Civ 6 Graphics Mod
That said, the laptop will run Civilisation 6 but don't expect to max the graphics. You should also consider getting an external mouse, as a trackpad isn't well-suited for world-building games. It can definitely run civ 6 very well at SOME level, but it's not clear if it's max settings or only medium/high settings. Just wondering if any potential moders out there would be able to tone down the bright free-to-play graphics and add some texture to the terrain. Graphics don't make the game, but such a large step away from realism in 2016 to such a massive game is rage-inducing.
Firaxis’ latest bite at the macro-scale building turn-based 4X ’em up cherry has hardly been with us two weeks, yet has already inspired umpteen illustrious tales of mighty empires, astute observations and bittersweet victory conditions here at RPS.
Wot did strategy aficionado Adam think? He loved it, of course, but there’s always room for improvement – and when a game is made up of quite so many simultaneously moving parts, mods tend to help make that so. Official support hasn’t quite breached the shores of Sid Meier’s Civilization 6 [official site], however that’s hardly stopped keen modders from getting their hands dirty in the meantime. We’ll add to this list down the line, but here’s the best Civ 6 mods available right now.
How to install Civilization 6 mods
Most games which don’t offer official modding support rely on Nexus Mods to house their tweaks and tinkerings. At the moment, Civ 6’s presence on Nexus is pretty nonexistent and much of its mods are instead found on the CivFanatics forum. Installation is pretty straightforward, though.
First, you’ll want to create a Mods folder in your Civilization 6 user directory (DocumentsMy GamesSid Meier’s Civilization VI), before extracting the mods you fancy to subfolders within the main one. As Adam explored previously, Civ 6 also lets you mess around with its XML and Lua scripts manually – which means you can make direct changes to files, should that be something you’re interested in. This is done by right clicking on the game via your Steam library, selecting Properties, then Local Files, then Browse Local Files. From there, simply select the file you want to muck around with, but note it’s probably worth saving a copy beforehand.
NB – Some of the mods listed here come with their own disclaimers which should be read and understood prior to installation. Details of such can be found on each mod’s page.
Moar Units
By deliverator
Right, boring clerical stuff out of the road, let’s conquer the world. And what better way to do so than by bolstering your armies with more soldiers dying to, um, die for the cause. The more, the merrier and all that.
Deliverator’s Moar Units introduces both Rifleman and Cuirassier units – which lets Musketman units upgrade to Rifleman and Rifleman upgrade to Infantry; and sees Knight units upgrade to Cuirassier and Cuirassier upgrade to Tank, respectively. The mod also adds 12 new Unique Units by way of (deep breath): the American Minutemen, Arabian Camel Archer, Chinese Cho-Ko-Nu, German Hussar, Greek Hetairoi (Companion Cavalry), Spanish Jinete, Roman Equite, Russian Druzhina Cavalry, Norwegian Hirdmen, English Longbowmen and Mughal Sowar for India, and Sumerian Phalanx.
Best Civ 6 Mods 2018
Each of these is treated to its own bonuses and perks – Minuteman units, for example, gain +5 Combat Strength when fighting in or adjacent to their home territory; while the Druzhina Cavalry gain +4 Combat Strength when up against melee units – the full list of which can be located on the mod’s page. Creator deliverator notes that the mod is “very alpha and untested” at the moment and therefore is “obviously likely to be a bit unbalanced.”
Smoother difficulty
By RushSecond
As a means of upping its challenge in harder difficulties, Civ 6’s base game adorns its AI with bonuses and extra units. As a result, enemies do become harder to contend with, but, in my experience at least, the scales tip so far that overcoming the odds in the game’s earliest stages becomes almost impossible.
Enter RushSecond’s Smoother difficulty mod which “smooths the curve of the AI”, meaning foes start with the same means as you do, however get better constant bonuses to Culture, Production, Science and Gold. In turn, this allows them to keep up the pace with tech and production and the likes throughout the entirety of the game – offering a greater threat without ever taking the piss.
Yet (not) Another Map Pack
By Gedemon
But what if bigger is better? Those of you familiar with series forerunner Civilization 5 might recall creator Gedemon’s Yet (not) Another Earth Maps Pack which introduced planet Earth to the 4X strategy game varying sizes. This ‘un does the same by adding an ‘Enormous’ map size at 128×80; a ‘Giant’ map size at 180×94; and a ‘Ludicrous’ map size at 230×115. Sheesh.
Across all sizes, a staggering 50+ civs can be set and while the mod is in its ‘alpha 3’ state at the moment, Gedemon has put the former setting through 500 turns in autoplay with 32 civs without issue. He or she does lead with the following warning, though:
“The giant map is already way above the size of the huge map, it may or may not load on your PC (and will take some time to do so), the Ludicrous map is the max map size before the game refuse to load, and will take more than 4-5 minutes to load (or crash). I’d suggest to lower the textures size in the video option, the game use almost all the 6GB of VRAM of my GPU.”
It’s also worth noting that by turn 240, the average turn time was two minutes, while at turn 470 that jumped to four minutes.
PhotoKinetic Westeros
By 12@!n
Perhaps the most divisive thing about Civilization 6 is its vibrant cartoon-like aesthetic. While Adam feels it’s a “treat to look at”, a sizeable chunk of players don’t share his view – not least modder 12@!n. “I wasn’t too smitten with the ultra vibrant colors of Civ VI, and this corrects that,” they say. “I modeled it after the Game of Thrones opening sequence.”
By virtue of a number of recalibrations, adjustments, enablements and disablements – not least the addition of a togglable heavy depth of field for a tilt-shift effect – PhotoKinetic Westeros is the end result and, hate or love the original look, it’s really quite impressive. Shader mods are a funny thing because they’re generally applied to games which already look pretty – like The Witcher 3s and GTA 5s of this world. Their outcome, then, is largely open to interpretation and is often boils down to personal preference. This mod is no different, yet there’s no arguing it completely transforms the base game to something almost unrecognisable to its source material.
PhotoKinetic Westeros is perhaps the most difficult to install on this list, however step-by-step instructions are duly provided by its creator.
Historicty++ and Civlopedia On Main Menu
Civ 5 Graphics Mod
By sukritact and Remgrandt respectively
One for all you history buffs out there who just cannot stand the liberties Firaxis have taken with historical accuracy. “So after having dealt with two fruitless attempts to get Firaxis to do something about historical accuracy in the game. I’ve finally just decided to make a mod for it,” says the creator of Historicity++, a mod from sukritact that amends the “numerous” historical oversights in the game’s text he or she has stumbled upon.
“Notable changes include fixing the Kongolese UU to an attested Central African name and correcting ‘Sumeria’ to ‘Sumer’ as is more commonly used in most circles,” the creator continues. “Also, MALAYSIA IS NOT KNOWN FOR ITS WATS. This mod will be continually updated as errors arise or are discovered.”
Civlopedia On Main Menu, on the other hand, does exactly what you might expect: it plops Civ 6’s extensive and informative encyclopedia as is into the main menu, where you can then access the game’s background history before kicking a ball. Remember to give sukritact a nudge if you spot any discrepancies!
Honourable Mentions
Anno Domini (Civ 6 Version)
By Rob (R8XFT)
A “medieval era total conversion mod” with a revamped tech tree, new buildings, new wonders and 14 different civs.
Quick UI
By vans 163
Designed to reduce the amount of clicks required to manage your empire. Handy.
Tundra Farms
By Alesque
Lets you build farms on tundra and on tundra hills once you have the civil engineering civic.
Xenoblade Chronicles Civilization
By Mav 12
Adds a civilization based on Xenoblade Chronicles.
Given it’s without official modding support, and the fact that it’s been out all of two weeks, Civilization 6’s modding community is already starting to flourish. The list above is but a gathering of the best available right now, but, as noted at the top of this here list, we’ll return further down the line to add the biggest, brightest and best as they become available. Until then, happy civilization sprouting!
Editor's note: Final review code for Civilization 6 was only supplied to Eurogamer late yesterday afternoon, and we'll be working to get a full review up on the site early next week. In the meantime, here are impressions culled from a near-final build supplied earlier by 2K.
There's always been something magical to me about the first 200 turns of a game of Civilization 5. I've seen some people claim victory in that time, though I am no such power player. Instead, it's the unhurried, exploratory forays in to the unknown that provide a joy of discovery that has remained undiminished across several games and countless hours of play time. It's an excitement borne from potential and of grand plans; of making choices and standing at forks in the road.
Later, as the mid-game looms, that excitement of discovery returns once more with the unearthing of the Archaeology tech and the unveiling of sites of antiquity; more goodies to seek out and gambles to take. There's a lot that happens in between, of course, but those two points at opposite ends of that 200-turn scale bookend my most played period of the game and represent catalysts for much that I have loved about it over the past six years.
With a clear idea of how it scratches a very particular itch, it's been fascinating for me to compare the first 200 turns of Civilization 5 with those of Civilization 6. The joy of discovery is alive and well in Civ 6. Some of that joy is derived from the simple fact that it is a new game to get to grips with and some is delivered by the thematic grounding in the Age of Exploration. To illustrate the point, let's consider the opening few turns of my own, admittedly woefully unoptimised, play style in Civ 5 versus what's been happening in Civ 6.
I'm one for founding my first city wherever my settler starts the game but in Civ 6 it's not just a case of checking that there's a decent mix of food and production and making do with that. Access to fresh water is essential due to the growth of your population being dependent on housing. Starting next to a river provides a decent bonus to housing in your capital, but coastal waters will do in a pinch. Immediately, then, I'm having to decide whether to try to better my starting position or plump for where I am.
The early game build-order is a subject of much debate, but scouts and basic troops are a safe bet in both Civ 5 and 6. These are the troops that make those exciting early discoveries, pushing out into the dark to uncover ruins, barbarian outposts and future city locations. That's still the case here in Civ 6 but upon stumbling across a barbarian scout with my warrior, I make what will later be revealed as a costly error and let him run free. The addition of scouts, it turns out, is indicative of the fact that barbarians now actively search the environment for fledgling civilizations before racing back to report their find to the nearest outpost only to bring reinforcements down on your undefended city.
Lesson learned I move on to my next build item, but where I would then usually create a worker to have them begin the laborious task of converting grassland into arable farmland, here that's unnecessary. The builders that have replaced workers complete improvements instantly but can only be used three times, which renders redundant the need to micromanage them (I've never been one to automate my workers in Civ 5). As both games progress past a score of turns I'm selecting my first social policy in Civ 5 and meanwhile over in 6, I have a functioning government with two bonuses selected from a pool of four.
Best Civilization 4 Mods
This proliferation of choice continues as the turns tick by. By turn 50 I have three cities in the earlier game and only two in the latter, but one of them has a brand new Holy Site district built atop a hill next to two mountains. It looks quite lovely and, better yet, is enjoying adjacency bonuses for its canny placement, which is generating additional faith points. I'm alive with religious fervour and greedily eyeing up where my next district might be placed. Eschewing the science-generating Campus I head straight for the bright lights of the Entertainment Complex, bequeathed by the Games and Recreation civic. Enthralled, I accidentally place it in a foolish location, where its bonuses are squandered. Undeterred, I make a physical note on a piece of paper with an actual pencil regarding district placement and move on; 'I'll look out for that next time', I resolve.
As the turn ticker registers 125, I'm well and truly settled into the groove of my usual Civ 5 activities, the Tradition Social Policy tree has been completed to complement my humble island setting. I've slaughtered enough barbarians and chucked enough money at the local city-state that they're granting me a cultural bonus. Still, things are going a little flat and I'm looking toward how many turns might be left until Archaeology can be researched to reinvigorate my sense of discovery and exploration going forward. Meanwhile, back in Civ 6 the number of choices surrounding district buildings, wonders, government policies and city-state manipulation have grown once more and I feel like I'm keeping multiple plates spinning trying to keep track of it all.
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By turn 200, I'm just starting to savour the creation of archaeologists to bring back the mystery and goodies to my game in Civ 5. Civ 6, in which I have already done so much, is only just getting started. It's a tad unfair, perhaps, to compare a game that has given me several hundred hours of fulfilling play over the last six years, with one that is hot off the press and has directly benefitted from the millions of hours players have poured into its predecessor. Still, that is the nature of these things, and it says much for how feature-rich Civ 6 is that its early game can stand up to such direct comparison to that of a game that has benefited from two weighty expansions.
The key, for my own personal games at least, is that first 200 turns of Civ 6 are filled with decisions that have knock-on effects on meaningfully interconnected systems. I'm engaged, perhaps even a little bewildered by all of the choices I've had to make and yet, despite making many mistakes along the way to turn 200, I am smiling to myself at the possibility of it all. I have a head full of ideas for the next time I play those same turns again, along with a page full of pencil scribbled notes that contains a personalised flowchart, for future reference. It's possible that there is no going back for me. Unlike Civilization: Beyond Earth, a game I flirted with but ultimately retreated from, Civilization 6 has its hooks into me and it's Civ 5 that must be given up for good. To test this theory, I decide to push on and have just one more turn.