The "Civilization" series, where the Nth generation is not as good as the N - 1th generation, has ushered in the 7th installment of the series | Game Insights
Written by Ruiyang Feng
Edited by Shiwu Liu
2025 is a year that gamers look forward to. Many major titles, including Civilization 7, Monster Hunter: Wildlands, Resident Evil 9, and GTA 6, are expected to be released within this year. Among them, Civilization 7, developed by Firaxis Games and published by 2K, is scheduled to be launched on February 11. Players who have purchased the Deluxe Edition and the Founders Edition can already unlock and try the game in advance.
As a turn-based strategy game, the Civilization series is widely praised for its grand epic sense and high degree of freedom. However, after the launch of each generation of Civilization, there are always voices in the player community that "the Nth generation is not as good as the (N - 1)th generation". Half a day after the early access of Civilization 7, there were even "mostly negative reviews" on the Steam store. The gains and losses of the Civilization series are worth reflecting on.
Review of the Origin of Civilization
The Civilization series was first released in 1991, designed by Sid Meier and Bruce Shelley. It is a turn-based strategy game on personal computers. In 34 years, the series has successively launched 7 generations of works and gradually supports multiplayer online games, custom mods, and multiple platforms including mobile terminals, improving the player experience.
Up to now, the total sales of the Civilization series have reached approximately 70 million sets, making it one of the important series of major games in the history of gaming.
The game screen of Civilization 1 released in 1991
The Civilization series created and promoted the unique game genre of "4X". 4X refers to the four elements of "Explore, Expand, Exploit, and Exterminate" in the game. Players explore unknown regions, expand territory, develop resources and technology, and conquer opponents through military or diplomatic means to establish a stronger civilization and even rule the world during the gameplay.
One of the标志性 mechanisms of the Civilization series is the technology tree and policy tree. Players unlock various abilities by researching technology and culture, including obtaining additional bonuses or allowing the construction of more powerful units or buildings. Taking the technology tree as an example, from mining, animal husbandry, and pottery in the ancient era, cartography, gunpowder, and mass production in the Renaissance era, to nuclear fusion, robotics, and nanotechnology in the information era, the design of the technology tree reflects the progress of human civilization.
The technology tree in Civilization 6
The theme, music, and plot videos of the Civilization series are mutually compatible and exquisite. Civilization 4 emphasizes the origin and evolution of civilization, and its theme song "Baba Yetu", adapted from the Swahili Lord's Prayer, won a Grammy Award. While Civilization 6 emphasizes exploration, and its theme song "Sogno di Volare (The Dream of Flying)" uses Italian and is set against the story of Leonardo da Vinci, celebrating humanity's pursuit of exploration and progress, with a strong sense of epic.
In the game, these artistic effects are also very cleverly combined with the game. For example, in Civilization 6, the background music for China is the classic folk song "Jasmine Flower". According to the evolution of the era in the game, the music will also change. From the soothing and melodious guqin solo in the classical era at the beginning of the game, gradually adding flutes and erhu, and then adding an orchestra in the atomic age, as the technology is researched and the territory is expanded, the musical layers gradually become richer, bringing a strong sense of immersion to the players.
The various mechanisms in the game are intertwined with each other, doubling the richness of the gameplay. The base game of Civilization 6 itself has many mechanisms such as great people, policies, wonders, religions, and special projects. Subsequent DLCs have added mechanisms such as climate events and era points. In addition, the Civilization series has a very active player community, and there are tens of thousands of various Mods in the Steam Workshop, further increasing the playability of the game. When players feel a little tired, they often decide to "play one more round" because "the wonder is about to be completed", "the technology is about to be unlocked", or "the new city is about to be founded".
Various player-developed Civilization 6 Mods in the Steam Workshop
Therefore, the Civilization series makes players very easy to immerse themselves. "It's dawn" is both a joking梗 and a true portrayal of many players. Even Elon Musk's invasive brain-computer interface Neuralink's first case was to control the mind to play Civilization 6, and the player even "played directly until 6 am". It can be seen that the influence of the Civilization series is wide and the degree of addiction is strong.
The New Work Civilization 7: Classic Continuation or Gameplay Change?
At the TGA 2024 Awards Ceremony held on December 13 last year, Civilization 7 released its trailer and theme song "Live Gloriously". The theme song uses ancient Greek, Old English, Mayan, and Sanskrit scriptures as lyrics, with a magnificent momentum, discussing the pursuit of glory in life and death, pulling people back into the story of the Civilization series.
Subsequently, Civilization 7 was pre-ordered and listed on the Steam store. And it was unlocked in advance for players who purchased the Deluxe Edition and the Founders Edition on February 6 this year.
Civilization 7
Compared to its predecessors, Civilization 7 has many changes in the game mechanism.
The most significant change is that the entire game of Civilization 7 is divided into three stages: the Classical Era, the Exploration Era, and the Modern Era. Each stage has slightly different mechanisms and goals, and different crises will occur at the end of each era, and not all things from the previous era can be inherited after the era develops.
Thus, the entire game can be regarded as three relatively independent parts, avoiding the problem of "the outcome is basically determined after entering the mid-game, and the subsequent rounds are boring garbage time". However, this also causes a sense of fragmentation between eras and weakens the gaming experience such as the sense of achievement brought by "gradually growing from small to great".
In Civilization 7, leaders and nations are no longer bound. The leader played by the player will bring unique bonuses, and the nation ruled by the player determines which characteristic units and buildings can be constructed. The two can be combined almost freely.
The diverse combinations bring playability to the game, but also lose the sense of historical substitution. For example, scenes where Confucius rules the United States, Napoleon rules the Han Empire, and Machiavelli rules Meiji Japan can be seen. In this aspect, Civilization 7 is very similar to the game Humankind released in 2021.
The "class change" system in Humankind, where specific conditions must be met to enter the next era and select a culture
The mechanism of cities and plots has undergone major changes. In Civilization 5 and Civilization 6, there is not much difference between cities other than the capital, and improvement facilities need to be constructed by using builders standing on the plots. In Civilization 7, the newly developed settlements are towns that can only provide gold coins and need to be upgraded to become cities; the builder unit has been removed, and improvement facilities can be more conveniently established when the city area expands. This reduces the amount of operations that players need to perform for non-core content and reduces the burden of playing.
Civilization 7 has added a "dynamic narrative" system. When players achieve specific operations, small stories will pop up and give players some choices, and the choices will lead to different consequences. However, these small story plots are simple and the narrative is plain. The results caused by different choices only provide values in different aspects and do not bring too many new experiences. Similar mechanisms in games such as Stellaris are more perfect. Its stories are thought-provoking and closely combined with the game process. Even the characters "Little Gray" and "Gray Wind" in the "Gray Goo Storm" are deeply loved by players, triggering a large number of secondary creations.
The Gray Goo Storm-related events in Stellaris, with more and deeper content
In addition, Civilization 7 has some other changes, such as pioneers having health bars and cannot be snatched, rivers becoming plots and allowing ships to pass, and city-states having independent positions and diplomatic strategies.
The Nth Generation Is Not as Good as the (N - 1)th Generation: Is Civilization 7 in Trouble Again?
However, with the opening of the early access and the entry of some players into the game, Civilization 7 received a "mixed" evaluation.
The launch of Civilization 7 this time provides three different version options, with prices of 298 yuan for the Standard Edition, 428 yuan for the Deluxe Edition, and 558 yuan for the Founders Edition. The Civilization series games often offer a 95% discount a few years after the launch, and many players think that it is not too late to buy when the game content is more comprehensive and the price is relatively more affordable. The high pricing and the content that will be fulfilled in more than half a year have led many players to decide to wait and see for the time being.
Comparison of various versions of Civilization 7
That is to say, the players who have currently entered the game have paid at least 428 yuan. However, the current game experience does not reach the state that a game at this price should have.
First, the game has problems in optimization. Players have reported frequent situations such as lag and crashes, which seriously affect the game experience. Secondly, the game's user experience design is considered not friendly enough. The simplified interface has instead led to insufficient information presentation, making it difficult for players to get started. In addition, the combat and diplomatic mechanisms that most players are most looking forward to have not been able to show their effects well due to the slow movement animations of the units and the overly slow game progress.
The poor game experience caused Civilization 7 to receive a "mostly negative" evaluation in the Steam store half a day after the early access was unlocked, and the positive rating was once only around 35%. With more players experiencing the game content in depth, the recent evaluation has been upgraded to "mixed", and 50% of the players in more than 10,000 evaluations have given a positive evaluation.
The menu page of Civilization 7 is relatively simple
Ignoring the common bugs, optimizations, and problems such as stiff translations, UI styles, and tutorial guidance in the early stages of the game's launch, the current situation of the Civilization 7 series is not too surprising. In fact, in the early stages of the launch of each generation of the Civilization series games, there will always be complaints in the player community that "the Nth generation of Civilization is not as good as the (N - 1)th generation of Civilization".
On the one hand, the Civilization series is accustomed to launching the main body first, and then slowly adding DLCs and optimizing. This leads to the fact that almost every generation of the game has a low playability in the early stages of the launch. For example, the base game of Civilization 6 was released on October 21, 2016, and its two DLCs, Rise and Fall and Gathering Storm, were released in 2018 and 2019 respectively, and the Leader Pass was not updated until March 2023. In more than seven years, the game has always been in a relatively incomplete state. Another example is that in the early stages of the launch of Civilization 6, the gameplay was relatively single. In the early stage after the start, obtaining a large amount of productivity by cutting down forests was the best solution for the vast majority of games, which led to a significant reduction in the operations that players could choose.
