Great expansion for a great game.
Civilization is one of my all-time favorite games, and the leap from the fifth to the sixth game is epic. It offers new mechanics, tons of stuff to do and build and a fresh new look over the older games. There is some new and relaxing music, more factions and overall, it is a huge improvement over the previous game.
This expansion, Gathering Storm adds natural disasters, and a new mechanic to gather resources.
The disasters are cool but really frustrating at the same time. They add new challenge to the game and let you think about the placement of your new cities, the need to build damns and the constant repairing of destroyed tiles because of a tornado or sandstorm.
Instead of the need to own two or more resources to build a stronger unit, you can just have one tile and the resources will slowly increase. The more fields you own, the faster this process goes. I think this is a huge improvement over the old mechanic, in which many times, you only had one field of the resource you need close, and the first possible field is miles away from you.
Overall, Civilization VI: Gathering Storm is a nice expansion and worth the extra cost.
Civilization is one of my all-time favorite games, and the leap from the fifth to the sixth game is epic. It offers new mechanics, tons of stuff to do and build and a fresh new look over the older games. There is some new and relaxing music, more factions and overall, it is a huge improvement over the previous game.
This expansion, Gathering Storm adds natural disasters, and a new mechanic to gather resources.
The disasters are cool but really frustrating at the same time. They add new challenge to the game and let you think about the placement of your new cities, the need to build damns and the constant repairing of destroyed tiles because of a tornado or sandstorm.
Instead of the need to own two or more resources to build a stronger unit, you can just have one tile and the resources will slowly increase. The more fields you own, the faster this process goes. I think this is a huge improvement over the old mechanic, in which many times, you only had one field of the resource you need close, and the first possible field is miles away from you.
Overall, Civilization VI: Gathering Storm is a nice expansion and worth the extra cost.
Together with Rise & Fall, these are very solid expansions that change more of the whole game than I expected. They’re of a piece with other Firaxis DLC, in the X-Com tradition of “more is more.” As such, they’re more additive than anything else, which can be a bit of a drawback as it can extend long games to be even lengthier, adding several other menus to periodically navigate.
Even so, the new systems are well integrated with the existing ones. In particular, I think there’s something very interesting in navigating electrical power as infrastructure, linked with fuel resources, linked with global warming, flooding, and climate change.
As usual with Civ, this doesn’t come as straightforward commentary – it strikes me that the best position for the system is to burn through resources in the earlier eras, reaping the benefits of production, and then decommission polluting plants to secure diplomatic points for the climate accords. In that regard, this is a continuation of Civ’s usual status quo politics, in which exploitative modes of colonial history are presented as bonuses for the purposes of the game. At least this time, that comes with downsides in terms of flooding and more sudden natural disasters that players and computers alike must address.
Even so, the new systems are well integrated with the existing ones. In particular, I think there’s something very interesting in navigating electrical power as infrastructure, linked with fuel resources, linked with global warming, flooding, and climate change.
As usual with Civ, this doesn’t come as straightforward commentary – it strikes me that the best position for the system is to burn through resources in the earlier eras, reaping the benefits of production, and then decommission polluting plants to secure diplomatic points for the climate accords. In that regard, this is a continuation of Civ’s usual status quo politics, in which exploitative modes of colonial history are presented as bonuses for the purposes of the game. At least this time, that comes with downsides in terms of flooding and more sudden natural disasters that players and computers alike must address.