Never played the Civ series before, but I’m totally into strategy games. Recently got 200 hours into Pennon and Battle and kinda burned out now. The Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era which I’m hyped for isn’t out yet, and there’s nothing else in the strategy genre grabbing me. Was about to jump into Civ 7 but saw the mixed reviews… ugh.
Civ games at launch are often a bit of a mixed bag, and the games improve over time with patches and expansions. That being said, the game isn’t even fully out yet, and early Steam reviews are notoriously unreliable and undifferentiated. For your first civ game, maybe look at earlier titles like Civ 5 or 6. They have aged very well, I still play 6 all the time.
This right here.
I played 6 at launch and it was a huge downgrade from 5 but now it’s been updated so much it’s now unrecognizable from what was released as 6.
Every patch, update, and DLC will change it incrementally back into a similar experience as the others. They like to try to get real wild with the initial release but it tends to get back to the same sort of things eventually.
I want to add on that Sid Meier had a philosophy called the one third rule, where on third of a new game would be kept from the previous, one third would be improved systems and one third would be new. I don’t think he is big into the studio at the moment, but i can see him still being a guiding light.
I don’t play many games, but civ patches will get the game polished and it will be a world better at some point. Until then, you can be the part that is booming the system or wait until the product is in a place that the community loves
I am hoping that is the case, but I do have to say that this one boggles the mind just a little bit to be launching without significant features that the previous games had like hotseat multiplayer and limited era games.
Looks like the general consensus is that its not terrible, but is unfinished and not at all worth the price.
If you’re looking to get into Civ, I’d probably recommend either five for a more complete, and polished game, or six for a weirder and more experimental game.
Civilization V
Just start with that one and you won’t regret it.
You should try Unciv. It’s an open source Civilisation game. Yes, you can play online too. Not a very good looking game, but still awesome. Works on Android too.
Yeah, its game mechanics are very similar to Civ5, which is still considered one of the high points in the Civ series. And it does reproduce them quite well, so I do think that can give you a good impression, if Civ is for you.
Then again, I do own Civ5, but still end up playing Unciv instead, because I’d rather have my laptop not screaming at me while it runs in the background and I do a couple turns every so often…
As others have said start with 5. The rule of thumb for civ games is to wait for the expansion dlc to release and buy the game on sale. 7 is also a significant departure from the previous games, so it’s probably even more important to wait or outright skip it until they get it more polished.
Also it’s worth looking into endless legend or endless space 2 if you want to try more 4x games.
Endless legend is so good
Humankind is free on EGS.
i tried it for 2h and refunded it, since i didnt enjoy it like the previous civs. It just didnt click for me and was not worth 100€ imo.
I might check it out again in a year or so on a sale
100€ for a singular videogame sounds so crazy to me
If you’re not really into the civilization series, I would always wait when the game has a huge sale.
I started with Civ5 during a 10$ sale with all expansions, 200 Hours. As a treat I bought Civ6 on launch, which while slightly barebone (all civ games are on launch) was really fun, and after buying the expansions and a couple DLC I got 500h on it so clearly a good investment.
I would put Civ6 and Civ7 in your wishlist to get notified when there’s a sale, and see if you like it or not after the fact.
The current reviews for 7 are mostly about the UI and the limited selection of civs to choose, also for some reason some players can’t bare the idea of stopping the game at the cold war just before the moon landing.
Did you read the reviews? Most are absolutely thrashing the UI which is critical for a game like this. Probably best to steer clear for now. You could try a previous civ game though, or endless legend maybe?
As others have said, play Civ 5. Better game with all the bugs worked out, and cheaper.
