The Civilization VI October update is free to everyone, including those who have the base game, and it doesn't matter if you got it from free from the Epic Store, this update is for all Civ 6 fans. It includes a Pirates scenario, inspired by Sid Meier's Pirates!, 2 games from 1987 and 2004 that show Sid Meier's obsession with pirates. The patch also addresses balancing matters such as Recruit Partisans being overpowered, AI paying too much for Diplomatic Favor and other AI other improvements. The update will be available October 22 at 9 AM PDT.
Sid Meier, the creator of Civilization VI, is a programmer, video game designer, video game producer, cash registers systems developer, company creator and so on. However, he also like Pirates a lot. The Civilization's developer team made a scenario inspired by Sid Meier's Pirates! games, but accommodating for Civilization's own game-mechanics.
"The Pirates! scenario is a one to four player contest for treasure and glory on the high seas. There's new and updated art to infuse the scenario with a more tropical, piratey atmosphere. You'll also have the option to explore a unique, hand-crafted map or choosing a map script that provides a different layout on each playthrough", said Kevin Schultz, Associate Producer.
In the scenario you got to choose one of four pirates factions, each with its own unique abilities. Reminds me a lot of the Secret Societies game mode.
The Relic System is a direct adaptation from Sid Meier's Pirates!, pretty much a way of finding 'civics' in the sea.
The Civilization VI's developers team cares a lot about fans, they hear us on social media and then they decide what is worth balancing. However, be aware that after the October patch playing against the AI will be harder, as it received some very needed improvements.
Before the update the Recruit Partisans spy mission could be spammed to create more and more rebel units in an enemy Neighborhood. This was a huge problem and discouraged players from constructing the district. After the patch the mission will no longer be spammable as it pillages the district, and also creates an anti-cavalry instead of a regular melee unit.
Some features didn't scale with game-speed, making them easy to exploit. An example of this was the Favor cost of voting in World Congress, it didn't scale with speed and therefore it was easy to sway votes in your favour.
People asked to decrease the value of Diplomatic Favor for the AI. I'm the first to admit that I abused this quite a lot, selling all the Diplomatic Favor made some games very easy, but I'm sure we will do fine without it.
The AI also became better in other aspects, such as its desire for valuable wonders like the Oracle and Pyramid, repairing defenses more promptly and being discouraged from building Holy Sites over other districts if the civ/leader doesn't have a religious focus.
The developers teams also mentioned that they balanced the first 2 DLCs, particularly Gran Colombia, as we all know the civ was too strong.
https://civilization.com/news/entries/civilization-vi-october-2020-update-coming-next-week/