Ibn Rashid al-Kanyali
Chieftain
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2024
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Introduction
I have compiled below a list of new/modified mechanics known to be present in Civilization VII, via the use of news articles and the testimonies of Youtubers who have trialled the game. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list about everything we know about the game so far; I am merely aiming for a detailed overview of notable changes from the game's previous iteration.
The reason I have done this is that I feel that the conversation around the game so far has been dominated by the civilization switching mechanic, to the exclusion of all else. Many have made snap judgements about the quality or entertainment value of the game based purely on the little information we currently possess about this single system, whilst there are comparatively few people who seem to be analysing the new game in a holistic fashion. I have been greatly disappointed by the superficial and hysterical nature of discussion taking place within these forums - I expected better from a website called 'CivFanatics'. My hope is that this thread will help stimulate a higher standard of discussion. If you notice any mistakes, please point them out to me so that I can amend them.
The divison of the entirety of recorded history into just Three Ages has prompted much discussion. Below is what Firaxis intends each Age to represent, both in historical and gameplay terms.
Antiquity Age -> 4000BC - c.500AD(?)
Exploration Age-> c.500AD(?) - c.1750AD (?)
Modern Age -> 1750AD - (?)
Sources: Metro, 2K, PAX West, Official Gameplay Showcase
In previous iterations in the franchise:
Choice of Civilizations
In an interview with Metro, Lead Designer Ed Beach explained that England would not appear as a civilization in the Exploration Age: "It has to be a civilisation that historically was prominent during the Middle Ages and Renaissance". We can thus conclude that a civilization's degree of 'historical prominence' during a given Age will be a major factor which influences the likelihood of its representation within the game.
Source: Metro
Other Uses of Influence
Apart from the aforementioned interactions with Independent Powers and the treaties, endeavours, and sanctions with rival civilizations, there are many additional uses of influence:
Gather and Deploy:
Continuous Combat
According to the Japanese website 4gamer, Civilization VII has a new combat system called ‘Continuous Combat’. The article’s English translation is difficult to make sense of:
I have compiled below a list of new/modified mechanics known to be present in Civilization VII, via the use of news articles and the testimonies of Youtubers who have trialled the game. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list about everything we know about the game so far; I am merely aiming for a detailed overview of notable changes from the game's previous iteration.
The reason I have done this is that I feel that the conversation around the game so far has been dominated by the civilization switching mechanic, to the exclusion of all else. Many have made snap judgements about the quality or entertainment value of the game based purely on the little information we currently possess about this single system, whilst there are comparatively few people who seem to be analysing the new game in a holistic fashion. I have been greatly disappointed by the superficial and hysterical nature of discussion taking place within these forums - I expected better from a website called 'CivFanatics'. My hope is that this thread will help stimulate a higher standard of discussion. If you notice any mistakes, please point them out to me so that I can amend them.
Ages
Introduction- Ages are the defining feature of Civilization VII, similar to how Districts were the star feature of Civilization VI. VII's tagline is thus: 'History is built in layers'
- A full Civilization VII campaign is divided into 3 Ages: Antiquity, Exploration, and Modernity. Each Age is around triple the length of a Civilization 6 Era (of which there were 9)
- Ages in Civilization VII are a universal phenomenon. As such, all civilisations in the game are locked into the same Age, and they will all proceed to the next Age at the same time.
- Gameplay will change significantly from Age to Age, and all civilizations will be reset to an almost level playing field at the start of each Age. As a result, the three Ages effectively divide the game into 3 separate chapters or mini-games.
- Hence, Civilization VII players can choose between a full campaign spanning all 3 Ages or a limited campaign which consists of only a single Age.
- Upon starting a new Age, each player is given a selection of new Age civilisations to ‘evolve’ into e.g. Egypt of Antiquity may transition into the Abbasids of Exploration.
- In addition, the map receives an expansion in size. The expanded portion of the map will not be empty - it may contain new tribal villages, new Independent Powers and new resources (relevant to the Age)
- Certain buildings which were constructed during the previous Age (those not labelled ‘ageless’ or ‘persistent’) will be rendered obsolete and will thus provide only a small token bonus, if any.
- In addition, a similar process of obsolescence will occur with certain districts, resources, and units. In some cases, entire mechanics may disappear and be replaced, leading to a significantly different gameplay experience during this new Age
- The Japanese website 4gamer appears to quote Ed Beach as saying that upon the transition to a new Age, outdated military units will be automatically upgraded to the base unit for the new Age e.g. from Antiquity to Exploration, melee units will be upgraded to Men at Arms and ranged units will be upgraded to Crossbowman.
- Players will also have the ability to switch capitals in Civilization VII at the start of a new Age
- Each Age has its own technology and civic tree that spans its time period. Both trees end in a ‘future tech’ that can be researched an infinite number of times in exchange for a certain bonus. No civilization can progress beyond this future technology until the next Age begins
- Many technologies and civics have a secondary technology/civic attached to them known as a ‘Mastery’, significantly increasing the size of both trees. A Mastery can only be researched after discovering its parent technology/civic.
- Researching a mastery will enhance the bonuses awarded by its associated parent technology/civic. For example, researching writing will unlock libraries, and then researching the writing mastery will grant an additional +1 science per library.
- Each civilization will now have access to an additional, unique civic tree. For example, Ancient Egypt’s unique civic tree is called the Egyptian Culture Tree. This unique civic tree contains civics which are unique to the civilization - investing in these civics will provide additional bonuses to the civilization’s unique units and buildings. These unique civic trees are much smaller than the regular civic tree
- The exact length of an age is determined by a global counter. The score on this counter increases by +1 per turn.
- When the counter reaches the set threshold of 200 (at Standard Speed), the first stage of a Crisis will begin.
- Ages last an absolute maximum of 200 turns (Standard Speed) as a result (+1 per turn).
- However, Ages will almost always be shorter than this as the counter will gain an additional 5 points whenever the first civilisation hits a milestone on one of the 4 legacy paths during the Age
- A Crisis is a series of events which ushers in the end of every Age. There are various types of Crisis, including barbarian invasions, civilian unrest, and the plague.
- Each Crisis has 3 stages: the Beginning, the Intensification, and the Culmination.
- Upon reaching the Beginning of a Crisis, the player must choose a single Crisis policy to implement, out of a pool of options. Each Crisis policy has a different negative effect.
- Upon reaching the second stage (Intensification) of a Crisis, the player must choose a second Crisis policy to implement, followed by a third policy when they get to the Culmination of the Crisis.
- The selection of Crisis policies offered to the player is neither generic nor random; this selection of maluses is determined both by the player’s civilisation as well as the victory type they have progressed towards the most so far. For example, playing a militaristic, expansionist Rome may result in a selection of crisis policies which relate to the efficacy of military units or to the loyalty of Commanders (representing the historical rebellion of Roman generals against the Senate).
- The events surrounding Crises fall under a larger Dynamic Event system of Civilization VII
- Events offer the player interesting choices which may have significant consequences to them in the long-term.
- Events are often triggered by player actions rather than being completely random occurrences.
- The four victory types in the game are economic, military, scientific, and cultural
- Each of these four victory types has an associated ‘Legacy Path’, available from Antiquity. At the start of a new Age, all 4 Legacy Paths are replaced with new versions which are tailored to the new Age.
- Each Legacy Path is overseen by a special advisor. This advisor generates tasks related to the relevant victory type (e.g. construct certain buildings or research certain technologies/civics/masteries). Completing these tasks allows civilizations to progress along the Legacy Paths and earn rewards depending on the path’s type.
- The progress that each civilization has made along these Legacy Paths is tracked by the game and is available to view via a Victory window.
- This Victory window shows the player which civilization in the game currently has the most, 2nd most, and 3rd most progress along each Legacy Path
- Each legacy path has three milestones. The first 2 milestones award a ‘Legacy Point’ and a ‘ Leader Attribute Point’
- A Legacy Point can be used to unlock a Legacy - a Legacy is a one-off bonus related to a specific victory type. For example, a cultural legacy point allows the player to choose a cultural legacy.
- Cultural legacies unlock certain civics
- Scientific legacies unlock certain technologies
- Military legacies grant free units or fortifications
- Expansion legacies grant a free town/city
- Economic legacies grant gold or population
- Leader Attribute Points unlock Leader Attributes. Attributes, unlike Legacies, are long-term bonuses (as they are applied to leaders, who will be retained across every age).
- Like Legacies, there are different types of Leader Attribute Points - the type of point awarded depends on the type of Legacy Path (e.g. Cultural Legacy Paths award Cultural Leader Attribute Points)
- The two bonuses acquired by reaching the third and final milestone in a Legacy Path will be more powerful than the Attribute and Legacy points awarded by the previous milestones.
- One of these bonuses is the triggering of a Golden Age, which will last for the remainder of the Age
- The second bonus will vary depending on the Age and the type of Legacy Path e.g. completing the scientific legacy path of Antiquity allows players to build the Great Library.
- If a player is only playing a single age, then each of the four legacy paths in this Age will double as victory paths; the first civilisation to achieve the final milestone on any of the four paths will win the game.
- If a player is playing an entire campaign, then to win the game, they will have to be the first to achieve the final milestone on one of the Modern Age legacy paths (which will then also double as victory paths).
- Whenever a player in the game reaches one of the legacy milestones on a given legacy path, 5 age progress is added to the global counter. The speed at which the civilizations in the game progress along the paths is hence a significant factor in how long the Age will last.
- Great works are no longer purely cultural artifacts - there are now great works of scientific writing called codices
- Researching masteries appears to be the main way of obtaining codices
- Codices are placed into slots located in libraries, where they provide extra science per turns.
- Civilization VII’s governance system is very similar to its predecessor. However, there are a few significant differences.
- The most notable change is that neither social policies nor government policy slots are organised into types (economic, military, diplomatic, wildcard). In other words, all policies and all slots are now effectively ‘wildcard’ - government types no longer restrict what kind of policies can be implemented.
- In addition, certain civilizations now have access to unique policies. For example, Rome can implement a unique policy which increases the combat strength of its legions depending on how many unique Roman buildings it possesses.
- Unique policies can be retained by a civilization even after it evolves into a new Age e.g. Exploration Era Normans who have transitioned from the Romans of Antiquity can still decide to implement any of the unique Roman social policies
- Civilization VII has a global happiness system resembling that of Civilization V, in contrast to the city-localised amenities system of its predecessor Civilization VI.
- As in Civilization V, any global happiness generated per turn is stored over time.
- When a certain threshold of accumulated happiness has been reached, a Celebration will be triggered
- A Celebration unlocks a new social policy slot and awards a 10-turn bonus to the civilization depending on its government type. For example, a celebration in an Oligarchy grants +20% food and +30% production towards buildings for 10 turns.
- The other governments available in Antiquity are the Classical Republic (celebrations increase culture and wonder production), and Despotism (celebrations increase science and infantry unit production)
- Civilizations can enjoy multiple celebrations throughout a game, and each one will allow a new policy slot to be unlocked.
The divison of the entirety of recorded history into just Three Ages has prompted much discussion. Below is what Firaxis intends each Age to represent, both in historical and gameplay terms.
Antiquity Age -> 4000BC - c.500AD(?)
- 2K Website/Executive Producer Dennis Shirk, Gameplay Showcase: "The first civilizations of the world create an initial foundation. As a civilization develops technologies, schools of thought and cultural norms, they face a defining crisis that cataylses their evolution by forcing them to adapt... Agricultural societies begin to cluster into urban centers, forming the foundations of the first civilizations"
- Firaxis' Historian Andrew Johnson, PAX West: Civilizations independently build cities, develop philosophy and also writing - forming disparate 'points of light' across the map (see 'light of civiliization' under Graphics and Artstyle). He uses the example of the Mauryans to illustrate that Antiquity primarily involves the construction of infrastructure and the placement/development of settlements
Exploration Age-> c.500AD(?) - c.1750AD (?)
- 2K Website/Shirk, Gameplay Showcase: "A desire for precious commodities from distant lands spurred empires to stretch across the great oceans"
- Johnson, PAX West: Civilizations are no longer so disparate and disconnected - the once localised trade system dramatically expands to global proportions, civilizations are increasingly 'stitched together', more 'cosmopolitan', and it becomes more difficult to separate out any individual point [of light] on the map from its broader context.
- Johnson uses the example of the Chola Dynasty to illustrate this: "networks of poetry, literature, script, religion, influence into South-East Asia... the establishment of merchant trading houses, allowing global interconnection"
- Players will be incentivised to explore the new lands that have been revealed and to establish new settlements there or conquer existing ones to form large empires
- A major part of this incentive is likely to be economic/trade based based on the statements above and historical knowledge
- VII's depiction of colonialism will have a certain amount nuance e.g. a player's actions in the 'new world' may trigger events (part of the VII's new dynamic event system) which describe the impact of these actions on the indigenous people
- These events will also hint that the player may incur future/long-term consequences as a result of certain decisions they have made (which maximise short-term gain)
- An example of this consequence is that conquered cities will have greater happiness penalties and be more 'disloyal'. This may indicate the presence of a loyalty mechanics; Beach elaborates that crises aim to model 'how empires fell apart'. Colonial revolutions/decolonisation is thus likely to be one of the Exploration Age Crises
Modern Age -> 1750AD - (?)
- 2K Website/Shirk, Gameplay Showcase: "A period of incredible technological growth and global conflict, where mankind goes from development of the steam engine to the splitting of the atom"
- Johnson, PAX West: Civilizations become more centralised, beauracratic, and "rigid". He appears to be describing the formation of nation states; civilizations transitioning from conglomerations of semi-autonomous setttlements to countries. He uses the examples of the Mughals to illustrate this: "a centralised, beauracratic state, which at one point is one of the wealthiest in the world, with its own history of conquest and expansion"
Sources: Metro, 2K, PAX West, Official Gameplay Showcase
Urban Centres
Introduction- In previous iterations of the franchise, there was only one type of settlement that the player could build - a city. With Civilization VII, players will now be able to form towns as well as cities.
- Players now also have the ability to build over buildings and districts dating to previous Ages
- Players will thus have many interesting and deep decisions to make regarding the management of settlements over the course of a game.
- There will always to be empty space to either settle in or for events to happen.
In previous iterations in the franchise:
- Each citizen in a settlement could be assigned to ‘work’ a specific tile within the city’s cultural borders - this would provide the settlement with the yields of that specific tile
- Settlements could only receive yields from tiles which were worked by one of its citizens.
- As settlements grew in population, they would gain more citizens and be able to work more of the surrounding tiles and thus acquire larger total yields.
- In addition, settlements could produce worker/builder units - these would have the ability to build ‘improvements’ on certain tiles within a settlement’s borders. Settlements would acquire significantly greater yields from these improved tiles.
- As an alternative to building an improvement on a tile, Workers/Builders would also have the option of instantaneously harvesting a resource located on a certain tile, reducing the available yields of the tile in exchange for a large one-off bonus yield for the settlement.
- The cultural borders of a settlement would grow randomly with no player agency. The speed of this growth was determined by the settlement’s cultural output rather than by its population.
- The citizen management/builder/border expansion system no longer exists
- Instead, settlements simply receive the yield of every tile that lies within their cultural borders by default, no matter their population size.
- Upon population growth (spawning a new citizen) in a settlement, the player is prompted to choose an unimproved tile within its cultural borders.
- The chosen tile then immediately gains the relevant improvement and any adjacent tiles which lie outside the settlement’s borders are immediately absorbed into its borders. A sudden expansion of cultural borders like this is often called a ‘culture bomb’.
- Whilst improvements still exist in Civilization VII, resources on tiles can no longer be harvested (or ‘chopped’).
- New settlements (founded by settlers) start as towns by default. New settlements automatically gain a road connecting them to the nearest settlement if they are within a certain range
- Whenever an enemy city is conquered, it is immediately converted into a town
- Civilization VII issues a limit to the number of settlements a civilization can have at any one time, known as the settlement limit.
- This limit starts off at just 3 in the Antiquity Age, though there are a great number of ways to increase it throughout the game e.g. civilization unique bonuses, technologies, civics, leader attributes, etc.
- The settlement limit is a ‘soft’ limit. This means that civilizations are fully capable of exceeding the limit but will be penalised for doing so.
- For each additional settlement above the limit, every settlement in the civilisation receives a malus of -5 happiness.
- For example, having a settlement limit of 3 with 6 existing settlements (3 over the limit) results in -15 happiness in each of these 6 settlements.
- Having an overall negative happiness will significantly decrease all yields, and can result in certain settlements permanently seceding from a civilisation.
- Districts are now only of 2 types: Urban and Rural.
- Building an improvement (e.g. farm, lumbermill) on an empty tile turns it into a Rural District.
- Constructing a building on an empty tile turns it into an Urban District.
- Rural Districts can only house a single improvement, which takes up the entire tile.
- Urban Districts (during the Age of Antiquity) each have 2 building slots, allowing them to house 2 buildings each of any type.
- City/town centres will count as urban districts, with the capital city centre always having one of its slots filled by the palace building.
- When an urban district contains 2 buildings, it becomes known as a ‘quarter’.
- Certain civilisations can create unique quarters with special bonuses if they possess an urban district containing both of their unique buildings. For example, Egypt’s unique quarter is the Necropolis. These unique quarters, unlike other districts, are permanent and cannot be built over in later Ages
- Urban Districts can only be built adjacent to each other, whilst Rural districts can be placed anywhere within the city borders.
- Districts can be damaged by natural disasters - but can be quickly repaired by the settlement
- Some buildings are ‘warehouse’ type. Such buildings have a minor generic bonus as well as a bonus per improvement within the settlement’s borders. One example of a warehouse type building is the granary, which provides +1 food as its base bonus as well as +1 food per farm in the settlement. The utility of a given warehouse building therefore depends greatly on the nature of the settlement it is constructed in.
- Adjacency bonuses are no longer applied only to Districts - certain buildings now also have adjacency bonuses - these often depend on neighbouring wonders, improvements, resources, or districts
- Buildings are categorised according to how long they will last before becoming obsolete. For example, granaries are labelled ‘Ageless’ and saw mills are labelled 'Persistent’.
- Obsolete buildings/districts can have new buildings/districts built over them upon reaching a new era. In some cases, what new infrastructure you can build on top depends on what old infrastructure was built on the layer below.
- Specialists use up food and happiness and in return grant both a flat bonus to yields (e.g. science/culture) and an increase to building adjacency bonuses. They can be stacked on top of each other in urban districts to great effect. They are significantly more powerful than in VI and make 'playing tall' a more viable strategy in VII
- Towns differ from cities in that they possess no production queue. Instead, a town’s total production yield is converted into gold
- Towns, unlike cities, can be of several types. All towns start off as ‘growth towns’ by default - this specialism gives them a major bonus towards growth.
- Every town is attached to a city. A growth town’s total food yield will be duplicated - half of this will be supplied to the town and the other half will supply its attached city.
- Buildings (and urban districts) can be constructed in towns using gold. Rural Districts are constructed in the same manner as in cities (formed upon population growth)
- When a town reaches a population of 7 citizens, it can either be retained as a growth town or specialised into a different type of town depending on the improvements around it. For example, a growth town can be specialised into a farming or fishing town, a trading outpost, a mining town, or a military fort.
- Specialised towns provide powerful yields to their cities based on their type of speciality. However, upon specialisation, a growth town will lose its powerful growth bonus.
- Once selected, a town’s speciality cannot be changed again until the next Age.
- Specialising a town is not the only option. Towns can also be upgraded into cities via a large sum of gold. The higher the population of a town, the lower this conversion cost. However, the cost will increase the more towns that a civilization has been converted to cities. For example, the first town a player converts to a city will be far cheaper than the 10th town the player converts.
- Certain cities in a civilization may become towns during the transition to a new Age.
- Like previous iterations, each resource will provide a bonus to its tile yield, and it will also remain the case that a resource can only be accessed once its tile has been improved.
- However, Civilization VII differs in that resources are no longer clearly divided into the following types: strategic, luxury, or bonus.
- Most resources are now placed into a national pool, and the player will have the ability to assign each resource from the pool to a specific settlement, providing it with a specific bonus depending on the resource (e.g. a single copy of wine provides +2 culture).
- Many resources which were formerly categorised as strategic (e.g. horses, iron) are no longer required for the construction of certain units (e.g. horseman, swordsman). These resources instead increase the speed of production for the relevant units, as well as providing such units with a combat bonus.
- Each settlement has a certain number of resource slots - this limits the number of resources that can be assigned to it. Cities have several slots, whilst most towns have only 1. Buildings such as markets can increase the number of available slots in a settlement.
- Multiple copies of the same resource can be assigned to the same settlement, providing a cumulative (or ‘stacked’) bonus
- The camel resource provides a unique benefit - each one assigned to a settlement will increase the total number of slots by 2. Like with other resources, this effect can be stacked by assigning multiple camels to a single settlement.
- Some resources are locked to a specific age whilst others span multiple ages
Trade (Antiquity)
Ed Beach revealed in an interview that the trade system is different in every age, but he did not elaborate- The Trader unit has been replaced with the civilian-class Merchant unit.
- Upon reaching the city/town centre of a settlement belonging to a different civilisation, Merchants have the ability to form a trade route.
- Both the sender and receiver of a trade route will receive certain benefits depending on both the number and the nature of improved resources present at the settlement in which the trade route was formed.
- Specifically - the recipient receives gold per turn per improved resource within the cultural borders of the settlement, and the sender receives a copy of each of these improved resources (which will then go into their national pool)
- By default, players can form a maximum of one trade route with each rival civilisation. However, this limit can be increased by engaging in diplomacy with rival civilisations e.g. having a trade deal in place.
Minor Civilizations
- In Civilization VII, there will be no barbarians or city states at the start of the game
- Both have been replaced by Independent Powers
- Independent Powers are minor civilizations which are based in settlements that resemble encampments.
- Each Power is given a name (e.g. Carantania) and is assigned to a broader ethnic group (e.g. the Slav People)
- Independent Powers start off as either hostile or docile and then develop depending on how major civilizations interact with them
- Powers are represented by generic leaders dressed in Age-appropriate clothing. They appear overlaid on the right side of the map when clicking on a settlement.
- Independent Powers can control multiple settlements and are not restricted to just one
- Players will have the opportunity to interact with Independent Powers in the following ways:
- Levying units from them
- Inciting them against rival civilizations
- Increasing opinion with them, eventually turning them into vassal city states.
- Upon the conversion of an independent power to a city state, the player has the ability to decide which suzerain bonus the new city state will provide them with.
- Players can help city states grow, expand their militaries, or even annex them outright
Leaders
- Players can now match any leader with any civilization on game start.
- Players will first choose a leader from a leader selection screen, before moving to a civilization selection screen. Each leader will have at least one civilization with which they have a 'historical tie' - this civilization will be clearly highlighted
- Alongside their historical ties, leaders may also have 'regional ties' to civilizations which were in close geographical proximity to their historical ones. For example, when a player selects Hatshepsut as a leader and they are then presented with the civilization selection screen, the civilization of Axum will be highlighted as having a 'regional tie' with Hatsheput
- The developers of Civilization VII have expanded the scope for which leaders they intend to portray in the game. Players can now lead Civilizations with historical figures who never historically served as the leaders of their respective nations. These figures include philosophers (Confucius), and scientists (Benjamin Franklin); in previous iterations, these influential figures would have been represented as Great People.
- Leaders start with two abilities, each of a different type (e.g. cultural, economic, expansionist).
- Each leader’s ability types are combined into a two-word phrase which summarises the leader: e.g. Amina of Zazzau is Economic Militaristic, Ashoka is Diplomatic Expansionist, Augustus is Cultural Expansionist, Hatshepsut is Cultural Economic.
- Alongside their unique base abilities, Leaders can gain additional bonuses throughout the game - these are known as Leader Attributes. Each of the 6 types of Attribute has its own tree of bonuses.
- The 6 Attribute Trees are: Cultural, Diplomatic, Expansionist, Militaristic and Scientific.
- Leader attribute points can be gained by reaching milestones along each Age’s legacy paths. It is also possible to acquire wildcard attribute points within the game- these can be used on any attribute tree.
- Leaders remain in place throughout all 3 Ages.
- Leaders continue to have agendas. The nature of these is not yet clear.
- Leaders are shown with their historical titles e.g. Ashoka is described as 'Dhammaraja', Amina as 'Warrior Queen of Zazzau', Hatshepsut
- Unlike previous iterations of the game, leaders of rival civilizations in Civilization VII are not represented as facing towards and interacting directly with the player. Instead, the player’s leader and the rival’s leader are represented as facing towards and interacting with each other from opposite sides of the screen.
Major Civilizations
Evolution- Every Civilization in the game is locked to a specific Age, according to which time period it historically existed in (e.g. Ancient Egypt is locked to Antiquity, Songhai is locked to Exploration)
- At the beginning of a new Age, players must select a new civilization to evolve into
- Players cannot choose to evolve into any random civilization; the selection each player receives is determined by historical, geographical and gameplay factors.
- Every civilization will have at least one historical successor assigned to it, and civilisations will transition to their historical successors by default. For example, Egypt currently has a choice between two historical successors in the game: the Abbasids and the Songhai.
- Whilst players will always have the option of evolving into these historical successors by default, they may also acquire the choice to evolve into certain non-historical successors based on how they have played the game. For example, having access to a lot of horse resources may enable a player the option to transition to Mongolia, whilst owning many mountain tiles may enable a player the option to transition into the Inca.
- In addition, players may have further additional evolution choices depending on the leader of their civilization e.g. starting Antiquity with Benjamin Franklin leading Rome will unlock the option of evolving into America in the Modern Age
- Each civilization has 2 unique abilities, 2 unique units and 2 unique buildings (forming 1 unique quarter if combined) and 1 unique civic tree.
- Civilizations also tend to receive advantages in the construction of their historical wonder. For example, Rome unlocks the Colosseum far earlier than usual and Egypt receives a 30% boost to building the Pyramids
- There may no longer be a global competition for the acquisition of Great People (?). Instead, Great People might only be available to their historical civilizations (e.g. Imhotep for Egypt) upon the completion of a certain milestone (e.g. researching a unique cultural civic).
- As a different civilization will be played in each of the 3 eras, playing a whole campaign will grant players access to a total of 6 unique abilities, 6 unique units, 6 unique buildings, 3 unique quarters and 3 unique civic trees, as well as access to a maximum of 3 different Great People and an advantage in the construction of at most 3 different Wonders.
- Unique units can remain relevant throughout an entire Age as long as they are regularly upgraded (with gold) to match the equivalent class of unit as technology advances
- Civilizations, like leaders, are given two-word phrases which summarise their two unique abilities e.g. Egypt is Cultural Economic.
- Leaders and their historical civilisations are designed to have abilities which synergise with each other e.g. Egypt and Hatshepsut are both Cultural Economic.
Choice of Civilizations
In an interview with Metro, Lead Designer Ed Beach explained that England would not appear as a civilization in the Exploration Age: "It has to be a civilisation that historically was prominent during the Middle Ages and Renaissance". We can thus conclude that a civilization's degree of 'historical prominence' during a given Age will be a major factor which influences the likelihood of its representation within the game.
Source: Metro
Diplomacy
Introduction- In Civilization VII, all diplomatic interactions are mediated by a universal currency called influence, which is acquired from various sources.
- Influence has a small cap, meaning that civilizations cannot accumulate significant amounts of it and are thus encouraged to regularly use it.
- In previous iterations of the game, diplomacy with rival civilisations largely consisted of haggling over various resources and great works - this has now been removed.
- Instead of this, players now access to a great variety of diplomatic interactions with rival civilizations. These can be categorized into 3 types: Treaties, Endeavours, and Sanctions.
- Treaties appear to be simple bilateral agreements between two civilizations
- Open Borders
- Denouncement of Military Presence (Demilitarisation of nearby lands?)
- Endeavours appear to be mutually beneficial diplomatic ventures proposed (using a certain amount of influence) by one civilisation to another.
- The recipient civilisation can then spend influence to either reject the endeavour outright, re-adjust the agreement in their own favour, accept the proposal as it is, or to strengthen the proposal bilaterally such that both involved parties get increased bonuses
- Cultural exchange (boosts culture bilaterally)
- Open markets (increases the number of available trade routes)
- Reconciliation (likely an attempt to repair relations with a rival civilisation)
- Sanctions are methods by which a player can weaken a rival civilization without having to engage in open warfare against it
- Hinder civic studies (-20% culture for 10 turns)
- Hinder Agriculture (-20% food for 10 turns)
- Hinder Finances (-20% gold for 10 turns)
- Steal technology
- Denounce (reduces penalty for declaring war)
Other Uses of Influence
Apart from the aforementioned interactions with Independent Powers and the treaties, endeavours, and sanctions with rival civilizations, there are many additional uses of influence:
- Wars: reducing allied war weariness or increasing enemy war weariness. Players can even influence the war weariness in wars that they are not directly involved in. Declaring war results in the defender gaining influence and morale according to the circumstances in which it was declared (e.g. a defender against a surprise war may receive much more influence and morale than a defender against a liberation war)
- Damaging relations between 2 rival civilisations, or counteracting this relation damage if a rival civilisation uses this ability against the player
- Infiltrating the militaries of rival civilizations
- Forming military pacts
- The aforementioned interactions with Independent Powers
Warfare
Introduction- In Civilization VII, military units are organised around non-combatant units called Commanders.
- The utility of a Commander is two-fold. Firstly, it provides passive bonuses to nearby military units. Secondly, it has the ability to conduct a number of special actions which further improve military efficacy.
- All combat experience gained by military units within a Commander’s radius is transferred to the Commander. Individual units can no longer gain experience or promotions for themselves.
- Upon reaching a certain threshold of combat experience, Commanders will become eligible for a Promotion.
- There are 5 different types of Promotion available - each with its own Tree.
- The 5 Promotion Trees are: Bastion, Assault, Logistics, Maneuver, and Leadership. Each Tree contains a total of 6 Promotions each.
- Examples of promotion effects include: adjusting the speed of unit movement or unit production, increasing the yields of a settlement, bolstering offensive or defensive combat strength, and boosting the special abilities of the Commander. Some types of promotion even incentivise stationing Commanders in cities rather than the front lines.
- Completion of a Promotion Tree will enable a Commander the ability to gain a Commendation, of which there are 5 in total (one per tree). Commendations are effectively very powerful promotions.
- The powerful abilities of Commanders make them primary targets of attack by enemy military units - armies whose Commanders have been killed will be significantly weakened.
- If a Commander unit dies, a new one can be built by a city to replace it. This new Commander will possess all of the promotions of the previous one.
Gather and Deploy:
- Commanders have the ability to gather adjacent units into its own tile, forming a stack of units. The number of units which can be grouped together in this way depends on various factors such as Commander Promotions and unique Civilization abilities, but the maximum is 6 units (one for each adjacent tile).
- This group of units will move as a unified stack under the Commander until the time comes to initiate combat interactions. Commanders will then have the ability to deploy - this is where each unit in the stack is moved back out onto a tile adjacent to the Commander.
- Commanders have the ability to summon reinforcements. After activating a Commander’s reinforce ability, players will be prompted to select a military unit on the map - this will serve as the reinforcement. The selected unit will disappear from the map and reappear on a tile adjacent to the Commander after a given number of turns.
- The speed of this reinforcement is determined by the number of movement points possessed by the unit, the distance of the unit from the Commander, the presence of transport links (e.g. railways) along the path, and whether the Commander has any Promotions which augment its reinforcement function.
- For example, a warrior with a base movement speed of 2 tiles per turn may be located 10 tiles away from a Commander. Taking into account obstacles such as forests, hills, rivers, and other units, the warrior may take 10 turns to reach its Commander. The reinforcement function disregards such obstacles such that the warrior would only take 5 turns to reach the Commander - and this time may be even further reduced depending on the aforementioned factors (e.g. Commander Promotions, Railways links, etc).
- Commanders have the ability to command all units of a certain type within their radius of effect to engage in a specific type of attack (e.g. focused range attack or focused melee attack) against a certain unit or fortification, with each unit receiving a combat bonus to its attack.
- In other words, ordering unified attacks via the Commander will relieve players from needing to issue the same commands to each individual unit in an army.
- For example, a Commander could order a ‘focus ranged attack’ on the enemy Commander. All ranged units within the Commander’s radius would then fire against the target with an elevated combat strength.
- Fortifying units now construct visible fortifications on the map.
- These fortifications remain in place even if the unit which constructed them later leaves the tile, allowing a damaged unit occupying a fortification to be replaced with a fresh one without needing to sacrificing the fortification bonus
Continuous Combat
“If my Mejai [Egyptian Unique Unit] takes 30% damage in one turn, I can automatically continue to fight the opponent's unit until turn 4”“Even in battle, you can pause your attack and restore your health, so it seems that you can respond to sudden battles with endurance battles, and it is easy to play while calculating in your head whether you can send support units from around you.“Continuous Combat allows the battle to be fought once it is settled or until the player intervenes"
- In an interview with Polygon, Executive Producer Dennis Shirk labelled the combat system of the VII's predecessors as ‘Fish Slap’. Under this old paradigm, military units would all occupy distinct tiles. Military engagements only occurred when attacking units were ordered onto the tiles of the defending units. There would then be a short, animated combat sequence (a 'fish slap') in which both parties lost health. If the defender survived, the attacker would retreat to its original position. If the defender died, the attacker would now occupy the defender's tile.
- VII will replace 'Fish Slap' Combat with 'Continuous' Combat. This change appears to be largely (if not entirely) graphical rather than mechanical in nature.
- When hostile units are occupying tiles which are adjacent to each other, units from both sides will have animations that show them advancing to engage each other along the tile border. This animation will continue throughout throughout the entire length of a turn, or until the units recieve orders.
- In other words, military units will be portrayed as being engaged in battle by default whenever they border a hostile unit rather than being portrayed as idle by default
- The article's author suggests that individual members of a military unit may 'eventually' differ in how much battle damage they deal to their opponents.
Terrain
- There are now navigable rivers present in the game. These rivers give bonuses to transport and have various interactions with settlements, buildings, and warfare
- Some rivers will now end in waterfalls. In addition, rivers are more realistic in that they have a narrow upper course and wider lower course (synergising with the increased verticality of the map). The lower course of a river can embark units and transport sailing vessels.
- “There is actually verticality to the map now, so rivers always flow outward,” Shirk says. “If you’re at the fat part of the river, you can not only use that with units that are embarked, you can also take your galleys up the river. So you can actually bring sailing vessels up the river, which makes it a lot more strategically interesting later in the game if you’re assaulting riverside towns, because you can use ships along with your land units. I’d like to think we gave some love to the naval game by introducing this particular concept.”
- All terrain types in the game now have the same total yield by default. However, the precise types of yield that make up this total will depend on the terrain type e.g. Grassland and plains offer more food + production, tropical tiles offer science, tundra tiles offer culture, and desert tiles offer gold.
- Cliffs, which were previously restricted to the coastline, can now appear inland. Units cannot move from the bottom of a cliff to the top of a cliff, but a unit can move from a high elevation tile to a cliff tile, and ranged units stationed on cliffs can fire upon units at the bottom of the cliff.
- Scouts now have the ability to survey the land. The scout will remain on the same tile for the duration of the turn, and points of interest in any unexplored territory within a certain radius of the scout will then be indicated to the player.
- Points of interest include natural wonders and tribal villages.
- Whenever a player’s unit enters a tribal village, they will be offered a choice between 2 different bonuses rather than being randomly allocated one
Religion
- Unlike in past iterations, players of Civilization VII cannot achieve a Religious Victory
- Players can construct a religious building known as an altar during the Antiquity Age
- Players can also found religious pantheons during this Age; they are easier to obtain than in VI
- However, organised religions cannot appear until the Exploration Age, in which religion will play a more significant role
- During the Exploration Age, the religious system will function as a very powerful way for a civilization to boost its progress towards a culture victory.
- Rather than a separate faith resource, religion will instead provide happiness as its main benefit
- VII's Exploration Age will attempt to model 'wars of religion' (Beach gives the Reformation and the Crusades as examples)
- Like its predecessors Civilization IV, V, and VI, the religious system in VII will still involve micro-managing missionaries around the map
- Religion largely becomes obselete in Modernity, though some 'echoes and vestiges' will remain
Graphics
Overall Quality- Civilization VII has been designed to run at 4K resolution with ray-traced lighting, reflections and shadows - this was the quality enjoyed by the various Youtube content creators who were invited to play-test the game. However, no official game footage reflects such high graphical capabilities.
- Civilization VII has been scheduled for release on a wide variety of platforms, some of which vary greatly in computational ability. In order to avoid misleading players, Firaxis may have elected to market the game at a standard of graphical quality which every platform would be capable of supporting. Those with high-end devices would then be able to adjust the settings of their own accord to achieve the highest possible graphical quality.
- Civilization VII is rendered in a dioramic style
- VII's lead art director, Jason Johnson, also served in the same role for the game's predecessor VI, and it has been his intention to combine the most well-received graphical aspects of both V ('realism' and 'attention to detail') and VI ('readability', 'vibrancy'). He has called the resulting synthesis: 'readable realism'
- Indeed, the game’s map (IMO) appears to be a direct successor to and evolution of the Civilization V texture mod for Civilization VI.
- The fluidity and animation of Leaders is similar to that of Civilization VI (compared to the stiff and static figures of Civilization V). However, the appearance of the Leaders is much more in line with Civilization V than the caricatured, larger-than-life models of Civilization VI.
- When the game begins, the map, which does not yet have any human settlement, is quite dark. As the game progresses, areas which are built upon grow brighter to represent the light of civilisation.
- The fog of war consists of a set of black hexagons outlined and symbolised in gold and grey.
- Fortifying units construct visible fortifications, and surveying scouts construct visible watchtowers. Scouts no longer have the ability to attack other units.
- Individual members of military units are now depicted with variations in clothing and style from each other. There are more members depicted per unit compared to previous iterations, e.g. a unit may be visualized as a force of two rows rather than a small band of 3 or 4 individuals.
- There are also more graphical differences between civilizations in terms of both their military units and archictecure e.g. Roman and Egyptian archers look significantly different
- Civilizations may have viewable palaces (the Civilization VII Founder’s edition includes an additional palace skin)
AI
- Shirk in particular is very enthusiastic about the AI's performance, in his briefings to both game magazines and at PAX West, attributing the improvement to both the increased size of the AI team compared to VI, as well as various mechanical changes which have made it easier for the AI to compete with the player
- Firaxis developers also chose to advertise the quality of the AI to journalists and youtubers during their trial of the game. Developers who regularly won VI on Diety (the hardest difficulty) would struggle to do the same with VII. By contrast, the subject of AI was notably absent in the marketing of both V or VI
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