When I first booted up Civilization VII, I expected to witness the full sweep of human history unfold before my eyes. As someone who's spent countless hours across multiple Civilization titles, I've always been fascinated by how each iteration attempts to capture the essence of human progress. The evolution of what I like to call "crazy time" - those later game periods where technological advancement accelerates beyond what previous generations could have imagined - has always been the series' crowning achievement. Or at least it used to be. What struck me immediately about Civilization VII was how abruptly the timeline concludes, cutting off right around the 1960s with Yuri Gagarin's space flight serving as the final milestone. This feels like watching an epic film that ends right before the climax, leaving viewers with a sense of incompleteness that's hard to shake.

I remember playing Civilization VI and reaching that moment around turn 300 when you'd typically enter the information age. The shift from industrial machinery to digital networks always felt like crossing into entirely new territory, with cybersecurity, drone warfare, and social media policies reshaping how you approached the endgame. In Civilization VII, that transformative period is entirely absent. The most advanced military units available are tanks and fighter planes - technology that essentially peaked during World War II. There's something fundamentally disappointing about building toward a future that never arrives, especially when previous installments allowed players to guide their civilization through the digital revolution and into speculative future technologies. The development team seems to have made a conscious decision to truncate the historical timeline, and while I understand their reasoning, I can't say I agree with the execution.

The official explanation, from what I've gathered through developer interviews and community discussions, revolves around player engagement metrics. Apparently, only about 35% of Civilization VI players consistently reached the information age in their campaigns. The later stages often turned into what many described as "unbearable slogs" where victory was essentially predetermined, but players still needed to grind through dozens of turns to reach the official win condition. I've certainly experienced this myself - that point around the late industrial era where you know you're going to win, but the game requires another two hours of moving units and clicking "next turn" to make it official. The developers apparently decided that rather than fixing the pacing issues, they would simply remove the problematic content altogether. It's a bold approach, I'll give them that, but it feels more like avoidance than innovation.

What's particularly fascinating to me is how this design decision reflects broader trends in game development. We're seeing more and more games opting for tighter, more curated experiences rather than the sprawling epics that defined earlier generations of strategy games. There's merit to this approach - a well-paced 20-hour campaign often provides more consistent enjoyment than a 60-hour marathon that loses steam in the final stretch. But Civilization has always been different. The series' identity is built on its comprehensive scope, on the promise that you can guide a civilization from humble beginnings to a glittering future. By removing the contemporary era entirely, Civilization VII breaks that fundamental promise, and the game feels lesser for it.

I've spent about 80 hours with Civilization VII across multiple campaigns, and each time I reach the modern age, I'm struck by how empty it feels. The technology tree essentially stops progressing after you research rocketry and computers. There are no internet technologies, no social media mechanics, no cybersecurity policies - none of the systems that defined the late game in previous installments. The civic tree similarly peters out around the Cold War era, with no policies addressing digital rights, climate change, or globalization. The game presents the 1960s space race as the culmination of human achievement, which feels strangely antiquated in 2024 when private companies are launching rockets and we're discussing manned missions to Mars. It's like the developers decided that history effectively ended with the Apollo program, which is a bizarre perspective for a game about human progress.

What's particularly frustrating is that there were better solutions available. Rather than removing entire eras, the developers could have implemented mechanics to accelerate the late game or provide more meaningful decision points to maintain engagement. They could have introduced alternative victory conditions that trigger earlier or created systems that allow for dramatic comebacks in the final stages. I've played mods in previous Civilization games that addressed these exact issues - one particular Civilization V mod introduced a "crisis" system where leading civilizations faced escalating challenges that could completely upend the balance of power in the late game. These solutions exist, but the development team chose the path of least resistance instead.

The evolution of Civilization's approach to the "crazy time" periods tells us something important about how game design priorities have shifted. Earlier entries embraced the sprawl and complexity, trusting players to find their own fun even in the slower sections. The newer approach seems focused on maximizing engagement metrics at every moment, even if that means sacrificing the series' signature comprehensiveness. I can't help but feel that in trying to solve one problem, the developers have created another. The game now feels incomplete rather than streamlined, abbreviated rather than refined. There's a difference between tightening the experience and simply cutting content, and Civilization VII unfortunately falls into the latter category.

As I reflect on my time with the game, I keep returning to that moment when I first realized the contemporary era was missing. I had been carefully planning my civilization's trajectory toward a science victory, anticipating the usual progression through digital technologies and into future tech. When I reached the end of the tech tree and found nothing beyond satellites and nuclear fission, the disappointment was palpable. The game I had invested dozens of hours into suddenly felt smaller, less ambitious than its predecessors. The "crazy time" - that period of explosive technological growth that makes the Civilization series so compelling - had been tamed, and not for the better. While I appreciate the attempt to address legitimate pacing issues, the solution ultimately undermines what makes Civilization special. The series has always been about the complete human journey, and without the final chapters, the story feels unfinished.