Civ 7: Is it Good or Bad?
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- Опубликовано: 8 фев 2025
- Civ 7 is one of the Civilization games of all time. This video is my almost-a-review, where I talk about my overall opinion of the game. Civilization 7 is coming out on 11th February 2025.
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If the previous civ games have taught me anything, it's : "the vanilla game always feels sketchy and incomplete, so I should wait a year or so before making my assessment and maybe purchasing". ...And I fully intend to do that this time too.
Agree. In fact, Civ 4 (Beyond The Sword), 5 (Brave New World) and Civ 6 all 3 turned into their best version only after the 2nd DLC. And ofc, with the much needed mods, which kept and keep on adding new/interesting variations, so the game feels refreshed from time to time.
@@hangijzer17 there is no good version of civ 6 with its braindead ai ur playing on an empty map where the only thing to do is spam cities cause there's no freaking drawback to city spamming in that game. "oh they all have braindead ai"....not like civ 6's
What the previous civs games taught me is that there was never a civilization game that got less than 90% in review. So this is a total failure and the game devs should be fired at once
@romanpechorin4798 sure, bro, whatever you say😂.
@@romanpechorin4798 this is the best launch state civ game since civ 4
Devs: We didn’t prioritize the UI.
Me: I can understand that; I mean, it’s only the very thing we USE TO INTERACT WITH YOUR GAME.
Sigh
maybe UI will be moddable. CEOs: "why hire UI people when modders will do it for free? make a new ben franklin skin."
@ Except, a lot of the times the UI is unmoddable, besides some cosmetic changes. I know what you’re saying though.
If someone expects me to pay at least 70 usd to play their game, the Ui better be nice and functional.
As someone who worked in accessibility for disabled people, their lack of UI prioritize infuriates me.
Games are going to suck bad for a while with woke DEI and work from home devs
These guys aren’t putting in 8 hour days and crunching
Maybe they are just before release but not for the last several years
They should extend the age by a fixed number of turns when tracker hit 100%
Yeah, there should be some kind of grace period, I agree. Even better - there could be an advanced game setting to have a grace period or not.
This is my #1 concern, ages seem to go by too fast. Civ 6 had the worst pacing/speed of the whole franchise, you basically skip 80% of the game content.
@@OneCreator87The age system kinda resolves that since in Civ it was because your science got out of control. That said yeah the previews make it seem like some adjustments are needed.
Age progress can hardstop at each of the event thresholds, should probably have a max gain per turn regardless
I'm not sure if extending the age is the answer because that breaks ludonarrative; it's supposed to be rapidly expanding crisis that drives a big reformation/revolution and changes the age. Extra turns in exchange for extra penalties during the start of the next age might work, but i'm not sure.
If age progress hardstops at each of the events, that slows down the final burst while still keeping the flavor; until the crisis develops, you don't actually have the societal conflict that drives the age change.
I haven’t play the game, but a lot of RUclipsrs are complaining about slowing down their progress to time certain achievements in the last turn. I’m a min maxer, I will likely do the same thing which is annoying. If I have a 5 turn grace period, I can avoid this silliness. The game can easily implement this feature without breaking game balance, just call it crisis is climaxing…
Amazing review, very well done and informative.
I don't feel Civ 7 is actually a 4x strategy game.
Its actually a casual empire builder that simulates playing a 4x game.
Sure there is endless replayability and different paths and things you can do. But there isn't any serious competition for the 4x victory.
You pick the civilization, leader, and buffs you want and have fun in a big sandbox.
Its designed to be welcoming and appealing to the broadest audience possible of casual players who don't want to take the time or face the challenge of an actual 4x game. And then rope them in with unlocks and dlc to keep them trying new stuff.
Sadly Civ 7 isn't the game for me . . . I'm weird, I want to struggle and get beat by a good AI. I want games that are hard to master and don't have countless exploits that make things easy. I don't get any feeling of accomplishment unless I really had to work for it.
There is really no single 4x game on the market with "decent AI and no exploits". If you want real challenge you should always go multiplayer, otherwise in any strategy game you will get to the point of min-maxing and exploit to beat AI. BTW Civ6 with mods is quite decent multiplayer experience right now (with lots of technical issues sadly), but at start it was trash. I assume it will be similar with Civ7, but i'm still excited to try this - got 900h in Civ6 (multiplayer only) and i can wait to try smth fresh.
@@DominikBaszczykiewicz I switched from Civ 5/6 over to Old World a few years ago. It's AI and tight game systems work really well for me.
@ If it works for you, that's great! :)
@@DominikBaszczykiewicz Old World AI is solid.
The age system does seem to prioritize accessibility over other mechanics. Seems like they a phantom audience that thinks civ takes too long to play. Perhaps it pays out for them, time will tell.
"We didn't prioritize the way you interact with the game." 😆
Err that war ending with the age thing sounds extremely stupid and annoying.
Hearing you there. That's a fail as far as I'm concerned. I know for a fact I'll never touch this game because of this. And it's core gameplay, impossible to mod out, as Marb explained. No need for more expansions band aid to further such gamplay. For I like my strategy being strategic, not my games being gamey. I feel like this attempt at redesigning everything core to Civilization isn't worthy of the name 'Civilization'. Problem being, I'm running out of 4X games right now. I guess I'll keep enjoying those Civ VI perfectly legit builders for a while.
@@Crundmama Games already peaked. Now instead games getting better by every instalment they get modified to be different.
I have been complaining about this. Why would they break up the best part of the game, the war when ages advance. This all could have been avoided by letting everyone progress ages individually. And idk about any of you. But some of the best times in civ was when you barely research a tech and upgrade your units to win the fight after losing. Like hello does anyone actually play?
Super weird how none of the shills praising this game as the second coming have mentioned that fact that will piss off like 99% of the people who actually play this.
I really love the idea of ages. But, I think the key will be to view the age as its own game. Each age is its own game, with start and finish. The goal is to win each age, and then start a 'new' game and win that one. This gives the feel of starting many civ games, and avoiding getting into that inevitable 'click next turn' a bunch of times end game. (most players were just restarting anyway).
For me, I think enjoying this will just require thinking of it as its own game in each age. That said, I hope they implement better transitions, or a way to extend the time a bit.
Imagine a Civ game that doesn't have 'one more turn' as an option🤦♀
well that's just the cherry on top to not buy this game. Good job Firaxis
That war reset is absolutely going to be a deal breaker for a lot of people and the fact that almost none of the other reviews even mention it is going to be a rude awakening for a lot of day 1 buyers.
Or....you can just plan your wars better. It is a strategy game. Ages last for a very long time, if you are choosing to go to war when the age is 95% done that's on you.
@ Oh I won't be playing wars at all because I won't be buying the game, but a lot of other people will and wont react well to getting forced peace because other players are researching repeatables for era score. That's all I'm saying. :)
@@Chrytin If you plan your wars well they should never last long.
@@Crao-rn8wk not if you go for remove this civ from the map wars.....those last longer mind you and getting cut off mid war thanks to a jump from 83% to 100% in a single turn is gonna be a dealbreaker.
@@lordlubu3029 The game shouldn't be telling me how to play. End of discussion.
"Imagine it's a campaign with 3 separate scenarios."
Civ 8 waiting line, here we go! My god, that UI looks simply dreadful.
Civ 7 Expansion are probably 5 years away. 🤣
Unless it started development a while ago, which wouldn't surprise me.
I just can’t get over how restrictive the game seems to have become in order to accommodate these new systems. That strategy sandbox seems to have vanished in favour of an experience on rails.
Too many idiots that couldnt figure out districts complained and so now instead of more freedom and choices we get the rails... Loud vocal minority.
It REALLY feels like they came up with this new system first and then hastily shoved everything standard to Civ around it out of the way to accommodate it.
Exactly my feeling...the game seems to be about progressing as they want you to progress, instead of being the player leading a civ through history as the player deems fit.
Best review video I’ve seen so far - well reasoned with concrete examples and not afraid to be honest about the shortcomings without couching. Appreciate the honesty!
They told us the age system, civ swapping and detached leaders would make balancing easier but in fact it increased the combinatory so much that balancing became impossible.
Can't be balancing issues if balancing never made it into the game 😂
So wars automatically end, units are withdrawn, and diplomatic relations reset when entering a new age? Holy shit, I'm never buying this game
"bUt wAiT fOr tHe pAtCh" Uh..no the game is already fundamentally flawed from the start.
Yep, I was excited for the game and was down with Ages and picking new Civs (I thought), but hearing your progress just gets reset basically, in every single game you play multiple times could not make me any less interested in the game now. It's like making a Call of Duty game, but this time without guns and you don't kill anyone and there is no multiplayer. Like what? The entire point of Civ is to progress your Civ until the end. How on earth did they think it was a good idea to remove that?
They really looked at CIV and thought yeah this needs a grindy unlock system. Fuck 'em. Not buying
Having military magically teleport away during an age transition is really, really, really dumb. Maybe I'll change my mind when I play but I can't imagine a world where I wouldn't want a grace period before age transition. And beyond just a grace period, I don't know how it would be implemented, but a gradual softening of a given war would be a lot better than a sudden inexplicable end when an arbitrary gameified threshold is passed.
Maybe a good workaround would be that units in enemy territory stay in enemy territory but don't upgrade. That would give the attacker a natural disadvantage as the defender's units and infrastructure improve while the attacker's units do not. And maybe have a system whereby war weariness for attacking players rapidly increases after an age transition, and units become weaker, to encourage the attacker to make peace - if the attacker retreats these modifiers could be cancelled out so that the defender doesn't get a sudden offensive advantage.
I'm looking forward to playing and I'm willing to give the age transition system the benefit of the doubt, but the military thing in particular sounds really dumb and unnatural. It's realistic to have civilizations morph and change over time and I'm glad to see Civ VII do that. But having it suddenly change on a dime with a bunch of stuff reset doesn't sound realistic; it sounds heavily gameified and immersion breaking.
Let's see how it pans out though.
Watch this become a paid feature with the first major expansion
I’m watching this review and analysis as I am playing Civ V.
My expectations were low, but man does this look bad. I'm glad Civ V is still giving me a lot of enjoyment.
0:34 I think this sums up my feelings perfectly. I have only one or two real problems with the game when watching the basic surface level stuff, but as time goes on the “hole” will get bigger until there is nothing left of “it’s fun”
Hard to believe Civ now has an xp grind. Since they're selling us cosmetics and slapped drm into the game...they're not going to try selling us xp boosts next, are they? Please tell me thats not the ultimate plan
Of course it is. Really thinking of skipping this one for awhile. Just reinstalled Stellaris anyways.
Tbh there is only two way once there are like 30 leaders at the end of the road.
- They sell boosts
- They remove or drastically reduce the needed xp to obtain perks
I think this game is definitely not worth buying on release. There is too few maps, map sizes, no modding tools available at launch, the UI is bad, the game seems easy and too unbalanced...
I keep saying as time goes on everything that was once good keeps getting worse. Civ somehow mechanics are worse now somehow religion is LESS FUN in a later iteration of the game. Makes no sense. They have people figuring ways to cut what people don't like and cut costs rather than improve on systems that weren't well received. They caved to the complaints of people who will not finish a game anyways. That's why ages start over 3 times such BS. Real players lose again.
@@jho4977 late games are boring especially when you know that nothing can stop your victory. You just want to start a new game.
@@Crao-rn8wk That's who they are making these changes for, players like you. I don't think lategame is boring even if im behind because ive invested my time and likely having fun in any scenario. I could be dead last and I am having fun.
@@jho4977 Yes, they're are. They're also making it for the group of friends that constantly restart because someone had a bad location or someone snowballed so far ahead that the game is practically over. You're no more of a real player than I am, get over yourself.
Ages starting over 3 times? You keep traditions, commanders, settlements, and you gain points to invest into the next age. You aren't starting over.
@@SteinerNein You are starting over if you lose your units on the map where they are the war you have going on you are starting over. Yes this game prevents hard snowballing with age resets. Who wants to play a game you can't be rewarded for doing well. If you have a bad location to start that just means you're not a real player I have literally never remade over my start location what fun is it to get a good start every time? That's why they made this game so cookie cutter I suppose for people who only want good stars and only want to play when doing well. Some of my best games have come in a "bad" start.
Im really put off that there is already a difference in amount of content you get from base game to founders edition. I think its super scummy
Seriously. Cutting out (because that's what it is) so much content out of the $70 base game is certainly a choice, lol.
Especially when - between the implementation of the ages, the setup options, the QoL and the UI - the game feels so... unfinished, regardless of the edition you buy.
Still going to enjoy Civ 5 with mods until Civ 7 is like $20.
i bought civ 6 for that amount and I felt ripped off. I wouldnt even buy it for 5$ which it was around christmas.
@@Cerbyo skill issue.
@@bushmonster1702 I wish, I really wish that was it. But there is no skill to playing that game, that's the problem. You spam cities and you just auto win. I had to run tests to try and get the ai to take a single one of my cities...it took highest difficulty on smallest map with most nations possible, and even then it took like 100 turns and it was impossible for me to take enemy cities they kept getting automatic defense refreshing every age advance. Even then it was possible to win provided u just turtle until u finallly catchup to them in the final age.
@bushmonster1702 Lol has nothing to do with skill issue, the game is actually very easy as the AI is brain dead. Civ 6 just wasn't good.
Thanks you Marbz for your precision! I'm never commenting but I'm watching you since looooong ago (your civ 5 game as siam!)
Devs: We are not priortize the UI.
meanwhile game 50 percent even more about the UI, wtf?
To be incredibly fair. Imagine they spent time and resources tuning the UI (which they have experience making and examples to draw from), and the map looks bad, the leaders look bad and the age system is bad.
(And to be fair in a different way, it seems that there are still non-UI issues to iron out)
UI is much easier to fix post launch than fundamental gameplay systems or shit graphics etc. I dont like the UI being shit but if they fix it i will have to forgive them. This is not looking like a cyberpunk level release i dont think
@@emperorarima3225 why are you making excuses for this huge company that charges 70 bucks for standard edition and 100 for deluxe? The UI is not a priority? They are going to make millions of dollars and couldn't hire a few dudes to make an adequate UI? WTF
@aleksandaraleksandrov324 because we have seen bigger companies with similarly sized games with a known formula screw up big time.
And while I don't like the idea of paying that amount of money, it's the norm. It's what companies are supposed to do. People are willing to pay for it at that price so why shouldn't they charge so much? You're upset with the company while the company exists in an ecosystem that encourages, nay requires profit maximization. And the game looks like it'll be amazing.
Also, civ 5 and 6 were available for like $10 or something and I still enjoy them so when they do lower the price like 2 or 3 years down the line I'm going to buy it then. Or.. there's also other options 🏴☠️🤣
@emperorarima3225 just don't make excuses for them for doing a shitty job. As consumers, it's our right to require quality. Accepting bad quality is one thing, but making excuses for them?
Never liked the grind from single player games.
Compare it to StarCraft, you could simply play with any of the races and with any part of their army without needing to grind them out.
Personally grind feels like something to artificially extend the life of the game.
Another thing that rubs me the wrong way is seeing a guy that looks roman, talks like a roman, has the clothing of a roman from certain part of the world and time period, but some how is from India.
Even old Age of Empires 2 with all the limitations of the time had some distinction between civilization from unique units, building styles and voice lines. Even the new AoEII while keeping the generic units for everyone in terms of looks they expanded the distinctions between civilization even further.
The entire thing has this feeling that is was made by people that where told what civilization was but never actually played it and is using some strange alt history university book as a base.
Agreed on the grind for the most part. I think cosmetic grind is fine, esp if it's not used as micro transactions, but free fluff stuff
what are you doing here then, civ is the grindiest single player series out there. mbe u should buy civ7.
@Cerbyo think you are confusing going up the tech tree in a single game from unlocking stuff from multiple playthroughs.
Tying mementos to achievements (even character specific ones) could be fun, but level system is stupid
There is always civ 5 am i right
Amen! It's 15 years old but still IMO the best in the Civ series, if not the best 4X ever.
boring.
The irony of people who say this never fails to amuse me. Civ 5 was just as, if not more hated coming up to it's release, and after it's release as Civ 7. It only started to gain some appreciation after the final expansion, and only became "beloved" after Civ 6 the "cartoon" Civ, came out.
@michaelstepa8748 Clearly, you don't know what sarcasm is. At least, Marbs does, and he understood.
Civ 4 is good fun too, and a reasonably different experience from five.
So the Civ tradition continues? Wait for 3-5 years for the complete game? Preferably during the holiday season for a 50% discount to the entire game + DLCs bundle.
"Civ tradition" I mean, it's just what every game does since the PS3 era my dude. DLC and patches have been a normal thing in the industry for decades
Graphics are a real problem. While it looks great it is super hard to tell which unit ist where, for example. There is too much detail at the cost of clarity.
Yea civ 6 looks good cause you can look at someone else’s city and see what there doing at a glance. Districts really stand out in that game
17 mins in and seems like civ 7 has gone backwards a bit... like guys do you know your audience? We will keep playing 5 and 6.
civ 6 went backwards too, this continues that trend.
I don't understand why the devs make a point to not build the game the customers want to buy. They didn't need to reinvent the game to make us buy it, they just needed to improve the weakest parts like aging graphics, AI, balancing, netcode... and add some new features (commanders, navigable rivers would be enough for me)
@vincent06 Because like most big companies they are creatively and technically bankrupt.
I was with you until you said civ 6
Looks like they didn't learn from the EA star wars battlefront fiasco that no one wants to play for 2000+ hours just to unlock all the treats and goodies. Having lots of unlockable things is great but making it super grindy is facile
Counterpoint - games that do offer all options right away generally get criticised for being too overwhelming offering players too many options at the start.
Meaning that no matter which route is chosen, comments like yours will criticise one way or another. And it'll never be good enough for you.
It is quite different. If you would only start with 3 leaders and a few civs then yeah. But now you only gain a relative small bonus
@@danjal87nl I agree but that wasn't what I was suggesting
@@chrissistarski alternatively make them just cosmetic rather than key points
@@Kefkaownsall I like having some grind to achieve things but 2000+ hours is fine only for streamers and the ultra hardcore players. Making it tough but not a full time job is more reasonable - if an average player won't 100% it by the next games release it's probably a bit too much grind. I've got 60% ISH on civ 6 and I played less than 500 hours
Almost a 54 minute video about Civ7... mmm I'm gonna enjoy listening to this while I eat my dinner.
You and me both!
@@DeadliestWarriorZZ you and we three
@@Gunnl You and we four
I already dislike it for the dlc practice so I'm waiting for a discount deep one
I'm a huge civ fan since III. One way in which civ is getting uglier over time is the way in which they display borders as straight lines that run along the hex grid. Seeing your empire's borders expand over the terrain has always been one of my favourite parts of civ. It's confusing how the art style has only gotten more immersive, with the city sprawling looking fantastic and fluid, and yet we are stuck with immersion breaking borders. Like in what universe do civs all agree to settle land in perfect hexes? And it's not hard to implement some variety in the borders, something like what civ 5 did, so it seems like a conscious choice by the developers.
Agreed I hate the borders in 6 and 7 so much, I thought I was the only one! And you can’t even hide them with a UI setting like you can in some other 4x games. I liked Civ 5 rounded borders a lot more, they felt more natural and dynamic. There was a console command to turn them off in civ 6 but it was really fiddly to use.
Thanks for posting all of this. I'm definitely on the wait or possibly pass for this one. They removed a lot of what I liked from previous games and being limited only to a standard sized map is a deal-breaker for me. I'll still watch you play it if you post streams, but as things are right now, I would get very frustrated very fast playing it myself.
Yeah I was planning on playing this on launch but seems like another early access game
Heh, nice, saw Eurogamer 2/5 review and I was looking forward to your thoughts.
That review is . . . highly problematic :)
2/5? Eee
Dont like the war stopping thing at the end of the era. Will def. frustrate me
Something that really confused me with the Age system, is that with the way they've implemented it, they've completely removed that "Will your empire stand the test of time" factor, but you still have immortal leaders?
Like I could see them doing a similar progressive age system, without needing to kick the player out of whatever they were doing, forcing them to change civilizations entirely, and plopping them back in to pick up the pieces not once, but twice in a single game, by just centering it around your civilization leader passing away or dying or just getting elected out of office, however you wanna do it, and bring in someone new with their own unique focuses and units and buildings and such.
That already sounds better than what they did. And you can keep things together for civs. Transition from Marcus Aurelius to Caesar, to Justinian or any number of possibilities.
This was the most informative review I’ve run by, thanks so much
I’m really bummed by the score timer, ages, UI, and map sizes. I think this is gonna be a wait until the modders get their hands on it
Modders can't fix fundamentally bad gameplay. For me it's going on the steam ignore list lol.
Wow, this feels like a beta, not a full game. I will hold off and see what happens with this experiment. Great review keep it up Marbz
They could just add a little mark to a building to show it's ageless or not in all areas. A little hourglass or something at the bottom center of the circle. The idea that they 'didn't prioritize' the UI is infuriating to me as a technical writer and editor.
Edit: There's a few reasons it could be like this, but the most likely is just that the UI isn't finished but they're out of time. That's pretty unacceptable to me. That's the way you literally interface with and play the game.
Thanks for the review. On a personal level (having played every single civ game since 01), I have never felt so little excitement over a new civ release. I know you say it's a lot of fun, but none of the new features presented sound interesting to me from either a "builder" perspective or an "immersion" perspective. Meanwhile, I miss the end of worker improvements and don't really like these sprawling cities a la endless legend / humankind. As for changing civilizations, it feels very bizarre to me from an immersion perspective at least as implemented.
Personally I don't like a lot of the design but the biggest issue is the DRM, DLC, Grind for features (probably will be able to pay for these later), and clear lack of polish.
I have played every civ game for thousands of hours each since Civilization which I got in 1991 for MS-DOS. Hopefully this version gets fixed but pretty lame they don't finish games before releasing them.
Only guy on this platform opinion I trust
Not focusing on UI is insane because holy shit just copy CIV 6s' if you don't want to put the effort in. Really hard not to cancel my pre-order.
Feeling that I’m just buying base. But all the flaws really adding up
just cancel it and wait at least a year. That's the smart play.
I think the UI is wildly inconsistent, like it was designed by a complete amateur (the dialogs) and a pro (that thing on the bottom right). Iconography, text placement, margins and paddings, consistency, fonts and font sizes, font styling (even making some things bold would be great) and so much more, it's not just bad, it's wildly outdated.
Most honest review out there and I watched the reviews of all other creators and it's clear they were completely going by their biases and sole interest in the blind success of the game. Kudos to you sir for a very well structured AND objective review!
What reviews did you watch? All the ones I did named exactly the same pros and cons. Just with some variance in valuation on them.
Potato did 2 full reviews, one listing the positive amd one the negative.
gotta save their job
Actually a very informative video about the game and age mechanics ✔
Firaxis: You want a fun game? No, you get Civ 7.
I hate the fact they are releasing this with SO MANY flaws that I’m 100% sure they are aware of and have the intention of fixing 1-2-3 years down the line with DLCs. I’m sorry but it’s a hard pass from me and I’ll only consider getting it when it’s 90% off with all DLCs in a few years. So disappointed.
The thing is that, after so many years in development, the project might face stakeholder pressure for economic accountability.
Imagine investing millions of dollars into the production of a game of the size for so many years without any ROI during so long. As the game industry products become more complex to develop, many might release games in an “unfinished” state just to make ends meet.
regardless if its good or not, the whole releasing dlc a month after launch and the predatory pricing they add in..nah screw that..only way to fight it is to not buy it. hard no for me..will wait til the whole bundle is on sale for $7 and maybe get it then.
I will love to see this game fail. Literally none of these changes were necessary and the harsh age transition is a deal breaker for me. Makes me wonder what they were smoking.
(Still, I'm looking forward to your LetsPlays of it, ha ha!)
PCP maybe
honestly where im at now, it needs to fail. the scummery with the prices and just how much slop it is they should be ashamed.
I think that the whole thing about replayability is that it doesn't really matter if AI is as brain-dead as I suspect it would be. And even if they manage to achieve some sort of active multiplayer scene with VII once again, the multiplayer meta is an enemy of variety. The amount of synergies described setup will only make it worse in terms of how good some builds will be.
I expect this will be really fun to play in 2027 with a couple DLC and a package discount. There are so many great games in my backlog, I can wait.
2030
Ages make everything feel so jarring, in my opinion. The immediate ending of the war. The not carrying over specific things. There's something about a game about history that essentially, resets history... that feels weird to me. To be clear here, I was a "no go" on the game just from the Civ switching. I thought it was full stop, just unacceptable. When I play Civ I get really attached to my nation, my civ... so treating them as disposable was a "no go" for me. But seeing the Ages and they do, makes me feel good about my choice about skipping this iteration of the game. I've played since the original game. I just can't accept the Civ switching. It's simply, just too much change for me.
They peaked with V, imo.
Yeah but 5 sucked on release too. Diplomacy and war monger penalties were awful.
100% BNW or vox populi.
Civ V was HORRIBLE at launch. Absolutely dreadful. Took almost 1,5 years to be playable.
@@BinfordOver9000denouncement circus every game.
@MaxHardcore-p7t at least Civ 5 had something to build off of. Civ 7 seems to have poor foundation, in other words I don't think DLC will make this game better.
Gratz on 100k Marbs, you deserve it more than anyone.
Thanks for giving your honest opinion!
Very helpful, marbz. Well done.
I played the very first Civ game back in the 90s. A huge part of the fun was the historical theme (however silly the developer’s understanding of history and civilization actually was - go read some Oswald Spengler, and many others). This is really going to kill the savor for the history buff player base. But maybe that’s just a small minority of players; I don’t know. Also, grinding for features? Did I understand that right? Are there people who enjoy this?
I grew up playing Civ. Nowadays Paradox games fill what I want from civ better than Civ does it.
Game features behnind grindwall are big no for me. I would feel compelled to grind for unlocks using some unfun, boring setup for hours because of fomo. I will stick to previous Civ games.
Thanks for review :)
There's two ways to view this. The one you describe where you view 100% unlocked as the proper game experience. Making the grind a hurdle.
Or viewing it as expanding your play options as you play more. Giving more value for money.
Knowing also that games that do offer the full range right away generally are viewed as too overwhelming giving the player too many options...
I actually love that feature. It gives me meaning to playing the same leader. Makes the game more replayable
@@danjal87nlOr I will just keep playing Paradox games.
they were not prioritzing the AI :-(( worse then Civ6 unbelievable. No wonder the AI gets such a fighting bonus on deity
Sounds like you should learn how to make that AI, and make games with it. Clearly a gap in the market with high demand.
@@danjal87nl cringe a regarded take
I have never been more conflicted in buying a Civilization game. Civ 6 never got there for me after the 2 expansions, and the major changes here really make me concerned that they don't even understand what I have loved since Civ 1; making a civilization that stands the test of time. Start 4,000BC to the finish line. Ben Franklin of the Romans into the Normans into Mexico? What?
This is exactly how the Civ5 vanilla launch was. They put in new systems and the game came out incomplete, I played it for 10 hours or so and then gave up on it until the two DLCs came out and actually fixed the game. Really disappointed by Firaxis to continue its shody dev practices.
and all these idiots still lapping it up and just saying wait. thats the problem it shouldnt be a wait and it shouldnt be god damn dlc and waiting 4 years for a complete game. absolute joke of a dev team and civ simps
I watched a bunch of civ7 videos, and for me its definitely a no no for that price.
I liked my workers and builders.
I liked my wonders that had a big impact on a gameplay.
I liked my huge Empires with a lot of cities. Now they add a city soft cap and penalty for razing.
I liked micro games with tiles, improvements, pops and districts.
I disliked some parts of the UI in 5 and 6, but 7 right now pushed it over the limit.
I disliked diplo currency in BE, and they bring it back.
I disliked that AI cant fight wars without carpets of doom, but looks like now it poorly understand commanders system.
I liked that leaders talked to me.
One thing that improved imo - no magic pew pew with really bad pathfinding and switching colours. Nice!
So ill wait for a big discount, surely it will be at a cristmas sale, but main reason for me - this game need to make over recent poorly sold firaxis games, i want them to stay and make a great xcom 3!
My only concern, if now players can complete a full civ 7 game in 5 hours, will full xcom 3 campain be any longer? 😢
Probably no one is gonna read this but here's my take. I was really surprised that after Age progress bar hits 100% you don't get 5 more turns to end the Age, Like a countdown. Someone triggers 100% and now everyone has 5 or 10 more turns till the end. So if you're occupying city and you know you have either 5 more turns to take it or 5 more turns to hold it, that could be an intense ending of an age. But abruptly ending it and if it's the case that in any point it can jump that much from 80% to 100% in one turn, well that does not sit right with me.
They should definitely add a countdown or grace period, but also saying it can jump from 80% to 100% in a turn is misleading. TECHNICALLY it can, but in practice that won't happen, the chances are astronomically small because of how the age progression works. In reality, in gameplay, an age usually lasts between 150-200 turns so that's plenty of time. I've even seen some streamers go up to 225 turns in one age. Age progression is super slow, once it hits 80% on average you still have around 40 turns to do what you need to do. It's just a mechanic people need to get used to, once you get used to it then it becomes a lot easier to manage your turns and objectives.
Skill issue, no? It's up to you to plan for when an age is going to end and account for how the AI or enemy players will either 'push' or 'slow down' the age transition. It might be game-y and you might dislike it which is 100% okay, but there are a lot of strategic considerations to make as a consequence of this.
Really do not like there being only three ages. It feels like so many strategy games have become more and more simplified over time. I remember empire earth had 14 epochs and the expansion pack even added the space age. Man now I wanna play empire earth again lol
Thanks Marbs! Very helpful review-ish. When should we expect your first full uploaded playthrough?
Imho, they still should have just made this into a spinoff game
IMO the designers of this new civ completely lost it
I have a feeling I will hate the switching leaders and the sudden closure of a time periode.... It almost feel like "What does most people like....lets skip that and make it weird"
You don't switch the leaders, you switch the civs.
I think they really leaned into the fact that most people like the start of the game. The sudden closure is more akin to starting a new game within your game. Precisely because people like to start civ games over and over and rarely finish. So they are trying to make three mini games where you 'restart' within one big game. Sounds like its clunky though.
First civ game since the first one I won’t play in my 40 years of gaming. This was my first obsession and I always loved Civ…
How disappointing.
I think I'll stick with modded civ v
I look forward to seeing you play it. Haha!
I have no plans to buy it myself in the near future. I need to see more of it before I know if it's for me.
I just can't get my head around it.
Besides, my favorite part of previous civ games was the slow build up and exploration in the early game. It feels like civ 7 skips past that for the most part.
The player: I will make the best possible strategy! I will choose the place of battle! Like Sun Tzu, I will be patient! I will make the best possible upgrades! I will create, upgrade, and put into battle the greatest legion ever created!
The developers: Uh uh, yes, yes...of course...of course...ummm yes...that's right...yes...you choose how, where and how much to develop in the game... uh yes sure.
The game: Turn 150. The era is over! Your time is up!
Been waiting for this review for so long :D :D You say you're not a reviewer Marbz but you should be. You absolutely should be.
age thing is fine for me, what im worried about are mods, since civ has always been about modding it
Edit: nvm... ending the war is bad
Edit: wait, score victory is always a thing ?? wtf.. i only play with domination on, i dont care about other victories, even if im 10 techs ahead of the ai
Final edit: ok yhea... i dont really like these new systems and stuff... looks like to be another downgrade we already had from civ5 to civ6
I appreciate your honest review.
Im either going to wait for heavy and I mean HEAVY discounts and see how the game turns out or just keep playing 5 and 6
Not being able to finishing with the same civ as I started was a major turn off for me. Also the wars and era stuff is just icing on the cake in a bad way for me
They are clearly trying to change the base game so they can make it more fragmented into individual modules, all so they can sell more terrible cheap dlc and go full ham on their bs monetization models.
PROFILE EXPERIENCE!?!?! are you kidding me? LOL....what is this cod? HAHAH, this is such a predatory model holy sht.
Yeah you’re spot on. So sad. At least I’m an adult now and don’t really have the time to spare on games like this anyways. But I’m gonna miss Civ.
Civ swapping and momentos are a huge turnoff. Might as well go to Civ 4 since I skipped it.
This was an excellent video Marbs. That’s even with your normally quite high standards. It was organized, it hit important points, and you succeeded in giving information for each player to make a decision rather than just telling people if it’s “good” or “bad” or if they should buy or not.
for me it needs a UI overhaul and some more civs so you have more logical transitions then I'll buy it. they have China -> China -> China but at the same time they have, egypt -> songhai -> buganda as historical paths which is pretty stupid to me
Wow, what an incredibly well thought out video! It's so informative! Thanks for this! Definitely helps to see all this before dropping $ on it blind 👍
Fantastic overview, I can see this being very helpful for people who are on the fence.
This made my get up on my fence HAHA
I'm writing this at 21 minutes in (going to sleep now so I'll watch the rest tomorrow), but thus far I'm not too worried about the main issues, as they're things I've known about for a while now from watching various videos (including yours!) and have come to terms with. Performance issues are always a pain so I hope those get ironed out ASAP, but otherwise I'm not swayed from my excitement for this game. That said, I do hope Firaxis watches videos like this so they know what to focus on when they improve the game over time. They're the quickest and easiest way for the developers to see the issues people have with the game so they can do something about them.
Finished the video now, and I'm pretty much in the same state. I was able to get away with affording the Founders Edition, and I'm super hype to play the game on day 1 (of early access). I've seen all the concerns and complaints people have, and honestly none of it bothers me enough to make me regret my purchase or not be excited. I have quite a high tolerance when it comes to these things, and whilst every problem you've pointed out in this video is something I absolutely understand, I am willing to deal with it primarily because knowing about this stuff in advance helps. None of it will be catching me by surprise mid-game.
I look forward to playing, and to seeing how the game improves over time with patches, DLC, and expansions. Thanks for the video Marb! Much love,
Great video, thank you for your countless hours grappling with the UI!
I can't believe they are trying to increase player retention by adding grinding mechanics...
SO insulting to the original spirit of CIV
The building system seems horrendous and the UI looks messy. So much scrolling already in early game to see your options, which cannot be changed later if you make a mistake. It was stupid back in Civ 6 with districts and this is doubling down on bad design on steroids for no reason. You'd be punished anyway by wasting time and resources on building something useless, no reason to rub in the salt by making the mistake permanent.
THE best review out there imo. The UI stuff is a dealbreaker for me. I just hope my friends think the same because MP sounds very fun. TY
No map search is kind of a big ouch. It sounds a little like they're taking a page from Bethesda and hoping that the modding community will make something nicer for free
A Civilization game with no information about the Civilizations in the Civilopedia? WTF like seriously What The Actual F? 🤔
That is the most baffling thing I have ever saw on a civilization game missing on launch.. Civilopedia has been from the 1st game, even when not so important... and has become a term copied in many games (copying their title or in-game lore name).
Missing civilizations for lookup , arguably the most important part of the game in the last 3 or 4 civ games, is something I cannot even began to think of an excuse of why they are not listed... the only thing that would be more important would be leaders (only in this game), but anything else, even some game concepts (on some they were missing and added later) would be best completed later.
We are not even talking about missing specific perk of a civ.... but the whole category being not present?? Really shocked....
Even the right click not being used on city screen seems like it was a last thing added....very weird and questionable production levels and time planning here...
Hopefully we will get modding for these (to avoid alt tabbing most of the time)
Your words mean a lot more than any other review. Thanks for the analysis.
Thank you for honest almost review. Much appreciated!
If your description of the game is accurate and reflects the released version, it will likely receive very negative reviews.
Basically every review right now starts with the reviewer saying the game is fun, that they have fun playing it, and they are putting in tons of hours (beyond what is needed to just do their review/content). So I'm not sure why you'd think that.
This feels like every Civ release. The AI sucks, some of the new features are a bit clunky, the UI isn't perfect, but the core game is super fun.
@@gailonebell2154I still remember buying a game and getting a complete game.
@@gailonebell2154 Yeah, and all of those reviews are from people who specifically paid extra money to play the game early. That's going to skew the results greatly.
Man it definitly looks like CIV VI 2, but I really want a CIV V Definitive Edition kina civ
while i think i'll enjoy the game itself when i get it (eventually. y'know, when the complete thing doesn't cost a solid quarter of my paycheck with which i could buy at least 4 other games...), the fact that the stuff like the dlc thing on top of base price hike, performance problems, their statement that they 'didn't prioritize the ui', etc. etc. exist at all is extremely off-putting to see and would be enough to utterly deter me if it wasn't a civ game. regardless, waiting and seeing for now. thank you sm marbs for yet another great info vid :D
p.s. how the hell are the civs and their traditions not in the civilopedia lmfao that's just bonkers.
Yeah, the price is insane for my country, like actually exploitative. And let’s be real, getting the base version is a scam since the actual release is the 100 usd one with 130 making the most sense.
It’s disappointing
There were several great ideas in Civ 7. Then there were several that made it a no buy for me. Scout Abilities, Towns and Tech Masteries are awesome ideas.
I like the resource changes compared to the past but I prefer Millennia/ARA style resources. I am fine with districts in the Endless Legend style. Neutral change.
I really like removing Workers. Both they and builders were boring busywork.
Navigable rivers are awesome, as is their expansion due to floods.
The Ages are bad imo for a variety of reasons.
I prefer Millennia National Spirits over changing your civilization. I'd have killed for a Civ level production values version of Millennia National Spirits.
I also think the Millennia Age system is highly superior if you have to have ages. Even if Civ would remove the fantasy/sci-fi ones.
The maps are terrible. There's no reason to have bad map generation. And I know what the devs said about it. I've done map generation scripts before. Their excuses don't convince me personally.
Denuvo and the cost are also strong negatives for me. I understand the arguments saying those aren't issues but I personally disagree.
This is the sorta game I really wish there was a Demo. I feel like it's hard to say whether you will or will not like the age system without getting to try a full campaign
Thanks for the video! I think I'll wait at least a few months.
This doesn't surprise me. I lost all hopes for a good civ game after civ 6 release. Instead of looking back at why previous civs were so popular they went with rushed inovations at all costs.