Firaxis should not have been trusted to name Civilization VI: Rise and Fall. It's not that the label on its tin is inaccurate. In the first of two expansions to the 2016 turn-based strategy, history's monarchs and chieftains flourish and flame out, exalted one day, impoverished the next. But that's simply to say that this is a historical grand strategy game where you can find yourself on either side of success, and that would describe any contribution to the genre. If there is a defining grouping that we could corral most of Rise and Fall's mechanics into, it's this:

Some multiplayer games let us fill our boots with a small country's worth of abilities before they're over. Others make it so that we roll with the same basic powers for the entire time, and any bump in formidability is short-lived. Most arena shooters and sports games would fit into that latter category, but Civ is about the former. The late game is impossible without hoarding a Fort Knox of ideological, military, and productive boullion. Therefore, the most treacherous leg of my matches tends to be the opening, where if a couple of battles don't go my way, I'm history, and I often need to expand my empire like an airbag, or I won't have the floor space and millstones for a productive Medieval Era. An inadequate Medieval Era would stunt my Renaissance, which would hurt my Industrial Revolution, and the shortfall would ripple outwards. Yet, once I have some resource factories under my belt, I'm secure.

If I'm playing against AI and want less security in the match's late hours, I can crank the difficulty knob. However, this can't entirely solve the problems I've described and makes openings so intense that I won't remain in one piece to see the endgame. But it's a catch-22. If the evenings of each match are the most forgiving times and I turn down the difficulty, there's a cessation of stakes after the first 200 turns or so. This would explain why you see a lot of gamers who say their eyes glaze over after about 1700 AD. Rise and Fall and the following expansion, Gathering Storm, attempt to remedy this snag by keeping Civ VI's state in flux even as your society comes of age. They also introduce more trials where there is something to be lost or gained during the Middle Ages and Modernity, just as there was in the Ancient and Classical epochs.

In Civilization, two of our desire butt heads. If we don't have at least some productive capability on the line, our heart's not pumping. However, if we can have our cities or technologies confiscated in a flash, we could play for 300 turns only to be suddenly left on home plate without a bat. Civ is also not a hand-eye coordination test where we can lose power-ups and equipment and still have fun because we can still connect balls with goals or boots with the ground. What makes the Civ player's mouth water is getting to see the borders stretch and the cities rise. Devolve those cities and recess those borders, and you take away their fun. Repetition in strategy games also tends not to hold up as well as that of action games. I can grind a rail in Bomb Rush Cyberfunk and then hit the same pipe and stay in a flow state, but if I researched Feudalism in Civilization and then had to do it again immediately after, I'd feel like just finished my taxes only to have them fall into the shredder.

Rise and Fall, however, knows how to give us an ante we can win or lose without jeopardising all our assets. It's natural to get confused and think we care about the goose when what we care about is the eggs. We don't fundamentally want Farms, Mines, and Theatre Squares; what we want is Food, Production, and Culture. The gameplay gods can reduce the quantity of Food, Production, and other resources we get per turn but give us the chance to revert that throttling. They can do this by finding ways to limit our take without bulldozing our Districts, and that's a lot of what Rise and Fall does. In doing so, it allows us to experience loss and gain without having to rebuild the house of cards we already painstakingly balanced. Let's explore how the expansion modulates our productivity.

Loyalty

The Mechanic

Loyalty is a new attribute attached to each city and represents the citizenry's tolerance of your rule. This mechanic recalibrates the resource output for cities, and its learning curve is shallow due to its striking similarity to Amenities from the base Civilization VI. You can increase your subjects' fealty to you through:

1. Ensuring there are nearby cities in your empire with high Loyalty.
2. Specialist buildings.
3. Luxuries.
4. Some Policies.
5. Governors.
6. Golden and Heroic Ages.

However, Loyalty can ebb away due to:

1. Nearby cities of foreign civs that have relatively high Loyalty.
2. Dark Ages.
3. Occupation by foreign militaries.

If I mention a mechanic that I've not yet explained, know that we'll loop back to it in a future section. Flagging Loyalty bottlenecks your resource outflow with a constriction that Amenities can't. Surplus Amenities can send your agriculture into hyperdrive, but Loyalty can only ever reduce your yields or secure what you were entitled to by default. The most stringent penalty you can incur from an Amenities deficiency is -60% Food at an unfathomable 7 Amenities below par. A city's Loyalty finds a level between 1 and 100, but even falling to 75/100 Loyalty gives you a -60% to all yields. At 25 Loyalty and below, a city stops growing and produces no resources. In its most dire state, a city poor in Amenities is a breeding ground for rebel forces, but a completely unloyal city will quit your empire. Free cities will then wage de facto war against you.

The Implications

If growth is not your current priority, you can afford to skimp on Amenities, but loyal followers are a must whether you want to be the king of Culture, the sultan of Science, or the guru of Gold. This is due to the impact of Loyalty on all types of production. Mishandled, Firaxis's mandate to pursue a single resource (Loyalty) could make play one note, but because there are a range of couriers which supply Loyalty, the system can count variation among its strengths. Those couriers are the numbered points at the top of this section.

Loyalty kills three birds with one stone. Firstly, Civ has a propensity to treat history as written solely by leaders and suggests citizens lack autonomy and are indifferent to how they are governed. Correcting the record, the Loyalty system makes citizens characters in the human story, even if it still underestimates the strength with which they bend the arc of history. It envisions a world where monarchs and presidents still give the orders, and the people still obey. It cannot entertain any alternative form of human organisation. However, Rise and Fall does recognise that people jump when the head of state says "jump", not because they are mindless robots but because they consent to be governed and can withdraw that consent, indicating that they have free will. Although, problematically, the point of the game then becomes to subdue independent nations and reabsorb them into your empire.

Secondly, Loyalty nudges you away from tediously bureaucratising cities that return scant to no rewards. Below 26 Loyalty, a city does not grow and does not pay, putting the wind up you to win back its trust. The most neglected of your cities are excised from your lands entirely.

Thirdly, Loyalty is a check on opportunistic military expansion. Because of its acquisitive potential, war in Civilization VI is incredibly powerful, arguably too powerful. Firaxis could have redressed the balance by reducing the attack values of units or inflating their production time. However, if Civ wants to stay historically accurate, standing armies should be capable of extreme violence, and players don't much like being declawed without some recourse and compensation. Yet, leaders who attempt to flip a whole shore of cities at once may now find that they've bitten off more than they can chew, as all these frontline settlements wearied by war may withdraw their allegiance and are unlikely to be production powerhouses. They could even come to constitute a troublesome second front.

The potential for a traitor in your midst lends some purpose to razing a city after you capture it. In ready salted Civ, there was not a single time I set one of my spoils of war ablaze because who gives up a free city? But if it's a choice between losing a production hub to insurgents or skipping a few turns of nominal production, I'll skip the few turns. Because distant cities can't bask in the glow of the Loyalty from your main territories, founding a forward base right outside enemy territory is also a less viable rush strategy. And as we can take cities by overwhelming them with Loyalty, diplomatic pioneering can approach military conquest in terms of efficacy.

Fourthly, overwhelming with Loyalty allows us to expand our empire even in the mid and late game without ruining our public reputation.

Lastly, when a city does wriggle free from its net, it can create a mad dash to harpoon it. It's one of those flashpoints Civ needed. One where there is a prize on the line and there are short-term gains and losses to be made.

Given that Loyalty is the xi of your empire, it's an oversight that Firaxis doesn't have a Loyalty meter appear above cities on the main map. They could at least show me that green worm when the friendliness of our cities is wavering.

Emergencies

The Mechanic

In Rise and Fall, the quintessential dash for control is the Emergency. When one civ gives another civ (or sometimes a city-state) a black eye, that nation (or the suzerain of that city-state) can shine a signal in the sky. When I say a black eye, we're talking a nuclear weapon being dropped on them, a civilisation converting the founding city of a religion, something along those lines. Once the victim of this act raises the alarm, other players get one turn to decide whether they become part of the backlash. Civs which opt in must complete a stated goal by a deadline. For example, the game may challenge them to capture the capital of the civ that launched the nuke or remove the infiltrating religion's influence from the holy city within X turns.

While an Emergency is underway, the implicated countries suffer or benefit from Emergency-specific effects. E.g. During a "Betrayal Emergency", attackers have reduced combat strength against the defender but get +1 movement in enemy territory and receive +2 Production from allies they have Trade Routes with. There's a careful balancing act at play in these numbers. In this Emergency, members must raise and command an army under a strict time limit that no conventional war imposes. Therefore, in this scenario, developers let players produce and move armies faster. However, that advantage is offset by the reduced combat strength of those soldiers. That nerfing also makes up for the defender likely being outnumbered by foes. All Emergencies are designed thusly. The temporary Emergency effects are another lesson in game design: if a player is too sluggish, squishy, or otherwise misshapen for some conflict, that doesn't mean that you have to give up on submitting them to it. It is possible to dress them for it through temporary buffs and debuffs.

Should the signatories of an Emergency not be able to remedy it in time, the initial transgressor (e.g. The nation that dropped the bomb) wins. Otherwise, the responding countries are victorious. The winner of the Emergency receives a bonus going forward. For example, in the case of the Nuclear Emergency, if the state that dropped the bomb wins, nations attacking them exert diminished Loyalty pressure. If, however, the attackers win, the target civ's units permanently inflict less damage to them.

The Implications

There's a lot to be said for subtlety in mechanics, but by being firm and explicit in the time limit and stakes of the competition, Emergencies instil an animating panic and allow us to make informed decisions about whether we want to participate or not. There is often risk both in responding to the catastrophe and ignoring it. Keep our head down and we might lose out on a bonus that is granted to a plurality of other players. We also disregard the opportunity to onboard assets without upsetting the international community. An Emergency can be the golden hour in which to snag a city or religious followers without being labelled as a warmonger.

However, failure comes at a price: the direct penalty, yes, but also wasted units and resources that you could have spent on a successful endeavour. Firaxis's stroke of genius is that we are blind to who has risen to the occasion until every member state has voted to embroil themselves in the Emergency or refused to upset the cart. That means there's the chance that if we do swear vengeance, we could be in slim to no company, but we don't know that.

It may sound self-contradictory that, on the one hand, I praised Rise and Fall for being upfront about what an Emergency will entail, and on the other, I approved of it leaving players in the dark about who will join them in combating it. However, my point is that when players do take a gamble, they know what gamble they're getting into. Like the better in blackjack, when the Civ player enters or declines to stick their nose into an Emergency, they do not know what the result of their decision will be. However, they have a holistic idea of what it means to make that bet: What they are risking, what will be asked of them, and what is there to be won.

Emergencies, like Loyalty, also seek to tamp down on players defaulting to an aggressive stance. Firstly, by making it so that aggression you visit on other players may be returned multi-fold. Secondly, by making Alliances with other nations even more important because, if you should be the target of religious or military incursion, you know there are actors who will have your back. While, if you are the encroaching force, you know that you have shooters.

Emergencies also encourage players to participate in wars and inquisitions they otherwise might recoil from. This is partly because the Emergencies prompt them to, but when a game reminds me, "Hey, you can talk to characters to receive side missions" or "Equip gems for bonus rewards", it's patronising and redundant, reminding me of what I already know. Because the invitations to battle in Rise and Fall also give us new information about world events and unique opportunities we can't otherwise know about, they feel warranted.

In our modern whirlwind of live service games, the shrinking windows to retrieve discounts and rewards can feel enervating, and at worse, manipulating. But they don't have to. In experiences like Rise and Fall, a "now or never" offer doesn't feel scummy because what's being offered is something that only matters within the context of the current match; it's not like we lose a commodity forever if we back out. The Emergencies system is also inviting because it speaks the rewards out loud. Whenever you win a war in Civ, there'll be a war chest; if you lose, there'll be a sanction. Yet, the pros and cons feel less real when the game doesn't thrust them in our face. When Civ writes across our screen that we will get 1 gold for each Envoy we have in the city-state, or that our enemy's ballistic strikes from cities will grow by 2 strength, it feels like we can hold the possibilities in our hands. I don't want complete certainty in the rewards, but some certainty is stabilising.

Finally, Emegencies often act as boss segments that give a coup de grace the hardship and grandiosity it deserves. Dropping the bomb or converting a holy city doesn't go down like any standard missile volley or act of proselytism. You've got to want it.

Alliances

The Mechanic

Alliances aren't new, but the rules by which they operate are. This is the one area of the mechanics that doesn't fit the theme of this article: that Rise and Fall is trying to concentrate uncertainty in the mid-late game. In times of yore, allying with another civilisation meant a mutual peace agreement, that you could each surveil each others' territories, and it unlocked Research Agreements and Defensive Pacts between you. In Rise and Fall, there is no such bumper pack of advantages.

Potential collaborators must now pick between a Research, Military, Economic, Cultural, or Religious Alliance, each a reciprical flow of advantages in the given category. Any two civilisations can only be coupled by one of the five allyships. As long as the chain holds, the Alliance will level up, with Trade Routes between the two friends speeding up XP gain.

The Implications

Alliances now do more for players in one area but are narrower in focus and urge more from leaders. Presidents and Emperors make a careful choice about what kind of Alliance will create the most net benefit between themselves and another nation instead of oafishly jamming the "friends" button. With the additive effect of Trade Routes, being an ally is not just a passive state of existence but something civilisations can do better or worse at.

Ages

The Mechanic

Timed missions have proven to be one of the least popular game mechanics of the past- well, ever. They served a function, one that's a theme of this article: they engender urgency by setting a deadline. But they often sucked because they didn't give you time to scope out a problem and make a decision, instead pressuring you to rush in blind. You're never your best self when you panic. They were also embittering because of their harsh chastisement for exceeding their time limits (you'd lose) and because loss frequently had you robotically repeating levels. Civ VI's single-player can't rush you, and even in the multiplayer, you generally have some powder to burn through because of the game's turn-based procession. Designers also reduce the punitiveness of timed missions by having it not be survival that's on the line but a moderate bonus. There was some attention paid to this mentality in Emergencies, but it gets the limelight in the Ages system.

Ages are topsoil over the existing "Eras". The Eras lend historicity and a sense of graduation to the Tech and Civics trees, with nations rolling from the Medieval Era to the Renaissance Era, to the Industrial Era, etc. Previously, these calendar flips were personal to each civ and occurred as your technologies and social ideas came along. With Rise and Fall, there is a "World Era" set by the most advanced inventions and civics extant on the planet as a whole. Additionally, each of these Eras becomes a vial of Era Score. We can earn Era Score through "Historic Moments": the lodestars of history. The list of Historic Moments is as long as your arm and includes being the first civilisation to circumnavigate the globe (5 Era Score), founding your first National Park (3 Era Score), and earning your first Master Spy (2 Era Score). Firsts are everything, keeping the player breaking new ground.

If a player scores below the points threshold by the end of an Era, they fall into a "Dark Age". During a Dark Age, Loyalty in all your cities plummets 50%, meaning so do your yields. Widespread unrest becomes a possibility. If the player perches in the next score bracket up, their civilisation enters a "Normal Age". Nothing is modified. The highest echelon of score kicks off a "Golden Age": 50% Loyalty increases, 50% greater yields, rebellion becomes a thing of the past. At the start of each Age, the leader also chooses a "Dedication": a modifier that applies to that Era. Dark Age and Normal Age Dedications set a type of task and issue a little Era Score when you complete that colour of task; each of those Dedications also has a "Golden Age" equivalent that gives a boost in the related arena of action instead.

For example, the Dark and Normal "Monumentality" Dedications earn you 1 Era Score every time you construct a Specialty District. The Golden Age "Monumentality" instead extends +2 Movement to Builders, the option to purchase civilian units with Faith, and 30% off Settlers and Buildings. The "Reform the Coinage" Dedication pays you 1 Era Score every time you complete a Trade Route, assuming you're in a Normal or Dark Age. In a Golden Age, it renders your Trade Routes immune to plundering and yields 3 more Gold from every city with which you have an international Trade Route. The Normal and Dark Dedications have you bragging about what you can achieve and then backing it up with words, on the hunt for Golden Dedications, which let you bask in the fruit of your hard work.

The Dark Ages

When interacting with these rules, be sceptical of validating the idea of the "Dark Ages". This term originated with Italian scholars in the Renaissance and described a supposed period of intellectual stagnation during the Middle Ages. Some historians plotted this dry season as spanning the whole Medieval Era, others just the Early Middle Ages.^[1][2][3][4]

Contemporary historians believe in reading texts with a consciousness of who the author was and the social context in which they were writing. The Roman Empire fell at the end of the Ancient Era in about 500 AD, while the same period saw the rise of the church, which gobbled up European political power in the following centuries. It was easy for the secular squall of the Enlightenment (late 17th-18th century) to introduce the concept that the era of church control must have been one of ignorance and the time before it must have been one of knowledge. However, that's a blithe oversimplification that ignores, among other details, that Medieval monks were often scholars themselves.^[1]

Bringing Medieval inventiveness to light has also been difficult when sources for the period have been scant.^[5] Furthermore, it was easy for Italian Medieval writers, reading sources that favoured Rome, to look on their recent history as comparatively closed-minded and the Roman Empire as a rose-tinted utopia.^[1][2] I mean, the Medieval environment was, in many regards, closed-minded, but it was not exceptionally so compared to the Ancient Era. We can see now that the people of the Ancient, Late Medieval, and Early Modern Eras all lacked knowledge that we now take for granted, like cognisance of the existence of germs, the theory of evolution by natural selection, or how to drink five hard seltzers.

On the flip side, the "Dark Ages" brought plenty of revolutionary inventions to Europe, like mechanical clocks, the printing press, and algebra.^[2][3] The term "Dark Age" remains contentious among historians because it can obscure the discoveries of countless generations.^[2][5][6][7] History marches forward, but so does how we conceptualise it.

The Implications

A couple of times, Rise and Fall's Ages system falls on its face. One of these times is during openings; this is already a chaotic period for a tribe, sometimes unfairly so. You haven't yet had time to build up your walls, and you never know what you'll encounter in the fog of war. The Era Score makes prosperity in the ancient world even more random. As before, it is up to the gods how many Barbarian Encampments or what Resource Deposits emerge from the mists. However, we now also have Era Score riding on those random encounters, leaving our defence and productivity more up to luck than ever. A subtle wrinkle here is when random spawns interfere with other random effects, stochastic problems emerge. Maybe a city-state pops up near a tribal Encampment, so by pure chance, it's easier to clear the Camp and claim its Era Score bounty. Or here's another one I've had: A civ happens to settle on the isthmus between two continents and enforces borders, blocking my Scout from reaching another large landmass. By a roll of the dice, I'm barricaded from the Natural Wonders that could answer my prayers for a Golden Age.

The problem is not just with the alpha but also the omega. As the reward for a sound Era is always paid out in the next, if I am in the final Era, there is no Golden Age reward I can be owed, and I start getting Era Score withdrawal. And when there is score to fish up, it's not always apparent how we'd hook it. There are about 130 different types of Historic Moments, each with a points value enclosed, and that's without Gathering Storm installed. To memorise the whole points chart, you need to be a human hard drive. This is where the UI should come in and tell you what activities pay what Era Score. We get icons and integers to tell us which Civics grant Governor Titles and how much of each resource a District will produce per turn, but the same clarity isn't extended to Historic Moments.

Having said that, the Ages make every Era matter and always leave me feeling like I'm sliding towards a fast-closing shutter. Our Historic Moments are recorded on a Bayeux Tapestry-like parchment, chronicling our accomplishments over time, as the map represents our accomplishments over space. The ink also keeps count of plenty of achievements that can't be represented by a building on the board, like founding a Pantheon or blasting the first satellite into orbit.

After the early game, the Ages also normalise the difficulty and promote tenacity. Entering a Dark Age slightly decreases the points threshold for a Normal or Golden Age in the future, while each time you earn a Golden Age, it increases the qualifying score for the Golden Age. During a Dark Age, you also gets the keys to "Dark Policies", which handicap some of your industries in exchange for enviable buffs to others. "Monasticism" results in +75% Science in cities with Holy Sites but -25% Culture in all cities. "Elite Forces" doubles the amount of Experience units earn in combat but also increases their maintenance cost by 2 Gold each.

Heroic Ages

If you do find yourself in the doldrums of a Dark Age but you pass the Golden Age cap for it, you're due for a Heroic Age. Heroic Age Dedications combine the Era Score boosts of the Normal and Dark Age Dedications with the decadent yields of the Golden Age Dedications. For example, look at how the Heroic "Wish You Were Here" Dedication builds on the Dark, Normal, and Golden "Wish You Were Here"s:

A possible downside is that the luxury of the Heroic Age can lead players into idiosyncratic behaviour where they deliberately tank their civilisation to get the Heroic blessings on the other side.

Governors

The Mechanic

We can attribute the ruts during Civ's mid and late game to its conviction to construction. We can't simply put some wheels on our World Wonders, Districts, and buildings and push them to a new city. Additionally, the development of these features is always longitudinal, and the game isn't going to give you millennia to cement your empire only for you to have it stolen out from under you at the drop of a hat; that would be unfair. Therefore, the base productive potential of your cities doesn't change much in the short term.

Like an Entertainment Complex or a Barracks, Rise and Fall's Governors modify the operation and output of a city. But because these managers aren't cemented to the ground, they can relocate to new cities, making for a more dynamic map. Some assets (for example, Civics) unlock Governor Titles, which allow players to either hire a new Governor or upgrade the powers of one already in their court. The Governor, Reyna, for example, comes with the Land Acquisition Title, which has her home city acquire surrounding tiles faster, but from there, her talent tree branches. At its two leaves, we may unlock either a skill to double bonuses from Harbors and Commercial Hubs or a multiplier from Trade Routes, both applying only to the city she manages. Each Governor also provides a Loyalty bump to their location.

The Implications

With the Governors comes a responsibility that's new to Civ VI but has defined the approaches of leaders throughout history: the management of our ministers. The vizier you place in a New York or a Shanghai can make or break it. Thinking from the developers' standpoint, the rookie design formula for the Governors would be to devise an executive that supports a city's scientific development, another for war, another for religion, and so on, one to match each victory condition. Rise and Fall instead coalesces expertise in different fields into single secretaries.

If we have one Governor who boosts Culture and another who promotes Science, it's optimal to station the former politician in the city that exudes the most Culture and the latter in the settlement that raises the most Science. However, Rise and Fall does not staff one Science associate and one Culture doctor. Instead, both funds are augmented by a single governor: Pingala. Therefore, you are forced to pick between Science and Culture, even when both are essential hormones for imperial growth.

Other governors that appear to fill singular niches also vacillate over time. Liang could be described as the Governor who specialises in construction, but her statutes bestride increased Builder charges, increased Production towards City Districts, higher Food harvests, and even Culture and Amenities. Victor might look like the military Governor, but he didn't spend all that time at castle college for you to scoff at his specialisation. He is the defence Governor, and his protection can shield units or cities themselves, or spice up a city's ballistic defences. But he could not, for example, raise the offensive powers of Slingers.

I would actually describe every Governor as the war Governor. Appropriated cities and those pressured by enemies are rife for rebellion. The Governors can galvanise Loyalty in a city, making them ointment on the inflammation. You can also have confidence in their ability to anchor the allegiance of a city during peacetime. Where a soldier is defence against hard power, a Governor is defence against soft power. But this only complicates play. As a leader, do we place their Governor in a city where their Titles will do the most good or buy them a ticket to a city where they can calcify Loyalties?

As the borders shift and the conditions of each city transmute, the perfect slot for each Governor can turn on a dime, with the player upsetting the board even in the mid to late game to keep up. Each time the head of state decides where their liege belongs, they must be considerate about their assignment as Governors take time to establish in a city. If those ministers must be emigrated again, there will be a wait. In the late game, these officials' upgrade trees can be of waning interest. As is common in this medium, we tend to pick the enhancements we are enthused about first, and naturally, the leftovers at the end are the ones that are surplus to our play style. However, my objections with the Governors are primarily about them as characters.

Much of the charm of Civilization is in getting to rub elbows with the leaders, inventions, and places that loom large in human history, but Rise and Fall's Governors are all fictional. You have Suleiman the Magnificent, Genghis Khan, and Genghis Khan's made-up friend Amani. Because each civilisation has the right to recruit all Governors, it only gets more jarring as Suleiman can have a fictional administrator called Moksha, and Khan can have an identical one called the same. The portraits for these characters are also divorced from Civ's aesthetics. With long faces and protruding chins, they are newspaper caricatures, while the other historical figures in Civ VI are gentler softenings of their real-world counterparts.

Conclusion

Despite the lottery of Era Score and my gripes with the Governors' eyebrows, I find Rise and Fall to be a brilliantly coordinated expansion pack. A common misunderstanding about expansions is that their role is to just take a game and hang new mechanics off of its curtain rails. Rise and Fall, however, succeeds in deepening and loosening Civilization VI not just by adding to it but also by remaking the original ruleset so it travels alongside the new mechanics without friction. It also chains all of those mechanics to each other.

Civics and Governor Titles are not fractionated. Instead, the Civics system is transformed by some of its upgrade swatches bearing Governor Titles. Eras do not decree a unique set of goals from those in the vanilla game but rather append new values to those goals. Emergencies are not declared for new types of transgressions but those in the base game. Rise and Fall is not an arbitrary complication of Civilization VI but a steroid that lets each of the original game's wonderful mechanics do more than previously possible. Thanks for reading.

Notes

1. 6 Reasons the Dark Ages Weren’t So Dark by Sarah Pruitt (February 8, 2024), HISTORY.
2. Mommsen, T.E., Eugene, F.R. (1959). Medieval And Renaissance Studies. Cornell University Press (p. 106-110).
3. There’s No Such Thing as the ‘Dark Ages’ by Larisa Grollemond and Sarah Waldorf (November 15, 2022), Getty Museum.
4. Middle Ages by Encyclopaedia Britannica Editors (October 24, 2024), Britannica.
5. Just How Dark Were the Dark Ages? by Joshua Learn (December 28, 2020), Discover.
6. The "Dark Ages" Debate by Bridgette Byrd O’Connor (Date Unknown, Accessed November 24, 2024), OER Project.
7. Bring Back the Dark Ages! by Howard M.R. Williams (June 2, 2016), Archaeodeath.

All other sources linked at relevant points in article.