For the record, "Sid Meier's Civilization VII" is my first experience with the long lauded "Civilization" franchise. Not long after this game was released, the hardcore fans of the series made up their mind on this new entry. Needless to say, this isn't what they had in mind. My stance as a first-timer is that the foundation for a promising game is there. But this game is so frustratingly slow and inconsistent across the board that it's a prime example of a missed opportunity. On the surface, this is a strategy game where you create your own city and expand it.
By building farms, setting up military posts, gathering resources, and commissioning monuments to your city's inhabitants, you set the foundation for where your city is headed. You also deal with other leaders and their own cities. You can decide to make peace and establish trading deals with each other. Or you can declare war and attempt to take over their land for essential resources to your citizens. On paper, that's the basic concept behind what you'll be doing. The reality is that the gameplay in its current state is an acquired taste.
I'm not necessarily talking about liberties being taken with actual history. Yes, you can play as Benjamin Franklin and rule Rome as I did. But even young kids know that's not how it went down in real life. When I say acquired taste in this case, I mean that the majority of what you'll be doing is waiting on your units to reach a place that you want to go. This isn't just because you have a limited amount of tiles that your units can travel through. Half of the time, a unit won't respond to your order or only do half of what you requested them to do.
I ran into said scenario a million times in my playthrough, and I for one am lost as to why. If this is part of the game, for there to be slowdown from your units presumably due to terrain, then why isn't that reflected in the range in which you're allowed to move? Is this a bug in the user interface where it doesn't mean what it actually says? If it is, I believe it. For a game that's supposed to be designed to welcome newcomers, I must say that this distinction sounds suspect. Most civilizations in reality can purchase land much faster than you do in the game.
Heck, the other civilizations in my world within the game were expanding faster than I did. If felt like it didn't matter what I did right or wrong to grow my city. The expansion of my civilization just happens randomly when the game decides. There's no rhyme or reason to it whatsoever. It matters not if I took the peaceful route and worked with other civilizations, or if I had to put my foot down on a neighboring city for being too greedy with their land. The result is mostly the same. I get to expand, but not nearly enough to justify the trouble for it.
It doesn't help that the UI isn't friendly to newcomers as originally touted. Excessive amounts of text that could easily be further condensed in explaining certain mechanics and options. Many events in the gameplay not making sense like the ones I described earlier. Your civilization uses several kinds of currency to start or work on various projects and goals. You'd be forgiven by me for failing to notice, since when I do spend any currency, I hardly see any change in the amount I have. Sometimes, purchases or orders straight up don't even go through.
As for what "Civilization VII" gets right, the background music is actually pretty good. The music in the menu and preload screen on PS5 in particular are still in my head for the time being. The visuals are fine, notably when it's only each nation's leaders on full display. You can tell this game's better built to provoke rivalries with opposing nations, because it feels like more is achieved even when lives are being wasted. There are bits and spurts where you can see the overall experience working. This holds especially true when things work out in your favor.
Overall though, your ability to get into what "Civilization VII" offers depends on if you think it offers a fair and balanced gameplay experience. In my eyes at least, this game didn't do much for me. It was worth a shot to grasp a taste on what this series is like. I'm still new to games where you can create your own park or community, namely with "Roller Coaster Tycoon", "Animal Crossing" and the ilk. Whereas the best games in this genre benefit from a simplified UI to better ease players into the game, "Civilization VII" bafflingly forgets to fulfill its own promise.
Final Verdict: 6/10
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