E3 2016: Civilization VI

Celebrating the 25th anniversary of Sid Meier's Civilization, Ed Beach takes the stage at Twitch to talk about the new features of Civilization VI.

The first thing he talks about is cities. Cities in Civilization V had all of their features crammed into one city, making it look like a very crowded octagon. In Civilization VI, new districts are now built around the city center, making a large city many tiles large. Wonders are also spread out, making them stick out much more.

Another huge change is the workers, or as they're called now, builders. They now have a certain amount of 'charges" which are used to build instantly. It wasn't clear if this was just an ability they have, but can also build like a traditional Civilization game on top of it, but it was insisted that the game is built around this new strategy while still feeling like a true Civilization game.

Right from the announcement, people were immediately aware of the art style change of the game, and the reason given is detail. with cities now being spread out across multiple tiles, many more graphical details were used to represent the new breadth of the game. With a brighter, more vibrant and cartoony style, these details come across much more pleasantly.

During the stream, we're told that leaders have been given a new coat of paint to both their AI and their features. Firaxis put a ton of research into each leader to define each of their overall personalities and goals so when they're played as an AI, they play towards those goals. For example: Cleopatra was known for allying herself with the Roman empire, a strong military power, to have them under her sway. So when she is an AI leader, she tends to ally with other countries with large militaries. Weak military players may have a hard time allying with her.

On the subject of leaders and countries, there will be 18 civilizations to choose from, four of which have been announced: America, Egypt, China and Japan. While no others have been announced, it was stated that some are brand new ones that have never been in a Civilization game before.

Traditionally there has been four victory conditions in Civilization. Ed was very tight lipped about the details, but he did state that one of the old conditions was taken out and replaced with another that has yet to be revealed.

They wrapped up with a discussion on multiplayer. A common problem with multiplayer Civilization games has always been length. Games could take up to 8 hours to complete. They're rehauling how multiplayer works, so a game can take as quickly as an hour but he assured viewers that traditional long-form multiplayer maps were still very possible.

Civilization VI will be available on October 26. Updates can be found on their website, Twitter, and Facebook and of course right here on GameZone.