That's the elevator pitch, but in practical terms what Gathering Storm's really about is injecting some pep into a late-stage campaign, to keep players on their toes rather than grimly click through decreasingly vital build orders while waiting for one or another victory condition score to finally max out.Ĭoasts flooding, droughts droughting, volcanoes volcanoing and nuclear power plants Chernobyling certainly adds some new spice, and on top of everything else in Civ 6 and first expansion Rise and Fall, this is world history as a mad carnival. The second major, and jarringly expensive, expansion for Civ VI sells itself with the promise of welcoming natural disasters and catastrophic climate change into the mix, a fairly dramatic turn from the series convention of the Earth itself being an unprotesting battleground for assorted self-serving human oiks. With the Gathering Storm expansion, for better or worse, it's unforgettable. I used to fret that Civilization VI wasn't memorable. The World Congress is trying to stop climate change by running a gameshow. A volcano just erupted over Dutch Disneyland.
The Aztecs are increasingly angrily demanding that I give them an Edgar Allen Poe novel. Ghengis Khan keeps sending me charity donations.