New Civ 7 Culture Updates, Explained
Sid Meier's Civilization 7 is off to a pretty rocky start, but is also doing everything it can to address its most glaring issues, most recently in Update 1.1.0. The primary focus of this patch update is to fix the Culture Victory and Legacy Path in the Modern Age, Geographic Society, which had some major balance problems. This is just the first of many planned updates and patches that will roll out in the coming months, and it includes multiple new features outside the Modern Age cultural revisions.
The balance updates in 1.1.0 include improvements to AI, new ways to collect Artifacts so they don't run out, and incentives to invest in Culture yields during the Modern Age. These changes address some of the main problems that made the Cultural Legacy Path and Victory somewhat trivial and contributed to its odd pacing and lack of balance. Developer Firaxis has also reorganized the Civic tree to adjust how you access Hegemony, making the Modern Age less of an exercise in futility.
Why Civ 7's Culture Victory & Legacy Path Needed An Update
Pacing Issues, Shortage Of Artifacts & Not Requiring Culture Yields
Civ 7's Culture Victory and Geographic Society Legacy Path had major problems with balance and pacing in the Modern Age, most of which seem to have been addressed to a certain degree in Update 1.1.0. The biggest pacing issues occurred when other leaders chose not to pursue the Culture Victory, leaving little in the way to stop a player from achieving a win in record time.
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Since you could unlock Natural History immediately, it was just a race to pump out enough Explorers and collect all the available Artifacts, which were in short supply. You could ensure no other leader would come close to the World's Fair, and you didn't really need Culture to achieve the Culture Victory, as the main Civics (Natural History & Hegemony) were fairly easy to unlock without heavy investment in Culture. While there are other problematic aspects of Culture in the Modern Age, these fundamental gameplay issues most significantly degraded the experience.
All Updates To Civ 7's Geographic Society Legacy Path & Victory
AI Updates, More Ways To Get Artifacts, & Explorer Unit Changes
In the patch notes for Update 1.1.0, available on the official Civilizationwebsite, Firaxis notes "key changes to improve how this victory feels and plays." Specifically, it will no longer be possible to run out of Artifacts, and the update promises that it will become "harder for players to breeze through this path."
- Explorers have had their cost increased now that Artifacts can be acquired from more sources.
- Fewer Exploration Age artifacts spawn per continent, making competition for discoveries more strategic.
- Natural History Mastery now grants Explorers +1 Sight and the ability to gain artifacts from Natural Wonders.
- Explorers can no longer create a new Dig site on top of an existing Dig site.
- AI will now perform better at completing the Modern Cultural Legacy Path
- AI will now gain Artifacts from Natural Wonders, research more at Museums/Universities, complete Civics, etc.
- No more AI Explorer stacks of doom
This update increases the cost of Explorer units and removes the chance of them creating "stacks of doom" on Artifact sites, improves the AI performance in competing against you down the Cultural Legacy Path, and makes a number of other key changes. Along with these broad changes, others address acquiring artifacts and the progress through the Civic tree.
- Natural Wonders can now be studied for Artifacts thanks to a new Natural History Mastery
- Each player can collect these new Artifacts once per Natural Wonder.
- Completing Future Civic now grants +1 Artifact in the Modern Age (repeatable)
- Completing Hegemony Civic now grants +1 Artifact when an Explorer researches Artifacts.
- The Continents lens has been updated to show Natural Wonders that can provide Artifacts.
- Increased the number of Artifacts that are spawned on Tiny maps
- Hegemony has switched places with Militarism and now requires Nationalism and Globalism.
Critically, new ways to acquire Artifacts have been introduced, and Civics have been shuffled around slightly to re-balance the Cultural Geographic Society Legacy Path. These changes include allowing all players to get artifacts from Natural Wonders and making these sites viewable from the Continents lens filter.
How The Civ 7 1.1.0 Update Addresses Modern Culture Problems
The Update Adjusts Pacing To Avoid Early Rushes
Overall, the updates in 1.1.0 address the biggest Civ 7 issues that the Modern Age Culture Victory had. The shuffling around of Hegemony makes sense, and adding variety to how you can collect Artifacts will make the Geographic Legacy Path a bit less mundane. Firaxis has also made Exploration Age Artifacts rarer and improved AI so thatthe Culture Victory might be more competitive. Increasing the cost of Explorers will (theoretically) make Artifacts harder to acquire so early on, and slow down the rate at which you can send them out.
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It's unclear how effective these updates are in truly balancing the Modern Age as a whole, and you'll have to decide for yourself whether the Cultural Legacy Path is viable. These updates will certainly address the pacing issues, but whether they fully balance the Culture Victory with the other Victory options is up for debate. These changes are a big step in the right direction, at least, and it appears that future updates will fine-tune the Modern Age Culture issues even more. This patch is a gesture of good faith in that it provesCiv 7is willing to refine and edit major aspects of its core gameplay.
Source: Civilization
Sid Meier's Civilization VII
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