The focus of the Civilization franchise has always been making a mark on the world and surviving throughout history. Because of that, warfare has always been a major part of the experience, with many features solely devoted to bolstering the player’s forces. While that can make for a lot of fun, some players have been looking for Firaxis to shake up the experience a bit. Luckily, that is exactly what Sid Meier’s Civilization 7 does.
When players start their Sid Meier’s Civilization 7 journey, they will quickly discover the brand-new army commander units, which are meant to lead their forces to war. Game Rant recently had the chance to sit down with Sid Meier’s Civilization 7‘s executive producer Dennis Shirk to discuss just what went into these new units. Specifically, Shirk talked about what the studio aimed to fix with them and what players can expect when they start their conquest of the world.
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Sid Meier’s Civilization 7 Review
Sid Meier’s Civilization 7 takes the franchise’s core formula, overhauls many of its features, and delivers another stellar strategy experience.
Sid Meier’s Civilization 7 is Shaking Up Warfare For the Better
Civilization’s Wars Often Felt Too Time Consuming
Perhaps the biggest issue facing warfare in past Civilization games was that players often had way too many units to command. Each unit required its own set of commands, and there was no centralized way to focus their attention. AI also went through the same thing, which could often mean turns taking way too long. According to Shirk, that is exactly what these army commanders are meant to fix.
“It would cause turn times to go out of control later in the game. The AI could have trouble with that, especially if you have a mountainous region and a lot of units that it needs to push around for wars. And we decided that that was one of the areas where, whenever this team were looking for benign areas to clean up interesting decision-making, that was one of them that really came to the forefront.”
With Civilization 7‘s army commanders, players now have a way to move up to six units together at one time, so they no longer need to spend as long each turn trying to get units from one point to another. The studio has also made it so that players can replenish units with a simple click and AI also has access to them, making war much faster and more intuitive overall.
Civ 7’s Army Commanders Also Offer Some Powerful Bonuses
While commanding multiple units through one commander is great, Firaxis has also given them a few other abilities to help shake things up. Each commander has its own sphere of influence that bolsters nearby units, each commander can be used to coordinate attacks, and each commander features a slew of upgrades to give it even more power. All of this makes them vital for Civilization 7‘s warfare, and Shirk hopes it also makes things far more fun in the process.
“It’s just a really, really cool new system that just makes the whole experience of waging a bigger war a lot more fun. It actually improves things for the AI side in terms of turn times, so I think it was just a win across the board.”
It remains to be seen just what players think about these army commanders or how they will evolve as the months go by. As of now, it seems like a really nice addition to the formula and a great evolution of Civilization 6‘s great generals. Not only does it speed up turn times, but the slew of abilities they offer give war a whole new feel, which really helps set this new title apart from the rest.
Grand Strategy
Turn-Based Strategy
4X
- Released
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February 11, 2025