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[Mr Jon of Cheam]

For what's it's worth, this video from a German magazine (and currently only in German, but earlier ones got english subtitles) is pretty close to a review (at current state).
They see lots of things to improve but praise the freshness. They specifically recommend that people shouldn't shy away just because they dislike switching - of which they themselves don't seem to be too convinced - because they would otherwise miss a very good and interesting gameplay experience.

I'm not going into the "good" parts because those are mentioned often enough in all previews.

They note that many of the present issues are not where they thought they would be - at the ages and related stuff. Instead, they noted:
- AI is often (but not always) too passive
- Yield inflation would be problematic (like in Humankind)
- Too many buildings with similar effects
- Balance would be off, but somethings could be improved even until launch
- Onboarding is bad and follows an outdated concept: it relies too much on the civilopedia and hides too many things from players

But they also note age-related issues:
- Techs/Civics towards the end of an age are relatively useless, because you have hardly time to make use of the unlocked things
- Resetting wars and IPs at age transitions make for strange interruptions

They claim that the success of 7 will rely on 3 things:
- Fine-tuning onboarding and balance
- Inclusion of a fourth (post-modern) age in a free update instead of an expansion
- Whether players are willing to accept so many novelties

Thanks, some interesting thoughts there, especially regarding the end of Age techs feeling a bit meaningless. Going to be quite fascinating to see how/if they develop the Age transitions throughout the game's lifecycle.

 

[Uberfrog]

For what's it's worth, this video from a German magazine (and currently only in German, but earlier ones got english subtitles) is pretty close to a review (at current state).
They see lots of things to improve but praise the freshness. They specifically recommend that people shouldn't shy away just because they dislike switching - of which they themselves don't seem to be too convinced - because they would otherwise miss a very good and interesting gameplay experience.

I'm not going into the "good" parts because those are mentioned often enough in all previews.

They note that many of the present issues are not where they thought they would be - at the ages and related stuff. Instead, they noted:
- AI is often (but not always) too passive
- Yield inflation would be problematic (like in Humankind)
- Too many buildings with similar effects
- Balance would be off, but somethings could be improved even until launch
- Onboarding is bad and follows an outdated concept: it relies too much on the civilopedia and hides too many things from players

But they also note age-related issues:
- Techs/Civics towards the end of an age are relatively useless, because you have hardly time to make use of the unlocked things
- Resetting wars and IPs at age transitions make for strange interruptions

They claim that the success of 7 will rely on 3 things:
- Fine-tuning onboarding and balance
- Inclusion of a fourth (post-modern) age in a free update instead of an expansion
- Whether players are willing to accept so many novelties

From what I’ve seen, GameStar are usually pretty fair, and this seems like a decent, if not altogether positive assessment. It does feel like the game lacks some polish and pacing.

 

[Siptah]

Thanks, some interesting thoughts there, especially regarding the end of Age techs feeling a bit meaningless. Going to be quite fascinating to see how/if they develop the Age transitions throughout the game's lifecycle.

Yes, it's an interesting concept as is. However, I don't fully agree with the issue GameStar had. As it seems, only really strong science empires can complete the tech tree - which is fine by me. But you don't need to complete it do get to the late-age techs anyway. You can skip masteries if you aren't after codices and all the bonuses. It's probably viable to try to unlock the highest tier units asap and use them for quite some time in the age.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Yes, it's an interesting concept as is. However, I don't fully agree with the issue GameStar had. As it seems, only really strong science empires can complete the tech tree - which is fine by me. But you don't need to complete it do get to the late-age techs anyway. You can skip masteries if you aren't after codices and all the bonuses. It's probably viable to try to unlock the highest tier units asap and use them for quite some time in the age.

My impression so far is that some adjustment is required from the players. It's going to feel different, and that might put some people off initially. I'm expecting a whole wild range of reaction when the reviews drop!

 

[chaosprophet]

Yes, it's an interesting concept as is. However, I don't fully agree with the issue GameStar had. As it seems, only really strong science empires can complete the tech tree - which is fine by me. But you don't need to complete it do get to the late-age techs anyway. You can skip masteries if you aren't after codices and all the bonuses. It's probably viable to try to unlock the highest tier units asap and use them for quite some time in the age.

Also changing the age speed for your game may help those who want to make more use of the end of the tech tree in each age. If reductions to turn total are lowered, then you have a overall longer age and likely to explore more of the trees

 

[Siptah]

Steinwallen said in his Q&A that you might lose units at the age transition. 6 units are kept while you lose all others, except if they are attached to a commander.

Maybe this isn't news, and I just missed it previously. But this came as a surprise to me.

In the same vein, he said it isn't that problematic, as he had a lot of gold surplus to buy new units.

 

[Evolena]

Is it 6, or the number of settlement you have (since they are moved to these settlements)?

 

[Taefin]

I’m not loving what I’m seeing of crises. In one video they get the unhappiness penalty and a city immediately rebels and joins a neighbor, but then a neighbors city immediately joins them. Another mentions that knowing the AI are being affected by the same crisis takes away the feeling of peril, and within 30 hr they were already parking units in open areas to prepare for possible barbarians (free commander promotions they joked). A slider for how much rubber banding the crisis tries to do, targeting larger empires, would be appreciated.

That said, I noticed the start of what look like pretty different exploration age gameplay between runs where the player started exploration with 8 cities vs 3. I still haven’t seen much demo of treasure fleets and DL settlments, but with 4 civs on the main continent, it seems that when one grows large in antiquity, the others can more freely grow in exploration, and with all buildings effectively being reset, recent settlements would be more helpful in playing catchup.

AI being eliminated makes the game look lonely with so few civs in the game. I’m looking forward to some maps in the future where you discover a much larger world in exploration, but not holding my breath.

 

[ColtSeavers]

Since there are apparently some German speaking readers, here is another an interesting review by a German streamer:

This streamer had been invited by Firaxis Studios to Baltimore, when the Devs presented Civ 7 for the first time to the media, so I think he can be considered a credible source. He is pretty critical overall, and some of his criticism seems nitpicky, but overall some of his points are interesting and make sense to me.

Among others:
1.) Balancing Issues: Leader Attributes; Social Polcies; racing towards the future technologies etc. Pacing of the game seems to be an issue, too, especially in the exploration age
2.) Overwhelming Micromanagement for the religious gameplay (Unit Spam)
3.) User Interface: Hard to read and not self explantory in several cases

[VIDEO]

 

[Taefin]

Is it 6, or the number of settlement you have (since they are moved to these settlements)?

I was also surprised having heard (they move out of enemy territory, earlier). To me it sure looked like it was one of the same type of unit in every settlement.

 

[Nikolai II]

Is it 6, or the number of settlement you have (since they are moved to these settlements)?

Latter as far as I understand.

 

[Siptah]

Is it 6, or the number of settlement you have (since they are moved to these settlements)?

Not number of settlements, because the player had 11. Maybe number of cities?

Other news (nor surprise): the larger map that is worked on has 2 homeland continents with players and one distant lands.

Among others:
1.) Balancing Issues: Leader Attributes; Social Polcies; racing towards the future technologies etc. Pacing of the game seems to be an issue, too, especially in the exploration age.
2.) Overwhelming Micromanagement for the religious gameplay (Unit Spam)
3.) User Interface: Hard to read and not self explantory in several cases.

I've seen these a few times now. Micromanagement of resources also seems lead to clique fatigue relatively fast.
I'm somewhat surprised about the bad explanations tbh. Civ VI was a fiasco in that regard as well, and I hoped they learned from that and took lessons from, e.g., CK3 with its great tooltips. You shouldn't need to be a reader at CFC to understand basic game mechanics like adjacency.

 

[Connor_CivFan]

Though I remain optimistic it does feel like everyone who has said their opinions in their supposedly non-review vids have been quite negative so far

 

[Krikkit1]

I’m not loving what I’m seeing of crises. In one video they get the unhappiness penalty and a city immediately rebels and joins a neighbor, but then a neighbors city immediately joins them. Another mentions that knowing the AI are being affected by the same crisis takes away the feeling of peril, and within 30 hr they were already parking units in open areas to prepare for possible barbarians (free commander promotions they joked). A slider for how much rubber banding the crisis tries to do, targeting larger empires, would be appreciated.

That said, I noticed the start of what look like pretty different exploration age gameplay between runs where the player started exploration with 8 cities vs 3. I still haven’t seen much demo of treasure fleets and DL settlments, but with 4 civs on the main continent, it seems that when one grows large in antiquity, the others can more freely grow in exploration, and with all buildings effectively being reset, recent settlements would be more helpful in playing catchup.

AI being eliminated makes the game look lonely with so few civs in the game. I’m looking forward to some maps in the future where you discover a much larger world in exploration, but not holding my breath.

Rebels should not join other civs (unless they were founded by that civ... but should become hostile IPs)

And it definitely should have a rubber banding effect.

 

[thecrazyscot]

Though I remain optimistic it does feel like everyone who has said their opinions in their supposedly non-review vids have been quite negative so far

I dunno, my impression of the several videos I've seen is that the streamers seem to be genuinely having a lot of fun. Quite a few of them played multiple dozens of hours which they didn't need to do in order to make these videos. A lot of positive comments throughout the videos as well, and of course critiques as well, but the overall impression again seems positive.

 

[Nikolai II]

I dunno, my impression of the several videos I've seen is that the streamers seem to be genuinely having a lot of fun. Quite a few of them played multiple dozens of hours which they didn't need to do in order to make these videos. A lot of positive comments throughout the videos as well, and of course critiques as well, but the overall impression again seems positive.

Yeah that is my impression too.

 

[Seek]

I dunno, my impression of the several videos I've seen is that the streamers seem to be genuinely having a lot of fun. Quite a few of them played multiple dozens of hours which they didn't need to do in order to make these videos. A lot of positive comments throughout the videos as well, and of course critiques as well, but the overall impression again seems positive.

Same! I almost exclusively watched videos by people who I know are Civ fans though, so I think that bodes well, since I am also a civ fan

 

[gdr_willter]

I think it because:

Creators who're positive about Civ 7 are following the review embargo and focusing to find some new informations about game features, so they don't tell about how good Civ 7 is.

Creators who're negative about Civ 7 don't feel a need to follow the review embargo and they lost their interest about game features, so they tell about how bad Civ 7 is.

 

[thecrazyscot]

This video by VanBradley is chock full of positive and critical thoughts. Quite a few valid concerns touched on but overall impression is still is quite positive.

 

[Seek]

This video by VanBradley is chock full of positive and critical thoughts. Quite a few valid concerns touched on but overall impression is still is quite positive.

I found his to be one of the best ones. He also did a livestream just talking and answering questions (in a non-reviewy way). Haven’t finished but it’s quite informative about how the game feels coming from a long time civ player.