Hello Civ fans,
We’re back with another update for Civilization VI.
The team has been working very hard on the many exciting new changes going into the game very soon.
As always, thank you for the valuable feedback you provide on the Civilization Twitter and Facebook pages as well as on CivFanatics and Reddit.
We don’t always get the chance to talk to you directly, but we’re always listening to what you have to say.
Now let’s go over some of the changes heading to Gathering Storm.
What you build will make or break your civilization.
Because this part of the game is so important to your success, a significant portion of this update’s overall balance pass focuses on Production.
First up, we’ve provided more diverse ways for you to earn Production.
We’ve increased the output of quarries, pastures, and lumber mills throughout the game so that they have similar output to mines.
And once you’ve discovered Mercantilism, you can build lumber mills on Rainforest tiles.
We’ve also rebalanced buildings so that even if they come late in the game, they will justify the Production investment:
We’re decreasing costs of late game buildings by about 20%.
Citizens working on district tiles, like the Campus, now increase in effectiveness with late game buildings.
We’re buffing the effects of many mid and late game buildings like the Food Market which provides 4 Food or 6 when it has 1 Power.
There’s a new Power Lens to help you keep track of the Power sources all across your civilization, including the ranges of your Power Plants.
With our focus on Production, we also wanted to revisit a few Civ bonuses:
England’s “Workshop of the World” now helps powered buildings generate an additional 4 yield, and their Iron and Coal Mines will extract an extra 2 resources each turn.
Additionally, they get 20% production towards Industrial Zone buildings and their Harbor buildings increase Strategic Resource Stockpiles by 10.
Wilfred Laurier’s bonus “The Last Best West” now synergizes with Lumber Mills which give an extra Production and Camps which give an extra Food.
Finally, we wanted to revisit the pacing of Techs and Civics so you can make better use of their unlocks.
Our production rebalance should help with this, but we’ve also slightly increased the costs of Techs and Civics from the Medieval to the Atomic Eras, by about 10%.
We’re also adding Apprenticeship as a requirement for Stirrups and Replaceable Parts as a requirement for Chemistry.
We hope these new tweaks to Production encourage you try out new strategies, Civs, and city buildouts.
Gathering Storm saw the return of the Diplomatic Victory.
Since its launch, we’ve received some great feedback that it was coming into play too late.
To help with this, we’ve made changes to diversify where you can earn Victory Points, how early and often players earn them, and how many points are required for victory.
For starters, we’ve introduced more sources of Victory Points while increasing the number of points required for a victory.
Most of these new points will come from normal sessions of World Congress.
Now, when a Resolution passes, every player who voted for the winning target-option combo will receive one point.
This means you’ll need to spend Favor more evenly throughout the game or look for chances to vote alongside other players.
New UI elements will let you know what option and target are likely to pass.
Points have also been added to all of the Scored Competitions, including a new one: the Military Aid Request, which another player can call when they’re being bullied by a warmonger.
Like the normal Aid Request, players who join in will send gold to the target player in a competition to claim Favor and Victory Point rewards.
To give World Congress a bit more variety, we’ve also added in 3 new Resolutions.
Espionage Pact - All spies function 2 levels higher for the target Operation or the target Operation becomes unavailable.
Military Advisory - A target unit promotion class gains +5 Combat Strength or loses 5 Combat Strength.
Public Relations - Target player and all players who interact with them get double or half grievances.
This should lead to a diplomatic victory that ends up feeling more “diplomatic.”
Tightening up our established mechanics in each update is incredibly important to the team, but we also want to make sure we’re offering new ways to enhance your personal strategies.
A number of systems are being updated with new or rebalanced choices.
Starting with Dedications, we’ve added Automaton Warfare, which focuses on everyone’s favorite Giant Death Robot in the late game:
During a Golden Age, it instantly gives you a Giant Death Robot unit.
It also grants 3 Uranium per turn, and your Uranium mines will accumulate 1 more resource each turn.
During a Normal and Dark Age, it grants +1 Era Score for each non-Barbarian unit killed with a Giant Death Robot.
There are four new Dark Age Policies, available in the late game:
Flower Power which boosts your Rock Band Tourism with civs you’re at peace with, but also increases the cost of other units.
Cyber Warfare which grants +10 Combat Strength against units from the Information and Future Eras, but Grievances against you do not decay.
Automated Workforce gives your cities +20% Production towards city projects, but -1 Amenity and -5 Loyalty per turn.
Disinformation Campaign grants 3 Favor per turn for each Broadcast Center, but -10% Science and Culture in all cities.
If you’re having trouble keeping track of all those unit bonuses, we’ve added a Unit Abilities tooltip.
Here you can see the many smaller bonuses that a unit has, outside of their normal promotions.
And on top of all those new changes we also have two brand new map scripts for you to try out.
7 Seas will put you in a map with lots of land connected by numerous small seas instead of big oceans.
Small Continents is a returning fan favorite from previous Civilization games.
Compared to a normal Continents map, it has more numerous but smaller landmasses.
Give these new additions a try. We’re interested to hear what you think!
WorldBuilder’s Basic Mode is ready for prime time. Civilization VI’s custom map editor can now be found in the Additional Content menu by default.
You’ll no longer have to activate it by going into the game’s files.
On top of this change, we’ve been busy doing additional polish work to enhance the UI overall.
Our goal is to make WorldBuilder as easy as possible for you to use as it’s your tool to play Civilization VI exactly how you want.
Check out our WorldBuilder how-to video for an introduction on how to create your own maps.
That’s just a taste of what’s coming into the game for our next update.
Check out the full patch notes we’ll be releasing very soon for every single last change that we’ve put in.
Now stay tuned to the Civilization social channels, we’ve got more work and surprises we can’t wait to tell you about.
Until then, thank you for being an amazing community and keep on taking one more turn.