Civilization VI for Mac catches up to its PC counterpart, adds Rise & Fall

Rise and Fall available for PC/Mac/Linux •

iPad version available w/o Rise & Fall expansion •

Mac gamers are used to being disappointed when it comes to new games not making their way to our preferred platform. I know, it’s my own damn fault for expecting my MacBook Pro to compete with a Windows machine but, dammit, I so much prefer my Mac for doing what I’m doing right now, namely writing. So, without the resources to have both, I’m saddled with a Mac for gaming. I’m still waiting for Divinity: Original Sin 2 to come to Mac (I kickstarted it not realizing it was going to be Windows only) and have been waiting patiently for Aspyr to bring the first Civ VI expansion–which arrived on Windows in early February–to Mac.

Today, I was totally surprised when I loaded up Steam and, lo and behold, there was a 2 GB update. What could it be? Yes, Rise and Fall has come to Mac.

As we covered back in January, Rise and Fall is Civilization VI’s first major expansion and it adds several new mechanisms which aren’t just brand new to Civ VI, but to the Civ series in general. We have Governors which are NPCs you can actually hire to run your cities. They will level up, granting more and more abilities to their home town, and there are several different ones to choose from, each with their own personality and powers.

The second one is loyalty, which will have your subjects leaving in droves if you don’t do enough to placate them. This is similar to culture in past games, where cities would flop to an enemy over time, but here it’s a little more subtle and you can actually track the likelihood of people heading for greener pastures.

The last major addition is History, which are moments immortalized in your civ’s past via a new Historical Timeline. The amount of historical milestones you hit will contribute to the likelihood of you entering a dark or golden age when the next age rolls around. Unlike in the past, where ages were entered based on each civ’s own research, here they happen for all civs simultaneously, making it a race to have your civ do enough cool things before time runs out.

The biggest news here isn’t with new mechanisms, but with the fact that, I think, this means the Mac version has finally caught up to the PC version in terms of DLC and updates. It also opens up a big question in regards to the iPad version: does this mean we’ll see some new content (and possibly a catching up to the PC/Mac version) on the iOS side of the aisle? I hope so, as I adore playing Civ VI on my iPad, and I’d love to not have to sit at my desk to experience all that Civ VI has to offer. Time will tell.

• Civilization VI for iPad, free ($60 to unlock full game)
• Civilization VI for PC/Mac/Linux via Steam, $60
• Civilization VI for Mac via Mac App Store, $40

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