense of guiding humanity into the future.

9. Forced Modern Age Wars​

• In Civ VII, the Modern Age often triggers automatic world wars, meant to simulate WWI and WWII.
• While the idea is fine in theory, the execution feels forced and artificial because diplomacy is so weak and disconnected.
• Nations suddenly declare war without logical buildup or consistent reasons, breaking immersion.
• In Civ V, wars happened because of history, grudges, or resources — and when global conflicts erupted, they felt earned.

10. City-States Feel Soulless​

• In Civ V, city-states were vibrant: they had personalities, quests, unique bonuses, and could swing entire wars or strategies if you invested in them.
• They created diplomatic mini-games and added layers of choice — do you ally with them, conquer them, or ignore them?
• In Civ VII, city-states are bland and forgettable. I often barely notice they exist, and they add almost nothing to the strategic or narrative fabric of the game.
• This removes one of the most beloved “flavor systems” of the series.

The Core Problem​

Civ VII traded long-term immersion for speed and accessibility. Instead of guiding one civilization across millennia, you’re shuffling between eras, watching leader face-offs, fighting forced wars, and ignoring soulless city-states. With weaker leader choices, a hollow economy, no strategic resources, underdeveloped religion, the loss of the Information Era, and disconnected diplomacy, the grand narrative of nation-building is gone.

In short:
Civ V = Lead a civilization through thousands of years, balancing war, religion, economy, diplomacy, city-states, and resources into the Information Age.
Civ VII = Role-play a handful of leaders in disconnected snapshots, with shallow systems, forced wars, and empty side mechanics.

Final Thoughts​

Civilization VII isn’t without potential. Its visuals are polished, and Firaxis may expand or rebalance the systems over time. But as it stands, the game feels less like building a civilization and more like playing a personality-driven board game.
For players who crave the deep sense of nation-building and immersion — Civilization V remains the gold standard.

The real question is can Civilization 7 be saved ? or do we have to possibly wait 15+ years for Civilization 8

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

I'm at the point where for even Civ VIII to be saved it would need a name other than Firaxis on the box. I think the core issue is deeply embedded problems from understanding the audience, design, slow workflows right through to poor QA. They did a great job polishing a turd, but there's little else I can say positively about their work as a studio on this release and it leaves me with all the same feelings I had about the studio that I had about Bioware after ME3.

Time for a new studio to take on the challenge I think. Maybe a good one could even salvage Civ VII, but for me it's not just Civ VII that looks broken anymore, and I can't see a way they'd even get back to delivering on their winnings formula if they abandoned Civ switching and ages for the next game. Im convinced it would be dull, economically broken and bug riddled too

 

[chrisgatt7]

I'm at the point where for even Civ VIII to be saved it would need a name other than Firaxis on the box. I think the core issue is deeply embedded problems from understanding the audience, design, slow workflows right through to poor QA. They did a great job polishing a turd, but there's little else I can say positively about their work as a studio on this release and it leaves me with all the same feelings I had about the studio that I had about Bioware after ME3.

Time for a new studio to take on the challenge I think. Maybe a good one could even salvage Civ VII, but for me it's not just Civ VII that looks broken anymore, and I can't see a way they'd even get back to delivering on their winnings formula if they abandoned Civ switching and ages for the next game. Im convinced it would be dull, economically broken and bug riddled too

I agree and what does a game like Civ 8 even look like? would it be a further step back then Civ 7.

 

[Lanthar]

Agreed. Even VI, to me, felt too much like a modern boardgame with too many systems that mattered too little. In my opinion, the devs took VII in too many wrong directions - we've got a flat game with few meaningful decisions, less player agency and a disconnected experience each playthrough.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I find it a bit weird that you chose Civ V as the comparator, that was the version that really started the move to tiny "empires", IIRC 4 cities was optimal in V. It also brought us 1UPT and I remain convinced the consequences of that still haven't been figured out. I played less than a 100 hours of Civ V but managed to get nearly 400 out of VII.

 

[Metalz]

They should have called it Civilizations.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Do people geniunely forget how bare-bones Civ 5 was? Anyone remember Pacts of Secrecy?

 

[stealth_nsk]

That's one of those very biased polls we love so much. How about options like "Civ7 doesn't need saving", just normal work with patches?

 

[Gori the Grey]

Anyone remember Pacts of Secrecy?

I remember them vividly. My first game was as Greece. China offered me one against Japan. I wanted to look it up in the Civilopedia, to know what I would be getting into if I said yes, but I had to say no to quit out of diplomacy screen. I raced over to the Civiliopedia, to see what I should have answered. I found no explanation of Pacts of Secrecy. To this day I don't know what they were intended to be.

It's actually turned into a kind of fond gaming memory for me (since Civ V eventually righted the ship (including getting rid of Pacts of Secrecy) and became my favorite of the games).

But yes, that experience is burned into my memory.

 

[GeneralZift]

Civ5 is goated, it's the best. People hating on the fact that they might have to consider consequences of endless expansion.
Either the happiness or corruption or some mechanic needs to exist, or you get Civ6.

Spamming settlers to fill the map, then guess what? You have 40 minutes of micro to do every turn as you decide what each pointless useless city is doing. If you don't do spam like that, you'll get shafted by pure numbers.

There needs to be balance between wide gameplay and tall gameplay. They say Civ5 swung the pendulum too far one way, well Civ6 had no pendulum, you just have to play one way.
Civ7 said screw that, let's put in hard limits. Inelegant by my personal opinion but maybe it works.

There is a historical aspect to consider. Do you really think an empire spanning the size of the earth could sustain itself?
Isn't more interesting to face difficulties and trials if you play too hard one way?

Or perhaps the target audience really prefers a game where winning is the only gameplay.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I think it has been one of the biggest challenges for designers.

First, I think domination/conquest/military is the easiest of the victory conditions to envision, simply because it's "paint the map [color]." And it's how some people want to play, what defines "winning" at history: world conquest.

But, since terrain is crucial to the game, bigger is better, so a civ that gets an early military/territorial advantage is on its way to steamrolling militarily, unless there are some checks. So they've had corruption, health, happiness, etc.

Civ 5 had its particular approach to wide v tall. It allowed territorially small empires to have a chance at success, and even be better suited for science and culture. I'm actually impressed that they were able to achieve this balance. It did go a little too far in the direction of tall, so that at the end of the game, you wouldn't really feel your empire was a *thundering voice* EMPIRE.

After years of playing for science, I started playing for a domination victory, pretty much for that reason, so that my empire would be BIG. And I didn't mind the happiness check; it just became what I needed to manage in order to have success in that mode. (I mean I didn't mind it in general; it was often a PITA in particular cases).

But if you allow huge empires, the potential drawback is late-game micromanagement.

3 was the other one I played a lot of. Corruption meant that, in a small city founded late game, you might pretty much never build a single building. But that was ok. One way to get a domination victory there was just by covering 2/3 of the map, so if all your city did was take up space, well, it was getting you toward that goal. And you didn't have to manage it much because what it was going to produce wasn't critical to your success.

I got the sense that 7's towns were supposed to work that way: give you the sense that your empire is, territorially, big, without demanding much attention; you can pay your attention to what goes on in cities. If so, then that's a way of threading this map-coverage/micromanagement needle.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Civ7 is very, very different from Civ5... no question about it. But I would hasten to add that Civ5 is very, very different in its mechanics from Civs 1, 2, 3, and 4. The domination / military victory condition was fundamentally changed, from "paint the map" to "conquer these N cities." Like Noble Zarkon said, for the mechanics of Civ5, founding 4 cities was optimal. Just try to win a game of Civ3 or Civ4 while limiting yourself to only 4 cities! A wisecrack I often made to my Civ buddies in the early days of Civ5 was, "a realm of only 4 cities isn't an empire to stand the test of time. It's Ohio."

Indeed, the "make a decision early, pay for it all game" was one of the parts I liked less in Civ5. Social policies were like a ratchet, adopt once and change never. Unlike the civics of Civ4, which could be swapped and changed. Yes, Civ6 turned that up to 11, but Civ5 (even with both expansions) felt like it had just a few optimal choices to make, and all favored tall. Not being able to overcome warmonger hate... even after 1000 years ... nope, not a fan.

Yes, Civ7 dramatically changed ALL of the victory conditions. It did -- as the OP points out -- change the emphasis from a single faction / polity to a leader whose empire is a composite of 3 different cultures. I have viewed all of the Civ franchise games as empire builders, so in this sense Civ7 is still a civ game. I also love Beyond Earth, so perhaps my tastes are a little off. I welcomed the choices of leaders in Civ4. I welcomed the new leaders in Civ4, 5, and 6 that were different from those in Civ3 (where I have the most hours). I'm almost overwhelmed by the volume of leader choices in Civ6, since I did play all of the leaders/civs in Civ3. I'm looking forward to trying all of the new leaders in Civ7, over the course of its lifecycle. I'm still intrigued by. I do want a richer, more complex gameplay mechanic around religion, diplomacy, and trade. I appreciate the arguments others have made in other threads that Civ7 chose simplicity here. I would like to see some more complexity added.

Like Civ5 and Civ6 -- and Beyond Earth -- I expect the first expansion for Civ7 to make some important gameplay changes. Think back to how "Gods and Kings" changed Civ5 and "Rise and Fall" changed Civ6. I can't live without my aquatic cities in BE: Rising Tide. I expect the first Civ7 expansion to make it easier to play and win single-age or double-age games. Those who just love Antiquity will be able to stay there. I voted for "DLC" because that would include the expansions. I don't know what else will come through the expansions, but I *am* looking forward to them.