Opinion: Civilization VII multiplayer is like Mario Party with warmongers

Mario Party is fantastic, but admittedly a bit basic. Few games are better for gathering a group of gamer casuals and having them enjoy themselves — even if they’re trounced. But if you’re a more experienced gamer, it might feel a little hollow. Mario Party is incredible at what it does, but if you’re after a more hardcore, slow-paced, and emotional multiplayer experience, there’s nothing better than Civilization VII.

Civilization VII is the latest entry in the historical strategy series from Sid Meier and Firaxis, and even if you don’t really know what’s going on, clicking through the game’s suggestions to build a small settlement into a sprawling empire is marvellously satisfying in a way few other games manage to capture. Even by yourself, you can find hours pass by as you wage war against Napoleon and Xerxes across a huge game world. Add a few friends into that mix, though, and it’s a recipe for true chaos.

If you play at a sensible “slower” game speed, it may literally be hours before you even encounter the friends you’re playing with. A small settlement takes time to establish into something to be reckoned with, and while you’re focusing your efforts at home, so are your friends. By the time you finally attempt to expand into new territory, you might find that your pals have already hoovered up all of the available land.

Civilization VII splits its game into three distinct ages: the Antiquity Age, the Exploration Age, and the Modern Age. It’s a neat split that prevents experienced players from outpacing others, while also segmenting the technologies and advancements you can expect from each. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Exploration Age includes sailing your boat out to distant lands to make new discoveries.

It’s an incredibly slow burn, especially when you have to wait for your more “thoughtful” friends to take their turns before moving forward. As with any online game at launch, you just might experience disconnection, crash, and desync issues, too — though most of these have seemingly been fixed in the latest update, thankfully. When the game isn’t delaying your progress, each turn is fraught with tension as you measure up your newfound frenemies and attempt to put in place a strategy to find land, develop technology, and wage war before they do.

If you decide to play Civilization VII with friends, make sure to avoid playing with a strategy pro. We had one in our game, and the psychological pressure was taking its toll. While in the first age there was an uneasy peace as our settlements slowly expanded across a cluster of islands, it soon became clear that some of us were advancing along their chosen routes well — too well. When an age ends, you lose access to older military units, replaced by new ones. This can also leave settlements relatively undefended, making it a perfect time to wage war.

A few “joking” offhand comments about the inevitability of war and the poor positioning of some of our players quickly spiraled into all of the players in the game waging war against our single strategy pro. And even with all of us taking turns to attack his borders, he repelled each of us with a seemingly endless supply of infantry soldiers emerging from the fog of war. Capitals were pillaged, towns were razed, and friendships were irreparably fractured.

Along with the litany of disconnect issues, our Civ 7 game took place over the course of four long days, which is nothing to sniff at if you don’t have plenty of free time. Like Baldur’s Gate 3, getting a party together for Civilization VII – and then having that party actually attend every session – feels like nothing short of a miracle, but somehow, we got it done.

Being adversarial with friends is what competition is all about. Winning and losing doesn’t matter quite as much as participating. Whether or not you manage to win the war doesn’t matter, as long as you have a great story about leading a dozen ships to assail an opponent’s capital to share in the chat after it’s all over. It might not have Bonus Stars, but if you want the emotional highs and lows of Mario Party stretched out and intensified tenfold, then Civilization VII with friends is everything you need to strengthen and end your relationships.