Robots are brilliant! There's almost no problem they can't fix. Whether it's your lack of a chilled beer, the continued non-eradication of human existence, or the finicky way Civilization V handles multiplayer match-ups. That last problem has been solved by Giant Multiplayer Robot, which is actually a website, not a robot. Although maybe it's a website run by a robot.

Currently in beta, the service aims to make Civ 5 multiplayer easier to organise, by removing the need for all players to be logged in at the same time. Instead, the client uses the game's hotseat mode, automatically swapping the save file between players. The app's creators (who, if you remember, may be robots) have made a video to show the system in use:



The service also offers other improvements to the hotseat mode, by allowing players to leave an in-progress game, customise the turn-timer, and even use mods. That Adventure Time-themed multiplayer campaign that I know you've been dreaming of? Totally possible.

You can check out Giant Multiplayer Robot, which has just been updated with Brave New World support, at the app's website.

In addition to making the world Brave and New, Civ 5’s latest expansion can also make it a little confusing at first. With the huge changes to trade, culture, and diplomacy, you’ll probably want to know a few things before you start shepherding your next civilization to victory. Listen closely, my liege...
Trade Routes are your main source of income
Before Brave New World, the main way to boost your income for most of the game was with buildings and, sometimes, tile improvements. Now, the new trade route system is what will be filling the lion’s share of your coffers. If you want to get rich quick, research caravans (and later, cargo ships), and max out your trade route limit as early as possible.

Also keep in mind that trade routes are more profitable the more resources each partner has that the other doesn't. A wise Trade Prince will want to found cities on scarce luxuries for maximum profit. And don’t forget to protect your trade routes from pirates and barbarians with a decent army and navy.
Tourism is thine sword, Culture is thine shield
The new method of culture victory involves overpowering the Culture of all other civs with your Tourism. If you’re going for a Culture victory, this makes it important to get your culture train rolling as early as possible. But you were already doing that to stack those amazing policy bonuses, weren't you? Weren't you?!

If Culture victory sounds like your thing, be aware that you won’t be able to generate a lot of tourism early on. Do whatever you can to boost your rate of Great Person generation, and rush like mad for the wonders that can hold Great Works with excellent theming bonuses. You will need to do some trading to make the most of said bonuses, but be sure you don’t trade away something you’re going to need for another slot later.




Control the World Congress, control the end game
The World Congress becomes possibly the deciding factor for the rest of the game from the moment it’s founded. Other than enabling Diplomatic Victory, it allows you to cripple your rivals by non hostile means... though they can do the same to you. It can give you a leg up on other victory types with shared wonders and mandated research funding. Ignore it at your peril.

By extension, City-State allies are now even more important, as they come to represent a majority of the possible votes in the World Congress as the eras draw on. I haven’t played a single game of Brave New World in which I didn't end up taking the Patronage policy tree to exploit this. Be nice to the little guys, and their votes will lead you to dominance.
How I learned to stop worrying and love the new ideology system
Ideologies (Freedom, Order, and Autocracy) have changed a fair bit. You now have an incentive not to join the prevailing world ideology, as the first civ to choose each branch gets two, free policies. They also now tie into the tourism system. Civs with high Tourism can cause unrest in civs using a different ideology where their culture is popular.

Also beware power blocs with lots of city-state allies, as they can pass a resolution in the World Congress instating a “World Ideology,” making it very hard for anyone outside that ideology to get anything passed ever again. A similar resolution exists for World Religion.

With the above suggestions in mind, you should be prepared to face the Brave New World that awaits you. Oh yeah, and Alexander is still a huge jerk.

Read our review of Brave New World.

Civilization V was always the most fun just before the end of the Renaissance, with the experience sliding into a slog post industrialization. The new mechanics added in the previous expansion, Gods and Kings, grow less relevant, and you’re either well on your way to your chosen victory condition, or pretty far from it. Brave New World creates an endgame that is as varied, textured, and tense as the early and mid game already were. Overhauls to the cultural and diplomatic victories have made achieving either of these a more hands-on, aggressive process that will keep you making meaningful decisions and planning ahead.

The most noticeable chunk of these improvements comes in the form of the World Congress, an expansion of the United Nations that was (and still is) the path to diplomatic victory. Now coming into play in the late Renaissance/early Industrial era (when things used to bog down), the nations of the world and their city-state allies can vote on measures like banning nuclear weapons, building cooperative wonders, or embargoing a given civ—with truly devastating economic consequences, given the moneymaking potential of the new trade route system.

Whereas income was largely a matter of upgrading your cities before, Trade Routes are now the main means of generating gold. Following the expansion's theme of making passive game elements more active, you'll build caravans and cargo ships, then decide where to send them. You need to be trading with other civs or city-states to generate cash, which adds another interesting diplomatic layer. If you're a megalomaniacal conqueror hated by all, you'll find yourself without trading partners, and your economy will almost certainly crash.

It’s important to protect your trade routes with a strong navy, and some certifiably bad dudes on islands.

The other new mechanic is Tourism, a resource that opposes the culture value of other civs. If your Tourism outpaces their Culture, you can eventually become Influential among their people. Doing so with all remaining civs is the new means of achieving cultural victory. Tourism is generated by Great Works of Art, Writing, and Music, each created by a new or revised form of Great Person. The new systems take Culture Victory from probably the most boring way to end the game to one of the most active and engaging.

Serenissima!
 
Of the nine new civilizations added for this expansion, I was especially captivated by Venice. Essentially a playable city-state that can never found or annex new cities, Venetians rely on the ability to build double the number of trade routes as anyone else, which becomes a licence to print money in the late game. It's probably the most out-of-the-box civ in the franchise’s history, and playing it is a whole new experience.

Firaxis has also thrown in a group of new historical scenarios: the lackluster American Civil War, and the Scramble for Africa. This latter option is a deep, extremely replayable map, featuring a randomly-generated, explorable interior for the continent and three different victory conditions. Each of the three groupings of civs—Europeans, North Africans, and Sub-Saharan Africans—have very different goals, and because the map is different each time, playing the same culture group twice doesn't diminish the scenario’s great sense of discovery. It stands alongside the likes of Fall of Rome as some of the most fun I’ve had with Civ V.

Discovering a new, randomly-generated landscape every time is what makes the Scramble for Africa scenario shine.

Comparing diplomats to pope hats, Brave New World isn't quite as much of a step forward as the Gods and Kings expansion. But the later eras are an entirely new affair, solving some of the game’s largest problems in novel and enjoyable ways. Brave New World’s additions to the already-excellent Civ V have resulted in the high point of the franchise, and one of history’s greatest turn-based strategy experiences.

The picture - the header of our Thief review from 1999 - may be a bit of a giveaway, but why not? It's Friday, after all. We can indulge in a little bit of misty-eyed nostalgia without fear of our bosses asking us why we're staring wistfully into space and making bow and arrow and mimicking guard-clubbing animations over and over again. That's the sort of freedom only the weekend can bring. Here's what we're planning to play between now and Monday, but what will you indulge in?

We like to live on the cutting edge here at PC Gamer, so this weekend Phil will be playing a bright new thing from Looking Glass called Thief: The Dark Project. Apparently it has these things called polygons and features lots of emergent crime and - wait - it's not 1998? Oh well, that's okay, Phil's planning to modernise it with the NewDark patch, which should help it run on his fancy pants modern computer box (it's not even beige!). He likes stealth. He likes crime, but he's never played the original Thief, so it should be an interesting education. Will cudgelling those broad, sharp-shouldered guards prove as interesting in a post-Dishonored/Deus Ex: Human Revolution world? We'll see.



Rich, meanwhile, is still playing Rogue Legacy from last week, but is also planning to dip back into Dota 2 to relax. Okay, maybe not relax. to hone his sense of focus in a highly competitive arena, which is Rich's equivalent of a summer break, really. Dota 2 fans can look forward to a proper release for Dota 2 in the coming month or so. The release itself is largely symbolic given the number of invites swimming around players' Steam inboxes, but it might come with a significant update and new heroes. Beyond that, there's The International 3. I'm determined to learn enough about Dota 2 before then to understand what is going on. I'd like to get in on the cheers and excitement triggered by plays like these:



I was lucky enough to review Saints Row: The Third, and liked it very much indeed, which is why I'm excited that Chris is going to give it a go this weekend. He's played the (very funny) opening hours, but there's so much yet to discover, the laser-shooting VTOL jets, that whole section set inside a computer, the bit with the tiger. After just a few hours, you have more toys than Batman, and the city is yours to boss. It's a riotous little power fantasy, elevated by a lust for silliness and a sense of abandon that, for some reason, reminds me of Dead Rising. I'm pretty sure there wasn't a penis bat in Dead Rising, though. FOR SHAME.



Graham will spend the weekend peering over a fine glass of port, listening to Tchaikovsky and calmly taking over the world with art in Civilization V: Brave New World. The second expansion, due out next week, adds new cultural victory conditions, and lets you use great artists in more interesting ways. If he doesn't come back to work in a top hat and start lecturing us on renaissance values then I will be surprised, and just a little bit disappointed.



Apparently it's going to be gloriously sunny here over the weekend, to which I say NO. I demand RAIN and TRENCH COATS. Evocative sci-fi adventure game Gemini Rue will answer the call, giving my mouse pointer control over the fate and actions of a hardboiled space-detective and an imprisoned amnesiac. Will our jump-suited captive regain his memories? Will our coated friend escape the clutches of the sinister Boryokudan? Will I ever master the fiddly cover-based gun combat system? Don't look at me, I'm only a few hours in. I might just stand in one of those beautifully drawn streets and listen to the rain for a while instead.



That's us, but how do you plan to escape the sunshine this weekend?

Sid Meier is second only, perhaps, to Tom Clancy in the ranking of “guys with their names at the front of game titles.” Unlike Clancy, though, Meier actually had a hand in developing legendary games like Sid Meier’s Civilization, Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri, Sid Meier’s Pirates!, and the original X-COM.

Meier hasn’t always courted the press, but over at Kotaku there’s a lengthy feature interview relating Meier’s recollection of pivotal moments in gaming history. For example, there’s the somewhat-disputed origin of the “Sid Meier’s” moniker that made its way to so many of our favorite games:

“We were at dinner at a Software Publishers Association meeting, and Robin Williams was there,” longtime collaborator Bill Stealey says. “And he kept us in stitches for two hours. And he turns to me and says ‘Bill, you should put Sid's name on a couple of these boxes, and promote him as the star.’ And that's how Sid's name got on Pirates, and Civilization.”

The interview also explores a lot of Meier’s personality, including some aspects that I had never known before. Meier is a devout Christian who plays music for his church. Though his games are frequently about violent times and places, there is never any blood or gore shown. He designs and creates his games by playing them, over and over, until they are fun.

For a ton of great anecdotes about the games and studios that defined Meier’s career and, in turn, defined an industry and a generation of gamers, check out the full profile.

Image from Firaxis.

Sid Meier's Civilization V’s newest expansion, Brave New World, doesn’t hit PC until July 9. But the drive of the human spirit to create great things is so indomitable, so profound, that the producers of the launch trailer refused to wait and instead released it today. For freedom! For progress!

Or maybe they put it out 11 days early because it’s got Keith David narrating, and that alone should pour some gas on the publicity fire.



We’ve had a lot of fun with Civ V and its various expansions, and we’ve been looking forward to diving into this one. It adds nine new civilizations including Morroco, Brazil, Venice, and Indonesia. The new civilizations and their leaders can strive toward eight new Wonders, including Broadway, the Globe Theatre, and the International Space Station.

Players can also look forward to conquering the world monetarily through new trade routes or bringing nations to order through the World Congress.

Brave New World hits on July 9 in the US and July 12 everywhere else. You can snag it for $30/£20.

Last month, we walked you through seven of the nine new civs coming in Civilization V: Brave New World. The final two, Venice and the Shoshone, were at our fingertips, but not yet revealed. With the official announcement out of the bag, we can finally talk about them, and give you our impressions and suggested strategies. They've been sitting in a notepad file on my desktop for a while, but if you cut the moldy parts off, they should taste fine.



Venice

Unique Ability: Serenissima
You can never build or capture settlers. You can never annex conquered cities.

Wait, what? That doesn't sound like a power.

Well, internal monologue, you get some benefits to balance this out. For instance, double the number of possible trade routes. You get a free Merchant of Venice (see below) when you research Optics. And in cities you've puppeted (which you can do, you just can't annex them), you're allowed to purchase buildings and units with gold as if you'd annexed the city. You just can't choose what they produce on their own time. Phew.

Unique Great Person: Merchant of Venice
In addition to all the things a Great Merchant (which they replace) can do, they can actually buy off a city-state with the click of a button, turning it into a puppeted city.

Unique Unit: Great Galleas
Were you expecting something crazy? You know, since all of Venice's other stuff is? Well, unfortunately, this is just a bigger, stronger Galleas. Next to everything else, I'd say it's a Pretty Good Galleas, at best.

Adviser T.J. says:
What the what? Okay, I freaking love Venice. They turn Civ V into a totally different game, which is something all expansions should aim to do. Removing settlers as a mechanic has huge implications, and it makes your capital the de facto and permanent lynchpin of your empire. Placement is going to be at least twice as important as it is normally, so don't be afraid to wander for a couple turns before setting down good ol' Venezia. Tradition, obviously, is a must. You'll also want to invest in Exploration, if for no other reason than to have a stronger navy for defending your eight bazillion trade routes. Victory-wise, Diplomatic seems like the way to go. Ally yourself to as many city-states as possible, and buy out the ones that ally with your political rivals. There's actually nothing they can do about it. Because you're Venice. And you're amazing.



The Shoshone

Unique Ability: Great Expanse
Newly-founded cities start with more territory, and units gain a bonus when fighting on Shoshone land.

Unique Unit: Pathfinder
Replacing the Scout, the Pathfinder is almost as powerful as a Warrior in combat, and they can choose which benefit they get from exploring Ancient Ruins (instead of getting a random one).

Unique Unit: Comanche Raiders
A cheaper, faster alternative to Cavalry.

Adviser T.J. says:
Venice is a pretty tough act to follow, but the Shoshone have some pretty cool opportunities. Larger starting city borders also means you can get more map vision faster, which works perfectly with Pathfinders. You'll want to claim as many ruins as possible, so I'd ignore warriors altogether in the early game (Pathfinders can hold their own almost as well) and spend a handful turns just cranking out Pathfinders. When you claim a ruin, take the Technology bonus whenever possible, and plan for a science victory. I also highly recommend grabbing the religious tenet that gives you bonus Faith for whatever type of land tile is most common near your start location. Since you'll have so much land so early, you should be able to dominate the religious game.

CAUTION: After all the whizz-bang pyrotechnics, gushing blood, heavy rock, and urgent shouting from a week long bombardment of E3 trailers, this sedate Civ 5: Brave New World featurette could be a dramatic shock to the system. Don't just play it, ease into it. Maybe make a cup of tea. If you're not British, why not give it a go anyway? They're really rather good.

Ready? Okay, now you can learn about the expansion's diplomacy overhaul, and the newly arriving World Congress.



This is the last of Firaxis' video round up for the expansion. If you missed any, they were: culture, ideologies, and trade.

Brave New World releases July 12th Internationally, and July 9th in the US.

Now that Civilization V has had a few years to mature, it's gone from Civ IV's scrawnier younger sibling to a full-grown adult (it's even shaving now, we hear). Firaxis' official patches and expansions—Gods & Kings, and now the upcoming Brave New World—have done a lot to help fill-out Civ V's feature set, but the amazing modding community has also been twisting knobs and adding content, with over 1500 mods available on Steam Workshop.

This list features most of our favorites of the bunch, but we've opted to leave out single civs and single maps (of which there are many) to focus on interface, graphics, and larger gameplay and campaign mods. For a quick glance at all our recommendations, check our Steam Workshop collection, and you're encouraged to recommend your favorites in the comments.
Utilities and Interface Tweaks
 


Civ V Unofficial Patch
Start here. The Unofficial Patch is a collection of upgrades which add detail to the interface such as promotion icons over units, city banners which show turns until border expansion, and an improved city view. Those and many more tweaks make it easier to see data at a glance, and there are also tools for modders, if you're looking to make this list's next addition.

You'll need the Gods & Kings version of the Unofficial Patch if you want to enjoy the G&K Enhanced Mod mentioned later (and I recommend you do). If you don't own the Gods & Kings expansion, grab Vanilla Enhanced, which includes the original Unofficial Patch.


Really Advanced Setup
Since we're all Really Advanced Players here, we can use Really Advanced Setup to do really advanced things. Really Advanced Setup lets you deactivate civs we don't want randomly chosen, decide if you want to start near the ocean, a river, or in a certain biome (grass, plains, hills, forest, etc.), set starting bonuses, change starting units, and more.

As I already obsess over designing the perfect starting scenario, this mod is dangerous—try not to spend more time tweaking resource distribution than playing.


PerfectWorld3
Using Perlin noise, PerfectWorld 3 builds an elevation map to create landforms, then uses "a simplified model of geostrophic and monsoon wind patterns" to generate climate—the results as I've observed them are notably more natural maps. The version on Steam Workshop was not uploaded by the creator, but works, and the original thread can be found at Civilization Fanatics.


City Limits
With a city or Settler selected, City Limits displays the maximum area city borders can expand into. With a Settler selected, it also shows the overlap your potential new city will have with adjacent settlements, which is useful for optimizing placement. Make this simple but very helpful mod yours on Steam Workshop.


Faster Aircraft Animations
Don't start an industrial revolution without it! Get it on Steam Workshop.


InfoAddict
If you graphed the crossover between people who like Civ V and people who like graphs, you'd be wasting your time—everyone likes graphs. Get lots of them with InfoAddict, which comes in Gods & Kings and vanilla flavors and charts the world's progress, international relationships, and demographics with unmatched detail.


Graphics Mods
 


R.E.D. Modpack
R.E.D. started back with Civ IV, and stands for Regiment and Ethnic Diversity. It adds visual variation to the units and adjusts their proportions so that tanks are no longer accosted by giant infantrymen and aircraft carriers aren't eclipsed by Renaissance Era ships. R.E.D. also changes up the formations so the units look less like they were copied and pasted into their tiles.

Get it on Steam Workshop.


R.E.D. Xtreme
Install the original R.E.D. Modpack first, then R.E.D. Xtreme to shrink and multiply your units' individual actors even more. People smaller than hills? What crazy ideas will the modding community come up with next? Civs which don't all issue identical uniforms?


Ethnic Units
With some reference help from the R.E.D. Modpack, Ethnic Units also diversifies the look of each civ's infantry and vehicles with reskins. It may not be wholly complete (I'm afraid I haven't spawned one of every available unit from every civ for scrutiny), but it makes an easily identifiable difference and is being updated continuously—as of this article's posting, the last change was made yesterday.


Gameplay and Total Conversion Mods
 


G&K Enhanced Mod
Along with the Unofficial Patch (which is required to use it), the Gods & Kings Enhanced Mod touches every mechanic in Civ V. The AI is more rational, barbarians are much tougher, and just about everything has been rebalanced.

One of my favorite, smaller features is its Oregon Trail-like decision prompts, such as "frequent seasonal floods of this river provide unusually fertile topsoil for farming," with options to pay for new irrigation canals, research better ways to protect homes from floods, or let the locals handle it. Really, all you're doing is spending gold to earn a little extra Science, city-state loyalty, or what-have-you, but the prompts add flavor to the story of a city and civilization.

Get it on Steam Workshop—if you don't have Gods & Kings, grab the vanilla version instead. It should be noted that quite a few commenters have reported significant bugs—I haven't been able to replicate them yet, but if you need to troubleshoot, there's a forum for that.


R.E.D. WWII Edition
Unlike the R.E.D. Modpack on the previous page, which just adjusts the looks of units, R.E.D. WWII is a total conversion World War II scenario pack. More than just some maps that look a bit like Europe, it adds features such as capturing and liberating tiles, supply lines, reinforcements, and hotseat play.

This collection on Steam Workshop includes the two mods required, R.E.D. WWII Data Files and R.E.D. WWII Edition, as well as a couple recommended mods, including a version of R.E.D. Xtreme which works with the conversion to scale down the units. Note that most of your other mods will not likely be compatible with R.E.D. WWII.


Prehistoric Era
If ancient history just isn't ancient enough for you, try cultivating a great civilization starting 2000 years prior to the invention of writing. Prehistoric Era kicks things off with cavemen and rock paintings, adding 10 technologies, five buildings, and four new units. City growth and research are a bit more sluggish until you reach the Classical Era, so you're in for quite an epic if you plan to play from the Prehistoric Era all the way to Giant Death Robots.


Civilization Nights
Civilization Nights deserves recognition just for being as massive as it is—it may be the most comprehensive overhaul of Civ V there is. The total conversion makes significant rules changes (Happiness is most notably revamped) and advertises over 50 new buildings and wonders with custom artwork, dozens of new units with their own models, new policies, a restructured tech tree, and as many tweaks as there are stars in the night sky. Well, not that many, but a lot—the details can be found in its Civilization Fanatics thread.

Unfortunately, Nights hasn't been updated since October of last year, but if you can get past any bugs or unfinished bits you may encounter, it's a unique way to experience Civ V.


A Mod of Ice and Fire
If George R.R. Martin killed your favorite character in A Song of Ice and Fire or HBO's Game of Thrones series—and, spoiler, he probably does—you can design your own hexagonal fate for the fantasy series' warring families. A Mod of Ice and Fire is the best GoT mod I know of—all 10 new leaders have unique traits and special units and buildings, the religions, Great People, and spies have been renamed, and the technology tree appropriately ends in the Renaissance Era. It also comes with a Westeros and Essos map, a just-plain Westeros map, and a map of The Known World.

Grab A Mod of Ice and Fire on Steam Workshop (requires Gods & Kings).


Yet (not) Another Earth Maps Pack
You've got to have a good earth! There are tons to choose from, but I like Yet (not) Another Earth Maps Pack for the variety it offers in one package. There are several maps here—including Europe and Mediterranean maps as well as the whole of earth—and some added setup features.

With the mod loaded, select "custom game" to get to its custom start screen, where you can select a version of earth, and adjust city-state placement and resource distribution.


Strange and Historical Religions
The names and icons of religions are just for flavor, but its still a treat to found the Brotherhood of Nod, Church of Star Trek, Pastafarianism, or any of the other fictional and real religions and philosophies included in the Strange Religions pack. Objectivism vs. Scientology, fight! Actually, please don't.

If you prefer more historically significant faiths, the Historical Religions mod will give you fun, hard to spell religions such as Tlateomatiliztli, Pesedjet, and Forn Siðr, complete with custom icons and their own Civlopedia entries. If you need even more ideological fidelity, grab the Historical Religions Schisms Addon too and divide Christianity into Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, and Protestantism.

The honeycombed world of Civilization V is all yours to plunder this weekend, with the turn-based strategy going free-to-play for all Steam users. The event comes to us to celebrate the onset of upcoming expansion Brave New World, which is now also pre-orderable.

The free "weekend" begins right now (if only real life would follow suit, huh?) and lasts until 1 p.m. PDT this Sunday. It's a good chance for non-owners of Civ to give it a whirl and decide whether or not to buy the base game and its upcoming expansion pack—Brave New World will retail for $30/£20 upon its July 12 release or at 10% off for pre-orders.

And finally, all editions of the Civ V franchise are also 75% off till June 11. If you play during the free weekend and decide to pick up Civ after that, don't worry; your saves will be carried over into your new copy of the game.