Philip II “the prudent” will take the torch from Isabella to lead the Spanish people in Civilization VI. Reigning for the latter half of the sixteenth century, Philip ruled Spain during the height of its imperial power. He oversaw extensive colonial expansion, including his namesake, the Philippine Islands. Philip was also a fiercely devout Catholic, rallying the Spanish Armada against Protestant England and sending Conquistadors to spread the faith to the new world by any means necessary.
Spain’s unique ability, Treasure Fleets, gives their intercontinental trade routes additional gold yields. It also allows Spain to combine multiple ships into single fleet units earlier than their rivals, taking advantage of Civilization VI‘s new compromise between the one unit-per-tile of V and IV‘s “stacks of doom.”
The rest of Spain’s abilities are all about religion. Philip’s leader ability, El Escorial, gives his units a bonus when fighting against civs following another religion. His Inquisitors also have an additional charge for removing heresy. Their unique unit, the Conquistador, receives a significant damage boost when sharing their tile with a non-combat, religious unit (missionary, inquisitor, or apostle). They also automatically convert captured cities to Spain’s majority religion if adjacent when the city falls. Finally, the unique Spanish tile improvement, the Mission, provides faith, with bonuses to faith for being on a different continent from the Spanish capital and a science boost when next to a campus.
Spain is the first religious-focused civilization option we’ve seen so far. Although we don’t yet know the exact conditions for the religious victory, presumably they involve having your religion become the dominant global faith, and Spain seems set up to achieve that through force. They are also similar to England, with their colonial focus on continents other than where they begin. It’s important to note that continents are now named in Civ VI, and that exceptionally large landmasses are often broken up into multiple continents (like Eurasia), so these abilities will not be completely blanked on Pangaea maps.
Civilization VI comes to PC on October 21, 2016.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.