The game’s fog-of-war is masterfully done too, with areas you can’t directly see having a hand-drawn old map aesthetic.Īnd on top of that we are treated to a musical score that is downright brilliant. Every tile is richly detailed, and little nuances like the way the sun glints off rivers and oceans makes Civ VI into a game that is both charming and beautiful. Of course, it’s not just the strategy that Civ VI excels at. None of them feel tacked on and they all add to the gameplay in their own meaningful way. Suffice to say that they are all systems that are just as brilliant as the three I’ve picked out. I haven’t even mentioned other elements such as Great People or espionage. You need to choose who to make friends with, and decide whether it’s worth sticking with them or trying to win some more powerful allies. It’s a complex system, but it really forces you to engage with those civs around you. That last one is definitely the best one, by the way. And you can strengthen any relationships you do make by sending delegations, forming trade routes or spying on them to find out what really makes them tick. Certain actions will win you a few allies, but end up alienating others. These will colour their opinion of you, and you’ll quickly find that you can’t please everyone. Each one you run into has a set of agendas, including a secret one that changes from game to game. It’s a lovely touch, but it goes deeper than that. Each leader is beautifully animated and speak in their native tongue. Do you place a district on a tile with high food yields and lose them but gain added science/faith/gold, or do you place it somewhere else and lose out on the adjacency bonuses? It’s a brilliant mechanic, because it turns Civ VI into a game where every turn and decision feels like it matters.Īnd then there’s the diplomacy section of the game – like everything else with Civ VI, it’s an interesting and rewarding mechanic. And it offers up some tough decisions too. Say you spawn next to mountains, the bonuses they provide to science and faith might push you in that direction. You’ll have to work with what you have to find real success, and it might even put you on a path towards a different type of victory than the one you were originally planning. Not only does the district system make each city look and function uniquely, it forces real interactivity with the map. After a few games, you’ll find yourself planning where districts will go before you’ve even unlocked them. And because each district comes with its own set of powerful adjacency bonuses, you’ll need to engage in a little bit of urban planning and consider building cities that are specialised for certain functions. It means you can’t shove everything into one mega-city and simply call it a day. Wonders work the same way, but also carry other conditions such as having to be placed next to a river or on a desert tile. There are 11 of these and the amount you can have in one city depends on its population. They take up their own tile, removing the yield and any bonus resources that were originally on the tile in the process. In this game, cities are split out into separate areas, based on a specific function. And nowhere is this better seen than with the district system. Planning is another thing that is key to having any kind of success in Civ VI. And as you work through the tree you’ll be able to research new government types, which contain even more policy slots. If someone decides to declare a surprise war on you, chances are you can change your agenda to suit a war economy within just a few turns. And you can change them often enough that you never feel locked into one agenda. This allows you to create the perfect government for your empire, your goals or your present situation. Meanwhile, researching civics rewards you with powerful policy cards that you can drag and drop into a policy agenda. So players looking to wreck their next door neighbour aren’t forced to research astrology or sailing right away, and can instead rush towards archery and bronze working. With the tech tree, you aren’t forced to research stuff that isn’t conducive to your end-game. Both are set up in a way that means you can really choose specific paths based on what your end-game is. The tech and civic trees are brilliant examples of this. With Civ VI, Firaxis simply hands you a box full of rich and wonderful systems and concepts, and then leaves it up to you as to how best to use them. The avenues you can take to get to each victory are endless, and no two games are ever the same. And this is where the real beauty of Civ VI lies. Winning is nice, but the real fun lies in the journey you’ll take in getting there.
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