Breaking news!
According to latest news, as reported by Kotaku, PCGames, and others, 2K has announced that it is buying Paradox Games, and that the next part of the Civ series is actually the just released Millennia.
The articles say that 2K has been actively looking into expanding their portfolio (as also shown last week’s purchase of Gearbox), and given that many people who play Civ also play the grand strategy games from Paradox, this is surely a welcome addition.
Regarding Civ7, internal sources said the following: “We finally started work on Civ VII in 2023, despite not being really satisfied with the ideas we had for it. Then in February we tried the Millennia demo, and realized it was way better than what we had internally. So we made some inquiries, and are now pleased to announce that we have bought Paradox Interactive!”. The original “Civ7” team is said to now be working on Millennia DLCs. At least one article mentioned that the highest priority DLC was for customizable GDR skins (most likely part of the Atomic Ambitions DLC), as they would be especially noteworthy on Millennia’s combat screen. The GDR has been a favourite of the civ community for years, so the sales of this DLC are expected to be considerable.
Sid Meier himself is said to be particularly fond of the alternative ages. This would allow further alternative choices, like generating an actually flat earth in the Millennia universe. Flat earths have been for a long time well represented in Civ, ignoring all issues with map projections. The devs hope that an in-world flat earth will finally satisfy people who have been critical onf the grid-based movement, which does not scale well with the latitude on a globe, but does not cause issues on a flat earth.
Among the more usual details are that beloved leaders like Gandhi and Napoleon will be reintroduced into the now leaderless Millennia game, and that new civs like the Maya, Poland or Australia will be available as future DLCs.

Sources:
– https://www.kotaku.com/2024/03/2K-buys-paradox-millennia-civ7/
– https://www.pcgamer.com/Firaxis-Paradox-merger/
– https://en.ign.com/civilization-7/979615/news/millennia-next-civ

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