A few days ago, Civilization V received a 800MB update through Steam. Holy smokes!, you might think, Firaxis has given me an early Christmas present! Sadly, this is not the case and in fact, you'll find your lovingly-hung stocking is filled with a giant steaming turd, in the shape of an obnoxious new game launcher that no one asked for.

Support for the Australian dollar is finally live. Some studios are still getting around to making their games available locally, but for the most part, prices and games have remained largely untouched.

But then everyone got to work, and very quietly, prices started going up.

Firaxis has done a good job of bringing their over-aggressive Ghandhi franchise to smaller screens, but from today, Civilization VI will be available on the iPhone as well.

Why do we play video games? That question and many more, tackled on today's episode of Kotaku Splitscreen.

Want to know what is coming out this year? We have you covered.

Firaxis announced the newest faction for Civilization 6 this morning, bringing a new face to the series: the Nubian empire.

The official inclusion of Australians to Civilization VI has gone down well, even though Firaxis missed a trick by not including Russell Crowe as a special spy unit. But while most of the Australian "civilisation" is fairly authentic, Australia's indigenous inhabitants are nowhere to be seen.

One of the most annoying issues with Civ 6's AI since launch has been the severity of warmonger penalties. Raise a finger against another Civ ever, even in defence, and you're in trouble for the rest of the game. That's not very fair, so it's getting a fix.

Civilization VI is a very good video game, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement.

As part of his very comprehensive BFG Modpack, Civ 6 modder Ananse has created and introduced a new unit to the game: The journalist, a civilian unit which can do everything from reduce war weariness to serving as a secret agent.

It's probably more fitting for a video game than I Am Australian or the national anthem, to be fair.

Bloody oath, strewth, flaming galah. This is a true blue Aussie review of Civilization 6 and its new rippa Aussie DLC.

There's digger corps, the capital is Canberra and our leader is John Curtin.

Given the history of the series and some of the creations people have made, it was always a little weird that Civilization 6 shipped without official mod tools and Steam Workshop support. But for those holding on hope, good news. They're coming. Eventually.

Civilization 5 is one of the greatest video games of all time, and one of the oft-overlooked reasons why isn't its "one more turn" systems or balance, but its cartoon leaders. Despite their exaggerated appearance they feel alive, and it was cool to see this aspect of the game not just retained, but improved for Civilization 6.

One of the more pleasant surprises with how good Civ 6 has been out of the gates has been the game's urban planning system. Something Haphaz77 has shown off here to terrific effect.

Early last year, something beautiful happened: a single game of Civ 6 was started up, with 61 civs all controlled by the AI, then left to run. It was chaos, there was bloodshed, but sadly, it all kinda fell apart thanks to technical woes. Not to matter! It's starting up again, and for curious spectators looks a lot better.

He thought he made it through this one. He really did.

A very big update is out for Civ 6 today (the first major one since launch), which among other things adds a lot more useful tips to the UI, makes the AI actually upgrade its military units and lets you rename cities.