Civilization VI is without a doubt the most anticipated strategy title coming this year, especially now that we’re on the other side of Stellaris and Total War: Warhammer’s releases. Instead of being just another step in the Civilization franchise, this entry is instead going to overhaul concepts from the ground up, according to developers Firaxis Games. Here’s what you can expect to be different when you get your hands on it in October.
Fog of War has changed, for starters. Being inspired by the game’s new “Exploration” theme, the former game’s clouds have been replaced by a map. Interestingly, even the areas that you have previously explored are rendered to look like a hand-drawn map. There’s also civilization-unique Wonders now, and the cultural victory that debuted in Brave New World for Civilization V has been carried over to the new game.
A lot of other systems that were introduced in the Civilization V expansions will be included right out of the gates, which means that we might see religion, espionage, tourism and Great Works in the vanilla game itself. Victory conditions have also been changed – one victory type is now gone, and a brand new one has been added, while the Space Race one will see considerable changes.
Diplomacy will now be affected by the era you are in, with warfare being common in the early eras and formal declarations of war being the norm in the later stages of the game. As cities will now have separate districts, warfare will now take place across a variety of settings and the attackers can choose to cripple scientific or cultural centres to avoid the defending civilization from gaining a victory in that department.
Units can now be stacked again, but to a highly limited degree. Two similar units can now combine into a powerful corps, while support units can be embedded into other units to supplement their power, according to an interview with DigitalTrends.
What do you think of the changes coming to Civilization VI? Let us know in the comments below.