Civilization VI came out in 2016, but just like with most games of its ilk, it has grown dramatically since release. With numerous expansion packs and ports to every mainline console, and the most recent New Frontier expansion pass releasing to much acclaim, it’s easily the best time to play this tactical and time-consuming masterpiece.
Another thing Civilization (Civ for short) has always had is a strong and devoted community. With its deep mechanics and litany of nuances, this community has led to some excellent memes that any dedicated player will get a laugh from.
10 Escaping With A Science Victory
Civ is a pretty deep game, with lots of intertwining mechanics, but once played multiple times any player knows there can be some funny quirks with the AI. One of the most common examples is when a player is on track to win a Science victory.
In this scenario, every other character knows that they’re about to lose, and in one last-ditch attempt to avoid defeat, most of them will probably declare war on that winner. It’s kind of funny, especially when it’s too late and the player just takes that victory anyway.
9 Winning A Climate Emergency
With Gathering Storm, Civ VI became even more complex, offering a representation of climate change and the effects it can have on the land and on people. When climate change gets worse, a climate emergency can occur.
These are pretty easy to win if the player hasn’t researched fuels and electricity, so 90% of the time they’re the winner even though they don’t even know what coal is, let alone that they can do something with it.
8 Neighborhoods Don’t Make Any Sense
Neighborhoods in Civ are quite strange. The more beautiful the location, the more people will live there. This means that grand coastlines are preferred to dry desert, which makes sense. But sometimes it doesn’t make sense.
Yes, even the awesome beauty of a volcano is going to bag the player the maximum bonus for housing on that hex. Each to their own of course, but it doesn’t sound like it would be the best idea. Just ask Pompeii.
7 Don’t Fight Back!
Another funny quirk with AI in Civ VI is their disgruntlement when a player defends themself. Often, if another character declares war on the player, and then the player attacks that character, other characters will be as unhappy as that man in the photo.
It feels like a playground fight, but any player will shout in their head “they started it!” Still, it is pretty good when someone declares war on a player that wanted to invade them anyway. Easy way to avoid the penalties!
6 Gandhi Likes His Nukes
Gandhi is a famous character in the Civ series. This is because Gandhi loves his nukes in these games. For anyone that doesn’t know why this is funny: let’s just say Gandhi was the opposite of trigger happy in real life.
This gave rise to a debunked story that Gandhi was nuke happy because of an error in the code. In fact, it was just because the developers thought it would be funny to make this legendary pacifist the first to push the big red button (or whatever they use to fire nukes…).
5 “Leave Me To My Domination Victory!”
One of the funny things with Civ is that the goals are all laid out at the beginning. Every civilization knows that it is there to win the game, and one way to win involves a lot of weapons and a lot of fighting.
So when other characters get angry at the player for trying to win a Domination Victory, it does feel a bit ridiculous. Did these characters not know what sort of game they were getting into? This definitely isn’t SimCity.
4 Diplomatic Victories Might Be A Bit Easy
Another addition with the Gathering Storm DLC was the Diplomatic Victory option. This is won by accumulating points for being a good neighbor, basically. Don’t declare too many wars, vote for things other people want, and don’t pollute too much (also winning the Olympics, for some reason).
The problem with Diplomatic Victory in Civ VI is that it might be too easy. Unless a player is hard down a path leading to Domination Victory, it is likely they will have accumulated enough points to pivot to a Diplomatic Victory if their Culture path isn’t going too well. And often that victory comes easy.
3 Climate Change Can Be Exploited
Any player of Civ will probably enjoy the total feeling of power the game can give you at the end. But simple military might is a little bit boring, isn’t it? One of the best DLCs Civ has seen, Gathering Storm, gave a new way for players to conquer their enemy.
If a civilization is polluting too much, what should a player do? They can reason with them, or maybe even conquer them. But what if they could suffer the consequences of their disinterest? Now that would be entertaining.
2 Too Powerful For Reprimand
The denouncement system in Civ VI always feels a bit clunky, but nothing is funnier than other civilizations getting angry at the player that has more power than anyone else. At that point, it just feels like a waste of time.
If a player is on a Domination Victory path and has more than enough troops and land to do what they want, while Russia has four cities and three archers, why is Russia having a go? The message came through loud and clear the first 17 times.
1 Builders Don’t Have Long To Live
While Civ does its best to strive for some semblance of realism to engross the player, it is still basically and digital board game. This means some things just have to happen, whether they make sense or not.
This includes builders only being to build three times until they’re gone (by default). Still, any pros know to build the Pyramids and get the Serfdom/Public Works policy card if they need some more. Even better, do all this as China and get the Governor Liang in the main city and the builder will have eight builds in them!
NEXT: Civilization 6: 10 Best Nuclear Gandhi Memes That Are Too Funny
