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
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