Civ7 is the most bizarre game in the franchise so far.

[SnowKomodo]

I absolutely love how the map and how cities look. The sprawl looks great and makes the word feel alive.

I'm with you. As a builder primarily, I find it very appealing and I love the immersive vibes of the sprawl

 

[Kyriakos]

Sprawl alone can harm the feel of the game, though. If one city can take over large parts of the map, it means that you either need massive maps for regions (eg Europe, let alone the world) or a single city would cover most of the average historical area the civ was in.
This problem is very notable in Ara, although there the sprawl is less symbolic than in civ games (at least up to civ6).

 

[Caprikel]

I think the most revolutionary civ game was 5. We got hexagons, 1UPT, road maintenance and tall gameplay support in a single step (not to mention a lot of other new concepts). Compared to this, Civ6 to Civ7 transition doesn't look that big.

I respectfully disagree with you there, I think civ switching alone is a much more massive change than even 1upt and hexagons combined. Then add onto that the removal of builders, the new commander system, the City/town split, and decoupled leaders, and you end up with the biggest changes we've ever had in a single entry.

 

[pokiehl]

Sprawl alone can harm the feel of the game, though. If one city can take over large parts of the map, it means that you either need massive maps for regions (eg

Nothing can be perfectly scaled in these games. But as someone who has played this series for decades, the Civ 7 map and city setup looks by far the best to me. They did a great job

 

[sTAPler27]

I don't like the way the gameplay kind of steers players into a specific narrative either but at the same time I've always loved the Sim City aspect of civ games. I think its fun seeing how your culture has altered the world whether that be through wonders, districts, unique buildings, architectural style and enviornmental changes.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I respectfully disagree with you there, I think civ switching alone is a much more massive change than even 1upt and hexagons combined. Then add onto that the removal of builders, the new commander system, the City/town split, and decoupled leaders, and you end up with the biggest changes we've ever had in a single entry.

This looks really big on paper, but when I look at actual play in streams, it feels very close to previous civ game experience.

 

[Isengardtom]

Maybe not that big, but certainly in the wrong direction!

I think it’s nice that they shake things up a bit. Their 1/3 same, 1/3 new, 1/3 improved approach is a good one in my view.

Otherwise you can just call it Civ 5 or Civ 6 visually remastered

 

[Takfloyd]

I do strongly dislike the progressive boardgamification of the series after Civ IV, but I think VII is at least definitely a step up from VI, which was visually very undistinct and hard to make out at a glance, and mechanically a giant mess of disparate fiddly micromanagement systems.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Disparate Fiddly Micromanagement Systems was the name of the Yes cover band I played in in college.

 

[Seek]

This looks really big on paper, but when I look at actual play in streams, it feels very close to previous civ game experience.

Agree wrt Antiquity and Exploration, but the few Modern Age screenshots we’ve seen have been very cluttered urban sprawl so I’m still nervous. I’ll probably change city spacing to 4 and increase map size if it’s too bad - I preferred playing Civ 6 that way also.

 

[TheGhostEnthusiast]

Agree wrt Antiquity and Exploration, but the few Modern Age screenshots we’ve seen have been very cluttered urban sprawl so I’m still nervous.

I mean, if we're talking realism, controlled land being increasingly split between huge urban blobs and rural areas for farms and mines as the Modern Age progresses makes sense.

 

[King Flevance]

While I do like the unpacked cities aesthetic, I also do think it becomes cluttered over time taking away from the charm. Humankind tried reducing the building sizes but that actually just makes it blend together more. Exaggerated is certainly the better look but can still look cluttered and messy.

It would be nice if some buildings either made rural tiles more effective, or even made basic tiles more effective. Like if a sawmill made all unimproved forest tiles in the city worth +2 production. Or a theatre added +2 culture to districts but +2 gold to unimproved tiles. This way it would benefit the player to leave some tiles unimproved based on the type of specialization you chose for that city. Then you could make the buildings make it worth preserving natural beauty in different ways OR you could have certain specializations like commerce require less natural beauty.

However, preserving the natural beauty of the map has NEVER been a concern in any previous Civ title. In the first 3 Civ games, it was hard to tell what the map even looked like by the renaissance era with all the roads and farms/mines. I do like the lok of Civ 7 but am a little disappointed at how everything feels smaller. However, I am not sure if the gameplay videos I have watched are on a standard size map or a huge map either.

 

[TheGhostEnthusiast]

It would be nice if some buildings either made rural tiles more effective, or even made basic tiles more effective. Like if a sawmill made all unimproved forest tiles in the city worth +2 production. Or a theatre added +2 culture to districts but +2 gold to unimproved tiles. This way it would benefit the player to leave some tiles unimproved based on the type of specialization you chose for that city. Then you could make the buildings make it worth preserving natural beauty in different ways OR you could have certain specializations like commerce require less natural beauty.

I'm pretty sure this is a mechanic, with certain buildings having the "warehouse" tag and improving certain tile improvements, like granaries and farms.

 

[Seek]

I mean, if we're talking realism, controlled land being increasingly split between huge urban blobs and rural areas for farms and mines as the Modern Age progresses makes sense.

I hope that's the case but this is way beyond that. Even the rural districts read as very urban to me so there is little sense of "between"..

 

[TheGhostEnthusiast]

I hope that's the case but this is way beyond that. Even the rural districts read as very urban to me so there is little sense of "between"..

If I'm being honest, this looks right to me. A cluster of developed settlements that I've been working on for Ages should take up a lot of space, and those beautiful buildings won't make me suffer for it. I like building cities, I like looking at the cities I've built, and I REALLY like this.

 

[Kyriakos]

I hope that's the case but this is way beyond that. Even the rural districts read as very urban to me so there is little sense of "between"..

The gfx look very nice.
But imo the congestion is simply awful.

For a civ game, I prefer cities to not form massive sprawls- I know they already did in Civ6.

 

[dagriggstar]

I think civ 4 town spam looked the worst to my eyes.

Just reading the last few responses seems like the game should go Australia DLC outback station gains +1 food per adjacent empty tile. Can’t really think of another candidate for a +1 per adjacent empty tile mechanic.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

The problem for me isn't the urban sprawl in and of itself. I agree that the buildings look nice and I like the theory of big easily spottable things to make the map readable, and readability trumps reality for me.

I do think there could be a problem when you have armies marching across all the urban sprawl though, i suspect it's going to be a right pain picking out anything.

 

[kaspergm]

Agree wrt Antiquity and Exploration, but the few Modern Age screenshots we’ve seen have been very cluttered urban sprawl so I’m still nervous. I’ll probably change city spacing to 4 and increase map size if it’s too bad - I preferred playing Civ 6 that way also.

I hope the new Urban Towns will help with the city sprawl, but cities covering the entire map - as they ended up doing in Civ6 as well - is definitely a major concern of mine. I had hoped to see a different system, where each city had a much larger workable radius - like 6-10 hexes - and you could place satellite rural towns (think City Lights mod) in the outer rings to bring in resources and urban districts in the inner rings only.

Civ7 system may end up achieving a bit of the same if rural towns are placed between cities, but I would rather see a much larger city settling limit, like 10-20 hexes, a bit like regions in Humankind or locked sites in Old World. But of course that will require a much larger map.

 

[Vitruvian Guar]

I understand people with horrible allergy to CIv 6 art style.

I fail to understand how anyone can think that Civ 7 is ugly.