Yo ho, Civ 7’s 1.3.0 update arrives today, November 4th. While it’s headlined by additions to naval combat and the sea itself in line with the arrival of Blackbeard in the Tides of Power DLC, Firaxis have now gone into specifics as to what it’s doing in terms of changes and tweaks to existing civs.
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As outlined in the developer update video above, the “sweeping changes to individual civs” promised in the studio’s last blog are mainly focused on delivering “significant buffs” to 12 nations a lot of folks play as. Axum, Chola, Egypt, Great Britain, Hawaii, Maya, Mississippian, Prussia, Qing, Sanghai, and Spain have all seen changes, with the newly renamed Achaemenid Persia rounding out the list.
These civs have gotten “more specific bonuses” aimed at ensuring they “lean into a unique play style” and making your starting position on the map factor more heavily into how your wider strategy plays out. For example, Egypt will now receive tailored bonuses for building settlements and districts along river tiles, better reflecting their historical reliance on the Nile,” explained Civ creative director Ed Beach. “Achaemenid Persia will get far more culture benefits for the Pairidaeza unique improvement as well as additional happiness and culture from capturing settlements.”
These sorts of changes extend into the update’s fresh addition when it comes to sea and coastal tiles, with the Hawaii civ getting a head start on working with ocean tiles in the exploration age, rewarding using them to push in a watery direction from the get go.
Beyond that, the update overhauls the treasure fleet’s interface via the addition of a “clear treasure point value” to help you tell how much the swag they’re carrying is worth at a glance. Resource icon art has also had some distracting background colours toned down, so they should be easier on the eyes. Finally, selecting a scout will now see tiles with things to discover highlighted with a special blue and white outline, making it harder to miss things if you’re leaning on auto-explore.
We’ll have to see how these tweaks go down, as Civ 7 and devs Fiarxis continue along what’s at times been a pretty rocky and saddening post-release road.
