Civilization V was released in 2010 and became a huge success story. The franchise has sold over 33 million units over the years, with Civilization V being the best-selling version with around 8 million units sold worldwide.
And the reviews from Civilization V players were also pretty good. G5 gave it 5 out of 5. PC Gamer gave it 98 out of 100 and Game Informer 9.75 out of 10. And Civilization V took the ‘Best Strategy Game’ award at the 2011 BAFTA Games Awards.
However, that’s not to say that there aren’t some gripes with Civilization V. One major quibble was the quality of the AI game’s opponents and their lack of intelligence when conducting negotiations and diplomacy.
So how has Firaxis Games tried to improve on the success of Civilization V?
The latest version, Civilization VI, will be released on October 21, 2016. The same team that developed Civilization V has also worked on its successor. And it has already been named ‘Best PC Game’ and ‘Best Strategy Game’ at the Game Critics Awards.
What’s new? Well, the developers have suggested in various interviews that research found that many gamers had discovered that playing Civilization V was one-dimensional.
The great goal of Civilization VI has been to create a game that makes players think much faster. A more reactive experience is what the developers have tried to achieve.
And with that in mind, they’ve made some big new changes for Civilization VI. To begin with, the development of the city has been revised. Now, when you have built the center of a city, you must specialize in the function of that city. It can become a specialized military, industrial, or scientific city, for example, but it can’t contain elements of everything.
And that means terrain is much more important than in previous games. You have to think carefully and match the function of your city to the surrounding landscape now to get the best results. If you are building an industrial city, you will need natural resources, for example.
That will have an impact on how you have to think about strategy as well. There will be cities that you need to identify as vital to your opponents’ infrastructure that you can attack, and cities that you need to put more emphasis on defending.
The AI opponents have also been updated. So the historical figures like Gandhi and Teddy Roosevelt that you play against will be smarter and more cunning. Each one has its own particular personality for you to read and monitor, but also hidden agendas that you’ll have to work hard to decipher.
And unlike previous Civilization games, there are far greater rewards for developing your empire’s culture. In previous versions of the game, you’ll have found it much harder to succeed with an emphasis on cultural development compared to, say, science or your military. So for the first time, developing drama, philosophy and poetry could be your path to victory.