Exit Civilization 6 surprised us a bit. Beyond Earth with the only addition, I didn’t have time to cool down yet, but here is a continuation. However, if we consider Civilization: Beyond Earth as an offshoot (similar to Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri), then everything falls into place ...

A good six years have passed since the release of the fifth part. But over the years Firaxis never came up with any revolutionary ideas: the sixth part seemed to tune the fifth, not daring to cross certain boundaries.

"The sound of progress, my friend"

The boldest thing Firaxis did was with the structure of cities. Perhaps their appearance is inspired by redrawn cities from total war: Rome 2: there, cramped heaps of buildings were turned into such appetizing saucers, in texture much more similar to real settlements. However, the essence is still completely different.

Districts not only create a new depth of development, but also enhance the external resemblance of virtual cities to real ones. And let that campus be Oxford!

Here the team of settlers stops and chooses a place for a halt. A new city appears. All that is in it now is the center. And the list of buildings that are allowed to be built is very short: a barn, a water mill, a sewer, several types of walls. Other architectural extravagances require special districts built by the citizens.

It is quite obvious that zoning is a direct consequence of the specialization of cities that has been pursuing Civilization for many years: in the capital we assemble an industrial machine for building miracles, in another city we provide an overabundance of food and produce settlers there one by one, and we lay the third in the middle of the jungle to arrange a scientific boom two hundred years later.

A military camp is capable of greatly slowing down the advance of the enemy - it snaps back no worse than a separate city. It's a good thing Liverpool don't have that.

This paradigm is now legalized and, in general, inevitable: only the fastest growing city will master the creation of all districts. And there are plenty of them: a science campus, an industrial town, a military camp, a commerce center, a theater square, an airfield ... For example, a library will open only on a campus, and since the area requires a lot of production points during construction, some warlike nation (such as horse-bow Scythians ) runs the risk of not seeing a single library at all, except for those that will be in the captured cities of the enemy.

In modern times, settlers transfer to a nice minibus. Well, what other city can they found if not San Francisco?

Is it logical? Perhaps, even wild unbridled Huns were not built before without libraries. But for the player it is not easier, but much harder. Now, when there is a chance to build a new district, the question arises - where to stick it.

Problems snowball after, and almost all of them are spawned by new gameplay caveats. So, workers will no longer improve your terrain tiles from antiquity to nuclear war, because the number of their manipulations is finite. Initially, three actions are available, and then, thanks to technology and miracles, several more. And okay, if at the same time the builders "cheaper", so no. Thus, the processing of the landscape (farms, mines, plantations, etc.) also rests on urban production. The settlement is forced to be regularly distracted by the release of fresh hard workers, otherwise the new townspeople will have to process the "unkempt" cage - consider it almost empty.

One-story Pangea

By the way, about the townspeople - they need to be settled somewhere. Most likely, the rapid growth of your city, surrounded by "deposits" of wheat and livestock, will hit the population limit: there are no new dwellings - therefore, there is no need to give birth to new parasites. Three people live, a fourth is born, and the growth of the city slows down by half, because the population limit is five people. Reach the fifth, reach the limit, and growth will continue anyway, but with a fine of 75%, which is leveled only in the fattest city, where sidewalks are already paved with rolls.

There is no longer a level of happiness or health common to the whole country: each unfortunate city mourns in its own way.

At the beginning of the game, it is not easy to solve the housing problem. You can add living space by upgrading cells: farms, for example, provide half of the living space. Some buildings will shelter the townspeople: two in the barn (don't ask how), one at the university, two more will fit if the sewers are installed. These are all half-measures, and the only effective tool for settling is the suburbs, areas that are not suitable for anything other than living. On the other hand, the density is amazing: up to six citizens, if the district is with high prestige (something like the “eliteness” of cells, and this primarily affects tourism).

But suddenly you have already improved the site where the suburbs are asking for? And what if there were deposits of priceless uranium right under the elite village? And if I tell you that the productivity of farms increases when they are nearby, and it would be better not to remove them in vain?

IT IS IMPORTANT: Firaxis has worked so hard on the overall style of the game. The fifth part looked back at Art Deco, and the sixth gravitates towards the era of great geographical discoveries. First of all, this is reflected in the appearance game world: white unexplored spots are stylized as vintage cards, as well as places shrouded in the fog of war. Fine is not the right word, but makes the map difficult to read.

Spies should be protected and not assigned to failed operations: if he is not killed immediately, then a ransom will have to be paid.

By the way, the wonders of the world also need separate plots - usually with draconian conditions: Great Zimbabwe requires a nearby center of commerce (and a market in it), and on the other hand - a pasture. Will manage to build a commercial district far enough from the cattle - and your Zimbabwe wept.

And sometimes the game forces you to overpower yourself and not improve the territory at all - in order to establish a national park there. The park is generally the absolute opposite of everything that we have ever done in Civilization. First, we buy a naturalist for faith points (oh, so you didn’t give a damn about religion right after the pantheon? Then breathe smog, my dear), then we look for a plot in the shape of a rhombus and four cells in area - and so that the prestige there is of the highest level. And all the cells must belong to the same city.

Still need a mountain or something equally picturesque. And without a single improvement! Then, and only then, will a naturalist open a national park in this wonderful place. Why such sacrifices? The park attracts an abyss of tourists, which is critical to the cultural victory: yes, the tourism victory has remained almost unchanged.

Firaxis once again eschewed artistic landscapes with wonders in favor of faster building animations. Together with the change of day and night, it looks very personal.

Never before in the Civilization series has land planning and development meant so much.

Soul Architects

There hasn't been a Civilization that didn't reinvent the culture system. And here it is again! For the first time, considering its importance on a par with science, Firaxis singled out all humanitarian ideas, discoveries and achievements in a separate tree. And next to it - scientific, only "tattered" a little. Conquering cultural peaks is not much different - instead of science points, culture points are spent, in the same way all sorts of buildings and wonders of the world are opened. But there are also political course cards. Politics Civilization also changes with enviable regularity.

Be careful with great writers! Their countless masterpieces simply have nowhere to put until the middle of the game, and the poor fellows languish in anticipation of a new era.

Now artificial limiters have appeared: there are ten control schemes, and the closer to modernity, the more maps allowed to apply. Some kind of fascism allows you to keep three military cards, but only one economic one. Democracy, by contrast, is one military and three economic.

And the cards are not "cosmetic" at all. Some speed up the training of different types of troops, sometimes as much as twice. Others provide special benefits from trade routes or city-states. Still others - points of great people, or additional actions for workers, or you never know what else.

Cards in skillful hands literally flutter. They took one - they hired an army, they took another - they built a fleet, they took a third - they saved on re-equipment.

The cards are not scarce, they are given out in the course of cultural development, so the laid out "solitaire" depends on your strategy of the game, and not on preferences. More importantly, the course can be easily changed at almost any moment, which the addon could not boast of. Brave New World for Civilization 5, where the policy was also implemented. There, each chosen "perk" remained with you forever ... or until the revolution, if the pressure of other ideologies is too strong. In Civilization 6, all the pressure is the hostility of communist Spain, which does not suit your merchant republic.

catch up with einstein

Undercover wrestling has moved to a different level, where it was not expected - in the race for great people! For the first time in the series, they have ceased to be unified superunits, and each, depending on the type of activity, has been granted his own skills. Well, except that the great artists, writers and musicians simply fill the amphitheaters and conservatories with the products of their creativity.

Whether business engineers! So, one instantly builds a workshop and a factory (the latter with increased exhaust) in an industrial area, the other speeds up the construction of wonders of the world. And all of them are included in the table, where every world leader sees how close he is to getting a new genius. How close its competitors are is also visible. Needless to say, in Civilization 6 the struggle for bright minds is almost as intense as for the wonders of the world?

The alternative to chasing geniuses is to buy them with their giblets. Just a few thousand gold or faith - and the brand new Alfred Nobel is yours today!

THIS IS FLATTERING: although there are not so many Russian great people in Civilization 6, we are pleased with the choice of wonders of the world representing our country in the game. The Hermitage and the Bolshoi Theater - we will consider that this is a tribute to Russian culture. Or they could return the Kremlin, which is portrayed as St. Basil's Cathedral. Or even a GULAG of some kind. But Civilization is trying to bypass the black pages of history.

Diplomacy is the eternal problem of all solid strategies. Civilization 6 ignores achievements for some reason Civilization: Beyond Earth - Rising Tide where it was possible to somehow get out of this existential crisis. Here, interstate relations are trying to be tied to certain variables.

What does it mean? So, Japan follows the code of bushido - in the language of the game, this means that Nippons respect a strong army, backed by faith and culture. Without them, a solid military force seems to Japan something offensive. The Vikings (formally - Norway, but we know something) will instantly fall out of love with a neighbor who does not control their waters (read - deprived of a strong fleet).

Queen Victoria takes the award for the most sour mine in Civilization 6. Her Majesty has managed to quarrel with every known nation. Bravo!

What does this lead to? You do not have time to keep up with everyone and please everyone - perhaps that is why there is no diplomatic victory in the game. And most of the people around you begin to hate you quietly. Even if you are armed to the teeth, war is still inevitable. Even those who are in a good mood will not accept the conditions of friendship (this is reflected by the emoticon at the interlocutor's icon). But as soon as you encroach on the lands that the AI ​​"reserved" for itself ... In short, one city I founded was enough for the Japanese to immediately - without the standard threat "sit away from me"- declare war and shamefully lose it.

Twenty-five years have passed since the release of the first one, and they decided to make this year's release special. Already the debut demonstrations of the gameplay hinted that the indignation of the players in the style of “the developers only changed the textures” simply cannot be. The project has acquired new mechanics and at the time of release it already contains religion, tourism and other elements that recent times added as supplements. But, despite all its innovations, it is better to talk about it from the side of comparison, which is what we will do in this review.

As they say, they are met by clothes, and Civilization VI can both please many and repel ardent opponents of everything cartoonish. The fog of war is generally one of the best solutions ever seen in games. The area that is out of sight of your cities and units is styled like a map on parchment. Although at first it causes some inconvenience, a couple of hours is enough for complete addiction. The designers did a good job on the details, the optimizers, for once, have made the project work properly on gaming PCs, and in general, everything looks very nice. The developers especially succeeded in rulers, whose emotions often make you smile, until hackneyed phrases with constant accusations of your state make you nervously press "ESC".

Constant groundless accusations of computer opponents of your civilization is one of the main problems of local artificial intelligence. Regardless of the nation that the developers promised us, he is preparing a huge army and attacks you under any pretext, be it a disagreement in religion, politics, or just your inclinations for rapid expansion. And even if these steps were at least based on something, such behavior could be forgiven for a computer opponent. But often his militaristic inclinations have a negative impact on the overall development, and while the computer is churning out a dozen spearmen or horsemen, you successfully unlock technologies for training crossbowmen. The outcome of the confrontation with such a gap in technology, even with the numerical superiority of the lagging side in development, is easy to predict. Having received on the ears and begged for a truce from you, the valiant AI will again begin to build up the army and will soon declare war on you again in order to come to another fiasco.

Moving away from the topic of inadequate AI behavior, I would like to thank the developers for the excellent system of urban areas. Now cities really have specializations, and development needs to be carefully planned. The fact is that most of the buildings are being built not in the very center of the city, but in a special area created in the territories adjacent to it. Of greater interest to such planning is the influence on the bonuses of the new district of both the terrain and already built districts and Wonders in neighboring tiles. Great buildings, by the way, now also take up space on the map. This simultaneously eliminates the need to find a couple of dozens of Wonders in one city and makes the construction process spectacular - the designers have worked out the stages of construction of each of them, and it's nice to see how, for example, Hanging Gardens are being built near your city.

Diplomacy system Civilization VI, if we forget for a while about the inability of AI to use it, is both concise and multifaceted. There are both standard trade deals and all kinds of additional options like founding an embassy or making alliances. The groundless declaration of war now has negative consequences for diplomatic relations with other nations, so before attacking on enemy territory, it is better to come up with some kind of "excuse" to the world community.

Immediately in diplomatic negotiations, it will be necessary to agree on the division of cities in the event of a peace after the war. Often, however, a losing computer opponent will be happy to leave you his former possessions, if only you deign to give him a pause to build another technologically backward army. In a game with people, such bargaining can be an interesting event, given the negative consequences on the economy of both nations during the war, which itself gives rise to a desire not to prolong conflicts.

The processing of land outside your cities, as before, is carried out by workers. But in the past, the relentless bobbleheads that most people put into automatic mode almost from the start now require micromanagement. The reason for this is the depletion of their forces, the base supply of which is enough for only three actions, now carried out in just one turn. If you want three farms, please build a worker and donate it completely to the good cause of the city's development. In the future, ways are opened to increase the limit of actions of each builder, but at first you will have to be content with little.

Do not rush to be upset by such an innovation - even if it may seem controversial from the outside, the gameplay only benefits from this approach. In addition, the builders no longer have the task of laying roads. It is enough to tell the merchant to establish a connection between the two cities, and he will skillfully connect them by road. If it is not convenient for you to lead an offensive army through forests, mountains and rivers, you will have to be patient and build a sufficient number of auxiliary units. Traveling in support of armies, these brave guys will create roads and even build fortifications. The additional class of support units also has a medic in its spectrum, able to patch up your units even during the longest sieges.

The addition of support units is not the only change that has affected warriors. Identical units can now be combined into corps and armies (two and three identical units, respectively). The combination of troops allows you to make a large army more easily controlled by increasing the strength of each individual unit. Do not expect a double increase in the "power" of the unit - the unit will simply receive a tangible bonus, which is more noticeable in real battles than in numbers. A good military development of the city will allow you to immediately prepare corps and armies, without wasting time on the separate production of several units and their further consolidation.

The development of units has also undergone changes - now the troops have their own, albeit small, pumping tree. The unlockable skills are very interesting and contain not only an increase in power, but also original abilities - for example, infantry can learn to climb sheer cliffs that have appeared on the maps near some coasts, and long-range units will shoot a cell further.

The war in the new Civilization is not only fought with swords and bullets - this time religion is built into almost all aspects. If in the fifth part it was quite possible not to think about who your virtual dummies believe in, then here it will be a big omission for the nation. The religion created by the great prophet may contain bonuses useful for your strategy, and evil missionaries from neighboring countries will constantly try to recruit your subordinates. Fortunately, having a couple of inquisitors in stock easily solves the problem.

The clash of two religious detachments capable of "fighting" generally transfers the action beyond the realm of fantasy. Trying to prove that their deity is cooler, they call lightning strikes on the heads of opponents. It looks impressive, but this action has an even greater effect on cities within a radius of ten cells. As a result, the defeated religion loses its influence, and the victorious one recruits new followers into its ranks.

One of the victories is tied to religion. To achieve it, you need to make your belief dominant in the world. This requires achieving faith in your god in at least 50 percent of the cities of each nation.

science tree in Civilization VI has undergone major changes compared to previous games in the series. This is due to the separation of many elements from it into a separate tree of cultural development, which is now to some extent similar to science. Political courses unlocked there are separate bonuses of different categories that can be installed in the slots available to your civilization. The number and type of the latter directly depends on the chosen type of government, which is opened on the same culture development tree.

The decision to make the culture tree look like a scientific one can be called controversial, but the system for choosing the type of government with its base bonuses and the ability to customize it with political courses is the best thing that could happen to political management. By regularly making adjustments and thinking through a development strategy a dozen moves ahead, you can get a real advantage over your rivals.

Both development trees, cultural and scientific, have another highlight - acceleration due to the performance of special actions. For example, building a quarry will help your civilization learn stonework much faster. An active battle with the barbarians will allow you to quickly develop military direction in the early stages.

The previously mentioned system of urban development by districts, which closely ties the process to territorial location, plays with additional colors due to special bonuses of states and their rulers. By the way, there are more of the latter than of states - so far only Greece has got the luxury of two rulers, but we hope that future updates will diversify the choice of historical figures. Unique buildings and special location bonuses dictate the building process.

It is worth mentioning the resources - as before, in order to extract them, you need to have certain technologies and build a special improvement for workers. But now strategic resources are not spent during the construction of buildings or the creation of units. The limitation is only the presence of a specialized district - for example, recruiting a swordsman in a city is possible by processing two tiles with the corresponding resource. Having a military camp reduces this requirement to one unit of iron production.

Spying in Civilization VI available from the first day of release, and its mechanics are also changed compared to the previous part. Now recruiting agents is the same as regular units. Spies can be sent both to enemy cities and sent to counterintelligence. Failed on a mission and a discovered agent is forced to look for ways to escape - the presence of various areas in the city replenishes the list of choices, adding the opportunity to use a car or even an airplane to escape on foot.

Spies are no longer able to steal technologies completely, simply giving your civilization the bonus described earlier, speeding up their discovery by your scientists. At the same time, the range of tasks can have sabotage and even theft of relics or works of art from museums. The latter is useful if you are striving for a cultural victory and trying to send the maximum flow of tourists to your state.

Civilization VI – Best game series in recent years. The developers were able to bring a lot of good fresh ideas and return to the game good elements past parts. The only fat minus lies in artificial intelligence, whose militaristic inclinations go off scale, regardless of the nation he leads. We hope that in the near future the developers will be able to correct this shortcoming, and the sixth numbered part of the series will become an almost perfect example of the global strategy genre.

But each such area takes up space on the map, reducing the number of farms and sawmills. Yes, and the bonuses that give neighboring elements of the landscape, you need to take into account. Sacred sites are more contemplative when built next to mountains or connected to other areas.

Workers have also undergone significant changes. Improvements are now built immediately, but the builders spend special "charges" while doing so. After spending all three, they disappear. Roads, by the way, are beyond their power - transport arteries lay caravans, moving along trade routes. Do not want to depend on merchants? Wait for the Middle Ages - military engineers will help connect the cities.

In general, it is better to plan development thoughtfully from the very beginning. The number of districts is limited by population, and with the change of eras, the cost of their construction increases. This prevents thoughtless colonization, forcing you to choose: to stake out all the rich lands as early as possible or to develop infrastructure in several settlements.

Musketeers on twitter

After each breakthrough, the player is offered to change the political course. The number of slots for laws depends on the type of state, and is divided into four areas: military, economic, diplomatic and special. The latter is needed for edicts that help to get great people, and if there is no need for them, for any decrees from another area. The social system, which we also open on the cultural tree, in addition to a different configuration of cells, gives bonuses; over time, they grow and pass in the form of a "legacy" into a new type of government.

Moreover, the balance between culture and science is maintained. If the academic sphere reveals the production and military potential of civilization, then creative development- religious and political. A communist in a stone castle is not a fantasy, and this brings even more variety to each party.

Together with the unique abilities and buildings of the leaders of the nations, these changes form a beautiful mosaic. And one could say with confidence: in the most interesting development of the state in the series. However, having done a great job on the behind-the-scenes side of this process, they completely forgot about the “stage”, turning AI and diplomacy into a circus.

Gandhi is a nuclear clown

And it all started with good intentions. Obviously wanting to diversify the behavior of computer opponents, the authors gave them character traits. Qin Shi Huang, for example, tries to build many wonders of the world and does not like those who overtook him. In addition, each leader has a random hidden trait.

The casus belli system, which appeared in the games, also makes one believe in the reality of diplomacy. Declaring war for no reason (especially in later eras) hurts prestige. And you can find out what is happening in a neighboring state only when laying a trade route, placing an embassy or sending a spy. And even in this case, the information is incomplete.

It would seem that here it is, a step in the right direction - at least somewhat logical external relations, room for intrigue and alliances. But when the placating Queen Victoria declares war, lagging behind us in all respects, when Gandhi rejoices at the launched nuclear missile and immediately condemns us for excessive cruelty, when at the end of the game everyone starts attacking in turn, you understand: it remains the same game for the result, with weak AI and implicit rules for the behavior of opponents. Only without the World Congress and the UN (and, consequently, without a diplomatic victory), which, no, no, yes, and brightened up the harsh truth of life in the previous parts of the series.

If you do not want to deal with stupid puppets, you can play in multiplayer. There are always a lot of people on the servers, and the developers changed their minds and immediately included the hot seat in the list of available modes. In such conditions, AI is not an eyesore, so you can focus on the merits. But even online, another serious mistake does not escape the eye.

As if imitating programmers, interface designers decided that non-obviousness is fashionable. Taking the basis from, they managed to spoil it and make it uninformative. No, you can't select another unit when aiming with archers. Yes, there are no hyperlinks in Civilopedia. And huge pieces have been torn out of it, and you won’t know, for example, how rare resources now affect well-being. What can we say about tooltips, which often do not contain the necessary information ...

Take a vacation and turn off your phone: Firaxis has once again made a near-perfect game and demands another thousand hours of your time.

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The Civilization series follows the core principles of its own gameplay. Each subsequent game gets new level depth in communication with the user, gives him more room for maneuver. It gets, if you like, a little more complex with each new iteration. , to use her own terminology, brings the entire series into a new era. Not at all caring about the fact that some of its elements are still sitting in the Stone Age.

Greeting the player with pleasant and light music based on the folklore of one of the parties taking part in the party is amazing beautiful card terrain that fills with details as you explore the world around you, and cute rulers of neighboring states, drawn in a cartoon style, will give you a few moves to admire the beauty and relaxed study. And then he will lay his muzzle on the table and begin to pull off your pants. Welcome! Do not try to play according to the learned patterns from the fifth part.

Because the game wants you to think ahead. Putting a city in the middle of several "tiles" with rare resources was a great idea in previous games in the series, but now it can turn into a disaster due to the new system of districts. Previously, all the buildings of the city were stuck into the central "tile", and all the free space around it was open for development with farms, mines and trading posts. This gave the player a bunch of basic resources and allowed to pull up one or another aspect of the city economy at any time. Districts now have to be placed on outer "tiles", taking up precious space with buildings that often do not provide basic resources at all, but are focused on making a profit in other areas. In addition, each of these areas has its own minimum requirements(the harbor is built only near the coast, which is logical) and may well refuse to be built anywhere other than the cell in which you grow, for example, bananas. Or a farm has already been built.

At the same time, depending on the natural conditions surrounding the cell (mountains, rivers, jungles, and so on), a district located in a good place will bring additional bonuses to its city. That is, yes: first you need to think carefully about how to arrange the city so that everything fits in well, then figure out how to arrange buildings in it so that everyone gets bonuses to their production, and then take into account that districts also provide tangible advantages to those located next to them buildings. And then it is already possible to build a city. By the time you find the perfect spot, your neighbors will have launched a satellite into orbit - even if the spaceport is in a starving city. The scheme becomes even more complicated when you realize that the wonders of the world also require a whole cell. And that religion also significantly affects the production in the city, therefore, having missed a couple of other people's apostles, you can be left without the usual bonuses and get the starving city of Paris in your hands in 2020.

And let all the problems listed above scare at first, if you exhale and take a closer look, everything turns out to be not so bad. For such puzzles, we love the Civilization series. They make it possible to turn on the head, to estimate the available options. In the end, in this game, the process is more important than the result. Ask any player what part of the match they enjoy the most. The answer will be either the beginning or the Middle Ages - phases of exploration and explosive development.

Seriously changes the series not only in terms of the structure of cities, but also in the very structure of the political system of your state. As before, for culture points we can develop new areas of policy, but now the system is made much more flexible and allows you to radically change the direction of your civilization in a couple of moves. In the simplest tribes of ancient times, of course, they did not particularly bother with politics. But as you develop, you will be able to choose a suitable political system for yourself: from the banal chiefdom to, for example, socialism. This was the case in previous games, but now each type of government, in addition to the basic bonuses, has unlockable policy card slots - each with its own small improvements. We open the monarchy - we get more space for military policies related to the production and management of troops. While the republic, for example, gives greater freedom in managing the economic systems of the state. The cards themselves do not disappear when used, which allows you to apply new policies depending on the situation and more freely feel yourself in the constantly changing conditions of the new world.

A new approach to the organization of cities implies a changed approach to the work of builders. Previously, one detachment of workers could accompany you from ancient times to the era of the atom, independently of the player, running around the map and building farms and mines on mastered cells. The logic of the new Civilization, as already noted, implies a more thoughtful approach to resource management, so workers now have a limited number of uses. This solution fits perfectly with new system and forces to plan in advance the queue of production in cities. The only controversial point in this situation is the construction of roads: now trade caravans are engaged in it, automatically turning their path into a surface suitable for movement. Fans of manual control can independently connect different points of the map by road with the help of engineering troops.

And now a little about what does not work. The vaunted Casus Beli system - the reasons for the war - does not work. Logically, it should provide the ability to declare war on other states, depending on the geopolitical situation, without receiving a huge fine for militarism. In fact, peace-loving states will still hate you, regardless of the list of reasons why you attack their neighbors. Moreover, the opponents themselves (if, of course, you play with artificial intelligence, not in multiplayer) will break their promises of eternal friendship with ease. It would be better if they introduced the ability to issue ultimatums. The situation turns out to be strange: you can catch a spy from a neighboring country a thousand times in your city, trying to blow up your workshop, for example. At the same time, the ruler will apologize and promise not to do this, but break the promise and still remain your friend. It is impossible to declare war: the fine will be huge. But the opportunity to deliver an ultimatum and promise to pull the eye on the ass in the event of the capture of another spy would come in very handy.

Series Civilization games passed great way over the past 25 years, but its development is far from complete. This is shown both by perfectly fitting new mechanics and a bunch of problems familiar from previous games in the series.

Ziva is such chess from the world of video games. The game is out of time. Simple in appearance, but profound in its essence. Playing with the minimum amount graphics, which devours dozens of hours of free time, in short, you have already heard all these epithets.

It is much more interesting to consider the nature of the “Civilization” phenomenon. This is important, if only to understand why the sixth part has become a real triumph for the series, which has 25 years in its history. Civilization has always lived at the junction of two worlds: desktop and computer. The first part was an almost direct adaptation of the Hartland Trefoil board game of the same name, and later Sid Meier bought the right to use the name from the British for a fixed fee. In this regard, “Tsiva” has always leaned more towards moves, dice and other table troubles, only “dressing” very complex calculations in automatic algorithms and turning cards and chips into a convenient game interface. After the legendary first "Ziva", the success of the series directly depended on how well Meyer (and later a group of designers on his behalf) managed to balance the "desktop" and "computer" elements.

To be honest, it worked out just fine. Although it is difficult to spoil such a perfect basic mechanics, but the third and fourth parts of the game, with an eye to time and experience, felt very far-fetched and overloaded. Yes, they presented the players with many interesting ideas that lingered for a long time in the main series, but at times it felt like you were completely losing the thread of what was happening. Civilization 4, the first 3D game in the series, irritated me the most in this regard. You could build a strategy as cunningly and cleverly as you like, but the algorithms hid behind your back and broke the whole picture. You could not keep track of everything at once, so much “Tsiva” became “computer”. This was especially true not even of the economy and cataclysms, but of war. Combat actions in Civ 4 turned into protracted battles on the topic “who will lay down the most units in a narrow isthmus” and, as a result, you tried to win back any victory, except for conquest. In short, Civ 3 and Civ 4 dictated your play style. Yes, they were fun, but recent years In the life of the “four”, a distinct feeling began to arise that the series was blowing away very far from its desktop roots. Well, you know, in the wilds of Crusaders Kings 2 and other games where tables the size of three screens are even fun in their own way.

The first serious work on the bugs was Civilization 5. Yes, the release version, terribly poor in terms of “chips”, broke a lot of firewood and finally the “five” took shape only after two additions. However, this game managed to do the main thing - to return Civilization to the rails of "computer chess", that is, to restore the balance between "computer" and desktop heritage. The playing field was laid out on the usual hexagons-hexes for the table, the war became fast and even fun, and the tree of social institutions provided flexibility. Do you want to be a military power? Choose the branches of development you need. Colonist or merchant? Balancing between war and the economy. Subsequent additions made the game even more obedient and interesting, and therefore, initially coldly received by fans, Civilization 5 ended its era on the pantheon of 4X strategies. At the same time, the attempt to transfer this entire model into space did not gain much popularity, and Beyond Earth is now remembered only in the context of the success of Civa number five (although the author of the BE review really liked it).

As you can understand from the opus above, the six will have to jump over their heads, and do it right at the start. Cutting interesting features a second time in a row just because the designer couldn't adapt everything on time would be just disgusting. AND? And How? Spoiler: take a breath.

On the this moment Civilization VI is the pinnacle of the series, the culmination of the efforts of Sid Meier and the countless designers who have spent 25 years perfecting the series. You can look into the mechanics, aesthetics and tempo of the sixth movement like in a mirror, almost every element turned out so polished. Take the same graphics: according to the first screenshots, we were frightened by a kind of revived version of Clash of Clans, while in reality the picture in Civilization 6 is the most beautiful, clean and pleasant in the 4X genre. The units are coolly animated, the game “hexes” are full of detailed models of cities and farms, and the playing field itself is generally a work of art. It works like this: while your unit is on the cell - we have standard three-dimensional graphics in front of us, but as soon as he leaves, the explored area turns into a hand-drawn section of a medieval map. It's hard to describe, just see it on YouTube or in the game yourself.

Everything about sound and appearance in the “six” it was done very expensively, especially against the backdrop of an openly Spartan fifth. The majestic song “Dream of Flying” by Grammy winner Christopher Tin greets you on the menu, Sean Bean voices quotes in the game, and each new wonder of the world is accompanied by a stunning time-lapse of its construction.

But even the most magnificent picture cannot save bad game. And here, Civilization VI is doing so well that if it came out with 2D graphics, it would still be played for hours. Civilization VI continues the drift into board games taken by the “fifth” part, and even honestly says in training: “Civilization VI is like board game that you play with your friends.” The changes are superficial in appearance, but in their essence they are so fundamental that they have to learn to play again. Literally.

The first thing you should pay attention to: to match the games on the table, Civ VI has become much more active in using hexes playing field. Now the development of cities is your key focus. Gone is the "computer" convention, in which you could expand the city without regard to the environment and build buildings with impunity in batches. Now each city has a limited number of districts in which you can build strictly defined buildings. The districts themselves are placed on cells adjacent to the city, and therefore sticking something anywhere will not work. As a result, this pushes for the constant growth of the empire, since one city can only support a few districts. Cities have a real specialization: scientific, cultural and industrial. By combining the bonuses of the territory and cities, you can get such a powerful empire that you don’t have to fight with anyone. This same "district" system gives players in Civilization 6 incredible flexibility in planning their type of victory. Science fans will fill their empire with campuses, while militarists will focus on military manpower and manufacturing.

The second significant difference from the fifth part is social institutions. Now these are not short branches, in which you get abilities for points, but a full-fledged research tree. And here everything is also implemented with an eye on the table: as the main tool, the players have the choice of a social system: autocracy, democracy, fascism, and so on. In fact, the system is a “shirt” for cards of social properties. Each type of government differs in the number of cards that are issued for certain purposes. Cards can improve military, diplomacy, or economics. So “fascism” gives more slots for war cards, but greatly reduces the bonuses from the economy, while the “merchant republic” simply does not have slots for military cards. Research in the tree of social. institutes open new cards and shirts (there are 9 shirts in the game). It sounds a little confusing, but in the game itself, this system allows you to re-prioritize your empire very quickly. Do you want to trade? Shuffle the economy cards! Do you want bonuses from the war? Just drag the necessary cards into the shirt. It's a purely desktop system, but it's just perfectly adapted to the needs of Civilization VI and works with the rest of the mechanics in perfect harmony. And most importantly, it is absolutely transparent and understandable. At the same time, diligent players have a chance to significantly boost their progress along the technological and social branches. Almost every technology has bonus conditions under which development is forced. “Irrigation” is accelerated by building three farms, “military tradition” by building warriors, and so on.

War and the institutions of religion have also undergone changes, but since they were well implemented back in Civilization 5, it is not worth focusing on these aspects. The main differences: now you can combine troops into “corps” and “fleets” with a maximum of 3 units of the same type, and “great people” are also bought for money, and not just for faith points.

But it would not be very fair to keep silent about the minuses of the game, especially after such a wave of epithets. The first is AI. Gandhi, of course, does not hurl nuclear missiles at the map, but the artificial idiot of “Civilization” has not become more accommodating or smarter. Often you can run into the aggression of some nation for no good reason or not get support from a neighbor with whom you have been friends throughout the party. Suffice it to say that the author of the material for five games was never able to conclude a single friendship agreement with any nation, although he tried very hard. Another problem (fixable, however, in the coming months) is the balance. The barbarians are too aggressive in the early stages, the science victory conditions are insane (40 moves for each stage), and the economy is not as transparent as we would like. And of course bugs, where without them. The game tends to freeze and really doesn't like ALT+TAB, which is a serious drawback for a PC exclusive.

However, these flaws hardly overshadow what Civilization 6 is. At the moment, this is, I repeat, the peak of the cult series. The most flexible, obedient, understandable and transparent 4X strategy on earth, from which you get tons of fun. And most importantly - an ideal entrance ticket for beginners. And then - sleepless nights, red eyes and “one more move” ...

Maxim Zaretsky