The Backlash Against Civilization 7 - Firaxis Responds

Civilization 7 has had gameplay reveals, trailers, and a full-blown developer gameplay livestream since it was announced in August 2024. Firaxis (the developers of Sid Meier's Civilization) released their first 'Developer's Diary' press release on Civ 7 recently with the Ages & Changing Civs being their focus. Changing civs through Civ 7's three ages is, according to Firaxis, the biggest change in Civilization 7 gameplay and the most significant change to the franchise since squares became hexes! So let's hear about it - why introduce ages to civ? How will Ages play? What stays the same between ages? They'll answer all of that, and more. This is the first Civ 7 Dev Diary!

TIMECARDS

0:00 - Firaxis on Civilization 7's Biggest New Feature
0:13 - Why Add Ages to Civilization 7?
4:08 - Playing an Age
7:17 - Changing Civs & Age Transitions
9:27 - What stays the same?
11:00 - Future Potential & How Many Civs will be in Civ 7?

SOURCE
CIV 7 DEV DIARY 1: AGES

CIV 7 GAMEPLAY
@civilization

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#CIVILIZATION7 #CIV7 #civilization6 #civ6

[the_clawing_chaos]

'late game civ is not fun to play', it's like they read my mind! Why don't I finish a game? The end game is boring. Why should I continue slogging towards what is a certain victory?
I am really looking forward to what this civ is offering.

[joshlewkowicz]

Yeah I’m sorry but it’s a new game - if they made no changes people would complain it’s a dlc. The most recent let’s play showed off complex interwoven systems that will take an age to master and optimise - this is what makes a good Civ game

[richardhingston]

They're entitled to add whatever changes they want to the new title, and I'm entitled to completely ignore it and play Ara: History Untold and Civ 6.

[andreswgadea]

At least give me the choice to remain as the starting civ I wanted. The cool thing about civ games was that you could build the eiffel tower, send a man to the moon and win a scientific victory as THE INCAS.

[Quantikk]

"can your civilization stand the test of time?" LOL apparently not in civ 7

[basilforth]

Wait until Firaxis rolls out the late game "Manage the AI's carbon" feature.

[fietsenOveral]

The more I see about the how and why behind ages, the more I think it was an excellent decision. As a player from civ 3 to 6 with thousands of hours, I always found the late game the least fun and the most tedious. Reallly happy they took a serious look at how to provide a more engaging and consistent experience across the entire campaign.

[Zimionz]

This could have been fixed without the need for civ changes. Give every civ an antiquity, an exploration and a modernity buff or trait. All the other changes would have been equally effective without civilization change. I would at least have given players the option to either remain Egypt through the ages, or switch to another civ if they want to.

[sattm]

I dont love that the map is reduced in size and scope until you transition through ages where it opens up. Seems like theyre trying to tackle the late game issue by removing systems, reducing scope, and removing elements of the 'sandbox' to try and control how a player moves through the game.

[meekomiles]

The Humankind game does this, I enjoyed Civ6 for the reasons that it did NOT do that. Felt more meaningful it invest time into a Civ.

[lawrencepsteele]

I know a number of people have pointed to Humankind as the source of Ages. What I haven't seen is anyone pointing out how much the terrain artwork looks so much like Humankind. Even watching this video, I had to remind myself I'm watching a video of Civ 7 and not Humankind. I wonder if I'm the only one seeing the similarity.

[dpurdyciv]

As a mod developer, I’m more concerned with how silent they’ve been on mod support discussion.

[grith]

The most important point to me of this civilization changing feature is that we will lose a long list of old civilisations.
Most of the classical civilisations of the Civ game are Antiquity civilisations. Romans, Egyptians, Greeks, Babylonians, Assyrians, Chinese, Celts, Phoenicians, etc...
Basically, if you want to be historically accurate, most of the starting civ will be European ones (I would say all exception made of Chineese and Maias.
That will create some very weird pathways: either most continents will lack of civilisation representation, because they florished later (Asia, Africa, North America), or they will be very straightforward (Maias to Incas / Aztecs) but strange in the same time ; or Firaxis will promote very weird transition : Maias to Inca to Brazil ? Egypt to Songhai to Buganda ?

I guess to equilibrate this mess, we will have some totally unknown civilisation which will be promoted in the game (like Buganda) and other important classic civilisations which will simply not exist. And here comes the Wonders issue: how will we be able to build most Antiquity wonders if the civilisations who built them are not even in the game ? Where is the logic here ?

Sorry, I can't be positive about this change. It's too weird for me.

[andreweaston]

I am not a fan of changing civs. The whole idea of civilization is that YOU are the leader of your chosen civ from start to finish. Now, I dont even have a civ from start to finish. I have 3 different civs, playing in 3 different (although related) settings. It does not make sense, or, feel immersive to me, that, for example, my ancient romans turn into the chinese then the americans (or whatever).

[tymiller]

They can make all the excuses they want, if I can't see my civilization "stand the test of time", then I'm not interested.

[SteveMorris-cr]

So rather than making the end game more engaging they decided to just repeat the beginning and middle game over several times to avoid the problem.

[GregNumber]

I've played every Civ but this is the first time I'm not excited by a new one coming out. I don't want my civilization to be replaced by a different one.

[JacobSteakfries]

Really weird for them to base their argument on "Everyone hates the endgame of a 4X game." That's like saying "We removed resource gathering in an RTS because no one finds it fun."

Like sure I guess that's true for some people, but it's still kind of fundamental to the genre's design to have these things. Resetting the Civ every couple of years I don't think is going to magically cut down on endgame micro. If anything it might make it worse if you have to constantly change play style between eras.

[bartreisender]

I understand why they do it but I don’t want it anyway.
Bringing one Civ from stone to space age was what attracted me in the first since civ 1 on amiga 500

[Mankorra_Gomorrah]

“We saw a lot of hype around Humankind before it launched and right when we were starting to work on Civ7 and feared its main selling point would make civ obsolete so we stole it. Now it’s too late to rip it out even though no one likes it.”