Civ VI Gathering Storm Review: Prince of Tides.

I have a tendency to hate games I’m bad at for obvious reasons. Could never get the hang of any fighting game. Couldn’t get into multiplayer shooters either.  Not even when my buddy chance gave me one of the best gaming compliments of my life in overwatch by calling me a “scary zen.” But I still suck at them to the point where I don’t have any real fun. Then there’s civilization. Where I can’t play any difficulty over prince. Which is medium, I guess. No one who plays civ anywhere near the amount that I do would deign to start a game under deity. Which is an experience akin to making a souffle while dodging mortar fire.

But I still love civ because I can never fully understand it. Every time a trusted friend steals 5 turns worth of gold from me I’m shocked. Every time I knock down a jumped up warmonger I cackle. Every decent game makes me lose hours at a time. Even when I have one foot out the door or my coffee has finished brewing I can lose 20 minutes setting up the perfect starting map. It's a great bedtime game too as long as you can put it down before the sun comes up. But all that was true about vanilla Civ VI what does your $40 get you this year? You get the UN and floods!

When you try to settle cities now you'll get fun new icons on tiles that can be affected by tsunamis, floods, and volcanoes. When those hit, your farms will be out of commission for at least 8 turns. That's no death sentence but it will scuttle your expansion plans for a good while. The up shot is flood plain and volcanic soil becomes more fertile after the fact. Permanently. There's other stuff like drought and tornadoes that are less constructive but add to the natural disaster motif. I mean, it'd be weird if they weren't there, you know?

Close your eyes and try spell it.

Then there's the world congress which starts in the Renaissance era because mechanically it needs to. You now have political capital points which you generate 2 or 3 per turn at the start. It's not much but you can use them to trade for stuff you actually need before the world congress begins. Other players will trade their points with you too. Often in lieu of anything else. But once you get a pot of 100 or more you can get some really neat stuff done. Sure you can host Olympic games and world fairs but you what really want to do is ban a rival's critical luxuries, hamstring their citizen's happiness, and start them down the path of revolt! In Civ V all banning luxuries did was slow people down but add rise and fall to the mix and you can start flipping cities to you!

It's just that much sharper than V's WC so it doesn't seem like a copy paste but the 2 year wait to get it back was a but much. I'm not sure why it couldn't have launched with a lesser version, honestly. Aside from that there are smaller improvements and that's where GS really shines for me. They are small but they are legion. Natural resources have been balanced in a clever way. In 2016 if you wanted iron to turn your clubs into swords and you weren't lucky enough to find some yourself you had to sell the family jewels to trade for it. Now each deposit gives you 2 iron points per turn. You only need to build a mine if you want to double it to 4 points. It's also much easier to trade for it now so you never need to worry about your military upgrades.

On the flip side powering your cities fuels climate change so the more oil you use the more danger your coastal tiles are in. I haven't played a game yet where climate change bothered me much; but I hear of some folks who consciously hunker down in land locked areas and belch fire to drown their coastal enemies. You also don't have to make a beeline for neighborhoods to fix your cramped cities anymore. Dams become available during the renaissance that give you more space while blocking the damage of floods. New upgrades are available for scouts and horsemen so you don't wait forever for their industrial variants.

Gathering Storm makes every game of civ 20% more interesting. That will be true 5 years from now. I can't say I'm over the moon about it but I can't imagine going back. It takes a couple games to help you appreciate all the little quality of life changes (I actually despise the new flash java-esque main menu if I'm being honest) but this is totally worth the price in the end. I haven't even tried the new Maori civ. they start in the ocean and gain bonuses based on how much they land they discover before settling. That pulls everyone's first 50 turn strategy inside out and I am all about that! As much as I would love to see more expansions in the future, Firaxis's history says this is the last. In my heart of hearts I say this is a damn good place to leave my favorite epoch of Civilization.

This is Kupe. He's the sh*t.