The new Civilization 7 is set to be released on February 11, 2025, on Steam. The Founder’s Edition costs 130 €. But one player has managed to push the game to its limits already. YouTuber Drogo used so many bonuses that he ruined the gameplay mechanics for city growth. He showcased this in a video that was sponsored by 2k.
This is the situation: Civilization 7 is actually set to be released on February 11 for PC, Switch, Xbox, PS4, and PS5, but there has already been a chance for journalists and content creators to test it extensively.
The latest version of the 4x game is dividing fans because it introduces some mechanics from newer competitor games, which are unacceptable for purists of the series. For example, players will be able to switch civilizations.
It is also controversial that Civilization 7, despite being a full-priced title, seems to be released with significant DLCs in mind and lacks content that was available at launch in earlier titles of the series. Thus, the game will not include a time period with technologies of the present, but will end at the Cold War.
YouTuber stacks 18 different bonuses, breaks Civ 7
This is how one player broke Civilization 7: YouTuber Drogo shows what happens when you combine bonuses in Civilization 7 to achieve extreme amounts of food and thus growth for your cities:
- As a leader, he chooses Confucius, who provides a 25% bonus to city growth
- The Khmer Empire has a unique ability that allows a tile to keep its natural yield of food even when the tile is developed
- A city improvement of the Khmer provides more food in floodplains
- A civilization bonus of the Khmer increases the growth rate in the capital city
- The YouTuber also utilizes additional abilities of the leader to increase food and growth
- And he specializes his city in agriculture
By combining a total of 18 of these bonuses, all of which provide more food and growth, the player was able to increase 263.5 food in turn 76, about 6 times what is typical for a regular, non-food-specialized playstyle.
But by turn 98, it was over: the YouTuber noticed that his city was no longer growing. Apparently, the growth had increased so much that he needed “minus 1,112 food” for the city to continue growing. The game mechanics had been circumvented, as it could no longer handle the numbers.
Until “anti-food is invented,” that’s probably it for city growth, unless Firaxis manages to fix the bug before release.
It is noteworthy that publisher 2k sponsors this “I break Civ 7” video.
The YouTuber says he wanted to demonstrate in the video that Civilization 7 allows players to shape their civilization exactly the way they want, rather than being tightly restricted in their options as in previous versions.
This is what’s behind it: The more freedom a 4x game provides, the more likely players will find overpowered combinations. Thus, Drogo fantasizes about a strategy through which he unites an extreme amount of bonuses for cavalry units with a tribe while also finding ways to obtain countless cavalry units.
The Civilization series has an engaged and experienced fan base known for finding and quickly spreading “optimal strategies.” In earlier titles, the playstyle of building 3 ranged units early on and aggressively capturing cities to dominate a game from the start became “standard.”
If such “overpowered” combinations establish themselves in Civilization 7, they could spread very quickly and become the standard. Especially strategy fans looking for a realistic and historically accurate simulation may raise their eyebrows: Never has a Civilization dared so much new – the leap from part 6 to 7 will be huge
