After much debate with the players Civilization 7An age-based system where you take control of different civilizations as you progress from antiquity to the modern era, Firaxis brings back the ability to play as one culture all the way to the end. They're currently testing the feature internally and want players to help with it through a new community testing initiative, the Firaxis Feature Workshop.
Firaxis also shared a few snippets of Civilization 7's 1.3.0 update, which will release on November 3 along with the Tides of Power DLC, which will be free for existing owners of the troubled 4X. strategy game during the Christmas holidays. Update 1.3.0 focuses on naval action and conspiracies, with new naval units and buildings, the addition of ranged combat to ocean warfare, and some exciting wet terrain features.
In an article on Civblog, creative director Ed Beach shared hot rumors about “two major events happening at CivHQ.” “First, we're testing some dramatic changes to Succession Paths and Victories in Civilization VII,” he wrote. “We want to open up the game and provide many new paths your empire can follow to achieve greatness and fight for victory.
“Secondly, and this has been one of the most requested features among players, we are internally testing ways to continuously play as one civilization over the centuries, allowing you to choose a civilization from any era and lead it throughout your journey through history.”
Firaxis would like “a small number of community members” to become familiar with these and other WIP features through the aforementioned workshop. They will share details on how to apply in the next few months. To find out more, join Discord. Beach also notes that you can expect “smaller and less frequent updates” over the Christmas break, “while the team moves to test and iterate these larger changes and prepare for the workshop.”
Hence the unclear hypotheses of future civilizations. Now let's dive into the details of the upcoming Civ 7 update. It introduces a new storage building, the Harbor, for all civilizations, which serves as a spawn point for naval units and increases fishing capacity. The Harbor is part of the new Privateer naval unit, available during the Exploration Age in the civilian version of Heraldry. This is a high-speed raiding vessel with a license to cross borders and attack military units and trade routes of non-allied civilizations, regardless of your military status.
The ocean itself will expand with three new aquatic resources – crabs, turtles and cowries – as well as a new resin resource on land. Deep oceans can now spawn atolls, which act “as terrain that stops movement and create strategic choke points,” and lakes can spawn lotus terrains, which provide bonuses for food and gold. Basic ocean tiles will become usable in the modern era, and one civilization, Hawaii, will also be able to work with them in the age of exploration.
There is also a modernization of naval combat. Existing naval units will be divided into light and heavy. Light units are melee units with better movement and vision, as well as the ability to make flanking attacks. Heavyweights are ranged attackers who move slower and can't see as far. It looks like the optimal Civ 7 admiral will use light and heavy guns in tandem.
These are just the highlights from the upcoming patch. There are a few more little things in the Civic Blogand Firaxis will share the full changelog at a later date. As for the Tides Of Power DLC, the first part will feature a new leader, Edward Teach (aka Blackbeard), as well as two new civilizations – Tonga and the Pirate Republic. The second part, which will be released in December, will introduce the leader of the Moroccan pirates, Sayida al-Hurra, as well as the Ottomans and Iceland.
It was interesting – and sad – to follow Civilization 7's attempts to right the ship after its controversial launch, in which much of player anger was directed at the age-based system. I especially liked the recent post about how they map generator rework.
