Your three favorite changes in civ 7

[Siptah]

I'd like to hear from the players which of the manifold changes that civ 7 has implemented is beloved. We've had a lot of discussions which changes are controversial, but there are so many new or revised concepts in this game. So, to the people who played the game, which ones are your three favorites?

For me, it's like this:

1. More unique civs. Each civ has many bonuses now, and most are at least two-dimensional. I also like how the bonuses are not there per se, but need to be unlocked via the civ-specific civic tree, and then only some are passive but the rest are traditions that need to be slotted. This, imho, brings so much more depth to the game, as the differences between the civs become generally much larger (with exceptions like civ 6's Mali or Babylon) and most civs have themselves more replay-ability (especially when considering mixing traditions from previous civs into the mix). We sometimes lost one important characteristic of civs from previous games though: the power spike. Now most civs have a similar power spike, there are only few which take longer in the age to really shine, like Rome.

2. No promotions on standard units. This made war so much more fun to me. Now, with cheap units that I can use as cannon fodder or sacrifice to take cities faster, war is so much more fun. Gone are the days in which I have to be super careful with old units, and draw out battles and sieges because I need to make sure not to loose them when they get in a bad situation. Now there are much more units on the field, more casualties, more replacements, and more fun (for me). As much as I like commanders, I think this change is even more important for me (but, of course, they go hand in hand).

3. Decoupled civs and leaders. I know that this one might be more controversial, but for me this opens up so many customization options. It's of course also an interaction between 3 civs and 1 leader, so it's not just the decoupled leaders per se. The system gives more choice to me as the player, and allows me to add another dimensions to the already at least two-dimensional civs. Do I want to be more of an allrounder and have a leader with a different strength? Or do I want to focus on synergies in one specific area? I think there is room for improvement with the leaders (e.g., more uniques in the attribute trees), but so far, the mix and match has been great fun, and a motivation to start a new game in which I want to try a modified strategy and see if I can win harder with that.

There would be more with larger influence (towns vs. cities, overbuilding, legacies, ages per se, commanders, growth), or small ones (e.g., navigable rivers, treasure fleets, celebrations,), but I think 3 is a good number to select.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Good question!

I think if I had to pick three, I would probably say:

1) Commanders. Feel like this is the obvious answer, and I agree with your point above as well, but ultimately this is the best war has ever felt in Civ. I used to prefer being peaceful, I avoided conquest like the plague in VI, but now I like to initiate small battles to achieve a specific thing, and generally just enjoy the whole process of the military game.

2) Traditions. Unique civics in general are a nice touch, they really help each Civ feel different and allow you to choose how much you lean into your choice. I love Traditions even more though; they're often powerful civics, and really help you feel like you're building your own path through the game.

3) Attributes. The attribute trees are great; they are powerful and give you a lot of opportunity to shape your game. Tying them to narrative events was a good call.

 

[aelf]

Commanders and navigable rivers, definitely, in that order of preference.

No workers is mostly a plus for me. I really didn't like worker charges.

Civ-switching is controversial, but I personally enjoy it for the strategic choices it offers throughout the game and sometimes also as a way of providing small goals in terms of unlocking the one you want.

 

[Isca Dumnoniorum]

Commanders have also opened up warfare for me as an option, even if I still prefer to play peacefully overall. Handy for when there’s egregious forward settling or you need to punish an aggressive neighbour!

Towns are a very interesting idea that I’d like to see them develop further (the current specialisations feel likely mostly non-options at the minute but I like the concept).

Treasure fleets are fun. Again, I’d like to see some tweaks (more of them on the seas and piracy outside of war) but I think they’re a fine addition to naval gameplay. If they ever refine Distant Lands to include distant continents on the same landmass (allowing for Pangaea maps for example), Silk Road gold carts or some such might be nice additions to bolster the concept too.

Honourable mentions include the civ specific civics trees and the idea behind the allocable resources, which has potential, if yet unrealised.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I don't know if "age switching" and "decoupling civs and leaders" should count as a single feature or two as they are surely interconnected.

If they count as one, the last two are commanders and navigable rivers.

EDIT: How can I forget about city/town distinction?

 

[MACKA0ili]

First would be the Towns/Cities distinction. I used to play tall back in 5 and didnt enjoy being forced to go wide in 6 to keep up at higher difficulties, so I feel like having towns that feed in to your cities is a great balance between the two play styles. I pretty much always have just 1 or 2 cities with towns to pump them up to super high populations and that's just a lot of fun for me.

Second would be the distinct civic trees. Having a civ specific tree is a part of this, but also having the religion and ideology trees in the following eras is a great idea since it allows for tons of specialization and replayability. Being able to decide if I want to be fully entrenched into my civ's traditions, try to get to a helpful bonus or wonder in the age, or quickly go for religious or ideological bonuses is a wonderful experience. I hardly ever get to future civic because of how much choice there is to have

The third would have to be how districts are handled. In 6, I got pretty tired of having to place districts down before I could build the actual useful buildings in them and the adjacency bonuses wouldnt feel good unless you managed to find that +4. Now in 7, along with replacing worker micro, citizen assignments, and culture bombs, the urban and rural district system makes city planning a lot more fun and dynamic. You still need to play the map with building adjacencies but without the artificial need to zone a tile purely for industry or culture or happiness. Now, city sprawl happens much more naturally and you can strategically place buildings to get to resources or obtain specialists that can benefit your city in numerous ways. Unique quarters and improvements add to this as well with each civ choice changing how you build your cities with this in mind. Civ 7's cities to me look more distinct per civ and also look the best they've ever been.

Honorable mentions go to the distinct ages and commanders. While I do like them I feel like both need to be expanded upon a bit more. The tech tree in each age always funnels you down the same path and you dont get much room to specialize if you can even use what's at the end of the tree before the age ends and army commanders I feel are the only useful commander type with fleet and squadron commanders just being there to ferry my troops around rather than making a notable difference in my wars.

 

[Fluffball]

I'd like to hear from the players which of the manifold changes that civ 7 has implemented is beloved. We've had a lot of discussions which changes are controversial, but there are so many new or revised concepts in this game. So, to the people who played the game, which ones are your three favorites?

For me, it's like this:

1. More unique civs. Each civ has many bonuses now, and most are at least two-dimensional. I also like how the bonuses are not there per se, but need to be unlocked via the civ-specific civic tree, and then only some are passive but the rest are traditions that need to be slotted. This, imho, brings so much more depth to the game, as the differences between the civs become generally much larger (with exceptions like civ 6's Mali or Babylon) and most civs have themselves more replay-ability (especially when considering mixing traditions from previous civs into the mix). We sometimes lost one important characteristic of civs from previous games though: the power spike. Now most civs have a similar power spike, there are only few which take longer in the age to really shine, like Rome.

2. No promotions on standard units. This made war so much more fun to me. Now, with cheap units that I can use as cannon fodder or sacrifice to take cities faster, war is so much more fun. Gone are the days in which I have to be super careful with old units, and draw out battles and sieges because I need to make sure not to loose them when they get in a bad situation. Now there are much more units on the field, more casualties, more replacements, and more fun (for me). As much as I like commanders, I think this change is even more important for me (but, of course, they go hand in hand).

3. Decoupled civs and leaders. I know that this one might be more controversial, but for me this opens up so many customization options. It's of course also an interaction between 3 civs and 1 leader, so it's not just the decoupled leaders per se. The system gives more choice to me as the player, and allows me to add another dimensions to the already at least two-dimensional civs. Do I want to be more of an allrounder and have a leader with a different strength? Or do I want to focus on synergies in one specific area? I think there is room for improvement with the leaders (e.g., more uniques in the attribute trees), but so far, the mix and match has been great fun, and a motivation to start a new game in which I want to try a modified strategy and see if I can win harder with that.

There would be more with larger influence (towns vs. cities, overbuilding, legacies, ages per se, commanders, growth), or small ones (e.g., navigable rivers, treasure fleets, celebrations,), but I think 3 is a good number to select.

It's wierd because I find all the different leaders a bit samey and uninspiring. I could use random civ in previous games and say to myself I'm going science victory or I am going to focus on religion...now I pick random and generally just carry on doing what I was going to anyway. The specific civic trees actually seem to provide more definition but you can't see them until you actually start the new game/era.

Even with that my games seem to actually be the same. Get religion civic early to choose best pantheon/belief. In exploration also get first theology civic to get the additional movement at sea belief then forget religion. Focus on civ specific tree then fill out normal civics.

The leader/civ mix and match seems to make it worse really. I just don't get any 'feel' from the whole system.



My top 3 are;
1) The influence system and the interactions and the chance to have actual meaningfull diplomatic effect on other civs. Now I feel they love or hate me based on our interactions rather than hate being the natural resting point an trying to make friends is just delaying the inevitable.


2) The commander system although as they decided that using the commander to unpack ends their turn but unpacking individual units doesn't as well as the default small influence are has taken away one set of micro and replace it with another set of micro...overall still needs work.



3) The towns concept although I wouldn't like it so much without the mods I have and the connections system is quite wierd. In my current game I have town A then City B and City C then town D along a coastline on the same.landmass/continent.

Town A connects to City C but won't connect to City B (even if i manually try using a merchant) even though a route from town A has to pass City B to get to City C. But I managed to connect town D to both City B and City C...all 4 have fishing quays so should connect by sea at least.



Actual navigable rivers also gets an honorable mention although the way bridges 'break' from one era to the next is rubbish...luckily there is a mod for that.

 

[protocol7]

1. Army commanders are a cool concept. They need to be simplified or something so the AI can use them in some reasonable way, but the idea is cool.
2. Naval units seem more relevant and they are fun to play with
3. Generally military combat feels nice

 

[Sekou]

1) Ages/crisis/switching mechanic. Even though I disagree with switching civs and believing it should be leaders that are swapped, I enjoy the overall feel of what Firaxis was going for with this new structure.
2) Influence/diplomacy. I just like this new currency and how you can utilize it. Needs more options and counters, but that will probably be fleshed out over time.
3) Independent powers. While far too many are "hostile" (mebbe a neutral level needed as well????) I concur with Potato that this is just simply how C/S always should have been implemented.

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

1. Diplomacy. I now actively use diplomacy with other civs, and it doesn't feel like an exploit! Also having to balance use of influence of diplomatic actions vs Independent Peoples vs war support was a brilliant choice.
2. More Uniques in Civ Design. I enjoy role playing with my civ.

Not sure about #3 yet.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

1) Legacy Paths: As someone who likes to play a certian style, (namely, huge maps, max players, etc), certain victory conditions were simply unattainable because they were painful to get through, with Legacy Paths I can now focus on the individual paths without really being like "UGH, I have to conquer every Capital to win Domination" - I can actually enjoy playing warring leaders again without having it feel like too much of a slog.

2) Diplomatic System: Really like what they did with the DIplomatic System, I adore the Endevour/Sanction system a lot, particularly I can finally denounce an AI's military presence!!!

3) Crisis/Legacy Rewards: I actually like this system on paper (Except you Loyalty Crisis, you can go pack a fudge). I also particularly like the Legacy Rewards, especially the hidden ones most people might not realise exist. I like a sense that my actions actually feel meaningful and my strategic choices affect how my Empire plays out.

 

[Leucarum]

1) Leader mixing and matching. I could take or leave civ switching but mixing and matching leaders is a 100% win in my book! It opened up so many strategic possibilities, but more importantly it means we can get civs who lacked famous leaders, and makes it easier to justify non-rulers as leaders. Amazing addition.

2) No more workers. This is the single best QoL feature in Civ7. I have very little more to say here. Just a great call.

3) Town and City split. I like not having to have a production queue in every settlement. It breaks up the tall/wide dichotomy into a gradient allowing more variety in playstyle. No notes. This should be an evergreen feature I think.

 

[99-percent-sure]

No more workers. This is the single best QoL feature in Civ7. I have very little more to say here. Just a great call.

I was skeptical about this, because my baseline was the Civ IV workers whom you'd build up over time and send out as a "crack team" to get things done like building lumber mills or oil rigs. But aside from the inability to build roads wherever you want, which I still miss, I am not minding their absence at all.

As for roads, Civ VI of course stopped letting workers do that and introduced a civilian unit (military engineer) who can create roads, but it appears so late in the game it's not that much help. Now in Civ VII we have the merchant, which is pretty tricky to use as a road-builder because the rules aren't very clear. But as we're seeing, without proper connections your towns won't supply your cities, and you'll drop out of the trade network, so it feels like we need more hands-on control over where the roads go.

 

[Kerosene31]

1) (hot take incoming) - I like the ages and the soft reset. Now, I totally get why it isn't for everyone, but for me, the soft reset helps keep me interested.

2) Civ and leader mixing. Another one of those "I get why it isn't liked by all". For me it makes the game more interesting and look forward to all the various combos and strategies people pull off.

3) Commanders - I think it is a nice balance to combat between "stacks of doom" and "micromanaging a ton of units". Combat is fun now.

Honorable mention: No builders. Not that the old way was bad, but after playing 7, it feels like this was obvious. Not that builders were that annoying, but so much easier to just not have to manage it. Same with spies.
Also legacy paths.

 

[Serenya]

I'd like to hear from the players which of the manifold changes that civ 7 has implemented is beloved. We've had a lot of discussions which changes are controversial, but there are so many new or revised concepts in this game. So, to the people who played the game, which ones are your three favorites?

For me, it's like this:

1. More unique civs. Each civ has many bonuses now, and most are at least two-dimensional. I also like how the bonuses are not there per se, but need to be unlocked via the civ-specific civic tree, and then only some are passive but the rest are traditions that need to be slotted. This, imho, brings so much more depth to the game, as the differences between the civs become generally much larger (with exceptions like civ 6's Mali or Babylon) and most civs have themselves more replay-ability (especially when considering mixing traditions from previous civs into the mix). We sometimes lost one important characteristic of civs from previous games though: the power spike. Now most civs have a similar power spike, there are only few which take longer in the age to really shine, like Rome.

2. No promotions on standard units. This made war so much more fun to me. Now, with cheap units that I can use as cannon fodder or sacrifice to take cities faster, war is so much more fun. Gone are the days in which I have to be super careful with old units, and draw out battles and sieges because I need to make sure not to loose them when they get in a bad situation. Now there are much more units on the field, more casualties, more replacements, and more fun (for me). As much as I like commanders, I think this change is even more important for me (but, of course, they go hand in hand).

3. Decoupled civs and leaders. I know that this one might be more controversial, but for me this opens up so many customization options. It's of course also an interaction between 3 civs and 1 leader, so it's not just the decoupled leaders per se. The system gives more choice to me as the player, and allows me to add another dimensions to the already at least two-dimensional civs. Do I want to be more of an allrounder and have a leader with a different strength? Or do I want to focus on synergies in one specific area? I think there is room for improvement with the leaders (e.g., more uniques in the attribute trees), but so far, the mix and match has been great fun, and a motivation to start a new game in which I want to try a modified strategy and see if I can win harder with that.

There would be more with larger influence (towns vs. cities, overbuilding, legacies, ages per se, commanders, growth), or small ones (e.g., navigable rivers, treasure fleets, celebrations,), but I think 3 is a good number to select.

I honestly love some of the most controversial changes! I always chose who to play based on the leader's attributes, and thought less about the associated civ anyway, so choosing a leader I like and then having multiple choices along the way re. civ is fun for me.

I love having the ages, because it gives me short term goals and natural end points. As many hours as I played, the latter third of a game was a slog and that's less true with the ages (though I still find I can and do end modern age early as I get bored, over all I have enjoyed more of the game).

I like the commander model, because it is much easier for me to keep track of units and promotions that way. I do loathe the age change implementation though, where all my commanders land in the central cities (though that didn't happen in my current game, so maybe something was fixed???) and I have to move everyone back or quick buy units to protect more distant towns.

I think I like the town/city implementation - it's much less micromanaging - but I'm lazy about upgrading to cities which I suspect shortchanges me in more difficult games. Still, I played Carthage (only one city) while still growing wide as I prefer, and it worked! It did make the golden age choices pretty pointless, and since I was on an archipelago map I never had the option to change capitals which was a bit annoying, but I never felt crippled by it as the other age choices are also very useful.

 

[aelf]

2) The commander system although as they decided that using the commander to unpack ends their turn but unpacking individual units doesn't as well as the default small influence are has taken away one set of micro and replace it with another set of micro...overall still needs work.

Commander actions are full of oddities. They use up all their movement when moving into an enemy's zone of control, which is unique behaviour that seems to have no explanation. And they can't deploy units when out of movement. These are also major contributors to tedious micro, I feel.

 

[Taefin]

1) Buildings/adjacencies/specialists - I love the city building, and that was rarely so interesting to me in Civ6 (there I never found time to build the actual buildings). The specialists make it all the more rewarding to set up some well-placed wonders and then reap those rewards with +25 bonuses on overbuilding in modern. (Currently I’m trying to figure out how to keep warehouses out of the way.)

2) Settlement limits/happiness - I love so many of the effects of this. It leaves some space available for settling later in the game, it gives a natural stopping point to conquest, it creates tension when I have an opportunity to pick up several good settlements, but will then need to suffer through lower yields until I get the limit up. Expansion isn’t always the right choice, and that gives flexibility to the game. The game doesn’t need to find other ways to punish playing more wide (I hated in VI when it would take 24 turns to produce a builder in a mid-late game city I just founded).

3) Age resets and always having relevant uniques. I feel like all three ages have some of that early-game-with-early-uniques magic that feels so good. Clearly the stuff I and the AI do matter, but now the beginning of each age (and the end when playing with long ages) has a sense of parity and urgency, which gives a chance for each civ to shine in trying to break ahead (or not fall too behind).

Runner up: I really like the 60+ minute first turn of each age, where if I’ve save enough gold I do a significant amount of planning for which cities to develop and decide how I am going to harness my new civ.

 

[Zaarin]

Moderator Action: Please keep the discussion civil.

Moderator Action: Agreed, I've deleted a bunch of posts to keep the discussion focussed on the OP --NZ

 

[protocol7]

Yep! The naval combat and battles for island cities are one of my favourite parts of the new game. Ultimately a human will win, but they are present on the high seas and you can have naval battles with multiple ships.

 

[Lebo44]

Yep! The naval combat and battles for island cities are one of my favourite parts of the new game. Ultimately a human will win, but they are present on the high seas and you can have naval battles with multiple ships.

Good to hear that! Thanks