On February 11, the legendary Civilization series will expand with a seventh chapter that does not seem to lack ambition. At GamesCom 2024 in Cologne, we had the opportunity to do a short test of the game, and then interviewed Executive Producer Dennis Shirk to discover in more detail some of the fundamental traits of the gaming experience. And now let’s take a trip back in time, to Ancient Rome and the dawn of its expansion.
Age System, Leader e Crysis System
The first feature that we must highlight is certainly the Age System at the base of Civilization VII, consisting of 3 different ages, namely Antiquity, Exploration and Modern. For example, the first will last a maximum of 200 turns, but it is clear that by completing various objectives along the way a player will be able to complete it in less time.
Each age will have its own gameplay features and will call us to achieve goals to obtain more or less significant bonuses in the next one. In essence, the more steps forward we make in the fields of science, culture and military life, the more benefits we can reserve for our empire in the next age. In this regard, at the base of the Age System we find a very specific source of inspiration, namely the Roman Empire.
“Ed[referring to the Creative Director]wanted to model it after Rome. Its empire expanded, grew, did wonders like aqueducts, sewer systems and so on, and then became so big that it collapsed under its own weight. But all over the world, especially in Europe, the roots of Rome are intertwined with various cultures,” Shirk told us.
A great empire would be nothing without its Leader, and in Civilization VII this area of the experience has been expanded. In the game, in fact, these fundamental faces will not be tied only to the political sphere, in response to the developers’ desire to offer a more diverse cast, made up of visionaries but in the most disparate fields. Think for example of Benjamin Franklin for science, Confucius for philosophy and so on.
In short, potentially intriguing what-if scenarios will open up: what would happen if a philosopher or a scientist were at the head of our empire? These questions are even more interesting if you consider that, as per tradition, each Leader will offer different advantages depending on their characteristics and inclinations, and that the complete experience will guarantee a vast set of different civilizations to the players, with the Leader remaining the same for the entire duration of the match. In our brief test of Civilization VII we began to slowly expand the surface of Rome, not failing to send Scouts to analyze the surrounding terrain and army units to eliminate threats in the vicinity: clearly we did not have the opportunity to see the “definitive version” of the Urbe realized, but we were told that in response to those who considered the cities of the previous chapter sometimes “disconnected”, in this game we will have to connect the hexagonal boxes of the same nature together, to the advantage of the sense of structural cohesion in the urban areas.
A very important aspect within Civilization VII will be the Crysis System, at least according to Shrik’s enthusiasm, which we cannot share at the moment because we have not had the opportunity to test the functioning of the feature. In reference to the previous example of the collapse of the Roman Empire, the Executive Producer revealed to us that the Crysis System is comparable to an event of this type.
As you complete objectives along the way, the current age continues to inexorably approach its end, until the game warns you that there is an impending crisis, which can take different forms depending on the era about to end. It had to be a bit like the real world for the Creative Director of the seventh chapter, think not only of the collapse of Rome but also of the World Wars and all those nefarious events capable of influencing the entire world.
Graphics and help for beginners
On the visual front, the Executive Producer told us that the team took the best from Civilization 5 and 6 and mixed it with a concept that the Art Director called “realism.” He has always been inspired by museums and dioramas and wanted players to be able to focus on a single portion of the map to admire it in detail. The Art Team is larger than the one that worked on the previous chapter and apparently has emphasized the cultural characteristics of the various civilizations.
“If you zoom in and look closely at the units as they fight, you’ll notice that they all have a combination of clothing and pieces that are related to their culture. For the same reason, the warring parties will fight a little differently. Every little aspect has been taken into account”, said Shirk, with whom we also spoke about the interventions made to facilitate the entry into the series for newcomers. According to the words of the Executive Producer, with Civilization VII the guys at Firaxis Games have made sure to lend a hand to new players while still packaging a very deep experience, capable of “getting complicated” for those who want it. Among the most important innovations in this sense we include the rewrite of the entire tutorial system, which is now not stand-alone like in the previous episode. The so-called Advisor System can “talk” to the game and the UI, in order to give the user the right suggestion depending on the situation. Ultimately, Civilization VII could prove to be able to effectively evolve the gameplay recipe that made its predecessors great, but at this stage it is really difficult for us to tell you more, given the brevity of the demo and all those gameplay features of which we have had nothing but a taste. So stay with us, especially if you are a strategy fan, because Firaxis Games deserves all the trust possible.
