Civilization VI’s City-State Picker and December 2020 update are now live

Back in November, I rushed through Civilization VI‘s tech tree as Babylon. Part of me wondered if it was even possible to offset its innate penalties if I prioritized only science-boosting city-states. Now, I can answer that question thanks to the game’s December 2020 update. It’s still a “no,” but, hey, Babylon’s still ridiculously good.

Anyway, Civilization VI‘s December 2020 update adds a feature known as the City-State Picker. It’s also got several changes and balance tweaks to in-game mechanics.

Civilization VI‘s December 2020 update and the City-State Picker

Civilization VI’s City-State Picker is a feature that allows you to select specific city-states that can appear during a campaign. You don’t need to worry because this is neither a limited-time event nor a separate game mode. It’s just an option found under “Advanced Setup -> Select City-States.”

From this screen, you can choose which city-states would pop up as you’re playing on the map. Would you like the most overpowered ones, praying that you’ll be the first to spot them? Or would you prefer focusing on a particular type such as Religious, Militaristic, Industrial, and the like?

Of course, you’ll want to consider your overall strategy, too. Your chosen Civilization VI faction and leader should have strengths suited to a victory type and the existing city-states help you get there. Can you imagine churning out powerful units as Byzantium or Gran Colombia bolstered primarily by Religious or Militaristic city-state types?

Apart from the aforementioned feature, the December 2020 update for Civilization VI also has lots of tweaks and changes. These include tweaks to the AI, allowing you to tell an opponent to stop pestering you with trade requests and other diplomatic treaties. Likewise, there’s also a change to governor promotions in relation to Secret Societies. Back then, Magnus (with only two quick promotions) had you churning out settlers that don’t cost population. Now, you can only get a promotion/title from the first Secret Society you discover, so that strategy will take you a few more turns to accomplish.

In any case, you can learn more from Firaxis’ patch notes and the YouTube video below: