Sid Meier's Civilization VI News

Want to beat Civilization 6 on Deity? Try these (pretty broken) community strats

When it comes to 4X game Civilization VI, there are a bunch of ways you can challenge yourself. The one-city challenge is a fun one, but a more obvious achievement is beating the legendary strategy game on its most legendary difficulty setting - Deity.

This titanic feat is going to require S-tier strats, the kind of galaxy-brained plays that epitomise every single meme you can think of, and then some. For newer players who have less experience with Civ VI's systems, it can be hard to know what those are. If you're one of those people - perhaps you picked the game up while it was stupendously cheap - you're in luck. The Civilization community is here to help with their most mad-cap strategies.

User TheFreeloader from the Civilization subreddit started a thread to collect crazy or overpowered tips, with the aim of helping "newer players who want something that will allow them to beat Deity for the first time." We've had a look at some of these, and can confirm that there are indeed some next-level plays.

Read the rest of the story...

Civilization 6 is really super cheap right now - but you'll need to be quick

With the New Frontier Pass done and dusted as of earlier this year, there's never been a better time to pick up Civilization VI. The year-long run of micro-expansions and free updates - with the final April patch taking a big swing at Civ 6's civilisation balance - has left the 4X game in a pretty good state.

If you're still on the fence about it, though, even after all these years since release, perhaps an aggressively priced sales event will help you? On Steam at least, the 85% reduction is one of the best in the strategy game's five-year history, beaten only by that free weekend in July 2020. That's $8.99 / £7.49, in case you didn't want to do the math, though that's just for the base game.

Head on over to Civ VI's Steam page, and you'll see that two primary bundles are also going very cheap. The Platinum Edition - which is everything released for Civilization VI up to and including the Gathering Storm expansion - is 91% off. The recently released Civ VI Anthology - basically the Platinum collection plus everything from the New Frontier Pass - is 86% off. Whichever way you cut it, there's a deal to be had for new Civ 6 players.

Read the rest of the story...

Civilization modder Sukritact updates Iceland mod with new art and abilities

Civilization VI is one of our favourite strategy games, and when it comes to Civ 6 mods Sukritact is one of our - and the rest of Civilization community's - favourite modders. They're back again today, not with a new creation, but with an update to an older mod - Iceland.

Originally posted back in 2018, this introduces Iceland as a playable faction along with its own leader, Ingolfur Arnarson. In Sukritact's own words, before now the civilisation was "was mostly good before, but with Gathering Storm, they became a bit bloated since I had just tacked on volcano and geothermal vent bonuses as an afterthought at the time."

Sukritact has now given the mod an overhaul with new abilities and model art for their unique districts. The Lawmaker unit has also been designated as a unique unit for Iceland, instead of being a generic unit like before. Sukritact hopes this will ensure the AI makes better use of them. If you don't have the Gathering Storm expansion, you only get the unique abilities of Iceland and Ingolfur, and not the unique unit and district.

Read the rest of the story...

A Civilization fan is using Minecraft to remake all of Civ 6's world wonders

Minecraft is a beloved sandbox game of limitless potential, and even hardened conquerors from the land of strategy games aren't immune to its charms. One thing Mojang's behemoth is known for is when people decide to create big Minecraft build projects, and Civilization fan LookosZero has decided to recreate all of Civilization VI's wonders.

Posting on both the Civilization and Minecraft subreddits, LookosZero has shared a time-lapse video they made of Civ VI's Great Lighthouse world wonder, as a way of recreating the building animation that triggers in the 4X game whenever you complete one of these milestone projects.

They also state they are working with a friend - Chuten - to recreate all of Civ VI's wonders, and will be uploading the videos to Chuten's YouTube channel. In addition to the Great Lighthouse, the duo have already uploaded videos on the Oracle, Etemenanki, Forbidden City, Hanging Gardens, Saint Basil Cathedral, and the Cristo Redentor world wonders, all of which are featured in Civ VI.

Read the rest of the story...

What if: strategy games like Civilization 6 had proper co-op?

Strategy games used to be on the frontline of multiplayer PC gaming. Way back in 1995, CivNet laid the foundations for multiplayer in Civilization, which remain mostly unchanged even to this day, while the original Command & Conquer came with two copies of the game to facilitate LAN play. These series have always let you form alliances, but what if they let you have multiple players controlling the exact same team.

Just picture it: a married couple squabbling over childrens' claims in Crusader Kings 3; players controlling different states or regions within a single empire in Civilization; or splitting players into agricultural, construction, and military duties in Age of Empires. This kind of untethered, unguided co-op play would force players to constantly communicate and self-manage - a bit like Overcooked, but instead of juggling tomatoes and dirty dishes you're dealing with entire empires.

The game that's recently introduced me to the joys - and indeed the frustrations - of same-team multiplayer is Rimworld, or more specifically Zetrith's multiplayer mod for it. The premise is simple: every player has equal control over the colony, and you just see the faded mouse cursors of other players moving around the screen. Crucially, there's nothing in the UI to indicate what other players are doing, which means you'll need to talk constantly to stay in sync and not tread on each other's toes.

Read the rest of the story...