If you played Civilization 7 during release week and decided it wasn’t the sequel that you were expecting, now might be the time to give it a second try. The user interface, progression, and certain behaviors of enemy rulers have all been criticized by the Civ 7 community; the response to Firaxis’s 4X follow-up has in fact been so mixed that Civilization 6, despite being eight years old, now regularly has a larger number of players on Steam. But alongside the Crossroads of the World DLC, Firaxis has just shipped the first major Civilization 7 update, and it should take the edge off some of the biggest issues so far.
The new Civilization 7 update is vast and includes improvements and fixes for virtually every aspect of the core game. Menus and the UI have been the sources of most players’ complaints, so Firaxis has gotten straight to work by realigning the tech and civic tree displays, adjusting unit tooltips so they appear within screen boundaries, changing various in-game text so that it matches functions and mechanics (the description for Maya’s K’uh Nah unique building now says that it produces +3 instead of +4 Science, for example), and updating popups. If you felt like the menus in the 4X game just looked a little unfinished before, the new update gives them another layer of polish.
In terms of the actual playing experience, the majority of the new Civ 7 update – update 1.1.0 – is designed to refine the Modern Cultural Victory via the Geographic Society. “We made some key changes to improve how this victory feels and plays,” Firaxis says, “including removing the chance for artifacts to run out in the game, and making it harder for players to breeze through this path when no other players are aiming for this victory.”
Explorer units now cost more, in order to slow down early rushing, and a smaller number of artifacts spawn per continent. On the contrary, you can now research Wonders to earn more artifacts. Firaxis says it will continue to “monitor” all the Victory paths across Civ 7’s Ages.
If you need to impose sanctions on a rival ruler, after update 1.1.0 you can now do so even if your relationship to them is neutral. Crisis policies and social policies can now be slotted in separately if you unlock both on the same turn and the entire Mementos system has been rebalanced. Unlocked via Foundation paths and leader paths, Firaxis says that in some cases Mementos “were overshadowing leader and civ abilities,” but that others “were not quite impactful enough to take often.” A total of 13 Mementos have been rebalanced in the new update.
Another big change: when you use the unpack option for moving military units, you can now select the commander hex specifically and deploy the strongest unit in your army onto that hex. Other units will then be spread onto adjacent hexes, facing that strongest unit. It’s a small fix, but it should make arranging your troops that much more intuitive.
The Bermuda Triangle Wonder is now available for all players and of course, today, Tuesday March 4, marks the launch of the first half of the first Civilization 7 DLC, Crossroads of the World. It contains a new leader, Ada Lovelace; two new civilizations in Great Britain and Carthage; and four additional Wonders.
Crossroads of the World is available for $29.99 / £24.99. Following the myriad changes and improvements in update 1.1.0, Firaxis says that another major update will arrive on March 25, alongside the second half of Crossroads of the World.
If you’re going back to Civ 7, make sure you’re ready with the best Civilization 7 settings for max fps. You might also enjoy the best Civilization 7 cheats and console commands.
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