In a word: No.
Will there be expansions? Undoubtedly. They will add to the game by at least putting some new civilizations, but might even add a few more mechanics, or perhaps adjusting some existing ones. But even without any expansions or updates, Civ 6 is already as good – if not better – than Civ 5.
Civilization 5 was the first in the series to use hexagonal tiles (instead of the square tiles used in previous versions). This in itself was a huge change in not just aesthetics, but military strategy. However, it took out or changed many of the mechanics that Civ 4 and its expansions had, such as religion and espionage.
Civ 6 is similarly a whole new ball game from Civ 5. Although it still uses hexagonal tiles, it was developed from scratch with a new game engine. Mechanics aside, you can immediately spot the difference in the interface alone. The menus are sleeker in Civ 6, and the game screen is very ‘map-centric’ in that city details are overlays rather than new screens.
Although Civ 6 hasn’t taken any mechanics away from Civ 5 (like Civ 5 did with Civ 4), it has changed them significantly. But how has it done that? See the handy chart below:
There’s a lot more to the mechanics than shown here, but the key point is that Civ 6 brings as much as Civ 5 did with all its expansions, despite the changes.
Any expansions that come for Civ 6 will not only add to the game that we have now, but could possibly change it in ways we can’t imagine, just as the previous Civ’s expansions did for them.
What do you think? Does Civilization 6 live up to its predecessor, even without the expansions to come? Let me know in the comments!
