The Civilization Series, a game which has spanned the history of gaming from the 16 bit era till now. You can actually find the first two games on the SNES and Playstation here in Vizzed’s retro game room. It’s a very well received game series and that says a lot, after all, it is one of a few video games in this age I can say belongs to the board game genre.

So here are the basics, you start the game by selecting to take control of the ruler of an empire. From here you advance the civilization from each era to the next, evolving your technological prowess and influence over the world, all while competing against other civilizations seeking to accomplish the same. Each Civ game brought more stuff to the table, and the most recent installment, Civilization 6, was no different. As for the new things it added… well this was like my first Civ game, I don’t know ok? I mean I could’ve played a whole save of the game with the advisor set to “new to civ 6” so I could find out what they added, but when am I THAT patient??? Besides, I’d rather actually look at the game for what it is rather than drag it down over not being different enough from its predecessors.

I never liked these people.

Civilization 6 has much strategy to put into it if you want to win at higher difficulties, but if you’re a filthy casual like me, it’s still an easy game to pick up. There’s plenty of info and tips to go around on how things work and what to do in certain situations. First up, you select the ruler of an empire. Aside from Greece, there is one ruler per empire, and each has their own bonuses from their ruler ship and their country. For instance, Emperor Trajan of Rome has bonuses attributed towards gaining territory for themselves, and Quin Shi Huang of China centers around producing tech, civics, and man-made wonders faster. Once you select a ruler, after a bit of loading, you are put in a random spot on the planet. I recommend plopping down your first city wherever they put your settler in within the turn, you’ll want to start production as soon as possible. Your first technological advance should be mining, pottery, or animal husbandry, so you can set up improvements over resources in the world.

Each game has 4 goals to achieve in order to win, the Domination, Religious, Science, and Culture victories. Domination victories are essentially the genocide runs, take out every civilization that wants to achieve their hopes and dreams and prove once and for all that ELVEN SUPREMECY IS THE ONLY TRUTH! Science victories are achieved by collecting research in space, and religious victories are achieved by getting your religion across the globe as the only one there is. Culture victories are achieved by making the greatest tourist sites to be seen on the planet. If none of those achievements are… well, achieved by the year 2050 AD on a game with normal settings (you can tweak a lot of settings before starting a game, which victories can be achieved is one of them) then whatever civilization with the highest score for all victory related actions wins. What happens to the civs that are left standing after you finish the space program or make the world’s biggest cheese wheel? I dunnooooo??? Anyways HERE ARE A BUNCH OF FEATURES!

BARBARIANS!

They will be an ever present issue in your game as the bad guys when not dealing with an angry ruler. They randomly set up camps around the map over time and will send scouts to survey the area. Once a scout locates a city, then the barbarians cometh. If you can place a unit on the camp, you destroy it and get a small bit of gold. The barbarians can make almost any kind of unit as the game progresses, as well as capture passive units. You think your island resorts are safe when the barbarians with destroyer battleships are about!?

NATURAL AND MANMADE WONDERS!

There are many natural wonders in the world, yet very few compared to the real world. If you find one, settling near it will provide good bonuses to your city and its districts. You can also make your own wonders, such as the pyramids and the Eiffel tower. Not only are the wonders good for attracting tourism, but they also give unique bonuses to you. What do natural wonders and artificial wonders do to fit hand and hand? I DON’T KNOW!

GREAT PEOPLE!

Over the course of your advancement, you may start to gain points towards attracting great people. These historical figures will benefit specific categories with their special buffs and abilities. Great generals and admirals will give morale boosts to nearby soldiers, great prophets will allow you to find a religion, and great scientists will help move along research.There are more great people to obtain, but every other civilization is also competing for a piece as well, so be on your guard.

DIPLOMACYYYYYYYYY!

It’s impossible to please everyone, and that is especially true in this game. Each ruler has their own agendas, one fixed agenda unique to the ruler and one randomly generated hidden agenda they won’t let you in on unless you gain more diplomatic visibility. These agendas DO make each ruler more fleshed out in terms of procedures to follow when dealing with them, but god, can they be a pain to deal with. For instance, Pedro of Brazil likes obtaining great people, and hates losing them to another country. I literally went to war with Pedro FOUR TIMES on a save due to him being peeved I had more great people than him, so usually the only way to deal with him is to either take over his country or pass up the bonuses you get from having great people, which sucks. Then Nvemba a Something-or-other of Kongo likes having religion spread to his cities, which makes sense. The main gimmick of playing as Kongo is that you can’t generate a religion of your own, so it makes sense to have the AI behave this way, but when you have Kongo denouncing you in the next ten turns after finding a religion, the novelty goes away. AND THEN THERE’S JOINT WARS. Basically you can have another ruler team up with you to go to war with a mutual enemy… only thing is I NEVER convinced another country to help me out before. The AI on the other hand corks out joint wars like it’s none of your business! I remember working towards a friendly relationship with Trajan, and I discovered Russia. Not even a full two turns after finding Russia, czar Peter convinced Trajan, who LIKED ME mind you, to go to war with me. I was so confused to see Trajan declaring war, then Peter declared war and I swear I quoted the almighty loaf. Then the second time this exact scenario occurred again with two different rulers I quoted this: