The BEST and WORST of the Civ 7 "Exploration Age" Developer Gameplay

there are things about this game Im very concerned about but I have to say their water graphics look amazing

Yo

Im not really too concerned about different civs having a huge advantage in terms of reaching distant lands. From what weve seen, all civs have the same requirements for getting there, without many bonuses affecting them. Its always: scout slowly across with ships->get cartography->send settlers. Obviously naval combat and bonuses to the settlements created on distant lands will be a factor, but that appears to happen after the big scouting and settling rush.

Im more worried about how distant lands will restrict gameplay ideas. Obviously, antiquity age naval powers will not really be a big thing, and certain map types like pangaea will not be able to exist. But also, the way a new continent is discovered, and every civ rushes over to take over the new land, feels like it mostly resembles european history instead of other civilizations that approached this time period differently, and may overcentralize the way people have to play the era. I hope it is better balanced than im thinking, but we will see.

Yeah, man, who are these people who fear the subscribe button?

Yeah, I'm not feeling the love on the crises. I like the idea of them, but it looks like they're tacked on. (or maybe I just haven't seen enough) One thing I'd prefer is that "barbarians" are thematic. If you're the equivalent of medieval France and you're surrounded by other nations you don't have "barbarians," you have rebels, nobles contesting the throne, etc.

I would also like different crises - one game every civ has some kind of rebellion, another game it's plagues, another game natural disasters like the little ice age, etc. Balanced, but not predictable.

The livestream was well-executed, but tbh if they want people to get hyped up they should just let you talk about it.

A religion shouldn't be linked to a single civ. World Religions are about coming together and thus, the game mechanic should reflect it. I think that the best way to tackle this issue is to have "Concil of the Faithful" in which the players who follow the same religion decide the tenets of the same religion, in a World Congress manner. People sharing the same faith, could recieve influence and culture bonus when interacting with themselves, and penalties when interacting with people from another faith.

Since we do not have religious victory anymore, founding a religion should work differently. I think we should come back to Civ IV's idea that every religion was linked to a Technology or Civic. The first nation to discover it, found the said religion. And the same civilization could found a different one later. This mechanic would reflect what happened in India in real life, that founded Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, and Sikhism.

My only concern so far is how religion will work in this game. On the one hand I do agree that religion becoming a big deal in the exploration age is the right choice, but they should be founded in late Antiquity Age. Maurya was famous for promoting Buddhism, but you can only found Buddhismv when the Mauryas aren't around anymore? This feels off.

I had the same feeling about all civs being forced to interact with the distant lands. It just strikes me as a bit weird especially if you aren’t a historically colonial power or naval power

The vibe just doesn’t feel right to me... everything seems overly scripted and repetitive. One of the best aspects of all Civilization games is the freedom to decide how to play and respond to unexpected events, making each playthrough feel like a unique story. You might choose to be expansionist, risking stability at home, or be more conservative, focusing on a strong, secure empire. Now, as others have mentioned, it feels like you’re forced into a "European-style" progression, moving through predetermined ages with specific steps. It’s as if the game says, “now you have to do this, then this,” limiting the freedom to shape your empire’s growth in a unique way. There’s only the “right” way, as the game suggests, leading to similar gameplay paths each time.

When it comes to crises, they’re also predictable and lack the sense of unexpected challenge that could disrupt your plans and require creative solutions. Instead of feeling like something unique to your playthrough, crises seem tacked on. For example, even if your civilization is thriving with a vast army and connected cities, you know a crisis is coming at the end of each age—like a barbarian invasion that appears out of nowhere in the middle of your empire, rather than a more realistic threat from a distant region.

From what I’m seeing, Civilization VI handled these aspects much better. Overall, I’m pretty disappointed so far.

Looks great, but it pretty much confirmed TSL games and Pangea maps are dead, which is a shame.

Without watching someone play the whole game, and everyone seeing it for the first time, I am curious to see how the distant lands work with the various map scripts. The whole distant lands concept seems very natural for a 4x game that spans human history. When you consider they are trying to address the late game "boredom" or people not finishing games, I think it's a brilliant idea and can't wait to actually watch it start to finish.

The fact that some civs will have tenancies towards the homeland and that you switch civs for each era, I think it will add to the replayability over time.

I'm not worried about the crises, they can get them fixed over time. I appreciate that they are trying to mimic the ups and downs throughout our timeline, like they did with Rise and Fall.

Overall? Play the game, send feedback, and try the updates. It is a game, after all. 🤷🏻👍

I’m really excited about the crises, especially as they’re a global thing

I’m really excited about the crises, especially as they’re a global thing

Excellent summary, thank you

About the crisis cards, maybe it would help if you chose which to counteract instead of which you accept. It would have the exact same effect and the system behind it is exactly the same, but the act is reversed.

Barbarian crisis is presumably mirroring part of the bronze age collapse where barbarian invaders thrashed lots of the established nations. And the fall of rome of course

You shouldn't get to choose your crisis.. It should be either random or personal to how you are developing your empire.
Have more food and pop than the other civs? Plague. Decreased food and production.
Been taking over a lot of towns? Boom. 75% war weariness and revolt.
Been focusing on culture and tech while turtling? Bam. Revolt or revolution.

Crises seem like a one dimension mechanic. But maybe not. Fertile ground for improvement in expansions!

There are 4 victory paths. They want you to reward crossing oceans but also have mongols that can advance that tree a bit on the home continent. I hope there is a balance mechanic for overextending ocean play, like the AI that can’t builds a land force that forces you to mind the store at home. Valid concern for an easy to snowball effect.

My biggest concern with this age is that crossing the ocean will always be what you should do. I think interacting or awakening to the world is fair game. But let’s take Germany for example, very influential - less colonies than competing powers, more land locked. For the sake of variety I hope that there are interesting alternatives if ocean access is limited.

It would be interesting if units like Privateers come back and they can be used to steal Treasure Ships or attack other naval vessels without declaring war. They will do less damage but in return, you can indirectly fight the other Civ without declaring war directly. What do you think Van?

Personally love the love of Naval gameplay, I love building ships and having a navy but sometimes I feel like it is either discouraged or penalized

I'm really hyped for this game to come out. It's coming out on my birthday month😂🎉

Well in real life Spain did just that. Took half of the wolrd like "Fuck everybody else". And britain took other half 😅 so.. maybe its not balanced but its realistic

The barbarian crisis seems fitting for the first age , ideally the others are less military based , it forces players to plan their civ to at least partially mitigate a variety of issues and doesn’t let them tunnel vision to one victory type .

Buildings becoming obsolete was a thing in Civ 4. It's not a new mechanic.

VanDaddy