TL;DR – Every single feature of Civilization VI (at time of posting) in one map, this time featuring the new addition Ethiopia.

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Today we got the latest update to Civilization VI with the newest addition to the New Frontier Pass, and next pit stop into Africa with Ethiopia. So once again, we are going to dive back into the world of Cartography plus Video Games. If you want more detailed information on anything that appears on the map, you can find it at our  Civilization VI Cartographic Educational Database.

 Now as always, a couple of notes before we start, first the Civilization boundaries on the map are based more on clarity than anything else, so in most cases, they conform to their modern counterparts. We have also worked using the commonly implemented political borders, not necessarily what nations claim, and this means making some judgement calls which you will see below. Also, while all attempts have been made to make sure that everything is accurately placed, putting this together meant working from multiple different sources, and map projections. As such, no matter how much you try, there might be some slight discrepancies here and there.
We will be mostly going over the new additions and changes to the map in this update, if you want to learn more about some of the location choices that we made you can find more detail in our First Full Civilization Big Map and out Gathering Storm Update Map.  

Horn of Africa

Click here for Full Sized Map

Ethiopia was an exciting addition in that there were many different ways you could have presented it. Do you go old school and bring in that Axumite Empire flavour, do you go super modern with the WW2 era Ethiopia fighting for independence (like earlier iterations in the series). Here the developers had gone with almost a middle-ground approach with Menelik II when Abyssinia codified into what we now know as Ethiopia.

As we are looking more towards modern Ethiopia than ancient, this meant that I felt it was best to match it to its current borders rather than have it match Nubia and Egypt to the north. I was also tossing up what version of the current political boundaries and decided since there were no cities in Eritrea and Ethiopia have no seas in their code it was best to go with what we have today. 

When it came to the construction of the map, overall this was one of the more straightforward maps to add because most of the city names map to current locations (most … looking at you Yifat). The one area that did get a bit tricky was the volcano border region that took a bit of manoeuvring to get right. One thing that I found interesting was with the addition of Ethiopia’s lakes. You now get to see that Rift Valley chain down through the middle of Africa. As with most of our additions to the map, I had the time to brush up the coastline of The Horn of Africa to make it a bit more detailed.      

Nile River Valley

Click here for Full Sized Map

The one thing the addition of Ethiopia did allow me to do is create the joy that is the Nile River Valley Map. This is a map of the entire river valley and all the Civs along its waterways. One of the things I have appreciated while working on these maps is the role that rivers play in both city location and the shape of civilizations. So it is nice to see that in all its glory.  

Africa

Click here for Full Sized Map

Now with the way the New Frontier Packs have been released it looks like Ethiopia is the last significant addition to the continent of Africa this time around. This meant it was an excellent moment to take a look at the continent as a whole. Overall, it is probably the one continent with the most grey space left over. So there is a lot more unlocked potential there.   

Full Map

To see the Full Map in all its glory please CLICK HERE. Though Please Note: It is a large image, as such it will take a long time to load and some older mobile devices may have troubles loading it.

And here we have it, the full map in all its glory. Not much has changed here outside of Africa. Unfortunately, my plans to refresh Japan just ran out of time. The one significant change I did make is that I noticed that Istanbul accidentally found its way into the middle of the Bosphorus strait, so that was a quick fix. Though it did give me a moment of panic when I realised that they are probably going to add Byzantium or the Hittites … or both, in the future and like how is that all going to fit?     

 I hope you have enjoyed this look at the world of Civilization VI: New Frontier Pass, if you liked it you are welcome to leave a tip, but more importantly, let us know what you thought in the comments below.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen any odd maps in Movies, TV or Video Games?, let us know in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.

New Additions

Ethiopia Cities – Addis Ababa, Axum, Harar, Gondar, Sodo, Dire Dawa, Lalibela, Mekele, Dessie, Jimma, Adigrat, Weldiya, Ankober, Alamata, Yirgalem, Gore, Negele Borana, Ginir, Debarq, Nejo, Debre Berhan, Abiy Addi, Mersa, Soqota, Sayint Ajebar, Chencha, Antalo, Yifat, Dabat & Debre Sina                  
Rivers – Awash River, Baro River, Blue Nile River, Dawa River, Ganale Dorya River, Shebelle River
Lakes – Lake Abaya, Lake Abbe, Lake Chamo, Lake Chew Bahir, Lake Shala, Lake Ziway,
Mountains – Ahmar Mountains, Amaro Mountains, Arsi Mountains, Bale Mountains, Wollo Highlands
Volcanoes – Alu-Dalafilla, Dabbahu Volcano, Kone, Mount Alayta, Mount Fentale, Manda Hararo

Credits

Lead Designer – Anton Strenger
Lead Engineer – Ken Grey
Producers – Amanda Bonacorso & Kevin Schultz
Art Director – Kat Berkley
Music – Geoff Knorr,  Phill Boucher, Roland Rizzo & Christopher Tin
Developer – Firaxis Games
Publisher – 2K

– All Natural/World Wonder/Tile Improvement graphics were created by the artists at Firaxis Games.

– The World Map that we used as a base several iterations ago was created by ‘San Jose’ which is shared with a Creative Commons Licence.

– The Nation detail maps America, Antarctica, Australia 1, Australia 2, Canada, Caribbean, China, Europe Relief, Fiji, Germany, Greece, Hawaii, Italy, India, New Zealand, Netherlands, Samoa, Scandinavia, South Africa, Spain, Tonga, Valley of Mexico that we used for reference were shared with a Creative Commons Licence or was in the public domain created by Alexrk2, Antigoni, E Pluribus Anthony, Fut Perf, Htonl, Koyos, Li Chao, NASA, NordNordWest, Shadowfox, Silver Spoon, Tubs, Yavidaxiu & Yug.

– The River Maps that we used as a guide for this map was shared with a Creative Commons Licence or in the Public Domain, Amazon, Amu Darya, Amur, Aras, Colorado, Columbia, Congo, Danube, Dnieper, Don, Elbe, Fraser, Horn of Africa Rivers, Indus, Karun, Kizilirmak, Kuban, Lena, Liao, Limpopo, Loire, Mackenzie, Mekong and Irrawaddy, Niger, Nile, Ob, Okavango, Pearl, Rhein, Río de la Plata, Sefīd, Saint Lawrence, São Francisco, Syr Darya, Tarim, Tigris and The Euphrates, Vistula, Volga, Yangtze, Yellow, Yenisei, Yukon, Zambezi,  by authors СафроновАВ, DEMIS, Emma Pease, Francis McLloyd, Hel-Hama, Imagico, Keenan Pepper, Kmusser, MatthiasKabel, Qyd, Shannon1, Sting, Ulamm & The United Nations.

Disclosure – I am a moderator on the site Civfanatics of which several staff and players are members of the ‘Frankenstein Testing Group’, Firaxis Games internal playtesting team. I am not part of this team nor do I have any links with Firaxis Games or 2K.