Civilization VI: Rise and Fall
The history of world civilizations always fascinated me. I remember learning in high school about the Franco-Indonesian war; the Indonesian Empire’s rapid adoption of Sikhism angered the French monarch, and conflict erupted over both nation’s aggressive courting of the neutral city-state of Kabul. The Indonesian empire’s rapid development of flight allowed their bombers to triumph over the French army of musketmen.
Yeah, that’s how it happened. Isn’t it?
I love the Civilization games. My fascination dates back to Civ II, which my parents bought for unknown reasons years ago. I wasted hours on that game, founding cities and building armies to sweep away my foes. We’re up to Civ VI now, but the basic formula remains unchanged. You pick a civilization endowed with unique benefits; starting with a single group of settlers, you found cities, research new technologies, raise armies, and conquer the globe.
Of course, we’ve come a long way. This is an enlightened age, and we recognize that there are many ways to rule the world. You can win by rolling your tanks into everyone else’s capital, but you can always win by establishing cultural hegemony: once everyone is listening to your pop music and buying your blue jeans, as the game puts it, you’ve won without firing a shot. Or you can conquer space; the first to launch a sustainable Mars colonization effort can claim the prize. Or you could just convert everyone on Earth to your religion and lead as Supreme P/Matriarch.
Civ VI has a few new features relative to prior Civilization games. The biggest is the district system. In past games, your cities occupy a single tile, which fills with buildings — making advanced cities rather samey. Every city gets a monument, a temple, a bank, a market, etc. In the new game only a few buildings are built in your city center. The rest require districts, which occupy a tile of their own and must be built. You build temples in the holy district, amphitheaters and museums in the theater district, and so on. The catch is that you cannot have all of the districts at once — you must pick and choose what to specialize in. What’s more, invading armies can pillage your districts without having to lay siege to the main city. Careful placement of districts can provide benefits, as nearby cities can take advantage of the workshops and zoos you’ve created.
The tech tree is a venerable part of Civilization — researching new technologies gives you access to more advanced units and buildings, as well as allowing you to embark on the seas or launch satellites. Civ VI splits technologies and civics into two parallel tracks. Civics are things like Theology, Guilds, and Code of Laws. These can enable buildings and districts, but they also allow you to set up your government with policy cards. These — concepts like Conscription, Colonization, and Literary Tradition — allow you to specialize your government. Will you focus on rapid expansion? Military conquest? Or will you try to court the favor of independent City-States, each of which grants you a unique bonus?
I recently acquired the expansion pack for Civilization VI, Rise and Fall, and I’m enjoying it immensely so far. It adds new civilizations, new World Wonders, new units, and a few new systems to the game. Now you must deal with Loyalty — your citizens can be tempted by your rivals or disgruntled with poor living conditions, and if things get bad enough, they will throw off your brutal yoke and declare independence. One way to keep them in line is by appointing Governors, individuals who can keep your people loyal and provide a variety of passive bonuses. The game also tracks your great achievements, things like circumnavigating the world, recruiting great artists, and advancing your technology. Earn enough accolades and you’ll enter a Golden Age of increased loyalty and great achievement. Fail, and you’ll enter a Dark Age. All is not lost, however; if from a Dark Age you manage to rise up and prosper, you might enter a Heroic Age with massive bonuses to help you catch up.
Civ VI is a historical game, but it’s not grim and gritty. The maps are bright and colorful, filled with tiny people scurrying to and fro. Foreign leaders are animated in cartoonish style as they praise your achievements or threaten you with ruin. I find that, especially in the late game, turning off movement and combat animations is a necessity, just to make turns pass in a reasonable amount of time. It can get a bit repetitive, but it’s always tempting to turn them back on to see your soldiers march and fire.
One problem the Civ games have always struggled with is the endgame. In many cases, games are over dozens of turns before they officially end — if you have an insurmountable lead, it can still take ages to pacify the frontiers or launch that rocket. What’s more, ending a game too fast can result in a poor score, since your final ranking is based on a number that only goes up over time. It can be tempting to simply string along a game that’s been won for ages, just to plump up your final number. The real meat of the game is the struggle for dominance among rivals, and once you’ve left them in the dust it’s hard for them to catch up. The diplomacy system has also come in for criticism, as the decisions of other leaders to support or denounce you can seem arbitrary, but Civ VI does a good job balancing on that front; proper espionage can reveal to you what your opponents are looking for and how your actions have affected their view of you.
I’ve always enjoyed Civ, and Rise and Fall is no different. It pleases me that even after decades Firaxis is willing to experiment with a winning formula. Their one venture into space-based gaming, Civilization: Beyond Earth, was a bit of a flop, but VI is a massive hit and I’ll be playing it for years to come. I racked up hundreds of hours on V, after all, and I’d still be playing it if it hadn’t been eclipsed by the newer release. Go forth and conquer, mighty leader! Your people are calling for you!
