Civ VII Developer Update - August 2025 | Here's what to expect in tomorrow's 1.2.4 update...

[pjotroos]

Yeah, that was only one case where things seemed to get out of hand too easily, but there's definitely a turning point somewhere in the middle of the exploration age where it seems like things just explode. I do as best as I can, and often am in a great place, but I struggle to have enough cash to upgrade a 4th settlement to a city in antiquity, and if you get hit with the wrong crisis, you can actually be a little bit punished and just miss out on those last few pieces.

But in exploration, just about every game I get to the point where every few turns, I can just convert a settlement to a city and buy literally every building available for it, and then rinse and repeat that every few turns. I don't want to, but otherwise I don't know what to do with things. I don't want to buy 10 missionaries every turn and have to micro them, and it's not like the 6th army commander will do me any good either.

Aye, same. From mid-exploration on, every civilization feels like Civ VI Mali. I'd normally let that 20k+ gold go to waste, for precisely the same reasons, but now that's just going to be explorer or factory money in Modern.

 

[pjotroos]

Just to rant on a bit more - this is my current game, turn 14 of Modern, on Immortal, the moment I've unlocked factories. I've only hard-produced one railroad, everything else is gold-bought on the same turn:

Do we really need to snowball even harder?

And sure, I could play Deity, but Antiquity feels just about perfect on Immortal - and the times I did play Deity, you still snowball in the same way anyway.

 

[Krikkit1]

I agree that uncapped gold & silver discounts are part of the problem. The other part of the problem, though, is you having 3000 gold per turn in late Exploration & Modern, compared to 100-200 in Antiquity, but the prices not changing accordingly. I'm not forced into thinking what to buy & where. I can easily fill the map with Explorers by turn 15. I can buy multiple Railroads and Factories the turn they unlock. More gold carrying over, and more of the yield inflation coming from the recent changes, just means that unlocking Explorers and turn 2 and immediately buying several will just become the norm, and tuning gold & silver alone will not solve it.

The more changes to Continuity options there are, the more pushed I feel into going back to Regroup, even with all its stupid quirks, because otherwise there's no complexity left beyond Antiquity.

I think unit maintenance should probably go up significantly in later ages..instead of
Exploration 2-4 (+1 cav)
Modern 4-5 (+1 cav & hvy nav)
have it be
Exploration 3-7 (+2 cav)
Modern 8-15 (+3 cav&heavy nav)

possibly decrease Maintenance 25% for units in friendly territory and increase 50% for units in enemy territory or adjacent to a hostile unit.

And +- Maintenance abilities etc. can be per age.

 

[Siptah]

Just to rant on a bit more - this is my current game, turn 14 of Modern, on Immortal, the moment I've unlocked factories. I've only hard-produced one railroad, everything else is gold-bought on the same turn:
View attachment 740547
Do we really need to snowball even harder?

And sure, I could play Deity, but Antiquity feels just about perfect on Immortal - and the times I did play Deity, you still snowball in the same way anyway.

What would be your suggestion? It seems to me that production scales relatively well into modern. So, should the fix be as simple as the ratio production/gold increase per era? It's currently 1:4 in antiquity. Should it be 1:6 in exploration and 1:8 in modern?

 

[stealth_nsk]

In any case, balancing the game, especially in later stages is something which Civ7 needs to do in the future patches. There's a lot of work to be done.

 

[pjotroos]

What would be your suggestion? It seems to me that production scales relatively well into modern. So, should the fix be as simple as the ratio production/gold increase per era? It's currently 1:4 in antiquity. Should it be 1:6 in exploration and 1:8 in modern?

Honestly? Hyperinflation again. The whole point of era system was to provide soft resets to progression, but economy in modern is not impacted.

I typically make net 150-300 gold by the end of antiquity, and 1.5k-2.5k gold per turn by the end of exploration. In other words - my antiquity economy cannot sustain exploration costs. However, my gold per turn can still be around 1500-2000 by turn 50 of modern, where games normally end. I do not need to rebuild my economy at all.

The production is solved by costs being significantly higher, and then readjusted with factory resources. You can kill the gold bird with the same stone. I'd ramp up the prices massively - make all modern buildings four times as expensive as they are right now - BUT have each factory resource you've slotted multiply your gold per turn linearly. Finger in the air? +10% gold per turn each, so you'd double your income with first 10, and even out current buying power at 30. In real life, factories were a factor behind rapid economic growth, so it even fits thematically.

 

[Siptah]

The production is solved by costs being significantly higher, and then readjusted with factory resources. You can kill the gold bird with the same stone. I'd ramp up the prices massively - make all modern buildings four times as expensive as they are right now - BUT have each factory resource you've slotted multiply your gold per turn linearly. Finger in the air? +10% gold per turn each, so you'd double your income with first 10, and even out current buying power at 30. In real life, factories were a factor behind rapid economic growth, so it even fits thematically.

That would also add an incentive to build factories when going for another victory, e.g., buying units for the ideology path or museum for the cultural path.

 

[Albertan Civfanatic]

Ah, edge panning is in! That will satisfy some a lot.

You better believe it!

 

[Pfeffersack]

Or have diminishing returns the more you have it.

Well, they already work that way as I figured out a while ago:

Thread 'Gold and Silver resources - gems burried under the UI'

Mar 19, 2025

In advance, I really like that basic design of those resources compared to previous versions: Instead of a tiny local yield boost or (mainly Silver) being an abstract "luxury", both are now much more representative by having a kind of minting purpose. I feel the first time in Civ a really incentive to grab a certain settling slot, because there are precious metals. Thats a good thing...

However, the games UI does its best to confuse you about the effects and to rob you of the feeling of knowing how much coins you save when you purchase something with help of having Gold/Silver resources...

• Pfeffersack
• Replies: 6
• Forum: Civ7 - General Discussions

• 

Of course that alone doesn't rule out that the effect is still too strong

 

[Calcifer]

Or just make these not stack as much. It's "fine" for Iron and Oil to stack, but they have a limit (+6 CS?). Why not make a purchase limit at maybe -35% regardless of 10 gold and silver? Civ bonuses like Carthage's could still be applied on top to make things ridiculously cheap though. What if the reduction would actually be not a percentage, but a fixed value? E.g., 30 gold per resource?

I wonder whether empire resource slots would be fun to interact with or just a needless complication?

Or have diminishing returns the more you have it.

Gold and silver resources already have diminishing returns. Unless I'm horribly mistaken, this is their effect:

As in: your first silver resource reduces costs by 17%, the 5th reduces it by 6%, the 10th by 2%.

Or, if you consider a unit's cost is 100 gold:
- 1st silver resource saves you 17 gold
- 5th is 6 gold
- 10th is 2 gold

Edit: bad news is I've been ninja'd. Good news is that my post seems to be correct.

 

[Siptah]

Gold and silver resources already have diminishing returns. Unless I'm horribly mistaken, this is their effect:

View attachment 740563

As in: your first silver resource reduces costs by 17%, the 5th reduces it by 6%, the 10th by 2%.

Or, if you consider a unit's cost is 100 gold:
- 1st silver resource saves you 17 gold
- 5th is 6 gold
- 10th is 2 gold

Yes, I know. I really meant a limit like on oil and iron. Looking at your chart (thanks for writing it out), maybe only the first 3 should give any discount, and then each additional copy doesn't give any further reduction.

 

[StargazingDog]

In any case, balancing the game, especially in later stages is something which Civ7 needs to do in the future patches. There's a lot of work to be done.

This game was released six months ago. Why are people continuing to accept this unfinished game? This game should have been pulled from storefronts and worked on for another year. When I say "worked on", I mean the actual developers doing their job rather than relying on us suckers to beta test and crowdsource their updates.

I couldn't even finish watching this video. It's insulting. An announcement of an announcement of "maps"? Again, it's been six months. Why are we just now working on map generation? Why are they, yet again, making drastic changes to the fundamentals of the game. Yet again, it is having sweeping negative effects on other interlinked mechanics.

I was so proud of this developer back when I was playing Gettysburg, Alpha Centauri, Civ 4... now I will never buy another Firaxis product again.

 

[stealth_nsk]

This game was released eight months ago. Why are people continuing to accept this unfinished game?

The definition of "finished" is pretty blurry in the age of digital releases and a lot of games are released in worse state. The state the game was released in is not a good thing for Firaxis image, but I don't see any reasons to go to rage mode and launch a crusade against the game or developers. The game is fun already and developers continue to improve it.

 

[pjotroos]

This game was released eight months ago. Why are people continuing to accept this unfinished game? This game should have been pulled from storefronts and worked on for another year. When I say "worked on", I mean the actual developers doing their job rather than relying on us suckers to beta test and crowdsource their updates.

I couldn't even finish watching this video. It's insulting. An announcement of an announcement of "maps"? Again, it's been eight months. Why are we just now working on map generation? Why are they, yet again, making drastic changes to the fundamentals of the game. Yet again, it is having sweeping negative effects on other interlinked mechanics.

I was so proud of this developer back when I was playing Gettysburg, Alpha Centauri, Civ 4... now I will never buy another Firaxis product again.

In the words of a philosopher and a scholar - "Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man".

Yes, the game has issues and yes, they need to work through them. But Civ VI got stale for me eventually, and VII shook up the formula enough to suck me back in. I would not want the game refunded and removed from the shops. I enjoy playing it.

Also, you state a lot of things as a fact when you clearly don't have all the facts. For example, the game released in February 2025, which was six months ago, not eight.

 

[Siptah]

I was so proud of this developer back when I was playing Gettysburg, Alpha Centauri, Civ 4... now I will never buy another Firaxis product again.

I know this feeling (and even with the same games and some others). I was at the same point with civ 6 – I was so disappointed after seeing that no patch and expansion is improving the parts I found lackluster, that I said to myself to never buy a civ game again, as the devs didn't seem to care about improving the core game, just slacking shiny new things on top of a pile of existing unrelated mechanics. Then civ 7 looked so fresh, brave, innovative, and right up my alley, and I changed my mind. Hopefully, the next one will be what you wished for and there's no need for a "never again".

 

[StargazingDog]

I don't see any reasons to go to rage mode

After watching the developers completely flush their goodwill and my money down the toilet, I have 140 reasons to be angry.

 

[The_J]

Moderator Action: Please continue the discussion here https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civilization-vii-update-1-2-4-august-19-2025.699488/ .