DLCSid Meier's Civilization® VII: Tides of Power CollectionLoading store offers
Sid Meier's Civilization VII
Sid Meier's Civilization VII makes the evolution of an empire across the Ages its strategic center. The Steam PC version has both solo play and online multiplayer, and the current price is $30.64 from 
Eneba. If you want to begin building your civilization now, that price is the relevant point of comparison. Sid Meier's Civilization VII currently costs $34.99 from Eneba; the next announced Steam sale window is Dec 17, 2026 – Jan 4, 2027, though participation is not guaranteed.
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All-time low ~ $30.05across Steam & third-party stores
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Price History
Past 36 months · Updated dailyHistorical Low~ $30.092026-08Current Low Across Stores~ $30.64Enebavs. Historical Low+2%
Prices cover Steam and 39 authorized stores; only legitimate offers are counted. The chart shows weekly market-wide lows and Steam's official price across the past 36 months.
DLC
DLCSid Meier's Civilization® VII: Right to Rule CollectionLoading store offers
DLCSid Meier's Civilization® VII: Crossroads of the World CollectionLoading store offers
DLCSid Meier's Civilization® VII: Himiko (High Shaman) PersonaLoading store offers
DLCSid Meier's Civilization® VII: Xerxes (The Achaemenid) PersonaLoading store offers
01About Sid Meier's Civilization VII
Guide an empire through human history and shape its course through strategic choices. Explore unfamiliar territory, establish settlements, build Wonders, and advance science, culture, military strength, or the economy. Choose a historical leader separately from your civilization and pursue different paths to victory. Steam player rating: 48% from 45,387 reviews. The Steam PC version offers single-player and online multiplayer. Full controller support is available.
Credits
Developer
Firaxis Games
Publisher
2K
Lowest recorded in 36 months
$30.092026-08-03 · FanaticalBase game · same records as the chart above; USD history, not a regional Steam low.Language support
| Language | Interface | Subtitles | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Traditional Chinese | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| English | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Show 9 more languages
| Language | Interface | Subtitles | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| French | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Italian | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| German | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Spanish | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Japanese | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Korean | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Polish | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Portuguese-Brazil | Yes | Yes | — |
| Russian | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Steam PC edition data · 2026-10-20
02Before you buy
Play modes
The Steam PC version includes single-player and online multiplayer, including matches that span multiple Ages.
Controller and interface
Full controller support is listed for the Steam PC version. Listed interface languages include English, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, and both Chinese variants.
03Frequently asked questions
Which Ages are included?
You lead an empire through Antiquity, the Exploration Age, and the Modern Age.
Can my civilization change between Ages?
Yes. Between Ages, you can keep a civilization, evolve it into another, or blend elements.
How does multiplayer work?
Multiplayer can span multiple Ages or take place within a single Age.
Latest news about Sid Meier's Civilization VII
Popular Steam reviews
Native-language selection · 10 reviewsSelected helpful reviews in this language show both recommendations and criticisms. This selection does not represent the overall positive rating; opinions reflect the version reviewed.
RecommendedSteam player
I have thousands of hours across every Civilization title since Civ III and have extremely mixed feelings on Civ VII. The Bad: I absolutely hate civ switching; I tried giving it a chance, but it practically ruins the experience. I play Civ games to invest in my singular civilization—to see one civilization stand the test of time—not see it be remade every age. If something has to change between ages, it should be leaders, not civs. Age transitions aren't inherently bad; in fact, I think they're a great idea that's just poorly implemented. (Edit: The new continuity setting is a step in the right direction.) Legacy paths feel narrow, restrictive, boring, and need significant work. Religion system feels like an afterthought. Diplomacy and trade need a revamp. Civ 6 trade and diplomatic interactions were much better. Maps don't feel unique or nearly diverse enough. It seems the exploration age mechanics have dramatically limited the opportunity for interesting maps. The UI needs MAJOR work and the Civilopedia is inadequate. The Good: The artwork is good, striking an acceptable balance between the aesthetics of Civ 5 (which I prefer) and 6. The music is great! Christopher Tin's "Live Gloriously" is the best theme since "Baba Yetu". Combat is massively improved. Commanders are a fun and refreshing addition, enhancing tactical combat while removing many tedious frustrations. The ability to pack and unpack units is brilliant. Naval combat finally feels worthwhile. Plus... NAVIGABLE RIVERS! Towns are a fantastic change! (Further iteration on this like a "resource outpost/village" system would be great!) Love the prospector unique—wish every civ had one, just enhance the unique American version. Love the inclusion of an economic victory condition. It would be even better with a revamped trade system and more open-ended legacy paths. Meta progression is a great addition that adds some depth, variety, and customization between individual games. Overall: Aside from civ switching, the bones of the game are mostly good. Updates are slowly moving many things in the right direction, but it's going to take a lot more work. Is it worth playing? I still think so, but probably recommend waiting for more development. If Firaxis can fix the disjointed ages, narrow legacy paths, and find a way to implement playing one civilization from beginning to end, then I think Civ 7 has the potential to be a truly great experience—but it has yet to meet the significant expectations for such a storied franchise. P.S. Bring back the customizable palace! I've missed it tremendously since Civ 3!!Show moreShow less
186.6 hours at review475 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
Buyer Beware - Locked out of game play by 2k's FairPlay System. I purchased the £119.99 deluxe edition version of the game when it came out on Steam with full intent to play it fairly. No cheats, no mods, just the based game and the DLC content. However, i was and have been since launch, locked out of launching the game due to 2K's FairPlay enforcement system, which flagged my PC simply because i had unrelated modding tools installed (used for other games). I never modded Civ VII in any way or had plans to. This restriction was not disclosed at the time of purchase, and 2K's support confirmed that unless i removed the modding software (even though it wasn't used in conjunction with Civ VII) they wouldn't let my play the game i legally purchased. 2K refused to escalate the issue and i was initially denied a refund due to an automated policy by Steam. After weeks of persistence and failed launch attempts (the time was flagged as 'playtime'), i was eventually granted a steam wallet refund - only after explaining that i never have actually gotten to access the game. This is more than a technical issue, this is an invasion of digital autonomy. I believe it is completely unacceptable for a game publisher to dictate what software you're allowed to keep on your personal PC, especially when it has nothing to do with the game in question. If you have modding software or game tools on your PC for any reason, you may be blocked from launching Civ VII at all. Proceed with caution. This kind of behaviour from a publisher sets a dangerous precedent. In its current state, i cannot in good conscious recommend this game to anyone who values digital autonomy and due to the extreme lack of support from 2K. Steam, on the other hand, gets a big tick from me for being helpful and easy to deal with. Edit - For transparency, it was WeMod, Nexus Mods, and CurseForge.Show moreShow less
7.9 hours at review7,116 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
I have about 60 hours into this game, and I am having a great time with it, despite some of the annoying aspects of the interface. I'm currently in my 70s, and have played every Civilization game since Civ II. I therefore came to Civilization 7 expecting it to be significantly different from Civilization 6 (because every new Civ game has been very different from the previous one). I have never been a "power player"--I think the only Deity-level games I've won have been by accident, and there were maybe two of them. So this is a summary for those sorts of players. Civilization 7 is complicated in a way that I particularly like. Mixing and matching leader abilities, civilization abilities, and mementos and figuring out the "best" pairings for my play style is fun, especially with so many of them. Changing my play style to get to the end of an Age more or less intact is another thing I love about this game. I also really like the way the leaders develop differently--and have to be played differently--depending on what attributes they earn during a particular game. I expect to get a lot of years of enjoyment out of this. I am a bit unhappy about the forced ending of the three ages--being able to keep on going for "just one more turn" is one of the things I've enjoyed in other Civ games, and I'm disappointed that it wasn't included in this one. What I'd really like is a "player's choice" button, where you could keep playing whatever age you were without moving on ever, or continue to move from Antiquity to Exploration to Modern as per the current design. I haven't made it to the end of the Modern age yet, so I don't know if they still have Giant Death Robots, but I kind of hope so... Some aspects of the user interface are mildly annoying, and I'm still figuring out where some of the information I want is hidden. I consider these mild annoyances and part of learning the new game, but I can see that they would really bother players who prefer a more intense gaming style. And yes, I will probably buy the DLC when it starts coming out.Show moreShow less
60.2 hours at review464 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
**EDIT** I'm going to attach my edit to the header rather than the footer and keep it short and sweet (at least as short and sweet as I ever do anything). The bottom line remains this: Is it now at least a PLAYABLE game? Yes. It it in ANY way a Civilization game and should it be marketed as such? 100% Absolutely NOT. Activision's 'Call to Power' has more right to call itself a Civilization game than this pile of NOT Civilization garbage does. Hey, devs? Ever hear the old maxim, 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it'? Well, it wasn't broke. For over 30 years, it was not only NOT broke, but it was the PLATINUM standard for 4X gaming. And then you went and utterly and completely 'fixed' it and broke it beyond repair. Stop working on this dumpster fire. Fire literally everyone who was involved with this at the management level who thought this was a good idea. Get to work on Civ 8 and making it a next-gen upgrade of Civ 6 and the community MIGHT forgive you for this travesty you've foisted, half-finished and craptacular, upon us. **END EDIT** As a player of the series for over 30 years now (I started on the multiplayer build of Civ 1 - CivNet, in the early 90s - and have played every version, even that train wreck console port, Revolution, extensively), Civ 7 is... such an absolute fail, I can't even really begin to put into words how badly 2K/Firaxis missed the mark here. LITERALLY the catchphrase of the ENTIRE franchise has always been "One. More. Turn." YOU CAN'T ONE MORE TURN IN CIV 7 - When a victory condition is reached (which is a convoluted nightmare mess of nonsense to reach now) THE GAME HARD ENDS. The Civilopeida - once the absolute hallmark of in-game aids in the industry - is now nothing more than a useless historical data entry. Guys, if I wanted what you put in the Civilopedia, I'd have gone to WIKIPEDIA... I need to know what the C-pedia has always told us... how does <x thing I just looked up> affect the GAME, in real-game terms, not what it does in the real world. The UI is nearly useless. There's no detailed city information to tell us how much of "X" is needed to progress "Y". There's raw data for food, production, income, happiness... like there's always been... but there's nothing to tell me how many foods I need to make my next population. There's nothing to tell me where these new utility buildings can and can't be placed... or if there's a certain technology I need to research to clear a spot for them (like the game USED to tell you, in clear and open terms). The visuals are... absolutely stunning. Every pixel is gorgeous... and completely overwhelms the units and buildings that make up the actual USABLE portion of the game. You quite literally cannot see the forest for the trees. Your units get visually lost in the undergrowth of the map. Your settlement buildings are muted and indistinct and there's no visual cues to tell you what does what, or how much F/P/I/H you're getting. Probably my biggest gripe, that COULD have MAYBE addressed a lot of this is this - Civ 6 was a pretty major rebuilding of the game's core concepts and actions, and the game was shipped with a full playable tutorial that walked you through the many changes that were made to how Civ had always operated up that point. You could play that tutorial as many or as few times as you wanted/needed to be comfortable with these changes before starting your "real game". Civ 7... is a complete, 100% rebuild of the game - literally every concept of the game's mechanics as they have previously operated has been majorly or completely altered. In and of itself right there, it doesn't even FEEL like Civilization... however, at least SOME of that severe dissonance could have been alleviated had they simply DONE THE SAME THING THEY DID LAST TIME. Give us a <boop>in' tutorial when you completely re-write the game, guys... I've seen a number of posts that are saying the game was released half-assed and in Alpha/Beta stage simply so that the powers that be could charge for DLCs to bring it up to the expected standard... and, while I would HOPE I'm never THAT cynical about the gaming industry, as a whole... the bottom line is that this game doesn't FEEL like a finished game. Or, if this IS the finished product that the developers wanted to show the world... every last one of them should quit their jobs and go find something else to do that they're actually good at... because video game development and deployment is NOT in their skill set... at all.1Show moreShow less
45.5 hours at review7,003 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
Overall Aesthetically, Civ7 is the best visual Civ game, hands down. There are major improvements over prior Civ games in terms of micromanagement fatigue and a majority, though not all, of the cornerstone changes in Civ7 are series-defining improvements. Disclaimers Some key aspects about my perspective: - I have several thousand hours across multiple Civ games - I only play Deity - I don't play multiplayer - I believe mods are essential to every Civ game Ok, let's break Civ7 down a bit more: Good - Commanders: I can't imagine Civ without them anymore. They make combat genuinely fun and simple, even if unit-swapping seems a bit like cheating. The AI could use improvement with Commanders. - Towns Infrastructure: Praise Sid, no more build-queues to nowhere. This refreshingly simple change is exactly the right solution to a wide Civ game like this. - Terrain changes: The new terrain mechanics (Rough, Vegetated, inter-tile rivers, navigable rivers, etc.) are a new essential to the Civ franchise. The other Civ games' basic elements seem cartoonishly simple in comparison now. Vanilla map generation could use major improvements, but the framework to Civ7 is head-and-shoulders above all other Civ games. And, of course, modders are already fixing this. - Age victories: Encourages, not forces, you to play Civ in a realistic way. This is a massive improvement over Civ6's Age scoring, though a bit two-dimensional in presentation. Bad (See below for my fix suggestions) - Age Transitions: These are too manufactured/forced, they're not seamless, they're disruptive to the game flow, and they don't allow major in-game activities to conclude organically. Big miss here. - Intermixing Civs/Leaders: The intent to majorly evolve each Civ over the Ages is good and very welcome, but that does not necessitate re-Civ'ing every Age. Firaxis used a sledgehammer on this one and it's jarring. - Settlement Limits: This is a great idea masked by a bad mechanic. Civ7 is best played wide, hence the need to limit player expansion. However, a SetLim is an arbitrary value that acts more as a FunLim. - Mementos: Maybe these survived multiple stages of design cycles, but they're not serving to make the game better. These shouldn't be on the plate of a sustaining team of developers amid their other priority projects. Right now, they're just ensuring that I get nearly all of the map-drops for huge early advantages and an unbalanced leg-up on Suzerainties. Delete them entirely. Polarizing - No workers: I do not miss workers at all-- they were always gimmicks to be exploited, especially in Civ5; but, it's a big change for long-time Civ players. - Districts: I adore Civ7's districts, I think they make the game beautiful and unique with a set of districts for each situation. That said, I tend to skip a majority of districts because they enter the game far too late. That's lame. - All of my Deity games end before aircraft become relevant. That's a missed opportunity, but I'm also happy to avoid the late-game fatigue. This is clearly low-hanging fruit for future expansions. - Diplomacy is stupid-good and it's a problem (version 1.2.0). In every Deity game that I'm not rampaging my influence to the negatives, I easily get 80%+ Suzerainty on the map. With the free-Tech bonus, that's a balance problem. Otherwise, it's a very cool and fun mechanic that adds a lot of variety to each game. Night-and-day improvement compared to Civ5. Other Common Topics - Religion: I never cared for Religion in Civ games. It's never been done especially well. Religion is so unremarkable and uninteresting in Civ7 that it seems inevitable to get a dedicated DLC. I'm indifferent to it for now. - UI: Mod your game like every other serious Civ player. There are already a plethora of fantastic UI mods out there on CivFanatics. In a sense, I'm grateful the vanilla UI is so bad because it makes the modder's job easier - AI: Civ7 needs much more aggressive AI-- I get away with murder (literally) far too often. The AI is too skittish when it should be trying to wipe me off the map for offending it. - No Ghandi?!: Personally, I'm happy we don't have Ghandi yet because WMDs are not relevant in this state of the game. Suggestions for Improvement - Age Transitions: The conclusion of an Age should not be driven by Age victory conditions except in the final Age. Instead, they should be tied to a major ongoing in-game event. I.e. X-wars need to end, X-wonders need to be finished, X-Civ-specific-crisis needs to be "overcome", straightforward turn limit, etc. Ultimately, the Age-ending events should be international in nature, not domestic as they currently are. At the very least, the crisis should not be triggered by a percentage of Age completion and they should not all be the same length. - Intermixing Civs/Leaders: I'll address this from the vantage point that the game is what it is and can't be entirely reconstructed to suit my preferences-- Each Civ should have it's own specific challenges in its Age, requiring that Civ to overcome their historical collapse, whether brief or extended in its historical context. Overcoming collapse rewards the Leader with bonuses that wane in usefulness over the next Age. - Settlement Limits: The controlling variable should have been simple Happiness, not indirectly Happiness via SetLim. The calculation should have been based on a scale of Happiness penalties per number of Settlements, where increases to SetLim are replaced by a tiered Happiness bonus in each Settlement. Mechanically, it would be no different than the current game, except the player is interacting more directly with the chiefly important variable. It would be more fun and engaging this way. - Mementos: These should be replaced by a set of 1 Attribute point for each Leader specialty, plus 1 or 2 Wildcard points. Comparing the Hex Civs - Civ5: Civ5, I thought was too formulaic, even if a deeper game for now. There's a quality of character to Civ5 that Civ7 has not recaptured. I will probably not feel nostalgic for Civ7 when the next one comes out, but I'll always remember the late nights with Civ5. In Civ7, each Civ should have more of its own real history, good and bad, baked into its Age. An easy change could be to the Leader interactions. Civ5 did a great job presenting culture through Leader interactions, both visually and sonically. - Civ6: Civ6, on the other hand, is totally dead to me now. Civ6's micromanagement, excessive forward planning, and myriad of vestigial game mechanics are glaringly bad against Civ7. I may never boot Civ6 again. Final Thoughts Civ7 is a mess of ideas in varying stages of completeness; some so good, modded Civ5 is hard to go back to, and others so questionable that I wonder if this game was hampered by executive committee. At any rate, Civ7 still turned out to be a really good Civ game with a lot of room for expansion and improvement. A quick tip for other long-time Civ players out there: Try starting fully Random. I know in prior Civ games, especially Civ6, pre-planning and mapping everything out for your preset modded map was common. I tried to do that with Civ7 and it wasn't scratching the itch for me. Instead, go in blind and make it up as you go-- no game plan! This has been a lot more fun for me and has multiplied the replayability. Every game since has had its own unique seminal moments, usually through warfare, that make it memorable. Civ7, more than other Civ games, rewards opportunism.Show moreShow less
267.5 hours at review446 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
I rarely write reviews for any reason, I'm too lazy. But I find it extremely paramount to write on this one. I've been playing Civ for about 20 years, it was one of the first video games I was ever exposed to. As an experienced player, I can say that a lot of the changes in here are super interesting and have a lot of potential. The city growth and town mechanics are neat, the new independent settlements rework establishes a refreshing take on the city-state and barbarian dynamics of previous releases, army formations and combat are streamlined in a reasonable way (as opposed to how other things are streamlined), leader diplomacy is a lot more satisfying and sensible, and I really love how all pending tasks and actions are shown as icons in the turn wheel at the bottom and you can select any one of them without defaulting to the primary one the game has selected for you. The game looks visually decent and the sound design and music feels nostalgic and well done. In general a lot of intriguing overhauls and changes make it clear that there is something here. But this thing is more than rough, more than I remember any other Civ release being. The UI is terrible. I can't find any of the information that's relevant to my gameplay ever. Notifications are both annoying to click through and simultaneously disappear without any reason. Tactility and telegraphing normally communicated through sounds, camera adjustments, and musical cues are either missing or have regressed into some sort of minimalist alternative. In general, I have to agree with most criticisms on this game, that it feels console-first and hardly geared towards the PC user-base, which I had imagined is the primary user-base. This is not to mention the whole 2K account integration is so annoying and the fact that elements of the game seem to be barred from access until you've done the whole integration process is just a really terrible precedent. Crucial, BASIC things are COMPLETELY missing. You can't automate explorers. A lot of key command either don't exist anymore or are completely hidden to the player and you just have to try old combinations that you remember from other games. YOU CAN'T QUEUE YOUR TECH TREE AT ALL. There's no quick movement / combat. All advanced options to customize the map, start parameters, and overall game rules are just COMPLETELY gone. Customizations of all kinds are gone. I haven't found a way to rename cities, units, or anything like that. So many things about this game are a step back. You are actively PUNISHED for doing well, as with each age/era so much of the stuff you've worked hard to develop is removed, exchanged, or nerfed in some way. So much of the tech tree feels useless, as you're basically able to work tiles and gain resources without much strategy involved at all. There are so few penalties or consequences for making decisions, you can essentially just spam every option, production, and purchase whenever you feel like and you'll still be an unstoppable force at least against the AI. The amount and variety of Civs at launch is LAUGHABLE. Narrations are delegated to being very short blurbs with almost no intrigue whatsoever, while simultaneously introducing UNSKIPPABLE CUTSCENES to a 4X which makes absolutely ZERO sense. The victory conditions for each age aren't necessarily confusing, but they feel so unnecessary and different from the core advancement principles that Civ has tended to build itself on for years, in a way that feels remarkably counterintuitive. One of my biggest points of contention I have with this game is the Leader/Civilization dynamic. You are locked into choosing a leader and civilization SEPARATELY. This means you can choose completely non-historic combinations of things. In my current playthrough, I did the first of three ages (the Antiquity age) as Harriet Tubman ... of the Aksum. Once the Antiquity age ends, and you enter the age of Exploration, you have to change what civilization you are AGAIN. The best option for my playstyle so far as I could tell was choosing the MAJAPAHIT? This makes no sense. There is a novelty to it, sure, and I could see some fun gameplay ideas happening as a result of these discrepancies. But being locked into HAVING to do something like this is more than just immersion breaking. It's weird at BEST, and completely messes up everything otherwise. Having to adjust to completely new civ bonuses and contexts with EVERY ADVANCING AGE just feels even more and more punishing for no reason. There is SOMETHING here. The environments look great, the game feels less cartoonish like Civ VI attempted to be, and there are exciting mechanics and ideas here worth exploring in the long-term. But calling this "unfinished" is generous. Core features are missing and so much backwards regression has been taken. It's not impossible to play, but it's frustrating and barely feels like a Civ game. I am absolutely of the belief that a game HAS to be great without any mods whatsoever, that mods should be delegated to the roles of personal preferences and experimentation. I won't say "wait for mods". I would say wait for this game to be decent, because it's not.Show moreShow less
4 hours at review6,925 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
Update after 14 hours: I have now tried a few saves in a few different settings and key points I enjoy are: -Age Transition. I didn't think i would like it- but transitioning from Rome to Normans with castles and Knights felt natural and thematic -Commanders. These guys are great. They make war feel a lot more intuitive. I love unloading them in a defensive line at a city gates. -Diplomacy. The new system of making Diplomacy a currency really helps with the strategy of deciding where you want to spend your points. On friends, foes or maybe even city states. -Graphics. I like the detail on the new units. The clouds floating above the map are a nice touch, -Music. Great soundtrack. Brings you into the vibe of Civ. -New Civ Trees. The Civ trees that are unique to each civ are a nice touch. I like this. It makes it feel like civ choice is more impactful. I am now running on Linux Native and it seems to be a bit smoother than via proton. My saves moved over easily. Original review: This reminds me of Civ 5. It abandons many systems from 6 I did not care for such as loyalty and governors. The addition of Commanders makes forming , maintaining and moving armies nicer than it ever has been. The graphics and animations of the leaders are a step up from 6. The new soundtrack is very good. I just finished my first war and wiped out another Civ. The happiness mechanics from 5 make a return and now my Civ is rioting. Peak Civ. I am running this on Linux under Proton (not native) and it runs very smoothly and has not crashed for me once.Show moreShow less
15 hours at review399 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
My disappointment is immeasurable and my decade is ruined. While originally this review topped 20K character count, Steam caps reviews to 8K. Many points were cut for brevity, especially comparisons to Humankind. It's kind of heart-breaking actually. If there's a franchise I associate with quality it's Civilization. The problems are not isolated to any individual part of the game and if I have identified them in such numbers and with such depth in as little as 50 hours in a grand strategy game, something is very wrong. Playing through the Antiquity era it was clear to me this game was not ready. The content was there but the game was embarrassingly unfinished. By the end of my first Antiquity era, I thought the game could be saved. By Modern, I was unsure. Now I know. First, the good. The music is sublime, it's of such quality as to engender pride in humanity. I found it more arresting than any OST I've heard this year, and maybe any of the previous Civ games on release. It has kept me sane through this game's tribulations as my companion. Featuring a more traditional style graphically compared to Civ 6, your empire hums along in astonishing detail, particularly in the later eras. The fractal-like layouts of your urban tiles, with their structures unique to each of the game's pantheon of cultures is a sight to behold. Army Commanders echo Civ 4 and provide deeper military strategy. …and that's it I'm afraid. I did not particularly like Humankind as a package, but many of its experiments were successful in isolation. Shockingly, almost everything Civ 7 poaches from Humankind emerges as a shallow imitation. I could not believe how unimaginative and simple the narrative events were. In Humankind, most of them tell a story of some kind, no matter how brief, and many are multi-part choice chains which lead to interesting consequences. In Civ 7 these choices are overwhelmingly bland, all but a select few lack the aforementioned chain of consequences entirely, instead most are a one time "do you want gold or happiness" or equivalent. To make this worse, the yields they do offer are poorly balanced, sometimes in the extreme. This imbalance exists between the events as well, for some reason you can get successive, ostensibly identical, events i.e. do you want happiness or gold, but the amounts given will be drastically different (think nearly an order of magnitude). I would understand if I had done an elaborate event chain and at the end received a large reward for a good result, but these are both spontaneous, single instance events. I maintain that this is Humankind's best feature, and it's delivered so ineptly by the de facto custodians of the genre here. While I think many decisions taken early in development doomed Civ 7 from the outset the UI will have come later, being iterated until it shipped. What we can infer from this is that Civ 7 was released staggeringly early. The UI is appalling. In your first run the game bombards you with pop-ups, yet useful information is inaccessible or often downright missing. Many critical mechanics are not taught or explained anywhere in the game and the Civlopedia isn't nearly informative enough. I also discovered some Civlopedia entries are visible only in certain ages, making planning needlessly difficult. If screenshots could be included in a Steam review, this diatribe would be, overwhelming, images of UI with red circles around them and expletives drawn on top. I refuse to believe that this is purely incompetence. Poor UI elements in Civ is nothing new, but what we got here takes the cake and I believe this, more than anything else, is a sign that much more time was needed. UI can be made good, the game's systems probably can't. An abbreviated list of problems which I did not have the character count to expand on: - Unit variety is tiny. 1-2 units per type each era which then upgrade to higher tier version of themselves. No name or design change - You can't liberate cities - No tile swapping between cities - War weariness is not affected by killing enemy units - The game can end in the modern era at 100% age progress instead of waiting for a victory condition à la Humankind. Boring and unfulfilling. Like reaching a score victory 10 turns before the climax of the game - Permanence of warehouse buildings. By the Modern age, antiquity warehouses have so few rural tiles left for them to give yields to. They take up space, which by Modern is at a premium, and do almost nothing for you. You should be able to replace them with the newer version if you want to - Religion tied to one age then gone forever - Age transitions trash any sense of unit organisation or long term border tension - You can mix and match your leaders and civ but not how you play the game due to the rigid legacy paths, a reverse from previous games - You cannot generate treasure fleets from inland cities, even if they are connected to your trade network by another coastal city (patched) - Voiced age transitions try to give an overview of your last age, but only highlight which legacy path you followed most/first in a single sentence, they possess no intimacy. Similarly, ending sequences are flat with no sense of achievement or grandeur - Factories' railroad requirement prevents construction in distant land cities - All my Steam screenshots are corrupted psychedelic trips for this game only - Repeatable projects must now be reselected every few turns - Wonder animations downgraded from Civ 6 - Resources moving between ages ruins city planning. Once urbanised, a tile cannot be made rural even between ages so time you spent planning your cities' adjacency is frequently wasted, but you still have to do it because it might not be wasted - The visual design of buildings is great however, it's all very static, no movement or animations unlike Civ 6 I was foolish to believe that Firaxis would be able to do what Amplitude could not. Foolish to think it were possible at all. The age and civ transitions have proved viciously divisive, but I will make myself clear: I believe these to be abject failures. I do not think the proponents of these mechanics have thought them through or played with them enough. Arrogant, yes, but I believe it. The age structure undermines the promise of a Civ game: the satisfaction of building an empire from the dirt, reaching ever higher towards the stars. One empire to stand the test of time. Civ switching strips immersion and removes one of the most interesting balance dynamics in Civ: timed bonuses. In previous games, some civs would be more powerful at different stages of the game, for example they may receive a unique building or unit at one part of the tech tree. For very powerful bonuses, this incentivised survival over greed until you reached your bonuses promoting dynamism and, consequently, replayability. This kind of grand strategy created opportunities both for that civ and their opponents, who must decide how best to deal with a neighbour who may soon be a great threat. With civ switching, this is impossible as civs must be equally relevant in their age since they will be gone once it's over; a great recipe for a stale meta. The transitions are abrupt, with poorly paced cut offs. The end of most ages are spent trying to delay era progress in an attempt to get more legacy path bonuses. Sandbagging is antithetical to civ and is not fun. Speaking of antitheticality, legacy paths are incompatible with the sandbox nature of civ. They are linear thiefs of diverse gameplay. Even the announcer is only okay, her sterile delivery markedly worse than the, in my opinion, serviceable Sean Bean, and worlds away from the GOAT William Morgan Sheppard R.I.P. Civilization 7 exists in a franchise old enough to be a part of the history it exists to tell. It may go down in that history as the first mainline game not to stand the test of time, and deservedly so.Show moreShow less
58.2 hours at review4,049 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
Having played Civ III, IV, V, VI, I thought I could have mastered VII easily. Here I am, 78 years old, set in my ways, my wife calls me an OMWAH (OLd Man With A Hat). I have played over 1000 hours of Civ VII and absolutely love the game. I started with my knowledge of the previous games but soon realized that it is not like the others. In the previous games if you did A then there choice of two options but in Civ VII, if you do A then the paths are plentiful and there is more thought involved because of these options. Also, an OMWAH can do anything without reading directions but it's amazing how those knowledgeable drop down boxes can brighten your day. After alll these games, I'm still learning which is wonderful. It is a great game and the variety of directions you can take makes the game so much more ecxciting.Show moreShow less
1,057.7 hours at review326 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
This game literally just ends in the 1940's. No option to keep playing, no real feeling of satisfaction other than a screen saying "Victory". Its like they got halfway through it and just decided "lets save the rest for DLC" and shipped it. To be clear, this game feels extremely incomplete, especially considering the size of it's predecessors and the huge price tag. Coupled with a ton of visual bugs, units models showing where they're not actually located, a HORRIBLE UI in a lot of the game, and a just an overall feeling of lacking, I can't recommend this game. I've had hundreds of hours in previous CIV games and was extremely excited for this, but I am super disappointed.Show moreShow less
17.7 hours at review3,880 people found this helpful
Source: original Steam user reviews. Helpful votes are an archived snapshot, not live data. Last collected: 08/15/2026.