Firaxis is preparing a model in Civilization VII that is meant to show the real development of the world’s civilizations – at the same time, it is significantly different from the previous ones…

Firaxis Games has decided to take a bold step: in addition to Civilization VII being a “more and better” version of the addictive strategy experience, it also introduces several new features that will surprise even the most seasoned veterans of the franchise. One of these is related to the customization of individual games. Because the leaders of the game will no longer be tied to a specific civilization. In fact, it’s such a significant change to the franchise that even the developers themselves respect it.

“It’s one of the biggest changes we’ve made to the game and one of the scariest in terms of changing Civilization, something that’s so consistent,” Dennis Shirk, executive producer of Civilization 7, admitted in an interview with Techradar. “That point A to point B leader and civ all the time is not the way it was in the real world and [creative director Ed Beach] really wanted to try to model that.”

“In antiquity, for example, you have ancient Rome in the real world expanding new ideas, advancing, having their own golden ages, as a gameplay term so to speak, and eventually they got too big,” the developer continues. “Internal crises hit, corruption, economic crises, could be plague. They had barbarians at the gates who came in, invaded, split the empire, and eventually scattered to the wind.” Thus “those seeds of Romanism, the Roman Empire are everywhere, throughout Europe, North Africa, and some places in the rest of the world.”

Ultimately, by presenting such combinations of civilizations in Civilization VII, the intention is to try to reflect “how the people and the culture traveled and traversed the globe and the influences they had on each other” – all this, of course, supported by real records.

Civilization VII is a ‘new puzzle to solve’

As you might have guessed, what’s new in Civilization VII isn’t just about civilizations and customization options; new features were also introduced in the gameplay. “Everybody likes playing the first 100 turns of Civ,” Shirk continues in the conversation, before revealing that according to Firaxis data, many players tend to “stop and start over to play through that Age of Discovery again.”

Now, with new era classifications, Civilization VII promises a sense of discovery at every stage of the game.

“In the first age you can’t cross the oceans, but you’re exploring your continent. Then the Second Age opens up. You get to another advanced level of shipbuilding, for example, and now you can traverse the oceans. You’re trying to find the New World, and there’s other civilizations there that you’re going to meet for the first time. Then in the Modern Age, we’re going to have something similar, this new sense of discovery.”

In other words, Firaxis ensures that we are “bringing fans a new experience”. So everyone will have to relearn how to play Civilization VII because “what worked in Civi 4, 5, and 6 won’t work this time.” Which, in short, makes the next instalment of the franchise “a new puzzle to solve.”

Source: Techradar