Review of Civilization 6, published in March 2013

+ Audio-visual diversity
+ Several new historic scenarios
+ Likeable leader character
- Nothing of the Industrial Revolution

In the real world, the urban population has grown past four billion, and in gaming, city-builders are trendy again. Firaxis released CivCity this spring, bringing the epic timespan of Civilization into the city-building genre. The game needed by necessity to leave many blank spaces, many of them met by the new expansion pack Sun Never Sets. As the CivCity core game only contained Europe and the Mediterranean, Sun Never Sets introduces five new theatres: Niger, India, Far East, Mesoamerica and Appalachians, each with its own architectural style. While some buildings, such as stepwells, are available in all theatres, while other, such as step pyramids and pagodas, are specific to one or two. The new Wonders are available for everyone, but as before, the timeframe is narrow. The sandbox mode knows no limits, and can allow a Frankensteinesque city with a confusing mixture of cultures.

Sun Never Sets allows start dates as early as 8000 BC, introducing a Prehistoric Age. As in many strategy games, most of the map is covered by fog of war, white in Civilization V-style, but it is soon cleared away. Also, wolves, lions, bears and other dangerous animals roam the wilderness, soon to be replaced by barbarians and bandits. Sounds to hard to start the game in this unfriendly environment?

You have a new weapon to cope with new challenges: a Leader character, who can move around to encourage citizens to work harder and be happier. As the same city-building process follows as in the core game passes on, the Leader is promoted to titles such as Mayor or King/Queen, able to pray in temples, shop in markets and oversee construction work, a little bit like the President character in Tropico. If you are not into role-playing, you can have the Leader stay in the Town Hall, providing a more general bonus. The Town Hall and Senate buildings allow new political decisions, concerning timeless issues such as political freedom, land ownership and tariffs, allowing cities to take their unique path, becoming a Spartan dictatorship, an Athenian democracy, a Confucian feng-shui grid of law and order, or anything between.

The military has become enhanced with mounted units, more classes of artillery, and, of course, war elephants. Battles can now occur in wilderness or at small villages, giving advantage to different kinds of units. With plenty of new resources, international trade is also more lucrative. Caravanserais and shipyards provide access to theatre-specific goods such as silk and tobacco, which will be available for import during the later ages, each appealing to a different class of citizens.

Another new feature is the ability to switch between different cities, building up a cluster of specialized cities, providing each other with resources and services for peace and prosperity. However, the game clock constantly moves forward, and you leave central planning to the AI, whose plans might differ from yours. The AI sticks to pre-coded patterns, so its cities are functional, but predictable.

The new music and graphic features add some atmosphere, but still, Sun Never Sets ends at the same date as the core game, just before city-building would become really exciting. However, the end screen displays the text "to be continued..." giving hope for a modern-time expansion pack.

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+ Modern timeframe makes the game a worthy successor of SimCity
+ No need to micro-manage utility networks
- Public-service buildings are oversimplified

The city-building genre originated with the SimCity series back in 1989. However, this franchise has twice disappointed their fans the last decade, with over-simplified and unbalanced SimCity: Societies, as well as DRM-crippled and too-hard-coded SimCity of 2013. The contenders have mainly been browser games, but Firaxis produced a worthy successor, named CivCity, last year.

Together with the Sun Never Sets expansion, it simulates a city from stone age until the Napoleonic era. The most modern features are gas lighting and macadam roads, and the endgame feels like a prelude to something even greater. The natural theme for an expansion pack is Steam and Silicon, bringing CivCity through the Industrial Revolution into present day. In the 1850s comes the railway, which completely re-writes the rules of urban planning. New residential areas can be set up outside the city centre, displacing farmlands, and urging a need to import grain and livestock from neighbouring areas. Within a few decades, a city can now grow to a scale only available to an imperial capital of earlier ages.

Getting back to the compelling comparison to the Maxis series: In SimCity, the automobile is the default means of transportation, but only the well-to-do can have one in Steam and Silicon, making public transport mandatory until the average income is good enough for most people to drive a car. Bicycles stretch out the range of blue-collar workers by a few kilometres. As zoning is gratis with the proper utilities installed, Los Angeles-styled sprawl is easy and cheap to build, but it has several drawbacks; when the middle class moves to Suburbia, the carless and jobless will gather in the central business district, causing crime to increase progressively as population grows. Cars also cause severe air pollution, until alternative fuels are available. Buildings exist independent from roads, so you can reconfigure the road network completely among existing buildings.

Setting the starting date to 2025, getting access to all technologies from the shelf, can be convenient. However, playing through all ages has several benefits; a millennial city with palaces, temples and Wonders draws plenty of tourists. Old buildings can be retro-fitted for more suitable purposes without being replaced; a Meatpacking District can become a hotspot of art and entertainment, and a depleted mine can be used as a theme park, or a landfill.

The military part of the game is enhanced with tanks and fighter aircraft, but Steam and Silicon does not have much more merit as a real-time strategy simulator, than the core game had. Gaining independence in the modern age usually goes without bloodshed on the lower difficulty levels.

Electric power is less of a fuss than in the competing game series mentioned above; power plants are reasonable in price, and blackouts are not critical before the era of cable television. Other aspects, such as education, have also been flattened out. But in the big picture, Steam and Silicon introduces many aspects of urban development never seen before in the genre. Futuristic features, such as fusion plants and spaceports, are still absent from CivCity. So far...

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+ Stunning graphical beauty
+ Increased depth of public-service buildings
- No real revolution of gameplay, just more of the same

As promised, the CivCity game has got its third expansion pack. As the game so far has carried us from the dawn of man until present day, this pack obviously introduces future technology, as well as some completing features to the core game.

The player can build new cities in some new exotic theatres: Antarctica, the Moon, Mars and Alpha; the last one containing several alien life-forms. You can also choose to keep on developing your previous cities with new structures, most of them known from science-fiction canon: Maglev trains, fusion power plants, droid factories, and of course a space elevator. As public-service buildings were very simple in previous games, there is a new semi-automatic modular system for law enforcement, health, education and entertainment. You set a budget for each, build a headquarters, and the AI advisors use the resources to create police kiosks, kindergartens, skateboard ramps and other small props that can be drag-and-dropped around the city manually.

The genre founder and main competitor released a similar expansion pack, named SimCity: Cities of Tomorrow two years ago. How does World Beyond differ? At a first glance, in general this game is grittier and more dystopian, with more brown hues, as well as the timeless shanty towns that pop up when you don't zone enough housing. The ability to play through history, also gives a backdrop of ancient buildings, too valuable to tear down, so that a 21st century needs to be carefully placed on top.

Arcologies are introduced, as dynamic skyscrapers that can contain more or less everything, including ponds and stadiums. Corporations are a new feature; based in an industrial building, they can take over others, becoming an important political force, especially in the late game. If you don't go for a planned economy (available since Steam and Silicon), with government control of industries and commerce. An NSA-styled mass surveillance agency is also available; keeping crime low, but eroding the city's educational and cultural achievements.

The new off-Earth theatres are limited in options, since agriculture and many other activites can only take place in domed buildings. Political ordinances also get pretty standardized, and remaining on Earth actually feels deeper in comparison. In other words, it is the same basic gameplay, with some new graphics.

Overall, World Beyond is much what we have expected; no big surprises, but a pleasant, well-rounded finale to a broad, epic city-building game.

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apocalypse105 said:

+ Most flaws of Civ 5 are gone.

So diplomacy is fixed?

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