The China Mail - Next round for strategy game lineage in 'Civilization VII'

At first glance, little has changed since the very first title released in 1991: players are presented with a top-down view of the game world in which they build up their society turn by turn from the Neolithic period to the modern era.

Virtual rulers can exert their will over opponents either by diplomacy or war -- a formula that brought sales over the whole series to 73 million by summer 2024, according to Take Two, parent company of publisher 2K Games.

"Civilization" spawned a whole genre known to gamers as 4X, for its core gameplay activities: Explore, Expand, Exploit and Exterminate.

Comparable titles include Paradox Interactive's starfaring "Stellaris" (2016) or French developer Amplitude's "Humankind" (2021).

That range of alternatives is one reason why fans "don't just want the same game with a new coat of paint, with fancier graphics," Ed Beach, creative director for the Civilization franchise, told AFP in August at Germany's Gamescom trade fair.

"We need to do something new each time... something that is going to really improve the game."

Civilization is still developed by US studio Firaxis, which has run the franchise since its third instalment.

Its seventh edition, available on PC and console, allows players to set any historically-inspired ruler at the head of any empire -- allowing Charlemagne to govern Egypt, for example.

A match is now divided into three acts, each wrapped up with a major crisis such as the collapse of an empire or a foreign invasion.

The way players cope with the challenge defines how their civilisation will adapt as they enter the next age.

- 'The human journey' -

That is one way the developers wanted to confront player-governors with the consequences of their actions.

"We're not trying to say you have to play a certain way," Beach said. "There are times I play as a very bad guy, and that's an interesting way for me to look at the world and look at history as well."

Nevertheless, topics tackled in Civilization -- such as climate change or the battle of democracy versus autocracy -- are hot issues out in the everyday world.

"It's not getting political, it's just we're always thoughtful about what the human journey has been," Beach said.

"The more our game can mirror that in interesting ways and let people adjust it and play with it and experiment with it, we think that it's doing what it should do."

Civilization's image as a "serious" game is a legacy of its origins on desktop computers, "at a time when the PC was a tool for work," said Sebastien Genvo, a researcher specialising in video games at the University of Lorraine in eastern France.

Firaxis itself brought in historians to advise on keeping gameplay plausible and modelling civilisations in the new structure -- all while allowing the player as much freedom as possible.

- Return of Sid Meier -

"Civilization doesn't aim to teach you history," Genvo said, even if the close attention to certain historical details may "awaken an interest" among players.

Hundreds of people have contributed to the development of "Civilization VII", going back to before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Among them has been Sid Meier, 70, the original creator of the series, whose name still features proudly in the game's full title.

Meier had been "off doing other projects" during the development of the previous instalment, "Civilization VI", Beach said.

"He likes to experiment... he offered to prototype some of the early ideas for Civ VII," he added.

These included how units are moved around the map or the different military, scientific and cultural objectives players must achieve in each age.

S.Wilson--ThChM