Civilization VII Hands-On Preview: One for the Ages

At the time of writing, you won't yet have seen the major changes coming to Civilization VII, but I'm imagining quite a volatile reaction. A lot of gamers - strategy fans especially - cling onto their darlings dearly, and shudder at the thought of anything changing in a franchise they love so much. I could be wrong, but I can already imagine the lengthy Reddit posts coming out of this reveal.

At our visit to the Firaxis offices in Sparks, Maryland, surrounded by curtains so white and artefacts so old it felt as if dozens of PCs had been set up in the palace of a Roman Emperor, dining on some incredibly addictive cookies, we were given a much cosier environment to process everything that's coming in Civilization VII. The split from one, long game into three separate Ages. The separation of leaders and civilisations. The removal of workers, changing of districts, the influence system. There's a lot to go over, and so forgive me if this preview reads more as an explanation than an opinion piece.

So, where to start? Well, the most glaring change is undoubtedly the Ages system. Similar to this year's Millennia from Paradox Interactive, instead of playing through a Civ VII game in its entirety from start to finish, there will be clear breaks as you transition from the Age of Antiquity to the Age of Exploration and finish in the Modern Age. Ages will change after a certain amount of time has passed or a player has been eliminated, and each have their own techs to research, policies to choose from, and buildings to create. Some things carry over from Age to Age, while others are locked behind a certain Age. This change has been brought in to prevent people turning away from Civ due to the lengths of the games, and to stop someone just snowballing from turn 1 to turn 300.

On paper, Ages seem like a great way to both make Civilization VII stand out from its predecessors, while combating key issues players have had with the games for decades. However, during our session, we only got to play through one Age, and didn't see the transition between one Age and another, which felt strange. Essentially, what we played felt like a longer form version of the early game in Civilization games of the series' past, which meant that while certain elements were interesting to see like how tile improvements now come with your city's growth rather than relying on workers, it felt like we didn't get to see a key element of the largest change to the series perhaps since its inception.

The jury therefore remains out on Ages. A great idea, but we'll have to see how it translates when put to work in the game. The second-biggest change comes to the way you pick leaders and civilisations in Civilization VII. Instead of tying a political leader to a certain civilisation, Firaxis now allows you to mix and match however you please. Of course, certain leaders are primed to lead certain civilisations, like Augustus and Rome, but if you want to go for an American Hatshepsut or a British Ahsoka, you can find a way to make those combos work. Moreover, once you reach the end of an age, you will have to move onto a different civilisation, showing how empires changed over time. It means you're always on your toes and those who love getting to grips with a new meta will have spreadsheets full of the best combinations within five minutes of the game being out. Once again, we didn't see how this plays out in a full game, and because we were recommended to match our leader with their civilisation to start with, we wonder whether that's just the optimal way to play. Something that this change does remove is the need for each leader to have political significance, and we can now have culturally and scientifically important people addressing us in leader screens.

While we're on the topic of leader screens it's worth mentioning the improvements that have been brought their way. Lovely new animations have been added each time a leader approaches you or vice versa, showcasing the gorgeous new art style for Civilization VII, which brings a modern, grounded look to the strategy series, much more easy on the eye than the cartoonish leaders of Civilization VI. Environments, units, and more have also been given a visual upgrade with an immense amount of detail. Lovely to play on a 4K monitor with a beefy PC, but slightly concerning for anyone who's going to get this day one on the Switch. Anyway, back to the leaders and another change, which is the addition of Influence. Influence is another resource in Civilization VII, one that you gain and spend in diplomacy and other random events. We're not sure we managed to get the grasp of the system with the hours we had, but it seemed far too easy to just be the nice guy all the time, but then again with the amount of requests you get, you might find all of your influence is going on keeping good trade deals and opening farmer's markets with your bestie leaders. It doesn't seem to allow a lot of room for tactical manipulation, as you'll have to spend influence to do something that benefits your empire equally to someone else's, or you're stuck being the bad guy. Without workers and with a simplified district system which allows you to split your buildings between rural and city districts, you do have the mental space for another resource, but we're not sure Influence quite feels like a perfect fit for that spot.

Just like workers, barbarians are also gone from Civilization VII. Or at least the name has. There are still hostile factions right from the start of the game, but Civilization has finally taken the leap away from the term barbarian and instead labelled these third-parties as independent factions, which act both as barbarian and city-state later on in the game, with similar perks and challenges offered by them. Firaxis holds historical accuracy firmly in its heart, so it's interesting to see it take part in the debate around what we term barbarians in ancient and modern history.

Civilization VII still has plenty of that classic formula that so many other strategy games have tried and failed to replicate. In our time playing, we simply couldn't put the game down, even when called for our interview opportunity. It shows that even with changes that might seem devastating and ground-breaking, the core of what Civ is remains very much the same. Each game has its unique charm that keeps players on it for years after it releases, and so in effect Civilization's worst enemy is always itself. Hopefully, with these major changes and a positive reception to them when people actually sit down and play, Civilization VII can stand tall among its peers.