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  "description": "A year after the original release, Firaxis has launched the Test of Time update which brings in some radical changes. But is it enough?",
  "path": "/civ-7-test-of-time-update-review/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-31T09:48:09.000Z",
  "site": "https://sathyabh.at",
  "tags": [
    "earlier in the week",
    "syncretism",
    "Hatshepsut",
    "Egyptian",
    "Abbasid",
    "install a mod"
  ],
  "textContent": "Firaxis releasd the much anticipated Test of Time update earlier in the week. This update introduces a rather fundamental change to the game - allowing you to play with the same Civilization for all three ages. You can still continue with changing Civilization at the end of the era, but you're no longer limited to picking a civilization specific to their age.\n\nGiven that the entire premise of Civilization 7 is civ-switching, I can only imagine the kind of rework that would have gone in to support this. Civs were locked to specific ages, and they work around this by recommending apex Civs and should you choose to pick a non-Apex civ, a new feature called syncretism__ lets you pick and choose unique perks (infrastructure, units) from across other civilizations _._ The patch also brings in some new music and a bunch of other updates. The feature is interesting and has the potential to open up the game quite a bit. Practically though, I didn't find it to be quite that impactful.\n\nOnce the new update was done, I fired up Civilization, picking Hatshepsut as my leadering, picking up the Egyptian and Abbasid civilizations for my antiquity and exploration ages. I picked the respective civilizations as apex civilizations, taking the Abbasid civilization for the modern age as time-tested civ.\n\nThere are indeed some nice updates - the triumphs for example give you a bunch of different goal posts as the previous legacies were ripped out. The triumphs can also be tracked giving you checklist items. Should you not track it however, once you complete it, you get a nice popup informing you of your _triumph_ which is a nice touch and reminds you of Civ 6's quests. Unlike Civ 6 however, you don't get a boost. You do get a dedication that you can apply to your subsequent agent.\n\nThe AI, however, is still pretty braindead at the default settings so it gets pretty boring by mid-exploration age and you're drudging along. There are a few new ambient music(including alternative versions of existing music) but that's still not enough and repetition kicks in. Civilization 7 has richer music but Civilization 6 has a larger/better music collection.\n\nMy take on the update is that it'll get people interested to play a game or two but over the longer run, it still suffers from the same problems that Civilization 7 when launched. Antiquity is too limiting - especially given that you can't navigate into deep ocean, in this game I was limited to this tiny island that I couldn't go beyond. At the same time, antiquity also is often the most fun due to AI getting good headstart from the difficulty bias. The exploration age is too boring and by the time you're in exploration age, you're likely to have a decent lead and there's not much to do except go through the turns. By the Modern age, you're mostly done and just waiting for things to finish.\n\nThe UI has improved quite a bit since launch but still lacks a whole bunch of important things - swapping tiles is behind some arbitrary conditions, you still can't figure out what policy cards do unless you install a mod, and there's no list of units.\n\nI'm not sure where Civilization VII will go from here - to get this out, they clearly had to put a lot of planned (read paid) content on pause. Going back to releasing the paid content is something I don't think will get a good reception. I can only wait and watch. For now, I'll play the odd game or two and revisit once the next update is out.",
  "title": "Revisiting Civilization VII after the Test of Time Update",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-31T09:48:09.946Z"
}