Poll: Did you like the new era system overall?

[Wardog]

I wonder what the majority in this forums are thinking about the new era system and the new mechanics that came with it. What are your thoughts?

 

[fantsu]

Can maybe change my mind later on, but right now its negative.
Having two spots in the game where you have to gather all your units and attach them to commanders to save them for the next era is just silly.
Why even? Civ had eras before. Why soft reset?
Disconnects me from my empire and its situation.

I cannot see how I can see this as a good thing later on. Right now I hope Firaxis has few more aces in its sleeve.

 

[Siptah]

It's a phenomenal change, one of the best ever in the series. It needs a bit more fine-tuning, e.g., crises need to be harder or scale with difficulty or empire strength to make for a better transition. The 3x new start feel, new goals, new civs, new mechanics, invalidating buildings, overbuilding and soft reset (while keeping many of the most important things) are truly amazing.

There's a lot to criticize with civ 7, but for me, the age system is a full success that will be a keeper. Civ is now a game that develops in waves, and not as a logarithmic curve with all the interesting/important things in the first third. I also love what the systems allows, I mean the very detailed civs alone bring so much more depth and freshness to the game.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I'm in the not sure yet category at the moment, mainly because I've not played nearly enough to fully judge. I think it's a great change in theory, but it does come with its own problems and there's definitely still some tweaking to be done.

Willing to bet that a lot of the people who vote "No, I disliked it" will be people who have no intention of trying it.

 

[Siptah]

Willing to bet that a lot of the people who vote "No, I disliked it" will be people who have no intention of trying it.

Maybe this would be a necessary option: I dislike it but haven't played it yet.

 

[VGT]

Willing to bet that a lot of the people who vote "No, I disliked it" will be people who have no intention of trying it.

Challenging part is that in order for me to try it I have to spent $70+ on something it appears I won't like. Even if I have a good will to give them a chance I don't have the means to do it.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Challenging part is that in order for me to try it I have to spent $70+ on something it appears I won't like. Even if I have a good will to give them a chance I don't have the means to do it.

For sure, makes sense. I suppose Siptah phrased it better, the poll needs an option for those who won't or can't try it yet, it would be nice to get a picture of how people feel from the pool of players who have tried it.

 

[Xandinho]

I feel that the eras should be longer. Each era feels like a race against time to earn legacy points, and I wish I could enjoy playing through each one more. Even when I set the game to long eras, it still doesn’t feel sufficient. The Exploration Age, in particular, seems the most rushed of all.

 

[sonicmyst]

Before the game is released I am on the fence and has lots of reservations about it. When I played after several playthroughs, I understand the devs purpose.

 

[Piranga]

I believe Era gameplay is the worst game mechanic in the history of the entire civ series. I have comments about it in many other threads, so I'm not going to complain all over again about every single aspect and how it makes for absurd gameplay.

I'll just quote Eagle Pursuit here, I think this comment is the most concise summary of the big problem of eras

Post in thread 'Sorry for the negativity, but the game is currently unplayable and boring.'

Feb 13, 2025

I have 61 hours play time at current time. I would hardly call it unplayable. The game has a lot of issues, particularly with the UI, but the bones of the game are quite fun. My main quibble is that the design seems to want to funnel you into win conditions thrice per game, which ruins the sandbox aspect the series is known for. And conforming to those win conditions every game is slowly eroding the replayability for me.

• Eagle Pursuit

• 

 

[Siptah]

I believe Era gameplay is the worst game mechanic in the history of the entire civ series. I have comments about it in many other threads, so I'm not going to complain all over again about every single aspect and how it makes for absurd gameplay.

I'll just quote Eagle Pursuit here, I think this comment is the most concise summary of the big problem of eras

Post in thread 'Sorry for the negativity, but the game is currently unplayable and boring.'

Feb 13, 2025

I have 61 hours play time at current time. I would hardly call it unplayable. The game has a lot of issues, particularly with the UI, but the bones of the game are quite fun. My main quibble is that the design seems to want to funnel you into win conditions thrice per game, which ruins the sandbox aspect the series is known for. And conforming to those win conditions every game is slowly eroding the replayability for me.

• Eagle Pursuit

• 

While I see the railroading clearly, I think you don't need to follow it just because it's there (similar as in e.g., EU4 and its missions). You'll get some milestones just by playing normally, and so far, dark ages aren't forced on you.

 

[Isca Dumnoniorum]

I'm closest to 'I don't like it' out of the options above. Taken entirely in isolation (i.e. putting the civ switching mechanic to one side), I don't enjoy (i) being taken out of the flow of my game, (ii) being subject to the soft reset and (iii) being presented with a bunch of actions to click through before I can get back into the game properly.

Seriously, between choosing your new civ, spending your legacy points, spending the attribute points you purchase, growing any towns that need it, restoring your cities back to city status, re-allocating your resources and ordering your now scattered units back into formation, that's a lot of clicking just to get back into the game (and the better you've been doing, the more clicking that follows).

I'm not against the idea of markedly different ages per se - it's just the hard transition that I don't like. I realise it's a horses for courses situation and I'm glad for the people who enjoy interacting with the age transitions. On the plus side, they make it easy for me to save down and quit the game when I should be heading to bed as they totally break the one more turn feel for me

 

[Cymsdale]

The system seeks to address a lot of the issues I've had with not just Civ but 4x games in general for a long time, so I generally view it positively even if there are things it might do better. I especially like how it allows you to pivot your strategy so you aren't necessarily forced to work toward certain end victories from turn one.

 

[UWHabs]

I feel that the eras should be longer. Each era feels like a race against time to earn legacy points, and I wish I could enjoy playing through each one more. Even when I set the game to long eras, it still doesn’t feel sufficient. The Exploration Age, in particular, seems the most rushed of all.

Yeah, agreed. Some of it is that I am still slowly working up the difficulty ladder, so admittedly I am snowballing fairly heavily. But in my latest game, the only reason I completed the treasure fleets was because once I got 9/30, I saved up all the rest of the fleets in my water, waiting for the last turn of the era, and then I shoved them all in at once. And only hit 30 points on the nose. Had I dropped them off one by one earlier, they would have triggered the age to end sooner and I wouldn't have completed the legacies.

The downside to the eras I will say is that when you get near the end of the era, you do get this weird stalemate. Like, I didn't really want to build anything else, since the new buildings would just downgrade in the new era and not be worth it. But I didn't really have anything else to do. I ended up putting my cities basically on building science/culture in hopes that I could just race to future tech.

And even there, despite heavily snowballing, really pushing, I only just made it to the end of the tree, even skipping most of the later masteries, and I only just barely hit the last civic on the last turn of the era, and I was 1 turn away from the last tech. I mean, I sort of get it, in that it doesn't really make sense to give me another like 50 turns in the era or anything without anything else to do, but at the same time, if I actually wanted to use any of those level 3 units, or bonuses from those last techs, there just wasn't any time to do it.

 

[Lanthar]

I am not enjoying the era system currently. The game feels like you're playing 3 subgames for victory points, rather than advancing your civilization. I didn't like the golden/dark age system in VI, but the eras system feels like to much of a change away from the sandbox aspect of the game. The designers behind VI and VII seem intent on converting a video game into a more direct representation of a modern hobby board game.

 

[pokiehl]

This poll’s utility is kind of shot since it’s not specifying that it’s for folks who have actually played the game. Without that it’s basically just another poll about visceral reactions to civ switching.

 

[NowhereMan80]

I don't care for it, but the combination of the era system AND switching Civ's is just a deal breaker for me. I just don't think it's a Civilization games any more; it took too much from Humankind. And I just don't really think Civilization should be taking to that degree from other games, it should be the other way around.

If they added a "Classic Mode" or whatever they would choose to call it that would remove switching Civ's and all of the era missions/etc, I'd probably start playing again. But I don't see that happening.

 

[Leucarum]

It needs a bit more fine-tuning

As much as I do like the era system a lot, this might be the understatement of the century! But there is lots to like - I think the soft rubberbanding is really good. Keeping everyone playing with millitary from the same era is a really good move that makes combat less about getting a tech lead. The legacy rewards are also great. Much moreso than your choice of civ they are what I look forward to each era. But... Those legacy paths!

So far the legacy paths in antiquity have not gotten stale for me - they are pretty much "play the game how you want." This is where they work and work well IMO.

After that... Exploration legacy paths are not so great - Culture and Science are pretty much automatic unless you get cut short by era progression. Millitary is finicky, with it ironically forcing you to play missionary whack-a-mole more than culture. Economic is the most interesting by far, but the pacing is out of whack. In any case, moreso than antiquity, you are forced to play the game in a specific manner

And then modern. Hoo boy. Winning culture by turn 50 is eminently doable. Artifacts need to be reworked urgently. The race isn't even fun! Millitary is oddly bottlenecked by waiting for other players to choose civics, science and economic are fine I guess but why bother when the best way to win is culture?

Ultimately. I don't think the project based win conditions are satisfying. Score victory at the end of the age I think will be much more interesting, since in and of themseves the only un-fun path in modern for me is culture. Ultimately all the VCs are so focussed that you don't get to play your chosen civ.

I think fixing eras is ultimately a matter of fixing legacy paths. Maybe multiple available per era selected during game setup or picked at random? More civs with alternative ways to play like Songhai or Mongolia? And score victory rather than projects would help too! Or at least the option of either!

 

[Siptah]

As much as I do like the era system a lot, this might be the understatement of the century! But there is lots to like - I think the soft rubberbanding is really good. Keeping everyone playing with millitary from the same era is a really good move that makes combat less about getting a tech lead. The legacy rewards are also great. Much moreso than your choice of civ they are what I look forward to each era. But... Those legacy paths!

So far the legacy paths in antiquity have not gotten stale for me - they are pretty much "play the game how you want." This is where they work and work well IMO.

After that... Exploration legacy paths are not so great - Culture and Science are pretty much automatic unless you get cut short by era progression. Millitary is finicky, with it ironically forcing you to play missionary whack-a-mole more than culture. Economic is the most interesting by far, but the pacing is out of whack. In any case, moreso than antiquity, you are forced to play the game in a specific manner

And then modern. Hoo boy. Winning culture by turn 50 is eminently doable. Artifacts need to be reworked urgently. The race isn't even fun! Millitary is oddly bottlenecked by waiting for other players to choose civics, science and economic are fine I guess but why bother when the best way to win is culture?

Ultimately. I don't think the project based win conditions are satisfying. Score victory at the end of the age I think will be much more interesting, since in and of themseves the only un-fun path in modern for me is culture. Ultimately all the VCs are so focussed that you don't get to play your chosen civ.

I think fixing eras is ultimately a matter of fixing legacy paths. Maybe multiple available per era selected during game setup or picked at random? More civs with alternative ways to play like Songhai or Mongolia? And score victory rather than projects would help too! Or at least the option of either!

And I think you post starts with the overstatement of the century!

But otherwise, full agree. There needs to refinement to the legacy paths, victories and alternative paths at least for the later ages on top. But that seems possible, and I expect it to come with patches and expansions down the road.

 

[Evolena]

Having two spots in the game where you have to gather all your units and attach them to commanders to save them for the next era is just silly.

(You don't need to, the game does it automatically for you)