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
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