After a seven-year wait, Firaxis officially revealed Sid Meier's Civilization 7 is in the works. While there has been no news about the project outside a short announcement tweet, fans are interested to see what the studio has in store. Each Civilization title tries to reinvent what it means to be a Civ game, and that trend will likely continue with Civilization 7.
Sid Meier's Civilization 7 could be Firaxis' chance to fix many of the series' pitfalls up to this point, such as getting diplomacy right. Diplomacy has always been one of the weakest elements of the series when it should be one of the strongest. Despite the entire concept of Civilization revolving around diplomatic relations with other peoples, there are not many diplomatic shenanigans to get wrapped up in; Civ 7 could rectify that with more engaging systems.
Civilization's Diplomacy Mechanics Need Some Work
Throughout Sid Meier's Civilization, the aim is to claim victory against dozens of other countries, either by learning to work with them or being prepared to destroy them. While diplomacy plays a major role in a game like this, the diplomatic systems in Sid Meier's Civilization feel basic compared to other strategy games.
Sid Meier's Civilization 6 overhauled the diplomacy system from previous entries, but it still feels very limited. Each civilization has varying relationship levels with every other civilization, and players can manipulate these levels through diplomatic means. They can improve the relationship by satisfying the civilization's agenda, sending delegations, establishing embassies, having trade routes, fulfilling promises, and striking certain agreements. To worsen the relationship, players have to be more aggressive and actively do the opposite of what the other civilization wants.
While it may sound like there are a lot of options when it comes to diplomacy in Sid Meier's Civilization, most of it boils down to the same gameplay loop. The civilization will send players a trade offer that can be accepted or denied, and relationships tend to just be a bar that either goes up or down based on the offers that each Civilization player make. Even alliances feel barebones; mostly a means to protect civilizations from outside aggression.
One of the easiest ways to fix this would be to give players more options beyond trading goods, signing pacts, and declaring war. Civilization 7 could make espionage more directly tied to diplomacy, for example, with players being able to blackmail or trade secrets with other civilizations. Aid projects should become more of a choice, there should be more pacts that players can propose, and alliances need to feature more mechanics to engage in. Giving players more options could significantly expand the system, bringing it more in-line with grand strategy games like Stellaris.
Sid Meier's Civilization 6 also featured AI-driven agendas to navigate around, but the concept could use more work. The agendas are not always very complex, as civilizations like Norway will get mad if players simply do not build enough boats, a request that gets especially more bizarre as the Civilization round unlocks more advanced technologies. If agendas change as the world evolves, this could make the AI feel more alive, leading to a constantly unique landscape that makes success more difficult - and rewarding.
There are a lot of things that Firaxis could do to fix diplomacy, and Sid Meier's Civilization 7 is the chance to finally get it right. The system needs to be more complex and interesting given how important diplomacy is to the conceit of the game. It deserves to be far more than a simple relationship bar.
Sid Meier's Civilization 7 is currently in development.