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The Civilization 6 October 2020 patch is now live

A new multiplayer mode, plenty of quality of life fixes, and tweaks for recent New Frontier Pass DLC

ships firing at each other in the ocean

The October 2020 update for Civilization VI is now live, bringing with it a whole host of changes to venerable 4X game that adds a new Pirate-themed game mode, quality of life changes to game speed scaling, and even offers fixes for recently released Civ VI DLC.

The headline feature is the aforementioned ‘Pirates’ multiplayer scenario, which is a fast-paced 60 turn affair for one to four players vying to become the ultimate pirate king. The players not only have to contend with each other, but they must also fight off the fleets of four AI nations representing England, France, Spain, and the Netherlands. You can find out more about the new mode as well as the other changes by reading the October 2020 patch notes.

In terms of other fixes and tweaks, there’s plenty of love to go around. Various costs have been tweaked to account for better scaling in line with the game speed settings. Most of these changes are for owners of the Gathering Storm expansion, but they affect things like Uranium costs for nuclear weapons, bonuses gained from barbarian camps etc. Unit experience no longer scales with game speed, either.

A specific focus for this update is making a number of tweaks and changes to the three New Frontier Pass content packs that have been released to date. The first one, Maya & Gran Colombia has received the most changes but the full list of tweaks is as follows:

Maya & Gran Colombia Pack

  • Reduce Llanero adjacent strength to +2 (was +4).
  • Drop Comandante Generals to no bonus movement (was +1 Movement).
  • Drop Hacienda to .5 Housing.
  • Hacienda can be affected by Drought natural disasters.
  • Cost scaling for purchasing the Nihang unit (Tech progression scales to 4x its base cost).
  • Fixed an issue preventing forest fires and meteor showers from showing up as intended in non-Apocalypse games.
  • [Gathering Storm] During Apocalypse mode, EYJAFJALLAJOKULL (Vikings Scenario Pack) erupts and can be triggered by soothsayers.
  • [Gathering Storm] Comet strikes that eliminate districts now permit the player to build the district (in a suitable location) again.

Ethiopia Pack

  • Trade City-States now give 2, 4, and 6 gold as their envoy bonuses.
  • Vampires now count Free Cities units as Barbarians for gaining combat strength.

Byzantium & Gaul Pack

  • [Rise and Fall] In Dramatic Ages, repeated Dark Ages will no longer result in a negative Golden Age threshold score. Now a minimum of 0.
  • Updated the Era Score meter in Dramatic Ages to properly display information.

Beyond that, there’s the usual fixes for AI behaviour, UI… even changes for those heathens who play Civ VI on consoles.

Now that it’s out, we plan on taking the new Pirate game for a spin, so we’ll report back on what it’s like. Given the current cadence of updates this year, towards the end of next month we should be getting the fourth New Frontier Pass expansion as well, so keep your eyes peeled for more information on that.