Sorry for the negativity, but the game is currently unplayable and boring.

[madeirabhoy]

ive pretty much found the opposite, I feel lost playing Civ vii. im also not a mathmatical player, I make my decisions from intuition and what sounds or looks nice. but ive enjoyed and succeeded at every game since Civ 1, remembering how to get exponential scores by taking every civ's last city on the same correct turn (was it 100bc?), and loved civ vi as much as any.

but this. ive restarted about 4 times. im used to choosing a country I identify with, with a famous leader, and generally an earth based map. now im choosing someone not well known (unless its Napoleon) and a non country. and then Im clicking on things randomly without knowing what and why. pop ups ask me how to deal with mundane issues almost like id imagine a freemium civ clone on my phone to do. I cant get invested in it so far.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

First of all, I apologize for the negativity—if you're enjoying CIV7, that's great! I also loved many of the new ideas and still have high hopes for the future of the game. But in its current state, it’s completely unplayable, not fun, and just tedious.

There's criticism to be made but unplayable is clearly incorrect.

 

[Rambo919]

In this case "unplayable" means OP can't force himself to play it.

 

[Atchulhu]

It definitely isn't unplayable, but I do also find it strangely dull. Part of that is the settlement limit, and the fact that you have very few actual cities. Towns aren't very interactive. Trading and meaningful diplomacy is also gone in exchange for a small selection of standardized endeavors, so that's another whole minigame removed from Civ (not that trading in VI was super fun, but it was certainly interactive and varied wildly from one game to the next).

Worst of all, war feels pointless. I cannot see the benefits of warmongering. Maybe in the modern era, I haven't really delved too deep into that yet--but it's pretty much impossible to sustain a campaign of conquest in antiquity, and only slightly better in the exploration era (though you still basically have to choose between conquering cities or settling colonies). The AI's cities are always completely awful, so it isn't really advantageous to take theirs instead of settling your own. Unless you got a very weird map layout, it's trivial to fill up your settlement cap with good settlements that you planned for yourself, so conquering isn't particularly attractive. And while you can survive going a bit above the cap, it really is just 'a bit.' You can't really conquer an empire. You certainly can't take over your continent, that's just completely out of the question, there's no way you'll sustain like 20/7 settlements. Raze them instead? Huge stacking penalties that will eventually cripple you in all future wars. It feels like a fundamentally broken system that punishes you for engaging with it.

 

[Rambo919]

Worst of all, war feels pointless.

Probably the whole point.... along with the re-definition of "warmonger" in Civ6.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I'm pretty certain I've read accounts of people achieving total domination in Exploration, not sure about Antiquity yet. Sounds like an interesting challenge for those of the violent persuasion.

Not sure I understand the notion that war is useless though? The settlement cap / -1 war support for razing cities definitely means you have to view war as a tool to achieve a specific aim, but isn't that more realistic and interesting? Plenty of good reasons to war from what I've seen, whether that be capturing a specific city you want, pillaging for yields, slowing an enemy down by razing one key city, disrupting progress (e.g. by going after treasure fleets), helping an ally, etc.

 

[awpioreubhnfgvv346260]

Pointing out a game's flaws and expressing disappointment is not - I repeat not - negativity, nor is it something anyone should feel they need to apologise for. What a strange scenario we are in where people can pay good money for a product, dislike it, and feel the need to grovel about disliking it. Capitalism has really done a number on us.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Pointing out a game's flaws and expressing disappointment is not - I repeat not - negativity, nor is it something anyone should feel they need to apologise for.

I think it's just being polite knowing a lot of us are enjoying the game and I certainly appreciated the sentiment.

 

[pietro1990]

the game is unplayable because it has a terrible UI witch doesn't tell anything to the player wich causes you to figure out everything you'rself !!

 

[valerislysander]

I don't think it's unplayable or boring, it's just very different from every other Civ. People are either going to really like it or really dislike it, I don't think there will be much in the middle.

Which I think they wanted. The devs wanted to make something different and I love it.

 

[Leyrann]

Pointing out a game's flaws and expressing disappointment is not - I repeat not - negativity, nor is it something anyone should feel they need to apologise for. What a strange scenario we are in where people can pay good money for a product, dislike it, and feel the need to grovel about disliking it. Capitalism has really done a number on us.

Ah yes, the big bad capitalism.

Woe be upon us, capitalism has yet again ruined something!

How? I don't know! But capitalism is evil! Just blame it! For everything!

(serious mode: you are the left-wing equivalent of calling everything woke)

 

[valerislysander]

Its fine not to enjoy a game. Doesn't mean it's unplayable. What I'm enjoying is actually wanting to keep going to the end. The early days of 5 and 6 I restarted a lot and took a while before i got through whole games. I've done two now over 40hrs and its been a blast so far.
Some annoyances for sure, some things do need improving and those criticisms are always valid and the devs will listen. But the hyperbole around this game has been quite a thing to behold. Statements like "its unplayable" is rather over the top.

 

[TheGrayFox]

Ah yes, the big bad capitalism.

Woe be upon us, capitalism has yet again ruined something!

How? I don't know! But capitalism is evil! Just blame it! For everything!

(serious mode: you are the left-wing equivalent of calling everything woke)

I mean capitalism and the fact that these corporations are beholden to shareholders who are looking for a return on investment are the reason why the industry has moved towards giving us half baked games and peddling us nearly double price of the base game in day one DLCs…. But nice try being dismissive towards someone making a good point

 

[Leyrann]

I mean capitalism and the fact that these corporations are beholden to shareholders who are looking for a return on investment are the reason why the industry has moved towards giving us half baked games and peddling us nearly double price of the base game in day one DLCs…. But nice try being dismissive towards someone making a good point

I mean wokism and the fact that these corporations are marketing to activists who are looking to force DEI on everything are the reason why the industry has moved towards giving us half baked games while their hypocrisy milks us for more and more money through day one DLCs...

Not serious, obviously, but do you see the comparison now?

 

[TheGrayFox]

I mean wokism and the fact that these corporations are marketing to activists who are looking to force DEI on everything are the reason why the industry has moved towards giving us half baked games while their hypocrisy milks us for more and more money through day one DLCs...

Not serious, obviously, but do you see the comparison now?

No i don’t see the comparison because the analogy is kind of terrible. People crying about “woke” are politically motivated and most of time their whining has no basis in reality, where as the people pointing out that the move to an egregiously overpriced and aggressive dlc model and games being half baked at launch to sell you more in the future are doing so to appease shareholders are simply pointing out reality

 

[Leyrann]

No i don’t see the comparison because the analogy is kind of terrible. People crying about “woke” are politically motivated and most of time their whining has no basis in reality, where as the people pointing out that the move to an egregiously overpriced and aggressive dlc model and games being half baked at launch to sell you more in the future are doing so to appease shareholders are simply pointing out reality

I heard that as "I am biased in favor of the anti-capitalist viewpoint and thus consider it more valid than the anti-woke viewpoint".

You know what it boils down to? Sometimes, people are right and capitalism is to blame. However, most of the time they are just being political. And sometimes, people are right and woke is to blame. However, most of the time they are again just being political.

 

[Methos]

Moderator Action: If you want to argue politics and such, do it in the Off Topic forum. Stick to the game, please. - Methos

 

[DocRock]

I'm close to finishing my first real game and while I really liked many features so far, I'm not sure if and how my motivation is keeping up for following games. The more I play, the more the game feels extremely on rails. Gone are the theme park ideas, now you have the same goals in every game for every nation. Due to the nature of the victory conditions, there is really only one way to play.

In Civ 5, you could for example do a 3 city culture victory with India. Or a sea-focussed game with England. A heavy eary rush game with the Aztecs or a strong midgame with Arabia. You could go for a diplo victory with Greece. Or a domination one with Shaka.

Now everyone is doing the same. Playing tall? Good luck, you still need to find and colonize the distant world. You lose 50% of the victory conditions if you don't do that. This feels like the Devs gave us one way to play. So you better stick to it.

 

[Mezmorizor]

It definitely isn't unplayable, but I do also find it strangely dull. Part of that is the settlement limit, and the fact that you have very few actual cities. Towns aren't very interactive. Trading and meaningful diplomacy is also gone in exchange for a small selection of standardized endeavors, so that's another whole minigame removed from Civ (not that trading in VI was super fun, but it was certainly interactive and varied wildly from one game to the next).

Worst of all, war feels pointless. I cannot see the benefits of warmongering. Maybe in the modern era, I haven't really delved too deep into that yet--but it's pretty much impossible to sustain a campaign of conquest in antiquity, and only slightly better in the exploration era (though you still basically have to choose between conquering cities or settling colonies). The AI's cities are always completely awful, so it isn't really advantageous to take theirs instead of settling your own. Unless you got a very weird map layout, it's trivial to fill up your settlement cap with good settlements that you planned for yourself, so conquering isn't particularly attractive. And while you can survive going a bit above the cap, it really is just 'a bit.' You can't really conquer an empire. You certainly can't take over your continent, that's just completely out of the question, there's no way you'll sustain like 20/7 settlements. Raze them instead? Huge stacking penalties that will eventually cripple you in all future wars. It feels like a fundamentally broken system that punishes you for engaging with it.

Agreed on both counts. I guess I'll try a stupidly busted game (because Maya into Hawaii will definitely not last) and a warmonger game before dropping it unless the warmonger game is particularly engaging, but the entire game feels like winning by space because you figure it'll be faster real time wise than an intercontinental invasion in past games. You're building stuff for the sake of building stuff, making a few easy decisions, and mostly hitting end turn. There is a lot of min max potential in the city building, but the core is streamlined enough that you don't really need to make decisions to get 95% effectiveness which blows the pants off deity. Ageless on bad yield tiles adjacent to center. Do the adjacency for the yield that doesn't change. Overbuild. Bada bing bada boom. It's better than Civ 6's plan out your entire cities life on turn 30 for 40 minutes I guess. I consistently run out of productive things to do with tech and production by about halfway through the age as well.

This relative boredom sadly seems intended. So many leaders and civs are just very strong at what they do, so it feels like they very deliberately made it so that you can play anything and roll with not much friction. When you're rolling in your strategy game, there's probably not much replayability and you're probably bored. Not to mention ~80% of playtime is just about stacking legacy rewards which always plays out the same because it's always the same requirements with the map having minimal impact on them.

As for war, there is just no need unless you're one of the "lucky" few who has an AI randomly make good cities consistently with proper building choices which added to their bonuses has them make thousands upon thousands of every yield per turn. You'll need to cut those AIs down. Otherwise, you have plenty of space to peacefully settle, and you actively do not want the settlements the AI builds. You even get first dibs to the land because the AI is apparently allergic to building settlers. Multiple AIs will just not do it. Even warmongering seems harder than needed because the war support system means you need to shoot yourself in the foot to do it. The AI is naturally agreeable barring rabblerouser agendas, so you need to use your influence to not lose a bunch of combat strength which means you're not spending influence for yields like a peaceful player would.

 

[Leyrann]

I'm close to finishing my first real game and while I really liked many features so far, I'm not sure if and how my motivation is keeping up for following games. The more I play, the more the game feels extremely on rails. Gone are the theme park ideas, now you have the same goals in every game for every nation. Due to the nature of the victory conditions, there is really only one way to play.

In Civ 5, you could for example do a 3 city culture victory with India. Or a sea-focussed game with England. A heavy eary rush game with the Aztecs or a strong midgame with Arabia. You could go for a diplo victory with Greece. Or a domination one with Shaka.

Now everyone is doing the same. Playing tall? Good luck, you still need to find and colonize the distant world. You lose 50% of the victory conditions if you don't do that. This feels like the Devs gave us one way to play. So you better stick to it.

So what you're saying is that you could still do a culture or science victory in the Exploration Era just fine if you don't want to go to distant lands?

Also a 3 city culture victory sounds like a perfectly possible thing in this game. Several leader attributes even provide bigger bonuses if you're at 3 or fewer cities. And a sea-focused game sounds to me like you're emphasizing distant lands conquest/settling. Early game rush? Did that in my current game. Strong mid game? Also my current game - I picked Mongolia for a reason. Diplo with Greece? Turns out city states provide a lot of benefits in all kinds of areas at the same time! I got to experience all those benefits in my previous game. And domination? Yup, no issues. I've had a game with 30 cities and even higher settlement cap.

I think you're wrongly interpreting the legacy paths as a necessary thing to pursue. View them like you view culture in a previous game. Sure, you can pursue a culture victory, but you can also ignore it entirely! Just pick whatever you want and focus on that.