CiV VII The first 100 hours

First Impressions 

 I purchased Civ VII from Steam earlier this summer when it was on sale and almost immediately pulled an all-night session to complete a game. 

I decided I liked the game, did not regret my purchase but I also had won with little to no clue as to what I was doing. 

 Many of the objectives remained opaque to me. Like how to get a tile yield to 40, what even was a tile yield anyway? 

 The short version. 

I like this game and would recommend it, but with some reservations. It is a different take on the concepts of Civilisation games rather than an evolution of what has come before. From my point of view there have been three phases of Civilisation so far, the game from 1 (which I never really played) to III. I got into it around II but III is where I really got to like this game and I regards IV as the ultimate version of that classic style of Civ.

Then there are Civ V and VI which I regard as evolutions of the game from Civ IV. I liked the direction that the game was going in up to Civ VI.

Civilization VII is a different game, in the play and look and with the Ages system it is broken down into 3 mini-civilization games. The Ancient era, the Age of Exploration and the Modern Era. Which leads to the first problem many have, the leader is the only constant in the eras, identity of the civilisation is somewhat subsumed into the leader.

You can win each age and gain some boons into the next era or not and the next era becomes perhaps more difficult. Though there are legacies that mitigate the loss. And this is another issue that some may have. The end of the era occurs when it occurs and takes no account of what one is currently doing. One may be one turn away from destroying a civilisation and the era ends. The armies reset and the next rea starts out at peace. Each era is a game onto itself. 

It may inform and influence stuff in the next era, I personally thing that some things like wonder building should be continued or completed is it was say less than 4 or 5 turns to completion. Given the time jumps in the age transition.

You start off with a combat unit and a special type of settler called a founder and it and all settler type units are no longer auto captured in combat by hostile units. Barbarians are no longer really a thing; they are now independent powers and settle city states. Some hostile city states can act barbarian like but on the default setting are not as relentlessly hostile as barbarians were. 

There are no workers and the kind of stuff workers did are now done with working citizens of the city. This makes the selection of hexes to work more significant decision than in the older versions of the game since there is no way to back out of a decision. Urban tiles have buildings and these contribute to yields, science, production, money, etc. Up to two buildings per tile and some buildings last for the entire game, not just the current age (they are not over buildable). Wonders are not over buildable. I suspect that wonders outside the antiquity age are not as important, but I need to play more to really understand the role of wonders in the later ages. 
I know that I have not built much and not suffered much, at least on the standard difficulty.

The Good

• I really like the no workers
• I like that settlers are not a one-shot kill
• I like the independent powers system
• I like the ages system and this it will really shine in multiplayer. Both because a player can catch up, it enables a shorter game, and casual games with players who are using the game as an online social activity, rather than competitive deity level fiends. 

The Bad

• UI issues, there are still some UI issues, particularly noticeable fighting around built-up tiles. The UI is also quite clunky. Working out what building are in a tile, or its total yields are harder than it should. Bring back some of the building colour coding. Other than during the creation of a new building, I have found no way to figure out the adjacency bonuses, other than to remember them or look up the relevant documentation. Too much work.
• Player feedback, it can be very difficult to determine how one is doing overall relative to one's rivals. There is no score (though there must be some internal version, since it can grant to win to a player where none have completed the age completion requirements.
  To this, I could add in end game analytics or even end of age analytics. At the moment, or at least a month ago (since I last played), The age or the game can end and leave one quite uncertain as to how victory was achieved. When, exactly, did production outpace the rival civilizations? Not available, as far as I can tell. No graphs, no timeline. I want this back.

• I hate the wonder videos, bring back the Civ VI wonder videos

Finally

I really like the game and would give it a thumbs up but will admit it is a somewhat different game. I like most of the changes but have some gripes.