Your beef with the UI is mainly based on ...

[Aurelesk]

The desire for cohesion, plausibility and beauty greatly impinges on readability. Many of my complaints are valid for Civilization VI too. I don't like the + in the Technology tree where you have to hover over them to know the effects.
It is the adage: "Show, don't tell."
I would like it to be more instinctive, with a Farm picture with a Food symbol. Here is a quick edit (not made on MSpaint this time!):

Spoiler This is just a visualization, sorry for the bad quality :

I started the edit before they fixed the Tech Tree. Still, I wish the Sailing was put a little higher so that we do not assume it is required for Writing.

Readability is tough. As Civilization VI where you couldn’t tell between Hills and Flat, or when a Desert tiles was looking too much like a Plains. There were a few mods, like Hillier Hills or Colder Tundra.

Here an example in Civilization VII:

Spoiler The tile is Vegetated, but those surrounding it on its West are not (Rough, Flat). The Horse is not Vegetated as well :

Even for Cities, I must admit I would love they bring back an option to turn on those fluorescents colors on buildings roof like in Civilization VI. So that I have an easier time to tell the buildings apart from afar. The roof could be colored to something like this:

• Production
  • Military (Barracks...): Red (darkish)
  • Industrial (Brickyard, Saw Pit, Blacksmith...): Brown
• Happiness (Villa, Arena...): Light Orange
• Gold (Market, Lighthouse...): Yellow
• Food (Granary, Fishing Quay, Garden, Bath...): Green
• Influence (Monument? Villa?...): Cyan / Teal
• Science (Library, Academy...): Blue / Indigo
• Culture (Monument, Amphitheater): Purple / Magenta
• ed for Military, Orange for Happiness, Brown for Industrial, Yellow for Gold, Green for Food, Blue/Cyan for Influence, Indigo/Navy for Science, Purple§Magenta for Culture.

 

[StargazingDog]

I had a chuckle at the misspelling in this thread title. Make like a tree and BEAF!

My only real issue with the UI is not being able to right click on units/techs/etc to see civilopedia entries. Maybe add drag & drop to the resource screen.

 

[fantsu]

Lack of information.
Let me see the numbers.
Yes. I can see the turns, but I want to min/max and see if there is overflow.
When I access the tech, let me see the beakers needed, not just turns.
When I hover over, let me have overview of (1upt!!!) the unit and info on terrain.
Don't hide the rules, let me learn them.
Why the hinderance? So I would not know? So I'd have to check the code, or some faq?

Its just so stupid. And first time in the series
Let me know the improvement beforehand.
Please let me read the settlements better. I want to see what I focused them on in a glance two day back. Were they industrial or cultural? Now I have to click on EVERY SINGLE tile to know for sure.
Maybe just an optional overlay with simple colors or something. Trying to spot the library between same'ish tiles around just wont work. When you have 15 settlements. With some time not playing.
This is hardest civ to get back to.
I already enjoy ancient era the most. Soft reset wont help much either.

 

[Deggial]

I had a chuckle at the misspelling in this thread title. Make like a tree and BEAF!

My only real issue with the UI is not being able to right click on units/techs/etc to see civilopedia entries. Maybe add drag & drop to the resource screen.

Thank you for pointing this out.
I shouldn't try to be "cool" and use slang.

 

[Duncan9999]

My issue with the UI is that its clearly built to cater for the lowest common deominator due to its cross platform development. Thats why it takes so many clicks and looks so awful as its designed for controllers and lower resolutions first and foremost.

Managing units is particularly poor, it worked reasonably well in 5 and 6 so how on earth have they made it so clunky now?

This isn't going to change hugely unless the development for PC and console is split. Saying that while I can live with a bad UI if gameplay is engaging, I won't be spending much time playing a dumbed down built for console Civ. This further underlined that the Switch version looks the same as the PC one and that even though Im playing at 4k (on PC not Switch) its simply 1080p upscaled.

After all, let that sink in....PC players are playing what is effectively a Switch game but have access to larger maps. It doesnt bode well for the future....

 

[oaks2ninja]

My city: "Hey! That thing you were building is done!"
Me: "Nice! What did I build again?"
My City: "You know! That thing you really wanted!" *Snaps fingers and points at me*
Me: " You don't remember, do you?"
My City "...No... Should I build a garden now?"
Me:"Ok."

 

[stealth_nsk]

My problem with UI is what sleeping units don't wake up on danger. I often leave my scouts healing only to find them die some turns later and I don't get any notifications until that.

For the rest, it's painful, but I could found the info I need.

 

[pjotroos]

There is no list of units.

There is no list of connected towns and cities.

There is no way to sort build list by yield. There is no information on what you just built.

Overbuilding doesn't account for yoelds you remove, which is fine for obsolete buildings but awful for unique improvements.

Cycling through settlements goes in nonsensical order, and there's no way to just cycle cities and skip towns.


Goodie huts have no icons.

There is no search.

 

[peter79]

Look is fine, doesn't bother me. Lack of information and functionality is the problem.

This right here. I can get over ugly. The minimum I demand of a UI in a 4x is that it conveys all the necessary information to make informed decisions. The civ 7 UI fails to reach this benchmark.

 

[Sekou]

While I dislike the general aesthetic appearance of most of the UI elements, my main issue is lack of info when I hover over things, Army commanders perpetually stuck underneath some unit cuz the icons conflict or the overall fact of the UI being way too clicky. One of my main complaints is the actual save/resume/exit menu- there's no direct 'exit to desktop' option. We have to exit out to main menu and THEN out of the game. I just saved. Let me just exit fully out and get on with it.

That being said, while all of this is niggling kind of stuff, overall I'm having an absolute hoot of a time with 7

 

[adrifranchise]

i was in the camp that felt that as bad as the UI was i didn’t fully agree with how much it was being attacked. that said i put in 30 hours this past weekend and one thing i absolutely can’t believe isn’t in the game is a notification that your city is under attack. multiple times i saw my city/town in low health because i had no idea it was under attack

 

[StargazingDog]

i was in the camp that felt that as bad as the UI was i didn’t fully agree with how much it was being attacked. that said i put in 30 hours this past weekend and one thing i absolutely can’t believe isn’t in the game is a notification that your city is under attack. multiple times i saw my city/town in low health because i had no idea it was under attack

Do you have warnings disabled? I get warning prompts when a settlement is undefended, and again when threatened (enemy unit nearby). Also, anytime a unit takes damage, there is a notification. This is three opportunities to defend. Not sure what else I could ask for.

 

[friendlysavage]

I'm fine or positive on the UI's aesthetics, but extremely negative about it's functionality and the total lack of relevant information.

It is so bad, and so *strange* in its badness, that I can only surmise that this game had a ship date that the developers could not meet, and the MBAs won.

 

[adrifranchise]

Do you have warnings disabled? I get warning prompts when a settlement is undefended, and again when threatened (enemy unit nearby). Also, anytime a unit takes damage, there is a notification. This is three opportunities to defend. Not sure what else I could ask for.

well that explains it.. had to turn that off when it kept warning me about defenseless settlements even when they weren’t. with that said, you receive the unit damage notifications regardless where as with warnings turned off you don’t see when your city is under attack

 

[chazzycat]

My problem with UI is what sleeping units don't wake up on danger. I often leave my scouts healing only to find them die some turns later and I don't get any notifications until that.

For the rest, it's painful, but I could found the info I need.

This one is not the UI, you just clicked the wrong button. There's a different command for "wake me up if enemy is nearby". I forgot the name but it's another button.

I'll add my 2 cents to the thing that annoys me the most: the fact that you have to click on a unit to deselect it. It's fine normally, but super annoying when the unit is in a city. I do not want to open my city screen, thank you.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

The ability to sort the city list by column, please . . .

 

[stealth_nsk]

This one is not the UI, you just clicked the wrong button. There's a different command for "wake me up if enemy is nearby". I forgot the name but it's another button.

I need a button which would wake unit up on both enemy units approaching and on healing finish. There's no such button as far as I'm aware.

 

[Deggial]

Do you have warnings disabled? I get warning prompts when a settlement is undefended, and again when threatened (enemy unit nearby). Also, anytime a unit takes damage, there is a notification. This is three opportunities to defend. Not sure what else I could ask for.

This may be a bit of a case of "the boy who cried wolf".
I didn't turn off warnings. (In fact, I wasn't even aware that I could.)
But I'm actually tempted to do so - if it weren't for the problem you point out here.

Because all the "unprotected settlement" warnings are a bit on the spammy side. Yes, I know there is no unit there. The town you are yelling at me about is on the other side of the continent, therefore safe, and I deliberately chose to leave it empty.

However, not being warned of actual attacks is definitely a big issue.

 

[stealth_nsk]

This may be a bit of a case of "the boy who cried wolf".
I didn't turn off warnings. (In fact, I wasn't even aware that I could.)
But I'm actually tempted to do so - if it weren't for the problem you point out here.

Because all the "unprotected settlement" warnings are a bit on the spammy side. Yes, I know there is no unit there. The town you are yelling at me about is on the other side of the continent, therefore safe, and I deliberately chose to leave it empty.

However, not being warned of actual attacks is definitely a big issue.

Yes, I totally agree with you.

 

[uppi]

This may be a bit of a case of "the boy who cried wolf".
I didn't turn off warnings. (In fact, I wasn't even aware that I could.)
But I'm actually tempted to do so - if it weren't for the problem you point out here.

Because all the "unprotected settlement" warnings are a bit on the spammy side. Yes, I know there is no unit there. The town you are yelling at me about is on the other side of the continent, therefore safe, and I deliberately chose to leave it empty.

However, not being warned of actual attacks is definitely a big issue.

Usually, it only gives me this warning if there is at least one hostile unit nearby. So the settlement might not be as safe as you think. It might be a single unit "just passing by", though