Going back to a more generalized discussion of graphics vs. gameplay mechanics, and their respective importance to producing a great game, I think much of that depends on the user. I STILL to this day fire up Civ II (and its excellent sequel Alpha Centauri) regularly to play, despite the fact that, in 2024, the graphical quality of the game is quite poor. The animations of battle are rudimentary, the way units zip along railroads to their final destination is quite off-putting, diplomacy is quite static looking, etc. The only saving grace to Civ II has to do with the still wonderful advisors ("BUILD CITY WALLS!!!!!" "Would that we could wall up your gaping mouth, platehead!"), and the, for the time, excellent wonder vids.* Yet, I enjoy the play of Civ II tremendously, because the gameplay was so good. And I have put more hours into SMAC/SMAX than any other single game/expansion, which is impressive given the amount of SP and MP play I put into EU II and EU IV. But, I have at least one son (of my four) who dislikes both of those games, largely because he cannot get past the poor graphics. He's all about the newest, best graphics; absent them, he sees no real point in playing a game, even if he loved it years ago.
The trouble, of course, with the eye candy is that it's expensive to produce. So how much eye candy is in a game should be a function of the relevance to the game. If you are playing a first-person shooter set in the real world, players will want the best quality representation of that world. It makes sense in that circumstance to try and get things like leaves and grass and lighting and movement as right as possible. But I would very much not want Civ VII (or any other iteration) to give up excellent game mechanics for expenditure on realistic diplomacy interaction; just make the leaders realistic enough that it's not totally cartoony, and I'm fine. But every person will have a different viewpoint as to how much graphical quality is "necessary" to a game.
For what it is worth, regarding their graphics, I loved Civ II at the time, thought Alpha Centauri was excellently done, hated Civ III (so much so I played very little of it!), was perfectly fine with Civ IV (even bought a new computer to play it!), was fine with Civ V as well, thought Civ:BE was a bit "out there" (they simply tried too hard, I think, to make it look alien), and preferred much of the look of Civ VI. What I've seen of Civ VII appears to be good; but I'll await further developments to decide if I truly like the graphics or not.
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* A quick note: the advisors were not "cut scenes", because they were part of the game play, a result of requesting specific advice from them. The wonder vids WERE cut scenes, because they interrupted gameplay upon the conclusion of building a wonder, no different than a cut scene from killing a level boss. Not that that really matters, since as I've noted, the animations for combat were certainly cartoonish, at best.
