Player stats, sales, and reception speculation thread

[stealth_nsk]

I'm not sure how the patches have made things worse.

Patches made map generation more painful issue with treasure resources becoming much more scarse. Continents plus in particular became much worse to play in Exploration.

 

[itix]

I read there is something about the treasure fleet after the latest patch. But I doubt that is a significant factor.

 

[aelf]

I'm not sure either, I'm just seeing the trend that they are releasing patches and the % of recommended is going down the more patches they release so it's one possibility. It's also possible it's something else like the more people play it the more they don't like it, but not sure really. Something is driving people to significantly dislike it even more now than at launch (37% positive recently vs 49% positive at launch)

Surely there is a strong possibility that (trends in) player reviews are not necessarily correlated to (trends in) quality?

I read there is something about the treasure fleet after the latest patch. But I doubt that is a significant factor.

Yeah, I doubt it as well.

 

[user746383]

As mentioned earlier, I personally doubt people are paying hard earned money the game and leaving bad reviews for some reason other than that they didn't like it. I understand people have different theories, though.

 

[bumpyglint]

I'm not sure either, I'm just seeing the trend that they are releasing patches and the % of recommended is going down the more patches they release so it's one possibility. It's also possible it's something else like the more people play it the more they don't like it, but not sure really. Something is driving people to significantly dislike it even more now than at launch (37% positive recently vs 49% positive at launch)

I’m actually one of those people who’s grown more disillusioned with each new patch.

I had high hopes for this game, even after the rough launch. I eventually came around to liking the Civilization Switch mechanic—despite its poor immersion, I think it has strong gameplay potential. Overall, I believe the core mechanics of Civ VII are solid. But what the game lacks is everything else—basic stability (bugs are EVERYWHERE), a usable UI, and clear explanations of even fundamental systems. The Civilopedia is borderline useless, often lacking essential information. You're left guessing how things work. There's little balance between leaders and civilizations, and many quality-of-life features are still missing—like auto-explore, a "one more turn" option, or endgame summaries with graphs and maps. It's frustrating.

Early on, I saw a good foundation buried under poor execution and assumed things would improve quickly. But the more patches we get, the less faith about this I have. It’s become clear that the team either can’t or won’t improve the game at a reasonable pace.

Yes, the patches have made things better—but it's baffling that, more than three and a half months in, game-breaking bugs like the Han/Ming Great Wall issue still haven’t been fixed. That bug, for example, literally requires changing a single number in the code. Meanwhile, something as simple (and that definitely should've not been prioritized) as auto-explore for scouts is taking over a month to implement—and we still don’t even have a date for the next patch.

What’s maddening is how easy some of these fixes are. The modding community has already solved many of them—sometimes just by asking ChatGPT for help or editing one line of code. It honestly feels like the developers skipped basic QA entirely.

So, to be clear: the problem in my opinion isn't that "patches made the game worse," but that the patches have failed to fix basic, essential issues. Early on, I was optimistic they would. Now, I’m just disappointed and I guess many other people feel the same.

 

[Gorbles]

Meanwhile, something as simple (and that definitely should've not been prioritized) as auto-explore for scouts is taking over a month to implement

This keeps on being said, but something doesn't become simple just because you believe it is. The developers have talked about the changes to Scout behaviour and its impact on auto-explore before.

Also, they're not spending a month implementing one thing. They'll be doing a bunch of work and adding it to the next patch that hasn't already been locked internally.

That said, they're definitely being on the quiet side about patches at the moment. They're losing the early momentum they built up.

 

[UWHabs]

I’m actually one of those people who’s grown more disillusioned with each new patch.

I had high hopes for this game, even after the rough launch. I eventually came around to liking the Civilization Switch mechanic—despite its poor immersion, I think it has strong gameplay potential. Overall, I believe the core mechanics of Civ VII are solid. But what the game lacks is everything else—basic stability (bugs are EVERYWHERE), a usable UI, and clear explanations of even fundamental systems. The Civilopedia is borderline useless, often lacking essential information. You're left guessing how things work. There's little balance between leaders and civilizations, and many quality-of-life features are still missing—like auto-explore, a "one more turn" option, or endgame summaries with graphs and maps. It's frustrating.

Early on, I saw a good foundation buried under poor execution and assumed things would improve quickly. But the more patches we get, the less faith about this I have. It’s become clear that the team either can’t or won’t improve the game at a reasonable pace.

Yes, the patches have made things better—but it's baffling that, more than three and a half months in, game-breaking bugs like the Han/Ming Great Wall issue still haven’t been fixed. That bug, for example, literally requires changing a single number in the code. Meanwhile, something as simple (and that definitely should've not been prioritized) as auto-explore for scouts is taking over a month to implement—and we still don’t even have a date for the next patch.

What’s maddening is how easy some of these fixes are. The modding community has already solved many of them—sometimes just by asking ChatGPT for help or editing one line of code. It honestly feels like the developers skipped basic QA entirely.

So, to be clear: the problem in my opinion isn't that "patches made the game worse," but that the patches have failed to fix basic, essential issues. Early on, I was optimistic they would. Now, I’m just disappointed and I guess many other people feel the same.

The patches have helped make the game playable, at least get beyond those truly awful launch errors of mis-aligned values, lack of any detail about what's what, and the biggest of the problems. I will usually give things a go before resorting to the mods, but yeah, I went in very fast to get those first few UI mods.

That's at least made things useful, so now you can actually sit down and enjoy a session, and now you can explore a little more about the legacies, the crisis, the civs, etc.. and form an opinion on them. Some people see the game through Sid-colored glasses, and still see the potential. Others see the issues a bit like you list, where there's still a lot that seems on the surface truly simple to fix, but hasn't been tackled yet, and wonder if they will be able to fix the deeper issues, and truly give the experience. That's probably why more of the reviews have shifted to talking about eras and stuff like that, rather than being truly focused on the UI at launch, which frankly without the mods was in very rough shape.

 

[stealth_nsk]

As mentioned earlier, I personally doubt people are paying hard earned money the game and leaving bad reviews for some reason other than that they didn't like it. I understand people have different theories, though.

There's some of reviews left with less than 2 hours in game, so it's likely people refunded the game. It's also means that some of them don't have significant experience with the game before leaving the review. Some profiles even look bot-like with zero games on them and the only activity is leaving this review.

After quick looking I don't think there are enough such reviews to make a difference, but it could be fun to speculate about them.

 

[Siptah]

The fact that I personally think that all patches were good, and also not too small, while at the same time they have barely reduced what‘s left to be done before we have ‚clean‘ game without errors and hidden info, shows me vividly just how bad the state at release was. It was fun though.

 

[KayAU]

I'm sure the Steam rating matters a lot for purchase decisions. Even for myself, as someone with decades of Civ experience who is certainly capable of forming my own opinion, seing the red text on the store page still influences me. I will probably get Civ 7 on a sale, but I would probably get it sooner and at a lower discount if reviews were positive.

This got me thinking about how much Steam ratings tend to correlate with my own enjoyment of games. Looking at the most played games in my Steam library, while there are a few with Mixed scores, I don't see any quite as low as Civ 7. The closest is maybe Beyond Earth at 60%, in which I have 273 hours. I like Beyond Earth. At the top of my most played list is Civ 5, which sits at 95% positive.

This doesn't mean I will not enjoy Civ 7 despite public opinion, but I am less optimistic than I could have been.

I really, really hope they can turn things around.

 

[queenpea]

This weekend’s high was only 800 players fewer than last weekend’s high. While we still see declining player totals, the severity of the week by week drop has slowed.

 

[bumpyglint]

This keeps on being said, but something doesn't become simple just because you believe it is. The developers have talked about the changes to Scout behaviour and its impact on auto-explore before.

Also, they're not spending a month implementing one thing. They'll be doing a bunch of work and adding it to the next patch that hasn't already been locked internally.

That said, they're definitely being on the quiet side about patches at the moment. They're losing the early momentum they built up.

I know something doesn't become simple because "I believe it is",I know the developers talked about it and I know (at least, I HOPE) they are not spending one month implementing just one thing, so what? What's your point?

The patches have helped make the game playable, at least get beyond those truly awful launch errors of mis-aligned values, lack of any detail about what's what, and the biggest of the problems. I will usually give things a go before resorting to the mods, but yeah, I went in very fast to get those first few UI mods.

That's at least made things useful, so now you can actually sit down and enjoy a session, and now you can explore a little more about the legacies, the crisis, the civs, etc.. and form an opinion on them. Some people see the game through Sid-colored glasses, and still see the potential. Others see the issues a bit like you list, where there's still a lot that seems on the surface truly simple to fix, but hasn't been tackled yet, and wonder if they will be able to fix the deeper issues, and truly give the experience. That's probably why more of the reviews have shifted to talking about eras and stuff like that, rather than being truly focused on the UI at launch, which frankly without the mods was in very rough shape.

Yes, I feel like the more it passes without fixes on basic stuff the more the people "will lose hope" and will start giving negative reviews; I too use many UI/ bug fixes mods which improves the game a lot, but it's incredible they still are not fixed in the original game.

The fact that I personally think that all patches were good, and also not too small, while at the same time they have barely reduced what‘s left to be done before we have ‚clean‘ game without errors and hidden info, shows me vividly just how bad the state at release was. It was fun though.

Unfortunately, I have to agree. As mentioned above, I don’t think the patches were necessarily bad—aside from the new issue with Exploration Age resources—but they’re simply not enough. For a game that launched in such an incomplete state, the slowness is incredibly demotivating.

I had a similar "revelation" when I started trying to help with bugfixes through modding. The deeper you dig, the more problems you uncover. The game is riddled with basic coding errors (like if an intern developed the game alone with no testing phase), and it’s honestly disheartening.
For example, one of the worst offenders is the Age system (from a programming standpoint, not gameplay); it’s been implemented so poorly that fixing it entirely is close to impossible, everything that’s supposed to be a one-time bonus gets reapplied whenever a new Age begins, because the game essentially resets and reactivates all effects. So when a new Age start you end up with things like:
- Every settlement gaining an extra +1 population again if you have the expansionist attribute
- Isabella granting gold again for every natural wonder
- The Terracotta Army giving you another free commander

and many more. Literally every "una tantum" effect in the game is bugged because of this.

It’s shocking how much of this is still unfixed. But the problems are so deeply rooted—and compounded by the terrible UI—that most of them go unnoticed. The UI not only hides these issues but also fails to explain most of the core mechanics, meaning many players probably aren’t even aware of how broken some systems really are (the bug reported above is incredibly impactful, still I'm pretty sure many people don't even know it exists).

Sadly, I doubt a lot of these issues will ever be resolved, as said above I'm afraid they have no idea how to fix them and won't invest much more in the game considering the low expected revenues.

 

[Civinator]

The game is riddled with basic coding errors (like if an intern developed the game alone with no testing phase)....But the problems are so deeply rooted—and compounded by the terrible UI—that most of them go unnoticed. The UI not only hides these issues but also fails to explain most of the core mechanics, meaning many players probably aren’t even aware of how broken some systems really are

This all fits to the glasdoor interview of the former Civ 7 UI dev and the repeatedly overthrown Civ 7 concepts.

 

[Leucarum]

As it stands I think it now feels very stable for a civ release early in its lifecycle... I don't know that UI/stability are the issues I'd raise with the game...

 

[Gorbles]

I know something doesn't become simple because "I believe it is",I know the developers talked about it and I know (at least, I HOPE) they are not spending one month implementing just one thing, so what? What's your point?

Because you called it simple, and you said they've taken more than a month to implement it.

The game is riddled with basic coding errors (like if an intern developed the game alone with no testing phase), and it’s honestly disheartening.

Trust me, a game project wouldn't build if an intern developed it with zero testing.

The state of the game not being ready for release doesn't mean that it isn't a complex codebase worked on by a full team. I envy the confidence of those who speak so confidently of a codebase they're only exposed to via modding.

 

[Core Imposter]

I guess there is the possibility that general dysfunction persists in the development team due to a failure to acknowledge the state the project is in. Some may worry that the game will not be supported from the top down but there is perhaps a larger risk that the studio is simply not up to the task. It would seem unlikely that the group that spent a fairly significant amount of time and money to produce a launch failure can suddenly become a crack group. Some personnel changes are probably needed. Obviously, I have no clue who or on what level. But it does seem like a break glass moment.

Should have already happened by all appearances.

 

[bumpyglint]

As it stands I think it now feels very stable for a civ release early in its lifecycle... I don't know that UI/stability are the issues I'd raise with the game...

Perhaps "stable" isn't the right word. While the game is technically stable in terms of performance, it's still plagued by bugs—hence my use of the word "unstable."

As mentioned earlier, many of these bugs are effectively hidden because the game fails to explain its core mechanics clearly, and the UI does little to help players understand cause and effect. Still, the bugs are numerous and significant. These aren’t rare edge cases—they happen consistently and are the result of flawed design or coding. A few examples:

• As previously reported, all the "one-time" bonuses in the Ancient and Exploration ages are bugged—they re-trigger at the start of a new age, which shouldn't happen.
• The Han and Ming Great Walls reduce city population by 1 per great wall builts, massively boosting food production with minimal downside. A few walls can break the economy balance entirely.
• Navies become completely bugged after researching Shipbuilding II in the Exploration Age. Due to what seems like a single faulty line of code (likely written by an intern and never tested), all water units start behaving like embarked units. This reduces ship speed, disables their ability to raze, and introduces a host of other issues.
• Many civics remain broken. For instance, all Tier II ideology civics in the Modern Age apply their penalties correctly, but their bonuses fail to account for attribute points gained in earlier ages—making them not only functionally useless but disadvantageous.

And unfortunately, there are many more.

Because you called it simple, and you said they've taken more than a month to implement it.

Trust me, a game project wouldn't build if an intern developed it with zero testing.

The state of the game not being ready for release doesn't mean that it isn't a complex codebase worked on by a full team. I envy the confidence of those who speak so confidently of a codebase they're only exposed to via modding.

I called it "simple" because it is incredibly simple, not because "I believe it". This mechanic has existed in every recent Civilization game, yet somehow it’s taken over a month to implement—more than three and a half months since release. Yes, I know scouts now have “a button to press occasionally”, but compared to similar mechanics in past Civ titles, this is a basic feature that should not take this long to add.

Does that mean something is automatically simple just because I say it is? Of course not—but your previous comment adds nothing to the discussion. Do you think it’s not simple? Maybe it’s not for you—but if this kind of implementation isn’t straightforward for someone actively developing a strategy game, then maybe they’re in the wrong profession.
Did the developers talk about it? Yes—and? I’m aware they mentioned “there’s now an extra button”, I've played the game and I've seen their explanation, but that changes nothing. The issue isn’t whether it was acknowledged—it’s that it’s still missing after all this time. So why did you brought that up?
Am I claiming the entire development team has spent a month doing only this? No, and everyone knows that. But again—what's the point of bringing that up? Regardless of their other priorities, the feature still isn’t implemented in the game and I've literally said "it's not yet implemented in the game". Also, after one month from the last patch, we don't even know when the next one will be.

Also, just to clarify—since it somehow wasn’t obvious—I don’t actually believe the game was made by a single intern with no testing. That was irony. Did you seriously think I wasn’t aware that Civilization VII is developed by an entire team? I assume not, so why respond as if I meant that literally?

Yes, I understand it’s a “complex codebase built by a full team”, that's why my hairdresser doesn't produce AAA strategy games, but that doesn't excuse the way it’s been handled. That’s exactly the point I was making. Anyone with a basic code understanding can see it—even just reading some of the code reveals serious issues. But even without looking under the hood, just playing the game is enough to show how many bugs and design flaws are present.

This isn't about "confidence" or subjective frustration—it's an objective issue (see the example I've reported in this message answering to Leucarum). The state of the game and the community backlash are both symptoms of that reality. There’s not much left to debate, you can't simply say obvious things that add nothing to this situation (like "the devs talked about it" or "it's not simple just because you believe it") and pretend the situation is different.

 

[Gorbles]

I called it "simple" because it is incredibly simple, not because "I believe it". This mechanic has existed in every recent Civilization game, yet somehow it’s taken over a month to implement—more than three and a half months since release. Yes, I know scouts now have “a button to press occasionally”, but compared to similar mechanics in past Civ titles, this is a basic feature that should not take this long to add.

Thanks for confirming that you did in fact say what I said, which renders this entire tangent pretty confusing really. Why object? I'm calling out your misrepresentation of the issue in question, which is rooted fundamentally in your assumptions about how easy this feature is to add.

Also, just to clarify—since it somehow wasn’t obvious—I don’t actually believe the game was made by a single intern with no testing. That was irony. Did you seriously think I wasn’t aware that Civilization VII is developed by an entire team? I assume not, so why respond as if I meant that literally?

Because this is the Internet, and reading between the lines also gets people upset. Which would you prefer I do?

Anyhow, again, it's just more uncharitable assumptions on top of previous uncharitable assumptions. You use the word "objective" later on. You don't seem to have a grasp on the word.

Yes, I understand it’s a “complex codebase built by a full team”, that's why my hairdresser doesn't produce AAA strategy games, but that doesn't excuse the way it’s been handled. That’s exactly the point I was making. Anyone with a basic code understanding can see it—even just reading some of the code reveals serious issues. But even without looking under the hood, just playing the game is enough to show how many bugs and design flaws are present.

There are plenty of bugs. I follow modders as they improve, fix, and rewrite things across the UI. The fact that there are bugs is not in contention. The fact that the game didn't seem at all ready for release is not in contention.

What is, is armchair experting about what happened during development, or the presumptive competence of the developers. Nothing about this speculation is remotely objective, and pretending it is, is, again, indicative of a confidence that I'm completely jealous of. Honestly. I wish I had that kind of certainty in conclusions I draw from the state of the game and the rate of updates (which I was very positive about at first, but as mentioned before we seem to be in a bit of a lull).

And that's without even talking about "design", mainly because it doesn't really have anything to do with the thread (beyond some posters who don't like the design assuming that everyone with a negative opinion of the shares the same dislike of the design, even when the Steam review data suggests a much more complicated picture).

 

[bumpyglint]

Thanks for confirming that you did in fact say what I said, which renders this entire tangent pretty confusing really. Why object? I'm calling out your misrepresentation of the issue in question, which is rooted fundamentally in your assumptions about how easy this feature is to add.

The point is easy to understand, it's a simple feature that should have been implement with a simple fix, that's it. Arguing as you did about the fact that it's simple for real or not has no sense.

Because this is the Internet, and reading between the lines also gets people upset. Again, it's just more uncharitable assumptions on top of previous uncharitable assumptions. You use the word "objective" later on. You don't seem to have a grasp on the word.

If you can't understand that I knew Ed Beach didn't hire just a single intern to produce all the game I really can't help you about this man

There are plenty of bugs. I follow modders as they improve, fix, and rewrite things across the UI. The fact that there are bugs is not in contention. The fact that the game didn't seem at all ready for release is not in contention.

What is, is armchair experting about what happened during development, or the presumptive competence of the developers. Nothing about this speculation is remotely objective, and pretending it is, is, again, indicative of a confidence that I'm completely jealous of. Honestly. I wish I had that kind of certainty in conclusions I draw from the state of the game and the rate of updates (which I was very positive about at first, but as mentioned before we seem to be in a bit of a lull).

And that's without even talking about "design", mainly because it doesn't really have anything to do with the thread (beyond some posters who don't like the design assuming that everyone with a negative opinion of the shares the same dislike of the design, even when the Steam review data suggests a much more complicated picture).

I assume the part about “what happened during development” was aimed at someone else? Because I’m not making any claims about that — I wasn’t there. I’m only commenting on the end result: what was actually developed.

About this, I can confidently say that many parts of the game are extremely poorly coded — and I’ve already provided examples to back that up. So seriously, what’s the point of your message? Maybe Firaxis has some of the best developers in the world and they were just under heavy pressure. Maybe they’re skilled but didn’t care about the quality this time. Maybe they’re just not great developers. I don’t know, and frankly, I’m not trying to figure that out.

What I am saying is that, from an objective standpoint, many parts of the final product are messy and carelessly done — and that’s exactly where the “intern” metaphor came from. So again, what's the point of your message?

 

[Leucarum]

Perhaps "stable" isn't the right word. While the game is technically stable in terms of performance, it's still plagued by bugs—hence my use of the word "unstable."

As mentioned earlier, many of these bugs are effectively hidden because the game fails to explain its core mechanics clearly, and the UI does little to help players understand cause and effect. Still, the bugs are numerous and significant. These aren’t rare edge cases—they happen consistently and are the result of flawed design or coding. A few examples:

• As previously reported, all the "one-time" bonuses in the Ancient and Exploration ages are bugged—they re-trigger at the start of a new age, which shouldn't happen.
• The Han and Ming Great Walls reduce city population by 1 per great wall builts, massively boosting food production with minimal downside. A few walls can break the economy balance entirely.
• Navies become completely bugged after researching Shipbuilding II in the Exploration Age. Due to what seems like a single faulty line of code (likely written by an intern and never tested), all water units start behaving like embarked units. This reduces ship speed, disables their ability to raze, and introduces a host of other issues.
• Many civics remain broken. For instance, all Tier II ideology civics in the Modern Age apply their penalties correctly, but their bonuses fail to account for attribute points gained in earlier ages—making them not only functionally useless but disadvantageous.

And unfortunately, there are many more.



I called it "simple" because it is incredibly simple, not because "I believe it". This mechanic has existed in every recent Civilization game, yet somehow it’s taken over a month to implement—more than three and a half months since release. Yes, I know scouts now have “a button to press occasionally”, but compared to similar mechanics in past Civ titles, this is a basic feature that should not take this long to add.

Does that mean something is automatically simple just because I say it is? Of course not—but your previous comment adds nothing to the discussion. Do you think it’s not simple? Maybe it’s not for you—but if this kind of implementation isn’t straightforward for someone actively developing a strategy game, then maybe they’re in the wrong profession.
Did the developers talk about it? Yes—and? I’m aware they mentioned “there’s now an extra button”, I've played the game and I've seen their explanation, but that changes nothing. The issue isn’t whether it was acknowledged—it’s that it’s still missing after all this time. So why did you brought that up?
Am I claiming the entire development team has spent a month doing only this? No, and everyone knows that. But again—what's the point of bringing that up? Regardless of their other priorities, the feature still isn’t implemented in the game and I've literally said "it's not yet implemented in the game". Also, after one month from the last patch, we don't even know when the next one will be.

Also, just to clarify—since it somehow wasn’t obvious—I don’t actually believe the game was made by a single intern with no testing. That was irony. Did you seriously think I wasn’t aware that Civilization VII is developed by an entire team? I assume not, so why respond as if I meant that literally?

Yes, I understand it’s a “complex codebase built by a full team”, that's why my hairdresser doesn't produce AAA strategy games, but that doesn't excuse the way it’s been handled. That’s exactly the point I was making. Anyone with a basic code understanding can see it—even just reading some of the code reveals serious issues. But even without looking under the hood, just playing the game is enough to show how many bugs and design flaws are present.

This isn't about "confidence" or subjective frustration—it's an objective issue (see the example I've reported in this message answering to Leucarum). The state of the game and the community backlash are both symptoms of that reality. There’s not much left to debate, you can't simply say obvious things that add nothing to this situation (like "the devs talked about it" or "it's not simple just because you believe it") and pretend the situation is different

I'll admit my "compared to other civ releases" was doing a lot of lifting. There's still bugs in 6 which were never fixed and the state after the NFP was kind of shocking. By firaxis standards, 7 is pretty stable I think. As usual though they could do far better at communicating things and I have plenty of other complaints with the title.