Civ 7: Why Wars Should Persist Across Ages

screenrant.com:

In , the new Ages system forces some major changes on the player that can be extremely disruptive and confusing without knowing what to expect. Many of these changes are justified by the idea that Ages represent the passage of time and an empire would not remain identical across so many years. Unfortunately, on a practical level, the changes feel very abrupt and interrupt the flow of gameplay in a somewhat frustrating way. While the Ages act as chapters and divide gameplay up to make it less cumbersome, certain aspects of the Age transitions need refinement.

One extremely disruptive shift is wars ending in Age transition, with conflicts essentially fizzling out in the space of a single turn at the end of an Age. For anyone who has played past iterations of, the idea that a War ends without seeing it happen on screen is about as strange as it gets. Aside from creating the illusion that time is passing, wars ending as Ages transition is likely the result of the need for units to update. Ultimately, the game's structure may have limited the options, and the end result feels like a momentum killer.

While the concept of a big time jump makes sense on paper, in practice, the Age transition happens within a brief timeframe. Up to that point, players have amassed their troops, sent them out to raid and conquer Settlements, and built up momentum toward an eventual climax to the Age. However, instead of an ultimate showdown or some form of forced reconciliation, any war efforts are immediately ended, troops are reset, and the relationship with the enemy even turns slightly toward neutral.

Civilization 7's Espionage is part of the new Diplomacy system that allows players to spend Influence on covert actions, but there are no more Spies.

While the enemy is still going to be Unfriendly and have a negative relationship with the player, there are no apparent consequences for a cut-off war. The whole thing feels very abrupt, removing the sense of progress a player gets from