Sid Meier's Civilization VI News

This Civilization 6 city placement is next level

May 19, 2021 StixLord later returned to state they managed to flip the city in the end via loyalty pressure.

The Civilization 6 community has been twiddling its thumbs a bit as of late now that the New Frontier season pass has come to a close. Last week the denizens of the Civ subreddit decided to create a bunch of city-location maps, and this week they've been googling statues, all in an attempt to pass the time while we wait for whatever Firaxis is working on next.

Some players though are still finding the fun within Civ 6 itself, and today's item is a galaxy-brain city placement that we can't tell whether is genius, or just incredibly dumb. In a recent game of redditor StixLord, Peter the Great decided to found Saint Petersburg in a hex surrounded on all sides by mountains. The Putorana Plateau, to be specific.

While the city's boundaries can extend beyond the mountains via basic culture generation and growth, because the city centre itself is locked within the mountain, no units can escape the plateau. The AI can't send out armies to defend itself or conquer others, it can't spawn new settlers to found new cities, it can't even spawn workers to improve the tiles Saint Petersburg does end up claiming. Truly a next level play.

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Civilization devs have "several" games in development that will be revealed "this year"

Civilization VI has had a successful run, and Take-Two has dedicated space all over its latest financial report to marking the 4X game's sales. It looks like big things are on the way from developer Firaxis, too, as the studio has "several" games to reveal sometime later in the year.

Firaxis has "several exciting projects in development that will be revealed this year," Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick says in today's financial report. There's no word on what those games are or precisely when that reveal will take place, but Take-Two will be taking part in E3 2021 in June, which would be an ideal place to see whatever Firaxis might be working on next.

At 57 million units sold, Civilization is one of Take-Two's best-selling series, just behind Red Dead Redemption at 60 million and Borderlands at 70 million. (NBA at 111 million and GTA at 345 million are way ahead, though.) Civilization VI alone has sold 11 million units, as revealed during today's conference call.

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Civilization fans are making city location maps "for fun"

One of the most fascinating things about covering videogames for a living is that you get to see what communities get up to when there's nothing else going on. Now that 4X game Civilization VI's New Frontier season pass has come to an end, players can't expect to get the same regular cadence of monthly updates to keep them entertained as they'd been getting before. So, what are they going to do in the meantime? Make maps, apparently.

It all started with Reddit user Le_Charlie, who made a map that locates all of the city names available for the Arabian civilisation in their real-world location, using a simple world map. Whenever you play a Civ 6 civ (or civ in any civilization game, for that matter), the names of new cities that you found will be generated from a set list from that civ's history.

This isn't the first time Le_Charlie has done this, and previous maps of theirs include one for the American cities in Civ 6, and even a world map that locates all of the capitals in the strategy game.

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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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