Civilization 7 lets you mix and match history — and it’s a blast

Imagine Caesar Augustus astatine the caput of an service of Mongol warriors oregon Ben Franklin gathering the Great Wall of China. In Sid Meier’s Civilization 7, specified flights of humanities phantasy tin go humanities fact. The crippled has caller ages to experience, caller civilizations to physique up, caller leaders to usher them, and — for the archetypal clip successful franchise past — the quality to premix and lucifer leaders and civilizations to physique the empire of your wildest dreams. The Verge had the accidental to trial retired the crippled and speech with its developers astatine Firaxis Games. The brief, three-hour demo wasn’t capable clip to get a consciousness for however good leaders and antithetic civilizations enactment together, but I near feeling excited astir each the ways Civilization VII aims to alteration the people of history. 

In erstwhile Civilization games, civs were ever tied to a circumstantial person who was usually, but not always, a noteworthy caput of state. Later iterations of the crippled offered aggregate leaders for civs, and connected a mates of occasions wherever it made humanities sense, 1 person could straddle aggregate civs similar France and England some having entree to Eleanor of Aquitaine, who, during her unusually-long-for-the-time-period life, was the queen of some countries.

In Civilization VII, leaders are nary longer tied to circumstantial countries, giving players the accidental to synergize the peculiar abilities and bonuses of leaders with the unsocial attributes and units of antithetic civs.

“We’ve known for a agelong clip that our assemblage has wanted a ‘build my ain civilization’ instrumentality kit,” Ed Beach, Civ 7’s originative director, says. Beach explained that equilibrium issues made this diagnostic unfeasible for erstwhile games, but it was a precedence for Civ 7. “If we marque each the leaders equilibrium with each different and each the civs equilibrium with each other, past mixing and matching volition work.”

Before a Civ 7 crippled starts, players volition take their leader, past their civ. The crippled volition marque recommendations arsenic to what civ volition champion suit a peculiar person according to the circumstantial strengths and “styles” of each. I chose Amina, warrior-queen of Zazzau, arsenic my leader. She’s an economical and militaristic person suited for civs that similar to combat oregon marque a batch of money. I don’t similar to fight, but currency rules everything astir me, truthful I settled connected pursuing an economical victory. And though her attributes marque her well-suited to a civ similar Egypt oregon Rome, I chose her to pb her autochthonal civ of Aksum.

In erstwhile Civ games, Hatshepsut would pb Egypt. In Civilization 7, however, the prime is yours, and you tin spot what antithetic civs she’s champion suited to govern.

According to Beach, Civ games are developed according to a elemental equation whereby one-third of the crippled is new, the different 3rd is updated, and the last 3rd stays the same. 

Though Civilization is 1 of my “quintessentially me” crippled series, I wholly skipped implicit Civ 6. But arsenic I played Civ 7’s demo, I realized that the moment-to-moment gameplay fell into the “stayed the same” category. Despite missing retired connected an full game, I was capable to parse the new-to-me idiosyncratic interface. And what I didn’t rather grasp, similar the diagnostic that allows players to make specialized districts wrong a city, the game’s tutorial was precise bully astatine catching maine up on. 

One diagnostic that was portion of the “update” portion of the Civilization development pastry was the humanities epoch system. Where before, the transition of clip was marked by a civ progressing from the past epoch to the classical era, Firaxis has streamlined the galore humanities eras into conscionable 3 chapters — antiquity, exploration, and modern. Within each section are bequest paths oregon goals the subordinate pursues with each way arranged into 1 of 4 categories that’ll dependable acquainted to Civilization-heads similar myself — economic, military, cultural, and science. Since I was gunning for the economical victory, its attendant bequest way required maine to bash things similar found respective commercialized routes oregon amass a wide assortment of resources different satellite leaders would wage apical dollar to get their hands on.

At the bosom of Civilization 7 is the thought that past is built successful layers. Beach utilized the improvement of the metropolis of London arsenic an example, explaining however antithetic empires dramatically changed the look of the city. The Romans built the city’s walls that the Saxons would aboriginal amended earlier the Normans came and updated them adjacent further. 

The quality to premix and lucifer civilizations comes from this “layered” conception of history, and it doesn’t extremity erstwhile a subordinate archetypal picks their person and civ. For the archetypal clip successful the series’ history, players volition beryllium capable to alteration their civilization astatine antithetic points passim the game. The crippled keeps way of the decisions players made and the bequest paths they pursued, past erstwhile a subordinate progresses to the adjacent section of history, they’ll get a caller civilization to pb based connected their choices.

For example, astatine the commencement of the Exploration Age, I mightiness person had the prime to alteration from Aksum into different economy-focused civ similar the Dutch. Or, had I indulged her militaristic capabilities, I mightiness person gotten the Spanish empire instead. 

And though the thought of Ben Franklin starring the Chinese mightiness upset immoderate past buffs, the thought of civilizations evolving into thing caller based connected the paths they instrumentality and the technologies they make is dependable history. London’s assorted evolutions from a determination Roman superior to the crown jewel of the British empire is conscionable 1 example. 

“We person a strategy that’s listening to events that are happening successful the crippled world,” Beach says. “And it has aggregate thousands of small stories that tin travel retired of the crippled due to the fact that thing has triggered.” 

Those events don’t person to beryllium civilization-shaking successful scale, either. My scientists had developed a caller nutrient attraction method but needed to cognize however to deploy it: should they usage it connected immoderate bitter berries to marque them much palatable oregon usage it to soak immoderate hyena meat? Since the thought of eating grilled hyena didn’t dependable excessively appealing, I chose the berries starring to the find of however to cultivate olives.

I bitterly lament that the demo didn’t fto maine advancement to the adjacent property to spot however impactful the humble olive would person had connected my civilization’s past oregon the caller civs Aksum could person evolved into. That benignant of dynastic storytelling has been missing from Civilization games, truthful I’m keen to spot each the caller histories Civilization 7 volition alteration maine to write.

Sid Meier’s Civilization 7 launches connected PC, Mac, Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch connected February 11th, 2025.