As a long-time fan of the Civilization series, I was eagerly anticipating the release of Sid Meier's Civilization VII. After spending several hours with the game, I have mixed feelings.

The Good:

Innovative Features: The new Era Shifts system adds depth, allowing civilizations to evolve in response to technological and cultural advancements. The dynamic Diplomacy System offers more complex interactions with other leaders, making alliances and negotiations feel more meaningful.

Visuals and Sound: The game looks visually decent, and the sound design and music feel nostalgic and well done. Each civilization feels distinct, from lush jungles to sprawling deserts, and everything in between. The improved art style feels like a perfect balance between realism and the series’ trademark charm.

The Not-So-Good:

User Interface (UI): The UI is extremely poorly implemented on PC and is weirdly slightly blurry. Resources on the map are hard to spot, and the icons for pretty much everything look bad. Notifications are both annoying to click through and simultaneously disappear without any reason. Tactility and telegraphing normally communicated through sounds, camera adjustments, and musical cues are either missing or have regressed into some sort of minimalist alternative. In general, I have to agree with most criticisms on this game, that it feels console-first and hardly geared towards the PC user-base.


Missing Features: Crucial, basic things are completely missing. You can't automate explorers. A lot of key commands either don't exist anymore or are completely hidden to the player, and you just have to try old combinations that you remember from other games. You can't queue your tech tree at all. There's no quick movement/combat. All advanced options to customize the map, start parameters, and overall game rules are just completely gone.


Performance:

On the Steam Deck, the game is mostly fine. The touchscreen functionality simplifies control inputs, though some functions were occasionally unresponsive and could be confused with bugs or misinterpretation of actions by the game's UI. The small screen sometimes led to losing track of units, which could be problematic during critical moments. While loading times were longer than desired, overall performance was steady, and graphics were visually pleasing, including the new fog of war system.


Final Thoughts:

Sid Meier's Civilization VII introduces some exciting new features and maintains the series' charm. However, the UI issues and missing features are significant drawbacks. I'm hopeful that Firaxis will address these concerns in future updates. For now, I recommend waiting for patches before diving in.

Pros:

Innovative features like Era Shifts and dynamic diplomacy.

Visually appealing with a nostalgic soundtrack.

Cons:

Poorly implemented UI on PC.

Missing key features from previous installments.

Performance issues on certain platforms.