Civilization 7 is in development

[T-hawk]

Losing settler races or similar are very different than the game just taking away your units, your buildings, your cities arbitrarily just because you've hit a break point within the game. There's a solution for the first (and to be honest, it's not so much a problem as a balancing of priorities, i.e. strategy), get better; with respect to the second, no matter how good you are at the game, it's a punishment.

You keep saying arbitrarily, but no, it isn't. The rules for what carries over will be well defined and understood, not arbitrary. You will account for that in deciding what to build, and that decisionmaking will be included in getting better at the game. It's not a punishment any more than losing possession of the ball after you score is a punishment in football. That said, there is the possibility that exploiting to manipulate what carries over will become the dominant part of strategy (like in Rhye's and Fall), and that's a valid concern, but you'll have a more honest argument if you frame it in those terms.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

I saw a soundtrack list where the tracks were called “France,” “America,” “China,” etc. Do people know if the soundtrack is entirely composed of those tracks presumably created for the game, or does it also feature historical music?

Having played a good bit of the Antiquity phase of the game this morning, there's definitely music that's not the big Civilization soundtracks. There's more traditional ambient music in the background.

[Krill]

You should have streamed!

[haphazard1]

Any initial thoughts? Throw a few scraps to us poor starving gamers! How does the interface feel? Plenty of info available, or is it hard to find things out? Impressions on the music and graphics?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Working on it. I'll try to have a topic up today.

[Japper007]

I got sucked in and managed to play an entire game in two sittings. I really love it!  

For those worried about the anti-snowball spiel the devs have been on: you do sorta get reset at the start of each Age, but you can keep some buildings around if you achieve the milestones (I.e. the quests) and your leader gets upgrades (similar to social policies in civ 5) that stick around. I had a pretty spectacular snowball going at the end: 20 settlements (5 cities), and 2000+ science and culture. The next biggest AI was at 6 settlements and only a few hundred culture and science. If you do run away you run away hard. (This was the default difficulty though, so that might change at the higher difficulties) You can stack so many different things together. It's like the endgame of an Amplitude title.

Many of the mechanics feel really fresh, but in a good way. It really is a different game from 5 and 6. It feels very "free" if that makes sense. No stupid limits placed on you. I was pretty scared of the return of global happiness and a city limit, but you can easily push past it, and it feels like you're expected to do so.

I might do a bigger writeup if I feel like it after a few more games. Overall, an enthusiastic thumbs up from me.

[Japper007]

Also because I forgot to mention it: the game looks gorgeous and sounds suitably epic. Great OST work, and the graphics really sell that "museum miniature" feel the devs were going for.

Only bad I can see is the UI, might just be being so used to civ 6's, but it's bulky, clunky and ugly. Hopefully they pick up on the complaints that have been going around on the forums and subreddits. But they really should've put more effort in, looks like a first draft.

[haphazard1]

Thanks for the initial thoughts, Japper007! This kind of info is much appreciated.

[haphazard1]

I've been watching Sulla's stream of his first game, very entertaining. Sulla at various things is always fun.

I have only watched about half of Sulla's first session, so still in the Antiquity period and have not seen the age transition yet. But I am liking a lot of things about the city/settlement stuff so far. Very different than past Civ games, as they try to "streamline" anything resembling micro. But it looks like it has potential for a lot of different choices.

The interface...ouch, the interface. Some of the obvious bugs (like the banners that are driving Sulla crazy ) will presumably get fixed. But for a AAA title at this price point, the UI is pretty bad. So many things poorly explained, not obvious, only partial information, etc. Hopefully that can be significantly improved fairly quickly, since it does not require changes to game mechanics just presentation.

Starting the player with no choices on the initial research and cultural paths also seems like an odd design choice. Maybe I am missing something there?

Overall, mixed reaction from me so far. I want to know more about the age transitions, so I will keep watching for into on that. But I am not seeing any reason to rush out and get this one. Waiting for some UI fixes and similar clean up stuff is probably prudent. The apparent 'charge them high DLC prices for every single leader and every single civ' aspect is also a strong negative. This might be a 'wait a year (or two) for a complete edition on sale' for me. Sad that Civilization has come to this, but it is what it is.

[Singaboy]

watched Sullla's stream as well and had a good time/laugh. I agree with your sentiments, I have the patience to wait until they iron out the game, add more civs and leaders, maybe even make the civ transitions less ridiculous. I still have not seen people play an report about the last age. Would be interesting to know how the AI is faring when things get really complicated. I no longer have the patience and dedication for MP, so if the SP experience is bad, I won't buy it until it's in the discount bin