Representation is a key factor in selecting Civilization VII Leaders, says Firaxis
Firaxis had a more involved process for selecting Leaders in Civilization VII.
Aside from getting to try the game, I also got to chat with devs from Firaxis, and they shared how representation is a key factor in selecting the lineup of leaders for Civilization VII.
The reveal of the roster for a Civilization game is a definite highlight for many players given the colorful cast of characters Firaxis takes from world history. Because of this, the Leader selection process was one of the questions I asked Dennis Shirk, the Executive Producer of Civ VII.
While the reveals of new Leaders are fun for fans, Shirk said that selecting them was just as exciting for the team over at Firaxis. He also shared that the team considers the devs’ own picks, along with player feedback and certain criteria for representation:
“That’s always the most exciting part of the game. We do that throughout the first year of development, the Leaders and the Civ choices, and everybody has their favorite. We have community feedback from the past game for people that we know that they’d like to see return. We’ve got criteria to make sure that we have representation around the globe for finding new leaders, digging deep into history, and saying, look at this person, this is awesome, we want to represent them.”
Previous Civ games already have a great representation of various civilizations throughout world history. Civ VI for instance had some interesting picks from Southeast Asia like Gitarja and Bà Triệu (there’s some personal bias here admittedly as someone from SEA).
For Civ VII though, it seems that Firaxis is going the extra mile when it comes to representing various leaders from across the globe. Even though we haven’t seen the full roster yet, Civ VII is shaping up to have the widest representation in the series, at least based on Firaxis’ method of choosing Leaders. According to Shirk:
“The process is really involved. We have all of the 2K local teams on speed dial to make sure that we can constantly talk to them about who would be really good representatives for certain parts of the world. Our in-house historians are making recommendations for not just Civilizations and Leaders that we think are going to be really popular, but also for ones that are underrepresented that we want to represent. So, it’s just a big bucket of discovery. It’s just a lot of discussion, a lot of back and forth, but it’s a really exciting process.”
Given the wider net that Firaxis is casting when it comes to representation, we might see more Leaders in the Civilization VII roster who weren’t heads of state during their time. This may not be to some fans’ liking considering there have already been mixed responses to some Leader reveals like Harriet Tubman and Confucius.
It’s fair to prefer Leaders who were actually heads of state during their time when it comes to immersion, but on the flip side, the fact that Civ VII decouples Leaders from Civilizations is a bigger immersion-breaker. As such, the wider net for choosing Leaders shouldn’t be as big of a deal.
As for players like myself, having more unexpected Leader choices is exciting more than anything. After all, part of the fun of Civ for me is learning about all these Leaders and Civilizations from world history that’s not touched upon in school.
Representation is not the only criterion for Leaders in Civilization VII though. Shirk mentioned that gameplay is also a key consideration:
“We also have the gameplay systems. We want to try to choose personalities that we think will fit with the new system, like Machiavelli and our new Diplomacy system which is a perfect match.”
I didn’t get to try Machiavelli during my hands-on with the game, though I did play as Augustus. While I initially wanted to see someone new for Rome (maybe Hadrian or Marcus Aurelius), Augustus makes a lot of sense given the new Towns and Cities mechanic. In the game, Augustus gets added Production in the Capital for every Town he has. This makes him great for a “tall” playstyle, and it makes sense considering his reign historically.
Given the focus on representation, coupled with the gameplay consideration for Leaders, I’ve become even more excited to try out the rest of the Civ VII lineup.
Civilization VII will be released on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC, and macOS on February 11, 2025.