Civilization VI: Gathering Storm Announced - Climate change expansion?

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 11/22/2018 10:10 AM | source: | 19 comment(s)

2K and Firaxis Games sent out a press release announcing Gathering Storm is the second expansion for Sid Meier's Civilization VI, saying to expect this to launch for the turn-based strategy sequel on February 14th.

2K and Firaxis Games announced today that Sid Meier’s Civilization® VI: Gathering Storm, the second expansion pack for the critically acclaimed and award-winning Sid Meier’s Civilization® VI, will be available for Windows PC on February 14, 2019. (Graphic: Business Wire)

Civilization VI: Gathering Storm will introduce an active planet where geology and climatology present unique new challenges. Players will build new Engineering Projects, manage their cities’ Power and Consumable Resources and work with other world leaders in the World Congress to deal with the challenges presented by the dynamic forces of nature. This new expansion also extends the Technology and Civics trees with a future era and adds nine new leaders from eight new civilizations, a new Diplomatic Victory condition, a variety of new units, districts, wonders, buildings and more.

Key features for Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm include:

ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS: Volcanoes, storms (blizzards, sand storms, tornados and hurricanes), climate change, floods and droughts will bring the world to life in a brand new way. Settlement choices are more important than ever for players as they balance high risks and high rewards;
POWER AND CONSUMABLE RESOURCES: Strategic resources play an additional role in Civilization VI: Gathering Storm. These resources are now consumed in power plants to generate electricity for cities. Initially, players’ advanced buildings will be powered by burning carbon-based resources like Coal and Oil, but renewable energy sources also unlock as players progress to current-day technologies. The choices a player makes about resource usage will directly affect the world’s temperature and can cause melting ice caps and rising sea levels;
ENGINEERING PROJECTS: Players can now shape the world around their empires to overcome unfavorable land conditions by making improvements like canals, dams, tunnels and railroads. When settling cities, players will need to consider the flood risk to coastal lowland areas, but keep in mind that in the late-game, new technologies like Flood Barriers can be used to protect these tiles;
WORLD CONGRESS: For the first time in Civilization VI, players can make their voices heard among the other leaders of the world. Along the way, they can earn Diplomatic Favor through Alliances, influence city-states, compete in World Games and more. In addition, they can use Diplomatic Favor to extract promises from other leaders, vote on Resolutions, call a Special Session to address an emergency and increase the weight of votes in their quests to achieve the new Diplomatic Victory;
21st CENTURY TECHNOLOGIES & CIVICS: A new era has been added to the Technology and Civics trees. As well, players will combat new environmental effects with speculative ideas, such as relocating their populations out to seasteads and developing technologies to recapture carbon emissions;
NEW LEADERS AND CIVS: Nine new leaders from eight new civilizations are introduced. Each brings unique bonuses and gameplay, as well as a total of nine unique units, four unique buildings, three unique improvements, two unique districts and one unique governor;
NEW SCENARIOS:
- The Black Death: The Black Death ravaged Europe and western Asia in the mid-14th century, killing a greater share of the population than any other event in world history. The player’s task is to lead his or her nation through the calamity: keep the population alive, the economy strong and faith unshaken amidst a world of terror and desperation;
- War Machine: At the outset of WWI, the German Imperial Army had a daring plan: invade neutral Belgium and then rush the French heartland before its leaders could mobilize to resist. When war was declared, both armies swung into motion and set up one of the most incredible and shocking military campaigns in world history. In this multiplayer scenario, players take the side of one of these two great powers at this same precipice. The clock is ticking, and the enemy is moving;
MORE NEW CONTENT: Civilization VI: Gathering Storm will introduce seven new world wonders, seven natural wonders, 18 new units, 15 new improvements, nine new buildings, five new districts, two new city sets, nine new techs and 10 new civics;
IMPROVED GAMEPLAY SYSTEMS: The Espionage system will be enhanced with new options. In addition, the Culture and Science Victories have been updated, new Historic Moments have been added and additional improvements have been made to other existing systems.

Developed by Firaxis Games, Sid Meier’s Civilization VI is rated E10+ for Everyone 10 and up by the ESRB and is available now for Windows PC and Nintendo Switch™. Sid Meier’s Civilization VI is also available for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Linux from Aspyr Media. Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm will be available on February 14, 2019 for Windows PC and coming shortly thereafter for Mac and Linux from Aspyr Media.

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emperorsfist
Senior Member

Posts: 1777
Joined: 2018-08-29

#5609699 Posted on: 11/22/2018 10:17 AM

I am yest to see a Civ game (or clone) that's worth the purchase at day 1. Most seem to only get more feature complete with expansions like this.

cryohellinc
Senior Member

Posts: 3520
Joined: 2014-10-20

#5609705 Posted on: 11/22/2018 10:57 AM

I am yest to see a Civ game (or clone) that's worth the purchase at day 1. Most seem to only get more feature complete with expansions like this.

With exception of some older titles, all new ones have cut content, which is gradually added over the years. So actual release date of a game (as it was with Civ 5, and now Civ 6) is 2-3 years after the "official" release date.

Exodite
Senior Member

Posts: 2077
Joined: 2006-09-28

#5609707 Posted on: 11/22/2018 11:01 AM

FWIW, for any 4X enthusiasts that haven't played Civ 6 yet, I can't recommend the title.

I've sunk close to 400 hours into the game ( not much for a 4X, admittedly) so far but while slick externally it's fundamentally broken in many ways, even more so than previous titles.

I could probably write a rather substantial review of the pros and cons of the title but the crux of the negatives, for me, are...

The AI is useless even by Civ standards. It can't handle trade, while diplomacy and war declarations feel more or less random and annoying. Higher difficulties still only introduce more starting resources and resource gains for the AI, which forces very specific playstyles yet does nothing to keep the game interesting once you're ahead in the race.
Firaxis doubled down on the most annoying aspects of religion of Civ 5, namely religious combat and manual spreading of religion. I enjoyed Civ 5 more without the expansion, this is even worse.
Critically, for me, Marathon game speed is completely broken and has been since the game released. No one tests this but it's the only way I play the game so... sigh.
I wanted much larger map support for Civ 6, in reality the maps are actually smaller than Civ 5. In addition to that the map generation is terrible, for example "continents" is actually "double pangea", "island plates" lack elevation and Civs and City States get rather strange and clustered placements.
The "continent" mechanic, a way to implement continental bonuses for pangea-style maps, is very obtuse in-game.
Ridiculously slow patch deployment.

Obviously there are numerous minor bugs and balance issues, like natural wonders being screwy (those replacing natural tiles are worse than what they're replacing, since they can't be worked in any way and lose the general resources, while those granting bonuses to adjacent tiles are usually great), hilarious Civ imbalances, conflicting in-game information etc.

The first expansion did nothing to address the base issues of the game and from what it looks like this one won't either.
Don't get me wrong here, it's not a terrible game. It's just... not good.

I'd strongly suggest waiting 5-6 years, or a year or so after Civ 7 releases, before picking up Civ 6 and looking into what the mod community might have fixed by then. Or waiting for 75%+ discounts.

Aura89
Senior Member

Posts: 8346
Joined: 2008-07-31

#5609732 Posted on: 11/22/2018 01:29 PM

Only the 1st Civilization didn't have expansions (and it by far did not have a lot of content), and people saying that current games have "cut content" either do not remember previous games, do not understand how much more difficult and expensive current games are to make, or simply want to believe what they want to believe so they can feel they are being shafted.

One of these days game developers are just going to stop releasing after-game release content, in the form of paid content, or free content, due to all the whining. I don't think i have seen anywhere else other then gaming where people complain that a product is supported long after its been released with an idea that they own the product and should determine what is in the base product and what is extra, non-required products for the base product.

Games have become more and more expensive as time has gone, and either they make a "smaller" game for the typical $59.99, with expansions, or games get more expensive. Gamers? They don't want either. Nor do they care they are paying less today then they pretty much ever have. Half-Life released in 1998 for $49 and was a marvel of its time, that game today would have cost $76.02 with inflation. And, since it cost a lot less to make then current games, that 76.02 is less then what games should cost today, regardless.

But again, gamers don't want either, they just want what is in their head as a "i want it as cheap as possible with as much content as possible and as little bugs as possible, i do not care about the developers cost, i want all 3 items on my list, otherwise they are screwing us over!"

This is one of the main reasons FF7 remake is being split up into multiple games: How much more complex and expensive the game is to develop today then it was when released.

All this pro-consumer, anti-developer/publisher nonsense is quite honestly just sad. We want it all, but we don't want to give anything.

H83
Senior Member

Posts: 4241
Joined: 2009-09-08

#5609734 Posted on: 11/22/2018 01:47 PM

I´ve got the game and i played it a bit but i prefer CIV5 much more than this one. The only gameplay change that improved the game was the districts mechanic, everything else was the same or worse. Specially the workers that disappear after a number of instant!? builds and the roads that are made automatically by traders, i hate those. Also the AI remains stupid as ever...
So more than release expansions they should fix the game core mechanics.

Aura@ don´t forget that 10 years ago a game selling more than a million copies was an huge success and nowadays selling the same amount is a failure for most. The vastly increased number of games sold today compensates by far the steady prices of games. Most content sold in separate is just for profit/greed not because they are needed for game companies to survive.

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