SID MEIER'S CIVILIZATION VII

Big changes are coming to the 30-year-old grand strategy series

- Tyler Wilde

Be honest: when you play Civilization, do you get bored sometime around the Renaissance and start over? If you're the dutiful type, you're in the minority: Firaxis has been collecting statistics, and although unable to share specifics, the dev told me it was "surprised" to discover how few Civilization players had ever finished a game of Civilization. Firaxis has substantially changed Civilization's structure for the next game. In Civilization VII, you no longer begin in the Ancient era, advancing through and beyond the Classical, Medieval, Renaissance, Industrial and Modern eras.

There are just three ages in Civ VII - Antiquity, Discovery and Modern - and the tech tree is simpler.

This might turn out to be the most controversial change since Civilization V ditched unit stacking, or since Civilization VI adopted a cartoonier art style (which has been abandoned for Civ VII). But before the word 'simplified' causes too much anxiety, I should elaborate: I think the changes are exciting, and Firaxis has also added, tweaked and expanded. You can now build towns, not just cities. There are powerful new units called Commanders. You'll find navigable rivers for the first time, so you can have your very own Mississippi or Nile. Features from the Civ V and VI expansion packs are here, including natural disasters.

It's still Civilization, a judgment I arrived at after playing for three hours, and which creative director Ed Beach expresses in numbers. “We’re very mindful of exactly how much we were changing,” Beach said to a group of press, including myself, who were flown to Firaxis’ office in early August to try the game. “You’ve probably heard the Firaxis mantra that 33% of the game stays the same, 33% of it gets updated, and 33% is brand new. We absolutely followed that again.”

LAYER CAKE