Charles Blackwell

I preordered founders edition for ps5 and have played 22 hours with Xerxes on sovereign difficulty. I personally love it. As someone who preordered cyberpunk 2077 for ps4, I promise it's not that bad. The game does work, and in my opinion, is enjoyable. The new combat mechanics with generals becoming a huge part of combat deployment, adds a new level of depth to your wars that civ 6 just...didn't have. Same goes for rivers being an actual strategic point for ships. The only reason I conquered Confucius and his hordes of infantry was because my navy could spread inland through rivers to give my land army much needed support. Diplomacy is a little more in depth, with influence being an earned currency used to either place sanctions and denounce, or to build up alliances through trade and research agreements. No more worker units to improve tiles around your city, your pop growth is what improves tiles now. Lots of changes from civ 6, mainly the sudden age change that acts as a sorta soft reset. This was jarring for me at first. I was halfway through conquering a city, all my troops are interlocked and about to achieve victory when...the Exploration age begins. All my troops are strewn about my civilization seemingly at random. The war I had fought for 1000 years straight or something just...ended. Even the city state I was suzerian of just vanished. What?? Also everything you've heard about the U.I being atrocious is true and validated. It's hard to tell what buildings I need to replace or not because they are from the previous age. I just wing it lol. Very wordy review, but to sum it up. This is the worst this game is going to be, and I personally still love it, flaws and all. And it's got prolly another 4-8 years of support depending on how popular it is. Don't listen to every negative review. These ppl spent money thinking they were getting civ 6.5. This feels, in a lot of ways, like a completely different and brand new game from civ 6. Imagine that. Embrace the change and adapt, that's a core value of any true strategy gamer. Or go back to civ 6, cuz its still a fantastic game that's had 8 years of support. I personally would recommend standard edition civ 7 if your a civ fan or a fan of strategy games in general, and are willing to accept the sometimes trashy u.i until it's fixed in a patch. If not, wait till March or April when it's more polished.