If there’s one thing fans of Firaxis’ Civilizationseries have come to rely on, it’s change. Civilization VIcontinues that honorable tradition, striking balance between fresh and familiar.

After hours of hands-on time, we’ve fallen in love with some of the big adjustments in the upcoming release. If you’ve ever considered diving into a Civilizationgame, Civ VIis the best point of entry since Civilization Revolutionwas released on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and mobile devices in 2008.

SEE ALSO:How 'Civilization VI' aims to improve upon perfection

But if you’re a longtime fan, you might be wondering what changes are in store. Here are the five biggest things you’ll need to consider as you build your empire and negotiate with your rivals.

1. Urban sprawl is delightful

Credit: Firaxis Games

Cities are the lifeblood of any Civilizationgame. In entries of yesteryear, whether a newly founded outpost or infrastructure-rich metropolis, a city only occupied a single square or hex. Civilization VI“unstacks” your towns, allowing them to expand across your territory.

While urban sprawl isn’t typically desired in the real world, it serves to massively improve the experience in Civ VI. Some improvements do take place in your city center, but most of what you’ll build is erected on nearby hexes.

Theater districts, industrial zones and campuses are built from the production queue and can be enhanced over time with complementary buildings (like amphitheatres, factories and libraries, respectively). These exist alongside your basic improvements constructed by builder units, like farms, mines and pastures.

The greater focus on urban planning borrows a bit from another Firaxis franchise: XCOM. In XCOM: Enemy Unknownand this year’s XCOM 2, the strategy layer emphasizes adjacency bonuses and requires attention to longer term planning. Those concepts translate to Civilization VIwell, replacing the previously optional, boring city micromanagement with more engaging macro-level choices.

2. Say goodbye to lollygagging workers, hello to efficient builders

Credit: Firaxis Games

While not nearly as glamorous as the early spearmen or your late-game nuclear submarine, the timeless worker unit has been a Civilizationstaple for years. With the latest entry, your empire’s blue collar buddy has a new name and set of skills.

The builder is one of a number of consumable units, a category that also includes religious apostles and naturalists. By default, you can take three improvement actions before builders fade into history, though certain civic policies and wonders can beef that up. The trade-off is that clearing woods and other natural features or building farms and mines happens instantaneously.

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Later in the game, you’ll likely be spending gold to purchase new builders as needed rather than diverting valuable production time. No longer will you have workers sitting idle on tiles in the late game, especially since Civilization VIalleviates one of that unit’s key functions.

3. All roads lead to gold

Credit: FIRAXIS GAMES

With farms and mines constructed and your cities humming along in previous Civgames, your worker units often became road construction crews. Highways are crucial improvements that allow your military units and trade convoys to speed to their destination at drastically reduced movement cost. Civilization VIautomates that process and eliminates one of the biggest hassles of the last entry.

Trade routes have always been important, serving as a vital way to keep your empire’s coffers full. In Civ VI, they can also deliver food, production and culture from your other cities or international destinations. Once a trade route is completed, a road will automatically connect its point of origin to the destination.

Additionally, completing a trade route will establish a trading post at the far end. This can be used to “refresh” movement allowance, giving your convoys a way to reach previously too distant destinations. The best part? We don’t have to wonder why our workers’ aren’t following through with our “route to” order when outside our borders.

4. Military escorts can protect civilian units once more

Credit: FIRAXIS GAMES

Civilian units are important investments for a growing society. Spending all those turns training a settler or a builder in the early game is a significant commitment, and the last thing you want is for them to die from a barbarian attack. Civilization VIrestores an important feature that was cut from the last entry.

You’ll now be able to link an armed guard to a civilian unit. This small change is an enormous quality of life improvement. In Civ V, we had to manually move military troops with settlers. This often led to movement miscalculations and mis-clicks that exposed unarmed units to potential capture or death.

Linking takes the guesswork out and allows us to plot multi-turn moves without worry. Your innocent settlers now have a fighting chance en route to their new home.

5. Religion replaces diplomacy as a victory condition

Credit: FIRAXIS GAMES

Religion has long played a varied, but important role in the Civilizationseries. Faith in cities has, in the past, contributed to cultural victory and eased (or worsened) diplomatic tensions. Instead of simply being a facet of cultural output, religion finally gets its due in Civilization VI.

In order to secure a religious victory, you’ll need to found a religion and begin spreading it around the world. You do this through apostles, missionaries and inquisitors that can bring your beliefs to other cities or cleanse your territory of heretics. Should you manage to convert a majority of every other empire’s cities, you’ll clinch the victory.

Preaching the gospel is not without its perils, though. Other leaders will not look kindly on you if you exert enough pressure to flip one of their cities (even if you don’t actively spread your beliefs through unit actions). Chances are that they’ll denounce you and could even use a “Casus belli” to go to war without suffering the full warmongering diplomatic penalty.

There’s a good chance that pursuing a religious victory will land you in a holy war against at least one other society. Just remember that “pious” isn’t the same as “peaceful.” Don’t neglect your military forces.

The religious victory replaces one of the legacy win conditions. Diplomatic victories have needed a re-work for a while, in the past relying on simply building the United Nations and later a vote within those hallowed halls to elect a World Leader (and by extension, a winner). We suspect that diplomacy might retake its seat at the victory table in the future, possibly in a Civ VIexpansion.

There are a lot of smaller changes to uncover along the way to the information age. But for now, consider yourself forewarned and forearmed for Civilization VI’s October 21 release on PC.

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