Gathering Storm will include river floods and famines among its various disasters but it has not been said if and how these will be tied to the climate change system. Likewise, the knowledge that anyone that wields the power of climate change will also be destroying themselves should be rooted in Gathering Storm too. The idea was that it would be impossible to win a nuclear war as both attacker and defender would be annihilated and thus was meant to deter world leaders from ever launching their arsenals. It was a concept imagined during the Cold War as a means of insuring a fragile peace. While you might be doing tremendous damage to your opponent, you cannot escape unscratched. Purposefully enacting climate change should always be an exercise in mutually assured destruction. While perhaps desperate players could harness the unpredictable forces of the climate in an attempt to redress the playing field, the consequences should always come back to them as well. Waging environmental war on your opponents is an interesting mechanic, but climate change is a weapon that cannot be aimed with laser precision and Gathering Storm should reflect this. Firaxis has said that land locked empires could purposely trigger sea level rises to destabilize their coastal neighbors. In fact, it has been suggested that climate change might be viable option for some players. Civilization as we know it will have to rapidly adapt to changing biomes and resource scarcity on a global level.īut Firaxis hasn’t addressed this when discussing the artificial climate change that Gathering Storm will bring, or at least the studio doesn’t want to talk about it. If climate change becomes as bad as predicted by the vast majority of scientists and scientific bodies, nowhere will be safe from the terrible consequences of climate change. We will also see an increase in natural disasters like hurricanes and intense storms around the world. On top of the political ramifications, climate change is also likely to increase the amount of global heat waves, droughts, and famines as well as their length and intensity. Our seas might rise as they will in Gathering Storm, rapidly eroding the coast and displacing millions, but the inland areas would not be a haven from the effects. From what we know, the possible outcomes of climate changes are not as targeted or precise as the game imagines. Unfortunately, Firaxis has chosen to weaponize the mechanic, rather than it. While real life governments continue to avoid the issue and the planet is worryingly close to an apocalyptic future, it would be great to have the chance to lead a nation to a green solution. The potential to melt the ice caps and rise the sea levels would do catastrophic damage to coastal cities and empires are examples of the consequences Firaxis is keen to highlight. Other effects the studio has mentioned are river floods, volcanoes, and other natural disasters. Starting from the industrial age, players will have to balance their strategic resources that now create pollution that could have long term effects on the game world. Firaxis claims the game is unmotivated by political overtones but that approach is misguided. Changing the climate in the game has a chance to comment on real world issues but it’s being used almost purely as a sugarcoated game mechanic, which is wasting its potential.įor the first time in the series, climate change will be a factor players have to consider. But the Gathering Storm expansion has a particular theme that has never been addressed in a Civilization game before: the climate. Gathering Storm will release early next year, and like all other expansions to the Civilization series, promises a lot of new features that will change how the game is played. Civilization 6 is getting another huge expansion soon.
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