All the Civs

Apr. 24, 2019



Ingrid and I love playing Civ VI. It’s a fine game that improves on previous versions, adding many layers and mechanics that mean you can vary your playing style. In fact, with the recent Gathering Storm expansion there’s now an incredible variety of ways to play. The 39 leaders to play with both reflect and provide the game’s increased complexity. Each leader has a slightly different mechanic that influences how you play the game, and of course the leaders you are up against also affect your game play. You can pick leaders to go up against that will make your game easier or harder. Some leaders can even be an existential threat if you spawn near to them and, as I’ve learned the hard way, it’s not always the leaders you expect that cause these problems.

I’m now at the stage in my Civ VI experience where I’m happy to roll the dice and let the computer pick a leader for me. In recent weeks I’ve had some interesting games with random leaders. I have made some notes for a series of posts, with the aim of writing a post about each of the Civ VI leaders. I’m not a great Civ player by any means but my posts will include a few tips you will find helpful. Of course, the great thing about any Civ game (and Civ VI especially) is that it presents so many decisions that involve weighing up opportunity costs. I have a particular set of biases in confronting these, so some of my advice might be “do as I say, not as I do”!

If I post about one leader a week, that’s almost a year of posts. I’ve also played some mod civs so I could eventually write about those too. Please send me suggestions! Of course, I’m still hoping there will be additional official civs or even another expansion. I think there are still a few mechanics that could be added to the game that would improve it and justify another expansion. I’ll also write about that in another post.

The first post will be next week and will feature Hojo Tokimune of Japan. I played a game with him last week and got completely annihilated in the medieval era. Another game I have on the go is working out a bit better so I will get writing as soon as that game is complete!

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