Sid Meier’s Civilization VI retrospective

With the recent release of Sid Meier's Civilization VII, plenty of reviews are still being written whilst patch notes and dev pathways are still being decided. Whilst the dust settles, it’s a great opportunity to look back at Firaxis’ 2016 release to see why it was so special and why it’s a great game to return to if you are unsure of what the new sequel will bring. So here are 5 reasons why Sid Meier’s Civilization VI is still worth playing and why it’s still a strong entry in the 4X genre.

1. Unique art style

Whilst previous entries emphasised hyper-realism, the art style of Civilization VI is exceptionally unique. Bright, colourful, and cartoon-inspired, the game combines this with a cartography theme for its world map leading to a vibrant experience. The immediate benefit of this is that the UI is much easier to read – map terrain tiles are easily distinguished from one another, tile improvements are less muddied over a wider area, and resources can be spotted from afar. Added to this are the always great time-lapses for when you complete a World Wonder, and the leaders of each civilisation benefit from the cartoonish style because it archetypes their personality and so allows you to get an immediate sense of their character and potential playstyle.

2. Cities into Districts

The most radical change in the game compared to its predecessors, the different output for each city (gold, production, culture, science etc.) are now split into districts. This really forces you to take advantage of your immediate surroundings as the terrain dictates how powerful the bonuses are for each district. Planning ahead to specialise towards a victory gives your game a sense of purpose like never before.

It also prevents production malaise. Rather than needing to build every single prerequisite building in a new city, you are now free to specialise based on where you settle. This is especially beneficial in the mid-to-late game where new cities still provide some immediate value without needing ten buildings to come online- they just need the district and its associated buildings.

Districts are certainly my favourite feature of the game and it looks like dividing cities in this way will rightfully be a staple of the series moving forward.

3. Governors

Governors are an additional management system in the game, a choice of seven unique characters who provide extra benefits and specialisations to your cities. Used to maintain loyalty of nearby cities, governors are another feature that allows you to compensate for weaknesses, or enhance your cities even further. Governors are unlocked with titles that can be earned a number of ways through social policies, wonders, and unique civilisation powers and they feel like an extra reward more than an extra chore. Their upgrades when maxed out are incredibly powerful and definitely a must for victory. Later in the game, there are options to neutralize governors which removes them for a few turns making for some high-stakes situations when you rely on the governors’ abilities to keep your societies loyal and functions which adds another level of depth to the game.

4. DLCs

Downloadable Content should only ever add to a game, it should not be a necessity to make that game optimal, fun, or playable. Fortunately, Civilization VI does nothing but bolster an already great strategy game. Now, Civilization VI already has a great deal of depth with new and overlapping systems, but the two DLCs provide a focus on the environment, improved diplomacy, new civilizations and on golden/dark age . With the environmental focus, you once again are shaped by your environment and it is satisfying to eventually seek dominance over it and with the ages, you are incentivised to achieve milestones for your civilisation and commit world-firsts. Aside from districts, this score system gives a great sense of progression and a post-game timeline of all of your achievements and can lead to some great benefits to put you ahead of the competition.

5. Ways to Win

Compared to other entries, there has been a significant overhaul to the usual victories in a 4X game: Science, Culture, Domination, Diplomacy, Score, and Religion each have a unique feel and take a very similar length of time to complete with each one having its own challenges. Civilization VI for instance makes the conditions for a science victories take many turns to come to fruition so that other civilisations can have a chance to catch up; culture victories rely on tourism generated by great works (writings, art works, and music) but these works can be stolen by spies later in the game and rock bands can provide a one-off boost to the target civilisation. Overall, this means the game has enormous amounts of replayability and there’s always a new way to win with every new game.