Civilization VII has a Map Generation Problem

When a new game in a series launches, especially a systems-driven one like Civilization, there’s usually a catch-up period where the new game is lacking in certain features that players had become used to in the previous entry. Sometimes it’s quality of life options or extra functionality, sometimes it’s the sheer variety of factions and extra game modes that several years of expansions bring. But with Civilization VII, the biggest step back has to be with the new map generation system and the dearth of meaningful options it has available, which has a decidedly negative affect on all the other parts of the game too.

Normally in Civilization, you have a suite of options to choose what kind of map you want to play on. These start with choosing the overall shape: do you want a single, Pangaean landmass, a few continents, or a several chains of island archipelagos? Then you can fine tune your choices by selecting the number of major landmasses or even choose to make forests, mountains, and/or deserts more likely by changing the average temperature or age of the world itself. It will still work by most of the usual map generation rules (you’ll want to boot up the World Builder if you want something specific) but generally you can get something decently tailored to what you want.

In Civilization VII, however, your map options are a lot more limited. This isn’t entirely unexpected, Civ VI didn’t launch with all its current options nor did it get a map editor for a few years, but VII has even less than expected. Currently, you have 6 Map Types and 3 size options to choose from. That’s it, no other options. But what makes matters worse is that even those different map options consistently generate very similar maps. Continents Plus gives you two large landmasses with a strip of islands down one side. Continents gives you the same, but hold the islands. Fractal, Shuffle and Archipelago give you the same as Continents Plus but the two landmasses will be more irregular. Terra Incognita doesn’t even change the map formula but instead just makes every civ start on the same landmass, which is ironically the most affecting of all of them.

These homogenous (and to be frank, ugly) maps kill much of the excitement of exploration in repeated games. Once you know the layout of one you can make reasonable guesses of where your opponents are and where the other large landmass is. Additionally, smaller biomes make building towards bonuses from certain terrain types less worthwhile, mountain barriers and natural chokepoints are rare, and the removal of hills makes maps seem flatter than ever. In fact, it’s just generally rare to see any kind of features that might prompt an interesting strategic decision.

And that lack of interesting decisions is, ultimately, where the problem lies. Where once you would have to adapt your strategy or specialize to take advantage of your surroundings, with that perhaps affecting other decisions further down the line, now everyone starts on the same flat land and you race to gobble up as much of it as you can. Early naval specialization is disincentivized since land is rarely at a premium until later and you’ll likely be pre-occupied with your terrestrial neighbours before then, while the new Towns system encourages spreading far and wide even if you’re trying to go for a traditionally ‘Tall’ style. A big melee between Civs on a few large continents can be fun, but not when it’s the only available option.

The first few months of post-launch development on Civilization VII will likely be taken up by fixing bugs, performance issues, and sorting out the widely criticised UI, but I’d argue that improving the map generator should also be bumped up in priority. While new civs or leaders might be exciting additions that get players coming back to check them out, without interesting maps and solid options they aren’t likely to stick around for repeat games the way the series needs.

Civilization VII is immediately available for PS4, PS5 Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and PC.