Civilization VI Nintendo Switch Review

I was shocked when I heard that Civilization VI was heading to the Nintendo Switch and I wondered how it would work, well here is it and for this review, I am going to start with how it plays using Joy-Cons and how it felt which is really good.

Que the Music – Christopher Tin – Sogno di Volare ( The Dream of Flight ) Intro to Civilization VI.

From the first stirrings of life beneath water… to the great beasts of the Stone Age, to man taking his first upright steps, you have come far. Now begins your greatest quest: from the early cradle of civilization on towards the stars and finally grabbing your Nintendo Switch and Playing Civilization VI with Joy-Cons. So how does it fair, well we already have the game available on iOS and PC with PC being the preferred format for many gamers, including myself, however, not everyone can play this game on PC as for some reason it is so demanding. So here we have the game on my second preferred system the Nintendo Switch and this time we have to use a different control method.

Starting with the left joy-con analog stick, which when moved will highlight your preferred Hex you wish to move to or perform an action on, the right analog stick controls the camera, the chosen method works great. ZL and ZR shoulder buttons perform zoom in and out. While hovering over a hex tile and pressing the minus key, you will be given information about the hex, like food and production etc. Press the L button opens up trees, like the technology tree, civic tree, you also have policies, religion and great people which you can recruit. While the R button shows you, the other players on the battlefield and if they are friendly or not with you, your current ranking in the world, routes, and city-states.

Press + brings up your menu options, save game, load game, Retire, restart, exit to the main menu and finally options which include:

Game:

• Quick Combat: on or off
• Quick Movement: on or off
• Auto end Turn: on or off
• City Ranged attack Turn Blocking: on or off
• Advisor which offers new to switch or new to civilization
• Turns between autosaves
• Number of autosaves to keep
• time of day
• Camera movement friction and zoom speed

Audio:

• Master Volume
• Music Volume
• Sound Effects Volume
• Ambient Sounds Volume
• Speech Volume

Interface:

• Show Intro Video
• Clock Format: 12 or 24hr
• Auto Unit Cycling: on or off
• Unit Confirmations: always combat only
• Minimap size
• Touch Tooltip Delay
• Show Grid
• Show Resource Icons
• Show Yield Icons 

Then we have Button X which finishes a turn/ opens research panel and next action, this is all controlled with on-screen actions. Y is the notification panels, tell you what is happening in the world, A is simply select and move to, simply put it the action button and finally B is back, cancel button. Oh yeah before we move on, we also have Touch Screen controls, which I never used or see the point in using.

If you are new to civilization and you are interested in this game, be prepared, be very prepared because you are diving into one of the best turn-based strategy games available on the market, developed by Firaxis Games and published by 2K Games, a game that was originally released on pc on the 20th/21st October 2016. A game that tests your resolve and leadership by choosing a leader (not Theresa May) of a great nation like Great Britain. Starting from its humble beginnings to rise up and become a city that all strive to be. You win the game by taking turns, 500 turns is a standard game but this can be altered to suit your play style and game time. You must grow your city and mold your leadership in a way, that sees you, your people, your cities as the most powerful influence on the map through either culture, military, science, or religion.

Watching your nation grow and develop is not all that easy the game requires a lot of micromanagement. You must consider the best places to place your cities based on what is available around your hex zone, like mining. You need to choose what religion each city should study, create and choose cultural aspects and what scientific research to endeavor. Or create armies and send them off to war, however, watching battles on the map looks, somewhat boring, but can you imagine what a huge army would look like on one Hex square, I doubt you would be able to see anything, just a blur. Maybe a CGI or in-game battle sequence would have been good, but then again having to see that repeat itself over and over again would get tiresome so I guess what Civ has right now for battle makes sense.

You are never alone in any game, there are either other players through multi-player or AI, both of them have the same goals as you dominance and how you treat them and how you act as a leader will have an effect on how they see and treat you. At one point every city hated me, possible because I was attacking their armies all the time.

You do not have to be me and cause war with everyone to win the game you can win the game though religion and be a mighty city that sits on its butt and prays all day long and hopes GOD will win the day. You can choose how to play the game right down to map size, how many opponents, the leader you control and the games difficulty level, its all there right at the start of the game.

For new players, you can jump into a tutorial, which will teach you everything then leave you to win your first game. This was something I jumped into first just to get my bearings on how this game played on the switch and its main controls. The tutorial is in-depth and great for new players to Civilization. I ended up playing the tutorial a few times, just to understand how each aspect worked, before moving to a full game.

Playing the tutorial I would say is needed for almost everyone as the mechanics of the game are rather complicated and will take a few attempts to understand. But Firaxis has made the game more simple, by adding trees which help you develop your nation and makes sure you understand what is needed to be researched for you to move towards your end goal.

As this game is 2 years past its original release, you will be happy to know that the majority of the games DLC has reached this version all as one package, however, there are still a few more DLC packages available to purchase through the Nintendo eShop, but a huge number of them come with the base game. There is some sad news for PC gamers making there way to the Switch Port lack of Online Multi-player is missing, we might see this patched in at a later date, but currently you are stuck with single player or local network multi-player which means, yes you guessed it,  getting off your butt and going around to one of your mates houses and playing with close friends, or have them come to yours.

The port to Nintendo Switch is wonderful, everything is here, even though there is a visual downgrade and no online multiplayer and some crashing issues (2 I had over 36hrs). The game is suitable for new and old players alike thanks to a great tutorial, and if you already understand Civ then you will love the idea of playing the game anywhere at any time.

What an amazing title to come to the Nintendo Switch and I can recommend this game to anyone looking for a good strategy game. The game is long-winded and is good for when you have a good amount of time on your hands, or with the switch, it is even better, turn off pause and come back.

Civilization VI is available on PC, iOS and Nintendo Switch, and is developed by Firaxis Games and published by 2K Games.