Civilization 6‘s New Frontier Season Pass is almost at an end, having brought a years’ worth of bimonthly DLC packs to the historical strategy game. However, the New Frontier Pass was far from the first DLC to be released for Civilization 6.
Civilization 6 originally launched for PC in 2016. Since that time, the game has received two major expansions and over a dozen smaller DLC packs. While Civ 6‘s DLC packs have had a smaller impact on the game, the two expansions introduced powerful new systems and made sweeping gameplay changes.
The first expansion pack for Civilization 6 was Rise and Fall, which released a year and a half after the game’s original launch. Rise and Fall came with a huge amount of new content, ranging from systems that affect the entire game to new Civilizations and Natural Wonders:
- Great Ages: Civilizations can gain Era Score through various actions, and gain sweeping bonuses at the dawn of each new era as they either enter a Dark, Normal, Golden, or Heroic Age.
- Loyalty: Each city is given Loyalty score based on factors like population and amenities, which can cause it to rebel and even join a neighboring Civilization if it falls far enough.
- Governors: Governors in Civilization 6: Rise and Fall are special characters that can be placed into cities to give unique bonuses, they can also be upgraded through branching skill trees.
- Alliances: Rise and Fall expanded the Civilization 6 alliance system by allowing players to form different kinds of alliance.
- Emergencies: Emergencies are special events that encourage players to band together to confront Civilizations that are growing too powerful.
- New Civilizations: Rise and Fall added the Korean, Dutch, Mongolian, Indian, Cree, Georgian, Scottish, Mapuche, and Zulu Civilizations.
- Other Additions: Rise and Fall also added four units, sixteen world and natural wonders, three luxury resources, and four districts, including the Loyalty-themed Government Plaza.
Overall, the Rise and Fall expansion was well-named, focusing its new features on the natural rise and fall of Civilizations throughout the game. To do this, Firaxis added systems to combat snow-balling, like Loyalty and Emergencies, to give players who had fallen behind a chance to catch up. In addition, Rise and Fall added more storytelling elements through the Great Ages and Era Score system, allowing players to look back on their Civilization’s Dark or Heroic past.
The second major expansion pack to be released was Civilization 6: Gathering Storm. Just like its predecessor, Gathering Storm focuses on a theme, adding a variety of new content based around it. In Gathering Storm the theme is the natural world, its dangers, and the influence that human Civilizations can have upon it:
- Environmental Effects and Weather: The biggest new feature in Gathering Storm is the weather and environment systems. Cities can be plagued by droughts, floods, blizzards, hurricanes, and volcanoes, all with different effects and counters.
- Climate Change: An extension of the environment system, Climate Change tracks the influence of industrial civilization on the world. As players burn fossil fuels the world warms, causing seas to rise and environmental disasters to multiply.
- Engineering Projects: To deal with these environmental hazards, Gathering Storm also introduces a number of new ways for players to interact with the world, including canals, dams, tunnels, and flood barriers.
- World Congress: A returning feature from Civilization 5, the World Congress allows players to vote on various issues from the mid-game onwards. The results of these votes are usually buffs or debuffs for either individual Civilizations or the world as a whole.
- 21st Century Technology: A brand new era added to the end of the Technology tree allows players to unlock emergent sciences such as carbon-capture and aquatic Seasteads.
- New Civilizations: Gathering Storm added the Hungarian, Maori, Canadian, Incan, Malian, Swedish, Ottoman, and Phoenician Civilizations, as well as Eleanor of Aquitaine as a new Leader for both England and France.
- Other Additions: Gathering Storm also added five units, fifteen world and natural wonders, three terrain features, two districts, and eight tile improvements.
Just like Rise and Fall, Gathering Storm is a Civilization 6 expansion that not only sticks to a theme, but also addresses issues in the base game. The environmental effects add a random element to play, forcing players to adapt rather than stick to a single winning strategy. This philosophy can also be seen in the Climate Change system, which punishes players for taking the powerful but environmentally destructive options. Finally, the return of Civilization 5‘s World Congress gives players a new way to interact with other Civilizations, forcing even isolationist Civilizations onto the world stage.
While Rise and Fall and Gathering Storm are the only major expansions to be released for Civilization 6, there have also been over a dozen DLC packs. These smaller packs have added new Civilizations and Leaders, as well as new buildings, game-modes, and playstyles. However, none of them have made such sweeping changes to gameplay of Civilization 6 as the two expansions.
It’s still unclear whether there will be any future DLC after the end of Civilization 6‘s New Frontier Pass. Despite this, it’s unlikely that any more major expansions will be coming for Firaxis’ historical strategy at this stage.
Civilization 6 is available now for Linux, Mobile, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
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