When Civilization VII is released in February next year, fans of the strategy series will have to wait more than eight years for a new installment. We got to play the new game, which fans have shortened to “Civ 7,” for half an hour at gamescom.

Familiar concept with fundamental changes.

For those who have played Civilization before, the concept will come as no surprise. You build a society step by step, starting with a small settlement. You slowly expand that until you become the ruler of a large, and above all, conquering empire.

However, at the beginning of the game, there is already an important change. As always, you choose a civilization, such as the Egyptians, but as a leader you no longer necessarily have to choose the historically appropriate leader. For example, you can rule the Egyptian Empire as a Roman emperor or even as someone who plays a completely different role, such as a scientist or philosopher.

As we know from older Civs, each leader has a set of specific perks and skills that help you further in the game. What’s new is that you can further develop your leader by unlocking new traits and skills, which you keep throughout the game. In practice, you do this by making choices about the events that appear on your screen.

So your choice of a particular leader should fit well with the strategy you have in mind. If you customize your city according to your leader’s powers, you will benefit from this in the best possible way. Furthermore, your civilization and your leadership choices can reinforce each other. For example, with Hatshepsut, the Pharaoh of Egypt, you can build “miracles” faster. This is also an advantage for Roman society, and if combined with that you become a superpower in this field. We even came across a “civilian” that gave an extra boost to wonder building, so there are a lot of options to customize your civilization.

Not ages, but ages

The biggest change to the gameplay is the replacement of “eras” with “ages.” There are three of them, much less. You start in the Ancient Age (Ancient Age), continue the game in the Age of Exploration and end in the Modern Age (Modern Age). Each age has its own civilizations and gameplay elements.

The first era lasts a maximum of 200 turns at normal game speed and begins with exploring the environment as usual. We play as Emperor Augustus in Rome, and within a few turns we come across the first nearby settlements. These replace the city-states from Civilization VI. They may be neutral as a starting point or they may be hostile to you. The diplomatic choices you make can give you influence, as can the buildings you decide to build. You can use them again later in the game, for example to gather diplomatic support for a war. A party with less support will be less able to fight effectively and will have a less motivated population.

Expand with more options and choices.

Meanwhile, expand your settlement into a city, with more land and buildings. In previous installments, a new “square” was automatically selected for you, without you being able to influence it. Now you can choose which tile this happens to, as long as it is adjacent to your existing tile. Each tile has its own values ​​and starts completely empty, but becomes fuller as the game progresses, for example, more houses are added to it. You also must not forget to provide your population with enough food and entertainment so that they continue to grow.

A much-needed addition to Civilization VII is the ability to sail rivers. The changes to the Settler system also change the way you expand your empire. A new settlement no longer starts out as a city, but rather a village. This earns you money and allows you to upgrade and grow your village into a city. There is a limit to the number of cities you can build. You can increase this, but “spam” small cities at the beginning is no longer an option.

Of course, there are also “Tech Trees” and “Culture” in Part VII. However, there are limits on the number of things you can unlock, so that players don’t stray too far from each other in areas such as technology. Only in the New Age will new technologies become available for development. In multiplayer games, you start with a maximum of five players in the first two ages. In the Modern Age, a maximum of eight players is applied. You can choose to play with only one age.

The “builders” who could modify your tiles with “mines” and “farms” have been removed entirely. This can get a bit repetitive, especially in larger games with multiple cities. There is a difference between “urban” and “rural” tile development. Urban tiles can initially accommodate a maximum of two buildings, increasing over time. Rural tiles are best compared to the “tile improvements” from previous games, for example for obtaining raw materials.

The strength of your army lies in its leader.

As Emperor Augustus, we quickly went on the warpath and focused mainly on developing discipline and training soldiers. Neighboring cities had a tough time, but overall combat at this point was simple. It’s nice to see your armies fighting, even when you’re not actually launching an attack. In previous games, two adjacent enemy units would just stare at each other for a bit; now it feels like a longer battle is underway, with an active, moving front line.

After a few short battles, the war spirit of our population has died down. We have been warned that this could lead to poor performance and dissatisfaction unless we do something about it, for example by building or appointing a “Commander”. New Commanders command groups of soldiers, “Units”, which you can no longer upgrade yourself. However, a well-trained Commander can command larger and larger armies. To this end, the Commander has several small skill trees, each focusing on a different branch of warfare and granting bonuses to troops that join that Commander. Think, for example, of expanded archer range or additional movement options.

The commander can move around the map with different units, which is easier and faster. Once you arrive on the battlefield, you can divide the army group into separate units, so that attacks on opponents give you a great feeling. The commander also allows you to choose a specific unit from the opposing team, giving it a bonus in battles.

Big changes between ages

Each end of an age is accompanied by a major event, which can vary. For example, there may be a major war that you have to survive. What is new in Civilization VII is that during this age transition you do not automatically continue with the logically identical nearby civilization, but you can switch provided you are prepared for it.

The game designers gave us an example where you start as an Egyptian, but decide to go big on horses. If you have a large cavalry together, you can evolve into a Mongolian culture as you age. For steppe people, horses are crucial as a means of transportation.

The video begins with an age transition.

The concept behind this mechanic may be reminiscent of a game like Humankind. However, there is an important difference: you can’t just switch to any civilization; it depends on the choices you’ve made. You can’t, so to speak, suddenly turn your Egyptian civilization into the United States when you move into the Age of Exploration.

Perhaps the most controversial change in Civilization VII is the fact that you can now change civilizations, albeit in a limited way. Some players feel that choosing a single civilization at the start of the game is fundamental to the franchise and that is now being challenged. It will be interesting to see if Firaxis responds to this criticism before release.

After moving to the modern era, the focus is on the ultimate goal: victory. You can take four paths to victory, with your choices contributing throughout the game. The options are economic, cultural, scientific, and military. The economic path is new, as until now this option was limited to incidental benefits, such as the civilization revolution. Compared to the previous part, the “diplomatic” and “religious” have disappeared.

Obviously, half an hour of gameplay was too short to get to the first age change, but then we would have encountered a major innovation. Your old country remains the foundation for your new civilization in Civilization VII. You build on top of your old city, so that some structures and buildings from ancient times remain visible, just like in a real historical city. It will be interesting to see how this works in practice.

What we can already see is that the new Civ’s graphical style looks more mature and less cartoonish than the previous entry. There was also a fair amount of criticism about this at the time, especially from longtime fans of the series. However, the game world remains colorful. The demo we played still had some minor bugs and other rough edges. For example, when characters appeared large on screen during diplomatic negotiations, we noticed that they lacked detail. The animations were also a bit wooden, and the lack of contrast and small print made it very difficult to read text and graphics at times. Developer Firaxis still has six months to iron out such issues, so you could say that this should be enough.

Initial conclusion

The seventh installment in the long-running Civilization series is already making waves. After waiting so long since the previous installment, expectations are high. The new installment includes new gameplay elements and adds much-needed features, but it also includes fundamental changes to some aspects of the core foundation.

In this preview, we’ve highlighted the most significant changes. However, there’s much more to come. During our playthrough, we saw some information flashing around about the “golden ages,” which we know from the Civilization VI DLC. It seems that those are starting to return, as are climate change and the natural disasters associated with it. At the same time, there are things we haven’t heard much about yet, such as whether AI opponents will exhibit smarter and more diverse behavior.

Civilization VII will be released on February 11, 2025 and will be available immediately for PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and of course PC. The game costs €70 for all platforms, except Switch, where the remastered version will cost €60. For example, minimum player limits apply on that platform.