Not long before the great Geoff-fest kicked off yesterday, Civ 7‘s latest update arrived. Dubbed 1.2.4, it’s delivered the likes of world wonder rebalancing, but has also impacted mods more heavily than your average Civ update. Firaxis have since explained why the latter was the case, as there was a method to the mod breakage.
Updates to the polarising 4X strategy sim have settled into a nice monthly cadence following the barrage of changes that followed its launch, when the likes of the user interface had folks ordering improvements like they’d just run across a farmless tile. If you want a refresher as to what was in July’s patch, there you go.
Before I get into the contents of update 1.2.4, here’s what Firaxis have said about its sacking of modstantinople. “We wanted to acknowledge that this update hit mods harder than usual,” community manager Sarah Engel wrote on the game’s Discord. “With 1.2.4 we moved our UI workflow to a new system. It makes the interface more reactive and easier for the team to build on, but the downside is a lot of UI files were renamed or bundled differently. Mods overriding those files stopped lining up, which is why so many broke at once with this update.”
Hence an update that the developers say was “rougher than most”, but due to the sort of deep changes that you can anticipate remaining a rare occurrence going forwards. There’s also the option to roll back to the game’s “legacy” branch via Steam’s betas if you’d prefer to keep your current load order working without having to wait for mod updates to match 1.2.4. “This was a big shift behind the scenes, but it also lays down a foundation that should make the UI better in the long run. More info on that front to come,” Engel concluded.
As for the update’s non-backend changes, it boasts wonder tweaks galore. Erdene Zuu’s now available earlier, the Colossus and Monks Mound have been pushed to different civic branches, and you can stick pyramids in places that aren’t sandy. The pointy mummy buildings are sadly still banned from snowy tundras, though. The Gate of All Nations and House of Wisdom have been nerfed in order to ensure ancient Persian doorways and Abbasid-era libraries aren’t easy routes to victory. Meanwhile, the likes of Petra and the Eiffel Tower have been nudged in the opposite direction.
Age transitions when you’ve got continuity enabled will now see alliances and more of your accrued gold/influence roll over, with the devs also looking into the general balance of games with the setting turned on. Aside from that, the AI opponents have gotten some tweaks aimed at toughening them up and having them make fewer weird moves, such as accepting your plea for friendship when circumstances mean they’ll have to ditch you straight away. Plus, a bunch of interface improving that you can check out the full notes for.
