TL;DR – We continue to chart Civilization VI as we dive into the new expansion pack and map out all the new civilizations.

Map-It –

For today’s map, we looking at the new Rise and Fall expansion for Civilization VI. So we are including everything in the base game of Civilization VI, as well as what was included in the Poland, Viking, Australia, Persia/Macedonia, Nubia, and South East Asia DLC packs, and today we are adding upon that the Rise and Fall expansion pack. If you would like to see our original map looking at the base game you can Click Here, if you would like to see the cities for each civ in the base game Click Here. A big thanks to everyone over at Civfanatics who helped by collate all this information in their Features Thread. Now there are going to be a number of large images after the page break, so if you are on a mobile device and need to watch your data, now is the time to jump onto Wifi.

Rise and Fall Civilization Map

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So in our first map today I thought it would be best to start with the least cluttered map and that the map of just the civilizations found in the Rise and Fall expansion. I mean just look at it, there is only one area of overlap on the entire map, and it is beautiful. So just before we move on a reminder about the territory placement on the maps. As with the first map, it is based entirely on the leader that Firaxis chose to lead the civilization. So I used the death of the civilization’s leader for Monarchies (or when they abdicated for The Netherlands and India), or when they left office for Democracies as the baseline. I am not claiming any intrinsic claim on any territory past present or future by depicting them as such on this map. I will go into more detail about why I picked each map on the cities map which I hope to have out a bit after the game is released.

With the expansion, we are getting a mix of Civilization staple civilizations, as well of a number of newer additions. So, of course, we have Mongolia and The Zulus, these are civilizations that have been in every game since the first iteration and this now leaves only Babylon as the only civilization from Civilization I not to be in the game. To go along we also get everyone’s favourite science civilization with Korea, and also #GottaBuildEveryPolderPossible because The Netherlands are here, and I want to fill all the map with their tulip goodness. Also, I have added India, now yes India was in the base game, but it got a second leader in the expansion and since it would have a different territory I thought it would be fun to show it here.

However, for me, the really interesting additions are the four new civilizations that have never been in a Civilization game before, and if you exclude India’s second leader it means we have a 50/50 split between brand new civilizations and those who have come before. Now we have already have written an article about Tamar of Georgia (see here) so I won’t go much more into that other than I totally called it. But what I have found really fascinating is the choice for the final three civilizations, Scotland, The Cree, and The Mapuche. Even though these civilizations are from different continents and different cultures, they actually all share a couple of similarities. They have all fought for their independence against colonial oppressors, they all eventually lost those battles, and they have all had recent issues about redressing the damage done by these colonial oppressors (you can also add The Zulu in here too). It is such a bold pick for a game to start to introduce some of the issues around post-colonialism, though of course they still play like every other civilization, but baby steps. Indeed, with both The Cree and The Mapuche it was actually quite difficult to place the territorial borders as they were not that well defined by western historians, or for the Cree, there were Treaty arrangements that were agreed to and then not really implemented by Canada, so where do you define it from there. So in both these cases, I have tried to find the best options, but there was a lot of debate.



Wonder/City State Map

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One of the things Civilization excels at is making you feel like you are playing in the world even when most people are not playing TSL (True Starting Locations) or even on the world map. This is through the civilizations you play with and meet, but also all the other real-life gems that they populate the game with. So here we have the map that charts all the other key features from Civilization VI, the City States, Natural Wonders, and World Wonders. Now because of the way the map works we have not separated out the Rise and Fall features, but I’ll talk about them so you know what to look out for if you want to pick up anything new. For example, we have two new City States, Babylon and Antioch which replace Korea and Amsterdam respectively who are now civilizations in their own right.

To start with let’s have a look at the natural world, and in Rise and Fall we get seven new Natural Wonders to explore on the maps, unless they are like the Galapagos Islands which I am assured is a Natural Wonder but I have never seen them in game and at this point I think I am part of some elaborate joke where I am the punchline. So we get the Delicate Arch, Eye of the Sahara, Lake Retba, Matterhorn, Mount Roraima, Ubsunur Hollow, and Zhangye Danxia. This is a great bunch of wonders, like the Matterhorn that is almost a must to capture and control if you find it lest your enemies beat you to it. As well as this, they are from every continent on the planet, bar Australia, and no I am not pointing that out because I am salty that I think they got the wrong pink lake. Ok, look, maybe I am, however, it is good to see the wonders map spread out some more, though you can still draw a crescent from Eyjafjallajökull to Apadana and then up to Kōtoku-in and you would get a line where most of the features on the map would find themselves nearby.

The same can be said for the eight man-made wonders in the game, where we once again have a mix of returning favourites like Statue of Liberty and the Taj Mahal, oh and also while St Basil’s Cathedral has been in the game since Civilization IV, this time it is not called the Kremlin, as well as, new wonders like Kōtoku-in. From this new bunch, I really like the Kilwa Kisiwani which boosts both your envoys and gives you some mad yields if you have been playing the City State game. Also, the Casa de Contractación which you can use to really build up far away cities, which will be important with the new loyalty mechanic. It will be interesting to see if the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station wonder becomes the Petra of the artic, but you will notice that it is not found on the South Pole on this map, and well, look it is close enough.

Chaos all in Civilization Map

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Now before we end today’s mapping session I thought it would be good to take a moment to explore the chaos that is when you squish all 33 civilizations into the one map, and well it is called chaos for a reason. One minor change is that you will notice that Australia is a different colour in this map that is because their in-game colours have been changed, and I am grateful for this because finding an orange for both the Netherlands and Australia that worked but that you could see the difference between was turning into quite the dilemma.

Now even with all 33 civilizations on the map there actually are some holes that could use being filled like the Niger River valley in Africa, or whilst we are here, the Swahili Coast. One area that is already filled to the brim is the ‘Greece to India corridor’, and let’s be honest there is likely to be at least some of following: Carthage, Ottomans, Byzantium, Assyria, Babylon, or the Hittites coming, and I have a feeling this is going to get much more crowded before we are done.

So thank-you for exploring the new Rise and Fall expansion for Civilization VI in map form, I’m not sure what the game is going to be like until I get my hands on it later this week, but at the very least it was fun mapping it out.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen any odd maps in Movies, TV or Video Games? Let us know in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.

Credits – The World Map that we used was created by ‘San Jose’ which is shared with a Creative Commons Licence, The World Wonder and Natural Wonders images were created by Firaxis Games

Lead Designer – Anton Strenger

Lead Engineer – Ken Grey

Producers – Dennis Shirk & Ed Beach

Writing – Pete Murray

Marketing – Sarah Darney

Art Director – Brian Busatti

Music – Geoff Knorr & Roland Rizzo

Developer – Firaxis Games

Publisher – 2K

Disclosure – I am a moderator on the site Civfanatics of which several staff and players are members of the ‘Frankenstein Testing Group’, Firaxis Games internal playtesting team. I am not part of this team nor do I have any links with Firaxis Games or 2K.