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

Byzantium and Gaul Maps –

Today we got the latest update to Civilization VI with the newest addition to the New Frontier Pass, and next pit stop into Europe and across the Mediterranean with first the Gaul and then the Byzantine Empire. 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.  

Gaul

Click here for Full Sized Map

If there has been one big surprise, it has been the addition of Gaul into the game. Historically from Civilization 2 to Civilization 5, there has been the addition of The Celts. Through its many additions, it has jumped around the map representing different Celtic peoples or taking chunks from many different tribes. The reason Gaul is a surprise is that in Civilization 6, the developers have moved away from blob civilizations, so we get the Maori rather than the Polynesians, or Macedon as its own civilization rather than being part of Greece. With the addition of Scotland in Rise and Fall, I like many others assumed that was it for a Celtic civilization, but I was wrong.

However, while it is an exciting addition, for the map, it is a bit of an odd addition. Where practicable, we always like to use the leader of the time as a useful guide, if there is not an easy modern national counterpart that we can choose. Where we run into issues is that their leader Ambiorix, is the king of the Eburones people, and even if I stretch their territory to include the probable and not just the known still only their capital is found in their territory. Indeed, as far as I can tell, Aduatuca is the only city from the Eburones people in the game.

This meant brushing up on my French/Roman history because most of the cities on the map occupied old Roman settlements. They are also the forbearers of many of the major cities in France that we know today and who is already on the map. We filled out Normandy a little more as well as having our first non-city-state in Switzerland with the forbearer of Bern. There were a couple of locations that could have referred to several different settlements, in that case, I tried to go with the one that was the most famous, if you have a battle named after you, well you just jumped into first place. There is also a little quirk where for the first time the same city appears on two different civilizations cities list, with two locations featuring on both Rome and Gaul lists (Lugdunum & Durocortorum).                  

Byzantium

Click here for Full Sized Map

Our next map addition was the complete opposite in some regards because it was the most likely addition (indeed with the addition of Byzantium only Babylon and Portugal are the big missing hold outs). However, while it was a known quantity, it was still just as tricky an addition as Gaul was.

The reason it was difficult is that the area it is found is well already quite crowded, even before Byzantium arrived. I had to do some creative positioning to get it to fit, which meant cutting a bit out of Macedon (sorry). Then we come to come to represent the capital… ‘It’s Istanbul, not Constantinople….’   … sorry, not sorry, because it was stuck in my head the whole time I was working on this map. This is the first time two civilizations have shared the same capital city location. Also, there is a lot of contestation about that history, so there is no way of adding it without frustrating someone.   

In the end, I went with a system where the Ottomans got all of Anatolia, and Byzantium got its northern territory up to that demarcation line on the Danube.  Byzantium is also one of the more spread out civilizations with cities in Rome, Scythia, Ottomans, and also Macedon, which meant that Chalkidiki peninsula is now one of the most crowded locations on the map.

Anatolia

Click here for Full Sized Map

Now I mentioned that area around Byzantium was crowded, and I wanted to show just how crowded it was. As you can see above, The Ottomans, Byzantium, Persia, Greece, Rome, Macedon, and Arabia all have territory that overlaps this area. To add to this, three civilizations that have been in the game previously, also have territory that overlaps this area, though I dare not bring those names up lest I give the developers ideas. As you can see, there is no way to have all those territories in there and make it readable (trust me), so you’ve got to do the best you can.         

Europe

Click here for Full Sized Map

Here we have all the significant additions all in the same map. There is also the addition of Venice as a new City State (it replaces Antioch, which is now on the Byzantine City List). Also, Antioch itself was a replacement for Amsterdam, so maybe there is a chance for that Renaissance Italy civilization that a lot of you want. To be honest, I don’t because I have no good idea how to add it to the map with Rome there, but I take it that this is a very ‘me’ issue and not a more extensive player base one. There is also one of our two new wonders with the Statue of Zeus, which nicely ties up all our Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (the other six being the Great Pyramid, Hanging Gardens, Temple of Artemis, Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, Colossus & Great Lighthouse)

Full Civilization 6 Map

Click here for Full Sized Map (may take a while to load)

And here we have it, the full map in all its glory. Now because the map is so large, some older mobile devices had troubles loading it, so I have moved it to its own page to limit that issue hopefully. You can also download a higher resolution version. On the whole, not much has changed with the full map bar the above additions. The only thing outside of this area is the second of our new World Wonders, the Biosphere in Montréal, which was a tricky one to put down given the density of Canadian cities in the area. Well, there we go, our Civilization map updated. See you for the next edition in November where we get a new civilization (my money is on the Sioux) and a bunch of new City-States.         

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

Byzantium Cities

Constantinople, Thessalonica, Adrianople, Nicaea, Antioch, Nicomedia, Trebizond, Ancyra, Edessa, Sinope, Amaseia, Cherson, Dyrrachium, Nicopolis, Seleucia, Iconium, Melitene, Bari, Dorylaeum, Amorium, Koloneia, Tyana, Attalea, Sebasteia, Theodosiopolis, Mesembria, Arcadiopolis, Mount Athos, Dorystolon & Zara

Gaul Cities

Aduatuca, Bibrax, Noviodunum, Samarobriva, Durocorteron, Ratumacos, Tervanna, Bagacum, Divodurum, Alesia, Avaricum, Lisieux, Lutetia, Lugudunon, Cenabum, Meledunum, Turones, Autricum, Bibracte, Darioritum, Uxellodunum, Gergovia, Vesontio, Brenodurum, Crociatonum, Agedincum, Limonum, Andematunnum, Condate, Aregenua, Anicium & Ruscino

Geographical Features

Aisne River, Meander River, Prut River, Cévennes, Eifel Mountains & Lake Neuchâtel

City-States

Venice

Wonders

Statue of Zeus & Biosphere

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.