Sid Meier’s Civilization VII First Impressions – Turning To The Fun

Turn after turn, the clock keeps ticking down as your forces keep on expanding around the map. The fog of war gets lesser as the era goes on. You get a notification that Benjamin Franklin has decided to call a truce with Lafayette over something minuscule as they turn on the more important aspect in this run: You.

We recently got an opportunity to get our hands on the latest numbered entry of Sid Meier’s Civilization series for about three hours, on-site with the folks of Firaxis and 2K at present to see how I (alongside many others) would run a civilization in their new playstyle. With the release date just a month away, let’s see how it fairs with this iteration.

The Ancient Past

The big change from the previous games is that now we have the three-eras system as the defining way to see the civilization that you play as expanding, switching from its Antiquity Age to the Exploration Age and finally, the Modern Age. Why switch to a three-era system, you might say? 

We let the experts like Edward Zhang, Senior Game Designer, and Dennis Shirk, Executive Producers at Firaxis Games handle that part.

“When we reviewed the player feedback, we noticed there are two problems.

Players tend to not finish the game at all because they think that they’re gonna really win the game halfway through or they already lost. So the game just becomes very boring halfway through. 

And the second point is that they really hate the micromanagement later in the game. There are too many units to control, and too many cities to manage. So age systems solve both the problems, right?

Now you are contained in a single age. The experience is going to be interesting and, as soon as you hit the point where you feel like you’re already won, we’re gonna reset you and we’re gonna send you into the next age for a fresh new challenge.”

Edward Zhang and Dennis Shirk, Firaxis Games

Essentially, it’s sort of like a timeout in sports terms, where players can access what has happened in either of the three ages and now formulate a game plan as a way to go on. It limits the time you need to micromanage as at the end of each era, there will be a Crisis event that gradually builds during the middle of an era within your playthrough and it crescendos hard at the end.

And that could hinder or perhaps even help players move when the next Age arrives. It is a neat gimmick that has created quite an interest during the gameplay session that did have some aura of curiosity out of everyone playing.

Getting Some History With It

While the game is an interactive fiction about actual civilisations, there are some historical tweaks that have made the game more in line with the names of the actual Civs during the ancient era than ever before. Most notably Indonesia in the previous game now has its period-accurate name, Majapahit

We asked the folks at Firaxis why the name changed now.

“When we’re dealing with the past games, it was Indonesia as an entity with a modern name that everybody recognizes. What we’re able to do now, because we’re focusing on specific ages, is we can focus on Majapahit. 

Because it’s that specific part of the age, we can focus on what they did, what was amazing about that civilization at that time, the unique features they brought to the table, the gameplay benefits, but most importantly, the history, what they did well. And we don’t have to represent Indonesia all the time.

Really, we always have a historian reach down into history and pull up something new that I’ve never experienced. It’s fascinating to me because there’s so much to be learned.” 

Dennis Shirk, Firaxis Games

Dennis then goes on to say that they have learned much from their Historian Writers such as Andrew Alan Johnson whose works are specific to Southeast Asia, among many others who they have in their dev team to make each civilization unique. They even go as far as visiting museums of the respective cultures to make their in-game representation as accurate as possible.

And rightly so, since the big following of the game series are mostly history buffs that love playing the silliness that is the “what-ifs”, like what if Napoleon ruled Rome, or if Confucius somehow is the head of the Egyptians, what now? 

It’s the little things like this that make people enjoy playing the Civ games, and it is a testament to how this series held firm in its design and philosophy from this snippet alone, which makes it enjoyable to explore more when it gets going.

Seconds To Launch

This preview is close to what the full game would be like and by the looks of it, I do like how well Civ 7 is designed already. It feels intuitive and reads well enough that during gameplay, when it is released on a smaller platform like the Nintendo Switch, the elements like the UI would still look readable and the issues of screen clutter as you go turn-by-turn feels less than the last game. 

It’s also one of the key elements that Firaxis has taken as well to make their simultaneous launch, later on, be as smooth as it can be.

“This is a first for us, shipping on all consoles simultaneously. We engineered all the renders in-house. We did a lot of the engineering in-house.

And we have partners who are working within our development environment, with our renders to really help us deliver all of these consoles at the same time. Even right now as we’re doing this interview, we’re finally back at the studio with all the submission processes, certifications, and everything else. 

So it’s a big risk, but it’s also a huge advantage we wanna have coming up because we want our players we saw on Civ VI, players loved the Nintendo Switch because they could take their game with them Yeah. From the PC and take it with you on the road.

We wanted the same thing here, whether it was played on consoles, Steam Deck, or Nintendo Switch.

They all marry with PCs so well, so you can play it here, and continue it over there. So out of the gate, it just made sense, and allowed us to have a lot more control over what everything looks like and feels like right out of the gate.”

Edward Zhang and Dennis Shirk, Firaxis Games

And for all that we’ve seen and played, there’s no doubt that Civilization VII is going to be one heck of a game when it releases, and as they already announced cross-play with different platforms (minus the Switch for obvious reasons), this release in unison later in February is going to be quite a challenge.

Final Thoughts

Civilization VII so far gets it. It’s a video game that knows its audience well, and what better way to make an impression than having the confidence to say, “Yeah, this 4X game is going to teach you stuff and have fun along with it.”

There’s a reason why it has an incredibly dedicated following that plays even the older titles to this day, they know exactly what they want in a Civ game and so far, all signs are pointed towards the positives. In any case, it’s still the time-churning, turn-ticking game that many of us know and love.

Played on PC. Preview code provided by 2K Asia. Travel and accommodation to preview event provided by 2K Asia.

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Accept