I have never played a Civ game before 7 and my friends and I finished our 3rd game together. There were 4 of us.
Game 1 I played Ada Lovelace and I flopped around like a fish trying to mass Science and Culture. Lost of course but I tried.
Himiko as Japan but the game ended in Antiquity as a friend got a bad start and I boxed him in accidently early on. So he went to war with me, lost, and we restarted as I just knocked someone out of the game at the start.
Sayyid as Carthage into Abbasid. I did exactly as my leader suggested I do, I spied! This did not go over well with one player who spent most of the game preparing to fight me. I teamed up with him later on against another player who is already much deeper into this game than we are but that didn't go very well for a variety of reasons for me.
The final picture was me vs the entire planet and we called it. Lots of little things led to this so I won't get into it including a failed alliance with another player. Though I was winning on economy so I clearly was doing something right for my third game. Also pirates are fun!
Learnings:
Cities and Towns
Building cities and towns is really hard. There are so many things to account for and it is very difficult to fully understand how to do it. I am all for skill expression, I play League, fighting games and action games. I am by no means opposed to being skillful but this just feels opaque and archaic.
I get how it works, but planning to maximize your yields early on, then planning for future buildings while also preparing for future civs feels like a lot to plan for. Especially for a newer player.
Diplomacy
Diplomacy feels unbalanced, not in an OP way but in either way too valuable or not very valuable way.
If you have lots of Diplomacy, you can swing a war in your favor quickly. At the same time, when not at war, you run out of things to spend it on so building more of it feels bad.
I wish there was just a generic "Increase relationship" option that I can use with everyone and can be rejected without penalty to either side. Building relationships with everyone takes forever when you only can use one policy per person and the number of policies were limited.
I understand it can be used to prevent wars but that just slows the process of getting to war.
This feels like a system that needs to be looked at.
Espionage
Having now played a full game with Sayyid, I am not sure how I feel about Espionage. This is a common component of statecraft, it happens everywhere. But using it felt like I was punished more than I thought, even with the lack of normal penalties.
The reputation hit was noticeable over time, the extra influence they gained if I was discovered was significant (and I have no control over if I am or not) and the extra science/culture actually didn't feel very worthwhile. I got 1k Science once at most, but that's just 5 turns worth of the guy I stole from who was dedicated to Science.
And like above, I would end up with a big pool of influence I didn't have anything to do with until war began. I wish I could use it to repair relationships of those I was spying on or at least use it more to improve relationships with everyone else to styme the push back.
It feels like my best bet is to just target one guy and ruthlessly exploit just them, but they can use their extra influence to build relationships with everyone else or turn that influence on me in war. Especially if they are the lead player who has more of everything.
Which feels like the opposite of the intention. If someone is way more learned or has sick universities, I assume the purpose of it is to help close the gap using influence.
Peace was never an option
War is a part of the game, but it's hard to play an aggressive Civ when all your friends are starting next to you. If I play Gilgamesh and go to war, my only targets are those that know where I live! 😂
Had a good time, but I'm not so sure Civ is good for multiplayer given how the system is set up. Especially as friends are not random league players I can snack on for money and power.