Age transitions feel like starting a new game
The most significant change compared to prior titles is the game’s completely new approach to ages. In most of the earlier games, ages were called “eras” (like Ancient, Classical, Medieval, Renaissance, Industrial, or Modern) and were just signposts to show how far you’d gone through the tech tree. Sometimes, certain buildings would be gated behind eras, but they weren’t really a system unto themselves.
Civilization VI introduced ages as a complementary concept to eras. There was a sort of boom-and-bust cycle of golden and dark ages, where you’d try to achieve one or the other in the next cycle to gain certain bonuses.
Confusingly, the ages in VII mostly resemble eras of past games and include some of the ideas from VI’s ages, while also totally overhauling the whole concept.
There are now just three ages: Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern. Each has its own totally distinct tech tree, and each has gameplay systems that are entirely relevant in that age and only that age.
Each age also has its own paths and success metrics, akin to classic victory conditions. Yes, there are Science victories for the Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern Ages, but the specific goals in the Science victory vary between them.
Credit:
Samuel Axon
There’s a dedicated screen for tracking your progress in each Age, with differing objectives for each.
Credit:
Samuel Axon
When an age concludes, it feels like the end of a classic game of Civilization. A recap screen shows how different civilizations did on their goals for the age, with rankings that make it clear who (if anyone) came out on top.
When you begin the next age, it’s like starting a new game entirely, except the city placement and other starting conditions are defined by which conditions you met in the game you played before. (I’m told this resembles how the Civilization-like Humankind works, but I haven’t played that game, so I can’t elaborate on that.)
This is by far the most radical change we’ve ever seen in how Civilization plays. I really like it, though. It’s hard to articulate why it feels so much better, but I think it’s because it provides more frequent and meaningful payoffs for how you’ve been playing. It allows the game’s designers to go deeper with the systems when they don’t necessarily have to work the same way across the whole span of a playthrough.
