Sid Meier's Civilization VI News

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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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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