Sid Meier's Civilization VII

Anyone who's engaged with Sid Meier's strategy series during its 34-year existence knows that the most exhilarating turns in a game are the initial ones. Sure, the mid-game can be an absorbing juggling act, requiring you to manage diplomatic crises and placate the citizens of a sprawling empire, while choreographing your battalions' advance into enemy territory.

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And, almost invariably, the finale will trigger a hectic rush toward whichever victory goal you're pursuing, whether a technological breakthrough, establishing a global religion, or military domination.

But there's nothing like those uncertain first steps with your lone settler and their immediate surroundings, the obscured landscape suggesting a world that brims with resources, natural wonders, and foreign cultures to befriend or conquer. There are no wrong moves during this phase, only a dizzying range of potentialities, each decision setting off a domino effect of repercussions that will reveal themselves in the centuries to come.

In this latest instalment, Firaxis shows its awareness of this early-game appeal and attempts something audacious: to declutter the later parts of a campaign, injecting that mix of wonder and trepidation into every moment of Civilization VII. The obvious aim is to keep the experience fresh for the entirety of each dozen-hour playthrough (the length of a typical run significantly reduced compared to previous mainline entries). The result of these efforts emerges as arguably the most radical departure from series tradition yet. The tenets of the 4X genre that Sid Meier's creation helped shape persist; everything else has been completely overhauled.