Category: Civilization series

Empire Earth (2001) is a special game

There are not many games similar to Empire Earth. The ability to have a civilization that is going to be able stand the test of time is truly gratifying experience.

I will say that after spending many years not playing it, the game still holds up as an exceptional game. I think it represents something we haven’t seen in the industry in ages. The video game has a competency in it which is missing in Civilization VII. That idea of someone putting effort into a game and having a great product is being replaced by people making poor quality things on an assembly line of code.

To just emphasize the differences between the games. Just look at the way in which maps are made in Empire Earth vs Civilization VII. While Empire Earth is not a 4X game, it does have some similarities here. What I want to emphasize is that the map generation in the game is much better than that of Civilization VII.

The maps actually look like actual continents.

Civilization VII sacrificed single player for a stale multiplayer experience.

Empire Earth belongs to a time when the industry was in a state of transition. However, there were still many of the old greats working away and it shows in this game. It was grown up but not yet lethargic and nostalgic for the past.

Civilization VII is stuck in the past. Empire Earth was using the past and present to tell a story in the future. It is a game that transcends its video game nature and provides a soundtrack to mankind.

While some may say this is overly idealistic and that it is simply a game, I disagree with this sentiment here. No video game is simply product of recreation. It is art.

Why Civilization VII is style over substance

Civilization VII is clearly a game for people who love style over any meat and potatoes in their gaming meals. It seems that the people who made the game were fooling people with graphics and nice sounding music. This is a big reason why the game is not doing so well right now.

The game had tons of advertising that was being poured onto YouTube. However, the game is not worth the money and one can clearly see that engagement on YouTube is lagging Kingdom Come 2. While these games are not the same genre, one can see how Kingdom Come 2 has spoken to what the audience wants. It has been two months since the game came out, and it is highly successful. The team has been continuing to update the game. They also make videos that give a behind the scenes look at the creation; this provides inspiration for budding video game makers.

Civilization VII shows that style cannot win over substance. People are paying just to watch a moving painting with some interaction here.

Why Civilization VII is a terrible game: Civilization VII should have been a PC-Centric Game

Civilization VI is better than Civilization VII because it is for PC Gamers and its shows in the terrain and size of maps.
A warrior unit exploring a diverse terrain in Civilization VII, featuring plains, hills, and water.

Civilization VII is continuing to fall in obscurity on Steam. The company, Firaxis Games is still living in a reality where they believe that the game is successful. However, it seems that they are more interested in pushing with their multiplatform games which are not selling on the charts. This inability to think critically about their game is why the game is doing so poorly with gamers. Civilization V is currently ahead of the game consistently now. Why is this? Simply because it is not a PC centric game.

Being a PC centric game makes sense for Civilization. When they announced this game, I was suspecting that the quality would suffer. I was right and I should have been more careful here. Civilization VII doesn’t even respect its title, its not about civilization but about city states. PC-centric games tend to be big in scale not just tiny mobile games. That is what Civilization VII is missing.

I think that we should understand what it means that the game is on all these platforms here. It means that the team is wasting their time trying to milk the game for all its worth and not trying to build something sustainable.

I honestly believe that Civilization VII is going to be dark age of the Civilization games.

It isn’t selling well, and it does not have big player base on Steam. Civilization VI is already ahead of it.

Civilization VII should be made for PC gamers and then they could move towards console games.

Console games have their own territory and PC games have theirs. The obsession with putting the game on Meta’s VR systems is just a sign of a company that isn’t serious about the game.

They no longer seem to care about their player base and just want to hide behind videos and screenshots.

It would be better if someone else would make Civilization from now on, because they are not doing a good job with it.

Civilization VI will still be the Emperor, while Civilization VII will be sulking in the shadows as a game that will be obscurity and a lesson in that game studio’s reputation depends on the gamers.