Since update 1.5.1 (November 10, 2026), Civilization VII no longer lets you build Great People: each civ now unlocks them by meeting its own gameplay conditions. The same update disabled every active mod. How is it going for you?
Video: “Civilization VII Developer Update - November 2026”, official Sid Meier's Civilization YouTube channel, published November 9, 2026 (6:01 PM Paris time), 5 min 20 s. Lead producer Tom walks through the 1.5.1 features, including the Great People rework: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7dYYASvyb0
What Firaxis says (official patch notes, read on November 12, 2026):
- Great People are removed from City Production queues; each civ’s Great People unlock through unique conditions (example: as the Abbasid, a Specialist in an Abbasid Unique Quarter gives an Alim). Conditions are shown at game setup, on the loading screen and in the details panel.
- The baseline number of activated Great People narrative stories rises from 1 to 3.
- The update resets and disables all active mods; re-enable updated ones from Main Menu > Add-ons.
- Old saves stay compatible “as much as possible”, but some new effects may only appear in a new game; on Steam, the “legacy” beta branch lets you finish a save on the previous version.
Our questions:
- Great People: do the civ-specific conditions feel more natural than queuing them, or do you miss choosing when to get them? Which civ’s condition is the easiest or the hardest so far?
- Mods: did you wait before re-enabling them? Which mods already work on 1.5.1, and which ones broke something?
- Saves: did you keep playing an old campaign on 1.5.1, switch to the legacy branch, or start a new game?
- Have you used Liberation yet, or tried the Randomized Earth or Donut maps?
Please say your platform (Steam, Epic, console, Switch) and, for a bug, whether it also happens without mods.
Full guide (mod reset, saves, legacy branch, all 1.5.1 changes): https://tricknfix.com/articles/civilization-vii-update-1-5-1-mods-disabled-saves-steam-legacy-branch-liberation-great-people-november-10-2026/
French version of this topic: https://tricknfix.com/fr/sujet/civilization-vii-1-5-1-grands-personnages-par-conditions-plutot-que-produits-bonne-idee-et-la-reinitialisation-des-mods-a-t-elle-casse-votre-2116c29a01/
Sources: Firaxis patch notes, November 10, 2026 https://support.civilization.com/hc/en-us/articles/57073538595987-Civilization-VII-Patch-Notes-November-10-2026 ; Steam announcement https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1295660/view/1848664643359938
Image: official Civilization VII 1.5.1 screenshot (Great People rework section), © 2K / Firaxis Games.