First Game Impressions

[SammyKhalifa]

Just got into Exploration. I have no idea what I should pick for points! (egypt>abassid) I kind of like that feeling.

I was not a warmonger at all; but I brought the age to an abrupt end with my only war by capping Lafayette's last (capital) city, immediately ending all of the plague in my cities of course.

 

[Hildebolt Von Berenreuthe]

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.

This is true about city gifting. Fought off an invasion game one and though he still had units and I was nowhere near threatening him, he offered me 2 cities for peace.. I refused to take them in that situation because it made no sense but it's definitely sth that will need a fix

 

[Civinator]

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).

Some Like It Hot.

 

[AriochIV]

If I can make one recommendation for new players, my advice is: if you're an experienced player and you've been following the game's development, start on a higher difficulty level than the default (which is Governor). On that setting, the AI is very passive. I think nobody even founded their second cities until turn 50 or 60.

I'm on turn 79 in the Exploration Age in my first game (I started some other test games since to check things out), and I'm so far ahead that it's kind of boring... the Age Progress meter is at 44%, but I'm most of the way through the tech tree, there's nothing for my capital to build and I have more gold and influence than I can spend. I can't really buy units and conquer everybody, because I'm over the settlement cap as it is.

 

[cairnsy44]

City-only Resource perhaps? Havent played enough to know for sure so just theory.
EDIT: those on the picture are towns

exactly....those resources were only allowed in cities.

 

[UWHabs]

If I can make one recommendation for new players, my advice is: if you're an experienced player and you've been following the game's development, start on a higher difficulty level than the default (which is Governor). On that setting, the AI is very passive. I think nobody even founded their second cities until turn 50 or 60.

I'm on turn 79 in the Exploration Age in my first game (I started some other test games since to check things out), and I'm so far ahead that it's kind of boring... the Age Progress meter is at 44%, but I'm most of the way through the tech tree, there's nothing for my capital to build and I have more gold and influence than I can spend. I can't really buy units and conquer everybody, because I'm over the settlement cap as it is.

I started one higher than governor, and they were still passive. I was basically allied with everyone in the first age, and I did technically go to war in the exploration era, but looks like because my ally was at war elsewhere. I do kind of want to use my Indonesian boats though, so I want to find an excuse to fight someone this era. Although I'm also tempted to buy a whole bunch of them, and just use them to pillage in the distant lands.

 

[StargazingDog]

This is true about city gifting. Fought off an invasion game one and though he still had units and I was nowhere near threatening him, he offered me 2 cities for peace.. I refused to take them in that situation because it made no sense but it's definitely sth that will need a fix

I've had the AI offer me settlements twice in peace offerings. However, both times, after accepting, I don't actually get the settlements. They remain firmly under the other's control. Maybe some sort of glitch?

If I can make one recommendation for new players, my advice is: if you're an experienced player and you've been following the game's development, start on a higher difficulty level than the default (which is Governor). On that setting, the AI is very passive. I think nobody even founded their second cities until turn 50 or 60.

I'm on turn 79 in the Exploration Age in my first game (I started some other test games since to check things out), and I'm so far ahead that it's kind of boring... the Age Progress meter is at 44%, but I'm most of the way through the tech tree, there's nothing for my capital to build and I have more gold and influence than I can spend. I can't really buy units and conquer everybody, because I'm over the settlement cap as it is.

Same here. I ended the exploration age with almost double the era score as the second place Civ, and the other civs were just blips on the chart. I will definitely go up one level next time, and probably need another level up the time after that. This feels like "chieftain". I am used to king level.

I had thousands of gold and nothing to buy. I'm hoping that I am just burn through modern age and get an economic victory fast. It's been 14 hours and I am ready to start a new game with everything I have learned.

 

[Ornen]

a small observation: they still haven't fixed the year counter since Civ 6. my Antiquity era ended in 940 BCE, well ahead of the era of most of the Antiquity-era civs depicted in the game

 

[Manpanzee]

Played through the Antiquity era and 15-20 turns of Exploration. Game obviously needs some polish, but so far, so good. It looks like the devs addressed my major issues with Civ VI (excessive fiddliness/bloat making the game a slog past the Medieval era), and I definitely anticipate getting more mileage out of this than the last one.

--I wasn’t sure about the civ-swapping thing, but it feels natural now that I can see that a “game” of Civ VII is essentially a 3-game mini-campaign rather than a single game. New game, new civ... makes sense.

--Antiquity era for me lasted around 135-140 turns. I was done with all the major objectives I was going to complete around 10 turns ahead of that, then next-turned through Future Civic to trigger the age transition. Only playing on difficulty 4/6, so hopefully higher difficulty AIs will help push the transition a bit faster.

--I noticed the Attributes trees offered a variety of early-game bonuses that I wasn’t earning points fast enough to actually use. Looking forward to unlocking mementos and seeing how the early game changes with a free attribute or two.

--I’m a little concerned about city-states post-Antiquity. I thought there were supposed to be new ones in Exploration, but I haven’t found them yet, and the map is filled in enough that I’m not sure where any are supposed to spawn. But maybe just need to explore more.

 

[shmily_dana]

My first game was really crowded. I figured out how to setup a dual game. Much better time learning what to do without 6 AI bugging me for something. When I got to the last age, I beelined to WW1 tanks and battleships and steamrolled over the AI for the win.

 

[clapyourhands]

I really like the unique traditions for each civ and the fact that they last between ages. I really screwed up in the Exploration age and wasn't able to make use of most of Majapahit's uniques (didn't realize how ageless building worked and was only able to build one Pura because of it). But I was pleasantly surprised in Modern that picking Majapahit still had its benefits thanks to its strong policies.

 

[bonafide11]

like it's missing a "soul?"

I've actually spent all day playing it today (don't judge me, my dad died a couple of days ago and this is a great distraction from my mourning) and want to take back my initial comment. It's not boring, it's pretty fun!

There's a lot of issues with it though. The UI issues are well known. I don't know if many people have mentioned this, but the lack of a military overview menu is also really aggravating. The second continent in the exploration age is also weird. I am confused by it it was supposed to be so barren or if that was accidental. Like I was taking goodie huts there at the end of the exploration age and there was AI there who never did anything.

I also played at the default difficulty level and it was way, way too easy, even for my first play through. Next game I need to play a higher difficulty level.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Getting a patch downloaded. Let's see what has changed!

 

[StargazingDog]

I’m a little concerned about city-states post-Antiquity. I thought there were supposed to be new ones in Exploration, but I haven’t found them yet

I found six of them in exploration age.

Like I was taking goodie huts there at the end of the exploration age

I assume the game is programmed the same as Civ 6. The AI doesn’t “see” goodie huts until you do. Once you have revealed them, then the AI will claim them. Although it’s possible that all the goodie huts are player-only, since they trigger events.

 

[Ornen]

I've actually spent all day playing it today (don't judge me, my dad died a couple of days ago and this is a great distraction from my mourning) and want to take back my initial comment. It's not boring, it's pretty fun!

There's a lot of issues with it though. The UI issues are well known. I don't know if many people have mentioned this, but the lack of a military overview menu is also really aggravating. The second continent in the exploration age is also weird. I am confused by it it was supposed to be so barren or if that was accidental. Like I was taking goodie huts there at the end of the exploration age and there was AI there who never did anything.

I also played at the default difficulty level and it was way, way too easy, even for my first play through. Next game I need to play a higher difficulty level.

I played at difficulty 3 and the AI boxed out the whole coast by the time I got there.

 

[AriochIV]

I'm a little bit disappointed in the terrain elevation (or lack thereof). In the trailers, they had these grand multi-layered landscapes with cascading waterfalls and long cliff faces. In the actual game, there is occasionally an annoying ski-jump of a single tile of elevated terrain. Alas.

 

[StargazingDog]

I'm a little bit disappointed in the terrain elevation (or lack thereof). In the trailers, they had these grand multi-layered landscapes with cascading waterfalls and long cliff faces. In the actual game, there is occasionally an annoying ski-jump of a single tile of elevated terrain. Alas.

View attachment 718540

Agreed. These are more like walls than cliffs.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I thought there were supposed to be new ones in Exploration, but I haven’t found them yet

I found a whole bunch of them, really like the distant lands system - I used to play Continents all the time for a similar effect in older versions.

 

[Rob Airdrie]

Hi - finally got it working (on my work lap top - shh!). Love it but agree that the pacing is too fast - marathon with long ages and neither I nor the AI civs were able to do much before antiquity was 80% done.

 

[shmily_dana]

One more thing : I'm glad there a not a bunch of achievements for doing really trivial things like "research a technology", etc. I was expecting the typical 2 or 3 dozen achievements popping up on the first game. I don't miss them.