
The World Congress brings the players a lot more control over building resolutions from different components the way you might a peace treaty, and the international community votes on whether or not your resolution is carried in the session of the World Congress. The new Favor currency and a new Grievances system replace the base game's Warmonger score. The way in which votes are influenced are called Favors, which can increase the weight of your vote. For example, a river discovered by the English might be named the Thames, whereas one discovered by the French could be named the Seine.ĭiplomacy is also revamped, with the Diplomatic Victory condition and World Congress from previous games returning with the difference that you will need to accrue a certain number of Diplomatic Victory Points that can be earned in various ways and you will have to win votes multiple times, showing the diplomatic leadership in the different eras, in order to achieve diplomatic victory. Mountain ranges, rivers, volcanoes and deserts are now named after the civilization that discovered them. World generation is also changed: new terrain features, geothermal fissures and volcanoes, spawn along mountain ridges separating continents, and floodplains now spawn in larger clusters exclusively along rivers. The Future Era returns by adding new Technologies and Civics that will be unlocked randomly. Players are also able to research green power alternatives such as solar, wind and geothermal power stations. However, doing so will increase CO 2 levels in the atmosphere, increasing the frequency of disasters. Late-game buildings can have their effectiveness improved by providing with the new power resource, which can be obtained by burning resources such as coal and oil. The frequency of these events is affected by a new climate system. Additionally, some of these events can be beneficial to players for example, after river floods and volcanic eruptions, affected tiles may have their yields increased. Players are given ways to mitigate these by building improvements such as dams or sea barriers. The expansion introduces natural disasters in the form of volcanic eruptions, river floods, rising sea levels, hurricanes, dust storms, blizzards, tornadoes, and droughts. The player has to face how their environment changes over time, whether randomly or as a consequence of their environmental decisions. The focus of the Gathering Storm expansion is improving the game world with the weather and how human action affects it in the last eras of the game.
