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* this article is translated from ign us related content, the original author is leana hafer, and the translation is tony. reproduction without permission is prohibited.

i'm always excited to get my first glimpse of any new civilization, especially after so many years, and after getting my hands on civilization vii, i'm happy to say i'm pretty optimistic about it. it's a bolder, more adventurous take on the past few games, and i think that's the right choice, since the past few games are still very playable. from the "era change" system that allows you to switch civilizations to the new art style that's easy to access but realistic, developer firaxis is going all out to make the transition.

after the release of civilization vi, the field of "historical 4x games" has become much more lively, and firaxis seems to have been paying attention to the practices of those younger generations. this leads to the biggest change in civilization 7: just like 2020's humankind, you no longer use the same civilization from beginning to end in a game.

there are now three eras in the game: antiquity, exploration, and modern. the developers pointed out that the ages in civilization 7 are not exactly the same as the eras in previous civilization games. the ages last longer and the differences between the ages are greater. for example, at standard speed, when i reached the 125th turn, the year in the game had just reached 1150 bc.

the total length of a game is similar to previous civilizations. each time you enter a new era, you need to choose a new civilization and obtain corresponding bonuses, units, and map graphics. the leaders you choose at the beginning of the game will always remain the same. these leaders have permanent features and are still 3d models this time.

the leader's appearance remained consistent and did not change from era to era, so you won't see a female pharaoh named hatshepsut wearing trousers.

also, leaders are not tied to civilizations. hatshepsut's traits are a good match for ancient egypt, so if you want the best solution, you might still choose "original soup into original food". but you can also let her lead any other civilization. if you want to end a game with a specific civilization, there will definitely be some mix-ups.

firaxis also took the opportunity to make some people who weren't top political figures in history into leaders, avoiding the same old faces for seven generations. firaxis specifically mentioned benjamin franklin, but i haven't seen his full animation yet.

when choosing the civilization of the new era, not all civilizations can be selected. this solves a point that made me want to complain about "humankind" - why can it suddenly change from celtic to chinese with almost no explanation in the plot?

each initial civilization has at least one "reasonable" evolution path. for example, egypt can transition to the songhai empire, and then to buganda. in addition, if certain conditions are met during the game, more later civilizations can be unlocked. for example, if a certain amount of horse resources is guaranteed in the classical age, mongolia can be selected in the exploration age. another interesting example is to start with rome, then choose the normans, and finally become england.

when an era is about to end, an event called "crisis" will be triggered. at the end of the classical era, i saw the beginning of the crisis of "the rising storm". it depicts the decline of the great empires of ancient times and requires me to choose a crisis policy card (similar to the dark age policy cards in "civilization 6"), which are all negative effects, so it is a moment of "choosing the lesser of several evils". at the same time, some independent tribes also spawned near my territory. these tribes replaced the barbarians and could be dealt with by military or diplomatic means.

lonely flat sand empty

entering a new era doesn't just offer new mechanical rewards, though. lead designer ed beach uses london as an example to explain how cities work in civilization vii. if you compare roman london to medieval london, you'll find that the latter has almost no trace of the former. the same is true if you compare modern london to medieval london. new civilizations are built on the ruins of the old, and that's exactly what we're going to do in subsequent eras.

as in civilization vi, cities still cover multiple grids, but now there are only two types of districts: urban and rural. at the beginning of the classical era, two buildings can be built in a city district, and this number will increase over time.

depending on the buildings you choose, you may also unlock special bonuses. for example, when using egypt, i built two egypt-specific buildings in the same place, making it a unique burial area. if you need a "tech zone", the approach is no longer to directly build a college area dedicated to technology. instead, you should make a city area specialize in technology and maximize the effect through the complementarity of buildings.

rural districts are roughly equivalent to the old plot facilities. remember the builder? that unit has been completely deleted! moving civilian units between grids? no more! instead, when the population grows and you gain new citizens, you can immediately place a new district on a grid (if it is a city district, it will not come with buildings, and you still need to consume production when building buildings), or you can add a specialist to an existing district (provided that you have unlocked the corresponding civics).

in the version i played, you can only build districts next to existing districts, which makes the city layout more compact and believable to a certain extent. however, for rural districts, i feel that this restriction is not reasonable. i would like to build rural districts farther away, because i think it is more beautiful to place mines and farms on the periphery. and under the current mechanism, i will plan a layout with urban districts and rural districts interlaced, which lacks realism.

additionally, when building new cities, they will initially exist as "towns" with no construction queues, and all production will be converted into money. you can still spend money to buy buildings in towns, and when you upgrade a town to a city, these upfront investments will also reduce the upgrade cost. i think this is a good choice because i don't want to manage 15 production queues at the same time.

golden wheat waves

overall, civilization vii looks beautiful. civilization vi was a mixed bag, and i tend to be on the negative side. all these years later, i still think civilization v is better looking than civilization vi. civilization vii is still cartoonish, but it feels more realistic and textured. the style is mainly inspired by miniatures, model railways, sandboxes, and museum exhibits. everything on the big map is pleasing to the eye. i feel like i can just reach out and grab these little people and examine them.

this is the first civilization in many years that feels "next-gen" to me. the mountains look more like isolated peaks than the continuous mountain ranges of previous games. so far, though, that's my only complaint.

as in civilization vi, leaders are 3d characters with lots of detail and personality. we saw hatshepsut of egypt, queen amina of zazo (the "standard" leader of aksum), augustus of rome, and ashoka of the maurya empire. in the diplomacy interface, the leaders of the two negotiating parties will now interact with each other, adding some drama.

diplomacy is very different from civilization vi. influence is now a base currency, produced by some buildings. whenever you take a diplomatic action against another civilization, you need to consume production capacity. firaxis wants to reduce the direct bargaining process and make each diplomatic action more like a provocation or overture with a specific goal. the upper limit of influence storage is low, and if it is not used in time, the excess will be wasted, which encourages players to participate in diplomacy frequently.

one interesting example was when amina and i were on bad terms, she would always offer me a deal that would worsen my relationship with my ally augustus if i didn't spend a lot of influence to oppose it. this gives the player some leverage to keep the wolf from devouring the tiger.

another use for influence is that during a war, you can use it to increase your side's "war support". war support is like a diplomatic tug-of-war, if one side invests more influence, the side with lower war support will get combat and happiness penalties. so now diplomacy is also a part of the military, which i like very much.

follow this hard journey to reach the stars

even though i only played 3 hours of civilization vii, i could still talk about it for at least 6 hours. there are a lot of things i haven't even talked about, such as the fact that you can "pack" your entire army with commanders and move multiple units around the map at once, and the talent trees for different cultures and leaders. so stay tuned for more information on this in the future.