Sid Meier's Civilization 7 review: That's my river

Part of me has always wondered when the Civilization series would simply run out of ideas. It’s a franchise that has spent decades making games that draw inspiration from actual historical events. How many times can you research Sailing or construct the Hanging Gardens? Well, as it turns out, at least seven, because Sid Meier's Civilization 7 has delivered another masterpiece that stays true to the games that came before it but isn’t afraid to chart its own course.

Here we go again

Your first hour of Civ 7 will be full of tutorials, which are welcome on your initial run. Even if you’ve played before, things have changed. There are no Workers or Builders, combat units don’t gain XP or rank up, some rivers are navigable, and you can mix and match leaders and civilizations like facial features in a game of Mr. Potato Head. When you move from one age to the next, you’ll head a new civilization with the same leader, choosing from options based on your play in the previous age.

The point of playing Civ 7 is to beat the other civilizations in one form or another. This is where Legacy Paths come into play. Players can choose a path to pursue, be it culture, economic, military, or science. These paths come with optional objectives. As you complete them, you’ll progress the age forward and unlock attribute points that can be applied to your leader for powerful bonuses. You can pursue one Legacy Path, multiple, or none. You can swap paths in the middle of an age or hop from one to another as you transition from one age to the next. It’s an open system that allows you to chase victory or ignore it entirely, although Legacy Paths play a huge role in every Civ game whether you like it or not.

Going with the flow

My first game of Civ 7 lasted over 20 hours. A result of an abundance of reading and a huge military at war with four other civilizations at the same time. Things started off calm enough, but quickly escalated as I realized the importance of terrain has been jacked up from previous games. Veterans of Civ games know that resources and terrain matter, but I wasn’t prepared for how crucial navigable rivers were going to be.

As I chased a military victory, I found myself training navy vessels at an inland city that was connected to a navigable river. The issue was Isabella owned the estuary. While I was able to negotiate open borders, she cancelled the deal as soon as I attacked Xeres, stranding some of my ships. This led me to attack Isabella to claim the entire river.

I probably should have checked who was allied with Isabella before attacking her, as the next turn every civ but one was at war with me. I had a moment of dread, thinking I’d surely be overrun as my forces couldn’t possibly fight on so many front lines. What I also failed to realize was that I somehow kicked off a world war. Everyone was fighting everyone. It was absolute chaos, but my focus on units that could bombard and a strong navy soon saw me dominating the fight. By the time I was using planes to bomb up to 10 tiles away, I was struggling to find enemy units to attack. Every civ was asking me for peace, and I was able to demand strategic settlements from their empires due to how lopsided things were playing out. Isabella, however, was wiped out of the game because we shared a continent, and I like my rivers.

Golden Age

Despite a few questionable decisions that I’ll cover shortly, Civ 7 has instantly become my favorite Civilization game thanks to things like the new Commander gameplay. Your units now earn XP for a Commander, not themselves, and can be bundled with a Commander to form an army that moves as one. All units bundled with a Commander adopt its movement, so you can move slower units around the world faster, then deploy them strategically once you arrive at your objective. Commanders can be leveled up to unlock bonuses, such as ignoring certain terrain penalties, or buffs to attack or defense. They have instantly become my favorite component of combat in Civ 7.

Resources have changed. They now offer more civ-wide bonuses, such as Incense offering a 10 percent science bonus in the Antiquity age, which changed to 100 percent production towards Missionaries and Temples in the Exploration age. Other resources, such as Jade, can bump your Gold by 15 percent per deposit, making your civ an economic powerhouse that can buy pretty much any unit or building it desires. Grabbing that Iron deposit isn’t so much about producing a Swordsman and will instead buff infantry and ranged units by one point per deposit. Going to war over resources is not a new concept in Civilization, but it does feel amplified in Civ 7.

While I could talk about dozens of things I adore about Civ 7, I must gush about the introduction of towns. Your civilization will now consist of both cities and towns, giving it much more personality. Towns don’t produce buildings or units through production but instead convert all of their production into Gold. Towns can purchase buildings and units, while only cities can use production to build. You can, however, convert a town into a city with Gold, or have it focus on one of several specialties. By default, a town’s growth will increase by 50 percent, allowing it to expand and claim more tiles. However, if you want to change things up, you could direct a specific town to focus on mining, religion, farming, or culture and science. As a neighbor grew angry with me, I turned one of my towns on the front lines into a fort town to beef up its walls and give my units a place to heal faster. Anyone who’s been in a tough Civ war knows that a five-point bump to healing per turn could be the detail that puts you over the top.

The list of cool new things goes on and on, and it would require me to write my own Civilopedia to list them all. Instead, I’ll finish my list of nifty things by shouting out the narrator, Gwendoline Christie, who played Brienne of Tarth in Game of Thrones. Hearing her describe new technologies and civics doesn’t get old. She does a fantastic job and adds so much flavor to an already rich experience.

Dark Age

Civ 7 isn’t all wins. While I love mixing and matching leaders and civs, I’m not a fan of being forced to abandon my civilization of choice at each new age. The point is to build a civilization to see if it can stand the test of time, right? It feels counterintuitive to force players to abandon their choice and adopt a new civ every few hours. The option is fine, but I’ll be shocked if players don’t push back hard on this system once it's in the hands of the masses.

While I was able to achieve victory in my first playthrough via the military Legacy Path, I found myself disappointed. There’s no way to keep playing after you win or lose a game of Civ 7. I loaded my save and tried repeatedly, scouring menus for options, but none seemingly exist. It’s like finishing the story in an open world game and then not being able to poke around more and explore. You could do this in previous Civilization games, so the exclusion of this feature is a head scratcher.

What makes being forced out of your playthrough feel worse is that there’s a bit of a pacing issue with Civ 7. At no point was I able to sniff the end of a technology or civic tree in two full playthroughs and several partial runs. Even focusing my energy on science, leaning into scientific leaders and civs, I never got close. You see, each age has its own civic and technology tree. If one civ smashes through the Antiquity age via a Legacy Path, you might be forced out of that tree and into the Exploration tree long before you can obtain some of the later options. Even if you tweak the settings to prolong ages, this will be a struggle for the average player. I’m not sure how Firaxis fixes this for the Antiquity and Exploration ages, but allowing players to continue after a victory in the Modern age would at least sort of fix a third of the problem.

To the stars

What Civilization 7 does better than I expected is integrate new concepts into a familiar package. Yes, things have changed, but for the most part it feels intuitive. You’ll have moments where you find yourself saying, “Oh, that’s how this works. Cool.” When that happens, it feels great, but it also pushes you to start another playthrough as soon as you’re done with your last. You won’t be able to wait until you can put that new knowledge to work for you. It’s an addictive loop, as if that is something that needs to be said about this franchise.

Even in situations where I’m feeling a little off about some of the new features, it’s not their inclusion, but the lack of player agency. I’m fine with mixing and matching civs and leaders, but don’t make me. I’m fine with Legacy Paths, but don’t handcuff the rest of the gameplay loop when the tutorial outright tells you that you can ignore them. The entire franchise is synonymous with “One more turn,” yet you can’t play one more turn once a civ achieves victory.

Despite my gripes, the biggest compliment that I can give Civilization 7 is to say that this review is inconvenient. Any time I’m talking, writing, or thinking about the game, I want to play it. I’ve been writing this for hours, and those are precious hours where I could be growing my Ming empire and slapping the other leaders around. Civ 7 is an absolute banger.

The review is based on a Steam code provided by the publisher. Civilization 7 will release on February 11, 2025, for PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch.

Bill Lavoy

Managing Editor

Bill, who is also known as Rumpo, is a lifelong gamer and Toronto Maple Leafs fan. He made his mark early in his career through guide writing and a deep understanding of editorial SEO. He enjoys putting in the work to create a great content, be it a wild feature or grinding out an in-depth collectible guide. Tweet him @RumpoPlays if you have a question or comment about one of his articles.