Sid Meier's Civilization VI News

This Civ 6 screenshot reminds us how good Civ 5's art style was

There were plenty of reasons why many preferred Civilization V to Civilization VI when the newer 4X game first released, and even though in recent years Civ 6 has come out the decisive leader of the two, one or two points of comparison will never go away. One of them being the art style.

Now, I don't have issues with Civ 6's art direction (and, ultimately, no one seems to care as much as the Age of Empires crowd does about AOE4), but it was certainly a departure from the muted realism of Civ 5. Fans have sometimes remarked that its art style is more 'cartoonish', which is a catch-all term often used for any style that's bright or exaggerated. It's not something I often think about, but a recent find on the Civ subreddit reminded me how good the Civ 5 style can be if recreated today.

Other than showing a decent case of 'canal porn' (not as sensational as 'tile yield' porn, but just as impressive) involving six lakeside cities connected to the ocean via the Panama Canal wonder, it's a a gorgeous recreation of Civ 5's graphics. This is because it uses the Environment Skin: Sid Meier's Civilization V mod, one of our favourite Civ 6 mods.

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Civ 6's April patch brings welcome balance to a complex 4X game

Last week, Firaxis released its biggest Civilization 6 balance patch to date. The April 2021 update includes significant changes to just over half the existing Civ 6 civilisations and adds new combat units. It also introduces new cultural domination incentives, huge Earth and True Start Location maps and even a feature allowing scouts to pet their dogs. For the most part, fans have welcomed these changes, though some fussy Redditors had hoped for more.

The patch, billed as the final free update of the New Frontier season pass, addresses many of the most common complaints. Combining player feedback and data-driven analysis, Firaxis has sought to give the 4X game a face lift.

The result shows what it means to really end on a high note. The patch injects new life into several formerly weak civilisations while nerfing others many considered overpowered. The new units offer more options for early- and mid-game combat - critical stages of the game. Overall, the update refreshes aspects of Civ 6 that would otherwise have become stale in the wake of the New Frontier Pass.

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These handy map tacks for Civilization 6 help you plan your districts

Figuring out the optimal placement of districts in Civilization VI can be a pain - with so many potential adjacency bonuses to keep track of, it can be nigh impossible to work out what you should plunk down where in the massively popular 4X game. Thankfully, you now can just add some handy tacks to your map that will do all that math for you.

The Detailed Map Tacks mod by wltk is elegant in its simplicity, really: you simply add a map tack to a hex, and the mod will show you the potential yields and adjacency bonuses you stand to gain by building districts nearby. The campus district, for example, gains extra science for each adjacent mountain tile, and the tacks will remind you of this when you decide to place your campus.

You can even use keybindings for placing and removing the map tacks - by default, Shift+A adds a tack, while Shift+D removes one, and Shift+S toggles the tacks' visibility on and off. It's a simple enough mod to be compatible with most other UI mods for Civilization VI, as long as they don't alter the underlying logic for the map tacks - which most won't. Wltk says the tacks should also support most custom districts found in other mods, as long as they feature simple adjacency bonuses.

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This Civilization 6 mod pulls out the massive bonuses for chopping and plunder

One of the decisions you'll always be faced with in a game of Civilization VI is when to 'chop' a natural resource tile near a city - the yields you get from this scale up drastically as you research new techs in the 4X game, so the question is always a matter of how long you can afford to hold off before cashing in for as big a bonus as you can rake in. The Harmony in Diversity mod removes this massive scaling, encouraging rulers to develop land without planning to eventually strip it of its natural benefits.

There are actually a bunch of changes introduced in this overhaul mod, but the changes to chopping and plunder might be the biggest. The idea is to encourage new strategies for development, and provide more incentives for building up specialised cities. The tech scaling for chopping and plundering resource tiles has been removed, and the modders have also rebalanced basic tile yields across the board. Popular maps have gotten larger fertile areas, and structures like factories now produce more regional effects.

The modders have also changed the way the cost of building city districts scales up - rather than scaling with the number of techs and civics you've researched, they'll instead increase with each new district built.

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Civ 6 gets its civilisations balance pass and trebuchets next week

April 22, 2021 The Civ 6 April balance patch is out now

The final free update of the Civ 6 New Frontier Pass is coming next week. This patch has been greatly anticipated, especially because it's going to be doing a much-needed pass on many Civ 6 civilisations by tweaking the abilities of the Civ 6 leaders and the civs themselves.

When we looked into which civs the Civ 6 community wanted to see fixed, there wasn't a lot of consensus, although certain 'easy wins' involve factions like Spain and Georgia. These two were confirmed as civilisations being targeted by the patch, along with Khmer, China, Mapuche, and Canada. The full list of civs and their respective changes will be revealed when the patch notes drop on release.

Also included in the new, free update are three new military units: Line Infantry, Men-at-Arms, and the long-requested fan favourite, the Trebuchet. Military units across the board have also been rebalanced to account for the extra soldiers. The AI has also been given an upgrade on how it handles naval units.

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