Shacknews: Can you describe some of the exclusive plant life and terrain that players will find in the arid biome?
Firaxis: The biomes are visual markers rather than having separate gameplay values, much the way we had American, Asian, African, and European tile sets in Civ V. Each of these gave the world a unique look, but played identically. This is because resources and their distribution is so key to the gameplay for Civ, that walling off resources behind a specific biome would have created problems for players given the way the game is designed. However, when you're on the arid biome, your forests will be giant cactus-like plants, rather than woody trees. Also the mountains and craters will look different than the other biomes.