A new livestream for the upcoming historical 4X strategy game Civilization VII just aired, showing off some gameplay in the new game’s third and final age, the Modern Age.
In Civ VII, a full playthrough is split into three distinct Ages, each with their own civilizations. It’s a major changes to past games where you play as one civ and leader, where each Civ will usually be situationally powerful at one particular age.
The livestream debuted two First Looks on two American leaders, the previously revealed Benjamin Franklin and new-to-Civ Harriet Tubman. Civ VII will features leaders that are not necessarily political leaders, and these two are fascinating figures in American history that get to be featured due to this change.
In The Modern Age, new elements come into play. Particular integral ones include railroads and factories, espionage (which has been streamlined with a lot of busywork removed), air military units and of course, achieving victory.
Here’s some notes of what’s been revealed in the recent Civ VII livestream:
- At launch, Civilization VII will have 31 civs (the most for the base game in the series) and 26 leaders
- 5 of them are Personas (variants with slightly different abilities and looks. To use Smash Bros. terminology: Echo Fighters)
- Modern Age starts at 1750 CE
- Tech tree will converge with Rocketry as the final tech before Future Tech
- Modern Age technically ends with the World Wars and the Space Race (roughly the 1960s).
- Cold War, present time and future won’t be covered in Civ VII at launch. So no Giant Death Robots. But possible for a new age set in the present and future time
- ICBMs (nukes) are confirmed to be in Civ VII but not on the tech tree
- Factory resources can be slotted into settlements. Each resources confer different bonuses
- Citrus boost naval unit productions (because oranges prevent scurvies), fish boost settlement growth rate, etc.
- Factories will auto-slot a workable resource if available. If not, can be manually add via the Resources screen
- Legacy Paths are the way to victory in Civ VII
- Previous Legacy Path points can contribute to any of the four victory types: Economic, Military, Science, Culture
- Victory requires completing one of the four Legacy Paths, each with specific steps to be completed and culminates in a project
- Science: First man in space
- Culture: Establish the World’s Fair
- Military: Finish Project Ivy (make a nuclear bomb)
- Economic: Establish World Bank
- New victory type: Economic
- Espionage is just something you trigger in the diplomacy screen. Requires spending influence. No need to recruit spies.
- Civs can pick an Ideology in the Modern Age between Democracy, Communism and Fascism. This unlocks a new Civic Tree
- Railroads require the building of a Rail Station, a district building taking up a whole tile
- Rail Stations connect automatically if they are routes between them
- Units adjacent to Rail Stations can teleport to another connected Rail Station (but up to 20 tiles apart)
- Commander related to air units: Squadron Commander. Includes skill tree of promotions.
- New air unit: Dive Bomber. Good against attack land units. Heavy Bomber is still good at attacking settlements while fighters do air-to-air combat
- Siam, Qing, France, Mughal civs are seen alongside the Americans. Mexico has previously been confirmed, but not seen on stream.
Civilization VII will launch on February 11 for the PS4, PS5, PC (Steam, Epic Games Store), Mac and Linux (Steam), Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.