"Civilization VI" will be released in October. (Courtesy of 2K Games)

Firaxis is offering the first peek at "Civilization VI," the next chapter in the decades-old franchise that lets you play your way to global domination — and it’s coming with a major new twist.

The game, in which players take on the roles of historical figures to build and expand empires, has always been densely packed — particularly when it comes to building cities. Players have been able to stack their cities with specialty buildings like universities and monuments, but buildings have been packed together in a single tile.

But in "Civilization VI," cities will sprawl. This adds a different dimension to creating your cities, giving players a sense of city layout and a chance to craft the character of a metropolis much more easily.

Wonders such as the Great Pyramid will get their own tiles, giving players a new view on the cities they build. (Courtesy of 2K Games)

With the luxury of space, you will be able to do much more focused city management, by setting up specialized districts within your city walls. You can set up a downtown, or an education district, for example. That also comes into play when your city is under attack — you may have to sacrifice part of the financial district, for example, to shore up defenses in your city center.

Dennis Shirk, the game’s lead producer, said that the terrain around a city will also have an effect on how it operates.

Players who plant their universities next to mountains or jungles, for example, will get better science bonuses thanks to their surroundings. And when it comes to researching new technologies, terrain will also matter.

“We’re doing something in the game called ‘eurekas,’ which shape how you research your technologies,” he said. “If you want to research sailing in the middle of nowhere, away from the coast, it will take more time.”

Game designers have also added new dimension to your non-human opponents, said Andrew Garrett, the game’s artificial intelligence lead.

“Players need to understand why their AI opponents are making decisions they are,” Garrett said. In Civ VI, computer-controlled characters will now get their own historical agenda, plus some “extra random agendas” that require a little diplomacy to tease out, Garrett said.

“Civilization” has always played into the personalities of different historical figures — or played with them, in the case of the game’s famously war-mongering version of Gandhi — but this version will give each AI character their own distinct agendas. So your neighbor may be obsessed, for example, with building in-game wonders such as the Great Pyramids, and therefore may not take kindly when you pursue the same projects.

The Baltimore-area game studio is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year — a major milestone that just so happened to coincide with the development of this new title for a core series.

It’s been a while since the last big update to the traditional "Civilization" series; "Civilization V" was released in 2010, with expansions in 2012 and 2013. The firm did try a new take on the game with "Civilization: Beyond Earth" in 2014, which took the game out of its historical setting and into the realm of science fiction.

The company hasn’t released any information on pricing yet but will be announcing more details in the coming months ahead of the game's Oct. 21 release date.

For the game's developers, it's a relief to finally show off what they've been doing all this time. “It’s been a while that we’ve been working on it; it’s nice to start letting it out,” Shirk said.