Review

• Recommended


• New mechanics like power and climate change


• New victory


• New civs and leaders

Civ 6 is such an amazing game and a new expansion, Gathering Storm, was released a while ago. I’ve been too busy playing it, which is why I am now just getting to write about it. Civ 6 was the cure I needed, but didn’t think I wanted. I had gotten bored of video games and wasn’t sure what to do. I was hesitating to buy GS, because I didn’t really feel like playing a strategy game like Civ 6 and I was intimidated by the game. However, I am absolutely glad that I bought GS. Since then, I can’t stop playing Civ 6.

The theme of GS is climate change and global warming. Cities can now be powered by coal, oil, and uranium, each having it’s own impact on the environment. You can make power plants in industrial zones, which you will need eventually as some district improvements need power to operate fully such as the stock exchange. Unfortunately, like in the real world, these power plants add CO2 into the atmosphere and cause irreparable damage. Some tiles are below sea level and will flood once CO2 levels reach a certain point. There is a new icon or place in the game where you can check to see how the environment is doing. There are also rivers that flood and volcanoes that are quite destructive.

Luckily there are ways to combat climate change (again just like in real life). You can build dams to stop the rivers from flooding (but you can do nothing to stop the volcanoes). You can build hydroelectric dams, solar farms, wind farms, and offshore wind farms. Also each energy source has it’s own level of impact on the environment. Coal has a heavy impact, oil is moderate, and uranium is mild. However, uranium power plants have a chance to melt down. Because of this, I’ve never built one. You can also use the Carbon Recapture project later in the game that can actually negate all of the CO2 in the atmosphere that everyone puts in.

GS also adds the World Congress in which civs get to vote on different things. For instance, which luxury resources will be doubled, receiving more points for a certain great person, and quite a few more choices. Civs can vote for or against different things. They can spend diplomatic favor in order to sway the vote. These can be obtained in a variety of ways. There is also a new victory condition, Diplomatic Victory. Players vote for or against which civ receives 2 diplomatic points. When a civ reaches a certain amount of points, they win a Diplomatic Victory. There are numerous ways to gain diplomatic favor and diplomatic points. One way to get 2 diplomatic points is to build the Statue of Liberty.

Another addition to the game are new civs such as the Maori, Sweden, Canada and more. The Maori are quite unique, because they start the game in the ocean and able to traverse deep ocean tiles. Their music is also quite unique. Canada is unique, too, as they can get bonus production in tundra tiles. Also, you cannot declare a surprise war on Canada and they can’t declare a surprise war on other civs.

I’ve only kind of briefly covered this expansion. I strongly suggest checking it out if you’re interested. Civ 6 is (in my opinion) one of the best games in recent years and this expansion adds more to it, making it more playable. Previously, I had looked at some of the achievements and I got some of them, but others looked too difficult to get or bother with. However, I found a great guide online that offers strategy tips for obtaining each achievement. It also made me realize that you can actually play the game in multiplayer by yourself. There is a “hot seat” mode where players can play on the same computer and just take turns using the same keyboard and mouse. It’s really cool, still fun (to play by myself), and makes some of those achievements much easier to get. For instance, one requires that you capture a settler with a Viking Longship. Instead of waiting for the AI to have a settler at a coast, you can (as one player) send a settler to the coast and (as another player) capture it. This made a lot of achievements possible for me. I also learned how to use the command console. You need to edit a config file to enable it, but then you can hit a key to activate it. One of the commands you can use is “reveal all” which will show you everything on the map. This is incredibly handy, especially in cases where you’re trying to make sure a certain natural wonder or city-state is on the map. This can be done only in single player, but you can save your game, open it in multiplayer and copy some of the game configurations to recreate it. If you want to know more about this, just do some Googling. :)

Edit: If you're interested in the achievement guide I found it's here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=914286854

That guide will also kind of explain how to play multiplayer "hot seat" games by yourself, so that you don't have to wait for the AI to do something you want it to. However, from what I've read on the web it seems this mode is not available in the Switch version (PC Master Race!!!!!).

For those achievements that require certain natural wonders or city-states on the map check out this link for how to access the command console and use the "reveal all" command, extremely helpful! https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=804400692

Bonus: Here's a couple of good YouTube channels that have some great Civ videos. The first one has a playlist for a beginner's tutorial for the game (very helpful).
See Quill18: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbx1TZgxfIauUZyPuBzEwZg
See Drew Durnil: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPcABVoFfCK5gDfX0PY1KGg