Civ 7 and Ara: A Cross Comparison 100 hours in.

[KayAU]

I've played it for the first time a few days ago.

My laptop can only run the first 'chapter' and that's a shame because I actually greatly enjoy the game lol. The Production system is a bit daunting at first, but the learning curve isn't really that steep. I've noticed that key items like tools are automatically equipped in your production buildings now, which is very neat. A lot of the tedious micro that existed at launch no longer appears to be there. Ara is basically Civ-flavoured Anno, in that the Civ aspects provide context for what is ultitmately an economic city builder, but you can also just... ignore all of that and craft at leisure. Which is exactly what you can do in Anno as well.

My main (and honestly, only) gripe with it is that for a game that looks so mediocre graphically, it somehow has higher system requirements than the very gorgeous and polished-looking Civilization VII.

I'm glad you're enjoying it. Have you tried playing on a small map size? It seems to help with CPU load, at least. Since they shrunk the regions, every map type is effectively twice as large from a gameplay point of view, so small isn't really all that small anymore.

I think the graphics are lovely, but since this thread was about comparing Civ 7 and Ara, I am a bit curious about how people feel about Civ 7's visuals. From some screenshots I've seen, I really like how it looks, and I'm not sure which one I like better.

I've posted several screenshots over in the Ara: History Untold screenshot thread. I particularly appreciate that it looks good at all zoom levels. One of my gripes with Humankind, which got a lot of praise for its visuals, is that the moment you zoom out to a playable distance, everything gets covered in overlays and text. The game looks good in screenshots, but in actual gameplay, I spend most of my time looking at the overlays.

 

[j51]

Civs graphics, not the UI, but the map and buildings and units is honestly the best it’s ever looked. Maybe the best of any 4x game. It’s gorgeous. Zooming in on stuff is a joy. They really nailed the feel of little dioramas in museums that they were going for. It’s not as legible at a glance as Civ 6 is, but it looks so good it doesn’t matter. The map graphics are maybe the only part of the game where they achieved the ambitious goal they set for themselves.

 

[KayAU]

Yeah, I really like the screenshots I've seen. One point I forgot to mention in Ara's favor, is that you have less restrictive camera movement than in most games of this type. You have a good zoom range, free rotation, and some tilt control. You also have a lot to zoom in on, with a large number of citizens walking around doing things, and visual variety as things are placed into irregularly shaped zones and regions.

Interestingly, I think both games were going for for the "diorama" idea, and ended up in slightly different places. Civ 7 to me does indeed look like those museum dioramas, while Ara reminds me more of a traditional city builder in how it looks.

Both are good looking to me. Ara seems to have more going on on the map, but Civ 7 may just win out for looking more polished overall. The benefit of a much higher production budget, perhaps, and maybe partially for having regular hexes to work with. I think I would have to play it myself to decide which I like better in terms of visuals.

 

[KayAU]

Just a quick notification that they are doing a free trial of Ara this weekend, and that it is also on 50% sale, which after the base price was reduce, makes it the lowest price it's ever been.

The game has been steadily improved, with recent updates greatly reducing unnecessary micro. This is reflected in user reviews, and all time reviews on Steam are now finally in the "Mostly Positive" category. The game is the best it's ever been, and there are more updates coming which should improve it even further.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Played a few hours of the free trial. I am really liking the game so far. It is different than civ in some areas but also feels very civ in other areas. By that I mean, there are mechanics like the regions, city-builder style economic model and abstract battles that remind you that it is not civ. But mechanics like choosing one civ/leader and playing from ancient age to modern age as well as the general 4x elements of exploring, expanding with new cities, meeeting tribes and other civs, researching techs, feels very civ. I would describe Ara as a hybrid of classic civ and a city-builder sim.

I think the prestige victory condition in Ara is better than the legacy paths in civ7. In Ara, you earn prestige by doing great things and there is a mechanic where the civ in last place at the end of an Act transition is eliminated. It really captures the sense of building a great civ that stands the test of time since you are earning points for doing great things and if you don't get enough, your civ is forgotten. And it is much more sandbox than civ7's legacy paths which are very limited. I also really like that in Ara, you pick one historical leader/civ and play from ancient age to modern age. I prefer that to the civ-switching and age transitions in civ7.

I also think that regions are better than hexes. As you improve a zone in a region, the map looks more natural, more lived in. I think Ara does "urban sprawl" better than civ7. It certainly looks prettier.

But I think civ7 does diplomacy better than Ara. In civ7, you have more choices and more interactions. Ara's diplomacy could be fleshed out more imo.

Also, while 1upt is controversial, I think a lot of civ players probably prefer the more hands-on combat in civ7 than the abstract combat in Ara. Personally, I don't mind the abstract battles in Ara because I am not a big fan of 1upt. I feel like they tend to devolve into a lot of micro of sliding units around and the tactics tend to be superficial. I like how Ara let's you combine units into batallions and select formations and tactics to influence how your units fight. I also like the reserve mechanic where you can put units in reserve to save maintenance when you are not at war and then bring the units out of reserve when they are needed.

I also like casus belli mechanic in Ara where you can select a war of expansion and pick your target. It gives a sense of purpose to war rather than warmongering for its own sake.