Sid Meier's Civilization VI News

Civ 6 players can't agree on what they want from the upcoming balance patch

Civilization VI is awaiting one final free update as part of the New Frontier Pass. The April balance patch is going to be huge, tweaking up to two-thirds of all 50 civilisations currently in the strategy game and has been described as the "biggest community event ever". But what do players actually want from this patch?

Lots of things, it turns out. Just looking at Civ 6 civs alone, there is limited consensus as to who exactly needs tweaking, and ideas for non-civ related fixes are wide-ranging. For the purposes of this discussion we've been reading through various threads across key community hubs, specifically CivFantatics.com and the r/Civ subreddit.

This CivFanatics forum thread has been running since the balance patch was first announced back in late January, but there have been other discussions since. There are a few Reddit threads that have also sparked discussions about the April patch. Most notably, this thread where a user offers up a tier list highlights the lack of consensus amongst the community, as comments debate the merits of the proposed list.

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Civ 6's Portugal can generate a disgusting amount of gold, it seems

At its core, Civilization VI is a game about numbers. A unit's battle strength versus another unit, how many cities you have, the potential tile yields of any given hex. We like numbers, especially high numbers, and if this past year has proven anything, it's that Civ 6 likes them too.

Last week saw the release of the final premium add-on in the strategy game's New Frontier Pass - a year-long experiment that involves an alternating schedule of paid micro-expansions, and free updates. Among other things, the final pack introduced the 50th new civilisation into Civ 6 - Portugal. Led by Joao III, Portugal is a civilisation themed around maritime trade and exploration. In short, they like money. Lots of money.

Ridiculous Civ 6 tile yields is something we've looked at before, but now we're here to tell you about ungodly amounts of gold generation. Some of it does come from tiles, but Portugal is also able to create more international trade routes than any other civ, and get bonus gold from those routes. If you start adding in various multipliers from pre-existing systems, and even the recently added 'corporations and monopolies' game mode, things start to get out of hand.

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Can Civ 6's New Frontier Pass replace traditional expansions?

Recently, we were lucky enough to talk to two leading figures on Firaxis' Civilization VI development team - lead designer Anton Strenger and associate producer Kevin Schultz. You may have read how the recent New Frontier Pass season of micro-expansions has led to some of the highest player engagement since launch.

Or perhaps you read about the duo teasing how big April's free content patch will be, considering it's going to rebalance around two-thirds of all 50 of Civ 6's civilisations. Regardless, we generally got the impression that the pair were quite satisfied with how the New Frontier Pass had been received, and about how it worked as a method of delivering new content for the game as it matured.

It's a method that has its advantages and disadvantages, however, and after talking to Strenger it became apparent that doing regular season passes probably couldn't replace the need for a more traditional expansion. "I think it depends what you're going for," he said. "One of the advantages that I would put in the column of expansions is that you have more time to embed systems at a deeper level that touch all sorts of different elements of the game."

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Sid Meier's Civilization VI has finished the New Frontier Pass with a Portugal DLC

The sixth and final DLC pack is out as part of the New Frontier Pass with a Portugal DLC for Sid Meier’s Civilization VI.

Read the full article here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/03/sid-meiers-civilization-vi-has-finished-the-new-frontier-pass-with-a-portugal-dlc

The Grocer King leads Portugal in the next Civ 6 DLC

March 25, 2021 The Portugal Pack is now available.

Earlier this week Firaxis announced the sixth and final pack in the New Frontier Pass, the year-long run of micro DLC expansions and free updates that have introduced everything from new civs to new gamemodes, and more.

The final DLC in this season is the Portugal pack, introducing the fan-favourite civilisation into Civilization VI, and now we know more about its abilities and play styles. Ya boy-o, João (the third) leads the nation. He was King of Portugal in the mid 16th century, and the kingdom rose to global prominence in trade and international relations during his reign.

It's of no surprise then that, as a civ, Portugal specialises in maritime trade and meeting other civilisations. João III's unique ability is 'Porta Do Cerco', and it gives +1 sight to all units. It also grants one additional trade route capacity every time you meet a new civilisation, and you also get open borders with all city-states. This ties in perfectly with the innate abilities and unique units of Portugal itself. The civilisation's innate ability is 'Casa Da India', and restricts international trade routes so that they're only able to reach cities on the coast, or with a harbour.

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