Am I the only one feeling like the Civ count is getting in the way of replayability?

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

Good point, the Shawnees need a more natural predecessor than Egypt (for navigable rivers).

I wonder if there should be a way to add or edit the baises you start with in advanced options. Give someone a river bias because you want to go into someone else in the next era.

Mississippian does have a river bias which is apparently different then a navigable river bias. I had not thought about that. I guess it makes sense from the perspective of abilities despite being named after a river famous for being navigable.

 

[queenpea]

I want a more natural lead in to Incas that has a mountain bias.

They could also do with a better exit strategy than Inca --> Nepal.

Nepal looks super fun to play with though, just haven't had the chance.

 

[MutilationWave]

I wonder if there should be a way to add or edit the baises you start with in advanced options. Give someone a river bias because you want to go into someone else in the next era.

Mississippian does have a river bias which is apparently different then a navigable river bias. I had not thought about that. I guess it makes sense from the perspective of abilities despite being named after a river famous for being navigable.

Yeah they had to pick a name for the people that built Cahokia. Around here we called them the mound builders. There's literally a large burial mound two miles from my house. Maybe mound builders was too generic, and/or it didn't appropriately describe the people of Cahokia.

 

[Krikkit1]

Yeah they had to pick a name for the people that built Cahokia. Around here we called them the mound builders. There's literally a large burial mound two miles from my house. Maybe mound builders was too generic, and/or it didn't appropriately describe the people of Cahokia.

Well that wasn't firaxis picking that name, but archaeologists that named the Mississippian culture.

They could also do with a better exit strategy than Inca --> Nepal.

Nepal looks super fun to play with though, just haven't had the chance.

Inca->Nepal is fine...choosing "bonus type" v. "regional successor" is a reasonable amount of variation.
(they just need a non-Mountain focused regional successor for Inca)


They should either...
1 have Tecumseh have a Nav. River bias
OR
2. let players give a 1 Terrain* Bias (that is stronger than the default terrain bias*)

*here talking about biases that are not Resource/Natural Wonder

 

[Leucarum]

The low civ count per era was one of my biggest worries in the previews. What I hadn't reckoned with was how the modern era was structured to discourage using your civ's uniques and beeline victory instead. I also hadn't realised how the AI following historic paths would worsen the diversity you could get from mixing and matching.

I appreciate the more in depth and varied civs but firaxis might have shot themselves in the foot with how few there are...

 

[marius_kaparius]

I feel like the quickest fix for Civ 7 (other than the UI) for the group that doesn’t like it are:
1. An option to leave armies where they were on the map / unlock retention with Miltary Legacy for the total war crowd that doesn’t want to start boxing from their corner each round
2. A historical precursor/successor for each exploration Civ

How viable these are I don’t know. At least the solution for #2 gives them something to sell so they might go for it while drawing fresh cynicism

 

[JNR13]

Ideally, civ games don't just rely on playing different civs for replayability for me. Civ III had 16 civs at launch, with barely anything to set them apart. You get more uniqueness with the leader picks in VII alone. And yet, I played that game a lot.

I think VII's weakness is more about a lack of sense of place. A big factor is that all terrains feel the same. All cities develop roughly the same. One thing I absolutely love about Civ VI, admittedly enhanced further by mods, is that every tile has a story. "Why is this thing here?" "Well, it all started when I had to make space for the Forbidden Palace. But then I had to move this city so it would stay within six tiles of the new Entertainment Complex location. Oh, by the way, I also wanted a Farm triangle, you see..." The adjacency system was great to anchor a tile's identity in its environment. The Campus can't just be switched with the Industrial Zone. Both were deliberately placed exactly where they are and everything else around them relates to it.

It's already what turned me off Humankind where you just paint cities across the map, rendering terrain meaningless about 50 turns into the game. In Civ VII, we now just farm tundra, grass, and desert alike. We cover up our rivers. All tiles are flat now. And so everything ends up the same. "Why is this thing here and not there?" "Idk, I had to put it *somewhere* and this was one of three tiles with the highest number."

 

[uppi]

I also hadn't realised how the AI following historic paths would worsen the diversity you could get from mixing and matching.

There are many more leaders than civs each age. So I feel that if every leader followed a strict path, there would be enough variation anyway and might even enhance their identity. I would also not mind a mode where they were free to pick whatever, but would pick something that would fit their playstyle / current situation. Instead, we have this weird middle ground, where the leaders sometimes follow a path and sometimes go completely off the rails and choose something that does not make sense in any aspect (Like someone will invariably and inexplicably go Shawnee, because it is an easy unlock and there is little competition for it). And no-one is really happy with it.

 

[Leucarum]

There are many more leaders than civs each age. So I feel that if every leader followed a strict path, there would be enough variation anyway and might even enhance their identity. I would also not mind a mode where they were free to pick whatever, but would pick something that would fit their playstyle / current situation. Instead, we have this weird middle ground, where the leaders sometimes follow a path and sometimes go completely off the rails and choose something that does not make sense in any aspect (Like someone will invariably and inexplicably go Shawnee, because it is an easy unlock and there is little competition for it). And no-one is really happy with it.

This seems to make a solid argument for a setup option about leaders following historical paths or not... I'd also add in a setup option for unlocking all civs automatically for all civs honestly... I think the unlock paths have mostly been a failure

 

[Yzman]

There are many more leaders than civs each age. So I feel that if every leader followed a strict path, there would be enough variation anyway and might even enhance their identity. I would also not mind a mode where they were free to pick whatever, but would pick something that would fit their playstyle / current situation. Instead, we have this weird middle ground, where the leaders sometimes follow a path and sometimes go completely off the rails and choose something that does not make sense in any aspect (Like someone will invariably and inexplicably go Shawnee, because it is an easy unlock and there is little competition for it). And no-one is really happy with it.

They seem to always go with their preferred unless it is not available when they get to choose. And the player always chooses first.

 

[Picrasso]

Ideally, civ games don't just rely on playing different civs for replayability for me. Civ III had 16 civs at launch, with barely anything to set them apart. You get more uniqueness with the leader picks in VII alone. And yet, I played that game a lot.

I think VII's weakness is more about a lack of sense of place. A big factor is that all terrains feel the same. All cities develop roughly the same. One thing I absolutely love about Civ VI, admittedly enhanced further by mods, is that every tile has a story. "Why is this thing here?" "Well, it all started when I had to make space for the Forbidden Palace. But then I had to move this city so it would stay within six tiles of the new Entertainment Complex location. Oh, by the way, I also wanted a Farm triangle, you see..." The adjacency system was great to anchor a tile's identity in its environment. The Campus can't just be switched with the Industrial Zone. Both were deliberately placed exactly where they are and everything else around them relates to it.

It's already what turned me off Humankind where you just paint cities across the map, rendering terrain meaningless about 50 turns into the game. In Civ VII, we now just farm tundra, grass, and desert alike. We cover up our rivers. All tiles are flat now. And so everything ends up the same. "Why is this thing here and not there?" "Idk, I had to put it *somewhere* and this was one of three tiles with the highest number."

This is something Firaxis will probably pick up in DLC. The aim of base Civ VII is to simplify the game. That should make it a great game for new players to enter the genre. I expect things will get more complex with new mechanics coming for terrain and placement of buildings. Right now for instance there's no bonus whatsoever for buildings being in the city center. That was one of the things I was looking for in my first game: 'I have a building slot in my center, does it matter which building I place in it?' Sadly, it doesn't.

Same goes for religion and probably some other systems that are underdeveloped right now. Civ VII will become a great game, just like 5 and 6. Civ 6 did feel more like a complete package at game launch tho.

 

[Calcifer]

Ideally, civ games don't just rely on playing different civs for replayability for me. Civ III had 16 civs at launch, with barely anything to set them apart. You get more uniqueness with the leader picks in VII alone. And yet, I played that game a lot.

I think VII's weakness is more about a lack of sense of place. A big factor is that all terrains feel the same. All cities develop roughly the same. One thing I absolutely love about Civ VI, admittedly enhanced further by mods, is that every tile has a story. "Why is this thing here?" "Well, it all started when I had to make space for the Forbidden Palace. But then I had to move this city so it would stay within six tiles of the new Entertainment Complex location. Oh, by the way, I also wanted a Farm triangle, you see..." The adjacency system was great to anchor a tile's identity in its environment. The Campus can't just be switched with the Industrial Zone. Both were deliberately placed exactly where they are and everything else around them relates to it.

It's already what turned me off Humankind where you just paint cities across the map, rendering terrain meaningless about 50 turns into the game. In Civ VII, we now just farm tundra, grass, and desert alike. We cover up our rivers. All tiles are flat now. And so everything ends up the same. "Why is this thing here and not there?" "Idk, I had to put it *somewhere* and this was one of three tiles with the highest number."

Strange, I find city planning in civ 7 just as engaging as it was in civ 6.
You now have to make some interesting choices:
- with how cities now have to be continuous, sometimes the tiles with highest adjacency won’t be easily reachable and you’ll choose to build on worse adjacency tiles that are in reach.
- building sharing the same adjacency bonus means that you can choose to prioritize production over science, or culture over happiness, and so on.
- the town/city balancing adds another layer of planning on a wider scale.

If could go on and on, there’s unique infrastructure, warehouse buildings, navigable rivers, that’s plenty of factors and nuances that make me feel like I’m actually playing the map.

 

[Leucarum]

Strange, I find city planning in civ 7 just as engaging as it was in civ 6.
You now have to make some interesting choices:
- with how cities now have to be continuous, sometimes the tiles with highest adjacency won’t be easily reachable and you’ll choose to build on worse adjacency tiles that are in reach.
- building sharing the same adjacency bonus means that you can choose to prioritize production over science, or culture over happiness, and so on.
- the town/city balancing adds another layer of planning on a wider scale.

If could go on and on, there’s unique infrastructure, warehouse buildings, navigable rivers, that’s plenty of factors and nuances that make me feel like I’m actually playing the map.

I do agree... Now.

At first though, It really felt shallow and like I should be doing what the tooltips suggested to me. It took a while for me to click which adjacencies worked best together, to have wonder placements memorized enough that I could plan where I'd want them, etc... And the UI, while it has gotten better, still does Civ7 no favours in this regard. City placement is fun and deep but it doesn't tell you so many things.

 

[Calcifer]

I do agree... Now.

At first though, I really felt shallow and like I should be doing what the tooltips suggested to me. It took a while for me to click which adjacencies worked best together, to have wonder placements memorized enough that I could plan where I'd want them, etc... And the UI, while it has gotten better, still does Civ7 no favours in this regard. City placement is fun and deep but it doesn't tell you so many things.

Yeah I miss map tacks too. Hopefully they are coming in civ 7 at some point.

 

[queenpea]

Yeah I miss map tacks too. Hopefully they are coming in civ 7 at some point.

I can see why they weren’t ready for launch—there is a huge number of buildings, and creating individual tacks might be a challenge.

For whatever reason, city planning hasn’t really been emphasized it seems to me. City specialization as well seems like a less appealing strategy than just making mega cities which are good at everything.

 

[j51]

Yeah it’s cool that there is all these subtleties to the new style district system but really you don’t need to do it right now. You can just make mega cities as queenpea says. I don’t mind too much though because I’ve never really been into districts though.

Aside: TSL still doesn’t make sense to me with the scale of the game. I stopped playing true world and regional maps with 6. I honestly don’t understand the people complaining about no tsl for 7. You were ok playing a map where London covered 2/3s of Britain and maybe even Calais?

 

[queenpea]

Yeah it’s cool that there is all these subtleties to the new style district system but really you don’t need to do it right now. You can just make mega cities as queenpea says. I don’t mind too much though because I’ve never really been into districts though.

Aside: TSL still doesn’t make sense to me with the scale of the game. I stopped playing true world and regional maps with 6. I honestly don’t understand the people complaining about no tsl for 7. You were ok playing a map where London covered 2/3s of Britain and maybe even Calais?

I don’t see how TSL would work at all outside of Antiquity civs. To get London as your capital in Modern, it may be located in Italy or Greece on the map assuming you started Rome or Greece in antiquity.

 

[Menocchio]

I can see why they weren’t ready for launch—there is a huge number of buildings, and creating individual tacks might be a challenge.

For whatever reason, city planning hasn’t really been emphasized it seems to me. City specialization as well seems like a less appealing strategy than just making mega cities which are good at everything.

The more I play, the more the conundrum of city specialisation raises its head. It's a bit of a letdown that mega-cities that build every single building are completely the norm; when I started playing it felt as though there were tons of things you could do in cities, but now it feels that there's just not enough choice at all. It also increasingly seems a bit awkward to me that—in Antiquity and Exploration at least—there are buildings you unlock only at the very very end of the tech tree. Is there anyone out there who wants to beeline Menageries or Pavilions?

On one hand, I'd like for there to be more buildings to choose from where there are few right now: ones that go on Coast and Rivers. On the other, I suspect that adding even more buildings would probably cause less choice analysis and instead would make mega-cities just take longer to get set up.

 

[MutilationWave]

Yeah I miss map tacks too. Hopefully they are coming in civ 7 at some point.

Just in case you weren't aware, this is extremely well done-

W

wltk's Detailed Map Tacks

Mar 27, 2025

Allow placing map tacks and display yields from the map tacks.

• wltk
• map tacks qol ui mod
• Civ 7 - UI Mods

 

[Krikkit1]

I don’t see how TSL would work at all outside of Antiquity civs. To get London as your capital in Modern, it may be located in Italy or Greece on the map assuming you started Rome or Greece in antiquity.

That is one thing they Really need to change, you should be able to relocate your capital to any settlement in your empire big enough to make a city. Picking America as a civ because I had settlements in the DL would make more sense if my new Capital was In the DL. (which can now be my homeland)