After much wrangling with players over Civilization 7’s Age system, which sees you taking charge of different civilizations as you progress from Antiquity into the Modern era, Firaxis are bringing back the option to play as one culture all the way to the endgame. They’re now playtesting the feature internally, and want players to help by way of a new community testing initiative, the Firaxis Feature Workshop.
Firaxis have also shared a few snippets from Civilization 7’s update 1.3.0, due in the week of November 3rd alongside the Tides of Power DLC, which will be free to existing owners of the troubled 4X strategy game over the Xmas holidays. Update 1.3.0 is all about nautical doings and conspirings, with new naval units and buildings, the addition of ranged combat to ocean warfare, and some delightfully soggy terrain features.
Writing on the Civblog, creative director Ed Beach dropped some hot goss about “two of the biggest things in motion” at CivHQ. “First, we’re testing some dramatic changes to the Legacy Paths and Victories in Civ VII,” he wrote. “We want to open up the game and provide many new paths your empire can follow while achieving greatness and competing for victory.
“Second – and this one’s been one of the most requested features from players – we’re internally playtesting ways to play as one civ continuously through the ages, allowing you to choose a civilization from any Age and guide them throughout your journey through history.”
Firaxis would like a “small number of community members” to go hands-on with these and other WIP features via the aforesaid Workshop. They’ll share details of how to apply in the next few months – for more, join the Discord. Beach also notes that you can expect “smaller, less frequent updates” over the Xmas holidays “while the team shifts into testing and iteration on these larger changes, and preparing for the Workshop”.
Thus the gauzy hypotheticals of Civilizations to come. Now, let’s dig into the sweaty specifics of that imminent Civ 7 update. It introduces a new warehouse building, the Harbor, for all Civs, which serves as a spawn for naval units and boosts your fishing production. The Harbor accompanies a new naval unit, the Privateer, unlocked in the Exploration Age on the Heraldry Civic. It’s a speedy raiding vessel with license to cross borders and attack the military units and trade routes of non-allied civs, regardless of your war status.
The ocean itself will expand with three new water resources – crabs, turtles and cowrie – plus the new pitch resource on land. Deep oceans may now generate atolls, which act “as movement-stopping terrain to create strategic choke points”, while lakes may spawn lotus terrain that provides food and gold bonuses. Base ocean tiles will become workable in the modern age and one civ, Hawaii, will also be able to work them in the exploration age.
Then there’s the revamp for naval combat. Existing naval units will be split into light and heavy varieties. Light units are melee combatants with better movement and vision, plus the ability to perform flanking attacks. Heavies are ranged strikers who move slower and don’t see as far. It sounds like the optimal Civ 7 admiral will use lights and heavies in tandem.
These are just the highlights from the forthcoming patch. There are a few other bits on the Civblog, and Firaxis will share the full changelog notes down the line. As for that Tides Of Power DLC, the first part will add a new leader, Edward Teach (aka Blackbeard) plus two new civilisations – Tonga and the Republic of Pirates. The second part, coming in December, introduces Moroccan pirate leader Sayyida al Hurra, together with the Ottomans and Iceland.
It’s been interesting – and saddening – to follow Civilization 7’s attempts to right the ship after a heavily mixed launch reception, with much player ire directed at the Age system. I particularly appreciated the recent post about how they’re overhauling the map generator.
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