Sid Meier’s Civilization VII Review (Steam)

by Jim Smale · February 21, 2025

Sid Meier’s Civilization VII Review, The award-winning strategy game franchise returns with a revolutionary new chapter. Sid Meier’s Civilization VII empowers you to build the greatest empire the world has ever known! In Civilization VII, your strategic decisions shape the unique cultural lineage of your evolving empire. Rule as one of many legendary leaders from throughout history and steer the course of your story by choosing a new civilization to represent your empire in each Age of human advancement.

Sid Meier’s Civilization VII Review Pros:

Beautiful graphics.
18.01GB download size.
Steam achievements.
You can boot the game in DX12 or Vulkan.
Full controller support.
Initial settings let you set the graphics detail, accessibility, and brightness.
Graphics settings – GPU selection, screen mode, resolution, v-sync, anti-aliasing and upscaling, and graphics profile.
Advanced graphic settings – AMD fidelity FX ambient occlusion, AMD screen space space reflections, screen space shadows, screen space overlay, bloom, assets quality, texture detail, particle quality, shadow quality, water quality, amd sharpness.
General system settings – tooltip delay slider, camera pan speed, and auto pan to notifications.
Game settings – auto end turn, unit cycle remaining movement, auto unit cycle, tutorial level, autosaves amount, turns between autosaves, cross-play, and setting up the extras.
Accessibility options – narrate chat, subtitles, narrate on hover, enable high-resolution UI scaling, viewing experience like handheld, font scale, Colourblind accessibility, remap controls for both the controller and the mouse and keyboard.
2K game linking option for a reward.
Handy graphics benchmark option.
Ai benchmark is an optional service that shows how AI performance and turn processing work.
Excellent voice work.
The game plays out on hexagonal grids over the top of the world.
Full 3D character and building models in a 3D game world.
You can freely move the camera around and zoom in and out.
Fog of war is at play so you cannot see what’s around you until you either move into the hexagonal area or if something or someone appears.
Multiplayer supports – Internet and LAN games.
A full server browser for multiplayer.
26 historical characters to play as. Each has its own unique traits and level as you can level up and unlock mementos for future plays.
Three starting ages – antiquity, exploration, and the modern age. Each one has a list of civilisations which again brings different game styles.
Challenges are like in-game achievements but these have rewards attached to them.
Player level is the overall rank, each playable character has their own level rank.
Earn and equip new profile icons.
Game setup options – difficulty, game speed, map type, and map size.
Five game difficulties.
Three map sizes.
Five game speeds.
There is always something to work towards and you will always get nice little unlock surprises.
It is a game all about playing how you want.
When interacting with other nations you can choose whether to be friendly or hostile, your actions can take that choice away from you and of course, the opponent has their own agenda.
Advanced game setup settings – age length, disaster intensity, crises, random seed, and random map seed number.
Player settings for a game setup let you add 1 to 5 AI characters to your game, you can randomize it or choose each one individually.
At the start of a new game, you can choose your legacy goal – economic, military, cultural, and science advisor.
Save and load from the pause menu when you want.
The game formula has not changed and it will still take over your life and destroy your free time where an hour feels like a minute and a day feels like an hour.

Sid Meier’s Civilization VII Review Cons:

Couldn’t get the controller remap menu to load.
The graphics benchmark has a long loading time.
Even when owning the top version of the game, civilization VII will still push upgrade options to you.
The menu system is not always clear, small box options are just a yellow outline for example.
Loading times are up and down.
So much of the game feels like it needed more polish and more time to iron out small kinks that do just enough to be noticed and impact your play.