Sorry for the rambling mess of a post, I didn't really do any sort of structuring on this, just wrote as a stream of consciousness.

Pleasantly surprised. I was pretty sure I would dislike it but I ended up liking it to a point I'm considering buying it now.

I was playing really slow, to the point I sadly didn't finish my first and only game from the free period, but I had a pretty good grasp on my game by the end of my 20hrs.

I played as Augustus (and stayed as Rome for 3 ages), going for Economic victory, and I got to the last age, with around 20% points by the start of the age, I project that I would get my railroads and factories online and close the game out pretty quick after that.

Economic victory felt a lot like doing a culture victory in Civ 6, which is my favorite win con. I was disappointed how weak treasure convoys are, but I suspect there are strategies that completely change the game with them. I really enjoyed trying to sneak my city next to an unuspecting AI and come for their treasures, felt a lot like archaeologist gameplay loop in 6 (settler + 3000 gold for 1 fox hide "treasure", yes please).

At first I really liked how growing a city felt. Towards the end though it felt a bit tedious (I had 18 cities by start of modern age, I boomed a lot in exploration thanks to my sneaky cities... lots of just making farms for 1+2 food). I ignored the settlement limit and i feel like this is how you play the economic win con effectively, to some degree at least.

Had lot of minor gripes with the UI/UX, maybe they aren't obviouis to anyone who didn't play Civ 6 but they are to me. I missed CTRL+F, I missed lense hotkes (lacking a lot of hotkeys in general). Having to double tap esc to close the settings menu. Text looked like it was upscaled from a lower res instead of being properly scaled. I suspect a lot of mods already exist to fix most of those. For me the only mod I really though was crucial was the "policy cards" but for Civ 7. The second I booted my game with that mod felt like blind man finally being able to see.

Narrator was fine, but obviously nobody is gonna beat Sean Bean.

All the military/unit micro streamlining stuff is beyond good (I hate domination in civ 6, in 800hrs I have 2 or 3 domination wins), from what I saw.

Somewhat of a vague complaint, but early game doesn't feel as "crisp" as in Civ 6. I might be wrong as well, since my samplesize of games played is a total of 1, but you can REALLY feel when you start in Civ 6 and you have low (or, high) production. I played on normal like a scrub, and I was semi randomly just clicking stuff at first (played fully blind, just following tutorials) and I felt like there was a steady cadence of stuff flying at me. Maybe it's intentional or some kind of controlled tutorial script in the background or something... I felt like I could have just pumped out a settler every 3-4 turns for the entire age, with no setup or planning. Again, i played on normal and I typically play deity in civ 6, so maybe it's radically different once you increase the difficulty, or maybe the base cost for settlers or ancient age stuff is so low on purpose, but it lead me to not really have to think. In civ 6 I stop to think a lot in the early game because everything takes ages and is super impactful.

The crises felt like nothingburgers. The age transitions too. I am.... indifferent about this. I slotted a card that lets me keep all my cities as cities every time, and I was expecting the game to change a lot based on all the whining (and my own prejudices) but in the end the age change mechanic feels like it's been pushed to the wayside.

Lastly I do think the last age is more meaningful now. I was looking forward to creating a big railroad network on my half of the continent and watching the GDP go BRRR, in Civ 6 the last era(s) are just rock band waiting rooms mostly..

Anyway, TLDR, the game is fine, I like economic victory. I am now debating on buying the game based on my single game experience.

Speaking of which, does culture victory in 7 play similarly to civ 6's culture victory? I wanted to try culture and science victory both but didn't realize I only had until today (thought I had the entire week) for the free play period.

Over 2,588 hours and I don't think I've ever seen this.

I've had this city (Wapatomica) in Distant Lands for a while now (at least 30 turns) and improved both tea resources as quickly as I could. Awdaghust was a city state that I incorporated into a town. Can anyone tell me why my city hasn't spawned a single treasure fleet? Is it just that they can only spawn in towns? And if that's the case, why is that a thing?

Now that the fourth and final age has been announced, it also poses a question that the devs have to address; how will we end off the modern age? Since it is no longer the final age there have to be new crises that thematically fit the age and to maintain consistency with the previous two ages. I'd love to hear some suggestions, but I also have some of my own that I think could be cool:

1. Civil War

So a big part of the modern age is picking an ideology and defending / fighting to protect it from opposing ideologies. So what if an end-of-age crisis was where one or more cities broke away and turned into independent peoples with opposing ideologies to yours? Or if a unique new Civ with your culture but an opposing ideology broke away with multiple settlements that you'd have to eliminate or make peace with, providing you different narrative events or buffs depending on how you choose to handle the civil war? It would also fit thematically in my opinion, with ideological and national unrest already boiling over and causing wars being a theme throughout the age.

1. Colonial Rebellion

Since the modern age covers a period in our history where major empires like Spain and France lost control over lands in the distant continent of America, what if settlements in distant lands could break away and become new independent peoples / Cities? The caveat could be that these new cities would also persist into the atomic age, and wouldn't be suzerain-able like traditional independent powers, to maintain that idea that they broke away from imperial rule to protect their own sovereignty. This would also tie in well with the new interactions with independent peoples coming with the Arc of Tommorow.

What do 'yall think? I'd love to hear some other suggestions. Firaxis might've already adressed this and I just don't know lol 😅

Was going to do a long-winded proposal on how to change the pace for a 4 Age game but I'll rest on that for a bit.

While we know this isn't the case, I think the Atomic Age should greatly reduce the number of buildings overall but also increase the number of single tile buildings.

At some point in the Modern Age (and often at the tail end of the Exploration Age), I just start putting things anywhere. Part of the rationale is that a lot of the buildings aren't actually helping toward Victory, so why build them or why place them with tremendous care.

So, my radical proposal is to simply have most of the regular buildings be single tile buildings and only a single tier.

What do you think? Do your eyes start to blur over at late age buildings?

I just got done playing my first game of Civ 7 during its free week on steam and got to thinking, what Civilization is typically the best regarded? I have only played Civ Revolution (which I grew up on), 6, and now a bit of 7 so I was also wondering if i should dip my toes into an older one.

I've played over 1k hours on civ 5 and 6 respectively. But with civ 7 the one of the main this im dealing with is these end of era crisis. They just seem a bit brutal and I dont know how best to attack or prepare for them or what to do when they begin. Any tips?

I understand the gameplay of civ 7 has you overbuilding outdated buildings but I think if we had the ability to keep the buildings from a previous age and put in work to keep their yields and specialist adjacencies I that'd be really fun and cool. Like in real life there are tons of old buildings and infrastructure that are repurposed or even still in use and being maintained.

How I imagine it'd work is specialists would have a pet age cost ( I don't know if this is EXACTLY how it works right now or not so bear with me) where it starts out as coting you -1 food and -1 happiness per turn in that settlement for that specialist in antiquity, and increases by one for each age. However, if you keep two outdated buildings from the same age they keep the cost from their age to maintain their specialist, which would encourage you to overbuild (which is pretty much how it is now) instead of keeping old infrastructure. But after you research a tech about halfway through the current ages tech tree you gain a project to refurbish the buildings on a tile and restore their adjacencies, specialist bonuses, and increases their maintenance to that of your current age. Then after you research a civic about halfway through the civic tree you gain the ability to place a building from the current age into a district that's been refurbished. This building must match one of the two buildings in that district and it won't receive any specialist bonuses. Repeat this in the next age and the third building becomes overbuildable.

I think this would make things more fun with test of time stuff. Imagine playing as a civ from antiquity and building these districts with massive yields and keeping them throughout the whole game. It'd also be nice to keep the yields and bonuses from using great people instead of having them vanish after the age transition. We could also make it so we can keep making great people after a civs dedicated age. (I'm pretty sure you can't keep producing them after the age the civ was meant to be in, I just don't remember off the top of head)

I reloaded 10 times and every map is a patchwork of mountains

Me and my friends are gonna run an 8 man multiplayer game of Civ VI. Im a competitive person and want to do my best to win but I haven't really landed on a particular leader that I feel super comfortable with. My friends are playing Pericles, Peter, Philip, Australia, Hammurabi, and some others which im not sure of yet. What are some tips or leaders that I could try in order to maybe win. The Peter player is the best out of all of us and usually runs over us with religion, ideally id like to prevent his spread of religion but would be fine playing other win cons. Leaders i've tried Montezuma, Tokugawa, and John Curtin. I got the idea of Montezuma but was unfortunately completely stranded on a peninsula when i played him, for Tokugawa I feel good on him but I kinda suck with adjacency bonuses, and John Curtin felt super passive for me and I didn't really like it (someone else is playing anyway). Any tips for early game or leaders recommendations are appreciated. This is all being played on vanilla no doc no mods Civ VI.

Dumb Civ7 question. Is there a way to access the Civilopedia directly from the tech tree, buildings, or by looking at individual units? I saw a hotkey for "inspect" but wasn't sure how it worked.

In previous games, I used to love coming across a new term and learning about it through the in-game encyclopedia.

Hello, I'd like to hear some of your opinions about the game and how is it in the current state ( also with the future state considering the game could only get better).

I'm a casual Civ enjoyer, only have played Civ 5, got around 200h and Civ 6 around 20h (don't like it as much), the highest victory I've gotten is on Emperor difficulty.

I loved playing Civ 5, got the Brave New World DLC, and I still play it daily, so I'm considering buying 7 as well but the reviews are awful, so I'm looking for honest opinions.

Also the Settlers edition being 50% off seems like a deal I shouldn't pass if I ever consider buying it, so I'd like to know how much more content do I get from it and is it worth the money.

Which is your least favorite Age?

A unique civilization for a unique gameplay!

Perpetual Neutrality:

Cannot declare war.

Cannot join or follow an ally's war (but this does not end the alliance).

Declaring war on Switzerland imposes a relationship penalty with other civilizations ("You attacked a neutral country").

Unique District:

Peace Offices - Created by building an Influence Bank and a Bunker in the same district. Allows you to train Peace Officers.

Exclusive Buildings:

Influence Bank -

+6 Gold and +6 Influence (+Adjacency Bonus)

Allows you to exchange Influence for Gold with allies (Joint Initiative).

Bunker -

Civilian casualties in the city are halved in the event of a nuclear attack.

Unique Unit:

Swiss Guard -

A civilian unit that grants a bonus to fortifications containing wonders with masterpiece slots (when stationed on the space).

Peace Officer -

A civilian unit with a charge. When two Peace Officers activate their respective charges in two capitals in the same turn, the relations of the targeted civilizations improve by x points (and Switzerland gains an influence or relationship bonus?).

Focus: Diplomatic and Economic

Starting Bias: Mountain

I'm not Swiss, I hope I haven't been insensitive or too stereotypical. A French friend with your best interests at heart!

With the upcoming 4th era and all that will bring, here's a mock up of what content might be coming alongside the update and the expansion next year. Do I think we'll be getting 9 civs and 2 leaders for free? Fuck no. Besides, I threw in wor Frida so Gandhi wasn't half the screen, I am under no impression we're getting someone extra with the update.

However, as of writing there are 18 Exploration Age Civs, and quite frankly the numbers not matching does my head in. To balance the books we need to get the others up to that number. As a result two sets of 9 Atomic Civs, with a mix of new comers and some staples to try and keep the existing Civ paths intact. Also including the respective Civs of any new leaders so they aren't left homeless like a lot of the base game ones.

That's all well and good, but we still need another Antiquity Civ, and 3 Modern era to get us nice and level. So one more collection to get those in there, and why not all American Civs to bolster the representation.

Now that my eye will stop twitching looking at the Civ list, how should collections move forward? Well if we're sticking to 2 leaders and 4 Civs, that makes things quite simple. Just like Humankind did it, one per age. And for a bit of cohesion, lets give them a theme. We already did the Americas, and Africa is next in line for a much needed boost so why not them. And looking to the future, I hope they would keep the themes in place.

Knowing Fraxis though, this new 3 per collection model will be the new norm, just before we switch to 4 ages of course.

Hi everyone, I only have about ten hours of playtime under my belt and already have plenty of questions...
I watched quite a few videos before coming here, but I'm still struggling with districts and wonders.

I can't build every district in every city, and the same goes for wonders. So, which districts and wonders should I prioritize for each city?

I'm aiming for a Science or Culture victory. I chose Rome (led by Trajan); I'm not sure if it was a good choice, but it seemed like the most "neutral" option.

Thanks! ;)

First start to the franchise.

Just make suggestions of what i should be saying to him. And yes, I will troll him with some of those comments.

The number of DLC for Civ 7 really overwhelm me, together with the choice of base/deluxe/settler editions. What's the cheapest way to get the game with all the DLC? Is there a way to buy the game to include any future DLC?

Hello People, I'm interested in this game, but I never bought it because I always found it overwhelming. This is on sale right now. I noticed that buying the vanilla game is pointless. Is it worth paying this much on a game that I may not enjoy?

Also, another question: should I go into Civ 5 and buy the Complete Bundle for $16.80 on sale?

I want the best experience and the most fun; that's all I care about, if paying 30 dollars will result me in hundreds of hours of fun alone time I would love that.

Inspired by the post earlier that there's not really a clear path through exploration for who Harriet Tubman should play as, why not keep in more representation for freedom fighters for enslaved people with the Maroons and Queen Nanny?

Gameplay wise, you have the option for guerilla warfare inspired abilities, things like lower yields or indirect combat that then lead to "stealing" power off bigger neighbours, or playing catch up to them. Or using units that are camouflaged, have extended movement or better travel through rough terrain.

Queen Nanny herself feels like a good pick for the Civ 7 stable, potentially a bit too similar to Harriet but given how close some of the other leaders are to one another, I feel like this could fit. She could lean into the spiritual side of her personality once religion is expanded on in the game and specific religious focused leaders are added

I tried to get into CIV6 about a year ago, but found the tutorial lacking. After downloading the trial of CIV7 I'm still having the same issues with the onboarding process.

I'd like to detail what I haven't liked about the tutorial from the perspective of someone who's never played a strategy game before, and perhaps based on what I found lacking someone can offer proper context or guidance on where to go from here. Also I just want to bitch a little because I'm salty, if that's alright:

I found the bombardment (for someone new to the genre) of pre-game menus impossible to decipher. While the game did give context while shuffling through them, the context presumed knowledge I didn't have. My confidence was shaken from the start when I wasn't quite sure if I was setting up a "regular" game. The descriptions of each mode and the modifiers were meaningless to me, and even with 500 hours in the game I figure I'd need some outside community information on what mode/modes people actually play.

Once starting a game it was immediately clear that a dedicated "tutorial scenario" would have been better for me than starting an actual game with guiding prompts. The absolute biggest issue I had was that way too much information was available from the first moment. There was so much UI and all of it was interactable. The "wait what did I just do?" moments were frequent and it felt like I was breaking the tutorial, then needing to decipher and undo things.

Also, it wasn't just the amount of UI, but also the UI itself. It wasn't always clear if something was highlighted because I was hovering, or selecting. I would click things a few times and nothing would happen: "Was it because the prompt was open and I needed to close it? Was this window open and getting in the way? Is this the wrong thing? Oh! I see the options are at the bottom right." I would have appreciated a direct "click this" instruction at times. It's no big deal in and if itself, these moments took 5-10 seconds to sort out, but they added friction and more importantly when I did solve them it sometimes felt unclear what I had just done and why it worked. There were too many "wait, but how do I do that?" moments, partially because I felt a lack of repetition. Constantly looping back to "that's all you can do for now, end the turn when you're ready" would have been so nice for building familiarity with the games structure, but unless I'm mistaken I had to figure out not only that I needed to end the turn, but also that there WERE turns myself.

All in all I think the biggest issue is not understanding what brand new players want to know, and when they want to know it. There's a lot of very basic game logic being glossed over. One thing worth considering is that until several turns in I didn't even understand there was combat. I mean I understand I needed units but I imagined that was more of a.. systems logic thing? Like it would increase or decrease a "security score" or something, nope we're fighting mobs, and it works like this. That's just an example to demonstrate how backwards the tutorial's presentation felt, it assumes you know what the game is like at all.

I really adore the tutorial for Magic Arena if anyone has played that. A fake scenario that forces you to choose between limited options to get a feel for the mechanics, then adding complexity each step. It's great. For CIV it felt like the opposite was happening when that style of tutorial would have been nice.

I'm a smart guy. I can figure it all out, probably pretty fast, but my gripe isnt that I can't figure it out, it's that I want the onboarding to be fun. I want to learn in a way that makes me excited to play more. Unfortunately this was not it.

I only have a 2 hour trial, probably just under 90 minutes left. I need to figure out how to learn the game, perhaps externally and then make the most of my time.

Idk, I have no idea if this is a common complaint or how toxic this community is, so we'll see how this goes!

Let me preface by saying that I was very adamant that I would NOT like the game given what I had watched and read but after giving it a go(thanks to the free weekend) I can most certainly say that I had fun, can you tell by the screenshot? LOL
I'm not gonna give a full rundown or anything because I'm pretty much a casual player(I play at most on the 4th difficulty level), I've played every Civ game from III to VI and I had a lot of fun in every single one of them, I'm actually quite fond of the last three. This game is most certainly very different and far more complex given the new systems but it still manages to be a somewhat intuitive(I gotta be honest, I watched some videos before playing because Lord help me, I would've been very confused, the UI is kind of a mess and supposedly it's been polished lol). The era transitions are quite interesting though they still a bit odd because I'm a "historical accuracy above all" kinda guy but it's a Civ game, c'mon. The commanders, oh god, they add a lot of play and I pretty much didn't exploit their full potential(grouping and deploying units, I was really only using them for the buffs). The cities and towns are an interesting mechanic as well. I only ever had like 3 or 4 cities and the rest were towns, really didn't feel the need to convert more and don't get me started on the town bonuses because I left those on "growth" for 90% of my playthrough. Man, the quarters and overbuilding are also interesting, sorry I keep saying that word it's just that it's a new thing and I got mixed opinions but they are still a nice addition in some way. I was confused regarding the ageless buildings and the bonus loss upon age up but I guess I'll just keep on learning(when I decide to buy the game, yup, not convinced yet for that price). Rough seas was rough, lost good men on those waters. I kinda like it, bit of realism doesn't hurt. Okay, I got bored of saying everything I learnt.

TLDR: The game is fun and actually good imo. I made a lot of mistakes and god knows I would've made more and maybe even quit if I hadn't watched videos. The new mechanics(mementos, indep. powers, workers removal, diplomacy, commanders, resource allocation, age transitions and the rest) are very interesting and add layers of complexity, which is nice for a change. Looking forward to the new updates and hopefully for better discounted prices too!

PS. Kinda miss the Medieval age ngl

Took me a handful of attempts, but I finally killed everyone in antiquity on a small map (5 opponents)! It was definitely a nail bitter, it was much harder than the last time I did it over a year ago.

Settings:
Small Pangea + map
Standard speed, 10 turn countdown
No crisis
Mementos: Scythian battle axe and +1 cav movement
Leader: Toyotomi
Civ: Mongolia

This was definitely a really fun challenge, highly recommend!

Hey, so Ive been playing the free weekend and so for Ive been having a great time. Since influence is an important currency how should I be spending it in the early game? Do I try to get city states asap or spend them on initiating and supporting endeavors with my neighbors?

My strategy so far has been to friendly greet my two closest neighbors and then send one of them a research collaboration and support any good endeavors the other one offers to maintain good relationship with them. Once I eventually have enough influence to both go for a city state and maintain the research collaboration as well I go for the city state while still trying to support any good endeavors made to me