First Game Impressions

[Giskler]

On my third game now and I'm already coming to hate dealing with religion. It's super tedious whack-a-mole and not fun at all. There's no way to combat the missionary spam by the AI other than flipping cities back and forth with your own missionaries ad nauseum. At least give me inquisitors or let me have theological rap battles again.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Honestly, I just made enough missionaries to create the relics i needed, then I let the AI convert my cities. Whatever bonuses come from keeping your own cities converted, they aren't worth the hassle.

 

[Ornen]

missionary spam already worst part of the game lol. my thoughts on culture victory, now that I've played the game:

 

[TheGrayFox]

I'd argue that this iteration is much more flexible than prior games. In Civ 6, if I didn't start the game completely focused on culture and tourism, getting a culture victory would take a verrrrry long time. Every victory feels that way in Civ 5/6: I have to keep laser focused on the end goal otherwise I am in for a slog.

Here, I can just do what I want and still earn points that advance the age and improve my leader. I can change my main path each age without much effort.

Are you saying that you'd prefer every game just be score victory? How did you win in previous games? They each would require you to focus on one area to get an early victory.

Outside of maybe just cultural victories, you could achieve any of the other victory goals in V and IV by simply playing the game well and they didn't require nearly as heavy an early investment and focus as you're implying.

 

[bladex1200]

finished the game by domination. End cut scene was very simplistic and maybe one sentence spoken

I don't know what to think about this game. Maybe I am looking for more sandbox instead of pigeonholing you down certain paths

While I do feel the game is less sandboxy than, say, Civ 3 or 4, I feel the legacies system and the fact pursuing multiple paths each era is not only viable but desirable to gain legacy benefits in the next era actually encourages more sandboxy gameplay that is adaptive to goals you're capable of meeting rather than pigeon-holing you into a victory early as was the case with Civ 6 gameplay.

It's definitely not the Civs of yesteryear but I actually think I prefer the legacies system to the inflexible victory conditions of Civ 6

 

[TheGrayFox]

While I do feel the game is less sandboxy than, say, Civ 3 or 4, I feel the legacies system and the fact pursuing multiple paths each era is not only viable but desirable to gain legacy benefits in the next era actually encourages more sandboxy gameplay that is adaptive to goals you're capable of meeting rather than pigeon-holing you into a victory early as was the case with Civ 6 gameplay.

It's definitely not the Civs of yesteryear but I actually think I prefer the legacies system to the inflexible victory conditions of Civ 6

What victories besides cultural and religious require an early inflexible investment? Diplomatic, science, military, time, and economic victory could all lead into one another and you could simply flow naturally into any one of those victories from just playing the game well.

 

[Nineliveslost]

I'd argue that this iteration is much more flexible than prior games. In Civ 6, if I didn't start the game completely focused on culture and tourism, getting a culture victory would take a verrrrry long time. Every victory feels that way in Civ 5/6: I have to keep laser focused on the end goal otherwise I am in for a slog.

Here, I can just do what I want and still earn points that advance the age and improve my leader. I can change my main path each age without much effort.

Are you saying that you'd prefer every game just be score victory? How did you win in previous games? They each would require you to focus on one area to get an early victory.

I enjoy the very long games. I guess what I am trying to say is more of an open feel and that it was my empire to take whatever way I wanted. The ages create kinda penalty, make me rush towards a goal I don't care about, and interrupt what was my original goal or my long-term goal. Maybe it's still new and its more of the new CIV "who moved my cheese"

To be honest, It was the journey I enjoyed more than the destination (score). It was my journey any way I wanted with any leader with any civ.

I have never tried to finish any Civ game early or quickly

 

[bladex1200]

What victories besides cultural and religious require an early inflexible investment? Diplomatic, science, military, time, and economic victory could all lead into one another and you could simply flow naturally into any one of those victories from just playing the game well.

I don't know about you, but on higher difficulties on 6 I found that keeping up with the AI for science and military victories required dedicated infrastructure-building that necessarily meant I was ignoring culture, religion, and more than the basic trade/market mechanics (just building enough to float gold for my armies/building maintenance). Maybe I was just a poor player, but 7 definitely feels more forgiving than 6 for playing "a bit of everything".

I do agree 7 is more inflexible than 3 or 4, don't get me wrong. With 3 and 4 you literally can pursue all victory conditions just from natural expansion and development of your land via following the game mechanics. 7 definitely has more minigames especially for culture and mid-game science, but I would argue religion slots in a lot better for culture this time around (rather than being its own side-game victory, it's just present in one era) and culture itself is better-integrated since the civics trees are better-woven into regular gameplay (unlocking more military and economic bonuses passively) as opposed to focusing primarily on wonders + government cards.

 

[bladex1200]

I enjoy the very long games. I guess what I am trying to say is more of an open feel and that it was my empire to take whatever way I wanted. The ages create kinda penalty, make me rush towards a goal I don't care about, and interrupt what was my original goal or my long-term goal. Maybe it's still new and its more of the new CIV "who moved my cheese"

To be honest, It was the journey I enjoyed more than the destination (score). It was my journey any way I wanted with any leader with any civ.

I have never tried to finish any Civ game early or quickly

It definitely doesn't help that Marathon speed is currently bugged and using the turn numbers for Epic speed (crisis around turn 200 rather than 300 or 400), but I do agree that earlier civ games were better for longer games. I don't necessarily think this game's era system necessarily detracts from long games, however, in some ways it actually contributes to them in ways earlier games didn't have.

For example, having structured eras where you can't leapfrog past people in military tech (there's only 2 tiers in Antiquity, and I think only two tiers as well for Exploration although I'm still in the middle of my game there) means you can actually make use of your units without cheesy "leapfrog into the future" strats that earlier Civs offered (for example to try and get early crossbows or early knights to dominate folks who still were in ancient/classical military tech).

 

[bladex1200]

To add, one HUGE plus that I hope is expanded-upon is unlocking wonders via both your civ's civics-tree AND the base tech/civic tree. I hope to see in the future more overlap where even non-civ-specific unlocks for wonders and buildings and infrastructure occur across both tech and civics trees to allow flexibility in one's empire and not require finishing either tree at maximum speed to unlock everything. I feel that it's benefit-enough that you get government policy cards + passive benefits from specific techs (e.g. +1 food, +1 science, etc) + future tech/civic repeatables once you reach the end of the trees, you don't need to make them so inflexible as to require full unlocks to play with all the era's new toys.

 

[Nineliveslost]

(for example to try and get early crossbows or early knights to dominate folks who still were in ancient/classical military tech).

I loved when that happens in my games with some of the other civs

It does have a certain amount of realism, like when the colonist first arrived in the new world with muskets against bow and arrows

 

[Daigotsu Max]

On my third game now with Amina/Aksum and had a new crisis that gave me tons of unhappiness, while I was waging war against Rome. Got my fist city to revolt and abandon ship, which Rome then promptly swallowed. I was able to retake it in the next age, but it was a fun, dynamic event.

(Needless to say loving it overall. Being unemployed I'm having lots of time to play.)

 

[bladex1200]

I loved when that happens in my games with some of the other civs

It does have a certain amount of realism, like when the colonist first arrived in the new world with muskets against bow and arrows

I would argue that's totally fair and should be a variant option for Antiquity into Exploration age (e.g. whichever continent gets to Exploration age first should be able to start colonizing the other continent even if they're still wrapping up Antiquity, would make for fun reverse-colonization scenarios as well possibly with different objectives), but it was always annoying to me in prior Civ games that my next door neighbor could be an entire era behind me in tech and just get decimated with no way to adapt any of my technology at all without first conquering my lands (obviously difficult if not impossible if I'm ahead in tech and have a functional economy).

I think that by disallowing the leapfrog except in particular scenario circumstances I mentioned above, this game would put less pressure on finishing out the tech tree early which I feel has always been a bane of 4x games. Tech being king is part of what contributes to unfun snowballing in games. As a player coming from Stellaris, Paradox spending hours upon hours trying to find ways to nerf tech meta has endeared me to systems like this which explicitly prevent too much tech leapfrogging.

 

[cairnsy44]

Played thru the first age and these are my impressions so far. I will try to avoid beating the dead horse that is the UI.

IP are no joke. They can field armies that are comparable to those of major powers at times. Your combat bonuses from various sources do help, but be aware you will need your own army to hold them off if they are aggressive. In potato's stream, he lost his capital and another city to them, and barely saved his capital from being razed to the ground.

I enjoyed the new combat mechanics, when i wasnt fighting the UI.
I dont understand why when you click on the promotion screen, it has to take a moment to load. Its a super simple screen, with some UI elements lit up when you unlock something. Its like 30 buttons that just have to be lit up and a few intractable when you have point(s). You should already know what promotions are unlocked on the commander, but it feels like its taking a moment to go fetch the data from somewhere, and doing it in a poor manner. Just a thing that would annoy me if i worked on it, as a dev myself. Not a major issue.

Towns should be allowed to switch focus after so many turns and/or spending gold. I dont like being stuck with that choice for the rest of the entire age.

Selecting units has to be done on the model, not the UI which i dont like. The UI also isnt clear on which units have and have not moved.

Can we go back to hitting F(fortify) on units that can not fortify, just puts them to sleep like past titles. I think 6 also had this issue. I do not like having random options 1-2 tucked away in pop out panels for troops(6 had this issue too and maybe 5) Just have them all visible.

Items that can be bought with gold are hidden until you have the gold to buy them. Since they are hidden, you do not know how much gold you need to buy them, so you cant easily plan around it. There is no sound notification when you buy a unit either. This should be easy to rectify.

I have a lot more to learn about placing districts/buildings. Sadly the UI makes it harder to decipher this. I must say, while Civ 6s colors for different yields on roofs looked a little weird at first, but it was great for readability and seeing what it was. In 7 i am just moving my mouse around seeing what is actually there. Probably something a mod would have to change down the road.

I miss auto explore on my scout. After a certain point, you just dont want to deal with them. The scouts new abilities are both really good, so well done to whoever came up with that.

I had some weird bug with cities health, where a city at full health after repairing would have their health bar stay until i reloaded. Conversely, a city with no health left was missing it on reload.

Its a preference, but i would prefer the older diplomacy screens where you are the one they are talking to, and not whatever leader you are playing. Probably something never going to be changed for this title.

I had a unit die to plague in a city, without knowing it was taking damage as i both couldnt easily see its health bar, and there was no notification that it was about to die from it.

Overall i had fun. I have more UI complaints but i dont want to fill this post up with anymore right now. I also want to go to bed before 4am

Its a lot easier to write and complain about the things that are not "right" than what is or could be with some minor tweaks. I know i had more thoughts but im too tired to remember all of them. Some of my issues could be from growing pains due to the jump from 6 to 7 being rather large.

Hopefully they get the memo that the UI needs massive improvements, and they get it done faster than the usual AAA time. If we are still having tons of issues and complaints with the UI 3 or 6 months from now, then its not a good sign. If they want to support this game for many many years, they have to get it right quickly.

You and I have a very similar take. I am in the middle of my first game. Friedrich (Oblique) Rome (then went Normans). First met Ibn Battuta, then Charlemagne and Amina, who share my landmass. Eventually met Confucius and Napoleon (Empire). Ibn Battuta plopped a city down right on my borders, so had to declare on him. I found it best to take a settlement, maybe two and make peace. He kept bringing in Chuck to "help" and my happiness kept being an issue. Amina was a good trade partner and I tried to stay friendly, but the constant encroachment and wonders of IB made me go until I took his capital, thus making enemies of everyone on my continent. The happiness was a challenge for sure. IPs are really tough, as all the ones I met were hostile and it took a while to become stronger than them. They are still troublesome, but now I can use influence on them and don't need to fight them all the time. UI is definitely poor. Not a fan of the icons for the units. previous Civs had better look for that. Agree 100% about not knowing where to place buildings and districts. How do I know what I should build over? That is something I will learn from reading this forum and from trial and error. I actually think the civ switch was done pretty well. I was very hesitant upon learning that was a feature. I probably still prefer One civ to play with leaders changing, but I am ok with it here. At least for now.
I so far like how diplomacy works in this. I just feel a little lost. The Pedia was not helpful on a number of things I could not figure out how to do. Thankfully the web had my answers. I liked Civ 6 having cities being able to defend themselves better. Just means more unit building...
That said, I am still looking forward to playing more games, so that is good.

 

[Jkchart]

Having finished a full game, I'm honestly in love with it. The core of the game is extremely solid, and I'm about to go for another full run. For comparison - I did NOT do this with Civ 5 and 6 at release (despite my known love for the latter especially). I haven't finished a full "game at release" playthrough since Civ 4. I think that in itself is very praiseworthy. Civ switching, era breaks, combat, art style, music, the narration, really most everything gels nicely for me.

What I do think needs improvement (beyond general UI/UX comments):
- Merchants are extremely unintuitive. Don't show me what looks like an auto-route if I can't actually use it and have to baby it all the way. Pick one approach: Civ 6 trader style auto routes, or just the heat map and micro.
- It would be really nice if there was a way to "Promote City State Identity" with your influence (perhaps more expensive than assimilation) than the only options being a disintegrating CS or integrating it. After all, all other settlements get to stay on the map, it might be nice to see some CS thrive for a second (or even third) era if you can manage it. Otherwise, I LOVE Independent peoples, and this is the best version of minor NPC civs yet.
- Unit Icons are so tiny that it's hard to tell what the unit is, or even if there's a unit on a tile depending on the size of the figure (looking at you, Scouts/Merchants/Explorers).
- The Culture gameplay in Exploration needs some iteration. I very much like the reliquary belief system and the follower system encouraging you to go spread to new lands, I very much feel like the missionary only gameplay is whack-a-mole and frustrating and feel there needs to be more incentive to keep your homeland from conversion.
- Way too many civilian units can stack in a hex. It's silly seeing every AI explorer (multiple from a single power, too!) crowding the same last ruins site on a continent.
- The readability of where my unique quarter/buildings are going to should be more apparent, at least in the City Build View. I would appreciate it if the game highlighted where ageless buildings already were, and also where a unique building I've already placed is, so I can better plan that out. I ruined a good unique district by accident when i wasn't thinking because I couldn't tell what else was in that hex.
- I like overbuilding, but I would REALLY like to be able to choose what can be overbuilt if there are two possible choices in an urban tile. If that's functionality I just haven't noticed yet, please tell me, but it's not intuitive if so.
- No dams for all these floods? Really? And while the map gen really doesn't leave many to be placed at this moment, sad to also see canals missing. Unless I've just missed these so far, but I couldn't find them.
- I need a "One More Turn..." button at game end.
- The Norman cavalry spawning ability is hilariously overtuned. I had a giant army of tanks with nothing to do until Xerxes asked for my help against four other players. Guess who won? (Hint: me) I'm not sure why abilities like that one aren't gated to the era (like Majapahit specialists are), I also love it enough to say I think it would be FUN to stay past exploration age, but it also feels broken. So basically, I hope they do a pass on Civ abilities.
- Please make a city not connected to a trade network more distinct in the UI, same for a non-connected resource. It was maddening not being able to figure out why I coudn't slot a bonus resource in a town until I saw the very tiny text telling me why. This needs to be far more apparent. ALSO, disconnected settlements should still be able to slot their own resources for use. If my disconnected town has cotton, it should be able to use its own cotton.
- If I move to the "Purchase" menu, don't automatically switch back to the production menu after clicking on something! This was extremely frustrating when trying to repair multiple tiles.

I think these are the biggest pain points I can think of that are bothering me after one game, otherwise I am very much in love. Thanks for the great game, firaxis!

 

[cairnsy44]

My problem is I just find it kind of boring. I'm not sure why but I don't feel that "one more turn" addiction yet. It's just not grabbing my attention yet. I'm just not really excited for the next turn and to see what happens. Hopefully that changes.

like it's missing a "soul?"

 

[Disgustipated]

Can't actually play it yet, but I am getting into the Let's plays a bit more. The ones during the embargo just didn't seem that interesting to me. I still would prefer to play the game myself of course. The game still feels "small". One thing I dislike about Civ 6 and 7 is how it invalidates TSL maps so much. I used to love those back in Civ 2 and Civ 3 days. We'll just call it Civ 7 island simulator. But there does appear to be some good stuff there.

Although watching Quill's video the AI is far too likely to gift settlements (towns) still. Even on his Immortal game. And she still had some army left. Tactical AI is still lacking.

Overall the game looks good, but I do feel I am glad to delay getting dlc for this game. I'm in no rush to get it. I think I'll enjoy the base game.

 

[TheGrayFox]

I would argue that's totally fair and should be a variant option for Antiquity into Exploration age (e.g. whichever continent gets to Exploration age first should be able to start colonizing the other continent even if they're still wrapping up Antiquity, would make for fun reverse-colonization scenarios as well possibly with different objectives), but it was always annoying to me in prior Civ games that my next door neighbor could be an entire era behind me in tech and just get decimated with no way to adapt any of my technology at all without first conquering my lands (obviously difficult if not impossible if I'm ahead in tech and have a functional economy).

I think that by disallowing the leapfrog except in particular scenario circumstances I mentioned above, this game would put less pressure on finishing out the tech tree early which I feel has always been a bane of 4x games. Tech being king is part of what contributes to unfun snowballing in games. As a player coming from Stellaris, Paradox spending hours upon hours trying to find ways to nerf tech meta has endeared me to systems like this which explicitly prevent too much tech leapfrogging.

Again another lesson Civilization could've learned from Old World and Stellaris. Using a shuffled deck for tech choices

Trying to make jumps in technology should be allowed and rewarded but you shouldn't be able to plan around specific tech paths

 

[bladex1200]

Again another lesson Civilization could've learned from Old World and Stellaris. Using a shuffled deck for tech choices

Trying to make jumps in technology should be allowed and rewarded but you shouldn't be able to plan around specific tech paths

Old World allows tech shuffling to work because of the narrow scope of the game but I would actually argue that tech shuffling actually worsens the tech-meta for Stellaris than it does alleviate it. In Stellaris, up until the recent patches where research was made more expensive by gating techs, maxx research with all excess non-alloy production going into labs WAS the meta because since you couldn't plan a particular tech path your best bet was to just maximize research speed + raw society/physics/engineering output to ensure you could reach key warfare techs before your neighbors did.

IMO if we really wanted to allow tech jumps in civ there should have been beeline stings (e.g. era-specific unhappiness or cost consequences for jumping ahead of where everybody else is, or just passive era penalties to being ahead that are mitigated by researching and building infrastructure) to jumping ahead that would require cost-benefit analysis on the part of the player to mitigate.

 

[chaosprophet]

Having lots of fun, went on a 11 hour for the first two ages nonstop one more turning until 1am.... Funny that the ages help me give a pause to not one more turn too much, but I did the mistake of playing some turns on Exploration and end up playing the whole age and finally being able to stop at the end of Exploration.

Just from the little bit I heard from others, I don't hate the UI, but I agree there seems to be a lack of info and or not very intuitive ways to find. For instance, couldn't find a screen for cities or for all units, that would help a lot, albeit they may be there somewhere, but on my first game didn't want to look up things like how/if there is such a screen. Would be nice to have more icons/ info you can activate on the map (I'm the type that like to play with yields on). For example, with the beautiful and detailed map, and specially later on, I have difficulty noticing a discovery on the map, so would like an option to toggle some icon to make it more visible to me.

Hopefully naming settlement comes soon. When I have a dozen, I end up having a hard time keeping up with them all, especially when the cities name are from a civ with names i'm unfamiliar with. When renaming is possible I will likely be naming settlements based on what I want/plan to do with them.

One thing I would really want, an even slower/longer setting for ages progress. Even with the long ages option still felt faster than I would want. I'm the type that would enjoy playing the end of the tech/civi tress more before the age ends.

On a last note, a funny settlement by the AI (sadly my screenshot program works bad when trying to ss HDR, so the visual looks bad here).