Initial Reactions

[joncnunn]

I'm with you, except I don't think city states are the worst element, not by a long shot.

Worst things are:

Moderator Action: Let's keep the focus both in this thread and in the Civ VI forum on Civ VI, both what is known and speculation rather than Civ V.

 

[Zeppa]

The dev's have to be pleased to see this "initial reactions" thread brings out so many postings by old time civ fanatic forum members. People still care, I'm excited.

 

[Quintillus]

My key takeaways are:

• The districts idea could provide an interesting way to customize cities
• They decided to adopt the Civ3-style armies idea to address the tediousness of moving every unit individually in Civ5 - yay! Support units should also help with that.
• The active research sounds sensible and potentially interesting
• They're at least looking at overhauling diplomacy, and the more varied agendas could be interesting as well

The VentureBeat article also mentions what I consider a key point - "The happiness level will be focused on a city level, rather than on a global basis across your civilization." So all in all, it's a good start towards addressing what kept me on Civ3/Civ4 and mostly away from Civ5 - 1UPT and Global Happiness.

I do have a few follow-up questions:

- What's the logic behind the adjacency bonuses such as science districts next to mountains/jungles? Harbors next to coasts make sense; science next to jungles not so much unless perhaps you're researching Ecology/Environmentalism.
- The different diplomatic agendas could be interesting, but what's on the docket in terms of real meaty diplomacy changes? Diplomacy has always felt rather lackluster in Civ, at least since I discovered the Paradox games, and I can't say it's really improved from Civ version to Civ version.
- How expansive will the maps be? Since Civ3, each version has tended more towards fewer cities, which has rather killed the empire-building feeling IMO. I like the idea of districts but don't want an endgame with 4 cities with a bunch of districts each - I'd like to, at least on larger maps, still have lots of cities, along with several districts per city.
- Related to the above, I'm curious how the scale will feel with the outlaying districts of the cities. I don't really feel like the whole map should feel as dense as the Northeast Corridor in the U.S. by end-game. Earlier iterations haven't really felt like that, since the outlaying areas are mostly mines, farms, pastures, and the like (though they have had scale issues such as the longbows-over-the-Channel one in Civ5).
- What are the plans in terms of governments/civics/social policies? I'm still hoping for something like Tropico 1's edicts, or perhaps that combined with Civ3-style governments, but Firaxis has been creative with these options the past few iterations.

The graphics do look like Civ5, to me, perhaps a bit less realistic. Not too concerned though as (a) it's a strategy game, who cares about graphics?, (b) Civ4 wasn't great in that area either and no one really cared, and (c) I'm sure there will be a nice mod for that at some point. Oh, and (d) they're almost certainly still working on them.

Not thrilled about city states since IMO they didn't add much in Civ5 and thus I tend to play with them off or mostly off when I do play 5, but there will likely be an option for that even without mods, so no big deal.

On the whole it seems pretty decent at this juncture, albeit with a lot of unknowns. Some potentially good new stuff, and it takes away or significantly reduces my major complaints with Civ5.

Definitely not as excited as I was about Civ4 in 2005, but that has more to do with Civ4 Vanilla and Civ5 than the announcement itself.

Current outlook: Will likely buy at some point, perhaps 2017, but somewhat dependent on how hooked I get on Stellaris.

 

[dexters]

I never left, i was playing Civ 5 last year, starting messing around with Let's Plays.
Just forgot about my fanatics account and didn't log in for a while as the discussions tend to become stale between expansions/releases.

I'm a bit sheepish that I never finished my Civ5 diplomacy guide...

I'm really glad Ed Beach is handling this. The BnW and GnK expansions worked because he had the right ideas. His involvement in vanilla before taking over from Shafer only meant that he has buy in on the key Civ5 innovations , which reflects in Civ6. Hexes/1upt/city-states/relational diplomacy are all back.

 

[gcm4738]

Civ5 was total garbage, and this new Civ6 sounds more like a big add-on than a truly new game, with the worst and dumbest major elements still in (1upt and city-states) and a general design which seem just a continuation.

My excitement meter is wondering if it should be zero or negative.

but you're here. like I am

wondering if maybe... just maybe... strategy is not dead

and tycoonist lives

 

[Malachi256]

My first reaction - wow that was quick! (that could easily just be me and the increasingly rapid passage of time).

My next reaction - I hope the AI can play it well... otherwise meh =/

 

[EulerMcE]

The gameplay changes sound interesting but I will have to wait until I see the implementation to have any real opinion. The visuals are incredibly jarring however, especially considering the theme of the game. I don't necessarily expect hyper-realism, but this really does look like it took its cues from a mobile game. Looking at the promotional artwork and trailer, and seeing the visuals themselves is kind of baffling.

 

[Aristos]

I keep reading and reading about the graphics... did it not occur to anyone that those might just be early, "conceptual art" versions? I am leaning towards that explanation until some later alpha/beta/demo run proofs me wrong... even then, if they are to be like in those pictures, well, I worry more for AI and gameplay anyways (not to say that both those factors plus nice graphics are a win-win-win...). Remember, Shafer's vanilla civ 5 was a beautiful piece of youknowhat.

 

[Decius]

After seeing the trailer and screen shots and reading four articles my reaction comes down to this:
I love Civ 4 (and still play it).
Civ 5 was a bitter disappointment to me for numerous reasons.
It's early days, but Civ 6 seems very similar to Civ 5 and nothing like Civ 4.
I've been playing Civilization games since 1991, but Civ 6 may well be the first one I don't buy.

 

[dexters]

After seeing the trailer and screen shots and reading four articles my reaction comes down to this:
I love Civ 4 (and still play it).
Civ 5 was a bitter disappointment to me for numerous reasons.
It's early days, but Civ 6 seems very similar to Civ 5 and nothing like Civ 4.
I've been playing Civilization games since 1991, but Civ 6 may well be the first one I don't buy.

Sorry but ship's sailed on that. Civ6 was very unlikely going to go back to Civ4 mechanics after Firaxis proved the Civ5 'innovations' were the correct way to go when the game was reworked and rebalanced with Gods and Kings then Brave New World. Civ5 sold insanely well as a franchise and is still is one of the top games on Steam, six years after it launched.

It's a bit sad to see such bitterness so many years later, but Civ6 will be improving on Civ5's groundwork in the same way Civ4 improved on 3's very ambitious designs. This has already opened it up to criticism of being a glorified expansion pack.

But considering they are promising to carry over most of the major features from Brave New World rather than releasing a stripped down 'vanilla' game then sell us back features later, the direction Civ6 will take in terms of content will be interesting.

I can't even imagine what Civ6 will be like after the 2nd expansion is released. I imagine a fully working UN system with politics and intrigue up to wazoo.

 

[Dale]

The dev's have to be pleased to see this "initial reactions" thread brings out so many postings by old time civ fanatic forum members. People still care, I'm excited.

We may be posting, but that doesn't equate to positiveness. From what I've seen of the Golden Oldies, there is a lot of wariness, a lot of tentative looks but not enough to get caught up in the false marketing hype and fall victim again.

Sorry but ship's sailed on that. Civ6 was very unlikely going to go back to Civ4 mechanics after Firaxis proved the Civ5 'innovations' were the correct way to go when the game was reworked and rebalanced with Gods and Kings then Brave New World. Civ5 sold insanely well as a franchise and is still is one of the top games on Steam, six years after it launched.

It's a bit sad to see such bitterness so many years later, but Civ6 will be improving on Civ5's groundwork in the same way Civ4 improved on 3's very ambitious designs. This has already opened it up to criticism of being a glorified expansion pack.

But considering they are promising to carry over most of the major features from Brave New World rather than releasing a stripped down 'vanilla' game then sell us back features later, the direction Civ6 will take in terms of content will be interesting.

I can't even imagine what Civ6 will be like after the 2nd expansion is released. I imagine a fully working UN system with politics and intrigue up to wazoo.

The bitterness is because the series took a direction down the path of scaled-down genericness to bring in the millions of sales for 2K. It's sad that even after all this time, it still appears that the design is led by the bean counters rather than strategy genius.

Civ has just turned a different direction to what we wanted. Most of those of us who feel that way have found a calming niche in Paradox titles. It doesn't completely absolve the itch, but it sure goes a lot further than Civ5 did to.

And our bitterness and wariness comes from the fact it appears that this is really just Civ5.5, not Civ6. The things we felt were poor additions, are still in there.

 

[dexters]

We may be posting, but that doesn't equate to positiveness. From what I've seen of the Golden Oldies, there is a lot of wariness, a lot of tentative looks but not enough to get caught up in the false marketing hype and fall victim again.



The bitterness is because the series took a direction down the path of scaled-down genericness to bring in the millions of sales for 2K. It's sad that even after all this time, it still appears that the design is led by the bean counters rather than strategy genius.

Civ has just turned a different direction to what we wanted. Most of those of us who feel that way have found a calming niche in Paradox titles. It doesn't completely absolve the itch, but it sure goes a lot further than Civ5 did to.

And our bitterness and wariness comes from the fact it appears that this is really just Civ5.5, not Civ6. The things we felt were poor additions, are still in there.

Sorry to hear, I think most of the best additions are back and refined.

I'm still waiting to see how city-states have been balanced/improved.

And from my pov, Civ's always been accessible game and not niche. It may have courted an audience who wanted more than a sandbox 4x game with civ4, but at it root, Civ is a very different kind of game than the scenario heavy EU or Crusader Kings titles. I've always felt the timelines, geography and themes of those games were too limiting.

Love Paradox though (Cities Skylines); I'm also eager to see how Stellaris turns out, and would love to see their take on a 4x empire builder that's sandbox and not wedded to a theme and timeline.

 

[UncivilizedGuy]

Initial Reaction:

Been bored with games lately. Looking forward to my new VR unit to arrive in a couple of months. Opened up Steam to see the new VR games and thought... Oh My F'n God!... because there was a huge Civ VI graphic blasting me in the face. No longer bored.

 

[gunnergoz]

I keep reading and reading about the graphics... did it not occur to anyone that those might just be early, "conceptual art" versions? I am leaning towards that explanation until some later alpha/beta/demo run proofs me wrong... even then, if they are to be like in those pictures, well, I worry more for AI and gameplay anyways (not to say that both those factors plus nice graphics are a win-win-win...). Remember, Shafer's vanilla civ 5 was a beautiful piece of youknowhat.

Given the amount of forethought that today's commercial marketers put into to release of information to consumers, I doubt that anything we are seeing is conceptual. We are getting teasers, true, but a lot of thought went into what we are glimpsing and reading now. Some of it may be "trial balloon" material put out there to test consumer reactions, but IMO most of it is there to set a tone and build buzz for the sizzle to come.

 

[UncivilizedGuy]

This game is only 5 months away and they have been working on this for a few years now. I guarantee those graphics are the final draft and that they probably don't have much major work left to do before release.

 

[IrishBandit]

I'm probably not going to buy it purely because of the artstyle. The cartoony, juvenile style destroys the tone of Civilization for me, everything looks disproportional and scaled-down (those forests look awful). I hope that it's open to modding so that modders can maybe fix it.

 

[ThERat]

Considering myself of one of the old guards. Been playing civ since it appeared in the 90s. Civ5 was such a let down. I have not touched it after some initial games. We sure wanted to like it, but 1upt and all the concepts that had to be in there due to 1upt are what really made the experience horrible.

Civ6's initial impression is, unfortunately, a continuation of the wrong turn civ had been taken with 5. Of course, there is always hope that this is not going to be true. I doubt that many of the people that felt 'cheated' by civ5 will jump on the bandwagon. We are cynical now and can wait til the game drops in price considerably.

 

[dexters]

Considering myself of one of the old guards. Been playing civ since it appeared in the 90s. Civ5 was such a let down. I have not touched it after some initial games. We sure wanted to like it, but 1upt and all the concepts that had to be in there due to 1upt are what really made the experience horrible.

Civ6's initial impression is, unfortunately, a continuation of the wrong turn civ had been taken with 5. Of course, there is always hope that this is not going to be true. I doubt that many of the people that felt 'cheated' by civ5 will jump on the bandwagon. We are cynical now and can wait til the game drops in price considerably.

You should go back and play Civ5 with the expansions. It's a vastly different game.

You may not like 1UP, but there's a lot to like. I think the idea of the AI fighting with you over territory, real points of the map, rather than rolling a dice each turn to decide if they want to attack you or not is something I find liberating in Civ5. The AI have agendas and goals. They're not a mindless machine moving units around and attacking your nearest city just because its your nearest city.

I've started wars over far flung city-state protectorates and fought there where there were other points of our empires that were far closer.

 

[RohirrimElf]

watched the trailer, read through a few sites.

My first reaction after spending about 30 minutes digesting everything was: I just love about every change and it looks like 2k improves on an already excelent game (civ 5). This is just what i wanted to hear.

But my only fear is the 3 screenshots on steam. Watching those i just felt ill. If only civ 6 still remains a pc game and not a game you could play on your tablet/mobile. I would sacrifice graphics for shorter waiting times, but those 3 screenshots felt like a kick in the groin. I always liked the fact that you could pick up a 5/6 year old civ 5 and enjoyed it as much as a recent AAA game that came out. It ages very well. But this is taking it a bit to far. The animated soldiers do look like there could be a good amount of cool animations do.

 

[whyidie]

Likely a day 1 buy again for me. Held off on CiV until GnK release, purely out of fatigue from past iterations. They went in a terrific direction with CiV and revitalized the series for me.

Graphics are rough but if it means better performance, I'm sure I'll get used to it after 500 more hours.

Like everything I'm hearing so far except for the bit about leader behavior. Sounds same same. Wasn't expecting great strides, but to hear them talking about wonder lust leading to war as if its a prominent feature makes me wonder about how much they've put into AI behavior.

Hope to hear more about movement. Stacking units makes sense (especially considering you could do it with naval/ground combos) and should help somewhat, but I hope they are able to improve pathfinding or implement waypoints. If the maps are larger, would like to see something done about movement. Took a long time to move armies or even single scouts around the map, eventually (after hundreds of hours) taking the joy out of exploring.

Low tile yields led to pretty thin margins forcing fairly disciplined play above King. Hopefully something is done to combat this...or just make leader flavors stronger so that if you load a King game with warmongers you'd get Immortal level troops from the AI.

Haven't been this excited for a game release in ages. Well done Firaxis.