Civilization VI was released last Friday, much to the delight of fans of the series — and to the detriment of their workloads. Unfortunately, the game is missing one feature that was present in its predecessor — a map based on planet Earth.
The Civilization series challenges players to jostle for position with other cultures over the course of centuries of human history. To make sure that things are fair, the map and each civilization’s placement in it are typically randomized, but playing on a map based on Earth’s geography offers a fun glimpse at an alternate reality. The United States could be divided up into several different kingdoms, Cleopatra might choose to take Australia — that kind of thing.
Fortunately, one modder has gone the extra mile and created an Earth map for Civilization VI. That individual, who goes by the name of Gedemon, has posted their work on the Civ Fanatics forum for players to download, according to a report from Eurogamer.
There is one thing that players need to consider before putting the Earth map to use, however — it utilizes its own “ludicrous” map size that’s well beyond anything in the base game. Measuring 230 by 115 tiles, it’s large enough to host more than 50 civilizations at once.
A map of this size is more than capable of crashing your rig, even given the relatively basic system requirements of Civilization VI. Fans of the series will know that turns can take a long time to complete once you’re deep in a game, and that’s certainly true when 50 civilizations are contesting a map this big.
Gedemon notes that the Earth map has been tested on a 500-turn game with 32 civilizations in play, and did not crash — however, that test was carried out on a computer with 16GB of RAM, an Intel i7 4770K processor, and GTX 980ti GPU with 6GB of VRAM. It’s perhaps best to stick to a smaller map size if your system isn’t up to snuff.
