I was wrong about Civ6 - it's a reboot

[Bibor]

EDITED for clarification.
INB4 accusations of changing claims: Civ5 pre-launch was clearly advertising Civ5 as a movement towards tactical level combat "as seen in Panzer General" and they put great emphasis on that.


I watched several civ 6 videos, but the latest one, showing off religion was quite a revelation.

I don't think Civ 6 is an upgrade to 5. Yes, there are hexes, city states and other similarities, but I don't think its actually a polish of Civ5, Brave New World was a polish.

Even now, before launch in its pre-vanilla state, it looks much more detailed than civ5, with many more meaningful "levers" that can be pulled. Civ 6 truly feels more a reboot than an upgrade.

On one hand, it makes sense. They are introducing many, many new mechanics that will be polished through expansions. Interconnectedness of various game mechanics/levers will also make - if not for a better - at least for a more interesting AI. From a general gameplay perspective, this game even now looks like 10 times more fun than Civ 5.

However, I'm surprised they took this direction. In my opinion, the game looks more like a god game (Settlers, city builder), "Sim Civ" if you like, not as a strategy game tactical game that Civ5 was heading towards. Don't get me wrong, I love god games, loved them since Populous. But I'm not a big fan of mixing genres.

An old example would be HoMM IV where they tried to introduce "roleplaying elements". I wasn't a really big fan of that. The same is true for, say Fallout 4 vs Witcher. Where Fallout went "builder", Witcher went with more RPG. Compared to New Vegas, I consider Fallout 4 a sidestep, not a sequel.

And I guess I feel the same about Civilization 6. From what I've seen so far, it will be a great sim strategy game, just not a great strategy tactical game. I guess a re-clasification is in order.

I'm not sure what Sid Meier's original plan for Civ was, was it to be a god game CMS/strategy game or strategy/tactical game, but it sure looked till Civ 5 that the direction it was taking was towards "strategytactics first". Maybe I'm wrong and it was intended to be a "Sim Civ" all along (like RRT or Colonization).

If Civ was to be a god game CMS/strategy all along, then it's a reboot. If it was to be a strategy strategy/tactical game, it's a sidestep compared to Civ5.

 

[Ebrim]

I don't really see CiV as qualitatively different from CivVI. I feel like CivVI is a continuation from BNW with the ability to start the engine fresh to fully support BNW's vision.

 

[Buccaneer]

I don't really see CiV as qualitatively different from CivVI. I feel like CivVI is a continuation from BNW with the ability to start the engine fresh to fully support BNW's vision.

I agree, I never knew where Bibor was coming from.

 

[Bibor]

I don't really see CiV as qualitatively different from CivVI. I feel like CivVI is a continuation from BNW with the ability to start the engine fresh to fully support BNW's vision.

All of the features I saw in the video are much more integrated and interconnected than ever before. And the effects of these integrations feel much more like "sim effects" than strategic effects.

It feels like you're managing your empire much more than in any of the previous Civ games. And sorry, but no, game engine was never the limiting factor in that regard. In strategy games, the emphasis is on managing the conflict itself, in god games, conflict resolution comes primarily from managing your empire, not the conflict.

EDIT: My bad, I consulted wikipedia. Not a god/sim game, but a CMS game.

Construction and management simulation (CMS) is a type of simulation game in which players build, expand or manage fictional communities or projects with limited resources. Strategy video games sometimes incorporate CMS aspects into their game economy, as players must manage resources while expanding their project. But pure CMS games differ from strategy games in that "the player's goal is not to defeat an enemy, but to build something within the context of an ongoing process." Games in this category are sometimes also called "management games".

vs.

Strategy video games are a genre of video game that emphasize skillful thinking and planning to achieve victory. Specifically, a player must plan a series of actions against one or more opponents, and the reduction of enemy forces is usually a goal. Victory is achieved through superior planning, and the element of chance takes a smaller role. In most strategy video games, the player is given a godlike view of the game world, and indirectly controls game units under their command. Thus, most strategy games involve elements of warfare to varying degrees, and feature a combination of tactical and strategic considerations. In addition to combat, these games often challenge the player's ability to explore, or manage an economy.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

In a sense, each iteration of the game is a reboot of the original with more progressive features. It's not like they can rightfully be called sequels, since there isn't a narrative arc to be continued or a series of episodes revolving around central characters.

 

[ThomasClark]

Well, I'm glad to see Bibor expressing more hope for Civ6 and thinking it'll be fun.

I can understand with the district system where the "Sim Civ" might come from, but I challenge this notion that it won't be a good strategy game. I see plenty of decision points, trade-offs, and complexity to keep me from "solving" an optimal path any time soon. Can you summarize your basis for saying it doesn't look like great strategy?

 

[Ivan Hunger]

The main difference between a strategy game and a simulation game is where your goals come from. Strategy games present predefined goals to you, and challenge you to accomplish them. Simulation games give you tools to set your own goals, based on your own ideals. Strategy games are more about achievement, while simulation games are more about self-expression.

Civ 6 is still very much a strategy game, because it has four predefined goals, the victory conditions, and every decision you make is in the interest of facilitating those goals, however indirectly.

An example of a simulation element being introduced into the series would be the throne room from Civ 2 that you could decorate. That had nothing to do with achieving victory, it was just a way for the player to express themselves.

 

[gunnergoz]

I would never think of Civ in any iteration as a "God game." There is no fantastical element to it. Its feet have always been firmly planted in the bedrock of history & human nature, not myth, legend or magic. True, there have been mods & scenarios with those elements, but that is more a testimonial to the game's robust design. Civ VI for me seems to build upon everything good about Civ to date. I will wait to play it before pronouncing it the best of breed, but right now it is looking very tasty indeed.

 

[Vincent55]

All of the features I saw in the video are much more integrated and interconnected than ever before. And the effects of these integrations feel much more like "sim effects" than strategic effects.

Oh, they feel like a sim to you? Well they feel like part of strategic game to me. We have clear numerical values, from which we need to look at our present situation, estimate a cost of opportunity allowing us to make hopefully the best choice with an eye toward winning the game based on preset conditions. Strategy.

 

[BrokenBokken]

It sounds like this is the topic of arbitrary and meaningless labels! Yay!

 

[Ryika]

Another passive-aggressive thread that tries to degrade Civ by playing around with words until it sounds like Civ is doing something bad? I don't even understand why you feel the need to do this. Just accept that it's not the type of strategy game you want and move on.

 

[Bibor]

Oh, they feel like a sim to you? Well they feel like part of strategic game to me. We have clear numerical values, from which we need to look at our present situation, estimate a cost of opportunity allowing us to make hopefully the best choice with an eye toward winning the game based on preset conditions. Strategy.

To quote Ivan Hunger, he summed it up prefectly:

The main difference between a strategy game and a simulation game is where your goals come from. Strategy games present predefined goals to you, and challenge you to accomplish them. Simulation games give you tools to set your own goals, based on your own ideals. Strategy games are more about achievement, while simulation games are more about self-expression.

When I play civ games, my need for self-expression is much more pronounced than while playing, say, Panzer Corps. Sorry, but Civ6 looks like giving me a bunch of tools to express myself, more tools than to strategize. There might be 4 victory types, but in Civ 5, even a domination victory is 90% empire management, 10% troop management. In this regard, I don't think Civ 6 will be a radical shift.
One great thing is that there are no predefined goals. Sure, there are victory types, but noone is pointing a gun at your head and tell you that you can't just turn them all off and build a nation for 300 turns.

Another passive-aggressive thread that tries to degrade Civ by playing around with words until it sounds like Civ is doing something bad? I don't even understand why you feel the need to do this. Just accept that it's not the type of strategy game you want and move on.

If you don't like it, don't read it. 1st amendment. Read the OP again. I like civ 6 for what it is. I'm just unsure if I wanted it to be more strat or more sim. They went sim. And it looks like they did a really good job. So what's your issue again?

 

[MadDjinn]

Empire management is a core function of a strategy game. Without the empire you have nothing.

Civ V skewed a bit to far into a thin empire management game (different from previous games) so civvi is shoving that balance back a bit more and making empire management more important again.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

The economy you manage with the CMS elements are still completely sealed off from the strategy of fighting your enemies. This is disappointing.

Back to the origin of the thread, Civ's owners have a "vision" for the franchise that's all over the place. It's not clear what they want it to be, whether they agree or if they even have one. It's just a bunch of decisions you make while historical pictures dance on the screen.

Okay, that's taking the criticism too far. But what did they want? It's clear from interviews and from the substance of VI's new mechanics that the Civ team wants to let you "build." You're building something grand. And so I think that's how it becomes an idea of a self-contained module, the CMS, the SimCivving. Calling that strategy is like calling Spider Solitaire strategy... it's not... right.

When will my chosen path toward filling all my buckets have a risk-reward relationship in my fights with my rivals? In my diplomatic standing? Of course, I can't stand Cities: Skylines while I favour Victoria II.

Does Civ appeal just because it's a builder on the scale of the planet? i.e it lets you build the cities and the universities, and the spaceships? That's fine, but I want to overcome my opponent, and not just because I've studied a static worksheet with all the best timings and slingshots.

 

[Bibor]

Empire management is a core function of a strategy game. Without the empire you have nothing.

Civ V skewed a bit to far into a thin empire management game (different from previous games) so civvi is shoving that balance back a bit more and making empire management more important again.

Not really true, as there are many strategy games keep empire management at bare minimum.

Arguably Civ4 also shifted focus from empire management to strategy around mid-game (empire management went almost always to "full auto" at that point), but I guess only on higher difficulty levels where conquest/dom was almost the only option.

 

[BrokenBokken]

I guess a large portion of strategy board games aren't really strategy board games since I'm not just killing their units and taking over their land. Like nearly ever single Euro strategy board game isn't a strategy game to you.

This is stupid.

You're just making up your own definitions and labels for things.

 

[Buccaneer]

Empire management is a core function of a strategy game. Without the empire you have nothing.

Civ V skewed a bit to far into a thin empire management game (different from previous games) so civvi is shoving that balance back a bit more and making empire management more important again.

Thus, the varied reactions of what should constitute an "empire". Some view this as filling the map with urbanization, other filling small parts of the map with dense urbanization, while others see an empire built mainly by conquest and yet others, by playing to the strengths of your civ regardless of the 'size' of the empire. You should be able to manage a tiny sized empire to victory if played expertly to managing a carpeted urban sprawl tovictory, if that's your thing.

 

[Stauffenberg]

It feels like you're managing your empire much more than in any of the previous Civ games. And sorry, but no, game engine was never the limiting factor in that regard. In strategy games, the emphasis is on managing the conflict itself, in god games, conflict resolution comes primarily from managing your empire, not the conflict.

EDIT: My bad, I consulted wikipedia. Not a god/sim game, but a CMS game.

Construction and management simulation (CMS) is a type of simulation game in which players build, expand or manage fictional communities or projects with limited resources.

Personally I've never seen the civ games as strategic games focusing on conflicts. That is what you have wargames for.

For me the civilization games is about evolving your civilization through the different eras and relating to your environment and other civilizations. Conflict is sometimes needed to advance your strategic goals for your civilization, but you can actually decide to play a completely peaceful game and win that way.

Part of the fun is seeing your puny little civilization grow into a big powerful civilization through different methods (science, culture, religion, conflict, diplomacy, espionage, building of units, buildings and wonders and improvement of surrounding terrain).

In older civ games the city improvement phase was actually quite standard. You ended up having the map filled with mines, farms, trading posts, lumber mills etc. You had horders of workers building roads and then railroads.

In civ 6, however, you have much more variety in what you can do around your cities. You need to plan the locations of your districts and wonders. So not the boring improve every possible hex around the city with workers. You get builders when you need them they get spent and don't have lots of workers on sentry waiting for something to do.

Most of the civ 6 videos show something quite different from e. g. civ 5. In civ 5 I used to spend most of my time moving workers and improving tiles, then watching the workers being busy for several turns. In civ 6 you see the players actually get MORE time for making strategic decisions about what to do with the combat units. Who to attack etc. So you focus more on what's fun and less on micromanagement.

There are so many improvements to civ 6 compared to civ 5 that I would never again play a civ 5 game. Civ 6 will get even better with DLC's, expansions and mods. So I expect years of civ 6 playing.

Having said that I love playing real wargames on the PC or the board game version using maps and counters. I don't mind playing wargames with thousands of counters like the WW2 Europa series from HMS (earlier GR/D).

 

[Buccaneer]

but you can actually decide to play a completely peaceful game and win that way.

or the opposite, a complete war game and win that way (which, in my long view, have always been the most common way to win).

Having said that I love playing real wargames on the PC or the board game version using maps and counters. I don't mind playing wargames with thousands of counters like the WW2 Europa series from HMS (earlier GR/D).

Me too, even though my background is half traditional wargames and half 4x strategy games.

That's what made Civ5 the ideal game to me (if not in execution, certainly in gameplay) = the best of both worlds, and why Civ4 looks unplayable in hindsight (ever know of a traditional wargame that did not have counter limits?). We'll see if Civ6 improves upon that balance.

 

[Ivan Hunger]

What pushes Civ more into the strategy camp is that it's a fundamentally competitive series. Even if you never fight a single war, you're still competing with every other empire for victory, unless you just turn all the victory types off and let the game run forever.

Empire builder games are usually more focused on cooperation than competition. Civ 6 does have a few mutually cooperative mechanics, such as trade routes, but the majority of mechanics are geared toward either helping yourself exclusively or hurting one of your rivals or both. There are very few ways for empires to work together in Civ, because the entire game is built around the core concept of only one empire winning and everyone else losing.