Civilization 6 on iPhone is Still Fantastic

Despite the small screen size and clutter user interface, playing Civilization 6 on the iPhone was still a fantastic experience, which is forcing me to backtrack comments I made via twitter about the game. We all know how fantastic the Civilization franchise is, and it’s been a staple on the PC for over a decade. Now with the franchise available on iPhone and iPad, consoles, and the PC, there literally is no excuse for anyone to not give the game a try.

Colour me shocked, truthfully. Listen, I’m rocking a regular sized iPhone – not those fancy XL devices – and I still found myself diving into Civilization 6 time and time again. Is it a perfect experience? Far from it, as the clutter UI is definitely a problem that won’t be going away anytime soon. But despite this, I imagine this will be a huge success because of how addicting the game play is. Whether you are picking up the game to play for a few minutes – or a few turns – or for a few hours, the clutter screen quickly become the least of my worries, being replaced by whether or not my nearest ally might stab me in the back!

Changes have been made to the game to make it better on the iPhone, but let’s talk seriously for a second here: it’s still a civilzation game, and its still being played on a phone screen. And that is something that shouldn’t be overlooked here. This is a full fledged Civilization 6 experience. Nothing has been cut from the PC release to make this more accessible on iPhone and iPad. That, in and of itself, is a feat that the development team should be immensely proud of!

We haven’t touched on the game itself, as Civilization in our opinion is fairly self explanatory, but wanted to quell the fears that this game is not playable on a small screen. The opposite is very true. There is a learning curve to deal with some of the minor changes made to the game, but not enough to deter you from playing. If you plan to play on iOS, obviously and iPad would be the preferred platform because of the screen real estate; but if an iPhone is your only option, it’s more than capable of providing an excellent game play experience that rivals what you get on all other platforms.

The downside to this experience is paying a premium for it. While a introductory price can still be had for the iOS application (23.99 I believe), outside of discounts you will pay a whopping 59.99 for the experience. To be fair to the development team, you are getting the full experience on your phone (and of course cross buy to your iPad as well, if sharing the same Apple ID). However, it still seems a bit much to drop $60 for something to play on your phone!

Will you be diving into Civilization 6 on the iPhone? Let us know!