I will compare to Civ 4 and 6 since I have most experience playing those.
In Civ 4: Improved resources are super impactful (e.g. farm on corn is 6 food vs. 3 food on resourceless). "Hurry" mechanics (notably slavery and chopping forests) are very strong and natural production (hammers on tile) is comparatively weak until the industrial age or so. Buildings in particular production-enhancing buildings are very expensive and come late (e.g. 120 hammer forge for a 25% bonus to production, on a tech you typically don't get pre turn 100).
In Civ 6: Improvements (on resources or otherwise) are weak (at least compared to Civ 4) and it takes time for techs to boost them (e.g. Apprenticeship). The chopping hurry mechanic is very strong and scales with tech advancement, just like the cost of districts, to the point where it's the only way to build a district in a reasonable time in a new city later in the game. Building yields are fairly weak until you boost them with civics or city-state bonuses (in the vanillla version, city state bonuses and adjacency bonuses from the base district would overwhelm the weak yields from adding buildings to that district).
Compared to those, I like how Civ 7 doesn't have very strong hurry mechanics besides buying with gold (about as inefficiently as in the previous game). Improvement yields are not higher than in Civ6 overall but the buildings and techs to boost them come earlier, leading you to grow the natural yields in your city with building choices early on and at a steady pace (buildings and specialists have a "multiplying" effect more than in 6). Removing the district mechanic from 6 also avoids forcing you to specialize your city in a certain yield early on.
In Civ 4: Improved resources are super impactful (e.g. farm on corn is 6 food vs. 3 food on resourceless). "Hurry" mechanics (notably slavery and chopping forests) are very strong and natural production (hammers on tile) is comparatively weak until the industrial age or so. Buildings in particular production-enhancing buildings are very expensive and come late (e.g. 120 hammer forge for a 25% bonus to production, on a tech you typically don't get pre turn 100).
In Civ 6: Improvements (on resources or otherwise) are weak (at least compared to Civ 4) and it takes time for techs to boost them (e.g. Apprenticeship). The chopping hurry mechanic is very strong and scales with tech advancement, just like the cost of districts, to the point where it's the only way to build a district in a reasonable time in a new city later in the game. Building yields are fairly weak until you boost them with civics or city-state bonuses (in the vanillla version, city state bonuses and adjacency bonuses from the base district would overwhelm the weak yields from adding buildings to that district).
Compared to those, I like how Civ 7 doesn't have very strong hurry mechanics besides buying with gold (about as inefficiently as in the previous game). Improvement yields are not higher than in Civ6 overall but the buildings and techs to boost them come earlier, leading you to grow the natural yields in your city with building choices early on and at a steady pace (buildings and specialists have a "multiplying" effect more than in 6). Removing the district mechanic from 6 also avoids forcing you to specialize your city in a certain yield early on.
