60 hours in, my main issues with the game

[DocRock]

I hit the 60 hour mark and I think I might stop at this point, waiting for some major improvements. Overall, I'd rate it a 7/10 at the current state. I had my fair share of fun, but the game gets stale pretty fast. My current issues:

1. There needs to be way to decide where towns send their food. The mechanic is good, but it's always a gamble where the food is sent. Furthermore, with the fresh water mechanic, you are very limited on your city placement. So very often it happens that your towns are not sending their food to the city you want to, making them pretty much completely useless (besides resources + gold). No, Merchants don't fix this in 90% of the cases. I don't understand why there isn't an option to choose where to send it. And if it's too far away, put a % of waste on it depending on the range (for example at 15 tiles range only 50% will arrive).

2. The game is developed too safe. There need to be new mechanics for unique factions. Think Warhammer, think Endless Legend. There should have been a Privateer faction in Act 2. Maybe a Horde faction without real cities for Mongolia. Currently, it's all pretty much the same. Yea I get it, "but you can get 5 more science with that combination". How about I don't care about 5 whatever, I want fun and diverse factions.

3. The UI is a general concern, but it is such a letdown that they released it in such a state. I lost several towns because a OP barb galley destroyed them and I NEVER received a message about that. I don't understand why they took the "quick combat" out of the game, it was so great to have the CHOICE to see all combats after you hit end turn. Now you are forced to check on all your troops and cities after each turn. I once thought that happened because of consoles, but after reading how bad (even worse than on PC) the game is on consoles, I simply don't know why they did this. There are so much small aspects that lack testing, why don't why get a note that we didn't spend our attribute points for example?

4. The game is not finished and rushed. It's so obvious and several icons point you to the "next phase" in modern. There is no score at the end, no high score list, no recap, nothing. They could have put it in a "please wait 6 months and then pay 50 Euro for a DLC here" sign, it would be more honest.

That's basically it. I think my main gripe it that it all feels the same. I played my first real game with Confuzius of the Maya. I tried starting another one with Charlemagne but it was exactly the same. Sure, there are nuances, you get more of specialists on the one hand and more Cav on the other. But where's the difference? It's not like I'm not building specialists with Charlemagne. And the Cav? What's that, like 1000g for 2 Cav? I ran 6 Cavs with Confuzius, too, because why not? Gold is abundant. It's not like you build 2 settlement with one faction and 20 with another. You ALWAYS build max settlements regardless of whatever you are playing. Leaders have no personality, it's not like you meat Shaka and know you are in for a tough ride. They are all only stat figures with 0 personality. Diplomacy comes down to Influence Points. Oh you denounced me because I attacked you? Haha, I got some influence points so I negate this completely. Religion? Don't get me started. Worst implementation ever. Ideologies? Oh wow, 6 science instead of 6 food. There are generally no consequences for anything. Yea some more points somewhere on a table. Narrative events.. does anyone reads them? Give me the 45 science, thx bb. They do not offer anything that reflects your game anyway.

Civ devolved from a simulation of an empire with living pop to a boardgame. I do love Civ. I'm not big a fan of character driven strategy RPGs like CK3. But it would be great to have some connection to the nation and pops you are playing somehow.

Anyway, see you in 6-12 months. If you like the game this is not meant to influence you in any way. Just needed some closure. Enjoy the game.

 

[Bast]

I played my first real game with Confuzius of the Maya. I tried starting another one with Charlemagne but it was exactly the same. Sure, there are nuances, you get more of specialists on the one hand and more Cav on the other. But where's the difference?

That is exactly what I'm worried about. In the end with Civ 6, I played a lot of Poland, Hungary and England (with Victoria). Poland had a unique playing style that forced you to do things like build forts to culture bomb and look for relics, Hungary also was unique with the city states, and Victoria I could role play with industrialization and colonization. I felt different playing them and I felt like I was living those characters and those nations. I'm afraid I'm not going to get this with Civ 7. I'm particularly worried about how the civs (by breaking them into ages) have lacked that personality or uniqueness, it's just a phase you go through. I don't mind ages, I just wish that they had consequences and narrative behind going from one civ to another. I actually think that but breaking it up into ages, you lose that uniqueness of playing through with one civ throughout the game.

 

[evonannoredars]

I imagine with time the civs that they add will become more interesting, they said in one of the livestreams iirc that with time and experience working on the game they get a better understanding of how to bend and break the rules of the game, which is evident imo in how in previous games the more unique and interesting civs have come post-launch.
As for leaders having no personality, I strongly disagree. I've met Xerxes several times right next to me, and I always know I'm going to go to war with him sooner or later. Napoleon is usually friendly with me but will drag me into six wars if I ally myself with him. They still have personality, they're just not visibly caricatured as they were in civ 6.

 

[Bast]

I imagine with time the civs that they add will become more interesting, they said in one of the livestreams iirc that with time and experience working on the game they get a better understanding of how to bend and break the rules of the game, which is evident imo in how in previous games the more unique and interesting civs have come post-launch.
As for leaders having no personality, I strongly disagree. I've met Xerxes several times right next to me, and I always know I'm going to go to war with him sooner or later. Napoleon is usually friendly with me but will drag me into six wars if I ally myself with him. They still have personality, they're just not visibly caricatured as they were in civ 6.

That's promising.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I imagine with time the civs that they add will become more interesting, they said in one of the livestreams iirc that with time and experience working on the game they get a better understanding of how to bend and break the rules of the game, which is evident imo in how in previous games the more unique and interesting civs have come post-launch.

Fully agree. There wasn't much difference between the civs in vanilla 6 either, but with time and the addition of new mechanics, they were able to be much more creative with abilities.

I fully expect the same to happen in VII, especially since there is a ton of room for new mechanics. I don't think the problem at the moment is the civs or Ages, it's more a lack of mechanics. E.g. culture in Exploration is currently only about getting relics; if they add to this, then there is more scope for Exploration culture civs to feel and play differently.
I believe there is a lot of potential. Rome in VII is easily the best representation of Rome in a Civ game, it's great.

 

[Vennlig]

I kind of agree with the main thrust of all your points but I am still enjoying the game anyway (apart from religion ). Yes some things should probably have been a bit more polished before launch but if your top 5 complaints are about where towns send food and the UI then this should be easily fixed in patches - the fundamentals are solid. While the UI is definitely massively infuriating I almost feel it has become a bit of a meme. Yes I don't like it but it is easy to get the impression that it is sooo terrible that the game is unplayable and I think that is a bit unfair.

Diplomacy comes down to Influence Points. Oh you denounced me because I attacked you? Haha, I got some influence points so I negate this completely.

On this point I strongly disagree I really like the diplomacy system. from my games influence is scarce enough that you have to choose where you use it, if you save it for a denouncement then you don't have it to convert a city state or start an endeavour or boost war support. Hopefully they can keep the balance as they add more content

 

[UWHabs]

I kind of agree with the main thrust of all your points but I am still enjoying the game anyway (apart from religion ). Yes some things should probably have been a bit more polished before launch but if your top 5 complaints are about where towns send food and the UI then this should be easily fixed in patches - the fundamentals are solid. While the UI is definitely massively infuriating I almost feel it has become a bit of a meme. Yes I don't like it but it is easy to get the impression that it is sooo terrible that the game is unplayable and I think that is a bit unfair.


On this point I strongly disagree I really like the diplomacy system. from my games influence is scarce enough that you have to choose where you use it, if you save it for a denouncement then you don't have it to convert a city state or start an endeavour or boost war support. Hopefully they can keep the balance as they add more content

My only caveat now is that I'm still not sure on what the balance between using influence to do espionage vs using it for endeavours vs using it on CS. But that seems like a good set of choices, it's not an obvious thing in every game.

 

[Krajzen]

The annoying aspect of civ designs getting more interesting over time is how this means the most important civilizations in history (China, India, Arabs, Persia, Greeks, Rome, European colonial empires etc) always get the most boring designs

 

[Vennlig]

My only caveat now is that I'm still not sure on what the balance between using influence to do espionage vs using it for endeavours vs using it on CS. But that seems like a good set of choices, it's not an obvious thing in every game.

Yeah I was actually thinking about that when I was writing It is true, I have not explored the espionage side of things so much yet (but I am still in the figuring out the game phase )

 

[Vennlig]

The annoying aspect of civ designs getting more interesting over time is how this means the most important civilizations in history (China, India, Arabs, Persia, Greeks, Rome, European colonial empires etc) always get the most boring designs

Yeah I think this is potentially the blessing in disguise from the negative reaction they got from Britain being pushed to DLC. Hopefully in the long run it will be a positive thing and they have a more interesting design (and not them just being cut from the base game to sell DLC )

 

[StargazingDog]

There needs to be way to decide where towns send their food. The mechanic is good, but it's always a gamble where the food is sent

There doesn't seem to be a gamble. Towns send food, divided evenly, to every directly connected city, whether it's via road or the sea. If your town isn't automatically connected, you can use a merchant to manually build a road, or a Quay for sea lanes.