Staff – February 11, 2019 at 9:17 AM
Sid Meier’s Civilization is a franchise that’s beloved for making expansions feel expansive, broadening the core experience by introducing systems and mechanics that lead the game into intriguing narrative territories. In the past, features like corporations, espionage, and international trade have done more than provide new challenges and strategies. They’ve also opened up new subjects for storytelling, rendering every playthrough into a dense work of historical fiction.
The same is true of Gathering Storm, Civilization VI’s latest expansion and the largest expansion the series has ever seen. Gathering Storm collects a plethora of major features like climate change, ecological disasters, a World Congress, and, yes, Giant Death Robots, as well as a whole host of new civilizations and leaders with which to experiment. These additions make Civ VI’s world feel even more immersive and brimming with narrative possibilities.
We chatted with Senior Producer Dennis Shirk about the expansion’s most outstanding features and spent some time discussing the guiding principles behind 2K’s design process. Check out our full interview below:
What’s new in Gathering Storm?
Gathering Storm is the largest expansion we’ve ever created for the Civilization franchise — so there’s more content to engage with than ever before — but the two most fundamental features are an active planet with Environmental Effects and the World Congress.
With Gathering Storm, we’re introducing an active planet. We explore the impact it has on human settlements, unleashing the forces of nature to bring the world to life in a way that’s never been seen before in the Civilization franchise. Player settlement choices are more important than ever as they balance high risks and high rewards from volcanoes, flooding, storms, and other Environmental Effects.
One of the most fan-requested features for Civilization VI has been a Diplomacy Victory, so we’re excited to include a diplomatic path to victory in Gathering Storm with the World Congress. In the World Congress, you’ll be able to vote on resolutions that affect leaders across the map in pursuit of victory, adding an exciting layer of depth to the late-game.
Why did you decide to focus on environmental and ecological phenomena for this expansion?
Civilization VI looks to capture the sense of wonder, exploration and survival shared throughout history. The Gathering Storm expansion provides a new experience for the franchise common among all peoples: natural events helping shape the course of a city’s growth. Overcoming or adapting to these natural occurrences, such as volcanoes, storms, or floods, has inspired great feats of engineering across the eras that have sought to harness or mitigate these Environmental Effects.
How does the presence of climate change affect the game?
Introducing Environmental Effects was a natural fit for an expansion focused on interactions with an active planet. For Gathering Storm we also looked to add depth to the second half of the game, which mapped well to a world becoming more industrialized through the eras. Rather than existing in a vacuum, civs have relationships to each other and to the environment. It’s a system in which every decision can potentially have a lasting and global impact. For example, if you’re playing as Phoenicia, a civ that encourages coastal cities and command of the seas, it would be advantageous to mitigate both your fossil fuel consumption and to work through the World Congress to decrease carbon emissions globally with a goal of reducing coastal flooding from rising sea levels.
How do natural phenomena like hurricanes, floods, and erupting volcanoes affect nearby cities?
In designing these occurrences, we wanted there to be connectivity between the player and their environment. Using the fossil fuel example, a player may prodigiously make use of these fuels during the Industrial and Modern Eras, accelerating global warming and exacerbating the frequency of flooding coastal tiles across the map. However, those tiles will also become more productive in the wake of a flood, while new engineering projects such as dams can help mitigate damage and also provide power to your city every turn. Although there’s a deep level of interconnective strategy, understanding these new features is intuitive. The frequency Environmental Effects occur can also be adjusted for each campaign via a sliding scale.
How does the World Congress work?
In Gathering Storm, Diplomatic Favor is a new form of currency. It expresses a Leader’s diplomatic goodwill and serves as voting power in the World Congress to promote their civilization’s agenda and potentially unite the other leaders behind them. It also provides a means to ask for promises from other Leaders. Players can earn Diplomatic Favor through Alliances, influencing city-states, competing in World Games, and more. Diplomatic Favor can also be used to vote on Resolutions, call a Special Session to address an emergency, and increase the weight of votes in pursuit of the new Diplomatic Victory.
What new civilizations, leaders, and units can players expect in the new expansion?
Civilization VI: Gathering Storm adds eight new civilizations, nine new leaders, a variety of new units, districts, wonders, buildings, and more.
Each of the new civilizations and leaders are unique. One that we’re excited for fans to try out is the Māori, led by Kupe. According to Māori legend, Kupe discovered New Zealand by crossing the ocean. In Gathering Storm, we’ve recreated that famous legend; The Māori start the game at sea in homage to Kupe’s journey. They also get unique bonuses both during the voyage and upon settling their first city.
Among the new Wonders are Engineering projects such as the Golden Gate Bridge and Panama Canal that provide potent advantages while bending the map to the player’s will.
There are also some exciting new units for players to use, including the introduction of The Rock Band, a special kind of Atomic Era unit which generates huge boosts of Tourism, and the return of the nearly unstoppable Giant Death Robot.
Is there anything else our readers should know?
We’ve also added a Power and consumable resources system. In addition, our new 21st Century Technologies and Civics trees help manage the effects of climate change with speculative ideas such as relocating populations out to Seasteads, developing technologies to recapture carbon emissions, and constructing the Giant Death Robot. Because the future is uncertain, the 21st Century Technologies & Civics Trees are randomized in every game, making each playthrough a fresh journey through human history and into the unknown.
Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm will be released on PC February 14, 2019.
Meanwhile, check out the free demo, available till February 14, 2019 at 10 am!
