i am really looking forward to this expansion

[kpi]

its a shame its so many months away. the changes they are making plus the changes made in gods and kings make this quite a compelling game. really if they could figure out a way to make the huge map about 4 times bigger and add more technologies and path complexity to the tech tree, the game would be just about what it should have been on release

it got me thinking, was Jon Scafers effort a complete failure, and has Ed been brought in to clean it up and make it a respectable game, or are we just in a world now, where the business model is games will ship half baked with two years incremental improvements?

Having said that, will Civ 6 be an evolution of 5, or a complete rewrite?

 

[Gucumatz]

As most civ games are, part rewrite - part building on existing foundations.

I expect to see Civ 6 keep:

1 UPT
Religion [Simply because of complaints from the first go around]
... and use a lot of new from scratch and slowly include new/older things with each expansion.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

You have to look at it this way:

The game is at its best with all expansions. The vanilla version is always stripped of major features because those are reserved for expansion packs. They always withhold features from the vanilla game that are in the fully deployed version of the previous iteration, somewhat because they don't have the time/money to reimplement everything, but also because they want something to entice you to buy the expansion.

So BNW will not be a jumping point for Civ VI. Civ VI vanilla will be like Civ V vanilla but different enough to be attractive and with better graphics. It will lack major features that we will take for granted, having played BNW for months or years before VI comes out.

 

[Ekmek]

I'm dying to play this. trade routes and culture sound like some sweet additions.

 

[cybrxkhan]

I look forward to BNW too - I was one of the civ veterans initially disappointed with Civ 5, but recently I tried it again with Gods and Kings and while it's still not as entertaining as Civ 4, it's still much better in my opinion; the changes from BNW look like it'd make the game even better, maybe even better than Civ 4 BtS if I still had the energy to get obsessed over a game.

Still, I suppose this is the pattern that the civ series has been following the past few iterations, since Civ 3 or Civ 2 - basic game; first expansion that does a little bit; and then second expansion that really makes things better. Personally, I thought Civ 4 vanilla was pretty good as is, but I suppose many veterans were disappointed then. I wouldn't be surprised if Civ 6 also does the same - take out a number of complex features, throw in a couple of new ones, and then dissapoint several civ veterans before coming full round with two xps.

 

[Avatan]

What's killing me is that I can't play V anymore, jus like announcement of V ruined IV for me, GnK for vanilla V, fall patch for GnK...

I feel like I'm playing half a game now, and painfully realize how culture wins are booooring!

 

[AriochIV]

It's possible that they may do a third expansion for Civ V. There really isn't any need for a new graphic engine any time soon (it's hard to imagine what more you could do graphically with a game like this, and the current engine is already a beast in terms of resource requirements), and if there's more to do after BNW (and I suspect there is) and there's still interest (and I suspect there will be), they may just stick with the current platform. I recall back during development they talked about creating Civ V as a platform that would support a lot of future expansion.

The main problem I can see with a third expansion would be lack of options for new civilizations... after doing 43, they're increasingly left with more and more obscure options.

 

[Leugi]

The main problem I can see with a third expansion would be lack of options for new civilizations... after doing 43, they're increasingly left with more and more obscure options.

Indeed, but I think that would mean higher chances for different leaders rather than new civilizations in the next expansion, should it exist...

 

[Ekmek]

I look forward to BNW too - I was one of the civ veterans initially disappointed with Civ 5, but recently I tried it again with Gods and Kings and while it's still not as entertaining as Civ 4, it's still much better in my opinion; the changes from BNW look like it'd make the game even better, maybe even better than Civ 4 BtS if I still had the energy to get obsessed over a game.

Still, I suppose this is the pattern that the civ series has been following the past few iterations, since Civ 3 or Civ 2 - basic game; first expansion that does a little bit; and then second expansion that really makes things better. Personally, I thought Civ 4 vanilla was pretty good as is, but I suppose many veterans were disappointed then. I wouldn't be surprised if Civ 6 also does the same - take out a number of complex features, throw in a couple of new ones, and then dissapoint several civ veterans before coming full round with two xps.

As you know I did a ton of modding for civ4. But even with vanilla civ5 I couldnt go back to Civ4. the "killer apps" for me in Civ5 were the city-states, non-uniform border growth, 1UPT, and hexes.

I tried to play civ4 after that and it really felt odd with all that space on the map and no CS's to fill it up. Then dealing with stacks of doom. SoDs really almost made it feel like an RTS where you just crank out units and that how you win. 1UPT has more strategy since I have to figure out the flow of units and choke points are more real. The AI isn't that great at it (I play prince but probably should move up), hopefully that improves.

G&K did such an awesome job with religion that I really don't consider Civ4 as having religion. So with trade routes coming Civ4 is looking pretty out of date with those weird passive ones. The great works system promises to do for culture what G&K did for religion so I'm excited about that. I really like the new depth approach firaxis is taking.

 

[AriochIV]

Indeed, but I think that would mean higher chances for different leaders rather than new civilizations in the next expansion, should it exist...

Yes, good point!

 

[cybrxkhan]

As you know I did a ton of modding for civ4. But even with vanilla civ5 I couldnt go back to Civ4. the "killer apps" for me in Civ5 were the city-states, non-uniform border growth, 1UPT, and hexes.

I tried to play civ4 after that and it really felt odd with all that space on the map and no CS's to fill it up. Then dealing with stacks of doom. SoDs really almost made it feel like an RTS where you just crank out units and that how you win. 1UPT has more strategy since I have to figure out the flow of units and choke points are more real. The AI isn't that great at it (I play prince but probably should move up), hopefully that improves.

G&K did such an awesome job with religion that I really don't consider Civ4 as having religion. So with trade routes coming Civ4 is looking pretty out of date with those weird passive ones. The great works system promises to do for culture what G&K did for religion so I'm excited about that. I really like the new depth approach firaxis is taking.

What "modding" are you talking about? I don't recall you and your mods.


Well, to be honest, while I also think the CS and other features were good ideas and steps in the right direction, I feel like Civ 5 cut out some of the things that made Civ 4 BtS interesting. Somehow, when playing vanilla Civ 5, I felt like I was just building units and building buildings to build more units to destroy other civs. I don't want to say it was "dumbed down", because it wasn't, but perhaps a better way to put it was that it felt empty in comparison to Civ 4, with nothing much to do or be distracted by; the vanilla AI being rather nonsensical until several patches later also didn't help. This is why I really like G&K - religion is a very nice way for me to feel like I'm doing something while I'm doing nothing.

All that said, I'm not saying that vanilla Civ 5 was bad by any means, it just felt empty to me. I suppose it might have just been that I reached the saturation point where the Civ series didn't interest me overall - afterall, by the time I got Civ 5 I had already played Civ 4 for five years, and then Civ 3 for almost five years as ewll before then. Perhaps if I was still interested in the Civ series vanilla Civ 5 wouldn't have been as empty an experience for me (though I still suspect I would have been disappointed).

Now, however, both G&K and BNW show me what Civ 5 is capable of, and, as you say, it makes Civ 4 look obsolete by comparison - the religions are much more intricate in Civ 5, for instance, and the trade routes look absolutely spectacular. Hopefully, BNW will keep its promises. Or, well, at least playing party pooper Pedro and his party people will be awesome. And Ashurbanipal's HULK SMASH = GET SMART looks cool too. Actually, that was one of the things I liked best about Civ 5 from the onset - how each civilization is much more unique now.

Indeed, but I think that would mean higher chances for different leaders rather than new civilizations in the next expansion, should it exist...

I'd like to see a third expansion too. Get all those obscure people out!

 

[awesome]

The main problem I can see with a third expansion would be lack of options for new civilizations... after doing 43, they're increasingly left with more and more obscure options.

Well, there's a whole thread dedicated to ideas in the ideas subforum, so realistically they could churn out another expansion's worth, although I doubt they will. Maybe with 6, they'll go the no DLC route just to have another expansion and total out at about 46 or so. Not sure about 50.

Indeed, but I think that would mean higher chances for different leaders rather than new civilizations in the next expansion, should it exist...

I really hope they stick to one leader. Multiple leaders worked for civ 4, but this is a completely different game where it wouldn't.

 

[Jarru]

Looking forward to new expansion too. Hexes and 1upt was a great move to include them in civ series. Before Pax announcement I had a small hope I would see public works instead of workers in new expansion, but it seens I will have to wait for that yet.

 

[AriochIV]

I really hope they stick to one leader. Multiple leaders worked for civ 4, but this is a completely different game where it wouldn't.

If the Unique Ability is tied to the leader, then allowing different leaders would have the same effect as it had in Civ IV. Though I think one Civ V UA is not quite as interesting a change as two Civ IV Leader Attributes, so it might be worthwhile to add something additional to the leader to make a choice more meaningful.

 

[cybrxkhan]

If the Unique Ability is tied to the leader, then allowing different leaders would have the same effect as it had in Civ IV. Though I think one Civ V UA is not quite as interesting a change as two Civ IV Leader Attributes, so it might be worthwhile to add something additional to the leader to make a choice more meaningful.

A simple way would be to classify leaders into different traits (like in Civ 3 and Civ 4), but have the UAs at the same time. You don't even need to have as many traits as previously. For instance (and this is just off the top of my head), say, each civ in Civ 6 can have two leaders - a "peaceful" leader that increases building production, and a "warlike" leader that increases unit production, and this alongside the UA for the civ no matter the leader. I mean not exactly like that, it'd probably have to be worked out more for balance and all that, but something like that, no?

 

[Inhalaattori]

Well the new leader could also have his/her own unique units/buildings/improvements. With major civs that would not be a problem. We could easily find new units/buildings for civs like America, Rome, India, China etc.

 

[CivCube]

OP is really passive-aggressive.

 

[Aristos]

it got me thinking, was Jon Scafers effort a complete failure, and has Ed been brought in to clean it up and make it a respectable game?

That is EXACTLY what I think since G&K. Not really a complete failure from Shafer, but more like an incomplete mediocrity. I think Beach and his team are doing a superb job in "re-creating" a basically mediocre game without destroying its baseline, which to me is probably one of the hardest things to do... makes me wonder why they didn't give the leadership to Beach right from the beginning instead of experimenting with a clearly mediocre person...

Anyways, Civ5 seems to be in a better path now, some fundamental flaws of Shafer's "design" are still there and will probably never be removed for civ5, but Beach et all have done a wonderful job in rescuing, at least partially, the series.

Kudos to Beach, the living proof that the original leadership decision was bad. There is hope for civ6...

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I actually think, that Civ 6 would be be the opportunity to "fix" the mistakes made in Civ 5.

Or, like SimCity, they could title the next series "Civilization" and just make it the last in the series but with plenty of content for us.

 

[gaiko]

Arrrggghhh! Jon Shafer himself said this was the big mistake in the civ5 design. And he is right (and kudos for Jon's sense of integrity).

Even gamers in other venues - such as the Commander: series - where 1upt is not a functional impediment, are tiring of an aging Panzer General mechanic.

I fully expect this unnecessary "carpet of doom" hamstring to be out of any Civ6. I do want combined arms limited stacking. Cardboard wargames came across this "innovation" decades ago. Why not use it?

I expect to see Civ 6 keep:

1 UPT