Eleanor of Aquitaine First Look and Analysis – Civilization VI: Gathering Storm

Eleanor’s Bonuses

Eleanor of Aquitaine leader of France in Civilisation 6 Gathering Storm


Civilization Leader: Eleanor of Aquitaine
Leader Agenda: 
English Capital: 
French Capital:  
Leader Bonus: Court of Love – Great works in Eleanor’s cities leads to a loyalty deficient in other civilization cities withing 9 tiles. If a city leaves a civilizastion and Eleanor is the the Civ with the most loyalty pressure the city skips the Free City phase.

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Phoenicia First Look and Analysis – Civilization VI: Gathering Storm

Dido leading Phoenicia in Civ 6 Gathering Storm.

Phoenicia Bonuses

Civilization Leader: Dido
Civilization Agenda: Sicilian Wars – wants to settle coastal cities. Likes those who settle inland. Dislikes those with mostly coastal cities.
Civilization Capital: Tyre
Civilization Bonus: Mediterranean Colonies – embarked Settlers get +Movement & Sight, Cities on the coast on the same Continent as the Capital will always be Loyal
Leader Bonus: Founder of Carthage – Can move the Civilization Capital to any city with a Cothon by completing a Special Project, +Trade Route for every building in the Government Plaza, +Production to Districts in the same city as the Government Plaza.
Unique Unit: Bireme – +Combat Strength & Movement, protects near by Trader Units
Unique District: Cothon
Rivers: Litani River
Deserts: Tanezrouft Basin

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The Ottomans First Look and Analysis – Civilization VI: Gathering Storm

Suleiman of The Ottomans in Civilization 6 Gathering Storm. Image Credit: Firaxis Games.

The Ottomans Bonuses

Civilization Leader: Suleiman
Civilization Agenda: 
Civilization Capital: Istanbul (not Constantinople)
Civilization Bonus: Great Turkish Bombard – +Production of Siege Units, +Combat Strength for Siege Units, Conquered cities do not lose populations, Cities not founded by The Ottomans get +Amenities and +Loyalty.
Leader Bonus: Grand Vizier – Can use Ibrahim a Unique Governor
Unique Unit: Janissary – Starts with a free promotion, Stronger and cheaper than the Musketman, cost a Population to build (unless built in concurred city)
Unique Unit: Barbary Corsair – Cost no movement to Coastal Raid, Can not be seen unless units are right next to it.
Unique Building: Grand Bazaar – extra accumulation of Strategic Resources in city boarders, + Amenities for each improved Luxury in the city boarders 
Rivers: Litani River, Kızılırmak River  
Mountain Ranges: Balkan Mountains
Deserts: Tanezrouft Basin

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Video Game Review – Ark: Survival Evolved

TL;DR– Bringing the survival gameplay into a world of dinosaurs is a fantastic idea, but for me,the balance is not quite there.

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Ark: Survival Evolved

Review –

If you have read my reviews in the past, you would know that one of the easiest sells for me is to add dinosaurs to something. Movies, TV, Books, you name it and if it has dino’s in it I am there for it. However, when it comes to video games with dinosaurs I am much more hesitant after getting burnt in the past with games like The Stomping Land,and more generally in this genre with Day-Z.So when Ark first came out I was not prepared to invest in another Early-Access survival game, but now it has been out in full release for a year I thought it would be a good time to take the dive into the world of Dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals, lots of Dodos,and oh the mechanic that lets you know when you pooped.

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Video Game Review – Stellaris

TL;DR – Stepping into the storied world of 4x, Stellaris takes us into space and taps into that love of exploration among the stars … or just conquering everything you see, with deep systems that give you the kind of customisation that you need in a empire building game.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

 

Stellaris. Image Credit: Paradox Interactive

 

 

Review –

Strategy games are my jam, I love building up an empire, mining all the minerals, spawning all the Overlords, launching all the nukes. As well as this, I am a huge sci-fi fan, so when you add a strategy game, to a space setting like Sins of a Solar Empire, Birth of the Federation, or Space Empires 3, well then you are on to a winner. However, while I had picked up Stellaris back when it first came out it didn’t quite gel with me but recently I took another shot at it with the Utopia and Distant Stars DLC and found that ‘one more turn’ grove. So now that I have played a couple of games of it, including some multiplayer, I have a better idea of the game and feel confident in my review.

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Map-It Civilization VI: Full Map

TL;DR – Every single feature of Civilization 6 (at time of posting) in one map

Civilization VI Full Map

Article –

I had been asked a couple of times whenever I posted my Civ 6 maps or my Civ 6 city maps why didn’t I combine them all into the one map? Well, the simple reason is that right back at the start I tried but it just was not feasible. I had tried to add all the cities into America and they didn’t fit, which made the prospects of adding countries like France or The Aztecs next to impossible. However, After Rise and Fall was released and I went through and created a new map from the template I was working with I wondered if it was possible to upscale it to a size where I could fit in the Netherlands. The Netherlands was the most are compact civilization in the game so far so it became my bellwether and it worked and thus began the long, long process of putting this map together. This was a process with just as many success as well as failures, however after all that work, here it is.

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Video Game Review – Surviving Mars

TL;DR – As a game it is a really interesting puzzle to get right, mimicking real life in some ways, but it would be good to take it a step further.

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

 

Surviving Mars. Image Credit: Haemimont Games

 

 

Review –
When it comes to settings for films, TV, books, or games nothing is an easier sell for me than setting something on Mars. Whether it is your Red Mars trilogy, your Total Recall, your The Martian, whatever it may be, I am just engrossed with our red neighbour floating out in the void. So with this in mind, we are looking at a game today that simulates what it would be like potentially to create a colony on the red planet and well be prepared going in that you probably going to kill your colony a couple of times.

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Map-It: Civilization VI (Base Game up to the South East Asia DLC)

TL;DR – Today we chart out Civilization VI in Map form the base game all the way up to the South East Asia DLC

Civ 6 banner

Map-It –

So today we continue with our Map-It series by looking at one of my favourite video games Civilization VI. Given the amount of content that Civilization VI has that you can map, and since I do love maps I decided to create two maps, the first map has all the civilizations currently released, and the second shows the locations of all the World Wonders, Natural Wonders, and the City States. So for today’s maps, we are including everything in the base game of Civilization VI, as well as what was include in the Poland, Viking, Australia, Persia/Macedonia & Nubia DLC packs
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Video Game Review – Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth – Rising Tide Expansion

TL;DR – A  real improvement but it does not fix many of the problems from the base game and all of this for a very steep price

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth – Rising Tide. Image Credit: Firaxis Games.

Review –

Rising Tide is the first expansion to Beyond Earth that includes 4 new sponsors, aquatic cities, new artefacts, a redesigned diplomacy system and a bunch of other content. I want to love this games I really do, it is a turn based 4x game (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate) set in space with all those Sci-fi trappings produced by Firaxis Games one of my favorite game developers, this should be my jams but I don’t know, the love is not there.

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