izigame.me

TL;DR at the bottom
Traditionally, Civ games are pretty formulaic. The game comes out and it's...fine. Not even in comparison with the previous title, just in general, an okay game that needs a bit of love. And then it gets a couple expansions and it's fantastic. In this one...I don't know, I'm concerned the issues are too fundamental for that to work. It needs some top-down reworking in a lot of areas. There are some bugs, but I'm not going to mention them because modern games are massive and will always have bugs that are (generally) quickly fixed. I've played about a thousand hours each in V and VI, 600ish in BE, probably a couple hundred in III and IV before I had a Steam account, and thousands of hours in other 4X games. It's my favorite genre, and until now, Civ has always been my favorite implementation of it, and the one that hooks me the most. Here are my thoughts. There are a lot of them, but if you're a civ player, you're probably patient enough.
Pros:
-You can't deny, the map is absolutely gorgeous. Even on low settings, the water especially is beautiful, all the little details in buildings and resources are amazing to look at.
-Ages are a big swing and I respect them for going through with it, despite Humankind's middling implementation. It's an interesting way to shake things up.
-Generals are a good addition to the game. I'm not big on domination games, but when it's time to go to war, they're a good and fun evolution of the generals from VI. And they can be useful for just hanging out in cities to give bonuses to them.
-New resources are added in each age, which can shake things up a bit, albeit not to the extent of previous games, where each new strategic resource would prompt a rush for previously mediocre land.
Cons:
-The graphics are beautiful, but the map feels cluttered and hard to read. There's just SO much going on at any given time, it can be hard to parse what you're looking at. I DO like that cities feel a lot more like naturally-growing contiguous cities, but also it's very difficult to tell at a glance which buildings you actually have in a city. Also, the leaders still just...look kind of wonky? A lot of them, anyway.
-The way ages are implemented is frustrating. It's like the Civ devs copied Humankind's homework, but tried to do it backwards and upside-down. The tech trees feel very limited, and when you get through all of them, you research future techs, which is fine, but they also reduce how many turns there are until the next age. Meaning, if you're trying to get a secondary legacy filled out, or even just the main one, it's more and more difficult to do it in time, so you kind of have to limit yourself when playing a science or culture game. Your cities are turned back into towns (unless you max out the economic legacy), which...why?? What purpose does that serve beyond being a gold sink in the next era? Any wars you're in abruptly stop, which is jarring and makes no sense. Your relationships are reset, with a bonus or penalty depending on the last age, but you have to re-up any agreements with your usually-limited Influence and try to get your alliances and things working again. The ends of ages have crises, but they feel just kind of tacked-on? You can't really do much of anything about them, but they also aren't THAT impactful (in my limited exposure to them, to be fair). It's just "aaahhhh this sucks" for ten or so turns and then it's over. There's just a lot going on all at once and none of it feels good.
-The game is opaque as hell. In so many areas, it just doesn't give you needed information. How the fuck do quarters actually work? How do I know if I've managed to make one or not? Why can't I build over this specific building? Why can I build these things in these spots but not these, when neither says anything about requirements? Where are these points coming from, and where did these others go? There was no mention of all the things in the previous paragraph until they happened. What are Traditions, even?? Roman Legions get a bonus from them but I cannot for the life of me tell you which tree or system they come from.
-Resources are kind of a bummer? I always liked trading resources around, and the map is absolutely coated in them. But how they work is just....kind of annoying. You can trade to acquire more, but not get gold; your only income from trading is if other people decide to send a trade route to you. You slot them into cities and can construct buildings (and find other ways) that let you hold more. But micromanaging them is just kind of a pain? It's "interesting choices" but it isn't like...fun or engaging. Also once you hit the modern age, suddenly a huge chunk of them are unavailable to use, because you need a factory and railyard in a city to make use of the "factory resources." Meaning in every age, you should probably rush those techs first because they have powerful percentage yields. But until then, they're just sitting uselessly in the resources window. And it's in a settlement-by-settlement basis, so you need to also build those things in each individual town or city.
-Why do towns exist? I kind of like the idea of funneling food and certain resources to bigger cities and maybe it'll grow on me if I manage to play more, but for now specializing them is yet another layer of micromanaging with an opportunity cost of the other specializations you won't be able to pick. Growing settlements manually is kind of neat, but it gets old quick, especially when you've got 16+ cities all over the place.
-The AI in any 4X game is middling at best, and this one is no exception, but the diplomacy options really tank it. The options are pretty limited, and for most of them you can only do it with one other civ at a time. Research partnership? Only with one civ. Cultural festivals? Only with one civ. Etc., etc. You can do open borders with everyone, which helps relations a tiny bit, but very little in the long run. Espionage is here and it's...sssstupid? Like, I'm sorry, but people will be CONSTANTLY stealing from you and even when they're discovered, they get a slap on the wrist influence penalty. You can counterspy, but you can only pick one civ to do it to at a time for some reason. Sure, Lafayette might (*might*) get caught, but Trung Trac, Pachacuti, and Catherine are going to continue uninhibited.
-Also just a minor thing that probably only bothers me - there are only like, 6-7 women leaders? You made it so the leader you play didn't have to be a monarch or politician or historical ruler, but then still have almost a 3:1 men to women ratio? It's just a little annoying. Bring back Gitarja and Boudicca and Gorgo :( Hell, give us someone like Marie Curie or Joan of Arc or Mother Teresa.
TL;DR: it has a few good ideas and looks nice, but the game in short just doesn't feel good to play. It's a bit bloated, and could have used a lot more rigorous QA testing to actually find the fun in these systems. I'm sad that even with a couple expansions, it may not live up to its potential, which I DO think it has.
Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.