Never before has a Civilization dared to try so many new things

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After the big opening event for gamescom 2024, an official gameplay showcase for Civilization 7 took place. For more than 25 minutes, the developers at Firaxis explained what they want to do differently and better with the new part of the venerable global strategy series.

What’s new in Civilization 7? While the new trailer for Civ 7 at Opening Night Live was nostalgic and superficial, the gameplay showcase that followed went into much more depth (via YouTube). What is striking is that the experienced developers at Firaxis are not afraid to adopt ideas from their younger global strategy competitors and do a lot of things differently with the seventh part.

  • At the beginning of a game, you choose your leader and starting people separately. In addition, not only heads of state will be available as leaders, but also other well-known personalities such as Confucius or Benjamin Franklin.
  • A change of race is planned for each era, similar to Humankind in 2021 (the initially chosen leader remains). Three eras are planned: Ancient, Age of Discovery and Modern.
  • The leader levels up throughout the game, unlocking new advantages.
  • There will be no more builders and you will no longer have to move citizens back and forth between fields.
  • The districts from the predecessor are replaced by a completely new system. There are rural and urban districts in Civ 7. The city districts provide you with two building slots each. You can freely choose which buildings should go there, but you can activate additional bonuses through certain combinations.
  • It will no longer be possible to win through a religious victory. The four possible victory paths are: economy, culture, military and science.
  • Each victory path has a goal for each era. With a focus on the military, you should own a certain number of cities. You can also tackle goals from multiple victory paths in parallel. Mastering the goals brings legacy points, bonuses for the next eras, or they represent the victory conditions in the final era.
  • Walls can no longer be built only around the city center, but around every district of a city.
  • When moving to a new era, the buildings from previous eras become less effective. There are therefore good reasons to rebuild cities with each new phase and use current facilities.
  • Diplomacy gains new options as well as the resource influence. With influence, you can support proposals from other parties, impose effects such as war fatigue on them, or sanction them.
  • Instead of barbarian villages, you will now find neutral settlements in the world that you can defeat militarily or support with influence. The latter ensures that the settlements grow into state cities, of which you become the suzerain.

    • Here is the new trailer for Civilization 7 from gamescom 2024:

    Sid Meier’s Civilization 7 shows gameplay in trailer

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    Our Maurice is thrilled

    How does the new Civilization 7 play? Colleague Maurice Weber, known to be a big strategy fan, was able to play the new Civ for three hours and is surprised in his new video on YouTube because so much is different, but the global strategy is still a lot of fun.

    Specifically, Maurice praises:

  • The content creator praises the graphics of Civilization 7, saying they are more like paintings than comics. Not as colorful. Much prettier. The design and atmosphere are much better than the predecessor.
  • The improved visuals are also noticeable in the details. You can now see which buildings have been built in each city area and which district is already protected by a wall.
  • In addition, the armies can be accompanied by visible commanders if desired. They can, for example, call reinforcements from the home town to the front and combine attacks from several units on a target. Commanders level up and provide more learnable talents than the troops from Civilization 6.
  • Since there are numerous races, each with their own research, each game should feel much more varied thanks to the three race changes than is the case in Civ 6. However, Maurice also admits that this means Civilization deviates even more from depicting realistic eras than was already the case in the past.
  • The four victory paths provide players with clear goals right from the first era, which is a noticeable improvement over the previous victory conditions, which often only become relevant at the end.
  • What Maurice likes about the new district system is that it feels more like organic city growth than before, and that it plays smoothly and elegantly right from the start because it sensibly combines several previous systems.
  • Maurice is already looking forward to using the new diplomacy system to more or less secretly pull the strings in multiplayer games and stab his opponents in the back.

    • Is there nothing to criticize? In Maurice’s opinion, the developers are changing too much when it comes to happiness. In the new Civ, cities generate happiness points through buildings and bonuses. However, happiness can also decrease through buildings or if you own more cities than you can currently maintain.

    When you build up a surplus of happiness, you regularly trigger a celebration that activates additional bonuses for a certain period of time. The bonuses you receive are determined by your form of government. There is also an additional politics slot (which are no longer divided into different categories). Maurice finds this new system “too banal, lacking in personality and reduced.”

    Is there another played opinion? By the way, colleague Martin Deppe was also at the preview event at Firaxis. You can read his extensive preview on gamestar.de (paywall). His conclusion was also very positive: “Civilization 7 will be nothing less than a revolution.” Of course, you can also expect more Civilization 7 in our livestream program for gamescom 2024:

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    You don’t have to wait too long to be able to play Civilization 7 yourself. The final release is scheduled for February 11, 2025 – and according to Martin Deppe, the preview version shown was already in good technical condition (“ran smoothly and without crashes”).

    What’s next at gamescom? After the Opening Night Live on August 20, 2024, gamescom 2024 will really get going in the coming days. An extremely exciting trade fair awaits you on site in Cologne, with impressive stands and many play options. But there will also be a lot on offer on screen, as there will be further streams – for example the FYNG show from GameStar, GamePro and MeinMMO.

    Webedia Gaming (GameStar, GamePro, MeinMMO) accompanies the major gaming event as the official media partner of Gamescom 2024.

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