thoughts on civ vi from old-timers

[LoudScott]

I have been playing this game since Civ I (which I played on an Artari ST computer....google it kids) and I must say that I have never witnessed such an incomplete game as Civ VI seems to be on initial release. Am I alone in that feeling? Not trying to start a hate fest or troll war, I'm just curious as to what some of the old-timers thoughts are on this.

 

[snwboardn]

No Civ V was much worse, every dlc that added elements from IV was stripped from V and it was a shell of a game with no religion, limited diplomacy. I think the core of this game is more complete feature wise it just has a whole lot of polishing needed.

Luckily a lot of gripes can be fixed via patches and modding, whereas in V they were missing completely.

 

[dtfauss]

Doesn't seem incomplete to me at all.
Very playable - but will have a shorter replay life then CIV 5 with all expansions (until it has expansions)

Introduction of some new mechanics
Loss of UI functions that seem like bad decisions, a rush to market, or a opportunity grab for future expansions.

Some key issues that need addressing regarding some of the new mechanics, AI, and balancing.

 

[rastak]

Started on release day for Civ 1. I'm 72 hours in and it hasn't quite been a week. I'm having a fantastic time with the game, same as Civ 5 release. Issues? Yes but good far outweighs the bad for me.

 

[ThunderLizard2]

The AI is as bad or worse than Civ V which is hard to do as Civ V was very poor. They've lost the "wait just one more turn" feeling that I had with Civ II, III and IV. Now it's like "wait, yet another stupid AI action."

 

[LoudScott]

@snwboardn Yea, I kinda of get that but I also give V a bit of a pass only because it was so radically different from its predecessors. i.e. no stacking and hex grid versus squares. Where as 1 thru 4 kind of built on its predecessor much like VI does on V. And as you say so many things are easily fixable that it gives more of a "rush to market" impression in that how the heck could they have not seen AND fixed this (whatever issue...take your pick). Just my opinion, thanks for sharing yours!

 

[Biz_]

i feel the game wasn't playtested at all

older games had technical bugs (especially as they got 3d and more complicated), but this one has ridiculous design problems to a degree which i haven't seen before

it's the first civ game where i get the feeling that the devs completely missed the point of why i play civ. from the UI to the AI to the balance - everything is just wrong

 

[rastak]

i feel the game wasn't playtested at all

older games had technical bugs (especially as they got 3d and more complicated), but this one has ridiculous design problems to a degree which i haven't seen before

it's the first civ game where i get the feeling that the devs completely missed the point of why i play civ. from the UI to the AI to the balance - everything is just wrong

Fortunately they nailed it for how I play.

 

[AriochIV]

While there are a lot of frustrations and more than a few bugs, I'm finding the game very playable up to this point (60 hours). Civ V was much worse when it was first released.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I have been playing this game since Civ I (which I played on an Artari ST computer....google it kids) and I must say that I have never witnessed such an incomplete game as Civ VI seems to be on initial release. Am I alone in that feeling? Not trying to start a hate fest or troll war, I'm just curious as to what some of the old-timers thoughts are on this.

Actually I'd say that it is MORE COMPLETE than any other Civ. That's part of why it seems like there are so many issues. There are about a billion active systems to iron out--most of the others were skeletons on release in comparison.

 

[Esperr]

Been playing since III, think IV is the just the bestest and I think VI is fine. It definatly lacks the human element that was in the first four, V was the same way. I just never felt like in V and now VI that I was ruling an empire, im just playing a game. Still a great game though.

 

[Iberian]

Also started on Civilization but on an IBM PS/2.

I like the game overall. No doubt there are issues with the AI and the UI plus occasional bugs but anyone who has worked on developing large software products knows how hard it is to release a product like this. Firaxis is an okay company that releases okay products. Good news is that they often improve on them without charging us too much. I can have fun working on figuring out the best way to play but not exploiting the system. In Civilization you could ICS and win if you wanted to but I didn't like to because it was outside of what the game was meant to be. I didn't exploit the buffer overflow in Civ 5 either and still had fun with the game. For know the game is good enough to enjoy for me. As it improves I will as well. I won't go and hammer on their development team without knowing what challenges they faced just getting this released.

It may even be the best game at release since Civ 2.

 

[Lyoncet]

Agreed with those saying it seems more complete than the most recent entries. I've played each iteration including most offshoots from II through VI, and this one easily feels the most complete at launch since Civ II/Alpha Centauri. Civ III I just didn't like. Civ IV was actually pretty bare-bones at launch; it got most of where it needed to go with Warlords (although peace vassals and some other things were broken) to the point where with Beyond the Sword it's my favorite of the franchise. Civ V was an utterly laughable trainwreck at launch. Beyond Earth was possibly even worse.

In contrast, VI actually feels like a good, complete game at 40 hours in. Where it's lacking is on AI, polish, AI, user interface, AI, AI, etc. And AI. But that's not what I think of when I hear "incomplete" game.

 

[dexters]

AI and UI can be patched. The underlying mechanics are sound, which is good news. I'm very hopeful

 

[TheJokker]

I have been playing Civ since the very first version and after playing 6 for almost a week I cannot go backwards and play 5. I understand some people's frustration after spending hundreds (maybe thousands) of hours playing 5, and developing a comprehension understanding of the game, and developing a strategy, and now a new game nullifies all that experience however I enjoy the restart and relearning and discovering the new challenges.

I believe Civ 6 is advancing the game, and future patches and expansion packs will continue that improvement.

 

[fatgordy]

I have been playing this game since Civ I (which I played on an Artari ST computer....google it kids) and I must say that I have never witnessed such an incomplete game as Civ VI seems to be on initial release. Am I alone in that feeling? Not trying to start a hate fest or troll war, I'm just curious as to what some of the old-timers thoughts are on this.

Wow, Civfanatics member since 2002 and have only posted 23 messages in that time. I feel honored to hear from such a vet.

I've been playing since Civ III. I have to agree with some of the commenters here that are saying that even though Civ VI is lacking in a lot of areas (UI, AI, balance), it is a much better foundation than Civ V was at release. The good part is that the devs have said that VI is going to be very mod-able (fingers crossed). If that happens, people like you who have been with the franchise from the start and love it will surely improve the game to a highly refined level. I'm a bit disappointed that it wasn't that way at release, but I have confidence that this one will be able to get there a lot faster than V did.

 

[StittsvileJamie]

Started with civ 1, which I didn't have a manual for and had to guess the answer to be able launch the game (until I had memorized the tech tree !) and I am having a blast with this.

I embrace change. I was ok with the introduction of workers, and am now ok with builders. I embraced culture and borders and resources and all the other changes, and I'm embracing these ones too.

If I want to play V, I can. if I want to play IV, I can do that too. and best of all, I can play VI now as well!

When it's balanced and expanded and bug squished, this is going to be another amazing game.

 

[godotnut]

I've been around a while, and I agree with those who say this is a very robust Civ iteration on release. It's got to be the most sophisticated and complex vanilla Civ system ever. As someone said above, this means that there are more kinks to work out, but the future is bright. I don't see how anyone could possibly argue that this version of Civ is less "complete" than vanilla Civ5 was, which was a trainwreck on release, as many have noted--so bad that several of the best Civ players in the world refused to play it. I just hope that the devs make it possible for modders to create another GOTM mod to decrease cheating and increase the fun in GOTMs, which used to be my favorite thing in gaming back in my Civ4 days.

 

[Takfloyd]

I have been playing this game since Civ I (which I played on an Artari ST computer....google it kids) and I must say that I have never witnessed such an incomplete game as Civ VI seems to be on initial release. Am I alone in that feeling? Not trying to start a hate fest or troll war, I'm just curious as to what some of the old-timers thoughts are on this.

Civ 5 was far, far worse on release, so bad in fact that I dropped it after a single game and never gave it another chance.

Civ 6 is about 90% complete with UI and AI flaws being the main holdup along with a few bugs and exploits. That's par for the course and exactly how it was with 3 and 4 as well.

 

[Stringer1313]

I am old as well and cannot remember what it was like to play all the vanilla versions, but I remember that Civ V was really bad on release.

I think I can empathize with what you might be experiencing though ---- Civ VI in some ways shot itself in the foot by trying to include all the features you normally find in expansions, which has resulted in a lot of potential imbalances, horrible UI, mechanics that are super confusing and not very well explained, so that each feature (like culture victory, religion) feels "incomplete." In other words, no good deed goes unpunished.

Having said that I'd rather they include the expansion features imperfectly and fix with patch than the other extreme.