this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2025
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The idea is that it's split into three ages and you change your aesthetics and bonuses between each one. So you might go Romans > Spanish > Mexicans in the three eras, for example. The intention is honestly a decent one, I think: make it so that games aren't functionally over and therefore boring by the halfway point. It's usually clear who has won long before they actually do win, and the fact that basically nobody ever played the late game meant that late game civs and mechanics were a bit of a waste of time. I don't have VII though, so I can't say anything about how it feels in practice
I kicked the wheels on release, and can confirm it’s a case of great idea + terrible execution. The game is a wash of them like nothing I’ve seen before or since.
Unfortunately, they went so all-in on the new era model that this “fix” is only going to dig them a deeper hole. They should have gone with a middle-ground option where you pick a base Civ that you stick with, and then get to pick from 2-3 “cultural route” options to upgrade across each era (much like Civ 5 ideologies) — but that ship has sailed.
I could potentially see something along the lines of giving each civ a "canon" path that sets its abilities and having the aesthetic stuff match your chosen civ the whole way through working. So if you pick the USA to start with then you get American visuals / music / names etc the whole way through, but you automatically get the English bonuses in the appropriate era for that
The way I 'fix' this is to crank the difficulty so I'm behind for as long as possible while still having a chance of winning in the late eras. I loose plenty of late games, but that's what makes it an honest challenge.
I think a lot of people are used to playing with settings that allow them to comfortably win as long as they survive the early game.