Ross Weed

Concept art for
Arshia Kishk

In my previous blog post, I commented on the science fiction elements in Civilization VI, a computerized game in which players can win the game by developing spaceflight technology and reaching another planet: Mars. Along with learning how to play Civilization VI this summer, I have also been playing a more science fiction-oriented game, Beyond Earth (Rising Tide). I've never understood why so many computerized games like Civilization VI emphasize death and destruction. I play games such as Beyond Earth because I enjoy building beautiful things. The programmers of Civilization VI seemed to believe that endlessly battling and killing barbarians is fun. In my view, the barbarians are silly and a boring game element and the abilities of the barbarians make no sense in the context of the game. The role given to barbarians by the programmers of Civilization VI is like having a four-year-old present during game play who can randomly throw a tantrum and disrupt the game. As described below, Beyond Earth is more fun.

My aquatic city that became part of the Olivia Ross quest.

Suzanne Fielding; early concept art

When playing Beyond Earth, I routinely emphasize the Harmony affinity. It is not difficult to play the entire game without ever injuring any of the alien lifeforms. It is still possible to anger the aliens if you insist on utilizing prized resources that are located close to alien nests. Using a strategy of peaceful coexistence with the aliens, the "ultrasonic fence" game feature is less important than it would be if you constantly fought the aliens. I almost always play as Polystralia which has benefits for trade, but the roving units that represent trade routes can be destroyed by angry aliens. This is usually not a problem if you quickly sacrifice some of the city protection range of ultrasonic fences to provide your trade units with protection against alien attacks. This choice is part of an early game "quest".

Figure 1. The three stage Olivia Ross quest: Genius, Sightings and Recovery.

Suzanne Fielding

 Beyond Earth quests are one of the fun elements of the game along with all of the goodies that can be obtained by exploring and finding resource pods and performing expeditions. The game programmers for Beyond Earth put much thought into finding ways to provide players with unexpected yet pleasant surprises. As an example of "goodies" that can come from quests, the "Olivia Ross" quest can provide you with the original greater ultrasonic fence protection range after you give it up for trade route protection. 

Olivia Ross is a "lost" scientist who exited from one of your cities and has been living "in the wild" among the native aliens of the exoplanet that you are trying to colonize. There are three stages to the Olivia Ross quest (see Figure 1, above). Since I prioritize trade, I always trade with available Stations.

A Station: Palatine (right). Also shown is an expedition unit (left) and a captured Makara (lower left).

Figure 2. Map tile with the Ross Weed cave.

 New Stations can appear at seeming random times during a game of Beyond Earth. Sometimes you can suddenly get a message informing you that a new Station exists and if you begin sending a trader unit to the new Station then the second part of the Olivia Ross quest becomes available. A new map feature will appear that indicates the location of a cave where you can perform an expedition (see the image to the left).

In Figure 2, you can see that the text for the Olivia Ross quest "explains" the sudden appearance of a new Station as being the direct result of having completed the first level of the quest and getting upgraded ultrasonic fences for your cities. In my game, Hekima Station appeared on the map near the North Pole, not too far from a water city that I had captured from Arshia Kishk. The cave appeared on a map tile that was actually within the territorial borders of that water city.

One of the Olivia Ross quest dialog windows.

My expedition to that underwater cave discovered a previously unknown alien plant that becomes known as "Ross Weed" (see the image to the right). Part of the science fiction theme in Beyond Earth is that some of your citizens seem susceptible to a kind of telepathic contact with the aliens. Players of the game can assume that Olivia Ross has gone off to explore the planet and is searching for ways to better communicate with the aliens and possibly the Progenitors.

The Ross Weed artifact: shady hallucinogen

When I explored the underwater cave where Olivia Ross had been seen, I also got a Progenitor artifact. I was able to combine that new artifact with two other artifacts that I had previously found and get a boost in the rate at which my worker units could complete jobs. This came at a convenient time because I was just starting to construct magrails to connect my cities. Some late game worker tasks (such as constructing a terrascape) take an exceedingly long time to complete unless you have obtained bonuses that speed up your workers.

image source

Vegetarianism. I like the idea that some neuroactive chemicals could modify brain activity and help humans achieve telepathic contact with aliens. I include a special role for nicotine in my own Exode Saga.

I don't think I've ever completed the the third stage of the Olivia Ross quest. In my current game, I just got the technology (vertical farming) that boosts food production by farms. It would be interesting to see how large a city population would become possible if vertical farming can be additive with the additional food conferred by completing the last step in the Olivia Ross quest.

Stage 1 of the Olivia Ross quest in Aswat Adida
(I changed the name of this city after I captured it from Al Falah).

It is not clear why Dr. Ross is described as a "genius". Of course, I don't know what a "complex frequency" is, so I must bow to the game designers and accept their description of the brilliant Miss Olivia. Although I must say, I've never allowed myself to be caught in a stampede. I like to think that Dr. Ross might look something like this:

Noémie Leifsdóttir

Related Reading: Beverwijck en Nicotiana

Next: a Jack Vance story from 1952

CivBE: The Next Generation. Visit the Gallery of Book and Magazine Covers.

 

I reached the end of my recent game, defeating the "esteemed Élodie" of the Franco-Iberians, before ever seeing the third stage of the Olivia Ross quest. 🙁 Their capitol: Le Coeur, surrounded by captured alien forces.

Destination Mars

Meet Mr. Gilgamesh

The wikifiction blog is devoted to my obsession with science fiction and occasionally I blog about computer games that include science fiction elements. Three years ago, I described some of the science fiction elements in Civilization: Beyond Earth, for which game play takes place in the future on an exoplanet. Here in this blog post I discuss Civilization VI.

For me, given my interest in science fiction, Civilization VI is a huge step down from Civilization: Beyond Earth. I'm going to discuss only the base Civilization VI game, not the Gathering Storm "expansion" which includes an additional "future era" leading to an interstellar space travel mission to another star system. The grandest science fiction element in the base Civilization VI game is the end point of a "science victory", a mission to Mars. 

 The Civilization VI Moon lander.

To achieve a victory through scientific achievement, a player must keep advancing through the technology tree to the "information era" and obtain the Satellites technology, travel first to the Moon then to Mars. The Moon landing project has a distinctly 1960's feel, but for the trip to Mars you must reach the end of the technology tree and master fusion reactor technology.

In my third game of Civilization VI, I launched my first satellite in 1854 and then used the production bonus provided by Carl Sagan to quickly complete my mission to the Moon. It then took me an additional 58 years to complete my manned mission to Mars, winning the game in 1912.

The end of the Civilization VI technology tree with the Satellites technology at the center of the image.

the Zigurate, a source of science

One of your first decisions while playing a Civilization game is selecting your "leader". Since game play begins in the year 4000 BC of the "ancient era", it seems appropriate to select a leader such as Gilgamesh rather than someone like Roosevelt. I decided to play as Gilgamesh for two reasons. First, the Sumerians have the unique Zigurate which allows you to start quickly obtaining science points and advancing through the technology tree without having to first build a "campus" district. 

Sumerian capital Urak (size 21) with a Great Scientist

However, I am not convinced that the Sumerian Zigurate is all that useful for achieving a science victory. During the game, you receive points towards technology development simply by increasing your population. Thus, you should not be deterred from playing as other "leaders" who provide benefits for rapidly growing your cities to attain large populations. As shown to the left, a city population of 21 (21 million?) was as big as I achieved.

a campus district (with blue buildings)
next to a city center (upper right)

One of the major innovations of Civilization VI is the "district". Previously, all buildings such as libraries were built in the single map location (hexagon tile) that was the site of a city center. In Civilization VI you can create specialized districts (such as a campus) on the map spaces surrounding your city center. I don't object to the principle of districts, but this implementation of the concept is flawed. What should have been done was allow each map hex to be expanded into "sub-hexes" where features like a campus could be placed. 

Technology in 1840 BC: learning to write... the Writing technology is at the center of the image.

Civilization VI science victory goal: destination Mars

To generate science points for most civilizations, you first get the "writing" technology, then build a campus district then you can start adding buildings such as libraries into the district. Finally, the library will generate science points. 

In contrast, when playing as the Sumerians, right at the start of the game you can use a builder unit to quickly make a Zigurate as a tile improvement and begin generating science points.

Sumerian war-cart

 Barbarians. One of my least favorite features of Civilization is the barbarian. However, the Sumerians have a special military unit that is available at the very beginning of the game and which can allow you to quickly eliminate all the barbarian outposts that appear on the map close to your first city. The Sumerian war-cart is fast and has a distinct combat advantage over the early game barbarian warrior units that defend barbarian outposts.

Grey Wolf the barbarian

What bothers me most about the barbarians is that they are one of the key game elements that is used to prevent a game from being too easy and monotonous. The game designers arranged for arbitrary events to occur and break up the monotony of a game. The barbarians, who theoretically exist outside of civilization, can suddenly be armed with the most advanced weapon on the planet. Also, I captured the city of Paris from the French and then the city residents went into revolt, and out popped several barbarian units. Really? The game designers could not be bothered to make a separate city "revolt" unit? Boo! It is easy to get sick of barbarians and simply turn off that game feature.

Brennos the Mighty

I cleared all the barbarians away from my civilization, but even then, a barbarian unit can just magically reappear from out of nowhere. The barbarians have some magical satellite surveillance system of the planet that allows them to show up whenever you leave a weak unit exposed. Very silly.

barbarian infantry

There is a new game mode for "barbarian clans" that came out just this year and which modified some of the arbitrary and capricious programming for barbarian behavior and made barbarians into a more interesting element in the game. My advice: if you want barbarians in your game then always activate the barbarian clans feature of Civilization VI.

As an example of what makes barbarians so silly and annoying, look at the image to the right. As soon as I obtained the technology for making infantry units, a nearby barbarian clan instantly had an infantry unit (red helmet icon) deployed near one of my cities. This was at the point in the game when I was still using knights and a nearby city-state had a trebuchet. However, with the "barbarian clans" feature, barbarian outposts can transform into city-states, and this particular barbarian infantry unit quickly became part of a new city-state right after it appeared on the map. Whew!

Figure 1. A barbarian outpost at the northeast tip of Australia. Great Barrier Reef, right.

with "barbarian clans", you can talk to the barbarians

One of my silliest interactions with barbarians is illustrated in the image above. When exploring Australia, I came across a barbarian outpost that was in some sort of endless loop standoff with units from two Australian city-states and being driven (stupidly) by the game's "artificial intelligence" system. This particular barbarian outpost was of the type that creates naval units. Each time that a new barbarian naval unit was created, I destroyed it with my own naval units. 

Netherlands frigate

I also used my frigate to bombard the outpost, repeatedly eliminating any land unit that was created there. Even with no barbarian unit defending the outpost, the city-state's military unit that was adjacent to the outpost would not attack the outpost. This absurd standoff continued relentlessly for many turns. I thought I might have to take control of the city-state's military (see: levying), but eventually the city-state unit finally destroyed the barbarian outpost. The only time I've used levying was when I attacked France; the units that I "hired" from two city-states helped me win the war.

My first spaceport in my capital city. I built another one in my second largest city.

another Civilization VI leader: Eleanor

Playing as Gilgamesh, in my first game of Civilization VI I was able to build a spaceport (shown in the image above) in 1962 and land a man on the Moon in 1987. I won the game with establishment of a human base on Mars in 2026. As mentioned above, in my third game and after learning some of the details of efficient city district management, I reached Mars 114 years sooner, in 1912.

Greek leader: Queen Gorgo

In my first game, the Sumerian civilization was founded in the middle of Africa, close to the Sahara desert. My closest neighboring civilization was the Indonesians, who founded their capital in southern Africa. I quickly boxed them in and they were not much trouble compared to the Spartans to the north. Under the leadership of Gorgo, the Greeks were very expansionistic and they attacked me in 150 BC. Eventually, I captured all the Greek cities and eliminated the militaristic Gorgo from the game. I also colonized Australia in order to obtain two luxury resources: pearls and spices. Otherwise, my focus was on science, technology and reaching Mars.

Vietnam leader

Since I was focused on science, I paid no attention to the religion component of the game during my first attempt to reach Mars in Civilization VI. There are only a limited number of available religions, so I did not found a religion and I was soon caught up in the Indonesian religion. 

Eventually, late in the game, I noticed that in addition to the regular units like builder units and war-carts, there were also religious units on the map: missionaries, gurus and apostles. If you don't found a religion, then you do not get the full spectrum of unit abilities for apostles (inquisition and evangelize) and you do not have access to a special military unit, the warrior monk. 

Egyptian leader

In my second game of Civilization VI I "religiously" built "holy site" districts in my cities and experimented with theological combat. I'm not sure what the flashes of light seen during theological combat are supposed to represent. While I was aggressively spreading my religion using apostle units, two of the AI players in the game suddenly declared war on me. I was puzzled, but then I soon learned that during a war, military units can destroy the religious units of another player.

In my third game of Civilization VI, I again ignored religion except for one issue of "faith". In that game, the Sumerian civilization began in Asia and I built a National Park next to Mount Everest.

a Naturalist unit will soon found Mount Everest Park

What, you ask, does religion have to do with founding a National Park? In Civilization VI, you need to "spend" faith points to purchase a Naturalist. The only thing a Naturalist can do is found a National Park. National Parks occupy four adjacent map tiles, as shown in the image to the right. A word of warning... the game seems to be designed to prevent formation of National Parks. For inclusion of the grassland tile in my park, it needed to have an appeal level of +4. However, the two spaces just to the south each had useful strategic resources (coal or oil). Had I rushed to build a mine on the coal resource or a well on the oil resource then that would have reduced the "appeal" of the grassland and prevented construction of the National Park.

Mount Everest National Park

Rhur Valley

 Balance. Even while you are trying to emphasize one aspect of your growing civilization (such as science) the game is designed to force you towards diversifying to some extent. For example, early in my third game, I made contact with the foreign city of London, which was located in south Asia in this particular game, close to my first city. Early in the game, it is useful to create some military units so that you can control the barbarian hoards. While exploring, I came across a settler unit from the English. I captured the settler and used it to create a new city for myself, but that started a war with the English. Early in the game, before cities have defensive walls, it can be easy to attack and capture a city like London. 

Great scientist Dmitri Mendelev

My advice: don't hesitate to go to war with a weak neighbor early in the game even if you intend to avoid all wars later in the game.

Another important part of creating a balanced civilization that will allow you to get to Mars quickly is having high production capacity in your capital city. Many of the Wonders are a waste of time, but I suggest getting Rhur Valley (see the image, above right) for a big boost in production capacity, which will speed you towards completion of the big "space race" projects. Also useful are great scientists and great engineers.

The Great engineer, Miss Ada Lovelace, appears in the middle of Africa. Ada is generically
represented as a dude, as are all the game's engineers (icon near the lower right corner).

great scientist Albert Einstein

 Great scientists and great engineers. Civilization VI has many different types of great people. Early in the game, you are likely to first get a great general who can help your military efforts against pesky barbarians. When it becomes available, switch to "wild card" policies that allow you to obtain great scientists and great engineers. These can greatly accelerate you towards the goal of reaching Mars.

sources of cash

Money. Sometimes there is simply no substitute for spending cash (gold) when you quickly need a unit or some land with a useful resource. So, which specialty district should be built first? Early in a game you can often get all your gold from resources on the land, so my preference is to delay building Commercial districts and sea ports. You might want to build an Encampment early for adding combat strength bonuses to your new military units. You also get small amounts of production points from Encampments and buildings such as a barracks. While working towards a science victory and using the easiest game difficulty level,  you only need one Encampment located in your first city and can use it to produce all of your land units. When trying to achieve a science victory, I first like to build an Industrial district that will generate production points. 

ancient trader unit

Note that if you have two cities that are close together then some buildings such as a factory spread their production benefits to other nearby cities and so you don't have to build two factories, one in each of two cities that are close to each other. I also use trade routes for the purpose of generating more production points. Quickly move the origin point of traders out of your capital city and let them generate production for your new cities.

Colosseum must be built beside other entertainment

 Amenities. If you are trying to rapidly increase the population of your cities in order to earn science points, you will need to provide amenities for your people. After building an Industrial district, I usually next build and Entertainment district. However, it is also useful to explore the world and found new cities that will allow you to acquire any nearby luxury resources. When you need amenities, a useful Wonder is the Colosseum. 

The Colosseum wonder must be built next to an entertainment district. As shown in the image to the left, you can set the graphics settings for the game to give night views.

Zanzibar

One last tip about city-states... I stumbled upon the fact that not only is the city-state Zanzibar a good source of gold, but if you are the Suzerain of Zanzibar then there are big amenities bonuses for your cities. Zanzibar provides two special resources (cloves and cinnamon) that cannot be obtained in any other way. Zanzibar might be located on the opposite side of the planet from your cities, but if your cities are growing rapidly and you need more amenities then it is well worth finding Zanzibar and sending enough envoys to become the Suzerain.

Left: an Entertainment district for amenities

After attending to Entertainment and amenities, then I can try to build Commercial districts and harbors. As your cities grow larger, you may face a housing shortage and need to build a Neighborhood. 

And finally... Only then, fairly late in the game and having first taken care to obtain territory, grow large cities and deal with amenities and housing, only then do I begin building a Campus in each city. A late-game building, the Research Lab, is the ultimate source of science points.

fighter air unit

Distractions. There are many available mobile units that you can spend production points on during the game. One of the most useless military units, the Balloon, is very silly. This is one of the earliest air units that you can build, but it does not behave like an air unit.  It gets movement benefits from roads and can't fly over water. In the image above, left, you can see a balloon magically transformed into a boat while it crosses a small lake. Later, you get more useful aircraft that can help you win a war late in the game.

Observation Balloon following a road in the age of tanks, helicopters and bombers.

getting into outer space: Civilization VI endgame

 Science fiction. The science fiction elements of Civilization VI are mighty thin gruel. Near the end of a science victory, you get futuristic technologies such as nanotechnology, but it is never explained how that allows you to travel to Mars. When you complete big projects like building a Wonder or launching a satellite, the game generates an animated video and I like how those little movies incorporate the unique features of your city.

original cover art by Jasper Holland

During your 6,000-year-long struggle to reach Mars, the game's extensive use of magical barbarians for the purpose of inserting some chaos into your game experience is a never ending source of annoyance and distraction. Barbarians as an element of the game play reminds me of a plot device used by Jack Vance, one of my favorite authors of science fiction stories. In Vance's Trullion, the story is set on distant exoplanets in the far future, but there are space pirates who seem like they just walked in from 17th century Earth. Also, Vance included "the Ugly People", a group of dissidents on one of the otherwise peaceful worlds of Alastor Cluster. I suppose Vance wanted to add some spice to the story, since utopias can be rather boring. That same spirit of off-the-wall "spice" was built extensively into Civilization VI.

barbarian special unit: hypaspist

 Difficulty Levels. As described above, with only a small amount of practice and learning about the game, it was not hard for me to reach Mars by 1912. Players might be tempted to try a higher difficulty level. However, the combat advantage over barbarians that you enjoy with your Sumerian war-carts when playing at the easiest game setting (settler) is lost at the second setting (chieftain). If you move up to the chieftain level then, right from the very start of the game, before you can make swordsmen, the barbarians are equipped with stronger units such as legions and hypaspists.

Civilization VI alien

 Ancient Aliens Mod. There are some modifications for Civilization VI, but the one I'd really love to see is a conversion of the religion feature into an alternative system for depicting alien visitors on Earth. Rather than found a unique religion, each civilization could discover a unique species of alien creature hidden on Earth. You would then work with those aliens to access, develop and utilize special alien technologies and units. Some features of Civ VI are so well hidden that they feel like a mod when you finally discover them. For example: during game setup, look for the map that actually allows your civilizations to start in the correct locations.

how to make Civilization better: just add aliens

 Bottom line. Having only won two played games of Civilization VI, I'm reluctant to take a position for or against this game, but I'll expand the subject to include Civ II, Civ IV, Alpha Centauri, Colonization and Beyond Earth. The later three games are each much more fun than Civ II, IV or VI. Even with no science fiction content, I'd rather play Colonization than Civ II, IV or VI. With their settings on future exoplanets, both Alpha Centauri and Beyond Earth are far more interesting to play than any plain Civilization game.

Coming next: Civilization VII

The entire premise of Civilization is that you have to gradually build your civilization. Advice to the game developers: if the way you designed the game makes for boring and tedious game play, the solution is not to give absurd magical abilities to the barbarians, by-passing all the nit-picking rules that players must follow. The abilities given to barbarians are so absurd that I fear the possibility that in the next iteration of Civilization there will be barbarian spaceships that suddenly appear during the endgame and prevent you from winning the game.

My Great Prophet in London.

This (above) is the end of Part 1 of my comments on Civilization VI. Jump to Part 2. In part two, I discuss a game of Civilization VI played with no barbarians. 

Other posts in the Civ VI series: Part 3, Part 4, Part 5. The Outback Tycoon scenario.

Related Reading: Civ VI fan-fiction,  Beyond Earth

Next: an alien weed

Reminder: frequently save your game because you never know when a game will crash.