– “Sound the alarm! The French are approaching!”
* “Oke sir, what are your commands?”
– “Prepare the helicopters, load the crossbows and send the chariots forwards! We will show them the power of the mighty Aztecs ”
* “Sir, we have numerous reports coming in. The French have assembled a giant army outside our borders. They seem determined to destroy us“
– “Give the order to everyone to hold back and fortify. Let them come to us”
* “Sir, the French are attacking, with warriors…”
– “Dear SunGod!, this might be our end”
As you might have guessed from the intro, Civilization VI has found its way to my SSD. I took a week off to give the game my full attention. I am relatively new to the Civilization genre. I have bought Civilization V only a few months ago, to play it together with friends. But it got me hooked faster than I could believe, the “one-more-turn” feeling I know from the Total War series was back, stronger than ever before.
I have to start with congratulating Firaxis. In a time where developers are afraid to change gameplay concepts (Battlefield, Call of Duty, Fifa, …), Firaxis did the complete opposite and changed some basic core elements. Civilization VI gives you much more control, much more tools and options to define your own playstyle. Strategy has penetrated every aspect of the game. It makes Civilization VI a worthy successor with a lot more depth.
In the old Civilization games, your city center was on a single tile with the surrounding tiles occupied with the farms, mines and other improvements. It is completely different in Civilization VI. The city center is still one tile big, but you have to build all kind of districts to get certain specifications. These districts are specialized zones such as a holy site, campus, encampment, even wonders and they all require a tile. No longer is your metropole cramped on a single tile, but spread around several tiles, giving them the feeling of a living and breathing metropole. You have to think now before building, determine where you want to go with your new city because space and resources are limited. You can not build every district and every wonder in the same city because then you wouldn’t have the required space and resources for further advancements. Your city will starve to death because you don’t have the necessary farms to feed your people, you will lose every race for wonders because production is too low. Thinking ahead, using the different bonuses from nearby tiles and districts and specialize cities will keep you ahead of the competition. A big advantage is that you no longer need to found cities at the coast. You can build a harbor district in the sea, and through that build your navy and trade across the sea.
The introduction of districts doesn’t mean the abolishment of tile improvements. You will still need farms and mines to produce enough to advance. In Civilization VI, they come from builders. They are the workers from Civilization V, but with a charge. Default, they can build up to three improvements before they are used up. It is possible to increase their charges with wonders and policy cards, but they don’t last forever as they did in Civilization V. As before, with improvements you can increase the output of a tile. The novelty is that they also give adjacent bonuses if placed correctly. Build several farms together, and their output increases. Build an industrial district next to a mine or lumber mill and watch the production of the city going up. And these bonuses can go far if you are lucky; place a lumber mill next to a river (adjacent bonus +1) and an industrial district next to that mill, and you get a higher output than without that river.
Builders can’t build roads anymore. Those are automatically built by traders and only between the cities of the trade route (or manual with engineers in later eras). Trade routes are much more important now. With the specialization of cities, you will have to divide resources through trade. I have a lot more trading in my own territory than before. Trading with other Civs will give other bonuses such as gold and science. Trade long enough and a trade post will be build, which further increases the output of the trading route. All this fits in the new approach to the core gameplay of Civilization VI. Specialization and micromanagement, you will find that approach as well in the new Tech and Civic Tree.
Previously you had one research tree for both science and government related items. This has now been divided into two separate trees: Tech Tree and Civics Tree. The Tech Tree is mostly similar to Civilization V and contains the research for improvements of units, tiles, districts and wonders. You use science to progress through this tree; The more science you produce the faster you go. But if you only focus on the science part, you’ll miss a lot of novelties from the Civic Tree. This is a replacement and upgrade from the old Social Policy system from Civilization V. In the Civic Tree you find all kind of non-military and non-science items, such as the entertainment buildings, religious buildings, but also Policy cards.
With this new system, you get to micromanage your Civilization to your specific needs. Policy cards are divided into four categories: Military, Economic, Diplomatic and “Great Peoples”’. These cards are used in a Government to boost certain aspects of the game. You don’t only get to choose which Policy card you want to use, but also which kind of Government you want to have. A Government gives a number of empty slots for Policy Cards and an additional boost such as extra defensive strength. There are several types of governments, each with its own focus. So is the Merchant Republic less focused on military than a Monarchy Government. But you get to place more Economic and Diplomatic cards. Pick a Government and use the Policy cards to your advantage. Build wonders and you can even increase the number of usable slots. You can research items from both trees simultaneously, so there is no reason to invest in a bit culture.
It does get a bit confusing once you’ve unlocked several Policy Cards. Especially because you don’t get to see the influence unless you accept the configuration. How much gold do you lose if you switch an Economic card to a science focussed one? You have to accept the configuration to find out. You get a free unlock if you have researched a Civic, but after that, you have to pay gold to make changes. This is something that a patch could improve. Lucky for us, Firaxis is known to support their games for a long time. And the game is moddable from the beginning, so there might be a mod out there to change this.
Progress through both trees is also changed with the introduction of Eureka moments. These require interaction from the player and give a huge boost, 50%, to a certain research. For example, the Ballistics research takes 24 turns to complete. But if you build 2 forts, it will trigger the Eureka moment and the research will be done in 12 turns. Eureka moments can be triggered with all kind of actions; kill a barbarian with a Slinger, build a mine or have a Great People. If you happen to run behind the others, you can close the gap quicker by triggering the required Eureka moments. I am a huge fan of these Eureka moments. They give variation for each playthrough and add an extra dimension, especially for the mid game.
Policy cards can give you an advantage over city-states as well. The city-state system has been changed. City-states are still divided by type (Trade, Religious, Science, …), but now come with unique bonuses. You no longer need to give gold, complete quests or give units to keep a city-state happy. You get them behind you by sending envoys. Those are earned over time or by Civic research or by completing quests for city-states. Sending 1 envoy to city-states will unlock bonus yield to your capital. Sending more will increase that to your entire empire and unlock additional yields. If you have more envoys than the others Civilizations, you become their suzerain. As suzerain, you unlock their unique bonus and gain a lot of benefits. There are things such as extra vision, the capability to improve their tiles and gain control over their resources. You can even pay gold to take temporary command of their military. But it is the unique bonus that makes it worth to stay suzerain of a city-state. These bonuses are extra gold for luxury resources (for Amsterdam) or even a random Eureka moment if you are the suzerain of Vilnius.
Another good improvement over the last Civilization game is the abandonment of global happiness. This concept from Civilization V was a bit ridiculous to be honest. The mighty Roman Empire would fall to rebellion because you build a third city on another continent. The way Civilization VI handles this is must better. Happiness is bound to a city and evolves with that city. Get happy citizens and your city will produce more and grow faster. Angry citizens, however, have a negative impact. With this new happiness system, it is easier to control more cities and expand faster and further than before. The Roman Empire can now be a real Roman Empire, spread across several continents.
The list of improvements doesn’t stop, because Great People have been changed as well. You still have to collect points to unlock a Great People but each is unique and has unique abilities. Once a Great People is unlocked by a civ, he is gone from the game and can’t be claimed anymore. Since each Person has unique abilities, it is a race to get enough points to unlock him. Luckily, if you have enough points to unlock a Great People, but don’t want to do so because the bonus isn’t suitable to your play style, you can skip it. This will lock that specific person for you until he/she is claimed by another civ. Skipping also lowers the required amount of points, making it easier for others to claim the Person.
With a Great Prophet and a holy site district, you can found a religion. Religion in Civilization VI has much more depth than in V and is now even a victory condition. The basics are the same: generate faith, spread to other empires and convert other cities. You use Missionaries and Apostles to spread your religion further. This will inevitably cause a crash between religions, which are settled in theological combats. These are fought with Apostles and Inquisitors. If you win, you get an increase in pressure and influence over the losing religion. Sadly, theological combat is a bit simple compared to military combat. The Rock-Paper-Scissor system is lacking, which tends to lead to whoever has the most units or engages first. That said, religion is not something you should ignore. It is fun to use religion to your advantage and provides a lot of strategy compared to older games.
But there is, of course more than just theological fights. The first combat you will have, is probably with barbarians. These went through some changes as well. First of all, they are a lot more aggressive than before. Also, they are a lot smarter. First, they send a scout who will collect information of your empire. If you let him escape, he will report back to his home base which will trigger the real problems. The base will spawn units from the correct era and start raiding your empire. While they won’t really take over a city, they can cripple your economic rather fast. Especially if you have an undefended city. Cities without walls can’t fight back. You can place encampments to fight back, but it is better to send an army to deal with the problem. The trait of barbarians doesn’t disappear over time. They will spawn throughout the eras, either on land or at sea. If you leave a city undefended for a long time, don’t be surprised when you get a visit from a raiding party. City-states, however, are also a bit more aggressive and will help out if they can.
But you won’t only fight barbarians. Big changes are that there will be combat between different Civilizations throughout the eras. Leaders have their own 2 agenda’s now. One is open and known from the beginning. This one is fairly accurate with the person represented as their leader. So is agenda of the Indian leader Gandhi the Peacekeeper. He will dislike warmongers and will love peacekeepers. Through espionage and gossip (generated with trade), you might learn what the other, closed agenda is. The closed one is randomly generated, to keep things varied between several playthroughs.
The combat underwent some improvements. It is still a Rock-Paper-Scissor type, but with new features. You can now link civilian units (a medic for example) to military ones so that they are protected. You can use siege equipment to increase damage done to city walls or to completely bypass them and attack the city directly. I love the new merge option. Merge two land units into a corps, and get a unit that is 40% stronger than its counterpart. To this with three units, and you get the stronger army type.
You will fight to keep units alive longer because promotions can provide the difference between victory or defeat. When promoted, the unit gets healed but its turn will end. Since you don’t have to use the promotion immediately, you can save it for a more desperate time.
Civilization VI went through a lot of changes. Not only gameplay but also visual. I am a big fan of the more stylised visual, and I love the way the fog-of-war is presented on the map. The way Civilization VI handles music is another major improvement over their last game. It is one of my favourite addition of this game. Every civilization has its own unique sound with influences from the real one. That is nothing special until you realise that there are 19 different Civs in this game. And that the sound evolves as you progress through the eras. In the beginning, you hear some simple instruments playing a simple melody. A few eras further and the same melody has advanced to a masterpiece with a lot more instruments! You don’t only see the advancement on your screen, but you hear it from your music as well. You can hear the full soundtrack here.
Another thing they nailed almost perfectly, is the narrator. Whoever got Sean Bean to narrate the game, almost deserves a medal. Sean Beam’s voice is just so lovely to hear when you researched something. However, he should have more things to say regarding the nations and/or era. During every load time, you hear him say the same thing. The first time, it will give you the chills. But after the 10th time, it gets plain boring. It would be much more interesting if he could talk about something else, such as the era you are in or a summary of what has happened. Even the onscreen text needs a change, preferably to a summary. If you play several playthroughs together, it can be hard to keep track of what has happened. But they must keep Sean Bean, his narration gives the game that little extra. And this might be the first mainstream media where he won’t die! However, he did die in the intro, so yeah…
But Civilization VI isn’t perfect, yet. I say yet, because I do believe the developers will fix my next problem and that is the AI. At this moment, the AI is rather stupid. It is near to impossible to make friendships because having a different government gives a lot of negative points. A bigger problem is the combat and denouncing. The AI will denounce you for the strangest things. If they ask you to join their war against another civilization, big changes are that they will denounce you the turn after. You will get denounced for no apparent reason. There are even cases where players got declared a war by an AI leader and then got denounced as Warmonger by the others because they were defending themselves. The AI doesn’t upgrade its units as well. I’ve seen Civs in the Modern Era that are still using crossbowmen and warriors as their main army units. While funny to watch these combat, they are worthless against tanks and other modern units. There is no difficulty in defeating these units, which is sad for a strategic game.
But my biggest problem is that a higher AI difficulty doesn’t mean a smarter AI. A higher difficulty just means that the AI cheats more. They get to build and research faster, but tend to use the same strategic as an easier AI. You can off course play online with friends, but Civilization is a game that more people play solo than online. I do hope that either a patch or a mod will solve this.
The game isn’t friendly to newcomers as well. There is a lot more to do, a lot more to consider and thus a lot more that can go wrong. A bad choice in the beginning can have disastrous effects further in the game. Build the wrong district in the wrong place, and you are stuck with it since they can not be demolished. There is not always enough information available to make the correct choice. I strongly recommend watching someone play the game, to understand the basic concepts of Civilization VI, because that will be easier to understand than to just jump into the game and hope for a good tutorial.
Conclusion:
Civilization VI is a solid game. All the improvement to the core mechanics give the game new challenges and more depth. The freedom of choice is something I can only applaud and hope that other developers take inspiration from. The strategy is present at every level of the game, from building a city, to founding a government and fighting wars.
Despite the current state of AI and lack of information, I can only recommend Civilization VI to anyone who loves strategy games. Seeing the way Firaxis handled Civilization V, I am confident that Civilization VI will be improved and expanded on for years to come.
8.5/10
Disclaimer: the review copy was provided by 2K.
