Rage culture in gaming is such an obnoxious problem. So many people on the subreddit rag on the game and haven't even played it.

The firaxis team took a big swing, whether or not they missed is subjective. Vote with your wallet, all the previous iterations of civ are still there to be happily played.

I think the game is not as good as Civ VI but is following the same cycle all civ games have taken since I started playing. It's not as fleshed out as the previous entry until all the expansions land.

Personally, I will always appreciate game designers attempting to try to do something fresh over playing it safe.

Why is it not possible to suspend disbelief? It's fiction.

The series does some remarkable things with symbiosis and parasitism and never have I watched a work of fiction who at tirelessly puts effort into their biomes even if it's not grounded on life as we know it.

Splitting the game into distinct eras that atomically enforce switching is novel to me as someone who plays quite a few 4x games including humankind.

Enjoyment of a game is always going to be relative, this bitter hatred & entitlement at the pit of some gamers souls brings down the whole medium. You don't like the game? Don't play it, go on and enjoy the hundreds of thousands of other games out there rather than linger and whine until the devs cater to your whims.

For better or worse Ed Beach, designer of Civ VI, decided what makes the next iteration of Civilization Civilization. Like it or not, civ switching is now part of the franchise.

Maybe you should try Old World? That game is rad too.

I think it's probably true though. I pitched my game to them and they graciously responded and said they are looking into publishing narrative driven games but rather mechanically complex games.