8 Things to Know Before Playing Civ VI in Multiplayer Mode

Since Civ VI is a blast to play, you’ve probably thought about playing it in multiplayer mode. If you’re new to Civ VI multiplayer mode — even if you’re an expert at solo play vs. AI — there are lots of things to consider before you boot up a game. Before diving into the realm of Civ VI multiplayer, I didn’t think much about some of these factors — but I found they’re very important to the core enjoyment of my multiplayer gameplay.

Here are eight tips for maximizing your gameplay experience when playing Civ VI multiplayer.

Pick Friends Over Strangers

Some games allow you to make friends while you play. Others match you up randomly with strangers. Civ is NOT designed for that type of gameplay. It’s a bunch of competitive people (just like us) out to complete the game based upon their own sets of strategies, preferences, and ideas. Strangers are likely to drop, argue, or be rude — and that’s not a Civ community thing, that’s just an unfortunate percentage of gamers.

To avoid this issue, play with friends instead. You probably already know some people who play Civ (especially if you hang out with other gamers), even if they don’t talk about it. Ask on Facebook and make it happen. Civ is often the one strategy game that gamers play even if they don’t typically like strategy games.

Set Preferences Before You Open the Game

Before you even start to play a game with your friend(s), make sure you talk about what you like when you play. Are you into Barbarian Clans Mode, or no barbarians? How many city states do you want? What type of difficulty are you going for, and what kind of civs do you want to play to accomplish that? What difficulty do you play on? (Note that if playing cooperatively, you might do okay on one setting higher than your usual.)

You’ll also want to compare notes to make sure you’re using the same DLC and the same mods. If not, you’ll get a compatibility error, so sync up before gameplay.

Civ VI is Laggy in Multiplayer Mode: Embrace the Suck

Civ VI is just about always laggy when you’re in multiplayer mode. Instead of blaming the other person, just accept it as part of the experience.

Despite this, there are some things you can do to prevent the lag from being a drag, such as:

• Make sure your Steam client and game are updated prior to playing (otherwise your start will be delayed)
• Choose how you’ll communicate via voice (Discord is notoriously terrible with Civ, so you may have to go to Skype)
• Think about some other cool stuff to talk about, because you’ll have some lulls (especially important if you’re streaming for an audience)

The more people you add, the laggier. While it’s fun to play with many human friends (versus AI players), each person makes the game slower. It’s too many cooks in the Civilization kitchen!

Mac and PC Together: Possible But Not Recommended

Civ VI is one of the few amazing video games that look and play *amazingly* on Macs! Firaxis does a painstakingly great job at making Civ look and feel immaculate on a Mac (see what I did there?). Because they put the time into making the Mac version awesome, it can result in a problem during game updates and patch releases, such as the version mismatch host error.

If you get that error, the PC player(s) in your group may have to roll back their Civ version to accommodate. It’s annoying, but you can learn how to diagnose the problem and fix it relatively quickly.

But First, a Rule: One Host to Rule them All

One person must open the game, set it up, and then invite the other person through Steam. The game and Steam don’t make this abundantly clear, so to make it work, just make sure you pick who hosts and then talk through your preferences while they set it up.

Consider Game Speed and Size

Are you thinking of completing this game over the course of the day, or over 5+ sessions? This can determine the game speed and size of map you’d like to play. Consider glitches, crashes, and the amount of time things generally take (hint: longer) during multiplayer games when deciding.

Choose Cooperative or Competitive

Whoever said Monopoly was the ultimate friendship breaker never played Civ against a friend or partner. If your friendship can withstand competition or if you play competitive games often, go for it. If not — or if one player is better at the game than the other or teaching the game to the other person — cooperative is infinitely better. In this mode, you play to win against the computer.

Cooperative mode players generally divvy up city states and plan city placement and wars together.

If Playing Cooperatively, Always Choose Simultaneous Movement

One of the most annoying things about playing with other humans, even cooperatively, is that you have to wait for them and they take even longer than AI (Civ is turn-based). However, with simultaneous turn movement, you’ll find yourself waiting less. The catch is that you and your cooperative civ friend(s) must plan details like city attacks accordingly. However, it’s fun to talk through that stuff in real-time strategy.

Playing Civ in multiplayer mode takes a LOT of patience. However, it’s one of the more rewarding games to play collaboratively with others, and as long as you’re good at conversing during down time, it’s a fun game to stream for long periods of time, especially if you’re open to strategy advice from your audience.

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We hope you enjoyed our guide describing what you should know before playing multiplayer games in Civ VI. Please check out Gamer Journalist on Facebook to join the discussion and keep up to date with our content. You may also want to check out our guide to the best Civ VI leaders for winning a science victory.