Multiple choices of leaders per civilization have been confirmed via the franchise's official YouTube channel revealing a trailer of Gorgo, a Spartan queen, as a leader for Greece, an alternative to the previously announced Pericles.

In Civilization VI, the player receives a Civilization bonus, reflecting the historical traits of the civilization they're playing as, as well as a leader bonus, showcasing that civilization's prominent historical leaders' strengths.

Multiple leader choices per Civ allow the player to more effectively specialize in the playstyle they want to develop, as well as experiment with alternatives while still playing from a position of familiarity by playing around with new leaders from civilizations they already know.

To check out all of the game's civilizations, check out GamerZakh's video:

Personally I think this is AMAZING news. It really is kind of genius in its simplicity. It will probably translate to the game having a lot more options in the form of new leaders being added in the future. This will mean much, much more possible variety since introducing leaders will only tweak already exisitng civilizations in small ways and will require less playtesting and balancing. It also gives civs more flavor imo because it showcases the myriad of individuals that shaped their history rather than only singling out one.

This is one of the things I've always thought Civ should have. Glad they're finally implementing it.

@dstopia: It's not really a new thing for Civ, they just decided not to include it in 5 for some reason.

I'm glad they brought this back from IV. Adding flexibility to some or all of the Civs is always welcome. There are some civs that have leader bonuses I'm not that into right now, so hopefully they'll introduce a leader that will make me want to play those more. It's also nice knowing that I have options if I want to play a peaceful Greece or an aggro Greece. Hopefully this means they can pump out some good leaders as dlc inbetween expansions as well.

Its also worth noting that the devs have confirmed that both leaders can be in the same game. So you can have some Pericles vs. Gorgo action.

I'm glad to see this! Does add a ton of flexibility and nuance to the game, which is nice.

I really like the "multiple leaders for a given civilization" thing in particular, too - been playing Duelyst a lot of late and that also has two Generals for each of the factions. It's a neat system, because you still get the core of what makes that faction or civ unique but have two different directions you can focus in. Glad to hear you'll be able to play them off against one another, too.

Definitely good news. I wouldn't particularly call it amazing or incredible. Civ IV had this as someone said. I'm not buying into the whole stripped down vanilla game that then becomes the real Civilization by the end of all the DLCs, preorder bonuses, and expansions. They need to just make the base game have everything good from the previous Civ games, then dedicated the DLCs to new ideas and concepts.

@dstopia@retris Is it possible dstopia meant multiple leaders like the way Paradox games (EUIV, Stellaris) handles it? If so, I agree that it would be awesome if they deepened the government system. Having new leaders take on different traits based on popularity, prior decisions, and the like would be amazing.

Nah, I actually was referring to the same thing that we had for a few civs in 4. I just had totally forgotten about it!

Hopefully they go all in on that and implement multiple leaders for every civ in 6, unlike 4.

Based on the streams I've seen they seem to have carried over most everything from Civ V+expansions. Nothing silly and obvious missing like religion or spying.

I'm going all in with the deluxe edition, but I won't pretend that's a smart thing to do. Civ games show up in Steam sales so often, it makes sense to wait and see how it shakes out.