Last month I spent four hours playing Civilization VI on a very hot day in central London. I came away wishing I could play for another four hundred hours, and also wishing that I had an ice cream. Mint and choc chip preferably.

Since then, I've spent a lot of time thinking about what Civ VI is doing and how its many systems create a brilliant competitive race through history while also producing some weird tensions around the idea of what a civilization actually is in the context of the game. Are cultures defined by the choices they make, by their surroundings, their neighbours, by determination or by chance? Whatever the answer might be, one thing is sure: Cleopatra hates me.

Read more

As if 2016 didn't already contain a rich enough seam of strategy games, Firaxis announce today that Civilization VI will be released on October 21st. Development duties are in the hands of the team behind Civ V's expansions, Gods & Kings and Brave New World, and when we spoke to designer Ed Beach and associate producer Sarah Darney last week to learn all the details, they told us that almost every system from the complete Civ V will be included in the sequel: trade routes, religious systems, archaeology...there'll be no need to wait for expansions, it's all in the base game.

The game is running on a brand new suite of software, built to be far more mod-friendly than its predecessor, and as well as brand new AI systems, there are a host of new mechanics that will explore and emphasise your relationship with Civ's greatest character: the map.

Read more

The last big official update to Civilization V [official site] came in 2013 with its second large expansion, Brave New World. Three years later, and almost six years after the game’s original release, there’s another big new release expected, but it’s not an official expansion. It’s the Community Patch Project (CPP; to be named Vox Populi on release), a community-made mod that overhauls and improves a majority of the game’s systems in an attempt to make Civilization V the best game it possibly can be.

Read more

I’ve playing MGSV obsessively at the moment. You might have noticed. This is a statement which would make 2005 me punch 2015 me in the nose. A decade ago I was so much more forceful and intolerant in my opinions about videogames, and one of the recipients of that unyielding ire was Metal Gear Solid. I played some of 2, felt as though it was simply wasting my time, and that was it, the entire series was irredeemable. Everything I read now suggests I’d still feel that way about MGS2 particularly, but in the wake of Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain, I do realise that in decrying the entire series, I did myself out of some particularly excellent stealth gaming, and a playful streak a mile wide. Which leaves me thinking – what else did I dismiss - or praise - out of hand and now regret?

Read more

Civilization: Only Very Slightly Beyond Earth, more like. While perfectly serviceable, Firaxis' sci-fi themed strategy spin-off proved far too reluctant to step out of Civ V's shadow for my tastes, and I haven't been at all tempted to go back. Conventional wisdom had it that an add-on might add the verve and variety it needs, but it turns out there's a 2.0 update planned which may (or may not) get Beyond Earth back into orbit.

Read more

A strange thing happened in the Civilization community r/civ on January 10, 2015. Inspired by similar, smaller-scale offerings by a Twitch.tv livestream and fellow redditor DarkLava (from whom he explicitly sought permission), user Jasper K., aka thenyanmaster, shared the first part of an experiment he was conducting wherein he put 42 computer-controlled civilisations in their real-life locations on a giant model of the Earth and left them to duke it out in a battle to the death, Highlander style (except instead of heads they need capital cities).

Since then, the practice has exploded in popularity. Reddit's Civilization community has AI-only fever, but what exactly is so compelling about watching the computer play a very slow-paced turn-based strategy game with itself?

Read more

The release of Civilization V: The Complete Edition rather suggests we've reached end of the line for Firaxis' latest history-spanning strategy game, and thus can start drawing up our mental wishlists for Civ VI. Though if I've learned anything in this business, it's that there's any number of final-sounding suffixes left in the game names cupboard. Be braced for Civ V: Ultimate, Civ V: Director's Cut, Civ V: What They Couldn't Show Gandhi Doing In Cinemas, and Civ V: In A Different Box.

Back to that shortly, however. The Cool Thing happening off the back of this new omnibus edition is a new and free Civ V scenario that's being given to existing and future Brave New World owners for no-pennies. Said scenario is also a little bit Colonizationy (but only a little bit).

Read more