18 months later - how is Civ VI?

[Archon_Wing]

Comparing any game is usually a flawed exercise because you don't know the relative budgets, time allocation, technological constraints and external factors constraining the release. But, people insist on doing it anyway. So if we're accepting this attempt at evaluating the game, we might as well accept CiV as a valid comparison, because it's the closest in the franchise you're going to get both in terms of the market and in terms of similarity in the technology stack.

Sure, but it just has the "it could be worse" vibe to me. One is judged by what they do, not by what they couldn't do,

And no I don't accept it just because it gets insisted upon. I had fun in Civ 6 vanilla because it was good enough for me and it was able to stand on its own. I don't need to make any excuses for it, even if it may never catch up to its predecessors in some areas.

Certainly, don't compare it to Civ 4. That's a more flawed comparison, despite how limited CiV was at release. There are reasons for the state of CiV on release, just like there are reasons for most things. The thing is, consumers either don't care or don't want to know, unless it serves their purpose. That's the usual problem. It's always "well they should've done X better then", and of course, sure. Things always should be done better. But that's pointless criticism.

Why not Civ 4 though? Most Civ games follow the same basics even if the nuances are different. Especially regarding diplomacy and UI which wouldn't really be affected by changes in game format.

The only massive change is probably 1 UPT, but honestly I've always thought it was overhyped and really not that huge. At least from a single player perspective, choke points were always a thing and the AI was bad at war so the combat system really doesn't matter. that much.

 

[Gorbles]

Ultimately, what matters in comparing games is not the "relative budget or time allocation". What matters is the final product. If an arbitrarily chosen end user concludes a game is better, the stuff that went into its production only matters insofar as they were the steps that got them there.

Depends on the place you're talking about it in. If people want a deep understanding of the situation, then yes, you have to compare, or at least, factor in these things (according to best assumptions and relative expertise). If you just want to say "I feel X because Y" then sure, do what you want.

Besides, it doesn't look like you disagree. My point about Civ 4 was predicated on the same logic as opposing using CiV as a comparison. They're all comparisons. Some are better than others, and this measure of "better" is what we all disagree on. But we shouldn't limit comparisons of the whole product. Civ VI's state on release will be as directly-informed by CiV as CiV was by Civ 4, and the technology stack underneath them all that placed the constraints on the developers' time to make each game.

Sure, but it just has the "it could be worse" vibe to me. One is judged by what they do, not by what they couldn't do,

And no I don't accept it just because it gets insisted upon. I had fun in Civ 6 vanilla because it was good enough for me and it was able to stand on its own. I don't need to make any excuses for it, even if it may never catch up to its predecessors in some areas.

Why not Civ 4 though? Most Civ games follow the same basics even if the nuances are different. Especially regarding diplomacy and UI which wouldn't really be affected by changes in game format.

The only massive change is probably 1 UPT, but honestly I've always thought it was overhyped and really not that huge. At least from a single player perspective, choke points were always a thing and the AI was bad at war so the combat system really doesn't matter. that much.

"why not Civ 4" because the argument I was responding to was "don't compare it to CiV". If you want to compare the game to Civ 4, you should be fine with comparisons with CiV. CiV having a lacking feature set on release is its own issue. It doesn't mean you can't compare the games.

As for making excuses, that's a whole other ball game, hah. It could be worse is a valid perspective. We can settle for better is also a valid perspective. Nobody is wrong there

The significant changes from Civ 4 to CiV, in my limited experience, are down to significant rewrites of <stuff> for CiV. I'm pretty sure all the map generation stuff was re-implemented for CiV (though if it wasn't, that'd explain AssignStartingPlots.lua). I mean, each game has enough of a rewrite between them, but 1UPT alone changes a lot of assumed fundamentals about data structures, AI evaluation, pathfinding and most of the simulation layer (with consequences on rendering and performance) that it isn't just "1UPT". I don't want to get bogged down in this because this is the topic that kinda destroys threads, but while 1UPT was the visible result, it will have impacted a large portion of the game's design and implementation.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

"why not Civ 4" because the argument I was responding to was "don't compare it to CiV". If you want to compare the game to Civ 4, you should be fine with comparisons with CiV. CiV having a lacking feature set on release is its own issue. It doesn't mean you can't compare the games.

Oh. I mistook what you were going for. I consider them all potentially valid comparisons depending on context.

The significant changes from Civ 4 to CiV, in my limited experience, are down to significant rewrites of <stuff> for CiV. I'm pretty sure all the map generation stuff was re-implemented for CiV (though if it wasn't, that'd explain AssignStartingPlots.lua). I mean, each game has enough of a rewrite between them, but 1UPT alone changes a lot of assumed fundamentals about data structures, AI evaluation, pathfinding and most of the simulation layer (with consequences on rendering and performance) that it isn't just "1UPT". I don't want to get bogged down in this because this is the topic that kinda destroys threads, but while 1UPT was the visible result, it will have impacted a large portion of the game's design and implementation.

I'm aware, and the alteration to how civ uniques were designed an the introduction of city states was no joke either. There were some things scrapped in transition from 4 to 5 that never, ever should have happened and still haven't returned and have nothing to do with 1UPT vs stacking and that does frustrate me in particular. 5 to 6 was actually a bit cleaner, but 6 still carries a huge amount of the problems the other two games have, and only some of these are related to 1UPT (overflow for example has been a mix of lulzy and hot garbage over the course of all 3 titles, oscillating between "useless noob trap" and "staggering amount of otherwise impossible production towards a build" with some in-between).

 

[Archon_Wing]

"why not Civ 4" because the argument I was responding to was "don't compare it to CiV". If you want to compare the game to Civ 4, you should be fine with comparisons with CiV. CiV having a lacking feature set on release is its own issue. It doesn't mean you can't compare the games.

But it is basically THE issue. I rarely see anyone talking about Civ V Vanilla in a positive light when making this comparison. It's always about how bad it was at start. So when I read it it seems to mean that it's okay for VI to be broken at release as long as it wasn't as broken as V. So basically no standards at all and that just makes Firaxis look bad for no good reason.

I think a much more solid argument for 6 is that its major systems are intact even of the 1st expansion so it would seem the flaws were not of the ideas but of the execution and polish. Basically it started out on a sound foundation, while 5 had to go through some major overhauls like having to put in religion, changing the culture victory completely, rent-a-vote victory , and that hilariously laughable "opaque" diplomacy. Now, I was never around for G&K since I had written off 5 as dead, but BNW comes off as an entirely new game for me almost.

Meanwhile, 6's new movement rules, having armies and corps to serve as a compromise between `1upt and stacks, and districts were all fundamentally sound ideas to the franchise and I don't see them going anywhere any time soon. In essence, Civ 6: Rise and Fall is really just vanilla with some extra bells and whistles, and I see that as a good thing. (well outside of kneecapping England but that's not here nor there)

Now, I could be wrong, of course, but IMO that sounds a little better than "6 being not Vanilla 5" which honestly does it a disservice.

The significant changes from Civ 4 to CiV, in my limited experience, are down to significant rewrites of <stuff> for CiV. I'm pretty sure all the map generation stuff was re-implemented for CiV (though if it wasn't, that'd explain AssignStartingPlots.lua). I mean, each game has enough of a rewrite between them, but 1UPT alone changes a lot of assumed fundamentals about data structures, AI evaluation, pathfinding and most of the simulation layer (with consequences on rendering and performance) that it isn't just "1UPT". I don't want to get bogged down in this because this is the topic that kinda destroys threads, but while 1UPT was the visible result, it will have impacted a large portion of the game's design and implementation.

Not talking about programming here. I'm talking about gameplay itself. Like I said UI and diplomacy can be compared pretty easily and has nothing to do with stuff like CSs or 1UPT.

 

[Gorbles]

But it is basically THE issue. I rarely see anyone talking about Civ V Vanilla in a positive light when making this comparison. It's always about how bad it was at start. So when I read it it seems to mean that it's okay for VI to be broken at release as long as it wasn't as broken as V. So basically no standards at all and that just makes Firaxis look bad for no good reason.

I think a much more solid argument for 6 is that its major systems are intact even of the 1st expansion so it would seem the flaws were not of the ideas but of the execution and polish. Basically it started out on a sound foundation, while 5 had to go through some major overhauls like having to put in religion, changing the culture victory completely, rent-a-vote victory , and that hilariously laughable "opaque" diplomacy. Now, I was never around for G&K since I had written off 5 as dead, but BNW comes off as an entirely new game for me almost.

Meanwhile, 6's new movement rules, having armies and corps to serve as a compromise between `1upt and stacks, and districts were all fundamentally sound ideas to the franchise and I don't see them going anywhere any time soon. In essence, Civ 6: Rise and Fall is really just vanilla with some extra bells and whistles, and I see that as a good thing. (well outside of kneecapping England but that's not here nor there)

Now, I could be wrong, of course, but IMO that sounds a little better than "6 being not Vanilla 5" which honestly does it a disservice.

Not talking about programming here. I'm talking about gameplay itself. Like I said UI and diplomacy can be compared pretty easily and has nothing to do with stuff like CSs or 1UPT.

CiV is not "no standards", though. You can argue low standards, you can argue the feature set at release. But the fact is CiV happened and still went on to be an incredibly strong iteration in the franchise. Games are getting more complex. The situation with QA is an ever-developing thing in the industry. The economy is changing. And so on, and so forth. You can dismiss these as irrelevant if you want, I don't know your thoughts here. But they're all important.

It doesn't make Firaxis look bad to remind everyone that CiV happened. It's an important reminder, and one I'm sure Firaxis took to heart (as you'd expect, given that they spent several years supporting it). It's less that "CiV was bad so Civ VI can't be bad", it's more "it can be worse and the fact that it isn't is a positive step forwards". To bring out a more stable game (and I feel confident saying that, even with bugs and whatnot) with an arguably-fuller feature set? That's good evidence of Firaxis doing good things. Surely?

CiV still took an awful lot of effort to make. All AA / AAA games do, regardless of their perceived quality and subsequent success. It's not like they clicked something in Unity and ta-da, game. Even with how it looked at release, that was still what, a solid two years of development or more on the core game alone. They will have had to make Civ VI in some kind of similar timeframe (most AA / AAA games adhere to similar development cycles; the exceptions are the exceptions. Not everyone can afford Blizzard's alleged nine-year cycle for SC2).

As for talking about programming, we were talking about the feature set itself. Or I was, haha. Talking about the related aspects of development pertains to this. I mean, all we can do is guess, right? I'm a software engineer with a few years in both a startup and a decently-sized company. I can make some educated guesses, and it's often a useful thing to bring to the table when we're effectively talking about product feature sets and their lifecycles. This isn't an appeal to authority, either. Guesses. Opinions. Not necessarily anywhere in the realm of facts!

 

[Aristos]

No warmonger points for dropping nukes... I mean really?

This is one of the worst offenders... is the bug where you can nuke your allies without any repercussion still alive, by the way? That one is just... [censored]

Firaxis should really hire some UI staff one day

...or some UI modders...

 

[Archon_Wing]

CiV is not "no standards", though. You can argue low standards, you can argue the feature set at release. But the fact is CiV happened and still went on to be an incredibly strong iteration in the franchise.

Which is good. But my problem is of course, that none of this translates to how Civ 6 will turn out. The idea that a Civ game starts out poor and ends up great can't be based on just one ancedote.

It's less that "CiV was bad so Civ VI can't be bad", it's more "it can be worse and the fact that it isn't is a positive step forwards".

Both sound like empty rationalizations to me.

Not everyone can afford Blizzard's alleged nine-year cycle for SC2

Funny you brought that up. I thought that game was a disgrace at launch especially with the crippled social functions and hilariously inept sledgehammer balance with a meta that makes Civ 6 look like genius (along with Diablo 3) though they did find their way given some time. But I never excused people being apologists about them fixing things in the future. My favorite was that "Starcraft 1 took 10 years to balance!" (More like 2 1/2) and 2 had taken way longer than that. I pretty much lost a lot of respect for Blizzard after that. I understand their final versions were pretty solid and Legacy of the Void is a great game, but they had mostly lost me by then.

Another stark contrast is probably between Starcraft Remastered and Age of Empires 2 HD. AO2 HD had more campaigns, balance changes, a new AI, and a bunch of other new content while Starcraft:R is really just a facelifted version of the same product from 1999. But this is starting to be about me so just ignore this.

On the other hand, I've bought 5 and 6 together last year because their support was great at getting me hooked up with the steam version of Civ 4. As a result, I bought those games out of goodwill, and let's just say I haven't been let down. At all.

Anyhow, my point is that I want people to play Civ 6 now, and not some idealized version of the game that doesn't exist yet.

 

[Leathaface]

"18 months later - how is Civ VI?"

Better than Civ V Complete.

 

[ColdFever]

Civ6 certainly is good game by a design viewpoint.
However, it does not feel like "Civilization" to me anymore.
It rather feels like an animated board game, not like a living world.

 

[Gorbles]

Anyhow, my point is that I want people to play Civ 6 now, and not some idealized version of the game that doesn't exist yet.

And that's fair. I'd recommend the game in its state at release, nevermind its state now. It is, however, fair to both urge caution to not buy into some idealised endpoint for this iteration, as much as it is to recommend buying this as an investment considering the expansion history of past (core) Civ-titled games (4 and 5 both qualify, here).

 

[Aristos]

And that's fair. I'd recommend the game in its state at release, nevermind its state now. It is, however, fair to both urge caution to not buy into some idealised endpoint for this iteration, as much as it is to recommend buying this as an investment considering the expansion history of past (core) Civ-titled games (4 and 5 both qualify, here).

"investment"? It's a game. Almost the opposite of an investment by definition. Nevertheless, a case might be built for minimizing the loss (waste?) by waiting for a complete edition at a big discount...but investment?

 

[Gorbles]

"investment"? It's a game. Almost the opposite of an investment by definition. Nevertheless, a case might be built for minimizing the loss (waste?) by waiting for a complete edition at a big discount...but investment?

String me up for semantics, whatever. "maximised time spent for enjoying a piece of entertainment media with the knowledge it will also improve over time". You get to play it now, and you get to play it as it improves. If you already think you're going to enjoy it now, and you're trustful of that expansion history, then yes, go for it.

Did you honestly not see what I was getting at with my previous post?

 

[gozpel]

After a 100 turns I still get bored, same with civ 5 and 4.

No succession games?

Just a builders game or a game where everyone will hate you to the last turn.

 

[Aristos]

String me up for semantics, whatever. "maximised time spent for enjoying a piece of entertainment media with the knowledge it will also improve over time". You get to play it now, and you get to play it as it improves. If you already think you're going to enjoy it now, and you're trustful of that expansion history, then yes, go for it.

Did you honestly not see what I was getting at with my previous post?

I did. And it's not "just" about semantics, even if it looks like that. I am sorry to be one of the critics of this new form of "marketing" summarized by the "release now (at full+ price) and fix later" philosophy (more like "fix never" in some cases). I am sorry that I will not let pass a sentence that seems to validate that philosophy. I am not trying to string you or anyone else, but I am convinced that the above way of the "new market" has done more damage than good...

So no, I'm sorry but it is not an investment. Not a top quality, quasi-perfect game, and certainly not this one (even though I admit I enjoy it when I play it, but not as much as I should for reasons stated a thousand times everywhere and by different people).

Now. lets wait for Phil @TheMeInTeam to shed some more light, and argue about his own created metaphor...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

CiV is not "no standards", though. You can argue low standards, you can argue the feature set at release. But the fact is CiV happened and still went on to be an incredibly strong iteration in the franchise. Games are getting more complex. The situation with QA is an ever-developing thing in the industry. The economy is changing. And so on, and so forth. You can dismiss these as irrelevant if you want, I don't know your thoughts here. But they're all important.

It's obviously a "low standards" argument. We don't open the game and only get a lolcats album. There is some low-tier line they still won't cross, even if you need a shovel to get underneath the bar.

This isn't a "QA" issue. QA is obviously ignored, it's not like they'd have to reach very far to find problems (same deal with Paradox games, where well-documented, readily reproducible, objective bugs persist in the game for years, yet another thing Firadox has going for it). This is a project management + resource allocation issue. I don't have insider knowledge to estimate what proportion of the problem either contributes.

It doesn't make Firaxis look bad to remind everyone that CiV happened. It's an important reminder, and one I'm sure Firaxis took to heart (as you'd expect, given that they spent several years supporting it). It's less that "CiV was bad so Civ VI can't be bad", it's more "it can be worse and the fact that it isn't is a positive step forwards". To bring out a more stable game (and I feel confident saying that, even with bugs and whatnot) with an arguably-fuller feature set? That's good evidence of Firaxis doing good things. Surely?

Civ 5 release makes Firaxis look not just bad, but awful by any reasonable standard (they falsely advertised MP and had significant UI issues...some which persist in Civ 6), and if this were less of a doormat market it would have carried substantial mistrust into Civ 6.

Civ 6 release was better than Civ 5 release, so yes the development was less bad this cycle. However, judging the final product on its own merit, it still has a lot of problems, not the least of which are an apparent disregard for end user experience playing it and (yet again) multiplayer.

At least saying the game has multiplayer wasn't strictly false advertising this time! How's that for a slogan ? "This time our advertised features mostly work, we promise!"

CiV still took an awful lot of effort to make. All AA / AAA games do, regardless of their perceived quality and subsequent success. It's not like they clicked something in Unity and ta-da, game. Even with how it looked at release, that was still what, a solid two years of development or more on the core game alone. They will have had to make Civ VI in some kind of similar timeframe (most AA / AAA games adhere to similar development cycles; the exceptions are the exceptions. Not everyone can afford Blizzard's alleged nine-year cycle for SC2).

Most AAA games vastly outperform Civ games in terms of user experience and feature functionality. Most AAA games have decent competition.

...or some UI modders...

If they hire them, they're staff! That said, it would be useful since apparently modders lack access to the tools that could really overhaul it.

I am also not a fan of "release now, maybe finish it later" if selling full price. That works for something like Fortnite or League of Legends, not for a full retail game that doesn't even manage its full feature list.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Civ6 certainly is good game by a design viewpoint.
However, it does not feel like "Civilization" to me anymore.
It rather feels like an animated board game, not like a living world.

Civ I was an "animated board game."

 

[Aristos]

. Most AAA games have decent competition.

That, right there, is the seed of all evils (including this game). A strong competitor for the civ experience is sorely needed; I sometimes wonder why no one jumps in. The ideas are right there, many of the best are being ignored by FXS just because... who knows? Who cares about the name of the competitor game, as long as it provides a good (better!) experience... competition is the cure for all market ails, bar none. The civ experience sure needs it.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

That, right there, is the seed of all evils (including this game). A strong competitor for the civ experience is sorely needed; I sometimes wonder why no one jumps in. The ideas are right there, many of the best are being ignored by FXS just because... who knows? Who cares about the name of the competitor game, as long as it provides a good (better!) experience... competition is the cure for all market ails, bar none. The civ experience sure needs it.

Quite possibly because the game - and by extension, the whole genre - isn't profitable enough to attract competition.

 

[Aristos]

Quite possibly because the game - and by extension, the whole genre - isn't profitable enough to attract competition.

You really think so? To me, it seems more and more profitable with every release...

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

You really think so? To me, it seems more and more profitable with every release...

I don't actually know. It's been a long time since I've looked at Take-Two, EA's, etc. finances in detail. Perhaps the industry is more professionally run now than it was in past decades. Latest reported return on investment for Take-Two is actually quite good (5% on assets overall, 16% on shareholder equity specifically). Whether that's the result of one or two hits (a la movie studios) or is reflective of the normal profitability across their stable of titles, I'm not sure.

Civ smells like a risky, low return on investment type game to me, compared to mobile games (lower up front sunk costs) or first person shooters (larger target market, i.e. bigger upside). I therefore assumed it wouldn't attract much attention from studios capable of matching the upfront investment cost of making a AAA title to go head-to-head with it. But I could be wrong about that.