What do you like about Civilization VII?

[TheGrayFox]

For the stuff I do like? In general I prefer a smaller number of difficult, meaningful decisions, than a larger number of incremental decisions. There's a balance to be struck on that, and much of it comes down to how the user interface handles it, to be fair. I'd be happy with an "Empire Infrastructure" tab where I had to buy roads between my cities, for example, I just don't want to have to constantly babysit a worker whose pathing keeps breaking because someone parked a missionary on his route.

I'd rather permanently allocate a population to work a particular tile, for example, than be able to constantly move them around. It feels more like a meaningful long-term decision that has an opportunity cost, and I prefer those over the kind of optimization puzzles the prior civilian placement stuff was all about.

Strategy games often have a tension between giving the player control (good) and giving the player busywork (bad) and there's always going to be trade-offs in either direction.

I can respect that answer.

Honestly I'm not too upset about workers being removed specifically as they could definitely be tedious especially with pathing issues but I don't particularly like city/citizen management being removed. Being able to choose what tiles are worked, what tiles you acquire from expansion, and being able to refocus my empires yields etc specifically gave a sense of control over how your cities devolop.

My fear is that this micromanagement is going to be taken out and it won't be replaced with any meaningful systems to interact with and a lot of choice is going to be taken from the player in favor of streamlining

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I can respect that answer.

Honestly I'm not too upset about workers being removed specifically as they could definitely be tedious especially with pathing issues but I don't particularly like city/citizen management being removed. Being able to choose what tiles are worked, what tiles you acquire from expansion, and being able to refocus my empires yields etc specifically gave a sense of control over how your cities devolop.

My fear is that this micromanagement is going to be taken out and it won't be replaced with any meaningful systems to interact with and a lot of choice is going to be taken from the player in favor of streamlining

In my experience the auto tile expansion from civ 6 always picks some dumb blank grasslands instead of what I want. If i'm reading this right you choose the tile you expand into here.

 

[TheGrayFox]

In my experience the auto tile expansion from civ 6 always picks some dumb blank grasslands instead of what I want. If i'm reading this right you choose the tile you expand into here.

I was thinking more along the line of being able to buying tiles but if VII is allowing you to pick where you expand (I must've missed that one in showcase) then I actually think thats a good change

 

[Professor Phobo]

I can respect that answer.

Honestly I'm not too upset about workers being removed specifically as they could definitely be tedious especially with pathing issues but I don't particularly like city/citizen management being removed. Being able to choose what tiles are worked, what tiles you acquire from expansion, and being able to refocus my empires yields etc specifically gave a sense of control over how your cities devolop.

My fear is that this micromanagement is going to be taken out and it won't be replaced with any meaningful systems to interact with and a lot of choice is going to be taken from the player in favor of streamlining

One thing I'm a little wary of is it looks like every tile variety has only one "rural district" that can be attached to that kind of tile, and that's a loss of a decision point that I don't mind keeping around. For example it seems like forests always take lumber mills. I'm glad chopping is gone, but I'd still want the option to maybe clear cut the forest for a farming district, set the forest aside as a preserve, build a hunting camp district, or a lumber mill. I don't mind making choices as to how to allocate my resources, I just don't like having that same choice be easily reversible or come without an opportunity cost.

Too often citizen micromanagement just felt like "Make the best numbers out of this yield vomit on your screen" and certainly by the midgame I wasn't remotely interested in doing that kind of optimization. I'd do it for my capital in the very early game, that's it.

 

[bbbt]

One thing I'm a little wary of is it looks like every tile variety has only one "rural district" that can be attached to that kind of tile, and that's a loss of a decision point that I don't mind keeping around. For example it seems like forests always take lumber mills. I'm glad chopping is gone, but I'd still want the option to maybe clear cut the forest for a farming district, set the forest aside as a preserve, build a hunting camp district, or a lumber mill. I don't mind making choices as to how to allocate my resources, I just don't like having that same choice be easily reversible or come without an opportunity cost.

I'm wondering (hoping), if that's specifically just the first era, and the later era provide more options/ways of modifying terrain.

 

[Professor Phobo]

I'm wondering (hoping), if that's specifically just the first era, and the later era provide more options/ways of modifying terrain.

I'd hope at least for the Modern Era we have to choose between the "environmentally friendly" option and the "no, Captain Planet was a nerd, lets build Mordor" option to play into whatever they do for a hypothetical climate change mechanic.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

I have made a thread to include all negative things people hate about Humankind, possibly civ 7 can learn a bit what to avoid at all costs...
I have posted it in Humankind sub-forum, so to be.

I like civ 7 to be its own beast, and don't take all the worst negative aspects of Humankind. NO workers is the single most annoying thing for me in Humankind.
I hope the districts scaling in civ 7 will take a different route.

Time to backslash all negative things about HK in one megathread... so Civ 7 won't pick those up...

Add screenshots if you can. War Support - every single bit of it - from not allowing you to start a war, to end a war in the middle of your campaign (making you lose, most of the time) UI - It's just terrible Leaders settings - You can't mute them, you can't make them static, they will eat...

forums.civfanatics.com

 

[DukeSammael]

Civ II, man.

Haven't played in a while (though it's probably my 3rd most played Civ game, after VI and IV), the rivers acted as roads, but weren't navigable by boats?

 

[Olleus]

Splitting settlements into "true" cities and town. This might be the biggest change the game has ever done - no hyperbole. It's bigger than moving to hexagons, or 1UPT, or even districts. It's huge in terms of what the game construes an empire has, how the economy works, and the amount of micro-management. It's not an enormous change graphically or in terms of roleplaying so most people are glossing over it, but I think it will dominate what playing Civ7 is actually like.

 

[Olleus]

I don't want to offend with this question but if don't want to micromanage things like workers and citizens/cities, why are you playing the Civilization series?

For everything mentioned here:

A perspective from a long way back

I've been playing this series for a long time, and have liked all the various iterations, including the spin offs. I've also been active on the mod scene since Civ4. But I didn't get on with civ6 well and so haven't touched the series since shortly after it released (which means I never played...

forums.civfanatics.com

In short, for the things that affect my civilization as a whole rather than only one small corner of it.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Commanders, the expanding map between ages, The Three Ages mechanic, Unique technologies and social policies per Civ, asymetrical tech progression, Tech mastery, no more worker micro, expanded diplomacy with prestige as a resource;

Basically, every new mechanic other than:
(1) the transition from one Civ to another between the ages which I'm on the fence about.
(2) the leaders. Leaders unclipped is... okay, I guess. The models don't look like they should though, and I don't like how the upgrade tree for the leaders appear to be the same for every leader. It takes away some identity each leader has beyond their agend (sigh) and starting ability.

But other than that, yeah, game looks like a solid improvement over Civ 6.

 

[Nikolai II]

Tbh I think I like all or most of what we've seen.

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

I mean, for me specifically, there's not a lot of things I'm wary about, and Civ VII seems to scratch a lot of personal itches:

1. Civ switching: probably the most controversial element, but I'm so down to it. Making your civilization evolve and stacking bonuses is what I loved about Humankind. The implementation was clunky and generic, but the idea was good, it was the execution that was bad. The way Firaxis is tackling it is solving the Humankind risk of becoming generic.
2. Interactive leaders: that might be silly, but having the leaders actually interact during diplomacy is something I love so much and didn't know I wanted. HK made it boring, but here, I feel I'll really enjoy the little banter or quarrels. Moreover, I will finally see who I'm playing, and frankly that's good.
3. Evolving leader: goes with the evolving civilization, but being able to improve your leaders and bonuses is so good and will make each game really different.
4. No workers/builders: finally, no need for those civilians units that are just clogging the map.
5. Graphics: oh my god, the aesthetics! We just spent time with my boyfriend looking at screenshots of the map. The diorama feel is definitely the way to go, each city looks so organic and alive, not disjointed like in Civ VI or just boring sprawl like HK. And the environment! I'm definitely going to settle cities or towns solely for the scenery you can be sure of it.
6. Navigable rivers: YES! YES! YEEES!!!
7. Trade: Not much has been revealed about it yet, but the fact that you set up trade routes not solely for yielfs but that it'll be the way to acquire foreign resources is so much better. I really enjoyed the trade system of HK; sure, at the end, you just bought every resource available to stack the bonuses, but having the trade route actually go through territories and gaining bonuses through it is so good. Having actual trade being performed on the map is so much better.
8. Improvable districts: I was wary of it first, but the fact that you place buildings on districts, and that you can place two buildings at each time, is a nice surprise, and better IMO than the current district system of Civ VI. And how you can unlock specific unique districts by building both your buildings in it is such a nice touch.
9. City management: Bouncing on the previous point, the way cities are managed seems really satisfying.
10. Building obsolescence: I don't know why, but I'm so eager to try it and interact with it. One thing that bothered me in Civ 6 was that, when plopping a new city in the Information Era, I had to build an amphitheater or an ancient library to reach my laboratories. Like, it seemed so odd to still have to drag those ancient buildings to reach the modern ones. The fact that you'll have to, in a way, upgrade them instead of building a chain is so much better. New cities in the Modern Age? I'll build automatically my modern laboratory. Some buildings will stay, of course, but most of them will need to be upgraded, which makes sense as modern cities rarely used the same infrastructures as before. There are still examples, but they even tackle that! In the previews, we saw that, at the end of the Ancient Age, if you reach the end of the Cultural semi-victory, your Amphitheaters will keep their yields and bonuses through the next era; and for the Scientific semi-victory, your academies. Which means that if you were, indeed, very good at it, then your ancient infrastructures will still be used in the next Age because they're so damn good; but you'll need to earn it, it's not a given. But for a good real-life parallels: the Oxford University is a medieval university, but that was so good that nowadays it's still a major scientific hub, for example. But the other civs, who weren't that good? Well, sorry, but your horsehockey school in the middle of nowhere doesn't work enough to be relevant.
11. Untying buildings to specialty districts: One big grip I have with Civ VI is that you couldn't built an observatory. It's silly, but I like observatories, and it being only reserved to Mayan was sad. Like, you only had three scientific buildings, three cultural buildings, three industrial buildings, three trade buildings (with, perhaps, the odd permutation but they were always mutually exclusive). That seemed so arbitrary and so gimmicky, it was disappointing in the end. Now, you could eventually have more variety in buildings, and really special them.
12. Towns and cities: Speaking of specialization, the fact that cities and towns are two different things is really good in my book. I want to try to make an autocephalous empire, with my mighty capital being fed with various small towns around it. And how you could specialize towns like strongholds, trade hubs, farming/mining/fishing villages... It's not just a district commercial hub you plop somewhere, it's actually and actual town! And imagine all the possible evolution out of it. Like, putting a town alongside a river to secure a trade route somewhere, and along the Ages, it grows and grows until becoming a city in its own right. I love that kind of thing.
13. Cultural policies: Having a small policy tree exclusive to a culture nicely replace the static civ abilities, a very nice way to implement it and keep the idea of "civilizations evolve through time".
14. Three Ages: Limiting to three ages is one of the best ideas. Making each age a sub-game is so endearing. Ed Beach compared a game to a trilogy, and each age to one of the book. They're the same story, but you still change books, and I'm so eager to try it, especially because of...
15. Crises: I love it. Such a great way of justifying the change of age and civilization. Plus, having all the civs changing at the same time in a meaningful way will just be way more immersive, rather than (firstly) each person going through the age independantly, and then it being just: "oh, now I'm golden instead of regular, neat". And how you'll go from one age to the other is very interesting. In the previews, they showed that, if you won the Economic semi-victory, all your cities will keep their city status in the next age. Now, I don't know about this bonus specifically, but the implication is huge! That means that, changing ages, some cities will downgrade, and I feel that it'd be so good. It's a nice way to have drawbacks that don't seem that much punitive. Like, in the Dramatic Ages mod of Civ VI, arbitrarily completely loosing cities was too punitive. Here, you'll just loose some bonuses but still retain control over your settlements, so you can rebuild your civilization.
16. Victory conditions: Getting rid of the religious victory is good, I never really liked it. I quite liked, however, the diplomatic victory, but I can understand why they didn't pursue it (perhaps for a DLC, as they like to do it with diplo). However, including the Economic victory was something asked by so many people, so we'll see how it it plays out.
17. Military: I'm not a military player myself, but the fact that 1) you can stack your units to move is so groundbreakingly satisfying and 2) your commanders having also a use during peacetime is very good. I perfectly imagine some of my commanders going to battle to gain XP then retiring as a governor in my cities.
18. Diplomacy and wars: One thing that I don't see talked about a lot: you can have an influence on wars without participating in them. Two civs are at war next to you? Before that, your options were joining it when it started, "joining" it by attacking the other (but the two wars were still separated), or just waiting for the situation to peter out. Now, you can simply support a side or the other to help one win without actively putting yourself in danger right now, or supporting an ally even if yourself are entangled in a war. And that's quite interesting, and is a good incentive to take an interest in the geopolitics of your region even if you're quite isolationnist.

That's all I think about on top of my head, even though it's already quite a lot ^^ I know I'm in the very small minority here, but there's genuinely nothing I can think about right now that I would dislike. I was very wary of the announcement of Civ VII as I ended up being quite disappointed with Civ VI, but oh boy, they seemed to have taken the right kind of inspiration from other games as well as developping nicely upon what they did previously.

I can't wait to learn more about it.

EDIT: Wait, no, there's one big thing I don't like. That I hate, even, and is keeping me on the fence buying it: no hotseat. I really enjoy hotseat, and without it, it's like half my fun being locked away. Despite all the other things I really enjoy, without hotseat, it might be irrelevant.

 

[Civinator]

Haven't played in a while (though it's probably my 3rd most played Civ game, after VI and IV), the rivers acted as roads, but weren't navigable by boats?

My first thought was, that this option was available since Civ 2, but when looking into the Civ 2 Test of Time manual, there stands nothing about rivers navigable by ships. At page 61 of the manual stands: "To simulate the beneficial effect rivers had on trade, especially in ancient times, any ground unit can follow a riverbed (either upstream or down) for a cost of only one-third of a movement point per square..." The same stands at page 68 of that manual.

The option to navigate ships on rivers was added with the great mod TOTPP to Civ 2 ToT: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/the-patches-of-totpp.666282/#post-15998039

Even with that option it was not possible to enable the AI to navigate a ship (here the battlestar Galactica) on an "only land-terrain"-map with a river set in every tile of that map: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/totpp-ships-on-river-movement.636707/

 

[BackseatTyrant]

Literally the day the gameplay was revealed, I made a post earlier about wanting to get rid of the builder/worker unit so that a potential regular engineer unit would have more justification existing on the map, so you can probably guess what I'm most excited about

 

[Krikkit1]

Really like the Crisis at the eras…both providing an anti-snowball, and making things interesting.

 

[Keo]

So far I’m liking everything I see. Love the graphics plus I’m super excited for sprawling cities and towns. Curios to see how good the Diplomacy is and I’m super hopeful the AI has improved greatly! All in all can’t wait to play.

 

[thecrazyscot]

My first thought was, that this option was available since Civ 2, but when looking into the Civ 2 Test of Time manual, there stands nothing about rivers navigable by ships. At page 61 of the manual stands: "To simulate the beneficial effect rivers had on trade, especially in ancient times, any ground unit can follow a riverbed (either upstream or down) for a cost of only one-third of a movement point per square..." The same stands at page 68 of that manual.

The option to navigate ships on rivers was added with the great mod TOTPP to Civ 2 ToT: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/the-patches-of-totpp.666282/#post-15998039

Even with that option it was not possible to enable the AI to navigate a ship (here the battlestar Galactica) on an "only land-terrain"-map with a river set in every tile of that map: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/totpp-ships-on-river-movement.636707/

Civ 2 does have a pseudo version of navigable rivers with straights, but it's more like a canal I guess thinking more.

 

[Solver]

I may have some concerns in the area of immersion / historicity, but in terms of gameplay mechanics, I like just about everything that has been revealed. The new systems may or may not be implemented well, impossible to tell without playing, but going by the descriptions I really like them.

Navigable rivers - a popular item on the player wishlist since forever, this opens up a whole new aspect of maps.

Removal of worker units - a personal favorite, I've wanted to see Workers/Builders gone since I experienced CtP's much better flowing version. Workers can be done well, they have not been done well in Civ, they suffer from what I term the "decision-implementation gap". Glad to see them gone.

Specialists instead of moving citizens - you can now decide on permanent boosts to your urban tiles, which replaces the citizen swapping system that's existed since Civ1. That is a good thing, the citizen swapping was potentially the biggest source of minmax micromanagement in Civ and eliminating that improves the design by a lot.

Trade routes and resource effects - most of this is implementation-sensitive so I'm cautious but I like what sounds like a major improvement to the trade system. It's interesting to trade for resources that do specific things, rather than everything being one of the base yields. Cities apparently have resource slots, and all in all I think this sounds like a more interesting resource system.

Commanders packing up units to move - this is just brilliant. The best design choices are ones that are unexpected but massive improvements, I'm pretty sure this is one of them. 1UPT as a basic concept is completely fine, as many games show. Both in Civ5 and Civ6, the 1UPT implementation has a major problem with traffic jams. They're annoying in the UI, they make getting your troops to the front lines a harder puzzle than actually defeating the opposing military, they mess up the AI pathing so the AI typically underperforms compared to what the tactical AI is capable of. A very promising improvement.

Crises - demonstrated to work pretty well in Stellaris, having sensible crises is a good idea. Every Civ game to date has you at your weakest on turn 1, then you keep getting stronger from turn to turn. Civ6 Immortal/Deity guarantees you'll be attacked on turn 10, at which point if you can fight it off, you continue getting stronger. Having a major crisis appear is a good idea to break up this pattern, and is even historically sensible as real civilizations haven't had the luxury of constantly increasing prosperity.

Tech mastery - for the first time in Civ, there's something else to do with science except for getting deeper into the tech tree. It doesn't seem like a huge change but the new decision of advancing in tech vs deepening your mastery of current techs is surely going to be interesting

Diplomacy - with how the influence system is described, it's clear there are some game theory mechanics at play. No idea how good it will feel in practice, but I already appreciate the departure from 20+ years of the bargaining table

Independent people - every Civ game has had barbarians. Civ5 and 6 have city states. The way Civ7 combines those into smaller independent tribes that may or may not develop is a very logical next step for the design

So while there are definitely non-mechanical aspects of Civ7 that concern me, just about every mechanical change in Civ7 sounds like it should be good.

 

[Ashbery76]

Augustus's wig.