In the most recent update to the content development roap for Cultural Victory and Legacy Path in the Modern Age, the addition of research queuing for technologies and civics, and most importantly, the return of the One More Turn function that allows you to continue playing after you've achieved a victory in the Modern Age. While these are welcome and needed changes, I'm becoming more and more frustrated about how much was missing at launch.

Civilization games have historically relied on community and player to improve their features, and it's understandable that certain features might not be present right away. While Civ 7 is no exception, it seems like the team would have a better understanding of what needs to be included by the seventh iteration. The newest roap update proves to me that Civ 7 is relying way too much on community , and I simply don't understand why something like One More Turn would be missing at launch, or how it wasn't obvious that the Cultural Victory was problematic.

Civ 7's Update Plans Address The Biggest Complaints

One More Turn, Research Queuing & Quick Move Functionality Are All Returning

The newest update plans include a range of features that, frankly, are hard to believe weren't included in the original launch: One More Turn, research queuing for technologies and civics, quick move functionality, and more. It's awesome that these features are returning to the game, but confounding that they were omitted in the first place.

One More Turn is quite possibly the most egregious omission, as it was literally a selling point for previous Civ games. Its absence at launch is one of the biggest indicators that Firaxis was so focused on solving old problems that it overlooked essential successful features from past installments.

Did the community really need to point out that research queues are preferable to reorienting yourself and studying the tree each time you complete a civic or tech?

Further examples include the re-introduction of research queuing for technologies and civics, something that would further reduce micromanagement in Civ 7 (one of Firaxis' stated goals), but was somehow left out. Did the community really need to point out that research queues are preferable to reorienting yourself and studying the tree each time you complete a civic or tech? Quick movement is another feature that saves time and would help achieve the stated goal of making more players finish games, yet only after complaints that it was missing did Firaxis announce it for a coming patch.

Perhaps the most important update is the overhaul to the Culture Victory and Legacy Path in the Modern Age, which is obviously problematic. A Culture Victory that doesn't require Culture not only doesn't make sense, but also makes the Modern Age somewhat of an exercise in futility. No matter what path you pursue throughout the rest of the game, a Culture Victory is the easiest to achieve. This fix will improve the game significantly, but it truly baffles me how the current state of the Cultural Victory wasn't flagged as an issue well before launch.

The Worst Civ 7 Problems Should Have Been Obvious

You Don't Need Player To See What's Missing

The issues with the Cultural Victory and Legacy Path in the Modern Age should not have required community to highlight, and anyone who played a campaign even a few times from start to finish would realize how weakly designed it was compared to the other options. This was a huge oversight, and while Firaxis should be commended for quickly pivoting to an overhaul, a central game mechanic should be more honed before release. Simply put, the Modern Age in Civ 7 could have used some more time in the oven to consider it from a player's perspective.

In the same vein, it doesn't make any sense that One More Turn or the other updates mentioned here weren't included automatically. Nobody who played Civ 6 thought that One More Turn functionality needed to be removed. Even if some of these concepts could have already been planned as post-launch additions, Firaxis needed to provide a clearer roap ahead of release or delay the launch to add them in.

The omission of such features raises many questions about the priorities of Civ 7, and proves that they are relying way too heavily on players to complete the game for them. It's understandable for some new systems/mechanics and UI to need tweaking after launch, but integral features such as research queuing that have proven utility shouldn't be an afterthought.

The worst problems in Civ 7 should have been blatantly obvious.

Case in point: the new updated roap lists a plan to allow Holy Cities to be converted to a different religion, and it's understandable that a desire for this mechanic would be somewhat difficult to determine without community . On the other hand, I can't extend the same level of understanding to the exclusion of an auto-explore feature, for example, which might seem like a minor detail but should have been a no-brainer. The worst problems in Civ 7 should have been blatantly obvious to Firaxis and should not have required any player to realize they needed fixing.

Civ 7 Could Be Great, But It Might Take A While

Each Update Makes Civ 7 Slightly Better

Civilization 7 does succeed in solving some of its biggest problems, even if the solutions are dependent on the community's . With each new patch update, Firaxis is improving UI features and tweaking systems to be more -friendly. These small changes should eventually result in a complete and balanced experience, but it's hard to say how long that will actually take. For now, at least, these updates seem to be more about basic damage control than they are about fine-tuning mechanics/features, and the recent roap adjustments accentuate just how much work there is left to do.

The opportunity cost here is most frustrating. Features that should have been included at launch are now eating into time that could otherwise be focused on quality-of-life improvements. Above all, it's become clear that Civilization as a franchise is far too reliant on community engagement to pinpoint which features are desirable/undesirable.

Civ 7's fixation on solving the problems in previous games resulted in a lack of insight into what players enjoyed from those games. In short, Civilization 7 has the potential to be the greatest in the franchise, but there's no good excuse for omitting key components like One More Turn at launch.