Few video game series have had such a long-lasting effect on the industry as the Civilization series. With Civilization’s release in 1991, the next 25 years would see the game take off into the most successful turn-based strategy franchise ever. Its latest installment, Civilization VI, was released Oct. 21.
After a quarter-century, Civ has remained true to its original format, improving on the success of the previous games and expansions. The amount of minutia in the Civ series has been compounding now for decades, and you can feel it.
This year, Civ VI feels like a game which has already undergone a couple expansion DLCs.
One of the most significant changes this year is the addition of districts to cities. The districts act as zones where speciality buildings are built.
An even greater change is that the districts are placed on tiles just like farms and mines, making foresight into how your city will be planned even more crucial. This creates a ripple effect into other strategies in the game.
On the military side of the action, Civ VI allows you to stack together certain units. For example, you can stack settlers with warriors to give your settlers defense and cut down on the repetitiveness of having to move your escort and settlers at the same time every turn.
Research has been shaken up with the addition of missions. If you find a city on the coast, the sailing research tree will get a bump. This allows players to prioritize certain techs.
With the randomness of bonuses and situations caused by new map spawns, the bump also gives a more dynamic flow to the research tree, which could take you in a direction you hadn’t planned.
The addition of the civics tree gives players more discretion to choose how to govern their empire and which perks players can use to achieve victory.
Other leaders will now have agendas corresponding to their real life actions, which shape their AI. Teddy Roosevelt bullies other countries by using force, and the Queen of England is more favorable to countries who started the game on the same land mass.
While this makes enemy AI more predictable, a second hidden agenda, which is randomized every game, keeps you guessing other players’ true intentions.
While the Civ series is known for having multiple paths to victory and not focusing solely on military might, in Civ VI, you have to maintain a strong army because of the enemies’ aggressiveness in the beginning of the game.
However, this is not a huge deal because the AI is terrible at laying siege to your cities. It doesn’t take much to defend your cities long enough for your opponent to offer a truce.
Aesthetically, Civ VI does a decent job. I like the cartoonish design of the map and pieces, and I’m a big fan of the cell-shaded design of the map when it’s covered by fog of war.
Sean Bean provides great voice acting as the narrator. The soundtrack is nice, with ascending cues as you finish new buildings, but the music quickly gets repetitive.
All in all, Civilization VI is one of the most polished releases this year, and I would have expected no less. If you’re a fan of the series, the new additions will keep things fresh for you while also scratching that itch we’ve all had for years waiting on this game to finally come out.
Other than that, there is not much to say. Civilization has been more or less the same game for over 20 years now, and Civ VI is the culmination of years of experience.

Gallery • 2 Photos

Courtesy of Steam.