Civ 6

I see Civ 6 has been announced. Considering I gave up on 5 very soon, it was a bit gunk really, and most from 5 seems to be continued in 6, like 1upt (give or take), can't say my pulse rose by a single beat when I learned about Civ 6 and its features. But what do you guys reckon, could it actually be a step in the right direction?

Probably way too early to tell, but if they were to bring back some depth and complexity, that would go some way to fixing things.

Interested to hear what other Civ 4 players think.

Based on screenshots and the article I red on pcgamer....
looks grim, just give up on Civilization and play Paradox games.

Its interesting with the "Combined Arms", but the screenshots looks fugly imho. Waaay to cartoonish. Civ 5 killed it for me. Guess civ 4 lives 4-ever

Let's just say I don't think I'll be pre-ordering this time around.

But having Sean Bean as narrator is a nice surprise. I'm assuming he's not only going to be doing the intro vid. Of all the things I love Leonard Nimoy for, his narrating in civ 4 comes close to the top. I have all of his technology quotes imprinted on my mind. I will probably be able to recite them by heart even 10 years from now. Perhaps Sean Bean can get me hooked in the same way.

That is, if I ever even play the game. I'm going to need some convincing after #5.

Pangaea said:

. But what do you guys reckon, could it actually be a step in the right direction?
.

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It can't possibly be a step in the wrong direction

It's really hard to say much. The most important thing for me is that it has to play faster than Civ5. That way I can at least enjoy it even if it's a bit lacking in depth.

But most of the features can go both ways depending on how well they are implemented. In general I'm positive to the "destacking of cities", but I certainly need more information on how the fundamentals of the game works.

To me it looks like Civ5 all over again. Civ6 seems to have adopted some cool things that I liked in Endless Legend (that is cities expanding over multiple tiles, more impact of Civ/Leader choice), but the basic concept seems to be the same. In my opinion Civ5 took away a lot of things and added nothing in return (old graphics are a non-issue to me, I still play my favorite turn-based game ever, Master of Magic without bothering. Also, it's perfectly possible to make Civ4 look better by modding which can be seen from e.g. Seraiel's guides over in S&T).

I'm a player that's very passionate about Civ4 and all of my RL friends that tried both 4 and 5 feel the same way. But maybe that's still very biased and there is a player base that likes 5 better. For me the only explanation would be that these players enjoy a simpler, easier game. If there is a player that played and enjoyed Civ4 BTS on say Immortal difficulty, and that player then moved on to play Civ5 and liked it better, I would really love to talk to him and hear why.

My suggestion to the developers would be to split it up into two lines of games. A simple one and one for the strategy fanatics.

Although I will reserve judgement until after Civ6 comes out and gets played and commented on by those folks who decide to just jump right in, no disc means no deal as far as I am concerned. I remain uninterested in games that are only available via sources such as Steam.

Well I am very much open to it. I don't assume it will be better than Civ 4 (my favorite game of all time, without doubt) but the developers seem to have been reading the endless discussion on 1upt in the V forums. In fact I recall making a post advocating for something vaguely resembling what they're now doing with cities (buildings required for cities to do stuff, instead of just making them better at doing stuff), and I know more than one poster advocated spreading cities into multiple tiles.
As for the changes to 1-upt they could make it more interesting.

vincentz- yeah, I dislike the graphical style too. I bet there'll be mods for that though.

If the graphics of CIV6 will be like shown so kind of "theme park style" then the gameplay will need to be better than CIV4 to make me play it.

CIV 5 was utter garbage and unfortunately CIV 6 seems to have too many similarities. I've recently been playing Soren Johnsons Offworld Trading Company and absolutely love it. Zultar has some of the best content for those curious. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHKMnH_CJ7hcZzpc0NY07WQ

s.bernbaum said:

Although I will reserve judgement until after Civ6 comes out and gets played and commented on by those folks who decide to just jump right in, no disc means no deal as far as I am concerned. I remain uninterested in games that are only available via sources such as Steam.

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This means I won't be able to play it either. But that's assuming I even want to.

Lexicus said:

In fact I recall making a post advocating for something vaguely resembling what they're now doing with cities (buildings required for cities to do stuff, instead of just making them better at doing stuff), and I know more than one poster advocated spreading cities into multiple tiles.
As for the changes to 1-upt they could make it more interesting.

vincentz- yeah, I dislike the graphical style too. I bet there'll be mods for that though.

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Very early to say too much about the likely gameplay, I reckon, but something like this could go both ways. It could mean the game is more "railroaded", meaning you have to build this, that and the other thing in that type of city, and this other selection of buildings in another type of city -- and that's assuming we can even specialise cities in a meaningful way. While now, in Civ 4, it's very easy to specialise and pick and choose buildings, wonders, whatever, giving the game much more depth and complexity than Civ 5. A bit the same with the changes to the tech trees / tech costs.

Of course, it's possible they accidentally stumble into good gameplay mechanics, but we shall see

Not at all a fan of the graphics style either, but ultimately that's of less importance than if there is good gameplay. I play Civ 4 with the default graphics, and love it, and I still spend silly amounts of hours on Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale -- hardly modern games with breath-taking graphics. The style itself is pretty "meh", but hopefully stuff like that can be fixed with mods.

Ultimately, however, it looks like they are continuing with the "simpler" game style, instead of offering depth and complexity. Too early to conclude, but it looks and sounds that way to me, and with all the utter tripe coming out these days, I find it's a healthy position to be sceptical, and of course never pre-order any games, no matter what.

But if they're monopolising it on steam (spit), then I'm out, no doubt about it. I'd rather play Sudoku blindfolded than spend money on that vermin pit.

I can't imagine that Civ6 will be any better than Civ4. But it's obviously way too early to judge it.

cseanny said:

I've recently been playing Soren Johnsons Offworld Trading Company and absolutely love it. Zultar has some of the best content for those curious. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHKMnH_CJ7hcZzpc0NY07WQ

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Oh, OTC is sooooo good. I wish more people would recognize what a gem of a strategy game it is. And yes, Zultar's commentary is awesome.

I was hoping for a complete overhaul of Civ for the sixth version, maybe bringing in some of the old that was good and some new. instead it's basically the same 5 team making what appears to be an extension of 5.

I will withhold judgement for now though. Key is that they can add depth and fun to the game that is so missing from 5.

Problem is that despite how many of us despise 5, it was overall a successful game. Money is where it matters.

I would not be overly concerned about graphics at this point though.

Pangaea said:

Very early to say too much about the likely gameplay, I reckon, but something like this could go both ways. It could mean the game is more "railroaded", meaning you have to build this, that and the other thing in that type of city, and this other selection of buildings in another type of city -- and that's assuming we can even specialise cities in a meaningful way. While now, in Civ 4, it's very easy to specialise and pick and choose buildings, wonders, whatever, giving the game much more depth and complexity than Civ 5. A bit the same with the changes to the tech trees / tech costs.

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Well, we'll see. We don't have much more than vague promotional material on the actual game systems so judgment is impossible for now. And of course how well-conceived a single game system is, means nothing when it might not fit well with the rest of the game, or be implemented in such a way that it doesn't work.

Of course, it's possible they accidentally stumble into good gameplay mechanics, but we shall see

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Don't think I can count on it after BE.

Ultimately, however, it looks like they are continuing with the "simpler" game style, instead of offering depth and complexity. Too early to conclude, but it looks and sounds that way to me, and with all the utter tripe coming out these days, I find it's a healthy position to be sceptical, and of course never pre-order any games, no matter what.

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It does seem like they're going with the direction they went from 4 to 5, which is unfortunate but hardly unexpected.

But if they're monopolising it on steam (spit), then I'm out, no doubt about it. I'd rather play Sudoku blindfolded than spend money on that vermin pit.

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Difficult for me to imagine that it won't be Steam-only.

I got burned pretty bad dropping $50 on Civ 5 the first day.

Will wait and see this time.

So far, I'm actually positive on civ6.
The civ5 map was more interesting then the civ4 map. More resources. improvements, natural wonders, etc.
Religion and culture was also better in civ5.
Negatives in civ5 were boring tech tree, game was (very) slow, bad AI and most UAs heavily depended on the map/terrain. (Spain, Inca, Dutch, etc).
The policy system was interesting but some policy trees were simply too good. (Tradition and Rationalism)

^^^Not to mention the horrible Diplomacy mechanics or lack thereof...nonintuitive (for one, you get attacked by some AI with a massive carpet of doom, beat it back, and soon the world thinks you are the warmonger and hates you for it..just stoopid)

I actually don't like many things about the Religion in 5, but there are some good things..I think there is a lot that could be reworked. Culture mechanics (actually one thing about 4 I don't care much for) are a bit better but don't care much for the Culture victory or most 5 victory types. Space is ok though.

But your last point is most spot on and drives one the main issues with 5 that was actually alluded to in the developer's release. And that is there is pretty much only one way to win anything in the game. 5 is not dynamic and has no depth. The policy system needs to be completely reworked and i'd like to see it somehow meshed with the civic system from 4. Or just something completely new.

I hate how in 5 science=population.

I'm pretty much in the "wait and see" camp as well, at least until we get some good solid reviews in ( and not the ones bought and paid for by 2K). So far, I haven't really been interested enough to even contemplate a purchase.. It is rather amusing to see all the Civ 6 posts popping up and reading them.

The civ5 map was more interesting then the civ4 map. More resources.

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Hmm, that was one of my biggest issues with V. The maps were boring. It didn't really matter on the terrain and resources because it usually meant only +1 of something. Yawn. They didn't want people continually regenning maps for a good one so they made they ALL boring.