GameStar editor and Twitch streamer Maurice Weber has already been able to extensively test Sid Meier’s Civilization 7. In a video on YouTube, he reveals his insights after 20 hours.
What do we know about Civilization 7? The new 4X game will be released on February 11, 2025, and introduces some major changes. For example, you will no longer play just one faction per game but switch it with each era – similar to the competitor Humankind.
The faction change in the game is one of the biggest innovations, but not the only one. You can find out more from Maurice himself in detail in the video:
A lot of puzzling with fewer mouse clicks
What else does Civilization 7 do differently? Those who have been annoyed by constantly moving builders across the map will be relieved – the builders are completely gone. Now, as your city grows, you place the new population directly on a tile where they build a land improvement. However, the puzzle factor when placing districts does not disappear.
Additionally, new cities initially start as communities. These convert all their production into gold, but produce nothing themselves. Later, you can specialize them to supply a nearby city with food. It can definitely be worthwhile not to upgrade every community into a city.
Eras and faction changes
How does progression work? Civilization 7 only has three eras: Ancient, Exploration, and Modern. Each era has its own goals that you can achieve along different paths.
At the beginning of a new era, several things are reset:
- Cities become communities
- You lose part of your army and your policy cards
- A large portion of ancient buildings loses effectiveness
When changing eras, you also choose a new civilization. However, you cannot choose it completely freely like in Humankind, but it must match either the leader or your previous civilization – these two are separate, by the way. Alternatively, you can unlock civilizations if you possess a certain resource.
The conclusion from Maurice Weber as a Civilization fan can be found in the video. There are now plenty of alternatives – recently, two new competitors appeared: Ara: History Untold and Millenia. But both games have the problem of turning into too much work.
