Longtime player of Civ here, my favorite of the bunch is still Civ IV. I recently caved and bought this one, despite my misgivings on the price and everything and figured I'd share my initial thoughts based on playing it with the current patch. I'd been following the game a bit slightly before its release, but not that much in depth. Haven't really followed the discussions since its release, though I understand it's been, ahem, stormy. Been reading up on it more recently.
I played it on Sovereign, starting as Hatshepsut of Egypt (moving to Abbasids, then Siam). I won a cultural victory.
In short, I liked it more than I thought I would!
-The game looks great overall. I really disliked how VI looked, especially in terms of the cartoony leaders, and it was wonderful to see how this one looks. I'm sure some of this will get old as you play it more, but from a first playthrough, I was especially pleased with how the terrain looked. They did a good job of making the environment and how it looks and feels sort of a like character on its own in a way. I also like how the leaders look, still a bit stylized but with a more realistic approach. Still think V is best in this regard.
What I don't especially like though is the sort of "sleek and clean" look of the interface. Just not a fan of that style. I also think the higher fidelity graphics make the map look a bit cluttered and it can be difficult to get a good overview. Icons could use more definition as well.
-The ages system, whew. I guess there are parts of it that I like and don't like. I'm not a fan of the civ switching I must say. I think it removes a bit of the epic historical feel that I associate with the series. It was never about complete historical accuracy, but there's still the sense that the game is grounded in the history of the world and that you move forward through it with your civ. With the switching, I felt like it really undermined that feeling, like it cheapens the history part of it if that makes sense.
Now, the actual ages is actually a cool feature I think. I understand that they added the continuity option recently (I used that) and that was probably a good thing. But yeah, I kinda like that they attempted to give each age some extra flavour. For the future, I *hope* that this will maybe also allow the devs to focus their efforts on different parts of the game in a different way. These games often run into the bordedom problem the further into a game you get, and as the game develops, perhaps having the game broken up like this can maybe help thicken the gameplay up for each age but without making it feel like just busywork. That's a big hope, but it could happen.
But yeah, for the civ switching, it just feels awkward to me. I'd still like if you could develop the civ you have from the start in various ways throughout the game, but just changing it completely is off-putting to me.
-All the building stuff. Well, I have to say that I'm just not a fan of getting rid of workers, just as I was not a fan of making them have charges in VI. To me, manually improving the land using units is just fun gameplay and it also sort of creates character for the land you inhabit. While the adjacency stuff for placing buildings and wonders in this game definitely seems to have a certain depth, which is also fun, I'm just not a fan of handling it all through menus like that. It makes the game feel very sterile. An unfortunate change for me. But, it does cut down micromanagement I suppose, I just happen to like that kind of micromanagement, heh.
-Cities and towns felt a bit awkward to me at first, and it still does, but I feel like it's something I will appreciate as I get used to it. Being able to take control over settlements that you consider extra important, while still having the fun of settling new ones while at the same time not necessarily having to manage them as much, may be a winner. The resources system is something I liked quite a lot, where you can manage them to your liking instead of just getting a flat bonus. I will say that the strategic resources felt a bit disappointing in this regard, I always liked the importance of them in previous civs. I hope they can bring that back in some way at some point.
-AI and combat. I developed an alliance with a neighbouring civ and this resulted in me coming to their defence when they got declared on a few times. Now, I was only on Sovereign and, as I said, in an alliance, but the warfare was easy in that regard, even in a situation where I had two opponents on either side of my empire at once. They came in with a bunch of units, I defended rather easily, and could then go on the counterattack and easily capture settlements with no resistance basically. They also gave up settlements easily in the peace deal. I find like Civ never gets this balance right, either the AI never gives cities up or they do it far too easily.
I did actually lose a city to an independent power which was fun though.
The combat itself felt fine, the army commanders felt a bit weird to use but also fun. The units themselves feel a bit anonymous now though, with no XP to build a truly deadly one, and also since they change with each age. Not a fan of siege units not having to do the setting up before firing, I always liked that in older civs (and in Old World)
-Diplomacy and Independent powers. Pretty cool overall. I feel like the whole diplomacy thing feels rather "gamey", with the influence points, but it does seems like an improvement over VI at least. I like being able to take over the Independent powers via diplomacy and used it quite a lot in my game, but I feel like the race to become suzerain is a bit weird since it's, if I understand it correctly, an one and done deal? You're first, you win. Except for the reset when the age change.
-UI. Well... I understand that they've recently done some work to improve it but yeah... as with the recent civs, it just doesn't do it for me. I know it's a different game with different focus, but after having played Old World, I just can't help but miss having all the information at the tip of my fingers at all times. I'm not sure how they develop these games nowadays but it definitely doesn't feel like it's sort of made for PC first. It's clunky and unintuitive, and often times I can't find the information I'm looking for nor am I sure it actually is presented in the game somewhere. And since the game is rather menu-driven with a lot of what it does (and quite often in gameplay with improvements, choosing resources, policies etc etc), it's not a good combo.
And like I mentioned before, I'm not a fan either of how it just looks overall.
-Price and piecemeal DLC practice. Yeah... not a fan, let's leave it at that.
-Leaders. I know Firaxis have been on a roll with wanting to have more unknown leaders/characters from history rather than the big guns but yeah... I kinda wish that they always started out with the biggest historical figures/civs, then added from there.
-Also worth mentioning, turn times feel very fast despite playing with animations and everything on. Even with wars and stuff going on in my endgame, it never felt quite as slow and sluggish as previous civs. The game feels very smooth overall. They did a good job of that.
Too much text here but yeah, despite some of the negative stuff, I had quite a bit of fun with my first game. I know there's been a lot of complaints, some of which are valid, but yeah... if I compare it to other civ games in their early iterations, it's no less disastrous I think. I actually think VII has a lot of good points to it and a lot of potential.
Some of the more negative aspects I just have a hard time seeing fixed. The UI will be improved but I don't think it will ever be satisfactory to me (like VI never was), the AI I fear will end up as VI's as well. The civ switching seems difficult to change without overhauling the game, but who knows? It seems to be a big source of the complaints, so maybe they'll try something.
So all in all, definitely has some problems but with my first game, I had more fun than I expected based on a lot of the reactions.
But there's also quite a lot to like here and improve. If I compare it to VI at release, I think I vastly prefer this if I remember my experience with VI correctly.
I played it on Sovereign, starting as Hatshepsut of Egypt (moving to Abbasids, then Siam). I won a cultural victory.
In short, I liked it more than I thought I would!
-The game looks great overall. I really disliked how VI looked, especially in terms of the cartoony leaders, and it was wonderful to see how this one looks. I'm sure some of this will get old as you play it more, but from a first playthrough, I was especially pleased with how the terrain looked. They did a good job of making the environment and how it looks and feels sort of a like character on its own in a way. I also like how the leaders look, still a bit stylized but with a more realistic approach. Still think V is best in this regard.
What I don't especially like though is the sort of "sleek and clean" look of the interface. Just not a fan of that style. I also think the higher fidelity graphics make the map look a bit cluttered and it can be difficult to get a good overview. Icons could use more definition as well.
-The ages system, whew. I guess there are parts of it that I like and don't like. I'm not a fan of the civ switching I must say. I think it removes a bit of the epic historical feel that I associate with the series. It was never about complete historical accuracy, but there's still the sense that the game is grounded in the history of the world and that you move forward through it with your civ. With the switching, I felt like it really undermined that feeling, like it cheapens the history part of it if that makes sense.
Now, the actual ages is actually a cool feature I think. I understand that they added the continuity option recently (I used that) and that was probably a good thing. But yeah, I kinda like that they attempted to give each age some extra flavour. For the future, I *hope* that this will maybe also allow the devs to focus their efforts on different parts of the game in a different way. These games often run into the bordedom problem the further into a game you get, and as the game develops, perhaps having the game broken up like this can maybe help thicken the gameplay up for each age but without making it feel like just busywork. That's a big hope, but it could happen.
But yeah, for the civ switching, it just feels awkward to me. I'd still like if you could develop the civ you have from the start in various ways throughout the game, but just changing it completely is off-putting to me.
-All the building stuff. Well, I have to say that I'm just not a fan of getting rid of workers, just as I was not a fan of making them have charges in VI. To me, manually improving the land using units is just fun gameplay and it also sort of creates character for the land you inhabit. While the adjacency stuff for placing buildings and wonders in this game definitely seems to have a certain depth, which is also fun, I'm just not a fan of handling it all through menus like that. It makes the game feel very sterile. An unfortunate change for me. But, it does cut down micromanagement I suppose, I just happen to like that kind of micromanagement, heh.
-Cities and towns felt a bit awkward to me at first, and it still does, but I feel like it's something I will appreciate as I get used to it. Being able to take control over settlements that you consider extra important, while still having the fun of settling new ones while at the same time not necessarily having to manage them as much, may be a winner. The resources system is something I liked quite a lot, where you can manage them to your liking instead of just getting a flat bonus. I will say that the strategic resources felt a bit disappointing in this regard, I always liked the importance of them in previous civs. I hope they can bring that back in some way at some point.
-AI and combat. I developed an alliance with a neighbouring civ and this resulted in me coming to their defence when they got declared on a few times. Now, I was only on Sovereign and, as I said, in an alliance, but the warfare was easy in that regard, even in a situation where I had two opponents on either side of my empire at once. They came in with a bunch of units, I defended rather easily, and could then go on the counterattack and easily capture settlements with no resistance basically. They also gave up settlements easily in the peace deal. I find like Civ never gets this balance right, either the AI never gives cities up or they do it far too easily.
I did actually lose a city to an independent power which was fun though.
The combat itself felt fine, the army commanders felt a bit weird to use but also fun. The units themselves feel a bit anonymous now though, with no XP to build a truly deadly one, and also since they change with each age. Not a fan of siege units not having to do the setting up before firing, I always liked that in older civs (and in Old World)
-Diplomacy and Independent powers. Pretty cool overall. I feel like the whole diplomacy thing feels rather "gamey", with the influence points, but it does seems like an improvement over VI at least. I like being able to take over the Independent powers via diplomacy and used it quite a lot in my game, but I feel like the race to become suzerain is a bit weird since it's, if I understand it correctly, an one and done deal? You're first, you win. Except for the reset when the age change.
-UI. Well... I understand that they've recently done some work to improve it but yeah... as with the recent civs, it just doesn't do it for me. I know it's a different game with different focus, but after having played Old World, I just can't help but miss having all the information at the tip of my fingers at all times. I'm not sure how they develop these games nowadays but it definitely doesn't feel like it's sort of made for PC first. It's clunky and unintuitive, and often times I can't find the information I'm looking for nor am I sure it actually is presented in the game somewhere. And since the game is rather menu-driven with a lot of what it does (and quite often in gameplay with improvements, choosing resources, policies etc etc), it's not a good combo.
And like I mentioned before, I'm not a fan either of how it just looks overall.
-Price and piecemeal DLC practice. Yeah... not a fan, let's leave it at that.
-Leaders. I know Firaxis have been on a roll with wanting to have more unknown leaders/characters from history rather than the big guns but yeah... I kinda wish that they always started out with the biggest historical figures/civs, then added from there.
-Also worth mentioning, turn times feel very fast despite playing with animations and everything on. Even with wars and stuff going on in my endgame, it never felt quite as slow and sluggish as previous civs. The game feels very smooth overall. They did a good job of that.
Too much text here but yeah, despite some of the negative stuff, I had quite a bit of fun with my first game. I know there's been a lot of complaints, some of which are valid, but yeah... if I compare it to other civ games in their early iterations, it's no less disastrous I think. I actually think VII has a lot of good points to it and a lot of potential.
Some of the more negative aspects I just have a hard time seeing fixed. The UI will be improved but I don't think it will ever be satisfactory to me (like VI never was), the AI I fear will end up as VI's as well. The civ switching seems difficult to change without overhauling the game, but who knows? It seems to be a big source of the complaints, so maybe they'll try something.
So all in all, definitely has some problems but with my first game, I had more fun than I expected based on a lot of the reactions.
But there's also quite a lot to like here and improve. If I compare it to VI at release, I think I vastly prefer this if I remember my experience with VI correctly.
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