I first fell in love with Civilization after I was destroyed.

On a giant, fractal map I cultivated a tiny, city-state-like paradise on a remote island, completely (and happily) cut off from the rest in the world. Turn after turn, I invested heavy into culture without building anything as much as a spearman to fortify the small force you spawn in with. My isolationist utopia was cranking towards victory, until one day I was discovered by Otto Von Bismarck and the rest of his German aircraft carriers.

He declared war on me, and an incomprehensibly huge German fleet emerged from the enveloping fog of war. My island, stocked with all the world s wonders and great people of nearly every designation, was shelled to death in about three turns. Just brutal, remorseless technocratic natural selection, and I was laughing so hard as all my hard work burned to the ground.

That s the great thing about Civilization. History is brutish and unfair, but it can also be hilarious. With simple graphics and complex systems, Sid Meier's flagship franchise has given us so many vivid stories grudges against famous world leaders, tales of terrible slides into despotism, classic cases of AI gone haywire all from the privacy of our own bedrooms. With the release of Civilization 6, I reached out to some of Civilization s oldest fans and asked them to tell me about their favorite memory on the tiles.

Bless our proxy states

I was playing as Alexander/Greece in Civilization 5. I was hidden behind a huge mountain range that cut my empire off from the rest of the continent. Mongolia was one of three other civs just East of these mountains. There was a small valley that opened up my territory to the rest of the landmass, but it was controlled by a city-state. As the eras went by, I watch Genghis Khan kill every other Civ one by one as I hide behind this huge mountain range. Mongolia took over the entire continent by the industrial era. He then declared war on the city-state controlling the pass through the mountains. I gifted that little city-state at least a dozen units to help keep them alive during their war against Mongolia. I eventually hit the point where I had no military unit left because I was fighting a proxy war to keep Mongolia from controlling this pass.

The city-state eventually fell to Mongolia only a few turns before I won a science victory. I remember feeling remorse as I left the planet thinking about the city-state that kept me safe. I imaged the spaceship with the name of the city-state written on the front of it; Toronto. YouTuber Drew Durnil

The reverse colonization

I've told this story on my channel before but it's the first one that pops into my mind anytime I think of fun Civ games. It was back in the Civilization 2 days and I started out all alone on a decent-sized island. With no need to put any focus into military I could go all in on tech and economy and thought I was doing really well, I could just imagine myself, once I learned to build caravels and could visit the other islands, marching through their primitive civilizations with my mighty knights. Once that day came I loaded up a couple caravels with knights (and a worker to improve my soon to be lands) and sailed off to discover across the sea. Turns out, all but one other civ was on one massive continent. With the tech sharing of the old Civ games they far surpassed me, and now that they knew of me, and how weak I was, my knights were no match for their tanks and artillery and I was quickly destroyed. YouTuber Nookrium

Nuclear irony

I was playing Civilization 2 as America, and was going for a domination victory. Japan was the other powerful Civilization remaining in the game. I had been at war with them for some time. The war was dragging on and I did not yet have nuclear weapons.

While I was transporting units across the ocean to hopefully close them out, they dropped a nuke on Washington.

In 1945.

The random irony killed me. I only wish I had captured as screenshot. Reddit user JackFunk

The false flag

My best story would have to be from Civ IV. I was playing a multiplayer game with two friends, and as you may be aware, Civ IV features a multitude of random events that may happen throughout the game, most of which we were unfamiliar with. One such event popped up around the renaissance era stating that the dread pirate Blackbeard was ravaging the seas.Not long after, I happened to chance upon his ship... and easily sunk it with my own Frigates. That was a little underwhelming, I thought. But then the most unscrupulous idea occurred to me my friends were still quite unaware that I'd made the villain walk the plank, and in Civ IV, you can build Privateers, which hide their nationality from other players. You can also rename units... see where I'm going with this?

And so, a great fleet of a dozen "Blackbeards" set sail from my ports, aiming straight for my "allied" friends, and started plundering their coasts, sinking their transports carrying settlers to newly discovered continents and blockading their ports. And they bought the ruse hook, lure and sinker! For maybe 30 turns our Skype voice chat was filled with rage at the horrible computer-controlled corsair wrecking their stuff, as I struggled to contain my giggles. Reddit user TakFloyd

Attrition

This was in Civ V. I was playing as Harald Bluetooth and spawned on the coast. Immediately to the south of me, Montezuma and the Aztecs popped up. Even if I was sharing a continent with the Aztecs, that wouldn't have been TOO bad, except the diplomatic tooltip told me that Montezuma had "coveted lands that I currently own." Which probably meant my seaport.

This should have been a red flag, telling me to just say "fuck it" and restart the game. But I didn't do that.

Cut to a few turns later (still in the Ancient Era), and suddenly, out of the blue, the Aztecs declare war on me with the intent to invade me. My Viking army is constantly being zerg rushed by Aztec Jaguar warriors and other troops. I beat them back every time, even with a military as pitiful as mine. Despite this, Montezuma refuses to make peace with me. Ever.

It is now the medieval era. Both the Vikings (myself) and the Aztecs have been fighting against each other in a fruitless war for 2000 years. There can be no peace. Only constant, senseless bloodshed conducted in the name of both Odin and Quetzalcoatl. My people face a constant Aztec onslaught, wondering each turn whether they will survive for much longer. No matter how many of his troops I kill, Montezuma always comes back with more jaguars, spearmen, and siege engines. He refuses to negotiate peace. Ever. This war can end only with the destruction of one side, and it probably won't be his. Reddit user Willie5000

Attrition

I remember playing Civ 3, going for a science victory and generally minding my own business. I didn't really explore all that much and considered myself safe, since my small island nation was isolated and defended by mech infantry at the time when everyone else was fielding muskets.Well, lo and behold, I get [a declaration of war] by the Zulu. I pretty much scoff at the notion and proceed as usual, waiting for them to send some sacrificial units that I can easily blow to kingdom come. A turn passes, then several, then I forget about the war entirely and switch back to building stuff.

And then I lose the goddamn game.

How, you ask? Well, my small island nation had some fog of war in the far left corner. Nothing there but empty tundra, so who cares. Apparently, Mr. Shaka used that spot as a disembarkation point for what I can only assume were an INFINITE number of cavalry. I just sat there and stared at the never-ending line of cavalry units running at my cities and getting slaughtered, over and over and over again, occasionally chipping some hp from the defenders until they won. I counted at least 30 units before I lost track. I still don t know how many he actually had.

To this day, the very first thought in my head when somebody mentions Civilization, is that damn sound loop of: pa-tup pa-tup, pa-tup pa-tup, blam blam, boom, bleaaargh, flop. Reddit user Grumpy_Hedgehog

The Siberian war machine

When I was a kid I broke my leg playing hockey. I was going to be laid up all summer and I was really bummed about it. My brother surprised me by buying me Civilization 1. On my first game I was playing as America on Earth. I took over all of the US and Canada and thought I was doing just oh-so-great. I had a solid garrison of archers and spearmen in every city, tons of tile improvements, etc. Suddenly a civ I haven't met unloads about four dozen freakin tanks onto the shores of New York, and THIS GUY and his epic 8-bit music pops up telling me I'm about to die.

Turns out that if left alone, the Civ 1 Russia on Earth could leverage Siberia like crazy since it was all "forest" rather than ice or tundra tiles. So Stalin had many dozens of cities and tanks while everyone else is fielding knights. The red armies of Mother Russia overran my paltry forces in days and that music has forever after given me chills.

It was then that I knew I'd be hooked on this game series for life. Played every version, including Alpha Centauri, and I've loved them all. So far Civ 6 is as outstanding as I had hoped. Reddit user JonesitUp

Mandatory fun

I was playing a ring map with some friends as Egypt.

I was basically wonder spamming (Egypt's unique ability lets them build wonders faster) and was getting close to a cultural victory. Ultimately it was me and one other guy playing the game, once the less competitive people dropped out.

I was something like 99% influential over him when I got a Great Musician. Normally you can send a GM into another Civ's lands, but I didn't have an open borders agreement with him. Knowing I was going for the culture win, he refused to make that deal for obvious reasons.So I did what any culturally enriched dictator would do I declared war on him and held a CONCERT BY FORCE.

YOU WILL SIT AND YOU WILL FUCKING LISTEN TO THIS BEAUTIFUL MUSIC GERMANY

I won the game as a result and we died laughing in the process. RIP. Reddit user Patientbearr

The Trojan horse

I was playing vanilla Civ 5 with Japan (me) China and France and some other civilization that I can remember.

So we were on this big continent, China made a bunch of cities so its territory took like 3/5 of the continent, France and I shared the last 2/5. France was above me and China was below me.

During the whole game I was trying to go in the pacifist route, going for a cultural or technological win so I had little to no army, so I tried my hardest to get China to be friends with me so it could protect me just in case. China was at the modern era when we were still in the Renaissance with France, and had a bunch of Helicopters, tanks and a lot of other units.

France declared war on me for some reason, probably wanted a bigger territory but thankfully China came to the rescue and absolutely destroyed the French, who only had its capital remaining. France offered a peace treaty to me alongside a bunch of gold per turn and stuff so of course, being the pacifist that I was, I accepted. China didn't, however, and asked me to open my borders so it could destroy the French civ. Once again I said yes.

So China moved all of its army in my border to get to the French civ and suddenly declared war on me. The AI used the fact that France was above me to trick me into letting its army in my border. I was amazed at how smart the AI was (or how stupid I was to trust China) and I got destroyed in one turn. Reddit user RobbertFruit

Civilization 6 might be the most complete-feeling Civ game on its release in series history. I commented in my review that it feels like it already has about an expansion and a half worth of features compared to the launch build of Civ 5, and it s the most transformative step from one game to the next Firaxis has ever taken. Yet, there are still huge opportunities to be seized and threadbare or just plain boring systems that could be fleshed out or retooled. Here s where I think the devs should focus their efforts with upcoming expansions:

Make the map more dynamic 

Civ 6 is all about that beautiful, detailed map and how you interact with it. There s only one problem: It remains largely static and passive as an entity, changing only based on what you and your competing civs choose to build on it. In the real world, continents can undergo significant changes in 6000 years, both as a result of human activity and the whims of nature. For example, the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age that followed it saw significant changes in global climate between about 900 and 1900 CE. Swelling and receding tundra could upset or give a boost to food production in marginal regions.

There are plenty of other examples: The desertification of the African sahel. The disappearance of the Aral Sea. The Roman city of Pompeii being buried under ash. The devastating damage to urban centers by hurricanes, fires, and earthquakes in the 20th and 21st Centuries. And of course, the present age of global warming (which was even modeled in some previous Civ games by rising sea levels I miss stuff like that!) I ve talked before about how acts of the gods can be a hard thing to balance in terms of fun factor, but I think a well-designed expansion that takes this living map and makes it feel even more alive could be a huge win.And if we re going to shoot for the stars, I d adore a mechanic or scenario that allows the world to end in a nuclear apocalypse, unlocking a Post-Apocalyptic era with new units, techs, civics, and victory conditions.

Religion and culture need some love

Civ 6 launched with in-depth religion and culture systems, as well as a religious victory condition for the first time in the series. There s just one problem: they re not very fun. The religious game basically boils down to spamming missionaries faster than your opponents, and theological combat is a shallow affair, with only three unit types and no real tactics or planning involved. Culture also seems to be a pretty basic port of the tourism system from Civ 5 s expansions, and while it has some nifty late-game tie-ins like archaeology and national parks, it s still not really a victory I get excited about. More than once, I ve won with culture when I wasn t even trying to do so on the Prince difficulty.

Both of these systems need a dose of added strategy and excitement. Maybe instead of missionary spam, preachers and apostles could act like spies that you station in enemy cities to perform missions? If we re going to keep theological combat, we could at least use some kind of rock-paper-scissors dynamic with a few new units, and maybe some support options (like a 'Grand Inquisitor' who gives an attack buff to all your inquisitors in a small radius). Culture-wise, I d love to see some kind of endgame project or mission to secure victory, instead of just waiting for a number to tick up. It s entirely passive and anticlimactic at this point. It doesn t require much decision-making, nor does it inspire late-game drama the same way a military victory or a neck-and-neck space race might.

Expand on the already great diplomacy system

Diplomatic interactions with other leaders are a major strength of Civ 6. Firaxis would be wise to build on this. The one victory condition from Civ 5 we re missing so far is the Diplomatic one, and we also lack the late-game shake-up that was the United Nations. Such an addition could mesh beautifully with AI agendas and the casus belli system. Perhaps the UN could pass a motion that makes religious war justification unlawful, for example. It would also be great to see late-game treaty alliances like NATO or the Warsaw Pact in a Civ game. Perhaps even a shared Diplomatic Victory condition, if that s not too blasphemous?

While we re at it, I think Civ could benefit from adopting a few more things from the grand strategy genre, like deeper diplomatic relationships. Maybe you don t want to conquer a neighbor s cities, but rather make them into a vassal or tributary state. Maybe diplomacy-focused countries could establish something like a sphere of influence, granting benefits to their allies but also allowing them to spread their culture to sphered civs more easily? If there s one thing Civ 6 is primed for, it s building upon the diplomacy game to create a volatile and stimulating ecosystem of trade deals, multinational organizations, and political skullduggery.

Those of you familiar with Civilization 5's modding scene will likely know of Gedemon's Yet (not) Another Earth Maps Pack which added planet Earth to the 4X 'em up in varying sizes. Those of you who aren't, know that its Giant Earth 180x96 map was blooming huge. And know that it's now coming to Civilization 6 alongside a new Ludicrous 230x115 map option.

Released last week, the latest of Sid Meier's strategy games is for now without Steam Workshop support but that obviously hasn't stopped modders getting to work. Across both sizes, over 50 civs can be set in YnAEM, and, while the mod is currently in 'alpha 3' state, its creator has put the Ludicrous map through 500 turns in autoplay with 32 civs without issue (Gedemon's build is pretty powerful, mind: i7 4770K CPU, 16GB RAM, GTX 980 ti GPU).

Gedemon does however lead with a warning:

"The giant map is already way above the size of the huge map, it may or may not load on your PC (and will take some time to do so), the Ludicrous map is the max map size before the game refuse to load, and will take more than 4-5 minutes to load (or crash). I'd suggest to lower the textures size in the video option, the game use almost all the 6GB of VRAM of my GPU."

Hitting turn 240, the average turn time was two minutes, while at 470 turn times averaged four minutes. As it stands, true starting locations aren't implemented.

Strategy aficionado T.J. Hafer described Civilization 6 as the "most engrossing, most rewarding, most challenging 4X in any corner of the earth" in his review last week, and I do wonder with so much going on in this mod, could Tyler really play Civ 6 without ever founding a city?

Details on how to install can be found here.

You can play Civilization 6 without ever founding a city not even with your first Settler in the Ancient Era but only kind of. I first tried this without modding Civ 6 at all, hoping that if I acted fast enough, I could level up my starting Warrior by finding settlements, and then successfully siege and take a city-state. This did not work.

As you can see in the screen above, Brussels easily defeated my Warrior, took my Settler, and I lost on turn 16. I hope that's a record. But I was determined to find a way to play Civ 6 without founding any cities, because once I decide on a stupid self-imposed rule there's no giving up. So I allowed myself only a slight change: I modified Eras.xml so that I would start in the Ancient Era with two Warriors and an Archer. I cheated, but only just enough to get off the ground. It's hardly even cheating, if you think about it, but please don't think about it.

Within minutes I had done it: I started a game, and without founding a city I captured a capital, Toronto. This is pretty impressive, considering I didn't cheat even a little bit. Not at all.

As a Canadian, I should probably be offended that Toronto is a city-state and not part of the great Canadian civilization. Really, I'm more bothered that they chose Toronto and not Quebec City or Montreal, both of which have greater history. But who cares: Canada is Aztec country now.

This whole scenario gives me an idea: what about a game where everyone starts with two Warriors and an Archer, but no Settler at all? The only way forward for each civ would be to capture a city-state as its capital. Sounds fun, though I'm doubtful the AI can handle it. I try it anyway.

On first attempt, it doesn't work at all. I forgot that when I conquered Toronto, I was playing as the Aztecs, who have a special Eagle Warrior unit that replaces the Ancient Era Warrior. With two regular Warriors and an Archer, there was no way I could capture a city state: my Archer could only do 15-21 damage per turn, and the city regenerated 20 health per turn. My Warriors, meanwhile, couldn't attack without losing most of their health and needing several turns to heal.

If you're wondering why that image is so orange, I was playing at 1 am (naturally, it's Civ) and forgot I had Flux on. You should use it. But also turn it off for screenshots. Anyway, I went back to mucking with Eras.xml to see if I could start with no Settler, two Warriors, and two Archers to make this work, but no matter what I did Civilization 6 seemed insistent on starting me with only one Archer. Eventually I got frustrated and just pasted a bunch of units in and that's when it decided to work.

Well this is nice, isn't it? I have no problem taking a city-state as my capital with this army: in just nine turns, I capture Nan Madol. Unfortunately, the world rankings suggest my AI opponents aren't so clear on how to proceed. I lead in every victory category because they haven't captured cities. I give it a few more turns, but no luck. I'm the only one who knows how this game is played.

So let's go back to my first game, where everyone started with a Settler but I just chose not to use it. I may be dead broke (units cost upkeep money even if you don't have a city generating gold) but I've captured Toronto, and now I have my sights set on Buenos Aires.

Buenos Aries falls easily. I like that unprotected cities aren't a huge deal to take early on in Civ 6. But with all my troops scattered as I seek out new states to conquer, I become worried that I may be subject to the same treatment: my neighbor to the east, Egypt, randomly got in touch to tell me that my army is puny and I'm dumb. Or something like that. The point is that it was rude, and greatly displeased the people of Aztec-Canada.

Without declaring war, Cleopatra beings amassing troops near the border of Toronto. With my starting Settler still nestled in the city which is sort of annoying because it means I can't hide Builders there during wartime I begin moving troops to confront my Egyptian foes. It's time to see if, despite being behind by several turns of production and research, I can make an Ancient Era civilization mine.

Egypt only has two cities, Shedet and the capital, R -Kedet. I march toward the weaker city of Shedet, and thanks to my Archers and Aztec Eagle Warriors, I capture it without much trouble even before my brand new catapult makes the trek from Toronto. Buenos Aires, meanwhile, is being defended from Civ 6's more aggressive Barbarians by a single Archer, which is a pain in the ass, but I manage to complete the Hanging Gardens there anyway. Things are looking pretty good for my no-city-founding playthrough.

I was always irked by how Civilization 5 discouraged conquering with revolts and unhappiness not that bombarding a city with arrows and then marching in with axes wouldn't cause those things, but it was such a pain I typically installed puppet governments or razed cities when what I really wanted to do was expand my empire while keeping it under my creative control. To a degree, I think it was Civ 5's wording that turned me off captured cities didn't really feel like mine, even if I got them up and running again.

I'm glad Civilization 6 simplifies this: Keeping a city no longer suspends its production, instead making it less productive until the war is over and it's negotiated for at the peace table. It's lost a bit of Civ 5's nuance eg, installing a puppet government until the war is over, and then annexing only the best cities when you can afford to buy courthouses to cheer everyone up (when have they ever done that?) but I feel much more encouraged to expand through war if that's what I want to do. And with my rule that I won't found any cities, it's the only way forward.

Instead of settling things at the peace table, though, I've decided to smash the peace table with an axe. Every few turns Cleopatra offers me a deal, even offering to let me keep Shedet, but I ignore her and march toward R -Kedet. Despite all her big talk, she didn't have much of an army at all (this was on Prince difficulty, so not too hard). Egypt falls to the Aztecs.

I never took an aggressive approach in Civ 5, preferring to expand on my own and turtle. But I was always annoyed by city-states hogging land I wanted, so much that I started turning them off altogether. Now that early wars aren't quite so much of a drain, though, I'm really enjoying being an all out warmonger in Civ 6. I would make a terrible world leader.

If you want to muck with the starting conditions yourself, it's pretty easy. Find your Civilization 6 install folder, which if it's in Steam's default location will be C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization VI.

From there, navigate to \Base\Assets\Gameplay\Data and find Eras.xml. Make a copy of it to back it up, then open it in a text editor. Scroll down to the 'MajorStartingUnits' section and you'll find a bunch of lines which define which units players start with depending on the starting era, some with extra variables, such as 'AIOnly' which gives the AI extra units at harder difficulties.

If you want to start an Ancient Era game with an archer, for instance, you'd add the line:

I had to do some experimenting because as I mentioned, it mysteriously refused to accept my changes for a while (which probably just means I introduced a typo somewhere), but using the existing lines as examples you should be able to set up any starting units you like. Scroll further in the file and you can define starting buildings, governments, civics, and techs as well.

If I manage to win this game without ever founding a city, I'll let you know. But more likely, because it's what I always do with Civ, I'll get to the Renaissance Era and decide to start over with a new stupid rule.