Comme prévu, la seconde extension de Civilization VI vient d’arriver aujourd’hui. Et bonne nouvelle, elle est accompagnée par une importante mise à jour du jeu de base. Patch améliorant l’IA, l’interface, les graphismes, le mode multijoueur puis apportant différents rééquilibrages ou encore corrigeant une longue série de bugs. Voyez le changelog ci-après pour vous faire une idée.
Au registre des anecdotes, on retiendra que 2K Games offre aux joueurs créant un compte 2K et liant à celui-là Civilization VI une texture spéciale permettant de remplacer le chien accompagnant l’éclaireur par des mignons petits chats… Si, si, ce n’est pas une blague.
Plus intéressant, voici ci-après une récente longue vidéo présentant l’un des nouveaux scénarios sur le thème original de la Peste noire. Étonnement, si cette nouvelle extension ajoute l’intéressant sujet des catastrophes naturelles auxquelles les nations doivent faire face dans leur histoire, le jeu limite les grandes épidémies à un scénario spécifique. Et pourtant, celles-ci sont bien parmi les pires fléaux de l’humanité, les maladies étant quand même un des Quatre Cavaliers de l’apocalypse. Mais non, pas dans l’univers des jeux vidéo, même dans un jeu comme Civilization.
Alors pourquoi cette décision de Firaxis ? D’après une interview chez PCGamesN de Dennis Shirk, lead producer chez Firaxis, le studio ne veut pas encore ajouter ce mécanisme, ce scénario n’était qu’une sorte d’exercice pour les développeurs.
Gathering Storm will add two new scenarios – one based on the buildup to World War I, and one based on the Black Death. Is disease one of the disasters in the main game?
Shirk: No, no. We didn’t want to have disease yet, but that scenario definitely has disease in it. That was a really fun exercise. Something Ed’s touched on in the past is that scenarios give us a really great development field for trying out ideas. This is definitely one of those places, and it was actually pretty successful. Black Death is a really great race against one of the more unfortunate parts of our planet.
Passons, Gathering Storm devrait nettement étoffer les possibilités d’interaction dans le jeu, rendant les débuts et milieux de partie encore plus savoureux, et avec un peu de chance améliorant l’intérêt des fins de partie, le défaut majeur de la série.
Pour plus d’informations sur Civilization VI – Gathering Storm, voyez le site officiel ou cette fiche sur Steam. Pour un récapitulatif en images des nouveautés, voyez cette brève.
Communiqués
Sid Meier’s Civilization® VI: Gathering Storm Now Available
Largest expansion ever for beloved strategy series includes an active world ecosystem filled with new environmental challenges, as well as the new World Congress
NEW YORK — 2K and Firaxis Games today announced that Sid Meier’s Civilization® VI: Gathering Storm, the second expansion pack for the critically acclaimed and award-winning Sid Meier’s Civilization® VI, is now available for Windows PC.
“The development team exceeded our expectations by delivering a unique expansion with a living world of climate challenges for players to experience Civilization in ways never before possible.”
Civilization VI: Gathering Storm presents players with an active planet that generates new and dynamic challenges for the Civilization series, with new features and systems including Environmental Effects, new Engineering Projects and Consumable Resources for players to experience a living world full of danger and opportunity. The expansion, the largest ever created for the beloved strategy series, introduces the Diplomatic Victory and the World Congress – a new way to win the game in a forum where leaders vote on global policies. Technologies and Civics now extend into the near future, opening possibilities not yet seen by the existing world. In addition, there are eight new civilizations and nine new leaders, as well as many new units, buildings, improvements, wonders and more.
“Firaxis continues raising the bar with Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm in developing the largest and most feature-rich expansion to date for the franchise,” said Melissa Bell, SVP and Head of Global Marketing at 2K. “The development team exceeded our expectations by delivering a unique expansion with a living world of climate challenges for players to experience Civilization in ways never before possible.”
“In Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm, the world around the player is more alive than ever before,” said Ed Beach, Franchise Lead Designer at Firaxis Games. “We’re excited to offer new ways for fans to discover fresh experiences playing Civ, and this expansion epitomizes that sense of exploration. The choices players make will influence the world ecosystem and could impact the future of every civilization on the map.”
Key features for Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm include:
– ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS: Volcanoes, storms (blizzards, sand storms, tornadoes and hurricanes), climate change, floods, droughts and geothermal fissures bring the world to life in a brand-new way;
– POWER AND CONSUMABLE RESOURCES: Strategic resources like coal and oil, as well as renewable energy sources like wind and geothermal energy, play an additional role and are now consumed in power plants to generate electricity for cities;
– ENGINEERING PROJECTS: Players can now shape the worlds around their empires to overcome unfavorable land conditions by adding improvements like canals, dams, tunnels and railroads;
– WORLD CONGRESS: For the first time in Civilization VI, players can make their voices heard among the other leaders of the world in their quests to achieve the new Diplomatic Victory;
– 21st CENTURY TECHNOLOGIES AND CIVICS: A New 9th Era is added to the Technology and Civics trees, introducing a new age of technology;
– NEW LEADERS AND CIVS: Nine new leaders from eight new civilizations bring unique bonuses and gameplay, as well as a total of nine unique units, four unique buildings, three unique improvements, two unique districts and one unique governor;
– NEW SCENARIOS: Two new scenarios are included in the Gathering Storm expansion. The Black Death provides players with the challenge of leading their civs through The Great Plague that devastated Europe, while War Machine is a multiplayer experience pitting one player as Germany to execute a bold plan of invading France, while the French defender strives to repel the invasion;
– MORE NEW CONTENT: Gathering Storm includes seven new world wonders, seven natural wonders, 15 new improvements, nine new buildings, five new districts, two new city sets, nine new techs and 10 new civics;
– NEW UNITS: Gathering Storm introduces 18 new units, including the return of the near-unstoppable Giant Death Robot, as well as The Rock Band, a special kind of Atomic Era unit that generates huge boosts of Tourism;
– IMPROVED GAMEPLAY SYSTEMS: The Espionage system is enhanced with new options, while the Culture and Science Victories are updated, new Historic Moments are added and additional improvements were made to other existing systems.Developed by Firaxis Games, Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Gathering Storm is available for Windows PC and coming shortly thereafter for Mac and Linux from Aspyr Media. Sid Meier’s Civilization VI is rated E10+ for Everyone 10 and up by the ESRB and is available now for Windows PC and Nintendo Switch™. Sid Meier’s Civilization VI is also available for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Linux from Aspyr Media.
For more information on Sid Meier’s Civilization VI, visit www.civilization.com, become a fan on Facebook, subscribe on YouTube, follow Civilization on Twitter and Instagram and join the conversation using the hashtag #OneMoreTurn.
Firaxis Games is a 2K studio. 2K is a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO).
All trademarks and copyrights contained herein are the property of their respective holders.
About Take-Two Interactive Software
Headquartered in New York City, Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is a leading developer, publisher and marketer of interactive entertainment for consumers around the globe. The Company develops and publishes products principally through its wholly-owned labels Rockstar Games and 2K, as well as its Private Division label and Social Point, a leading developer of mobile games. Our products are designed for console systems and personal computers, including smartphones and tablets, and are delivered through physical retail, digital download, online platforms and cloud streaming services. The Company’s common stock is publicly traded on NASDAQ under the symbol TTWO. For more corporate and product information please visit our website at http://www.take2games.com.
About 2K
Founded in 2005, 2K develops and publishes interactive entertainment globally for console systems, handheld gaming systems and personal computers, including smartphones and tablets, which are delivered through physical retail, digital download, online platforms and cloud streaming services. 2K publishes titles in today’s most popular gaming genres, including shooters, action, role-playing, strategy, sports, casual, and family entertainment. The 2K label has some of the most talented development studios in the world today, including Visual Concepts, Firaxis Games, Hangar 13, Cat Daddy Games and newly formed, to-be-named studio in Silicon Valley. 2K’s stable of high quality titles includes the critically acclaimed BioShock®, Borderlands™, Mafia and XCOM® franchises; the beloved Sid Meier’s Civilization series; Evolve™ and Battleborn®; the popular WWE® 2K franchise and NBA® 2K, the highest rated* annual sports title of this console generation.
*According to 2008 – 2019 Metacritic.com
About Firaxis Games
Firaxis Games™ is one of the world’s premier game development studios, and home of legendary designer Sid Meier. Firaxis has developed some of the most successful and award-winning PC and video games on the market today, including the award-winning Sid Meier’s Civilization® series, featuring the recently released Sid Meier’s Civilization VI, for Windows PC, Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth™ for Windows PC, the expansion pack Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth – Rising Tide for Windows PC, Sid Meier’s Civilization V for Windows PC, as well as the critically acclaimed expansion packs, Sid Meier’s Civilization V: Brave New World and Sid Meier’s Civilization V: Gods and Kings for Windows PC. Firaxis also released the 2012 Game of the Year award-winning XCOM®: Enemy Unknown for Windows PC, the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, and Apple iOS, along with the critically acclaimed expansion pack XCOM: Enemy Within for Windows PC, the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation3 computer entertainment system, and Apple iOS. Firaxis Games is owned by Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., and is part of its 2K publishing label. For more information about Firaxis and its games can be found at www.firaxis.com.
Gathering Storm Launch Update for Civilization VI + Rise and Fall
With the launch of Civilization VI: Gathering Storm drawing near, we wanted to take a moment to share some info on the update coming to the base game experience and Rise and Fall. We’re adding in a few new features like Play by Cloud and the Hall of Fame, as various tweaks and balances – all of which will be available in the base game and Rise and Fall expansion when the new Civilization VI: Gathering Storm expansion launches tomorrow.
Here is the full list of changes:
AI
AI now builds and uses aircraft more effectively.
Weaken AI garrisoning if they can use it to take an enemy city.
Don’t send more than one unit to capture a given unescorted civilian.
In non-emergency situations, AI will not trade away more gold per turn than they make excluding trade deals.
Improve AI ability to garrison ranged units during city attacks.
When AI takes a city, automatically assign a defender.
If an AI can take a city this turn, don’t try to defend your units first in the process
Increase value of picking up resources for unit maintenance.
Digging up artifacts in an ally’s territory counts as an incursion.
Barbarian raid timer now starts as soon as the first unit arrives in range, instead of waiting for the final unit.
Allow barbarians to go through unexplored territory as part of an attack.
AI will protect units assigned to defend a city from attack while they are trying to get to the city.
Increase weighting for Naval Superiority AI trees to focus on building sea units.
AI tries to figure out if a city is on the periphery before taking it, avoids jumping into the center of the Empire unless it needs to.
Allow AI to levy for defensive purposes.
AI now simplifies/focuses trade deals when requesting trades, rather than asking/offering a smorgasbord of items.
Correct an issue that was preventing the AI from properly theming artifact collections.
Don’t warn or get angry if partner converts target city of religious emergency.UI
New Features
Front End: Hall of Fame – Victory and defeat tracking with detailed statistics and graphs for each.
In-Game: Build Queue and Multi-Queue, along with tabbed interface to toggle between modes.
Lens: Empire Lens – When toggled, displays owned territory, as well as district locations and base yields from districts.
World Resources Report: Breakdown of how many strategic and luxury resources each major civ possesses that you’ve met.
Mini-map: New mini-map that is easier to read, and a new full-screen mini-map mode that you can toggle in-game.
Map Labels: In-world text labels on Natural Wonders and National Parks. (Gathering Storm ruleset games only)
Game Setup/Options additions
Multiple Colorblind Accessibility options available.
Touch Input Enable checkbox available
Cloud Shadows Graphics option available.
Mouse Wheel Speed slider option available.
Warning about Mod Compatibility checkbox available.
Gathering Storm Benchmark options (requires Gathering Storm) available.
Civilization “Jersey” System: Automatically adjusts Civilization color schemes if they are too close in color range to each other.
Scalable resource and yield icons with high-resolution textures available (can be modified via XML).
Automatically hide the city ranged attack interface when selecting a unit.
Automatically hide ranged attack arrow if a selected unit is out of moves.
Automatically adjust the positioning of unit flags covering the city range strike button if an enemy unit moves in range.
Add recommended target tile highlighting for the Archaeologist.
Unit cycling logic improvement, reducing the instances of the camera getting pulled away from where the user intends to go.
Pop-up and advisor queue ordering updates and progress.
Additional misc. UI and text fixes, tweaks and updates.GRAPHICS
New particle system increases performance and allows many more particles to be visible at the same time (much less likely to see effects flicker or fail to play correctly in complex scenes).
Slowly moving cloud shadows (can be toggled via graphics options).
New terrain/model reflections (previously only ocean/rivers had reflections).
Sub-pixel filtering for floating UI elements (fixes ‘jitter’ on unit flags and city banners as camera moves).
Improved shadow quality on leaders, obsolete 8K shadow map option removed from ‘ultra’ settings.
Further performance and memory usage improvements in DX12.
Visual fidelity improvements and sharpness of culture borders and overlays at all graphics quality levels.
Various improvements to city and road layouts.
Various graphics performance optimizations.
Multithreading performance improvements.MULTIPLAYER
New Features
Play By Cloud (requires a network connection)
Multiple desync and stability fixesBALANCE
Barbarians
Make Barbarian camps spawn recon ranged units in later starts.
Unit and Unit Combat
Scale pillage rewards by era (except healing).
All healing rewards are now 50 HP.
Adjust pillaging rewards of science and culture improvements to be a base value of 15 instead of 25.
Update the Machine Gun to have a range of 2.
Add Mobile Ranged tags to spawn different units other than Horse Archers late in the game.
Air Unit Combat Strength increase to more appropriately match corresponding land Army formations. (Gathering Storm ruleset games only)
Anti-Air Unit Combat Strength increase to match new Air Unit balance, and lower maintenance. (Gathering Storm ruleset games only)
Players can now start with unique units even if they are not direct replacements.
Make the Missile Cruiser the same movement range as the Battleship.
City and City Combat
Combat balance – double wall hit points for all three tiers. Outer defense strength modifier increase for all 3 tiers to 3 (was 2).
Update the Government Plaza to have the same base plunder value as other districts.
Audience Chamber government building down to 3 Housing (was 4 Housing).
Tech and Civics Tree
Oil Well improvement now unlocked with the Steel technology. This is consistent with other resource reveals and the improvements that extract them
Policies and Governments
Total War Policy now gives +50% more Gold from pillaging.
Remove the double dipping of Huey Teocalli, Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, and Apadana Wonders from Policy Cards.
Update Strategic Airforce Policy to include all aircraft.
Civil Prestige Policy now only requires a Governor with 2 promotions and provides 2 Housing.
Policies that give increased production now continue to operate on old units.
Policies now apply to all wonders prior to the Policy era. (i.e. now Gothic Architecture applies to Ancient, Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Wonders before it just applied to Medieval and Renaissance).
Civs
Tamar now has a Faith preference.
Sphinxes can now be built next to each other.
Religion
Defender of the Faith reduction from +10 down to +5
Add faith to late starts.
Espionage
Counterspy and Listening Post missions are now renewable on the mission completed popup
Spread out all Civilization and City-State starting positions where possible when generating the map.PERFORMANCE
Many performance updates to Trade Route calculations, pathing, and reports.
Significant improvements to turn/AI processing times, especially late-game.
Multiple UI performance improvements across different panels and screens in-game.GENERAL BUGS
Units and Unit Combat
Heavy Cavalry promotion prerequisite connections now fixed.
Allow players to deploy aircraft in allied territory.
Air units can now attack a defensible district with a civilian unit garrisoned there.
Multiple additional aircraft Rebase and Deploy bug fixes.
Paradrop should not consider a City Center to be an airfield.
When changing ownership of a unit (from a levy in most cases) the unit’s experience and experience level was not being transferred. This is now working properly.
The Garrison promotion is now working properly.
Units joining a corps or army could receive build charges improperly. This is now working properly.
Units are now forced to relocate if they are in an invalid location after a settlement is placed.
Constructing a Roman fort improvement building now properly ends that unit’s turn.
Alliance combat modifiers are now displayed properly in the UI.
Units with build charges are now able to be trained even in cities that have contaminated fallout.
The Defense strength modifier for terrain was incorrectly showing the cumulative amount in the preview text instead of the itemized amount. This has been corrected.
Fix for an issue that could disallow an attack on an enemy city if it had a friendly unit inside.
Fix for an issue where aircraft could get disconnected from the carrier when it passed through another unit.
Assume the WMD combat is always in the camera view, it can easily be skipped if it is partially off screen.
Fix for an issue that was causing odd movement queue paths when they had long unit paths set.
Cities and City Combat
Fix for multiple production overflow issues.
Fix for Urban Defenses Policy not properly granting 400 hit points to city defenses.
Minor adjacency bonuses should not apply when placing districts next to a pillaged district. This has been corrected.
Fix for city centers not getting additional production and food from modifiers.
Fix for Pillaged districts still providing amenities.
Prohibit Free Cities from building palaces which was allowing duplicate (forged!?) copies of Great Works to get into the game.
If a city is razed, all National Parks are now properly removed.
The correct players’ units will be properly expelled when a city is transferred by trade.
Fixes for multiple issues with fallout contaminated plots in cities
Fix for pillaged districts when transferring a city.
Fix for District model visuals not updating properly from a pillaged state when repaired.
Restore district combat if the building that gives combat strength is completed mid-turn.
If a district is pillaged, update the stats on its banner, if it has one, and on the parent city, so the Garrison Strength will update.
Great People
Fix for Great Generals and Admirals not being able to activate on opposing units.
Allow a Great Person to be activated immediately if a required building is purchased underneath him or her.
Loyalty
When a conquered city is kept, update some figures related to its Loyalty per turn, to ensure that the displayed UI data is correct and consistent
When a city is locked at full Loyalty due to a game effect (Statue of Liberty, Phoenicia unique ability), show the Loyalty per turn as 0 and stable in the UI, and show “Always fully loyal” in the panel’s math breakdown.
Policies and Governments
Fix for Praetorium Policy not correctly applying unless the Governor was established.
Democracy’s government bonus shouldn’t apply if the district is pillaged.
The Classic Republic government Amenity and Housing bonus should only count if the city has an unpillaged district.
Fix for issue that was allowing Dark Age policies to remain slotted beyond their appropriate era.
Trade Routes
Fix for many trade route bonuses that were only designed to apply to the owner (origin) of a trade route applying to recipients (destination) of a trade route as well.
Trade Route Capacity is now correctly reduced when buildings are pillaged.
Civs
Fix for Alexander’s preferences not working properly.
Fix for Sumeria and Foreign Ministry building not properly working together.
Ensure that Mvemba doesn’t receive the Devout agenda.
Fix for issue where City-State Protector agenda was cross-wired with the Civilized agenda and one leader could care about both at same time.
Techs and Civics
Apprenticeship now functions properly when repairing an improvement.
Espionage
Add details to text for Rise and Fall spy missions.
Disable the Skip Turn and Sleep buttons when spies are on a mission.
Outlaw Listening Post mission vs. Allies.
Don’t let bonuses to Spy “Establish” time in city exceed 100%.
Historic moments based on making tile improvements (ex. on a tile with extra yield from a natural disaster, first Mountain Tunnel) will no longer trigger when the improvement is gained by conquering or otherwise gaining ownership of a city where the improvement already existed.
Correct an error in Archipelago that was causing it to not generate tiny Islands.
Allow joint and 3rd party wars immediately after denouncement if a Golden Age war is available.
Fix for order of operations bug preventing governor effects to re-apply when a governor is re-assigned to a city they are already established in.
Pillaged Districts should not appear in the “purchase” menu when players are allowed to buy Districts with Gold using the Financier governor.
Exploits
Players can no longer swap tiles FROM an occupied city. Prevents exploit of “conquer, raid it for tiles, return it in peace.”
Correct production overflow calculation so multipliers (like policy cards) get backed out of overflow.
Additional misc. Gossip corrections and streamlining.
Additional misc. crash fixes.ART
Environment
Brazil city set and palace updated.
City Center art adjustments to include Canals for coastal cities. Granaries and Monuments are also updated.
All model updates and optimizations.
Material polish pass to brighten materials to match visual style.
Update geometry of base models for performance.
Completely remodel all female characters.
Skin tones for all units appropriate to their civilizations.
Team color embedded in the textures.
Update tint color on all vehicles to match their historical origins.
Setup tint color for all modern uniforms: Infantry and vehicle crews.
Model variety within the same units (various attachments, etc.)
Extensive polish pass on all Great People; new models and new geometry.
Adjust scale and count of air units.
Adjust scale and count of sea units.
Adjust siege unit crewmen and defenders to match the appropriate era.
Adjust embarked ships to closer match the number of unit members on the field. Example: One transport for scouts and great people.
Many additional misc. tweaks and updates.SCOUT CAT
Alternate skin for Scout unit that replaces the Scout’s dog with three cats. Available to players who have linked their 2K Account.
MODDING
Add tagging for mod compatibility. Mods not tagged as compatible with the latest build will be disabled at start-up as well as have a warning dialog displayed when they are enabled. This behavior can be disabled on a per-mod basis or completely in the options dialog. Mods can be tagged as compatible by either adding “<CompatibleVersions>2.0</CompatibleVersions>” to the properties section of the modinfo or by marking compatible versions in the project page of ModBuddy.
WorldBuilder updates, including “painting” mode, auto-coastlines, importing from “Tiled”, and more. We’re not done.Civilization VI: Gathering Storm will launch for Windows PC on February 14, 2019. Follow the conversation on social media by using the hashtag #OneMoreTurn, and be sure to follow the Civilization franchise on social media to keep up to date with the latest news and information on Sid Meier’s Civilization VI.
