Civilization VI

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Sid Meier's Civilization VI
Civilization VI cover art.jpg
Developer(s) Firaxis Games
Publisher(s) 2K Games
Distributor(s) Take-Two Interactive
Designer(s) Ed Beach
Artist(s) Brian Busatti
Series Civilization
Platforms Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux[1]
Release date(s)
    Genre(s) Turn-based strategy, 4X
    Mode(s) Single-player, multiplayer

    Sid Meier's Civilization VI or Civilization VI is an upcoming 4X video game in the Civilization series. It is being developed by Firaxis Games, published by 2K Games, and distributed by Take-Two Interactive. The game is due to be released on October 21, 2016 for Microsoft Windows, and with planned ports for OS X and Linux.

    Gameplay

    Civilization VI is a turn-based strategy video game in which one or more players compete alongside computer-controlled AI opponents to grow their individual civilization from a small tribe to control of the entire planet. This can be accomplished by achieving one of several victory conditions, all based on the 4X gameplay elements, "eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate". Players found cities, expand them by adding various city improvements, and build military units to explore and attack opposing forces, while managing the technology development for their civilization and their diplomatic relationships with the other opponents.

    Civilization VI builds upon the general gameplay of Civilization V, namely the use of a hex-based grid. New to Civilization VI is that some improvements to cities are placed in the hexes in the bounds of the city. The player must specify specific hexes as "districts" in the city, which have certain limitations but grant bonuses for improvements placed in that district.[2] For example, one district type is of military encampments, which grants bonuses to military structures, like barracks, placed within it, but such encampments may not be placed next to the main city center. Other improvements gain bonuses for being placed in appropriate terrain; universities will benefit greatly from being played in forest or jungle hexes, reflecting on scientific advance from studying the diversity of species within such biomes. Players can opt to attack specific districts of a city instead of the city center, which can affect on the city's operation. However, these districts may also add new strategies to the city's defense; for example, with a military encampment in place, advances forces approaching a city will be not only subject to ranged attacks from the city center but also from the encampment, and the advancing forces may need to take the encampment first before they can successfully strike the city center.[3] Lead designer Ed Beach opted for these changes as a beneficial means to "unstack" the city tiles, spreading them across the grid, seeing this as similar to the changes Jon Shafer made to unstack unit tiles in Civilization V.[3] According to Beach, these features add city management elements similar to those found in city-building games, and force players to make decisions based on the geographical location of the city, instead of sticking to a specific city improvement route.[3]

    In order to reduce congestion on the map, players will be able to perform a limited amount of unit stacking (a change from Civilization V), but will only be able to stack similar unit types or symbiotic units.[4] For example, a warrior unit can be assigned to a worker unit to protect that unit from barbarians in the early game.[5]

    The game's technology tree, now known as the active research system,[6] has also been modified to help boost technology research if the player has access to appropriate improvements or resources. For example, having built a quarry will help boost the research into masonry.[7] Technologies based on having access to water, such as sailing, would be limited if the player started in the middle of a continent. Beach noted this change was to help pull players away from automatically following a rote path through the technology tree. A new feature, Eureka Moments, will increase the player's progress towards certain technologies after completing a specific in-game task: for example, discovering a Natural Wonder would contribute towards the Astrology technology improvement.[3]

    To improve the gameplay towards players that favor a Cultural victory, a new Civics tree has been introduced, bringing in the cultural improvements that were previously part of the technology tree in earlier Civilization games, such as Drama and Philosophy, into a separate mechanic. Culture gained from cities are used to build on the Civics tree in the same manner Science from cities build up the Technology tree. Completing certain Civics will then unlock policies towards the civilization's government. In Civilization VI, the government is defined by placing appropriate and available policies into a number of slots divided between Military, Economic, Diplomatic, and Wildcard categories. These define boosts or limitations for the civilization, such as improved attack bonuses for military units against certain types of enemies. These can be changed for free upon completing any Civic, or at a small cost at any other time, allowing a player on the Cultural route to adapt to a new situation as needed, according to lead producer Dennis Shirk.[3] Various choices made by the player may cause unhappiness in their population as with previous games, but in Civilization VI, many of these will be localized to the city affected by the choice rather than the entire population, further aiding towards Cultural victory-style players.[5] The Religion system introduced in Civilization V's "Gods and Kings" expansion is built further upon in VI, featuring more units and improvements that can lead to religion-on-religion conflicts.[5]

    AI opponents will have new agendas that will influence how the player interacts with them. Some of these will be fixed based on the leader. For example, a player may gain favor with a civilization led by Cleopatra by showing military might against neutral barbarians.[8] However, a second hidden agenda will be randomly assigned each game, requiring the player to discover this themselves.[9] Espionage will now also work towards revealing these hidden agendas.[5]

    Development

    The game is being developed by the same Firaxis teams that developed the expansions on Civilization V, and it is expected that most of the new mechanics introduced in these will be present in Civilization VI at its launch.[10] A major foundation of the development of Civilization VI was to prevent players from following routines in playing through a game, according to Beach. The developers placed much more emphasis on the signifiance of the procedurally-generated map in how it would influence the player's strategy as the game progressed, so that no game of Civilization VI would be the same.[11] Features like the unstacking of cities and city districts lead directly to support this approach, since some districts and city improvements depend specifically on what available terrain is nearby.[11]

    The game is being developed with a new engine that is expected to be more friendly to modification.[10] The game's visuals and tools featured were inspired by the Age of Exploration.[12] User-interface elements will feature elements like compasses and astrolabes. The fog of war will be rendered using a cross-hatch drawing style to replicate old maps from the Age of Exploration.[13] The developers plan to bring back the movies they had shown players upon completion of a Wonder from Civilization IV, but will be now rendered in game, and as to make the final shot of the Wonder more impressive, they developed a day-night cycle that continues on in the game. While this cycle will not affect the core gameplay, art director Brian Busatti anticipates that this feature could be used by modders to create new tactical considerations.[13]

    The game uses a more cartoonish look than those of Civilization V, as according to Firaxis, with much deeper gameplay, they wanted to keep the visuals simple to avoid interfering the complexity of gameplay.[8] The graphics of individual units and buildings are being developed to be both readily-detailed when viewed in a tight zoom, while still being recognizable from other similar units when viewed from a distance.[13] This necessitated the simpler art style to allow players to quickly recognize units and buildings while looking over a city without having to resort to user interface tooltips or similar distractions, according to Shirk.[5] Individual units will be designed to include flair associate with the given civilization, such as applying different helmet styles to the same class of footsoldier units.[13]

    References

    1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
    2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
    3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
    4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
    5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
    6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
    7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
    8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
    9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
    10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
    11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
    12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
    13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

    External links

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