Fans of the long running strategy series Civilization will be waving goodbye to their free time once again, as Firaxis has revealed Civilization VI, and is planning on changing gameplay quite a bit.
Lead designer of Civilization V’s Brave New World expansion , Ed Beach, has come out and discussed how he didn’t enjoy how predictable player choice had become in the franchise, and hopes to change how people develop their empires with this latest entry in the series. Speaking with PC Gamer, Beach states “We want a situation where you have to react to what the game is presenting for you. What the map is giving you, your starting position, what it means to have certain leaders next to you.”
Ed Beach and his team are planning on mixing up the current meta of Civilization with three big changes, unpacking cities, active research and deeper diplomacy. Cities will no longer act as one unit, as they will now be split up into different districts on separate tiles. These districts can be anything from military to farming based, and will have to be strategically placed, as enemies will be able to focus on one district at a time. This adds a huge new element to strategic welfare, meaning the attackers can cut off food or industrial tiles to weaken the city, while the player being attacked will have to prioritize their resources during the battle. Placement of these district tiles will also depend on the terrain surrounding your city, as certain map tiles will be more suited to different districts. Beach discusses this concept, stating “Every district has a good place to put it. You’re trying to manage where those go with where all the resource tiles are. It becomes a fun layout puzzle of trying to maximise your bonuses.”
Along with unpacking cities, Civilization VI will change how research works, as it no longer based entirely around your cities science stat. A new system called ‘Active Research’ is being added to speed up the research tech tree, which are events or actions you can do in the game world that progress you towards a direction you want. Beach discusses this new gameplay system in detail, stating “Players are going to have to think through: ‘look at this start position, this is a great one for me to push on horseback riding and develop a very mobile military. I’m going to push this direction and go through that part of the tree this time.”
While improvements to city building and tech trees are completely overhauling previous content, Firaxis is also set on changing how AI leaders work in diplomacy. In previous games, leaders would have a general play style, but how you interacted with them would never really go that deep. This time around, each AI leader will have their own secret agenda that is historically relevant to their achievements in life. These agendas could range from being obsessed with conquering cities to focusing on spying, with Beach stating “As you go through the game, you can discover what they are by spying on them or trying to learn more secrets about them. Once you’ve learn that about other leaders, you can fully unlock the diplomatic landscape.”
Including these larger changes, Civilization VI will also include smaller updates, such as how support units are now able to meld into other units and a faster game speed for multiplayer matches. With the huge gameplay changes being worked into Civilization VI, Firaxis may solve the issues that a lot of players had with Civilization V, and with an October release of this year, we won’t have long to find out.
Civilization VI will release October 21 for PC.
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