Our beloved video games come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, with almost unlimited genres to choose from. The sheer number of games released every year means it’s easy enough to find your favourite genre and stick to it, but it can be equally fun to branch out and try something new. I won’t pretend I’ve spent a large chunk of my life playing 4X strategy games, but I do have experience with Civilization, at least. Thanks to the lovely dumbed down version that was Civilization Revolution I first played this PC classic on a PlayStation, and had a great time doing so. I decided over a decade later it was time to take another step, and dived face first into Civilization VII.
So now that the veterans of the series have closed this review in anger, let’s talk about Civilization shall we? In Civilization you build, well, a civilisation (lower case and with traditional English spelling). Other civilisations are also growing over time, and each is rushing to become the best of them all. There are various ways to be the best, ranging from violent to religious, but all of them involve progressing through history.
There are other important decisions to make before you even start this though, like picking a great leader of the past. From Machiavelli to Benjamin Franklin, there are plenty to pick from with all sorts of specific buffs that’ll help you expand and dominate. I chose Charlemagne because of his fabulous outfit, and set out on my first attempt at taking over the world.
When the game starts you have a single settler unit, who you need to place on a specific tile to start growing your capital. Each of your settlements will grow by themselves over time based on certain resources, and can use their production to create specific units or buildings. Units can be anything from scouts and merchants to catapults and archers, and buildings come in a variety of forms. This might seem somewhat overwhelming at first, but thanks to handy tutorials and icons that recommend the best options based on the victory condition you’re aiming for, it’s fairly simple to pick up.
The four ways you can win a game of Civilization VII are: Military, Economic, Culture, Science; and they all have very different aims. Military is the most simple (although the option I struggled the most with), aiming to wipe everyone else off the map. Economics aims to control the world with money and build World Banks, while Culture makes cities nice places to live and tries to have a big fair to celebrate. Scientific victory is granted to the civilisation that makes it into space first. Regardless of how you aim to win you’ll use your specific progress to interfere with others, at least that’s the theory.
In practice (quite possibly because I should have started on a lower difficulty) this didn’t quite work out for me. My very first attempt to rule the world was a Cultural one, but because I didn’t use religion effectively to coerce my opponents they used their military might to wipe me off the map pretty quickly. On my second try I decided I’d use Economics to gain loads of money, which in a pinch I’d be able to use to buy extra soldiers when those pesky Americans tried to take me out. With much nicer opponents this time though, the nearest town kept throwing celebrations until before I knew it my heavily taxed subjects decided the grass was greener over there. There are so many different systems to grasp that even with the tutorials and help you’re bound to lose a few games, and I was at least glad my losses were fairly entertaining.
While there’s a lot to enjoy in Civilization VII for a newcomer, there’s one aspect of the game that I think is particularly odd and ruins the flow of the game: Ages. A single game is made up of a few historical ages, and when long enough passes that you’re moved onto the next one everything changes. While this might sound exciting, it means that certain things you prioritised (like for example religion) might be useless in a new age. Units can’t be transferred across ages either, and because of this I had entire armies suddenly vanish mid war. It feels like such a bizarre and wild addition to a series that’s known for being thoughtful and strategic, and I struggled to get my head around how to best manage it.
Despite having some handy onboarding, I have to admit that some systems in Civilization VII felt either needlessly complex or poorly explained. Every so often I’d be prompted to add my resources to specific cities, and it wasn’t particularly clear why it was important to put these in certain places. There are numerous other systems (trade routes and religion come to mind immediately) which isn’t ideal especially for a newcomer.
It’s certainly not all doom and gloom for the series though, especially in the visual department. The vibrant art style of this entry is just lovely, and makes creating your own sprawling cities all the more enjoyable. There’s just a lot of character in general to be drawn to, be it from the leaders themselves or the stories you create as you navigate diplomatic relations with them.
I can’t pretend I can predict what a 4X veteran will think of Civilization VII (and to be fair they’ve likely played hundreds of hours of it already), but if you’re a newcomer looking to try something new this is a great place to start. It’s rather unlikely you’ll succeed straight away or understand all the systems without doing a bit of homework, but it’s worth putting the hours in to experience this often opaque genre in full.
