My List of Civ 7 Suggestions

[sen803]

Overall I think Civ7 is a very good game and will a highlight of the franchise once the game is finished and the future expansions/DLCs have been released. I enjoy the art, natural wonders, narrative events, diplomacy, commanders, resources, independent powers, navigable rivers, and music of Civ 7. I was originally skeptical of the ages and decoupling leaders from their Civs, but I found both to increase the replay value of the game.

Below are my thoughts on some ways that Civ7 could be improved, and I this is just a collection of thoughts I have from playing the game and reading posts/reviews. I don’t claim that these are original and they only represent my point of view.

Age Transitions

• On age transition, it would also be nice to have the option to play that era for a set number of additional turns (for example 3, 5 or 10 more turns) or transition to the next era. Sometimes you have a specific wonder you’re about to finish or a city you’re about to conquer and you just miss it before the age transition and you’d like to stay in that era for a bit longer.
• It would be nice on the age transition to have the option to rename all of your cities with the new Civ (for example have all of your cities now have American city names in the Modern age).
• It would be nice if the primary unique ability of a Civ was also available in future ages as a tradition (ie Demokratia was available as a tradition in exploration and moder for a civ that was Greece in the first age). Some unique abilities would need a bit of modification as a tradition, but I think something close would continue that aspect of the original Civ for the rest of the age.
• Capital Changing:
• It would be nice if there were at least three options for changing the capital.
  • I believe you need a land connection to change capital but it would be nice to be able to move your capital in the modern age to the distant lands.
  • I think the AI should most consistently try to move their capital to the most populous settlement other than their ancient capital. I often see them moving the capital to a less desirable location, which sets them back in that age.
• I understand the rationale for switching some cities back to town at the age transition, but I think switching all your cities except your capital (or former and new capital if you move the capital) is a bit too much change.
  • Perhaps the top three cities based on population could stay a city in the next age?
  • Or at least any city that has been a capital will stay a city throughout the game?
  • I say this partially for the AI, who especially in the modern age tends to have fewer cities than I would expect it would (and often the ancient age capital is a town in the modern age despite having good opportunities for overbuilding).
• I personally don’t mind that the independent powers change at the age transition and it is nice to have some variability in the types of independent powers throughout the game. However, when a new independent powers spawns in the same location as a prior city state from the earlier age, it would be nice if the prior suzerain from the previous age had some progress towards befriending that independent powers. Even + 5 or 10 points would be helpful in providing some continuity here.
• It would be nice if there were more options for how to use your legacy points at the age transition. For example some games seem to give you the option for additional science on the mills in the modern age, and that is a nice example of another option (presumably related to your game play) at the age transition other than just the same legacy point bonuses every game.
• It would be nice if there were some modified legacy paths for players who may only want to play a single age, with a longer age length and victory condition for that age. I enjoy the ancient age and might want to play some games just as the ancient age without continuing beyond that age.

 

[sen803]

Quality of Life

• It would also be nice if there was a way to choose to automate city/town growth rather than having to pick which tile you want to expand on every growth event.
• It would be nice if there was an option to automate resource allocation to your settlements. Sometimes you’re really trying to focus production or food into a city (especially in the ancient era) and so it’s nice to be able to control where things go, but sometimes especially in the Modern era there isn’t a tremendous difference which city gets spices etc, and so the automate option would be nice.
• It would be nice if the UI indicated which settlement each urban and rural tile is part of. That would be helpful when sending missionaries, trying to decide which city you may want to raze etc.
• The end of age time turner only tells you at the very beginning of that turn how many turns are left in the age and it would be nice if that was somewhere else in the UI.
• The order of listed buildings in the production queue for cities seems to be a bit random, and towards the end of an era when there are a lot of potential options it can be hard to find the building you intend to build. Perhaps there could be an order to how they are listed (warehouse, production, science, culture, gold, food etc).
• It would be nice if there was a screen with more details on the independent powers and indicated friendly/hostile or city state, bonuses, who is befriending them, what type of city state they are etc. (I know there is a mod for this, but it would be nice to be in the base game).
• Given that there are so many wonders in Civ 7, it would be nice if there was a wonder screen. (There was a mod for this but it hasn’t been updated). Something similar in the base game would be very useful to keep track of all of the wonders, what the terrain requirements are, which cities you can build the wonders, which of the AI civs are building that wonder etc.
  • One of the devs in one of the videos said that the wonder notification is to prevent players from quitting a game because they didn’t get a wonder. However, if you start building a wonder and get a notification that the AI is building that wonder, and then check and see that the wonder is almost built and you’re not going to get it, does that notification really change things? If that is the goal then it would be better to have some type of system where you get a notification (that could be turned on or off at advanced start) if the AI is actually building that wonder.
• I am sure that this will all come with time but I think the following would be great:
  • Search Function in the Map
  • Natural Wonder Picker
  • Age of earth picker (it would be nice to be able to have more mountains/rough terrain if planning on playing Inca, Bulgaria, Nepal etc).
  • Selection on humidity / temperature of you map
  • Option for legendary start location (similar to Civ 6).
• It would be nice if it was a little clearer to the player what the benefit of a quarter is. I didn’t really understand this difference between a quarter and an urban district until I had played several games.
• Settlement connections (especially across water) are still not entirely clear to me and would be nice if it was easier to understand/more clear in the UI/Civilopedia.
• It’s also not particularly easy to understand which settlements you don’t have the opportunity to raze when you capture. I believe it is a holy city or a former original capital? It would be nice if that was clear somewhere in the UI.
• It would be nice if there was a way to turn on auto repair after natural disasters (and a notification if you don’t have the gold for the repairs). The repair all function from one of the updates is a great improvement, but keeping track of all the disasters can be tedious at times and I sometimes have tiles which haven’t been repaired for several turns.
• There may be a way to do this, but it would be nice to have the ability to turn on watching all of the other Civs and independent people’s actions at the turn in your empire line of sight and have the screen move to each area (similar to Civ 6), rather than just the line of sight when you end the turn.
• On the trader screen when you have a merchant unit that you’re about to deploy, it would be nice in ancient and exploration if it told you how many turns it would take for that merchant to reach the destinations.
• The relic and artifacts are mostly from Civ6 and nice artwork. It would be nice to be able to enlarge them and scroll through the images like you were able to do in Civ 6 with the great works.
• It would be nice if the religion screen was closer to Civ 6 and actually told you what cities are following each religion.
• I would be nice if the UI on the settlement screen included somewhere the year that settlement was founded, and by what Civ/Independent Power.
• I would be nice in the technology or civics queuing if you could also include masteries in addition to the main tech/civic.

 

[sen803]

AI

• The AI peace deals should be a priority to fix. The AI tends to very readily give away settlements in peace deals, even settlements that were not under siege and were unlikely to be affected in a given war. I think the AI should reduce the frequency with which they give away settlements and should return to other iterations of Civ where things like gold, influence, great works, perhaps technologies and civics can be included in peace deals. I think that the settlements that should be included in peace deals should be ones that were likely to be affected by the war (ones that were under siege/have enemy military units in the radius).
• AI settling is always a complex topic in Civ, but sometimes I see the AI settling where their radius has a lot of water tiles. That might be OK if the AI has several cities and wants a fishing town, but less optimal when trying to make a city with districts or a future capital city. I often tend to raze AI cities because their settling is suboptimal and settle a few tiles away (closer to a resource, less water tiles, further from another settlement etc).
• The other issue I see with AI settling is sometimes it is too close to another settlement and half of the settlement radius is already occupied by another settlement. It seems that the AI tends to favor settling 5 tiles away from another settlement, but I think if it would more consistently space out the settlements to 6 tiles than they could use the radius more fully.
• The AI tends to specialize the town fairly early, but sometimes I think that they specialize the towns too early and then they miss the opportunity to improve key resources or get expedition bases on natural wonders in the settlement radius.
• I don’t fully understand the algorithm of which towns the AI converts to cities, and find sometimes that smaller or more remote towns get converted to cities while larger towns that were cities in prior ages (and have buildings to overbuild) are still towns.
• The AI often puts both of the unique buildings for a unique quarter (ie basilica and temple of Jupiter) on the same tile, but sometimes it puts them on different tiles and it would be better if it almost always put them on the same tile. (In my most recent game at least one Greek and one Roman city had the two buildings on different tiles).
• I’m also not sure that the AI places buildings to maximize quarters. I think they should try to condense their warehouse buildings and era-specific buildings into different districts to increase the number of quarters they have later in the game.
• I find that the AI repairing buildings and improvements (especially after a war) seems to be inconsistent, and they would benefit from repairing these more frequently and prioritizing repair once peace is made.
• I am not sure that the AI fully implements overbuilding. I see a lot of ancient buildings in the AI in the modern era, and I see more urban sprawl then necessary.
• The hostile independent people’s military seems to be very well programmed and will occasionally actually take over the settlements of the player or AI. However, once the independent people turn into a city state, the military seems to be somewhat aimless. It would be nice if the independent people’s military when they convert to city states would also in war actually attack and potentially even take over/raze other civ’s cities when they are at war.
• I have played against AI Lafeyette several times and I have never been offered reform. This is opposed to Ibn Battuta who does trade maps with me. Perhaps the influence cost of reform is a bit prohibitive?
• The AI doesn’t always clear independent people that I would expect they would. That is especially true in the barbarian invasions crisis where I see the AI actually kill all the units from the hostile independent people, but they don’t actually disperse the independent people as often.
• I don’t find that the AI Inca build the Terrace Farm as often as I would expect that they would.
• I think that the AI too often does espionage actions and then ends up having the espionage revealed and then gets an influence penalty—leading them to not have enough influence for endeavors etc. Perhaps the AI could use espionage a bit less often then they do.
• The AI also doesn’t tend to protect settlers with military units, leaving them vulnerable to attack by independent powers, privateers etc.

 

[sen803]

Ancient Era

• The ancient era is the best regarding balancing and the tech tree. However, there are a few minor things that I think could be improved.
• I think that the Lighthouse should just be an ageless building that are also available to build/purchase in exploration, and possibly in Modern as well. Lighthouses didn’t lose their importance at the end of antiquity and there are a shortage of water based buildings in the game.
• I think that it would be nice to have a tier 1 chariot unit that comes earlier in the tech tree (with a technology that actually is representative of the wheel). What is currently called the wheel in the ancient era tech tree is more designed to represent Greek/Roman time frame with the villa, and an updated chariot. I think it is fine to have that tech present and renamed to something else, but I think there should be a tier 1 chariot to represent the use of chariots in earlier Mesopotamian/Egyptian history.
• I also think it would be nice if there was a tier 3 ranged unit/archer in the ancient age. Once you get to the other tier 3 units, the archers are fairly weak, and this also makes the civs with unique ranged units a bit underpowered in the ancient era.
• The alter is a bit underpowered and would be nice if it also had the mountain/natural wonder adjacency bonus that other happiness buildings do.
• It would be nice of ancient era pantheons were 1) revised and 2) had some type of bonus in cities or settlements without an alter. (For example the benefit that gives 10% wonder bonus in cities with an alter also gave 5% bonus in cities without an alter).
• I think that the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus and Theodoric should be switched in the tech tree, since Theodoric is more to indicate very late antiquity.
• I appreciate that the cultural legacy path is built around wonders in antiquity, but there are really quite a few wonders in Antiquity and it can be hard to keep track of all of them. While I do hope to see the Statue of Zeus and Temple of Artemis to complete the 7 wonders of the world, and suspect that there will be some specific wonders when more Civs are released, I don’t think Antiquity needs too many additional wonders. This era is already quite saturated with wonders.
• The Colosseum art work is fantastic, it would be even better if gladiator games or naval battles were within the wonder that you could zoom in and watch.

 

[sen803]

Exploration Era

• I enjoy Exploration era, but I do think this age needs some work in future patches. I think that the religion mechanic needs to be expanded, the civic and tech tree need some reorganization including the location of wonders in the trees, the era needs to be longer, and there need to be ways to complete the legacy paths that are less dependent on distant lands.
• I think that the era progress from legacy paths in Exploration is too high. You get 20 points to age progress from the ancient age legacy paths, 35 from exploration, and 15 from modern. I think the age progress paths move exploration age too quickly, and would be nice if it was similar or only slightly higher than ancient age (20-25 age progress points).
• I think that universities and hospitals should just be ageless and able to be purchased/produced in modern age, with different science/plague legacy paths (or perhaps the legacy paths could give you additional yields on sciences and hospitals). It doesn’t make a lot of sense to just overbuild hospitals and universities, which are still important today.
• Exploration Civs:
  • I am not sure why the Spanish unique buildings require being on the coast—the buildings are from Seville which is not actually on the coast, but in Civ 7 terrain would be on a navigable river. It would be nice if they could be built adjacent to a navigable river (or actually remove the terrain requirement and just need to be built on the homelands).
  • I think it would be nice if the Abbasids and Spain had a second unlock criteria. Three camels/reconquering a lost settlement are very specific. (Perhaps the Abbasids could unlock with a three libraries or academies and Spain with three gardens or something similar).
  • The Abbasid great person Al-Jazari doesn’t seem to work—he gives you the gold from adding a specialist but the specialist doesn’t actually add to the tile.
  • It would also be nice if the Abbasid great people who create the observatory, hospital etc could overbuild, right now they only add the building if the tile has an empty slot.
• I appreciate that the resources may change during the era transitions. However, the flip side is sometimes you make an urban district with great adjacency bonuses and then all the resources disappear in the next age, and the tile where you would want to put the exploration buildings with resources adjacencies may have wonders etc. I especially find that to be the case with Tundra where hides, wool, and salt are removed on exploration era, and gypsum seems to be rare to continue through exploration.
  • I am not quite sure why these three (hides, wool, salt) disappear in exploration age when they were important during that era and would be nice if they would be in the category of resources that can continue into exploration.
  • It is rare that in Exploration you get resources that could have been present in ancient era (ie it is rare that rice, wild game, gypsum now appear if they weren’t present that game in ancient era). If the developers are looking for some transition in resources between eras, it would be nice if some of these resources would appear in exploration rather than primarily the resources like pitch/whales which aren’t present in ancient.
  • In exploration age it would be nice if the Flax resource had more value than it does in antiquity (both ages it provides + 2 science/culture, perhaps in exploration it could be +3 science/culture).
• The tech tree on exploration age is clearly designed for the distant land mechanics, and while this can be fun from a game play perspective, I think a few changes would be a bit more historical regarding timing. While I enjoy being able to take Cogs out into the ocean right at 400 CE at the beginning of the exploration era, I don’t think that the Cog was a ship designed to cross the ocean (but one that in Civ would be designed for just coast tile).
  • My inclination is that the Cog should be a starting ship but be limited to coast tiles and that with Cartography an upgrade ship (probably the Caravel) should be available to actually cross the ocean. I realize this would slow down the distant lands mechanism, but I think that is fine as I also find the exploration age to be fairly quick. Perhaps both Cog and Caravel could be “tier 1” with regards to strength but the Caravel could cross the ocean. Also if this change was implemented, I would keep Iceland with the ability to cross the ocean early (or have that ability come with an early Icelandic Civic) which would make them a bit more unique.
  • I also think that Feudalism and Cartography should be switched in the tech tree—Feudalism is more of a early/high middle ages tech so should be early in the game, and cartography is a little later historically.
  • I also think that Astronomy and Education should be switched. I understand why from a game play perspective it is nice to have fleet commanders early in the game, but realistically education is meant to reflect an earlier universities etc, and what Civ is using Fleet commanders to represent are more of a later historical development (Drake etc). That would also involve making universities tier 1 science buildings an observatories tier 2 science buildings, but I also think that’s more historically accurate.
• The civic tree and placement of Wonders for exploration could also use some modification (similar to the patch released in 2025 when some of the ancient era wonders got moved in the trees and got some changes in their benefits. I’m not sure why Notre Dame and the White Tower which were wonders from the Middle Ages are at the end of the civics tree and the Grand Bazaar, Hale o Kawea, and Wat Xieng Thong are at the beginning of the tech tree but these are from later historically in the age. I think that Notre Dame and House of Wisdom should be unlocked with either piety or inspiration, White Tower should unlock with Feudalism, and the other wonders be pushed further back in the tech tree. I’m also not sure why Economics and Mercantilism are so early in the civics tree.
• Naval Gameplay
  • The privateers are a great addition to the game, but the diplomatic ramifications of privateering are fairly low. I think the consequences of using the privateers should be higher.
  • In the early exploration era (before shipbuilding has been unlocked), sometimes if you automatically send a unit from one point to another using a naval route, the path will have the unit end on more ocean tiles than necessary and lead to the unit being lost due to rough seas. It would be nice if the calculator could prioritize ending on coast tiles when possible.
  • I think that there should be some degree of damage with rough seas after shipbuilding, but it should be less than before shipbuilding. Perhaps a 50% reduction in damage from rough seas would be more realistic from shipbuilding, and some additional reduction in rough seas with shipbuilding mastery. Then I think in the Modern era that rough seas should no longer exist, but I think it is a bit premature to say that there is no rough seas when the Carrack was being rolled out.
  • I also think the tempo of ships healing outside of home territory should be slower than it is, and I think that a ship should have to be adjacent to land to heal (rather just on coast). Perhaps the naval healing could only be + 5 when not in home territory.
• I’m sure that there will be a religion based expansion to Civ 7 at some point (similar to Civ 5 Gods and Kings). At present religion has a very focused point in the game and is mostly related to getting relics or presence in distant lands. (Personally I preferred Civ 5’s implantation of religion to Civ 6, as the apostles and religious units were a lot to keep track of if you weren’t aiming for a religious victory, but I think both Civ 5 and 6 implemented religion better than the current version in Civ 7).
  • The cost of missionaries in the game at present is the same and does not increase based on the number of missionaries that you have (which is different from merchants/settlers etc). I do think that this cost should increase.
  • I do think that there should be some diplomatic ramifications to converting other cities (which was present in Civ 6).
  • I do think that religion should play a role in diplomacy and war, similar to Civ 5/6.
  • The concept from Civ 6 of a limited number of religions in the game was a good one—if every Civ has a different religion then it’s very hard to include that in diplomacy or war.
  • I think that the urban and rural religion difference is somewhat artificial and leads to a bit too much micromanagement of missionaries. It is also difficult on the missionary screen to tell what rural tiles are part of which settlement.
  • I think that the religious presence model was better in Civ5/6 where there is a certain religious population and converting a city with a certain religion to another religion does take some persistence and depends on the religious population of that city. The Civ 7 iteration where a single missionary of another religion suddenly converts a settlement that has been a different religion for an entire era is not as fun or realistic.
  • I think Missionaries entering settlements with an established religion should be a bit similar to the rough seas mechanic. If they enter a settlement with an established religion they should lose some health each turn they are in a settlement with a different religion.
• The Erden Zuu wonder seems to give culture when you upgrade a cavalry unit, not just when you create a cavalry unit, and I am not sure if that is intentional. However, it seems like it would be most appropriate for new cavalry units. Likewise the Iceland tradition that gives you culture when you produce a naval unit also gives you culture when you upgrade the naval unit.

 

[sen803]

Modern Era

• The Modern era is OK but feels a bit unfinished. I think the Modern age needs more buildings, more complex victory conditions, and some additional dept to the Civs.
• Personally I would favor just expanding the modern age a bit later in history and giving it more depth and techs/civics that go further into history over a new atomic age.
• A few of the modern age Civs could use a buff or something more unique about them (such as better civics/traditions, unique great people etc). With the exception of America, Japan, and Russia (and sometimes Nepal depending on the map) I find most of the Modern civs to be a bit boring, especially since I tend to have a good amount of culture and happiness by the modern age from the prior ages.
• Buildings:
  • I think that there should be a modern shipbuilding military building, as well as a modern food building to place on ocean tiles. I often have the shipyard and warf in cities and don’t have a building to overbuild them with.
  • It would also be nice if there were some modern age happiness buildings for water, similar to Civ 6. I often find myself a bit underusing the coast tiles in the Modern age when food is a bit less important. Also right now building ocean quarters is difficult in the modern age when the only ocean buildings are the warehouse buildings (harbors and fishing quays) and ports.
  • It would be nice if there was a way to give a factory more than one resource, perhaps somewhere later in the tech tree, or the ability to put in a coal/oil plant in a city once there is a factory and have those buildings increase the resource slots and production of factories.
• It would also be nice in the resource screen to have a click that only shows cities with factories or sorts they by factories—it is a lot to scroll down the entire resource screen every turn in the modern era to make sure that all your factory settlements have a resource assigned.
• It might be more interesting if there were crises in the modern age but that spawned at a random time. For example 25% into the age you get a crisis that you have to deal with (could be health, could be government change similar to 1848 revolutions, could be happiness in distant lands etc).
• The archeology game mechanic and the culture victory is improved after the early patch that addressed it, but I think still needs some optimization.
  • I think that Archeologists should only be able to produced or purchased in cities with a golden age university or a museum, but I don’t think that archeologists should be able to be produced/purchased in any settlement. (This is similar to Civ 6).
  • Similar to Civ 5/6, I think there should be some diplomatic ramifications of digging up artifacts in other Civs territory. Right now it is too easy to just get artifacts anywhere in the map, you don’t need open borders for them to wander and there are no negative penalties from getting artifacts in other Civs territories.
  • I think that only one Civ should be able to get an artifact from each natural wonder. It doesn’t make a lot of sense for each civ to be able to get an artifact from each natural wonder. I’m also not sure why researching the antiquity era ruins (on a museum or university) should give you an artifact, it seems they should only come from the actual ruins.
  • Personally I think that the culture victory should be somewhat re-designed to incorporate more than just the number of artifacts, but these are my comments on how to optimize the culture path based on archeology.
• The air units could use a bit of optimization as well. I find that it’s hard to keep track of which commander (aerodrome or squadron) has each aircraft unit, and which ones have been used each turn. I have to go and look for each aircraft to make sure that they were used each turn.
• It would be nice if there was some improvement or tech that would increase the radius of the railroad stations from 1 to 2 tiles. I also don’t think that railroads should be able to transport across a certain number of water tiles. However, I think that you should be able to transport units and commanders from one aerodome to another areodome or air base (perhaps at aerodynamics or a new/later tech in the tech tree).
• There are a lot of modern era things from prior Civ iterations that are missing from civ 7:
  • The Olympics, mass transit in cities, professional sports, Broadway/Hollywood which could be incorporated into the Modern age to add more depth.
  • I liked the Civ 6 ski lodges and I feel like that could be a nice late age building/district to build on a mountain (perhaps similar to areodome or railway station where it’s a single building on the tile).
  • I also think that the World’s Fair should be some type of multiciv project similar to Civ 5/6 and that there can be a different project for finishing the tech tree.
  • Natural Parks could also make their way into Civ 7.
• The ironclad should probably be available at the beginning of the modern age so that the privateers can upgrade at the age transition to another light naval unit, rather than all upgrading to ship of the line/heavy naval units.
• Coal is a really critical resource in the modern era and it would be nice if it reliably spawned in the game. The few times I’ve had a modern age without coal it has been very slow.
• I am not sure why Dyes need to disappear in the Modern age, they are a nice resource that certainly had its use after exploration age.
• I am not sure why the Mughals unlock with salt when salt is only an ancient era resource and not an exploration era resource.
• I don’t think all civs should be able to work ice and mountains at the beginning of the modern era. I feel like those abilities should come at some point later in the tech or civic tree, and perhaps Nepal could start with the ability to work mountain tiles at the beginning of the age which would give it more distinction.
• The art of Civ 7 is generally stunning and one of the most enjoyable aspects of playing the game. However, The Taj Mahal wonder was extraordinary in Civ 6 and perhaps it’s the color or the detail on the wonder, but it is the one wonder in Civ 7 I find a bit disappointing.
• I’m sure canals will make it into Civ 7 at some point, but that was one aspect of Civ 6 I really enjoyed.

 

[sen803]

Crises

I enjoy the concept of the crises, but they could be improved. The two crises that I enjoy are the ancient era ones, the first is the happiness one and the second is the barbarian one. They are both events that 1) make you change your gameplay (in the happiness you need to buy some altars and villas and limit the number of settlements you do over the settlement limit, in the barbarian you have additional combat), 2) give you an obstacle that you need to overcome, and 3) give you some positive results if you do well (in the happiness you’ll probably have another settlement join you at some point, in the barbarian you get the benefits of dispersing new independent people). The only exploration era crisis that I enjoy is the plague and that is only because that provides the option for plague hospitals in the modern era. Most of the other crises don’t necessarily change gameplay so I end up ignoring them. Also the crises is usually when the legacy points are adding up and advancing the age, so end up being significantly less than the 30% of gameplay for the age. I think that the antiquity plague and the exploration crises need some reworks to make them more interesting.


Natural Wonders

• I have played several games at this point and I still have not seen the Guilfoss natural wonder, and I’ve only come across Iguazu Falls twice. It would also be nice if the Iguazu Falls wonder tile actually had some baseline yields on the tile itself as well, as it seems to be the only natural wonder that doesn’t.
• I’ve noticed that Mt Fuji and Mt Kilimanjaro erupt fairly rarely, even at catastrophic natural disaster level. I’m not sure if that is intentional? I find these two natural wonders to be a bit underwhelming as they don’t have any other effects other than being volcanoes and the eruptions are rare.
• It would also be nice if the effects of natural wonders would scale with age (ie if the Great barrier reef provided + 2 science in antiquity but + 3 in exploration and + 4 in Moden).

Miscellaneous

• There do not seem to be any diplomatic ramifications for using nuclear weapons in Civ 7, which is different from all prior iterations of Civ.
• The navigable rivers are fantastic new design, but still a bit underdeveloped in the game.
  • I am assuming that at some point there will be a Wonder that is a great dam (possibly the Hoover dam given the timeline of the Modern Age ending around the early atomic time frame).
  • It would also be nice if there were dams as a building, perhaps similar to the railway stations and aerodomes which take an entire tile.
  • It would also be nice if the navigable rivers had some additional resources on them as well, such as fish.
• The barbarian clans mode was one of my favorite aspects of Civ 7 and I think that the independent powers before they convert to a city state could model a bit more after that mode.
  • I am not sure that the inciting a raid against another Civ function really works? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that actually make a difference in the game, and 2 turns is very short. Perhaps the price could be higher and it could actually last for a longer period of time?
  • It would be nice to be able to actually buy a unit from an independent people before they become a city state with gold.
• Ibn Battuta is listed as being expansionist and wildcard. I’m not sure what the wildcard really refers to here, the only diplomatic endeavors he gets is the trade maps and the farmers market. It would actually be fun if he had a random additional attribute that varied each game for him and would lead to another diplomatic endeavor for him (ie he is expansionist and scientific one spawn and then another one is expansionist and diplomatic).
• I have noticed that at the age transition independent people can occasionally settle on resources. I am assuming this was not intended to be possible since players can’t settle on resources.
• It would be nice if one of the expansionist civs or city states had a unique building that you could build over the fishing boats that maintain the warehouse bonuses. The coast terrain gets a bit monotonous with all the fishing boats.
• It would be nice if there were steam achievements for the leaders from the DLCs who do not currently have a steam achievement.
• Sometimes at the age transition the tile with a road/ferry across a navigable river changes. This can be a bit annoying if you specifically designed one tile to have the bridge and then next era the road is over a different tile and you need to move the bridge to a new tile (and that tile may already be filled).
• It would be nice if there was an espionage action that allowed you to target a city so there is a chance it might revolt and join your civ.
• I don’t know why so many of the selected quotes for wonders and technologies need to be so long and so melancholy/morbid. I prefer the Civ quotes to be simple and fun—Civ 4 did this really well.
• The newer version of the end of the attribute tree for science, culture, and gold are a bit underwhelming. It’s fairly easy at that point in the game to get + 15 of that yield.
• When you liberate a city state that has been incorporated into another civ’s settlements, it would be nice to have the ability to liberate the city back to being that city state (and gain some diplomatic benefits with other civs for this). I believe this was present in Civ 5 or 6 or both.
• Hardwood does not appear to be vegetated terrain.

 

[sen803]

Game Concepts

• Health: I think it would be great if Civ 7 had an expansion that gave it a health mechanic, similar to Civ 4. I think this would makes sense given how important resources are in Civ 7 and would tie in with some of the existing crises including the plagues and some of the food buildings. It would also be nice to bring back the medic support unit from civ 6.
• Narrative events: I enjoy the narrative events in the game, but it would be nice if there were more narrative events that were actually more challenging to achieve and had greater rewards. One that I so really like is the Egyptian quest with the Medjay to clear an independent people within 15 turns with a Medjay. That is not always achievable and the + 1 militaristic attribute early in the game is very helpful. However, several of the other narrative events are more minor quests/rewards and are therefore less meaningful. I think the game would could be improved with a further increase in leader and Civ – specific narrative events, as well as some quests that are open to all Civs depending on game play.
• New material to Civ 7 versus material from the franchise: I suspect the developers/team spent quite a bit of time thinking of material that would be new to the Civ franchise in order prevent too much overlap from prior iterations of Civ. Don’t get me wrong—much of the new material is great. I just finished a game where I did Iceland in Exploration, which was interesting and well designed. However, I think that in some instances they erred too much on new content rather than revising older classic content, and it might have been better to stick with revised classic Civ content.
  • For example the wonder associated with Great Britian—I personally would have just preferred to have an updated version of Big Ben in Civ 7 (even though it was in Civ 5/6) rather than Battersea Power Station. The Battersea Power Station is fine—it represents a point in the Industrial Revolution and is decently well known—but Big Ben really is what you think of when you think of wonders associated with Britain from that era and would have been a much more impressive building for the art department to recreate compared to the more bland Battersea Power Station.
  • One example of somebody who has been recycled from prior Civs and done well is Isabella. At first I wasn’t too enthusiastic about Isabella having a similar design to Civ 5. However, the natural wonders in Civ 7 are so well done that it works and she’s one of my most played leaders in Civ 7.
• Obscure versus familiar: A similar aspect is the difference between what may be familiar to many Civ players versus content which is perhaps more obscure. There is always a balance here—you certainly want some wonders and Civs that players may not be too familiar with to add depth. Bulgaria is an example of a Civ that is well done here in Civ 7. However, some of the wonders (especially the Modern age wonders) are fairly obscure.
• Low happiness: I don’t mind the global happiness concept, but I don’t find that there are major consequences of having low happiness. Yes the production, science and culture go down slightly, but having low happiness only seems to have major ramifications during the happiness antiquity crisis.
  • I think that some of the aspects the happiness crisis should be present throughout the game, such as settlements revolting if happiness is low, destroying improvements/buildings, and potentially even leaving the empire/becoming independent. It may not have to be quite as dramatic as the crisis, but I think some element of this throughout the game would be more interesting.
  • One question that has always come up in civ iterations is how to deal with settlements which are far from the capital. Civ 3 had corruption and waste, Civ 6 had the loyalty mechanic. I think there should be a happiness penalty for settlements a certain distance from your capital (for example -5 happiness if greater than 10 tiles from your capital, - 10 happiness if greater than 20 tiles etc). That would make settlement-level happiness much more challenging and interesting to deal with.
  • I think that if enough settlements become unhappy and leave an empire during an age (say 2-3 in geographic proximity), that it would be interesting if they could start a new Civ with a new leader.
• Great people: The great people and the great works in Civ 6 were one of my favorite aspects of that game and I think both are a bit under represented in Civ 7.
• Maps: I enjoy the inland lakes, the navigable rivers, and the changes in the coast that some of the updates have provided. However, some of the map types don’t really interface with the distant land mechanics very well and I tend to stick with Continents plus or continents and islands for that reason.
• Land units in Water: Personally I don’t like the concept of land or civilian units just embarking and crossing oceans on their own, and I preferred the older Civ 3 mechanic where land units needed to board a naval unit in order to cross oceans. I think it’s ok to have land units travel on coast and navigable river tiles without boarding a naval unit, but the concept that a pikeman unit just embarks and then travels to a new continent without being on a naval unit seems unrealistic.
• Alliances: I think alliances were well done in Civ 6 and are a bit more rudimentary in Civ 7, primarily for war. It would be nice if some of the alliance specialization from Civ 6 was present to some degree in Civ 7. Perhaps if you’ve been allied for a certain number of turns (20 or 30) then you get a narrative event allowing you to specialize the alliance.

Future Content:

• Civ 7 added a lot of changes to the Civ franchise, and while I personally appreciate seeing of the less well known Civs like the Mississippians and the Bulgars, I think a lot of players will want some of the classic content to return. I think there should be a DLC called Civ Classic and has civs (such as Aztecs, Zulu, Babylon), and leaders (Alexander, Montezuma, Shaka, Elizabeth, Lincoln) which are Civ staples. I’m sure Firaxis has data on which of the Civ 5/6 leaders and Civs are the most played and would be worth considering bringing some of them back to Civ 7.
• I hope that the developers use the age system to generate a few other Civs that are era specific and otherwise would not have been a distinct Civ in prior Civ iterations. Andalucia/Islamic Spain is one such example, Renaissance Florence/Italy is another example, Uzbekistan could be interesting. I would also be interested in how Firaxis would do an exploration age Venice.
• I do think that the lower Civ 7 ratings were at least partially because the game was released before the game/UI were polished and I hope that with future expansions/DLC that they get released when really ready and not prematurely. I think if the game had been released in its current state rather than the iteration that was released, the reviews would have been at least a bit more positive.

 

[Rob Airdrie]

Hi - I haven't read them all yet but some of these I agree with. I'd also love it if unique units were preserved at age transition, maybe with an option to cheaply upgrade.

With natural wonders I agree a picker would be great because I get Bermuda triangle so often and it's a bit immersion breaking for me. But even more I'd love it if it could be arranged that the great barrier reef and blue hole not appear in polar regions - maybe set up biomes for marine tiles.

Also a new age between antiquity and exploration, but maybe that's just me!!

 

[NoCure]

I really like a lot of these suggestions. I've advocated separately for a total rework for the use of Legacy Path points, to use instead to buy features of your old civ (often slightly watered down) to add to your new civ. For example, if you spend a military and a science point, you can keep some of Assyria's ability to get new techs on conquering (you would get a boost only, to a random unresearched tech). You would also have to pay for traditions, and could pay for some of the things that are not traditions but are unlocked in the Civic tree. For example, you could pay one culture point to keep Greece's Symmachia bonus, where you get two culture per suzerained city state. I would make this two culture per age, it's not a big effect. I also would like more explanation in the cutscene about how one civilization morphed into the next, and would like either to rename settlements, or create hybrid names (Ciudad de Athens, Londonium, New Aksum, Parsa-Madrid) automatically.
I think religion needs to be totally overhauled. I liked the "religious plane" idea of former games, the idea that religious units would battle each other, and not regular units. I also think you should be able to lock cities - spend an entire missionary, or maybe two, on one city already following your religion, that locks it forever to your faith. The bonuses for settlements following your religion should be much higher. Finally, make the legacy path more challenging. It should be based on how dominant your religion is. You should need at least 10 relics AND a percentage of your civilization adhering to your religion AND to have converted a set number of settlements in distant lands. Throw in completion of 5 religious World Wonders as a substitute for any of these steps. I actually like the military and economic paths in Exploration. I can take or leave the scientific path, it is very easy to finish, much like in Antiquity. I think great Thinkers (a variant of great people) would be a nice mechanic here, where you gain Thinkers from being the first to unlock certain techs, from certain World Wonder construction, or from exploring parts of the globe (being first to distant lands, being first to circumnavigate the globe, being first to reveal >90% of the map). This would also boost Ibn, who needs it. Each great Thinker would have a different ability as well, when you cash them in at a University, which would give you Science Legacy path points.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

mm and Three Ages systems still in place.

 

[MutilationWave]

@sen803

I agree with many of your suggestions, indifferent on some, and only dislike a few.

I just wanted to thank you for putting so much thought and effort into this post. I'm sure these items will be discussed at Firaxis if they haven't been already.

 

[Nikolai II]

Impressive work here, man!

 

[Gori the Grey]

for example have all of your cities now have American city names in the Modern age

Like Chicago, Baton Rouge, Los Angeles?

I only joke b/c the designers have cited American city names as one of the inspirations for their "history in layers" concept.