Review: Civilization 6: Gathering Storm
The Aztecs are sorely pressing Sweden, having taken a number of their cities. Greece is exploring, sending caravels across the wide ocean and making contact with the Phoenicians at Ugarit. The Arab-Chinese war is turning hot again. And the Zulu have asked the Phoenicians to join them in a glorious war against the Dutch. The Phoenicians politely have refused. Wait! This is not the latest Alternate History novel from Harry Turtledove. This is my latest game session of Civilization 6 using the latest expansion, Gathering Storm. Civilization 6: Gathering Storm adds new a new gameplay format, civs, and mechanics to provide a Civilization game resonant with our climate change age.
Video Game Review: Civilization: Beyond Earth (2014)
At the end of all of the Civilization games, one of the classic winning endings is not to conquer the rest of the world or overawe the other civilizations with alliances and treaties; rather, it is to build a ship and send it to the stars. What would happen when that ship reaches its destination? In the Mid 1990’s, Sid Meier, creator of the Civilization franchise, explored that in Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri, a turn-based strategy game with a transhumanist narrative, contacting and, in one of the win conditions, joining with Planet. It is probably the biggest budget videogame to ever explore transhumanism and science fiction, and one of the few to meld an external narrative into a strategy game. Now, Civilization: Beyond Earth treads into those waters again. Created by Firaxis, Beyond Earth takes the chassis of the Civilization V engine, with its one-unit-per-hex design, and transplants it onto an alien planet.
