Sid Meier’s Civilization VII Experience – Big Changes

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A bold new direction for a well-known series.

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More than half of Civilization 6 players have never completed a single campaign.

Although it was the most successful installment of the legendary strategy series to date, selling over 11 million copies, more than half of its owners never completed a single playthrough of the campaign. It was these statistics that gave the developers the courage to make serious changes to the new part. According to their research, the main problem was the so-called “snowball effect”, where the mid and late game phases were already too difficult and tedious to maintain, with too many buildings and units on the map, and at the same time the strongest civilization on the map already had an almost unstoppable lead at this stage of the game. So the solution is one fundamental change and a whole series of smaller changes that try to alleviate the problem while at the same time enriching the game with new elements.

Biggest Change: Campaign Stage

While the campaign structure of the previous installments of the series was one continuously evolving film, the seventh installment is more reminiscent of the tense parts of the series with several exciting endings. In the old games, we moved from one historical period to the next quite smoothly, but Seven splits three eras – the Ancient Age, the Age of Discovery and the Modern Age – with a significant reboot. After each of these eras, you will receive a current campaign score and you will have to choose a nation for the next era, because although the leader you choose remains the same throughout the campaign, but you choose a nation for each era due to its time (for example, in in ancient times you couldn’t choose America because you didn’t exist yet). At the same time, the finale of each era has its own unique crisis, which occurs at the end of it and gradually worsens – this is in many ways reminiscent of the arrival of a great storm in Frostpunk, but these are historical social crises, not natural ones. those. Natural disasters in the game are more or less spread throughout, with adjustable intensity.

The campaign structure is reminiscent of the exciting parts of the series.

The start of a new era will follow the map of the previous one, including its reveal status and the location of your cities. However, the number of units will be reduced and their type will be improved, and large cities will turn into smaller cities (Cities vs Towns). The continuity with the previous stage of the campaign is noticeable, but at the same time there is a feeling of some relief and calm. At the same time, each era fundamentally improves the game mechanics – in ancient times you could not travel through the deep ocean, so you have no chance of discovering other continents. Overcoming this technological problem is a major innovation of the Age of Discovery. After playing several campaigns with different leaders and nations, I am pleased with the age change, this mechanic helps make the game more digestible and at the same time more varied due to the change of nations.

The most obvious change: the visual style.

The game’s color palette is noticeably cooler than the previous game, with a significant amount of beige. This may remind fans of the popular fifth installment in the series, but the main inspiration for this change was the study of historical paintings, mainly from the eighteenth century. These historical images and paintings, often depicting stunning landscapes or spectacular battles, often have a similar, cooler color palette. This gives the game a more “realistic” feel than the colorful style of the sixth game. At the same time, this change is supported by the stylization of various details, giving the feeling that you are looking at a historical model with figures laid out on the table – this impression is supported, for example, by replacing the “blank” unexplored parts of the map with animated, seemingly physical hexagonal “tokens” with gold edging.

The game’s color palette is noticeably cooler.

A city’s urban development can now only expand from the center forward, so visually cities now appear more logical and cohesive. A higher level of detail has been added, making models and animations on the map a real pleasure to look at up close – such as the shiny roofs of the domes of large buildings or schools of fish below the surface of the water. look very beautiful. Much to my surprise, the game runs smoothly at 60fps in 4K resolution on the highest detail settings on my fairly old computer (i7-9700F, 16GB DDR4, RTX 2070 Super). The excellent impression of the visual processing is complemented by an excellent sound system, where in addition to the sounds of nature or battles, it is worth highlighting the voice acting of the leaders in their native language. The music is wonderful again. Although some tracks have already been published on the official website of the game, the best ones have not yet been released, and I am really looking forward to the release of the soundtrack for them.

A whole host of other changes

In the spirit of the above-described changes to the alternation of eras, the creators have simplified a number of other systems that are not associated with strategic depth, but rather with excessive micromanagement. So the workers for the construction of buildings have completely disappeared – now you can do without people, you only need raw materials and time. Generals’ units have the excellent ability to “suck” other military units around them on the map, and then move them around the map as a single “military column” unit, which greatly facilitates the movement of armies, but at the same time, before the battle, you will have to “unpack” them again and use them classic siege mechanics. Your newly founded colonies are not full-fledged cities, but satellites with one purpose chosen by you (send to your civilization, for example, money, or food, or building materials, etc.), until you decide to purposefully modernize them. into a full-fledged city. All of these countless changes have the same goal: remove micromanagement so you can focus better and more fun on the core aspects of your development.

Significantly facilitates the movement of armies.

Also interesting is the new “meta” layer of the game, where by completing various tasks (for example, completing a campaign for specific leaders or nations), you gradually unlock perks that can then be used for future campaigns. This will increase your motivation to play all sides of the game, including play styles you might not otherwise try. I can personally attest that the desire for “one more step” is again very strong in the new Civilization. Last night, after finishing the campaign, I wanted to go to bed tired, but out of curiosity I played a new game for another nation… only to realize three hours later that I had completely “forgot” about being tired and sleepy. So be careful and plan your free time responsibly: this is the kind of game that will hook you and hook you more than you think.

Sid Meier’s Civilization VII will release on PC, PS5, Xbox and Switch on February 11, 2025.

Source :Indian TV

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