I wish this wasn’t the case, but it doesn’t look as if the Civ games will be changing this any time soon. You can found Protestantism and then build mosques, or Taoism and build cathedrals. Choosing one religion over another has no impact on what tenets your civilization can adhere to. Religion works much the same way this time around as it did in V, and I still wish there was more strategy involved. In many ways, there’s a lot more strategy involved in this game, and a unique playthrough every time is certainly a bonus. Additionally, there’s also a civics tree to go along with the technology tree, and if you fall behind on accumulating culture, other civs can easily gain an advantage over you if they research better forms of government before you do. World Wonders also now take up their own tile as well, and they require more prerequisites to build-Stonehenge must be built next to stone, the Great Library needs to be built next to a science district, etc. This allows for every city to be unique and changes up the game on every playthrough. Instead of taking up one tile area, cities need to build their districts out in their surrounding tiles. The way cities are set up is also a bit different from the previous game. Being the big space nerd that I am, I thought that was pretty cool. Although part of me was bummed out that the technology tree in this game is missing a few things the fifth one had, such as giant death robots, it does allow you to start sending people off to colonize Mars near the end.
Like Civilization V, the sixth installment is a historical strategy game that starts the player off in the Ancient Era, and you have to work your way through time all the way to the modern day and then into the future. The first couple weeks with Civ VI, I had a blast figuring everything out, but there were a lot of little things in the gameplay that lessened the experience, and unfortunately, nearly half a year later, they have not improved. After all, I liked Civilization V, and despite Civilization: Beyond Earth’s problems it was still an okay experience.
I looked forward to Civilization VI for months before it came out, and on its release day, I was more than happy to drop $60 for a great gaming experience.