A big, chunky update to Civilization VII has dropped. Update 1.2.5 brings a lot of much-needed changes and improvements to the game-changing 4X strategy game which fans have found such changes to mostly for the worse, if Steam player counts are to indicate.
Civ VII adds two new map types: “Continents And Islands” and “Pangea And Islands.” The former is now the default map type for single-player games replacing Continents Plus, and should make for less predictable map shapes. As such, there’s no option to make these maps have a “balanced” start. In addition, the map-generation algorithm has been remade so that maps “felt more natural and less repetitive, while still keeping balance in mind where it matters.” There’s an in-depth dev blog post that goes on how map generation works which should make an interesting read for the technically minded.
The city-building UI, i.e. the production queue and all the building placements you do on a settlement, has gotten a much-needed glow-up. Description of buildings are not just long sentences with usages of tags and clearer lists of what each building do. Base yields are displayed on the production screen instead of the best yield you can have them with the existing settlement (to avoid players simply going for the bigger number). When handling growth events, where you get to turn a tile into a rural tile or add a pop to an urban tile, now has before/after previews so you know exactly what will happen when you pop that pop in that hex. There’s also a dev blog post on these, for those who are interested in UI/UX design.
City-States now also comes in types: Diplomatic (happiness and diplomatic action bonuses) and Expansionist (food and boosts to both tall and wide expansion playstyle). Some Independent Powers will now switch to the new City-State type after this update.
Another major change is a total rework for Napoleon. This leader comes in two Personas (variants), and are technically sort-of part of the base game (Napoleon requires some connection with the 2K account and a previous Civ game) but he’s definitely underused for how odd his bonuses were.
Napoleon, Emperor is still a leader that makes use of Sanctions, but his special Diplomatic Ability is axed for having all basic Sanctions unlocked, influence boost for instigating Sanctions, and getting Culture, Gold Bonuses and Combat Strength bonuses for every active Sanction. This is on paper a lot more enticing ability to his previous iteration, where his unique Diplomatic Ability reduces max trade limit of the target leader by 1 at the cost of a huge Relationship penalty, with only a Gold Bonus (albeit a big one) for every unfriendly and hostile Relationship. Rejecting Endeavours for free was barely anything.
Napoleon, Revolutionary doubles down on General Bonaparte’s military prowess by giving him a literal army on the first war declared on every Age. The Culture gains from defeating enemies is also doubled to further entice warmongering when playing this Leader.
The full patch notes for Update 1.2.5 is a long one, and you can find them here.
In addition, Update 1.2.5 also includes the second-half of the Right To Rule Collection (paid DLC). New Leader Lakshmibai and new Civs Silla (Antiquity) (based on one of the three kingdoms of Ancient Korea) and Qajar (Modern) (the dynasty that subsequently becomes the nation that we call today as Iran).
Update 1.2.5 for Civilization VII is out now on PS4, PS5, PC (Steam, Epic Games Store), Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2. Check out our review of the game based on the 1.0 release here.