Civilization VII is a considerably different game compared to Civ V and Civ VI. I'm starting with civilization guides while I figure out how I want to tackle the problem of creating guides for leaders that can change civs 3 times in a single game. Unfortunately, the lack of Hot Seat multiplayer severely limits my ability to do specific testing of things like the damage dealt by unique units in different circumstances, certain diplomatic actions, pillage effects, and other things. Hopefully, Hot Seat will be added soon. As always, I welcome feedback. I will probably need a lot of feedback as I learn the new game and experiment with the format of these guides. Of course, you can also support the creation of this content by becoming a Patron.

As has been my tradition with these guides, I plan to start by focusing my attention on civilizations and leaders who have never been playable in Civilization games before. So this guide will highlight the rookie civilization of Askum.

The Persian prophet Mani considered Aksum to be one of the four great powers of the 3rd century C.E., alongside Persia, Rome, and China. It's strategic position straddling the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, separating the Red Sea from the Indian Ocean, gave Aksum a de facto monopoly on trade between the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean, and they were among the first African polities to mint their own coins. They also built impressive stele monuments throughout the kingdom, as well as complex agricultural infrastructure, such as irrigation, dams, and terraces.

The Aksumites in Civilization VII are a naval trade-oriented civilization who also indirectly favor cultural development and wonder construction.

DISCLAIMER:

Civilization VII is a "live service" game, which means it will be periodically updated with new content, new features, and balance changes. I may update this guide if Firaxis updates the game such that it considerably impacts this civilization, or if new strategies are discovered by the community. This guide is up to date as of the 1.2.0 patch on 29 April 2025.

I welcome any feedback or suggestions that readers wish to offer. Feel free to post on the linked forums, or by posting a comment at the bottom of the page.

The Chicago Bears did exactly what everyone expected them to do in the 2024 NFL Draft. They traded Justin Fields to the Steelers prior to the draft, and then used their first overall pick to select quarterback Caleb Williams from USC. They had 2 top-10 picks, and went on to also select receiver Rome Odunze (from Washington) with the 9th overall pick. With their remaining 2 picks in the 3rd and 4th rounds, they selected offensive lineman Kiran Amegadjie from Yale and punter Tory Taylor from Iowa. Lastly, they traded back into the 5th round (by giving away next year's 4th round pick) in order to select edge rusher Austin Booker from Kansas.

Aside from selecting a punter in the 4th round (which may have been a bit of a reach), I don't think anybody was surprised by any of these selections. I also don't think anybody can be disappointed by these selections. Williams and Odunze were exactly who I expected and hoped the Bears to take (I was more excited about Odunze than about Williams).

Photo credit: Associated Press, Nam Y. Huh.

The Bears drafted exactly who I expected them to draft with their 2 top-10 picks.

Even the punter is a hard pick to be disappointed with, since he's one of the most elite punter prospects to come out of the draft in a long time, and has the potential to be an All-Pro or Hall of Fame directional kicker. We could argue about whether the Bears reached for this pick. Perhaps they could have traded back, picked Taylor in the 5th round or so, and then also gotten an additional 6th or 7th round pick that could have been used to select a defensive back. I doubt that there were too many teams chomping at the bit to pick a punter in the 4th round. Usually kickers don't start getting drafted until the 6th round.

It is, however, humorously ironic that the Bears invested so heavily in offense (in both free agency and the draft), only to use a 4th round draft pick to select an elite punter.

The announcement trailer for Sid Meier's Civilization VI made me very excited. Not just because there was a new iteration of my favorite PC game franchise, but also because the message of the trailer made me excited for the possibility that Civilization VI would take a much more humanist and globalist approach to its gameplay and victory conditions.

The Civilization games have always had a very optimistic tone, treating human development as being constantly progressing forward. Growing your civilization and building more things is almost always better. For the most part, Civilization treats human history as a constant forward march towards a better, more prosperous tomorrow.

This is despite the games including mechanics for "Dark Ages", climate change, nuclear fallout, occasionally pandemics and plagues, and so forth. Regardless of these mechanics, the civilizations of the game never regress, unless it's by the sword or gun of a conquering civilization, in which case, that other civilization is glorified. Climate change or nuclear winter can run rampant and render the surface of the Earth borderline uninhabitable for modern human life, but a civilization can still accumulate enough science or tourism or faith or diplomatic votes to win one of the various victories, or they can be the sole surviving civilization, presiding over a barren wasteland. But it's still a win.

Civilization is a game about cutthroat nationalism.

Despite vague gestures towards diplomatic cooperation and solving global crises, Civilization is, at its core, a game of competitive, cutthroat, zero-sum nationalism. This design ethos is probably the result of Civilization's inspirations coming from competitive board games like Avalon Hill's Civilization and Risk. "Our country is better than your country," and the whole game is an exercise in proving that. Further, one civilization's success must come at the expense of every other civilization's failure, even if those civilizations are friends or allies. One civ wins; all others lose. Every decision made is done to move your civilization closer towards one of those victory conditions, and every diplomatic agreement, trade deal, or alliance that you strike is only a temporary means to that end.

So what did Civ VI's trailer do to change my expectations for that game?

The trailer

Well, first, it's important to know how previous trailers and intro cinematics for Civilization games had introduced their respective games. Usually, they emphasized a single nation or leader doing great things. Winning wars, building wonders, developing advanced technologies, and so forth. And they usually ask the viewer: "How will you run your civilization?" and "Will your civilization stand the test of time?"

The trailer for Civilization VI takes a different approach. Let's take a look:

"We are the explorers, the inventors, the architects of change, the builders of a better tomorrow.
We strive, we dream, we inspire, always towards something greater.
All the odds we defy, the risks we take, the challenges we endure, only make us stronger.
There's no end to our imagination, and no limit to civilization."
   - Sean Bean narrating Civilization VI announcement trailer

Notice the language that is used. The Civ VI trailer uses plural language such as "we", "us", and "out". "We are the builders of a better tomorrow.". "the challenges we endure, only make us stronger." "There is no end to out imagination, and no limit to civilization.". And so forth. The trailer for Civilization VI isn't a celebration of one civilization or leader rising above all others and being crowned the "greates" civilization; it's about the collective achievement of all of humanity -- not a civilization, but all human civilization!

It's a beautifully humanistic expression that emphasizes plurality and doesn't elevate any one culture or race or nation above any other. It celebrates the collective technological advancements, engineering, art, and struggles of all of humanity, without implying that any one nation or group has the best stuff. It emphasizes that we can overcome challenges by working together, and come out the other side stronger for it. It implies that when we cooperate to build something or solve a problem, the result will be better than what any individual entity can accomplish.

Well, the NFL season has been as good as over for us Bears fans since November, which means my interest in this year's slate of football video games is waning. That means it's time once again to dive into my back catalog of Steam games. This time, I decided to boot up Depraved, a wild west city-builder that was sitting on my wishlist for years (back when it was still in early access), and which I bought during a sale earlier this summer.

Having really enjoyed Banished many years ago, I've had my eye on other historic city builders like Depraved, Foundation, Builders of Egypt, Atomic Society, and others. Depraved is probably the closest thing to Banished that I'm likely to find. It's basically just Banished with a wild west theme instead of a medieval theme.

Depraved shares a lot in common with Banished [RIGHT].

Depraved shares a lot in common with Banished. Both games are about small, relatively isolated communities of pioneers trying to get by in a harsh, unrelenting environment. Both require stocking up food, firewood, and warm clothing in time for cold winters. And both use depleting resource reserves to force players to expand out further into the map.

Where Depraved differs from Banished is that Depraved has a much greater focus on trade. Unlike in Banished (which has the player constructing one mega-settlement), Depraved keeps settlements relatively small, but allows the player to create additional satellite towns on the map, which can each be specialized for the exploitation of specific resources or the production of specific goods. Then all those small towns can trade raw resources and manufactured goods with each other. There's also small Native American tribes that the player can trade (or war) with, as well as the occasional bandit camp popping up to harass your population and rob your bank.

The other big difference is that Banished is a much better and more polished game.

How does any of this work?

My experience with Depraved suffered greatly from the lack of a robust and informative tutorial. If I recall correctly, Banished's tutorial takes the player through a guided scenario through creating a small settlement and surviving the first winter. There's still a lot of trial-and-error in Banished, but the tutorial does a good job of covering all the basics.

Depraved, on the other hand, gave me four pop up widgets explaining the basic mechanics in text, then just let me loose on the map. There's no playable tutorial at all, and additional tutorial pop-ups are few, far between, and less informative than I would like them to be. This lead to me just sort of winging-it for my first settlement, then restarting after I had self-taught myself the basics.

This is your idea of a tutorial?!

Don't get me wrong. Depraved isn't unplayably awful. It just isn't very good at explaining itself and requires a lot of tedious micro-management. If you're fine with that, then this game will be enjoyable enough. In fact, the first few hours are thoroughly enjoyable. Depraved starts off very small and simple, with just a single settlement, a dozen or so pioneers, and a few buildings. Getting the basics of hunting for food and chopping down trees for lumber is simple enough that the player can learn on the fly. It doesn't require extensive tutorials in these early hours.

The Chicago Bears really hit it out of the park with the 2021 draft. What's funny is that this draft mirrors the Bears' dumbfounding 2017 draft, but with an almost polar opposite outlook. In 2017, the Bears infamously traded up one spot to take Mitch Trubisky with the number 2 overall pick. At the time, Bears fans and sports pundits were scratching their heads wondering what the heck Ryan Pace was thinking, as Trubisky wasn't even projected to be the best QB in the draft, let alone the second best player overall. With the gift of hindsight, the Bears' pick looks even worse considering that both Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson were both available, and neither was drafted in the top 10. Other notable players from that draft whom the Bears passed on drafting include Jamal Adams (pick 6 to the Jets), Christian McCaffery (pick 8 to the Panthers), Marshon Lattimore (pick 11 to the Sants), and Evan Engram (pick 23 to the Giants).

Photo by Chicago Bears

The Bears got a steal at the 11th overall pick in quarterback Justin Fields from Ohio State.

The Bears once again traded up to select a QB in the first round. Many analysts listed Justin Fields as the 3rd best QB in the draft, but also acknowledged that the top 3 positions were close to being a toss-up. Fields could easily have been the third overall pick to the 49ers, but San Francisco opted to take Trey Lance instead. This meant that Fields was still available at pick 11, after both the Broncos and Eagles passed on selecting him. The Bears traded up with the Giants to select Fields 11th overall. Like I said, the situation resembles the 2017 draft, except instead of trading up one space to reach for a QB who everyone expected would be available much later, the Bears patiently waited to steal a top talent who had slipped to a later pick. Sure the Bears gave up their first-round pick for next year's draft, but they got a much better value from it this time around.

The Bears had a similar opportunity in the second round, trading up with the Panthers to take offensive tackle Teven Jenkins with the 7th pick of the second round. Jenkins was projected to be a first-round talent, but slipped to the second round. Once again, the Bears got excellent value for their pick. Fields may sit behind Nick Foles and/or Andy Dalton for a period of time, but Jenkins will likely be a started in week 1 (especially since the Bears promptly cut veteran tackle Charles Leno Jr. after drafting Jenkins). And even if Fields does sit behind one of the veterans, I fully expect that he'll be starting by the end of the season.

Not only are both Fields and Jenkins excellent picks in their own right (and excellent value), but they also compliment each other well: an elite passer and an elite pass protector. The fact that both slipped to later picks (or rounds) will also potentially mean that both will be playing with a chip on their shoulders.

Photo by Brett Deering, Getty Images

Fields can likely feel safe with offensive tackle Teven Jenkins blocking his blind side.