Civ 7 Gameplay Feedback with Possible Explanations for Missing Mechanics

[sanglant]

First off I've played only about 40 hours of Civ 7 when I'm posting this, so I have not experienced everything nor explored every nook and cranny of this game. Just some of thoughts at what can be improved as well as possible explanations for certain things missing.

Things I enjoy:

A) The commanders are great, they add a depth to combat I feel was missing from Civ 6. Its a great compromise to the unit stacking from Civ 4 and earlier, to the single unit per tile in Civ 5 and 6.

B) The game map is gorgeous, and the music is awesome.

C) I do enjoy the switching Civs after an Era. I feel like I can completely change my focus in each Era, and it does make an Era feel fresh.

D) The new mechanics on Scouts. I love the how it makes the scout feel unique and interesting.

Things that need work:

1) The giant elephant in the room, The UI:

Its ugly, its blocky, and fails mightily in its most important function conveying information. At a base level it works fine, even smoothly. For a new player its not overwhelming and just helpful enough to get most things done. But for anyone with a little experience with a Civ game, it's completely lacking any in-depth explanation of game mechanics.

Things it needs:
Nesting keyword menus/windows with more in-depth descriptions of game mechanics. Better descriptions of what's going on, better icons in the tech trees with maybe a key somewhere in all that empty space that explains what each type of symbol means. More CLARITY! Maybe a different symbol for increasing settlement limits on Techs/Civics, so if that's what I'm pushing for, I can easily identify it. Maybe color code the Tech symbols, outline Wonders in a different color then Buildings, Production Buildings different color than food Buildings. More clarity on yields of districts. Perhaps a total of what yields your losing and what your gaining by placing a district/building. Better explanation of what adjacency bonuses your getting other then what direction its coming from. Notifications of damage your units are receiving not on your turn. The amount of scouts I've lost because I didn't know they were taking damage until they were dead. MOVE THE MAP TO IMPORTANT EVENTS INBETWEEN TURNS! An age progress bar on the main HUD. GIVE US NUMBERS PLEASE. How many tiles can a trade route go? Is it from the border or city center to city center? Why isn't this stuff in the Civilopedia? The lenses suck. The settler lens masks the game map way too much and I don't understand why settling on blue vs yellow matters at all. I should see the yields and resources better. They need to stand out more in that lens. Disconnected settlements and resources should be separated into their own grouping in the resource menu.

Possible explanations for the state of the UI:
I believe the UI was designed the way it was is because of Cross-play. Because they wanted it to function on a Switch/Deck/Console and PC, they had to massively streamline and simplify the UI. This was probably done to expand the player base, and I imagine it was because how popular Civ 6 became on console. And they didn't want 5 different games/patches/engines so they made one game engine that could run on multiple platforms. This lead to a massive downgrade for PC players because how limited all other platforms are performance wise. Civ is a mouse keyboard game not a console game. Missing hotkeys? That's because only one platform has keys. UI feels simplistic and boring and plain? Has to work on 10 year old switch software. Limited resolutions, and screen sizes compromise what is possible.

2) The Emergent Narrative system:

The stories are fine, the rewards are lacking, it happens too much and it feels disconnected. Also it should feel differentiated from a goodie hut (which I also don't understand the difference between them).

Things it needs:
I know they don't want to reveal to much of why things proc, so you can't game it to get what you want and min/max it. However a completely random pop-up with no explanation as to why its popping up feels disconnected. With a little story that doesn't feel continuous to the other narrative pop ups. This makes it just feel arbitrary and unconnected to they story I'm telling with my game. And the rewards need to be tweaked. I feel they need to be either something I can't get on my own or made to feel more substantive. I was offered rewards in the Exploration age that were literally 1/2 of the culture, science or happiness I made in a turn. The unit rewards or great works were nice, as well as the extra yields a turn to certain buildings! The science and culture and happiness were good in the Ancient Era, felt kind of useless in the following 2 Eras. More options for unique rewards less generic ones. Also fewer per game. That almost felt like they were popping every turn and just became another annoying screen you have to click through. Which just makes it feel like its slowing the game down instead integrating a story into the game.

3) QoL UI updates from previous games:

Why did they take away such things as auto-explore on scouts or queueing on tech and civic tree?

With scouts new abilities an auto-explore feature wouldn't work. It could not take advantage of the search mechanic also, scouts Lookout mechanic give scouts a use after exploration they never had in previous games. Auto-exploring to death is kind of a waste of the new scouts in the developers opinion, I would guess.

A Queueing ability in Tech and Civic trees because complex to implement with the new Mastery mechanic on Techs and Civics. Do you just got the selected Tech/Civic without stopping for Masteries or do you get all the masteries on the way? Should their be different hotkeys so if you shift-click it ignores masteries and if you ctrl-click it does masteries too? Also how to you implement hotkeys on platforms that don't even have keys? As I've pointed out before I believe a lot of these QoL updates we expect is a result of the focus on cross-play.

4) End of Era's:

Era's end too abruptly. Please, please, PLEASE go back to the way you did it in Civ 6. Once the age completes give us 10 turns to finish up what we can. More clarity (there is that word again) on what aspects of the Era 3 people have accomplished so I actually have a chance to counter them. Right now it just feels like a race where I can't hinder my opponents at all.

5) Units:

Why can't I kill or disperse a Missionary? Can I kill a merchant? I know I can pillage a trade route, but why is it hidden in the expanded options? Why is resting 'til fully healed in there? Why is the 'Wake on Seeing an Enemy' symbol a clock? Why don't ships have that option? Why don't more units have special abilities? I liked the paper rock scissors of Civ 6 military units.

6) Settlements:

If you eventually build urban districts everywhere, why are warehouse buildings ageless and unremovable or at least unmovable? Perhaps a way to pay money/influence to move a building so if you accidently build a special building in an already constructed district. Or a way to cancel it once started if there is an accidental mis-click? The current system is way to punishing considering how little it is explained by the UI or Tutorial. Why can't you pay to turn a city into a town? if they go back to a town after each era anyway?

There are definitely more issues then I've covered, but that's all I have time for now.