Alternative Civ Leaders

Been playing a spot of Civilization VI lately. Its final expansion came out a while ago and work seems to be underway on Civ VII, which made me think of some potential leader changes.

I disliked a few for historical inaccuracy in VI. Victoria was not Queen of the English, but the British (especially daft as if they wanted a female English leader then Elizabeth I is an obvious candidate). Saladin wasn’t Arabic, he was Kurdish (although he did reign over Arabs so this is more accurate, although ironic).

On the flipside, I was surprised and pleased they went with Basil II for the Byzantine Empire (which should be the Eastern Roman Empire) and Trajan over Caesar for Rome.

My experience with the main Civ games is VI and II (which came out around 1999 or thereabouts). So it’s entirely possible that I’ll be mentioning people who had leader roles before.

 

France – Philip Augustus

I’ve never actually read books specifically on French history (excepting the Albigensian Crusade) but reading English medieval history does necessarily involve a lot of French stuff, mostly in warfare. I’ve always quite liked Philip Augustus, whose shrewd approach brilliantly exploited the admittedly open goal of Henry II’s familial infighting to great effect (and he came very close to actually conquering England). Less flashy or well-known than Napoleon but he was critical to the long term success of France as a nation.

 

England - Aethelstan

The grandson of Alfred the Great, Aethelstan was the first man who could claim to be king of all England. Building on the foundations of his father and grandfather, he won crucial victories, particularly Brunanburh against a coalition of enemies. This cemented a unified England, bringing together the Anglo-Saxon people.

 

Macedonia - Philip II 

Alexander the Great still looms large in the public consciousness, and it’s easy to see why. But his father has been somewhat neglected by comparison. When Philip II became king his land was poor, wracked with war, and weak. Through astonishing military innovations (he was inspired by spending time at Thebes and witnessing Epaminondas’ success against the Spartans) he transformed the Macedonian armed forces from pretty feeble to the most powerful army in the world. He was also well along planning the invasion of Asia until he suffered an unfortunate bout of assassination. I think this is the least likely change to occur, but Macedonian history does have great men beyond Alexander and the foremost of these is Philip II.

 

Rome - Aurelian

Aurelian is one of those chaps almost nobody’s ever heard of but when they learn of what he did it’s impossible not to be impressed. When he took the purple the Empire had split into three, with the Gallic Empire of Gaul, Iberia, and Britannia in the west and the Palmyrene Empire breaking away in the east. He stitched the empire back together when it could have collapsed two centuries earlier than the western portion did, and along the way won victories over numerous barbarian tribes. (I’d change the name to the Western Roman Empire as well, and have the Byzantine Empire as the Eastern Roman Empire).

 

 

Carthage - Hannibal

Carthage is a free city in Civ VI (Dido is leader of Phoenicia). This is something of a travesty given how powerful Carthage was and how Hannibal is the greatest antagonist Rome ever faced. Who first crossed the Alps, in winter, in the face of hostile tribes? Who annihilated the Romans at Trasimene and Cannae? Who survived a decade in hostile territory, without defeat? Who would have won if it weren’t for that political lickspittle Hanno? Bring back Hannibal!

 

Thaddeus

Review: Civilization VI (PS4)

Please note that this is a review of the base game only, and that, at the time of writing, I’ve played exactly three games (winning the last) all on standard/Prince difficulty.

My prior experience of Civilization was Civ II (released in 1999) and Civ Rev for the PS3 (but which is a lot more streamlined than main Civ games).

For those entirely unaware, Civ is a strategy game whereby the player picks a civilization and leader from history and aims to lead them to greatness, with victory being achieved in various ways (science, culture, etc. In my win I went for a domination victory, which means conquering everyone else’s capital city). Players can forge alliances with other civilizations, research together, trade, or declare war. Cities themselves flourish or flounder based on food, resources, housing, amenities and whether or not your enemies invade and annihilate your hopes and dreams.

In terms of the learning curve, it took me about three games on standard difficulty to feel like I’d gotten to grips with most of the mechanics, using the base game (there is an expansion bundle available as DLC).

Generally, controls worked well but there is room for improvement. There’s no handy button to flick from city to city. The game does auto-prompt you to pick things when a city’s finished whatever it’s doing and lets you know when housing/amenities are a problem, but it still would’ve been nice.

The AI isn’t the most challenging. Once you get how combat works, the computer-foes tend to be rather foolish and easy to defeat. This is both in terms of combat and diplomacy. I was attacking everyone, one by one, and regularly got denounced as a warmonger, but nobody ever declared war on me.

Barbarians, however, are more numerous and a bit trickier early on than they were in other games. Scythia can be a handy civ for this as they gain a bonus against damaged units and heal upon defeating enemies, which can make an early game a bit more straightforward.

Changes I enjoyed include cities with walls getting to shoot nearby enemies, and the ability to link units as escorts (so your settler can have a warrior companion) without needing to move them separately.

Changes I did not enjoy were housing and, to a lesser extent, amenities. Housing decreases growth when you don’t have enough (you get it from water sources, plus improvements). It just seemed a pointless faff to me. Amenities are pleasant distractions to keep people happy. That said, on Prince I had a lot of unhappy cities but not one ever revolted.

There’s a nice variety of civilizations from which to pick although I must admit it still annoys me Victoria is described as English (a far better choice would’ve been Elizabeth; Victoria was British).

The search function in the Civilopedia didn’t seem to work. Most stuff is easy to get to grips with but early on that would’ve been handy.

And I only found the lens menu (L1, the left hand menu) late on. Probably very useful for people after a religious victory.

In terms of PS4 performance and the jet engine noise that certain games cause: this didn’t happen. From start to finish, there was a low amount of noise but with earphones in I couldn’t even hear it. This was a pleasant surprise given that (albeit on a standard-sized map, which is still pretty large) at the end of my third game I had a hefty empire and quite a lot of units moving about.

Good music, and I like Sean Bean’s narration. That said, still a very good game for the radio or playlists.

One annoyance was the total absence of any instructions. It’s an ideal game for a basic instruction book, even if it's just civics and research trees.

Overall, I like Civ VI a lot. It’s very moreish, most of the mechanics etc are easy to get to grips with, and there’s a lot of customization possible when it comes to setting up games. It’s not without the odd flaw or room for improvement, but the base game is well worth a look.

Thaddeus

Civilization VI (PS4): First Impressions

I was rather looking forward to this. Although I’ve played Civilization: Revolution for the PS3 the last ‘proper’ Civ I’d played was Civ II for the original Playstation, which released in 1999.

As preparation I cunningly watched quill18’s excellent mini-series on Youtube (it’s well worth a look), and then completed the tutorial, which was rather more forgiving than I deserved.

Then I cracked on as Rome. At the time of writing I’ve probably played an hour and a halfish of my first game.

The basics are mostly intuitive, although it took me a little while to realise that clicking on a city first selects the unit on that square (and units, excepting siege/settlers, don’t appear to stack) and you need to press up or down on the d-pad to select the city. One thing missing is a straightforward toggle between the cities. Not a problem early on but I’m guessing that could be irksome late on in a massive game.

The housing and amenities stuff is a little bit over my head right now, but I'm sure I'll get the mechanics down after a game or two.

All the combat stuff is basic but sensible, with bonuses/penalties based on terrain, damage, and policies (which are very simple to set and change).

The art style is cartoony but works fine, although the pedant in me has to point out that Victoria was a British not an English queen (Elizabeth I would’ve been a better choice).

When it comes to the perennial PS4 problem of noise due to insufficient cooling, there’s a little bit but it’s nowhere near the jet engine certain other games produce.

One problem others may face (which I learnt via the Multiplayer Media Youtube channel) is that screens sometimes eat the edges. Which is a huge problem if that affects you here because critical info is on the edges of the screen. You’ll need to satisfy yourself that isn’t the case, or have a tricky time of things. Multiplayer may or may not be functional, but as I’m a solo player that’s not a problem for me.

I’m enjoying it a lot so far. Even being acutely aware of the time, I found myself losing an hour or so before getting ready to leave the game (currently, Qin and Gilgamesh like me, and Cleopatra’s being a bit of a bitch). I’ve already managed to bugger up one city’s location (although Ravenna’s looking good). Incidentally, renaming cities can be done by entering the screen with all the housing/happiness info and tapping triangle. Units can also be renamed but do need to get two promotions first.

Bit of a learning curve right now, which I expected. On Prince, the standard difficulty, things seem decent enough for someone who does have outdated experience of the series.

The loading time (standard map size) was not very long, which was another pleasant surprise.

All in all, I’m liking it a lot, minor quibbles notwithstanding.

Thaddeus

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