I’ve already mentioned picking up and playing Civilization VI in my last post, but I wanted to share more of my thoughts on the game. Plenty of other people have already done so, and with the game having been out for a month or damn near, most of you probably already know if it’s a game for you or not. But perhaps I can sway a person or two who is sitting on the fence.

So, if you’ve played a Civilization game in the past, it’s likely that you’ll know what to expect already going into this new iteration. It is, in fact a Civilization game, so most of the base mechanics are similar to previous titles. This is still a 4x game. It’s still a long-term strategy endeavor. You still follow a budding civilization from it’s ancient roots into the future, and still have the traditional victory conditions. There are plenty of map types to choose from, plenty of leaders to play as (and different ones per civ, so if it’s a civilization that existed before, you will play as a different leader). Multiplayer is still available as well. In short, what you would expect is present.

People complained about Civilization V not being “done” until its final expansion released. I would agree that vanilla V compared to the game once Brave New World released are two different things. The addition of religion, new buildings and units and tweaks to the balance and AI all made the final product much better than the initial release. But these are the times we live in, and DLC/Expansions/Season Passes aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. I can say that Civ VI has taken most if not all of the ideas presented over the course of Civ V’s lifespan and included them in the base game. You don’t have to wait for an expansion to have a religion, that’s already built in. Lessons learned from prior games have already been applied.

The UI is different. The graphics and animations have been overhauled to a point where they look great, particularly if you zoom in a bit. There are idle animations all over the map, and the fog of war is more interesting than before. Unit stacking is back so you can manage your armies better and beef them up in ways that weren’t possible in the past. The research tree has been tweaked. Civics are a whole new bag. The perks that come with choosing a government are adaptable and able to be changed over the course of a game. I’ve stuck with the same militaristic government for over 400 turns and only changed individual policies when it was beneficial.

The biggest change is the way city building works. In Civ V, you would build wonders and other buildings and they would sort of be tacked onto your city in a half assed way. Now, you can see the individual buildings more clearly, and wonders and other districts actually take up tiles on the map, rather than just automatically being present on the city tile itself. This means planning your cities takes a bit more effort, and new additional build paths are available. I prefer this to just have 1000’s of farms on the free space, though finding the appropriate amenities and keeping up on housing is pretty difficult until the later stages of the game. I’m not sure how you would keep your people happy if you weren’t expanding, and were say going for a cultural victory. I suppose that would mean trading for optimal resources. Honestly, I prefer to blow shit up.

Combat hasn’t changed much, though it appears that the super death robots are no longer a thing. At least, I can’t find them on the research tree, and haven’t the ability to make them just yet. It seems that finding the necessary resources on the map is more difficult this time around. I never had a shortage of things that I needed in Civ V, but that’s a minor complaint and probably my fault that it was difficult. Really, there isn’t a whole lot new to learn, and Civ vets will pick up on the nuances fairly quickly.

I started my game as America, and using Teddy Roosevelt I have wiped both England and Norway from the map. Currently at war with the Turks, and as I set a domination victory as the only victory, it will probably take another 200 turns to wipe the remaining civs from the map. I probably should learn how to do something other than destroying everyone, but where’s the fun in that?

Here’s some screens of my playthrough thus far:

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