CIVILIZATION VI BATTLE ROYALE

How do you cram battle royale into Civilization VI? Easy: just remove all the civilisations. No cities, no civ-building, just military units rolling around a post-apocalyptic map as a deadly circle of radiation closes in. Six of us clashed (when we could actually find each other on the map) in Civ VI’s new battle royale mode, Red Death.

Chris: I’ve played four hours of Civ IV, eight hours of Civ V, and zero hours of Civ VI. I think the odds were stacked against me going into Red Death. But I do like battle royale, and a turn-based Civ BR is an interesting if weird idea. The max player count is 12, but you can play on maps small enough for only two players as well.

I didn’t hate it. To briefly explain how it works: you land on the map with a defenceless civilian (it’s game over if they’re captured by an enemy unit) plus a machine gunner and an infantry unit, and then do battle royale stuff during simultaneous turns (there’s a timer so that no one takes too