Sid Meier's Civilization VII

I just cannot recommend this civ. I have played them since civ 2 and they have done some truly mind baffling decisions in this game and it's will frustrate the hell out of you.

Played this on a Free Weekend and I can honestly say this game was even worse than I originally thought it was. I do not think I would play this unless they pay me to play it.

I'm a CIV-player since start, and honestly, an hour is all I needed with this game to understand that there's no fun to be had.

absolute ♥♥♥♥ game, bought this and tried to give it a fair shot 29 mins in and already dealing with a bad ui and major game breaking bugs, i would not even pirate this garbage or get paid to play this. Casualized slop, somehow has less depth than civ revolution for the 360

TLDR: Even at half off this game is a rip off. Lets start with the good: The graphics had a nice update. Now, everything else that is wrong; Ages: You go through 3 ages and what you do in the first two have fairly little consequence, you can just bum rush out settlers at the very end and get a "military win", as it has nothing to do with domination, or standing army, just how many towns you have. Town / Cities: The two are split and you have to manually upgrade a town into a city, the tutorial does not explain how to do this, and it is on the standard buy menu for a city, but just by reading the tutorial, one would think that they upgrade as you develop them. They do not. Stats: There are no meaningful post game stats. End game: You don't get to play out the game unless you "One More Turn" it. The game does not have the capability for you to turn off turn limit, so it will just throw out a win/loss condition halfway though the third age. The previous 6 would let me sandbox and play as long as I wanted, this game feels like it's almost trying to get you to quit playing. Mechanics / Gameplay Feel: This part is honestly one of the less garbage new mechanics. The micromanaging is a lot more than I would like, but tolerable. Scouts, for example, search out campsites and then you have to manually tell them to go to it, instead of them doing it automatically, if there is no danger. Combat: Grossly simplified in many aspects, it's easy to fight and defend from fights, nothing remarkable, but a far departure from the wars of attrition of yesteryear. Districts: This is a change that I think I (can/will) grow to tolerate, but it's a lot at first. You have to slot your building into a city district, instead of building it as a detached entity, or as apart of the city. I sort of like managing it, but it was a unique choice for sure. Progression Blocking: As I mentioned with the town/city mechanic earlier, it also makes everything cost exponentially more as you build, since each new city adds another debuff to the cost of EVERYTHING. I am already past the refund window, so I am going to try and learn it better, but if you're still reading, just listen to what everyone else says and don't waste money on this. It has nothing to do with the Civilization IP, other than being tile based.

The worst title on Civ History by far. The graphics might be cool but having your focus on the leader rather than the civilization defeats the title of the franchise. Also I never saw so many random events even on the easier modes. Diplomacy feels broken with leaders turning their back on you with little you can do to strengthen relationship. Influence points is a terrible system. Older iterations were more realistic in the way the friendlier you were the more trading options you would open. Influence points would only make sense when you make a faut-pas (e.g. espionage, trade with rival civ against alliance/pact principles). And the amount of expensive DLCs that add nothing to the experience leave a sour taste. Civ2 and Civ4 still rain supreme in my books and even the very similar civ5 and civ6 I did not enjoy much in the past look much better options now.

Loved Civ V, and VI... jury still out here. It took me a few tries to love 'VI' after the changes from V; so I am trying to love VII... i'm not there yet. It doesn't feel like a net improvement in features 'yet'.