This creates a strange sense of urgency and a shift in focus from expansion to micromanagement, something I feel was limited in Civ V. Each city in your empire is now responsible for their own happiness, which you’ll need to manage with necessary amenities like housing.

This brings the system back to the days of Civ IV and earlier. Happy PeopleĪ change I feel might be celebrated by older Civilization players is how Happiness is no longer empire-wide. This is a strategy game, after all, and it’s interesting how I never really looked at automation as being the antithesis of the strategy philosophy, at least not until I experienced it without it.

Civ 6 has taken what was once a mindless element of the experience, and turned it into a thoughtful, planned aspect that demands your attention. I was admittedly concerned about Civilization 6 being turned into a Revolution clone (as great as those games are) in terms of over-accessibility, but this change actually encourages - forces - you to strategically place and task Builders. Being able to delegate and automate a Worker’s tasks meant I didn’t need to worry about that, but now that it’s been removed from this unit, it’s amazing how much more engaged I feel with my land.

I used automation a lot in past games because it was just “there”. This takes me to my next point: automation. Of course, improvements would soon again be required, but those Workers would just stand idle, taking up valuable space. It was easy to just forget about your Workers in past games, and you could end up with a map filled with unused units who would have completed every single improvement needed. In past games, I’d forget about a Worker who was building a road or whatever else some tasks, particularly on higher difficulties, would get lost amidst the action and progression my empire was making over multiple turns.ĭeveloper Firaxis has been fairly vocal in its effort to improve unit placement and reduce the amount of congestion on a map, and the changes to the Builder unit really help with that application. For one, I would focus on a specific Builder, set them a task, and then immediately delegate another job. It created a nice sense of reward in those early stages of my game, however I came to really appreciate the change once I realised how much more streamlined that element of the experience had become. In the early stages of my Chinese empire (which also grants you four Builder task slots, compared to the three afforded to all other empires), I used my Builders to work the lands, and soon found my cities surrounded by thriving farmland, mines and digs. I appreciate the change, but it’s something you might not really notice until deep into your game. This forces a strategic approach to planning and improvements, as most tasks - including terrain improvements - happen instantly as opposed to over a number of turns. Builders work in a similar way, however this time they have a set number of tasks before disappearing from the map. In past entries, Workers were used to either manually or automatically complete improvements across the map, or build specific areas (like a mine or farm) that utilised a certain tile’s minerals and materials. Working Those BuildersĪn important change in Civ 6 is the evolution of Worker to Builder. It would be telling if a game about domination, evolution, culture and technology didn’t improve upon its predecessor, and while Civilization 6 doesn’t shout down from the rafters about its changes like Civ V did, there’s a deep core, one that bestows upon the player a level of responsibility not offered in a Civ game before.

It achieves that in a few ways, with subtle changes that keep the experience grounded in familiarity, along with some crucial applications of differentiation. Civilization 6 is a noble game in that sense: it seems to care more about your people than you may have ever thought to in your rise to domination. The crux of the Civ experience has remained unchanged, yet the nature of progression - and the consequences of expansion - are relayed with a combative itch that can promptly erode any sense of pride or ownership. That’s how I have always approached my new empire in past games, with an ambitious urge to grow, thrive, and learn at a rate faster than other empires around me. I rushed into Civilization 6 with a fairly sound knowledge of the basics, but soon realised that it was a different world, one I wouldn’t call punishing, but rather fickle in its contempt for ambition. I approached it as I have every Civilization game before it: settle my people, build a city, forge a strong military, work on my culture, expand, repeat. The latest Civilization entry feels familiar yet strangely foreign.

Civ 6 world builder play map