Civilization VII | Review

Greg "Goldhawk" JohnstonFebruary 3, 2025Last Updated: February 2, 2025

1 2,861 5 minutes read

Have you ever wondered what would happen if Charlemagne or Himiko were functionally immortal and led a civilization through three important epochs of human history? Well, if so it’s time to talk about the Civilization series again. Civilization VII lets you live out your alternative history dreams in a turn-based game that plays out across human history.

Let build for the future in our Civilization VII Review.

Comfort Food

This is a series I come back to time and again. I started my journey with Civilization IV and have enjoyed plenty of gametime between V & VI since (pro tip: don’t look up how long ago they came out, I felt my joints creak just thinking about it). My graceful aging aside, the opportunity to get my hands on Civilization VII was one I couldn’t turn down; and it has not disappointed.

Plainly, I’ve enjoyed my time playing this game and I suspect it’ll get many more hours from me. Civilization VII is about strategic thinking and ahistorical scenarios, and it tickles my brain in just the right way. The emergent stories are there too, just like you’d expect from a Civilization title. The three world wars I participated in during my playthrough occurred because Harriet Tubman didn’t like me and by the second of those global conflicts, Napoleon decided he’d support me against the onslaught of Harriet, Trung Trac and Ashoka.

Time to Strategize

The introduction of progress-based ages, and legacy paths associated with those ages really contributed to driving my civilization building during my playthrough. It focussed my diplomatic strategy, gave me strategic purpose in what parts of the map I tried to seize and ultimately drove me to play a more complete strategy that tried to go down multiple paths at once and allowed me to pivot in a way that has usually been more challenging in previous Civilization titles.

That might seem like a minor point, but that’s new for me. I was the Civilization V player who played one city challenges on repeat. I did my best to play Civilization VI with as few cities as possible and really optimise my empire to the nth degree. I liked city building.

In my experience with Civilization VII, I felt free; and encouraged in the right way to go and expand, explore and take part in the wider aspects of the game. I was able to participate in all the other things the world had to offer and as a player and I felt I was given the right incentive to do so.

City building, one of my favourite things about the Civilization series more generally has had a bit of a makeover too. You have settlements, which can upgrade to cities. No longer are you micro-optimising your tiles every few turns to squeeze just a few more production out of your cities. The game helps take care of these things for you. You have decisions to make, of course. Where you put your districts, farms, wonders and specialists does make a difference. So far I’ve been really enjoying the way it’s put together. I’m sure others will have stronger opinions, but I like the balance so far.

Performance and Steam Deck

On performance, well – let me clear things up. I predominantly played on the Steam deck using the standard settings and layout, but did manage 3-4 hours on PC before my PC decided to turn itself into an expensive office decoration. This meant I unfortunately lost my first playthrough, along with the screenshots and video capture and any ability to test out PC performance.

What I will say though is that the game does run well on steam deck. I’m not a heavy steam deck user, but from what I experienced I have no substantive complaints. I noticed a few points where it slowed down, particularly when processing into the next turn while trying to move around the map, but that’s not entirely surprising.

Which lead me to spotting one difference between the two methods of playing I experienced – I really enjoyed zooming in on PC and looking at the world, seeing the real craft that went into designing the landscapes and building districts. That magic of really getting to know your game world and the settlements you are acquiring was a bit lost to me on the steam deck. I think that was purely down to the steam decks screen size. I think it’s fair to say the team have done a good job with the steam deck implementation.

From One Age to Another

Let’s get back to those age transitions. I think they are an excellent idea, and as a release implementation I think they work well. It does, in my opinion, need something more to it. I finished the exploration age during a war and the war just stopped when I transitioned to the modern age. I was several hundred years on; all the units were sitting nicely and everyone’s friendly(ish) again. In truth that was a bit jarring, and I’m not sure the way around that as it stands. Frustratingly, it also stopped me from being able to capture an extra settlement in the war I was participating in. One more turn would’ve done it…

Additionally, towards the end of an age, you are told by the game that new crisis is ramping up. I was expecting a build up to a big climatic moment, or a at least a very hairy couple of turns. Perhaps the independent powers would be at my walls, people might be dying of the plague or perhaps my economy was going to collapse because of poor quality copper. These things didn’t always happen.

Unfortunately, in one instance as I transitioned between two ages, and I didn’t notice anything happen in the run up. I was told there was a plague but noticed no material impact on the game world. It was as if it didn’t happen. I’m not entirely sure if something did happen and I didn’t notice it. I think this was in part down to the mechanics of policy card selection during the crisis. You are presented with an option of what negative consequences you get through selection of policy cards. As the crisis grows, you select more, and mechanically I think that makes sense. I do currently wonder if that gives the player too much control over what negative impact they experience.

That said, the upside of this age transition and navigating the crisis is the levelling of the playing field with the AI. After the age transition the other leaders catch up to you (or you to them). You’re all at the base of the tech and policy trees for the new age. You get your bonuses for what you achieved in the last age, and you benefit from them in the new. In my opinion it’s a great way to keep the game dynamic and fresh as you move through the game. I was not tempted to restart because I was too far ahead or too far behind, and I didn’t feel I was set down a particular path without any real hope to pivot.

Wrapping Things Up

Let’s cut to the chase then. I stand by what I said at the top of this review. I enjoyed playing Civilization VII. It hits the right notes for me and it’s a good opening salvo for a game I expect will continue to grow with its player base through time. Yes, the age change can be a bit jarring and yes, the crisis mechanic didn’t always hit right for me in my first couple of games.

The core elements of the game are there, they work and it’s fun to play. The incentives and dynamism that the new approach to Civilization switching with the legacy paths will keep the game fresh both across games and within them. Abandoning games after about 80 turns was a big issue for me in the last few titles. I’ve not had the notion to do that yet.

Code was provided for this review by the Publisher.