Has Civilization six started to get less interesting for you? Has it gotten repetitive playing as the same leader over and over? The Civilization 6 Frontier Pass might be a worthy investment to make your experience better. In this article I will be talking about the Maya and Gran Columbia pack. This was the first pack to get released in the pack, and is worth $11.60 in Australia.
The first leader in the pack is the Maya Civilization – Lady Six Sky. Her unique ability, “Ix Mutal Ajaw”, gives her units a combat strength bonus when within six tiles of the capital. The ability also gives her cities within six tiles of the capital a yield boost for all different yields. However, cities further than six tiles away get a penalty to their yields.
The Maya unique ability is “Mayab”, giving bonus housing and production bonuses from farms. You also get amenities from luxury resources next to the city center when settling cities. However, settling next to freshwater or the coast will not give housing bonuses.
Their unique district is the observatory, giving a small science adjacency bonus when next to farms, and a big bonus for being next to plantations. They also have a unique unit called the Hul’che, a strong replacement of the archer unit which does additional damage against hurt units.
Overall, I think the Maya are a very powerful “turtle civ”, as they use grouping up their cities in a small area as an advantage. They will also be very hard to kill early game as they have their unique archer unit. I personally think they are great for a science victory, as you can take advantage of their farms and observatory district to get ahead of everybody else. Domination is out of the question, but any other victory type would work just fine.
The second civ in this pack is Gran Columbia, ruled by the leader Simón Bolívar. Their unique civilization ability is “Ejercito Patriota”, giving them a little movement bonus, and promoting units won’t end their turn.
Simón’s unique leader ability is “Campana Admirable” which gives Simón a “Comandante General” after each era ends. This general has the same passive bonus great generals have as well as a unique retire bonus that will be different each time you play.
Their unique unit, the Llanero, is a powerful near late game cavalry replacement. They gain more combat strength when next to other Llanero units and will heal fully if a nearby comandante general retires.
Their unique improvement is the “Hacienda”, built on grassland or plains. It provides production, gold, and bonus food for adjacent plantations.
Gran Columbia is a very powerful domination civ, taking advantage of their fast movement, generals, and Llanero units to wipe out other players. Having this player as your neighbour would be a nightmare. Their Hacienda is less of a great ability and more of just a cherry on top compared to everything else. Still, a very good leader who is quite fun to play as.
The apocalypse game mode is also available after buying this pack. Disaster intensity is locked at four, making the map chaotic and full of mayhem. There are two new natural disasters – meteor comets and solar flares. After hitting the ground, you can ‘investigate’ meteor crash sites by moving a unit onto the tile where it landed. This awards a free heavy cavalry unit, from outer space! Solar flares happen in the late game when the climate meter reaches the last phase. They destroy late game units and improvements, as well as districts. Another thing that happens in this phase, is massive comets fall from the sky and wipe out cities. Ouch!
The mode also offers a new competition – Appease the Gods. Using a unit unique for the mode, the Soothsayer, you can throw your own units into nearby volcanoes in exchange for score. Highest scoring player receives free Soothsayers and promotions for said Soothsayers. Another thing they can do is start disasters. Simply standing next to a volcano or a river or something else, using one of their charges will start a disaster there. This could be used tactically to torture the A.I or just to slow down other players’ progress.
Overall, it’s a very fun pack. Both the leaders are fun to play as and are quite unique, making the civ experience better. The game mode is really fun and encourages fleeing earth before the meteors kill us all. I would recommend this as one of the better packs in the Frontier Pass compared to the others. I do love how Firaxis and 2K keep updating the game and making things just a bit more enjoyable to play.
