Review Keys Out, Embargo ends on Feb 3rd

[Uberfrog]

I stopped reading as soon as the reviewer wrote "There's something uncomfortable about Pachacuti converting people to Catholicism".
This is someone who clearly doesn't understand Civilization or Christianity, and clearly has hostility towards the later.

It’s probably just a reference to the Catholic church’s role in the forced conversion and murder of the Incan emperor (Pachacuti’s great grandson), and the bloody conquest of their territory and eradication of their culture that ensued.

 

[trev1972]

I have watched a few reviews now, some like it some dont like it and some are in between.
One thing i have noticed is the map looks almost exactly the same in every game? an big square, then a big ocean, then another big square of land.

 

[Oberst Kraft]

One thing i have noticed is the map looks almost exactly the same in every game? an big square, then a big ocean, then another big square of land.

The ugliest map design in Civ games ever IMHO.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I have watched a few reviews now, some like it some dont like it and some are in between.
One thing i have noticed is the map looks almost exactly the same in every game? an big square, then a big ocean, then another big square of land.

Yes. I trust the "everything sucks!" type of reviews about as much as I'd trust one that said that everything was fantastic.

 

[trev1972]

The ugliest map design in Civ games ever IMHO.

I guess if i end up buying the game i will heavily rely on modder map scripts. My concern is that the new 'distant land' mechanic will limit the options available.

 

[UWHabs]

I have watched a few reviews now, some like it some dont like it and some are in between.
One thing i have noticed is the map looks almost exactly the same in every game? an big square, then a big ocean, then another big square of land.

Yeah, the square - ocean - square is the default script. square - islands - square - islands is the continents+ script. Apparently the Archipelago script looks nice, it almost looks more like the Continents and Islands script in 6. It seems like it's not as bad, since navigable rivers at least make the blocks not as game breaking as it seems at first glance.

But that's definitely one of those items where they need to add more variation to their map scripts.

 

[Oberst Kraft]

I trust the "everything sucks!" type of reviews about as much as I'd trust one that said that everything was fantastic.

100% agree

 

[trev1972]

100% agree

I have watched some reviews that feel like they were paid to say 'this is the best ever' and no attempt to pick up any issues.
I have also watched reviews that seem to want to be negative

I actually think marbozir has made a really good attempt to explain how the game plays so that we can decide for ourselves if its right for us

 

[Oberst Kraft]

I have watched some reviews that feel like they were paid to say 'this is the best ever' and no attempt to pick up any issues.
I have also watched reviews that seem to want to be negative

I actually think marbozir has made a really good attempt to explain how the game plays so that we can decide for ourselves if its right for us

Yes, Marbozir did a solid job of breaking down the game and explaining to us what works well in it and what doesn't. He doesn't impose his point of view, but always emphasizes that depending on the player's personal preferences, a given thing may or may not ruin the game.

 

[ggmoyang]

* personally not too worried about UI - that’s fixable
* performance is a bigger concern
* AI seems the usual Civ mid to poor quality AI

There was actual perfomance analysis article:
https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/ci...e-game-will-grind-down-whatever-cpu-you-have/

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I am hoping the performance issues can be fixed with some code to better optimize when the game uses the CPU vs GPU. So hopefully, we get a patch to fix that soon.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I am hoping the performance issues can be fixed with some code to better optimize when the game uses the CPU vs GPU.

Maybe, I think that that "between turns" part of the game will always take whatever CPU you can throw at though.

 

[Evolena]

I haven't really looked into what happens if you do get a 0 on any of the legacy paths, to actually know how much you have to try them. So I think that's really the key - the game seems to force you to maybe do stuff you don't want to do. And I could see how people might get annoyed at that, and feel that could limit how much replayability the game has.

Nothing. Nothing happen. You don't get legacy points for that category, you don't get any legacy options for that category except for a "dark age" one that you can choose to take for all your other legacy points. But that's a choice you can make, not something that automatically happens. At worse you can see it as losing the ability to take some bonus.

 

[The_J]

Moderator Action: Attention, for the people who have not noticed it, we now have a news and reviews subforum https://forums.civfanatics.com/forums/civ7-news-and-reviews.645/ , and this thread has been moved there. I started a couple of threads for some of the reviews. Please add more.

 

[Isengardtom]

There was actual perfomance analysis article:
https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/ci...e-game-will-grind-down-whatever-cpu-you-have/

Nice - unfortunately no Mac performance though

 

[Gedemon]

I am hoping the performance issues can be fixed with some code to better optimize when the game uses the CPU vs GPU. So hopefully, we get a patch to fix that soon.

the 1% low and stuttering are not a major issue for me on a 4x game, but I'm more concerned about the instability and crashes reported in that article.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Watching Marbozir's review, I think the biggest UI issue is how you can't easily find which buildings are ageless or not on the map (it only tells you in the build queue but not on the tile). He points out that this can cause issues because if you want to build your unique district, you need to be able to overbuild both buildings in the quarter but if one of them is ageless, you can't. This means you might get stuck with never being able to build your unique district in that city for the entire game since you cannot sell buildings either. I do see this as a pretty big issue because I think it could cause a lot of frustration with city planning.

 

[theadder]

Moderator Action: Attention, for the people who have not noticed it, we now have a news and reviews subforum https://forums.civfanatics.com/forums/civ7-news-and-reviews.645/ , and this thread has been moved there. I started a couple of threads for some of the reviews. Please add more.

This move seems to have killed the discussion in these threads. It might make sense to return them to the normal Civ VII forum.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Watching Marbozir's review, I think the biggest UI issue is how you can't easily find which buildings are ageless or not on the map (it only tells you in the build queue but not on the tile). He points out that this can cause issues because if you want to build your unique district, you need to be able to overbuild both buildings in the quarter but if one of them is ageless, you can't. This means you might get stuck with never being able to build your unique district in that city for the entire game since you cannot sell buildings either. I do see this as a pretty big issue because I think it could cause a lot of frustration with city planning.

This echoes many other criticisms that the UI does not present complete information to players. Not just Ageless or not on the map, but also the lack of unit list, production and science numbers are hidden, etc.

It seems the UI design philosophy is aiming at not letting too many numbers clutter your screen, but they went in the opposite direction too far; and for players, not knowing "why" from the UI is really frustrating. I hope the devs can reconsider their approach.

 

[Niallism]

Have any of the previews and reviews talked about losing a game? I need my games to be challenging, and so far I haven't seen that.