The game’s overall contours and many of its core systems carry over from V intact. These disparate resources all feed into the interlocking systems, allowing civilizations to compete over the sweep of history in military conquest, religion, trade, diplomacy, espionage, and great works of culture. Players found cities that sprawl across a hexagonal map, enhancing them with buildings and exploiting the terrain to generate food, science, production, gold, faith, and culture. It’s an impossibly elaborate digital board game mixing exploration, culture, economics and warfare into the ultimate historical 4X experience (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate). It is still an epic, turn-based strategy game that remixes the world’s great nations, leaders and wonders into a fresh, alternative history. If it ain’t broke…Īt first blush, Civilization VI will look familiar to anyone that has played V. This is evolution, not revolution, but that’s where the series thrives. This rubric elegantly describes Civ VI, which directly lifts a lot of what worked best in V, makes a bevy of clever tweaks and introduces a few exceptional ideas of its own. Related GuidesĬiv’s rule of 33 percent: The basic principle, which emerged organically after the first few games and has been more deliberately applied since, is that in any new entry roughly 33 percent of the previous game will carry over unscathed, 33 percent will be adapted, and 33 percent will be brand new. One clue to the special sauce that has kept Civ thriving while countless other franchises have risen and fallen within its lifespan is the “rule of 33 percent” to which Meier and other Firaxis designers have alluded over the years. That’s a testament to developer Firaxis and the steady-handed stewardship of series creator Sid Meier, who has lent his name and counsel to every subsequent entry as other lead designers added their stamp. Yet here we are, decades after the launch of the original Civilization, and Civ VI is arguably the best entry in the esteemed franchise yet. Former lead designers Soren Johnson ( IV) and Jon Shafer ( V) went so far as to suggest that no strategy game designer in their right mind should attempt anything nearing its scope (just look at what happened to Spore when it tried to be everything to everyone). Fitting all human history into a single, epic game, while also satisfying the needs of longtime fans without becoming too complex for newcomers … is a tall order. They’ll put up a reasonable challenge, but tend to focus only on military victories and don’t team up against you, which robs some of the strategy from CivRev 2.By all rights, Civilization shouldn’t work after 25 years and six main editions. It really is needed, because the AI-controlled Civs aren’t the sharpest tools in the box. Let’s hope it turns up in a update further down the line. It would have been a perfect fit for leisurely iPad grudge matches against chums, and it’s hard not to speculate that it’s simply been left out for cost reasons. It is just about worth it, as this is an uncommonly slick and glossy iOS game, designed to occupy you for hours – much like XCOM, from the same publisher – but it’s a great shame that the console version’s wonderful multiplayer mode is missing. The £10 “premium” price is probably more of a stopping point. At least there’s a manual save feature, so some disasters can be rewound. This is never enough to actually sour a game, but it does create the occasional accident. Particularly, it’s tricky to obtain information about how strong an enemy is or exactly what constructing a new building will do before you commit to the fight or the expense. The controls are little iffy, though they’re a big improvement on Civ Rev 1. You choose a Civilization to play as from the likes of Egypt, America and the Aztecs, found a few cities and decide whether you’re going to seize other Civ’s capitals, charm them into joining you or out-research them and win the space race. Where your average game of Civilization tends to clock in at around a dozen hours, Civilization Revolution condenses your turn-based attempt to conquer the globe with might, science or culture into around an hour. If you haven’t previously dabbled with this streamlined, quicker, mobile interpretation of the long-running PC strategy series, however, you’re in for a treat. Less a true sequel and more a glossier version of the original, now carrying a massive price tag, this strategy game may make owners of the original Civilization Revolution a tad grumpy. High price or not, this deserves to be installed on a whole lot of iPads. That’s not such a bad thing, given this is a smart and accessible rethink of an enduring formula, now updated for a more modern era of iOS gaming. It’s really the same game as 2009’s Civilization Revolution 1, albeit with an extensive facelift.
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