I have waxed lyrical about my love of Civilization games before. I love 4X games, but I adore Civilization games the most. Firaxis reliably delivers compelling and addictive gameplay that makes me want to tackle the challenge of taking over the world, over and over and over again. I’ve clocked far too many hours in the franchise, and have even returned to Civ V recently because I can have fun playing it even while taking care of a tiny human. Now, a new installment has been announced and seems poised to steal even more of my time.
Here is the announcement trailer for Civilization VI:
It sure looks great, but there is so much more! Over on the official Civilization site, we learn that after Civ V sold over 8 million units, they’re expanding on the franchise in new ways. The new features are as follows.
- EXPANSIVE EMPIRES: See the marvels of your empire spread across the map like never before. Each city spans multiple tiles so you can custom build your cities to take full advantage of the local terrain.
- ACTIVE RESEARCH: Unlock boosts that speed your civilization’s progress through history. To advance more quickly, use your units to actively explore, develop your environment, and discover new cultures.
- DYNAMIC DIPLOMACY: Interactions with other civilizations change over the course of the game, from primitive first interactions where conflict is a fact of life, to late game alliances and negotiations.
- COMBINED ARMS: Expanding on the “one unit per tile” design, support units can now be embedded with other units, like anti-tank support with infantry, or a warrior with settlers. Similar units can also be combined to form powerful “Corps” units.
- ENHANCED MULTIPLAYER: In addition to traditional multiplayer modes, cooperate and compete with your friends in a wide variety of situations all designed to be easily completed in a single session.
- A CIV FOR ALL PLAYERS: Civilization VI provides veteran players new ways to build and tune their civilization for the greatest chance of success. New tutorial systems introduce new players to the underlying concepts so they can easily get started.
I am particularly excited about the new cities and diplomacy. I often prefer to build my civilization with a few main cities, only expanding with more cities in the late game. By allowing cities to take over multiple ties, it will be fun to watch my urban areas sprawl towards each other, creating my own super metropolis. I really hope Firaxis uses some of what they did in Civilization: Beyond Earth’s latest updates when making Civilization VI. It would be really interesting to grow diplomatic capital with the other civilizations, changing the way players can relate with the AI.
Other new aspects of the game might include things like terrorism or other more modern concerns – at 1:04 of the trailer there’s an image of a city with the light memorial used after 9/11 to show where the World Trade Center used to be. Typically, Civilization games ended about 50 years in the future from current times; I’m curious to see how far into the future this installment stretches, and how they’ve changed the mid to late game elements, as that is usually when the game’s pacing and challenge starts to shift and become less engaging for players.
Now I’m far too excited for October to roll around. So I’ll just watch that trailer again, and gaze at these screenshots.
Last Updated: May 12, 2016
Pariah
May 12, 2016 at 08:35
I saw this last night. I thought “So this means that Beyond Earth is actually an exp pack that was made standalone and charged full price for.”
I won’t buy another Civ.
Hargrim
May 12, 2016 at 08:38
In what way is it an exp pack? Please explain that reasoning
Pariah
May 12, 2016 at 08:41
Read every review of Beyond Earth. Every single one stated that it felt more like an expansion than a proper sequel. This here to me is proof. Civ VI, NOT Civ VII (as it should be)
Hargrim
May 12, 2016 at 08:57
You do know Civ I-VI are all basically the same game, right? You start as a nomad, play through the ages to the near future. You interact with historical personalities, research historical techs, create historical wonders.
The main Civilization series let’s you ‘replay history’. Beyond Earth was not that. It was pretty lacking at launch, yes, but with the Rising Tide expansion it is a great game in it’s own right, and it is a Civilization game, but is not part of the main series, because you are not replaying history
Pariah
May 12, 2016 at 09:03
Yes. I know what Civ is. Thanks though for the redundancy.
Hargrim
May 12, 2016 at 09:04
Calling BE and expansion, you clearly don’t
Pariah
May 12, 2016 at 09:07
*an
And yes, I do. I guess I’m just more picky about games. I prefer not being ripped off.
miaau
May 12, 2016 at 09:29
I think that a) Beyond Earth was pretty damn good, despite some major annoyances (not Civ V or IV good, but good) and that b) it is was meant to be a totally separate game to Civ V, while stealing MASSIVELY, even down to some of the diplomacy text, from the CIV V.
Gareth Lagesse (eXCheez)
May 12, 2016 at 08:41
I’m excited for this, although I’m curious as to why they’ve gone the Settlers direction with the art style.
Pariah
May 12, 2016 at 08:42
Maybe the success of Endless Legend, which has a similar art style to this. Personally, that’s much close than Settlers.
Alien Emperor Trevor
May 12, 2016 at 08:42
But I haven’t even touched Civ IV yet, damn it.
Pariah
May 12, 2016 at 08:43
I have Civ V. It’s fun. I should play it more.
Admiral Chief in New York
May 12, 2016 at 09:13
I haven’t even gotten to Civ V, sitting there on my backlog
HairyEwok
May 12, 2016 at 08:45
Release date is the same as Battlefield 1…. They may have a overshadowed release.
Pariah
May 12, 2016 at 08:47
*an
And completely different target markets. They’ll be fine. Provided people still want to buy it after BE.
Hargrim
May 12, 2016 at 08:59
I own Civ IV, V, and Beyond Earth, and am greatly looking forward to VI
Pariah
May 12, 2016 at 09:04
Happy for you.
HairyEwok
May 12, 2016 at 08:59
I would like to Civ Japan again, but this time let me build Mechs when I reach the modern era.
Hargrim
May 12, 2016 at 08:59
There’s a mod for that
miaau
May 12, 2016 at 09:26
No, there is ingame robot attack thing, needs uranium to build.
miaau
May 12, 2016 at 09:27
So, new laptop by October, then. Sorted.
HvR
May 12, 2016 at 13:49
Why is the Ori priest the article picture on the main page?
Thought for a moment we were getting Civilization: Stargate; I was so excited when I clicked the link I peed myself a little.
Pariah
May 12, 2016 at 16:29
That’s from Prometheus, not Stargate. O_o
TT
May 16, 2016 at 17:48
I haven’t met a Civilization game I haven’t liked.
I have minor gripes. They aren’t cheap and the DLC are a bit of a money grab, but there are worse games for that (Total War – that is you).
But the games are good and the focus is always gameplay, which I like. To many games these days are all glitz and they leave out the fun. They also tend to be pretty good fun and different to most of the rest. So many of the games around these days are just click-fests or puzzles. It is very rare to get a real sandbox type game where you can just have fun playing.