I like to decribe Civilization as the board game Risk but made interesting with software. The difficulty with simulation games is the sheer amount of information the user wants and needs to optimize their gameplay. You can see how something like a flight simulator would be quite complex. Now consider developing a simulator of human history (within a reasonable scope of effort). Crowd mentalities, statecraft, geopolitics. All these academic subjects about which humans know just the basics about must be concretely applied to the game in a tangible and rewarding, all while keeping it all balanced.

Whether the game is balanced or not is a whole topic of discussion, but today I just wanted to focus on sharing some experiences and the value of this game, as well as analyze some of its implementation choices that I think have put it on a great trajectory.

Gameplay Flexibility

My #1 favorite aspect of Civ 6 is how easily you can switch between single-player and multiplayer matches with different game speeds as easily as switching save files. One thing I’ve always found hardest about complex games (analog or electronic) is that the good ones take a long time. Civ 6 matches can take 10 hours if played to completion, and finding that in one straight shot can be hard to come by for many people. Lo-and-behold, Civ 6 saves let you step away for hours or days and play at your own pace.

The multiplayer scene, for the length and complexity of the game, is decent. You can always find some lobbies to start a game and the player base is large enough that I don’t see the same people too often. As you can imagine, rarely are public online games played to completion. People will usually leave as they lose ground, leaving only a few players to keep going. Beyond that though, you can start games with friends and save them the same way as single-player matches. I think I still have a 5-year-old saved game from a match with friends that we could hop back into at any time!

What’s cool about Civ is that they still keep pushing on this front. Recently, they released an asynchronous online version of the game that works via steam notifications. They idea being it’s like a Words with Friends-type interaction where you play your turn whenever you have the time and so do the others. In theory games could last months as people slowly make their moves. I think modes like these further get people on-board at least to try the game where they wouldn’t have before.

Mods

The makers of Civilization are also fans of their community and mod network. Currently it’s all hooked up into the Steam Workshop, but you can also take care of it manually if you want. Instead of spending countless hours polishing everything themselves, they happily leverage the army of devoted fans who make any and all extensions you could possibly want.

From vibrant UI remakes to map packs, the tools are there for quite complex mods to be written. I’ve always viewed this as a sign of maturity for a game and a key requirement for a thriving community. When I think back to the earlier online gaming communities like WoW, Counter Strike, etc., they all had active mod communities (throwback to FPSBanana which has since rebranded to GameBanana).

Variety

This aspect is also huge for me. Sometimes I can have a hard time sticking to games once the patterns start appearing. Thankfully, Civ 6 has such a large volume of axes on which the game depends that most matches have a ton of variety. Between each civilization’s specialty and your starting position, there’s already a huge amount of variability. Then, introduce random combinations of other civilizations with different levels of aggression and multiple different paths to victory. Finally, add in long and windy technology and civic upgrade trees and you can barely keep track of all the possible combinations. Just check out the images surrounding this paragraph to get an idea of the size of it all.

Still beyond that, add in other humans playing the game and the game once again expands in dimension. Rivalries, dirty play, and all the usual hints of human conflict make the game continue to surprise you many hours in.

Unsolved and open to Meta

Finally, as a result of all this complexity and variety, the game is open-ended. Sure, there are basic win conditions in the default game. However, once you consider specialty achievements and the pursuit of new strategy by advanced players, the original game quickly starts to take a back seat to the community’s imagination. I know I look forward to facing interesting opponents in online matches, hoping to see some new strategy I can mimic or learn from. Games with room for play to grow and evolve can really thrive, whether it’s the now-resurging Age of Empires 2 or the still-popular League/DoTA/HoTS.

The point though is that there’s no one way to play, like a lot of simpler games. Always going for one style of victory will lose you more matches than you can win, you have to be able to adapt and respond to the current match using all of your past experience. With this hidden potential still just starting to surface, I remain only hopeful for this game to continue on an upward trajectory.