A new update for Civilization 7 aims to address "some player feedback" from the advanced access release of the game, and promises "larger, more substantive updates" on the way in the future.
Civilization 7 doesn't fully launch until February 11, but it's been available since February 6 for players who ponied up for the Founders Edition, and the reception has been a little rocky. It's climbed from a "mostly negative" initial user rating on Steam to "mixed," but it's still virtually a 50/50 mix of positive and negative reviews, driven largely by complaints about the game's UI.
Today's update fixes a number of interface-related problems, along with numerous bugs and gameplay issues. Notably, it also disables crossplay between PC and consoles for multiplayer, in order to "expedite updates to the PC." Developers can shove game updates for PC out the door as fast as they can make them, but on consoles they have to pass a certification process first, and that can slow things down. It's been an issue for games from Battlefield 3 to Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, and it leaves Firaxis with two choices: Hold the PC patches until the console updates get the green light, or hive them off until everything is properly smoothed out. Crossplay between Xbox and PlayStation consoles will continue to operate as normal.
The response to the patch seems generally positive so far: There are complaints about specific ongoing issues in the replies to the announcement on Steam, but there's also happiness that Firaxis seems to be on top of things. The studio said last week that it "will support Civilization 7 for years to come," which comes as no surprise given that Civ is one of Take-Two's biggest and most reliable game series, with an extremely long tail: Tens of thousands of people are currently playing prior games in the series, and even Civilization 3, the oldest Civ game on Steam, right now has a concurrent player count of nearly 2,000. There is precisely zero chance that Firaxis and 2K are going to wipe their hands and walk away anytime soon.
Still, the initial response to Civilization 7 is, if not alarming, at least a little unexpected, and it'll take some real work to address some of the more deeply-rooted complaints: Reworking an entire UI is a much bigger job than, say, tweaking individual leader stats here and there. (Unless you're trying to get Gandhi to stop glassing the planet, I suppose.)
The full Civilization 7 1.01 patch 2 notes are below.
Gameplay - Windows PC/Mac/Linux/Steam Deck
- Fixed an issue causing Ages in Epic and Marathon speed games to be shorter than intended.
- City States will now turn into Friendly Independent Powers on Age Transition instead of disappearing completely. They will also now start with more units in Exploration and Modern Ages.
- Fixed inconsistencies with Naval Combat.
- Naval Units will use the correct Combat Strength values when attacking another Naval Unit in all instances.
- Naval Units will properly take reciprocal damage after attacking another Naval Unit.
- Naval Units will more consistently move into the attacked tile after defeating another Naval Unit.
- Completing the final milestone of a Legacy Path no longer adds Age Progress in the Modern Age to ensure you have more time to complete a Victory.
- Towns will now switch their focus back to Growing town automatically if they are no longer eligible for their chosen Focus (for example, if their population decreases) until they are eligible again.
- Future Civic is now repeatable in all Ages. The cost of Future Tech and Future Civic will now increase more when repeated.
- Fixed an issue after too many bonuses to Growth where Food needed for the next growth event became negative.
- Improvements to Rail Networks aimed at increasing the reliability of Settlements connecting to the Rail Network over water by building Ports. This should apply as long as the Capital either has a Port or is connected by rail to a settlement with a Port.
- Made improvements to the Loyalty Crisis in the Antiquity Age, including giving the ability to purchase Villas in towns during this crisis, giving another way to manage the happiness of your settlements.
- A note about cross-play multiplayer: To expedite updates to the PC experience, we will sometimes deploy patches to PC at a different cadence than we do on consoles - including today's Patch 1.0.1. As a result, cross-play between PC players and console players is temporarily disabled. This will have no impact on console players attempting cross-platform play with other console players, nor on PC-to-PC multiplayer.
AI - Windows PC/Mac/Linux/Steam Deck
- AI will now offer high-value Cities less often during Peace Deals.
- In Modern, AI will now declare war less often at the start of the age.
- In Modern, AI will now consider Ideology more before Declaring War or offering Peace.
- Other Leaders now have a decreased desire for war if neither party has an Ideology.
- Other Leaders now have an increased desire for war with players of Opposing ideologies.
- Other Leaders now have a decreased desire for Peace with players of opposing Ideologies.
Camera - Windows PC/Mac/Linux/Steam Deck
- Fixed an issue on native-resolutions where the camera would focus on the lower end of the map when clicking on the minimap.
UI - Windows PC/Mac/Linux/Steam Deck
- Replaced the Simplified Chinese font with the font used in Civilization VI while we work on additional improvements for future patches.
- Fixed an issue where the Settlement menu fails to open when clicking on a non-player's Settlement Banner in gameplay.
- Fixed an issue where yield icons fail to populate on the now available buildings when converting a town to city.
- Fixed an issue where some text was cut off on the Global Yields Breakdown screen.
- Added a notification for completed Espionage actions, so that you can more easily check the results of their Espionage actions.
- City projects no longer appear to be purchasable.
- Your current religion is now displayed first in the belief picker tabs.
- Fixed an issue where a District’s health bar would remain on-screen after being fully healed.
- Fixed an issue where Leaders fail to have a portrait when the relationship has changed during gameplay.
- Improved the alignment of leader names and portraits on the Age Summary, when viewing the Overview screen of the Victories Rankings.
- Fixed an issue where the background color remains the default color when the user changes it in the Player Customize tab.
- Improved the spacing between Civ descriptions, unique units and building icons on loading screen.
