Eventually, Civilization 6 became the biggest and perhaps most-loved 4X game of its era. With its legacy more or less guaranteed now, it’s easy to forget that at one time, Civ 6 had some pretty major shortcomings. The AI would constantly start wars and the user interface bombarded you with alerts and pop ups. The point being, over time, Firaxis made Civ 6 much better, and while Civilization 7 might be starting from a weaker launch, there is still every chance that it can become the strategy game that people want. Release day is here and Steam reviews are still down, but the new Civilization 7 patch may mark the beginning of a recovery.
The UI is a little basic and unfinished. The Ages system is a big – perhaps too big – overhaul of the core 4X game experience. There are still too many menus and pop-ups. Our Civilization 7 review offers a complete analysis, but players have also shared their own concerns – over on Steam, of the more than 12,000 user reviews posted during Civ 7’s advanced access period, only 52% are positive. Firaxis has said already that it plans to support the game for years to come. With the full public launch now upon us, the second big Civilization 7 patch feels like a substantive step in the right direction.
For example, in the original, un-patched version of Civ 7, when you completed the final objective of a Legacy Path in the Exploration Age and jumped into the Modern Age, part of the Modern Age progress bar would be filled automatically – in plain terms, it meant you had less time to play in this final stage of the game, and less time to build towards your victory. That feature has been stripped out completely.
Also on the topic of Civilization 7 Ages, when you reach the end of an Age, you are confronted by a Crisis. This is a new system for Civ 7, and it means you have to quickly manage outbreaks of discontent and work shutdowns across your empire. At the climax of the Antiquity Age, you get the Loyalty Crisis. Until now, essentially, it’s been too hard to deal with – there just aren’t enough ways for you to increase the dwindling happiness of your people. With the new patch, however, you can now purchase villas for each of your settlements during this crisis, which provide a useful boost to your people’s mood.
The diplomacy and war systems have also been reworked. In my own experience, when it comes to cutting a peace deal with a rival leader, they’re far too willing to offer me their most valuable city as part of the bargain, diluting Civ 7’s difficulty substantially. The new patch makes your opponents less generous. They’re also less likely to start a war during the beginning of the Modern Age and your respective ideologies have a greater impact on their decision-making – if you have an opposing ideology, for example, rival leaders may be more willing to start a conflict, and less amenable to negotiating peace.
In terms of UI, you now get a notification for completed Espionage actions against other civs. Your current religion is now displayed in the belief-picker tabs and the alignment of text, leader portraits, and other menu objects like overviews and victory rankings has been generally improved. The complete patch outlines several other, smaller fixes, but Firaxis notes that crossplay between PC and console is temporarily disabled. “To expedite updates to the PC experience, we will sometimes deploy patches to PC at a different cadence than we do on consoles, including today’s patch,” the developer says.
Release day is here, so make sure to do background checks on all the Civilization 7 leaders before you commit to your first playthrough. Also, there are already some great Civilization 7 mods that can help improve the experience beyond Firaxis’ official fixes.
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