I genuinely get that impression. Like, we have the rumor which sounds reasonable of the entire UI team quitting. I've had a theory that in order to remove them from the post-launch bonuses contract, they had to scrap some percentage of their work. That's my most reasonable explanation for why progress might have been lost (and I don't like the theory it doesn't fully check out).
Still, the game is so unfinished and underbaked, with very easily fixed things (like the HMS Revenge) coming out wrong because apparently there just wasn't enough time. What's with the rush? What takes so long? If they had to rebuild everything from scratch it starts to make sense.
The UI rumor guy did say that the senior devs came back from a "research trip" and mandated a complete reworking of the game, so maybe there was a very late scrapping of what they had.
I have to be careful because the mods don't like us talking about the devs, so I'm referring to a development process overall not necessarily any individuals, but this point I want to make is honestly necessary context to even discuss this. The rumor mentions a redesign coming as the result of an Ayahuasca trip. Even the rumor was vague so let's just say that a hallucination somewhere somehow produced a game design vision and management supported the vision.
If you know about neural regrowth with psychedelics, often one is left with the impression of epiphany because formerly pruned neurons are reconnected - formerly discordant concepts gain apparent connection within mental perception. That doesn't mean the ideas actually connect. Compare to having an epiphany in a dream, waking up, and then as you try to sort out the details of the idea they don't really connect that well.
Ayahuasca is pretty powerful, so I could imagine - from the point of view of the creative process - a grand vision that ends up just not connecting well once it's implemented in real life. What this would lead to in terms of development is you're taking pieces that just aren't fitting together, and abandoning the "grand vision" at the last minute to just get out anything that sort of kind of works.
To me, this explains the development best. A powerful commitment to a grand vision at the last minute. No actual details to connect or realize the vision, and a lot of walls you run up against. A last second scramble to build a viable product with what you have.
It also explains why the "vision" needs things like very boring looking maps, extremely tight growth rates that have already been abandoned. There was an effort to realize, I think, the perfectly balanced multiplayer match. To simplify things so you won't need tooltips or a UI, and reduce the game to basic trade-offs and tactical decisions that roll over into consequences 40 turns later that decide the "match". The "Civ World Summit" being the epitome of what the game is meant to accommodate.
And.... it just didn't come together that way.
It makes sense to me because there's almost a clear vision in the final product. I can see how religion might have worked in theory, and then cool things like religion not being relevant in the Modern Age but leaving a thumbprint and legacy. Better implemented, that might have been really cool.
It seems like the implied game systems, like a better religion or better explorer/artifact system would have been cool had they had better implementation. However, more detailed implementation derails the "perfect multiplayer match, optimized minimalist UI for console players" thing. They're clashing, and that clash - the failure to anticipate it properly - I think is something that could be explained by psychedelic use. In my opinion.
If I had to guess, I think the game was originally going to have more narrative events, more fleshed out legacy paths. I think the Army Commanders skill tree was from the "more fleshed out" phase of development, as the tree's more unique upgrades barely get used right now. The UI rumor was discussing how the UI team had a ton of breakthroughs in how to portray certain information efficiently, but their ideas were shot down because of not accommodating console players well enough. So, I think Civ 7 was originally going to be more complex, within the general bookends we can already see. What I wonder is, was each age a little different in the original premise? Were the ages "standardized" (made repetitive, i.e.: tier 1, tier 2 of building types)? This, and the poor legacy paths (explorers, missionaries etc.) are what make the game fail IMO. If things were more fleshed out, and each age worked differently than the preceding one fundamentally, down to what buildings do, then I think the game would be better.
The final product plays like someone was given a blueprint for that grand vision and one month to just make something that runs. I can't explain this whole situation otherwise. Well, you could have had something like the UI team spitefully deleted game files or something as they left and development had to restart. I find that theory doubtful though.
I also can't explain the sentiment that the game is fine, that it's a matter of opinion, or all civ games launch like this, or some people just can't accept change. I don't understand those sentiments because the game is very clearly trying to be something, and is very clearly the minimum viable implementation of that thing.
Anyway, long post, but I'm wary of this narrative locking in that "all civ games are like this, people just don't like change, well the antiquity age is amazing and patches are fixing the rest". No, there's a huge story here. There's something that needs explaining, and getting that explanation has to be part of the narrative for this game or yeah, the series might end.
