Naokaukodem
Millenary King
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2003
- Messages
- 4,298
I've played 30-40 hours, started 5 games, finished 0, only reached the modern era once and the exploration era twice. Played on Playstation 5. Every question you might see is rhetorical, as I already sold my copy for 30€ and probably won't touch the game for a long time.
First, I want to say that I missed a vast number of things, due to my lack of interest or not enough playing or laziness, or lack of awareness because I didn't feel like I wanted to. Lack of will ? I would say certainly, but I can imagine I can blame the game to not giving enough information when needed (not to speak about the lack of at least a virtual manual on PS5, one of the first time I ever like felt needing one).
Because there's a lot going on, probably too much, at least that [is not documented]/[is hidden]/[presents a lack of obviousness] that would make the gameplay instinctive, "easy to play". Unless the developers mixed out "easy to play" with "hard to master", and made a mismatch like "hard to play" without realizing it, a little like if they were throwing bold ideas with no retenue or concerns about "readability". One major critic about the game from a lot of players is "its awful user interface", and I'm really guessing it's a little word to translate their lack of understanding of the game due to under-explanation or need of too much explanation.
For example, I can't say as of now if codices are kept from an era to another, if there is other "collectibles" in other eras for sure, and if they are also carried over or not to next era. I would assume they aren't, and if that's the case, then it would make the gameplay particularly weak and the feeling of achievement inexistent. Not to mention there's a fear of missing out due to eras passing, milestones of four totally different types and quantities that have to be reached which some of them feel absurb. (hello treasure fleets)
Heck, I don't even know how to generate those treasure fleets : I had once 2 cities (whoops, I mean towns) on "distant lands", they spawned each one a treasure fleet sometimes (although one path for a TF was blocked by an AI city, I realized it too late before finally asking right of passage), but I didn't know exactly in which rate, and I happened to read on those forums that there is "treasure fleets resources", which I have absolutely no idea of what they could be. (do they change each game ? If not, what about the TFs resources of the other land mass in multiplayer ?)
I also didn't realize how to use commanders until someone explained it to me on those very forums ! (and am still unsure if it's exploits or intended features) As to commanders themselves, I think that they add too much micromanagement as to unload or load a unit from or into them : it requires a lot of "clicks" to do so with the cross of the DualSense (the PS5 paddle), with sometimes unwanted and arbitrary movements, the same kind there is in the resources panel or in the techs or civics trees. (there, it doesn't save where you were, you have to go down the list every single time you open those damn panels)
So what you earn by not having workers or builders anymore, you lose it with commanders and the like. So I would definitely not say that there is less micromangament in Civ7 than in previous iterations, it's maybe even worse. I don't think either that the goal of removing workers or builders was to reduce micromanagement, because as settlers have to be built still, and moved around, I don't think that's to avoid any counter-momentum and gameplay heaviness. (as to, overall, as a complaint I had about Civ6, the feeling everything takes too long) As to why exactly, I really can't figure. (except to compensate)
I just know that now, once a town/city grows, you have to choose the location of the new citizen, which improves the land automatically with the preset improvement of that tile (farms for flat terrain, sawmills or something for wooded terrain, mines for rough terrain, etc.) and that you couldn't move them anymore until the end of the game. (unless you place a building - so de facto an "urban district" - on an already worked "rural district", it is to say a tile worked for its natural resources) But you cannot switch your cities on for example full food or full production anymore, what removes a big part of the fun IMO.
As to district adjacencies I heard of multiple times (often with boldness), I still have no clue of what they are supposed to be, except by seeing the eventual outputs when it comes to place a building. It's just that - I see in the building panel nice yields about a building, and I look for where those yields are (because it displays the maximum possible yields out of all the possible locations, well maybe with an emphasis on food or on the building purpose, because I sometimes thought that the "best yields" - for me - were not those displayed exactly), and I just place the building where the yields seem the better for me, with no planning whatsoever !
Now let's talk a bit about eras and civs switch, as many of you complained about it. If I would have any idea of what new civ to pick and not push the "random" button, I would say that I don't mind civ switching. But ages are another story. It has several unpleasant effects. First, all your units will be moved. Yet another micromanagement scandal. Units loss isn't that big of a deal, as you can prevent it by having several commanders, and two of them will be easy to get. (up to 12 units saved, but let be frank let's just say 8, because the +2 carry units promotion is hidden behind two other promotions, and not the first ones you want to pick)
While I'm at it, let's go back to commanders a little bit. The first promotion you want to pick is the one that allows you to unload your units with fresh movement points to use immediately : that way, you can move two tiles (out of 3) with your commander, unload a unit on top of a rough or wooded terrain, and use it immediately with its full 2 (or only 1 if you loaded it previously in the same turn) movement points/attack. It's very powerful and one of the sole purpose of commanders at that point. What poses the problem : why the heck is this a promotion and not a default for every commander ? I just think the devs missed out on something (which is why I still consider it an exploit, in which case commanders were good for nothing - nearly) or were confused. If you want a proof of that, just consider that this ability won't work if the commander has spent all of its moves ! It makes no sense.
Another unpleasant effect of ages, is that every nation will start equal again. I was playing on lower difficulty level and I can say it was unpleasant to see my research advancement go to oblivion. Yet another thing to consider is that the relationship between civilizations will reset as well : if you are in the middle of a war that you are winning, due to superior weapons or not, you will just find yourself at peace in the next age, with same technology and the need to spend Influence again in order to deteriorate the relations again !
Relationship with other civs is unclear. If you want to enter a war, you preferably want to do to it when your relations are bad, otherwise it will be considered a surprise war with a comfortable malus for your units, only counterable by spending potentially a LOT of Influence to reverse it to your advantage or even equal or semi equal, if not ALL your Influence. Problem is, you don't know exactly when your diplomatic deeds trigger, because in one hand it says "this will be active for 10 turns" (like denunciation or everything else basically) and in the other hand you have to wait some time in order to this deteriorating effectively your relations, I don't know if only after some turns or effectively when those 10 turns are done. (which would contradict the tool tip)
Don't get me wrong, ages and "eras" change that are even more explicitly used for gameplay than in Civ6 are not bad by themselves, it's even a nice idea that I would support 100%, but it's just badly executed all right ? All units moved, no more edge on science (one of the funniest part of the franchise), relationships reseted, city status reseted, which make me consider that a playthrough from 4000 BCE to 2050 AD with no perceivable transition is indeed what might have made Sid Meier's Civilization series so mind blowing. It was up to you to consider the age you were in, just by throwing an eye at the displayed date ; it wasn't taking long provided you weren't drawn into the one more turn infernal cycle for example. (which is, per se, definitely less present here)
One first thing about exploration era, as I believe the era system in here have been specifically designed for that particular era that has happened in real History : you better reach the tech or civic that gives you religion the fastest possible, and reach the tech that allows you to sail in deep waters as soon as possible. There is no choice. As to religion, I just couldn't have one that was appealing to me, even by playing on lowest difficulty level : all religious "tenets" left were pretty bad, or at least I thought they were when came the time to choose them in that one game I had to choose one.
As to the new system of Cities vs. Towns, it is nice on the paper, but it has been difficult to me in every of my games to balance them out, especially without a panel that sorts all of that. The game specifically says that only towns directly connected to cities will send food to them once specialized, but I often found myself with a row of specialized towns connected with each others somehow, but not to cities. I have found very difficult to build an empire so that multiple towns could send food to my cities. I never had the ability to sort settle places as to make one town help one (or several ? This is unclear) cities. Maybe the size of the map and the map generator are involved too.
As it is now, I guess you have to play instinctively, not trying to go into details too much and not trying to have control on everything in the first runs, but instead take the temperature for further games and in further games. You have to make yourself an abstract representation of what does what, or read for information in forums or watch youtube videos. You have to carefully respect what the devs say in a first step, like having a parity of cities/towns, 1:1, and trying to connect directly towns to cities. (note that you don't know how far a city can be connected with roads, it gets further with time but the exact number on each "era" are completely unobvious)
Thing is you are totally in the dark as to why and how to settle towns or when and where to convert towns into cities. Cities can produce things regularly, I've seen some say that "production is king" and maybe it is, it's probably a savant calculation compared to gold for example. Stays that it isn't obvious to me. As to towns, they convert all their production into gold, and once at size 7 (why 7 and not "when we want" ? To spare some more confusion ?) you can specialize them and then they will send all of their food to cities and stop growing themselves, right ? All this is quite confusing. On top of that you need a good population town to need minimum gold to convert into city, and you really don't know when to specialize your cities anymore. It's a vast mess. The mechanics are simple, but every single one is a behemoth you don't know what to do with it.
In my last game, I also had a weird event : in the middle of a war with Isabella or whatever, I was on the edge to take one of her cities and suddenly this city changed hands. This reminded me of the Civ6 city-gift abuse in multiplayer, this was considered cheating and if it's intended AI behavior then it's a master troll, probably from an all-empowered productor that has the mentality of a kid. Unless it could be due to some weird loyalty-like pressure that is completely hidden, like for example I got a free city from another guy (he had like 9 cities out of 5), and several of my cities was "rebelling" or something like that at some point. Why ? (rhetorical question)
Put with occasionally, especially in my last game, low food yields even with a granary, I hardly was motivated to settle or play barely. I noticed that I can occasionally be embarrassed when comes the time to send a settler settle in other games of the franchise, especially Civ6 (mad-bad-map generator) and a little bit of 5 too. But there, I never said myself "this would be a good spot to settle, heck I want this place", mostly because there is mostly no good food spots. The traditional yields are extremely unappealing.
I will end this review here as I think I reviewed everything from top of my head and it is already pretty long like that, and I'm sure I itched some concerns of a lot of you that want to answer or "correct" me, but that's really not the goal of this review, sorry. Keep in mind however that the points raised here are far from beeing exhaustive, so you can still add some points as you see fit. Cheers !
Meh / 10.
First, I want to say that I missed a vast number of things, due to my lack of interest or not enough playing or laziness, or lack of awareness because I didn't feel like I wanted to. Lack of will ? I would say certainly, but I can imagine I can blame the game to not giving enough information when needed (not to speak about the lack of at least a virtual manual on PS5, one of the first time I ever like felt needing one).
Because there's a lot going on, probably too much, at least that [is not documented]/[is hidden]/[presents a lack of obviousness] that would make the gameplay instinctive, "easy to play". Unless the developers mixed out "easy to play" with "hard to master", and made a mismatch like "hard to play" without realizing it, a little like if they were throwing bold ideas with no retenue or concerns about "readability". One major critic about the game from a lot of players is "its awful user interface", and I'm really guessing it's a little word to translate their lack of understanding of the game due to under-explanation or need of too much explanation.
For example, I can't say as of now if codices are kept from an era to another, if there is other "collectibles" in other eras for sure, and if they are also carried over or not to next era. I would assume they aren't, and if that's the case, then it would make the gameplay particularly weak and the feeling of achievement inexistent. Not to mention there's a fear of missing out due to eras passing, milestones of four totally different types and quantities that have to be reached which some of them feel absurb. (hello treasure fleets)
Heck, I don't even know how to generate those treasure fleets : I had once 2 cities (whoops, I mean towns) on "distant lands", they spawned each one a treasure fleet sometimes (although one path for a TF was blocked by an AI city, I realized it too late before finally asking right of passage), but I didn't know exactly in which rate, and I happened to read on those forums that there is "treasure fleets resources", which I have absolutely no idea of what they could be. (do they change each game ? If not, what about the TFs resources of the other land mass in multiplayer ?)
I also didn't realize how to use commanders until someone explained it to me on those very forums ! (and am still unsure if it's exploits or intended features) As to commanders themselves, I think that they add too much micromanagement as to unload or load a unit from or into them : it requires a lot of "clicks" to do so with the cross of the DualSense (the PS5 paddle), with sometimes unwanted and arbitrary movements, the same kind there is in the resources panel or in the techs or civics trees. (there, it doesn't save where you were, you have to go down the list every single time you open those damn panels)
So what you earn by not having workers or builders anymore, you lose it with commanders and the like. So I would definitely not say that there is less micromangament in Civ7 than in previous iterations, it's maybe even worse. I don't think either that the goal of removing workers or builders was to reduce micromanagement, because as settlers have to be built still, and moved around, I don't think that's to avoid any counter-momentum and gameplay heaviness. (as to, overall, as a complaint I had about Civ6, the feeling everything takes too long) As to why exactly, I really can't figure. (except to compensate)
I just know that now, once a town/city grows, you have to choose the location of the new citizen, which improves the land automatically with the preset improvement of that tile (farms for flat terrain, sawmills or something for wooded terrain, mines for rough terrain, etc.) and that you couldn't move them anymore until the end of the game. (unless you place a building - so de facto an "urban district" - on an already worked "rural district", it is to say a tile worked for its natural resources) But you cannot switch your cities on for example full food or full production anymore, what removes a big part of the fun IMO.
As to district adjacencies I heard of multiple times (often with boldness), I still have no clue of what they are supposed to be, except by seeing the eventual outputs when it comes to place a building. It's just that - I see in the building panel nice yields about a building, and I look for where those yields are (because it displays the maximum possible yields out of all the possible locations, well maybe with an emphasis on food or on the building purpose, because I sometimes thought that the "best yields" - for me - were not those displayed exactly), and I just place the building where the yields seem the better for me, with no planning whatsoever !
Now let's talk a bit about eras and civs switch, as many of you complained about it. If I would have any idea of what new civ to pick and not push the "random" button, I would say that I don't mind civ switching. But ages are another story. It has several unpleasant effects. First, all your units will be moved. Yet another micromanagement scandal. Units loss isn't that big of a deal, as you can prevent it by having several commanders, and two of them will be easy to get. (up to 12 units saved, but let be frank let's just say 8, because the +2 carry units promotion is hidden behind two other promotions, and not the first ones you want to pick)
While I'm at it, let's go back to commanders a little bit. The first promotion you want to pick is the one that allows you to unload your units with fresh movement points to use immediately : that way, you can move two tiles (out of 3) with your commander, unload a unit on top of a rough or wooded terrain, and use it immediately with its full 2 (or only 1 if you loaded it previously in the same turn) movement points/attack. It's very powerful and one of the sole purpose of commanders at that point. What poses the problem : why the heck is this a promotion and not a default for every commander ? I just think the devs missed out on something (which is why I still consider it an exploit, in which case commanders were good for nothing - nearly) or were confused. If you want a proof of that, just consider that this ability won't work if the commander has spent all of its moves ! It makes no sense.
Another unpleasant effect of ages, is that every nation will start equal again. I was playing on lower difficulty level and I can say it was unpleasant to see my research advancement go to oblivion. Yet another thing to consider is that the relationship between civilizations will reset as well : if you are in the middle of a war that you are winning, due to superior weapons or not, you will just find yourself at peace in the next age, with same technology and the need to spend Influence again in order to deteriorate the relations again !
Relationship with other civs is unclear. If you want to enter a war, you preferably want to do to it when your relations are bad, otherwise it will be considered a surprise war with a comfortable malus for your units, only counterable by spending potentially a LOT of Influence to reverse it to your advantage or even equal or semi equal, if not ALL your Influence. Problem is, you don't know exactly when your diplomatic deeds trigger, because in one hand it says "this will be active for 10 turns" (like denunciation or everything else basically) and in the other hand you have to wait some time in order to this deteriorating effectively your relations, I don't know if only after some turns or effectively when those 10 turns are done. (which would contradict the tool tip)
Don't get me wrong, ages and "eras" change that are even more explicitly used for gameplay than in Civ6 are not bad by themselves, it's even a nice idea that I would support 100%, but it's just badly executed all right ? All units moved, no more edge on science (one of the funniest part of the franchise), relationships reseted, city status reseted, which make me consider that a playthrough from 4000 BCE to 2050 AD with no perceivable transition is indeed what might have made Sid Meier's Civilization series so mind blowing. It was up to you to consider the age you were in, just by throwing an eye at the displayed date ; it wasn't taking long provided you weren't drawn into the one more turn infernal cycle for example. (which is, per se, definitely less present here)
One first thing about exploration era, as I believe the era system in here have been specifically designed for that particular era that has happened in real History : you better reach the tech or civic that gives you religion the fastest possible, and reach the tech that allows you to sail in deep waters as soon as possible. There is no choice. As to religion, I just couldn't have one that was appealing to me, even by playing on lowest difficulty level : all religious "tenets" left were pretty bad, or at least I thought they were when came the time to choose them in that one game I had to choose one.
As to the new system of Cities vs. Towns, it is nice on the paper, but it has been difficult to me in every of my games to balance them out, especially without a panel that sorts all of that. The game specifically says that only towns directly connected to cities will send food to them once specialized, but I often found myself with a row of specialized towns connected with each others somehow, but not to cities. I have found very difficult to build an empire so that multiple towns could send food to my cities. I never had the ability to sort settle places as to make one town help one (or several ? This is unclear) cities. Maybe the size of the map and the map generator are involved too.
As it is now, I guess you have to play instinctively, not trying to go into details too much and not trying to have control on everything in the first runs, but instead take the temperature for further games and in further games. You have to make yourself an abstract representation of what does what, or read for information in forums or watch youtube videos. You have to carefully respect what the devs say in a first step, like having a parity of cities/towns, 1:1, and trying to connect directly towns to cities. (note that you don't know how far a city can be connected with roads, it gets further with time but the exact number on each "era" are completely unobvious)
Thing is you are totally in the dark as to why and how to settle towns or when and where to convert towns into cities. Cities can produce things regularly, I've seen some say that "production is king" and maybe it is, it's probably a savant calculation compared to gold for example. Stays that it isn't obvious to me. As to towns, they convert all their production into gold, and once at size 7 (why 7 and not "when we want" ? To spare some more confusion ?) you can specialize them and then they will send all of their food to cities and stop growing themselves, right ? All this is quite confusing. On top of that you need a good population town to need minimum gold to convert into city, and you really don't know when to specialize your cities anymore. It's a vast mess. The mechanics are simple, but every single one is a behemoth you don't know what to do with it.
In my last game, I also had a weird event : in the middle of a war with Isabella or whatever, I was on the edge to take one of her cities and suddenly this city changed hands. This reminded me of the Civ6 city-gift abuse in multiplayer, this was considered cheating and if it's intended AI behavior then it's a master troll, probably from an all-empowered productor that has the mentality of a kid. Unless it could be due to some weird loyalty-like pressure that is completely hidden, like for example I got a free city from another guy (he had like 9 cities out of 5), and several of my cities was "rebelling" or something like that at some point. Why ? (rhetorical question)
Put with occasionally, especially in my last game, low food yields even with a granary, I hardly was motivated to settle or play barely. I noticed that I can occasionally be embarrassed when comes the time to send a settler settle in other games of the franchise, especially Civ6 (mad-bad-map generator) and a little bit of 5 too. But there, I never said myself "this would be a good spot to settle, heck I want this place", mostly because there is mostly no good food spots. The traditional yields are extremely unappealing.
I will end this review here as I think I reviewed everything from top of my head and it is already pretty long like that, and I'm sure I itched some concerns of a lot of you that want to answer or "correct" me, but that's really not the goal of this review, sorry. Keep in mind however that the points raised here are far from beeing exhaustive, so you can still add some points as you see fit. Cheers !
Meh / 10.
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