Sid Meier's Civilization VI
2016
Audio: Chinese, Russian, Polish · Subtitles: Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, French, Italian, English, Spanish, Korean, German
- simulator
- strategy
- turn-based strategy (tbs)
- fantasy
- historical
- 4x (explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate)
- single player
- multiplayer
The story
Civilization VI is a 4X turn-based strategy game in which players guide a civilization from its founding as a small settlement through multiple eras of development. Players explore a procedurally generated map, found cities, research technologies, develop culture, engage in diplomacy, and compete against AI or human opponents to achieve victory through military dominance, scientific advancement, cultural influence, religious conversion, or diplomatic consensus. A key design change from its predecessor is the "unstacking" of cities, requiring players to place districts on surrounding tiles rather than stacking all improvements in the city center, making terrain and geography central to strategic planning. The game received two major expansions, Rise and Fall and Gathering Storm, which introduced mechanics like city loyalty, golden/dark ages, climate change, and natural disasters. It was succeeded by Civilization VII in 2025.
What it’s like
Clean hex-tiled maps in bright, painterly colour, with each civilization's leader rendered as a tidy, slightly stylised portrait and cities sketched as compact clusters of rooftops against shifting terrain. The look is crisp and readable rather than moody: sunlit grasslands, cool blue seas, snow-capped peaks, and a steady rhythm of chimes, brass-and-strings themes that swell at new eras and quieten into ambient pads while you plan. Each turn is a small, deliberate ritual of moving settler units, queuing builds, and checking the map with a cup of tea, and the pace stretches from brisk early hours to long, contemplative late-game evenings. The feel is warm, absorbed and quietly competitive, with a sense of gradual accumulation as a tiny settlement grows into a sprawling empire. Violence exists only as abstract conflict: units trade blows in brief, bloodless animations, and there is no gore, sexual content or real fear, just the low tension of a rival's army approaching. It suits a rainy Sunday, a long session that can be paused anytime, or background thinking while working. It is for people who enjoy planning, puzzle-solving over terrain, and watching a long game unfold.
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