Did Civ6 take a significant step backward?

[dexters]

No. And civ games are generally not balanced for marathon speed.

 

[King Jason]

U.I yes - missing obvious glaring bugs (the gold exploits, etc.) - sure.

Otherwise, I feel like this is already contender for best in the series, easily.

 

[thecrazyscot]

I've played (and won) two games so far. The first was a culture victory as Egypt (Prince) where I never fought a single war, and the AI never denounced me once. I ended the game with two allies and one friend. In my experience diplomacy is something you have to actively pursue, otherwise the AI will not like you. I suspect that those who complain about unfriendly AI are simply not actively playing the diplo game.

The second game was a domination victory as Sumeria (King). As I waged aggressive war for almost the entire game, just about everyone hated me. Except for Norway! Apparently he doesn't care about warmongering as much as the others do. The other civilizations were actually relatively peaceful other than some minor skirmishes.

The racial customization certainly isn't game breaking, and the loading screens aren't either.

I do agree that more custom setup options are needed! Give me back raging barbarians!

 

[Qin Shi Hung]

Not all civs are warmongers. Gandhi and Victoria have never declared war on me, in several deity games where we were neighbors.

 

[Erudain]

my biggest let down so far is the size of the map.....which I was sure was going to be an issue with the new district system.
Even on "huge" maps it still feels too small, hopefully map mods will able to fix some of that

 

[nyyfootball]

Not all civs are warmongers. Gandhi and Victoria have never declared war on me, in several deity games where we were neighbors.

Victoria in real life was a notorious warmonger. The Boer Wars were famous for their brutally cruel concentration camps, for example.

 

[manu-fan]

Why on earth did you start your first game on Marathon with the largest map? Surely some other options would have been better to get a feel for the game first.

I don't agree that it took a step back. I think it's a massive improvement.

 

[dirtrobot]

I like it because I feel it took some of the best features from civ 4 and 5 and made a pretty smooth synthesis over all.
But production seems broken (as mentioned a lot on the forums), UI sucks (obvs), diplomacy is not great, but not bad.

I would assume in 2 solid future releases/DLC it'll be better than 4 or 5.

And I still haven't decided if districts are just a superfluous complication that actually don't add any more 'fun' to the mix - I think it just made city site planning more complicated than it needs to be and the crazy amount of special case rules of how the benefits of districts work doesn't seem like good design - just complicated as a designer ego stroke.

Also not a fan of impermanent builders, I'd rather pay a high maintenance cost or even pay per improvement than have to bung up my production queue producing one. Again, this one seems like another over-designed feature that doesn't add any more fun.

 

[thecrazyscot]

I already prefer VI to V.

 

[CaptainPatch]

Just terminated a new game I started about 4 hours ago. There I was in my ONE Capital city, with Victoria in London, up to my NW a good long distance away. I _finally_ get around to settling my 2nd city, off to the East. That puts my Capital between Vicky and my new city. So ASAP, Vicky comes complaining, "You're settling cities too close to us!" What? Does the AI seem to think that every AI leader considers ALL of a Pangaea landmass is to be considered in their Sphere of Influence? Two turns later she declares war on me. And she just happens to have three Warriors just outside my borders.

Warmongers. I am surrounded entirely by nothing but warmongers.

From the four starts I've made so far, all I can see is that the AI knows nothing but the Domination strategy. NOT my idea of a fun game. I might as well shift over to the wide assortment of RTS games where the factions spend 100% of their time hammering on each other.

 

[stiiknafuulia]

There are no warmonger penalties in the Ancient era (and only light ones in Classical), so the AI is more aggressive early on and then settles down a bit (in most cases). However, in my experience (admittedly limited, as I haven't played beyond Medieval yet), if they perceive you as weak, they will be relentless about utilizing the opportunity. You can't ignore military in Civ VI, even if you go the peaceful builder / diplomatic route.

Not saying that the AI isn't a little bonkers, but there is *some* method to their madness. Now the touchiness about close borders needs to be taken down a notch (or ten), and the agenda system is a bit messed up, but I'm sure they'll address these issues in a patch a while down the road. I'd advise some patience, or simply mod the game's default aggression values from the files yourself (I'm pretty sure it can be done with a simple text editor, with a little digging).

 

[Qin Shi Hung]

Victoria in real life was a notorious warmonger. The Boer Wars were famous for their brutally cruel concentration camps, for example.

From the description of her agenda, I think she's intended to attack civs on other continents.

But I doubt the AI can handle a long distance invasion, so unless she spawns near a fault line, she's not good at war.

 

[King Jason]

CaptainPatch - make it into a the later eras and I'm sure your complaint will be the opposite - My last deity win had the entire world except one civ hate me (France was my bestie) - I had 5-6 units to my name and each of them hard armies that virtually blanketed the map. Yet they all stood there as I went from 5/6 civs converted to my religion to 6/6 civs converted to my religion and won the game.

There is no reason, from both an "A.I. that plays like a human" perspective, or an "A.I. that roleplays" perspective that they shouldn't have ALL declared war on me and destroyed me. I had three cities.

They should have either been aware that I was about to win - or taken vengeance on my converting their cities, as 3 of the people hated me for precisely that reason. Or both. But Wars past ancient and classical seem few and far between.

 

[bdemz]

Long time player...not often poster. This game just isnt fun for me. Not sure if it's the AI...lack of customization's (leader name...cities...etc)...missing HOF (really stupid). It is just sad that this community is comparing it to the inital release of a 5 year old game. You would think they would have some things down by now (BTS CIV V) and just add some different options...even better graphics. Sad really.

 

[King Jason]

The graphics are better.

 

[bdemz]

Why is everyone comparing this to a 5 year old CIV 5? You would think they would have these basic things down by now. Everything doesn't need to be created from scratch

- AI
- Customizations
- HOF

I have been playing CIV since the beginning...i watched the dev videos for the past month hoping for great things. Even bought the digital deluxe version early (my mistake). Very disappointed.

 

[Qin Shi Hung]

The graphics are better.

Except the minimap and the fog of war.

 

[bdemz]

I disagree about the graphics. They are much more vivid but it just looks too cartoonish...like an IPAD app

 

[Big J Money]

There's already a thread with practically this exact title on the first page. Actually it's the top thread right now. You could just discuss there.

 

[dtfauss]

The fog of war has grown on me. It's stylistic rather then UI effective (which could be taken as a plus to feel, or a minus to being able to see). I'll go with the glass half full in this case.