I feel like this installment is missing the "civilization" part of Civilization

[Arkatakor]

Every game thus far I've started ends up in two ways:

1. On turn 5, I meet a warrior from another Civ. This is on a Huge map with two Civs deleted from the roster. It turns out their capital is 10 tiles away. Huh?
2. On turn 20, I discover I'm ringed entirely by 5 city states which hog all of the good city sites. I have only one viable city site to expand to.

I just don't get a sense of excitement and wonder that I'm used to from Civs II-V of rushing to fill my empire with great cities. I just don't understand how you're supposed to build an actual civilization in this game.

I have run into quite a few games exactly like yours. I could maximum expand to one spot. Re-rolling with at least 2 civs removed on huge was the only way to go. Even that did not always cut it though.

 

[Council 13]

Every game thus far I've started ends up in two ways:

1. On turn 5, I meet a warrior from another Civ. This is on a Huge map with two Civs deleted from the roster. It turns out their capital is 10 tiles away. Huh?
2. On turn 20, I discover I'm ringed entirely by 5 city states which hog all of the good city sites. I have only one viable city site to expand to.

I just don't get a sense of excitement and wonder that I'm used to from Civs II-V of rushing to fill my empire with great cities. I just don't understand how you're supposed to build an actual civilization in this game.

There is a quick edit to xml files where you can increase the distance between starting civ's. It works very good. Default is 9 hex's which I do think is too close. You can change it to anything you want. I adjusted mine to 13 after the first game and the past 3 games since have been much better starts.

 

[Grumpbeard]

As someone said above, random maps are random.

In my first game, as America, I had plenty of room in every direction (except north - I was at the top of the map.) for some time.

Second game, England, I had to wind my way along the coast for room as the middle of the continent had China and Sumer. Would have been nice to be Japan for that game, I think.

The game I'm in now, Russia, I ran out of room fairly quickly and Egypt actually settled at least one city between two of my others (but we're allies, so alls fair I guess), so between that and misjudging how to use Russia's ability, I'm struggling a bit. But learning is part of the process, part of the fun.

 

[Menzies]

This is after starting many, many, many news maps, and dropping out multiple Civs as you suggested. I always start on top of someone else, and there is an infestation of city states.

I think "war, duh" is sort of a BS answer... is there only one way to play the game now? No peaceful building? No early game expansion? This sucks all the fun out of it for me.

During my first game I fought in exactly one war, it was a defensive war in the modern era. I had around 7 cities at that point.

 

[PlayAsPericles]

if you are playing on a large or huge map it is actually MUCH smaller than the maps for those seizes in Civ 5 so you are packed right on top of each other. One of the reasons i play huge map games all the time is i love exploring so much which is taken away in this civ game.

 

[Dimplz]

1. On turn 5, I meet a warrior from another Civ. This is on a Huge map with two Civs deleted from the roster. It turns out their capital is 10 tiles away.

I'm having this EXACT same issue. I wanted to play on the standard size map and I deleted THREE Civs because I like to play peacefully as I can (especially since there is not an 'Always Peace' setting this time around) and 99% of the time, I have a neighbor that is about 10 tiles away. Almost EVERY SINGLE TIME. Sometimes there are TWO neighbors 10 tiles away, even after deleting three from the game. I'm convinced there's something in the code that makes it a good chance that you have a close neighbor, no matter what size or # of Civs.

 

[Larsenex]

I cranked up the number of AIs to max on a huge map and didn't feel like it was particularly crowded by other civs, if partially because the AI is so bad at expanding.

City states however are too abundant, but you can easily change the number of them via mods or just editing some simple files.

Takfloyd, if you know how to mod the number of City States in a game can you or someone on the forums please either PM me or post in this thread on what file to look for and how? I would be most appreciative. I do like a game that has some room to grow and that in turn allows the ai to build out a bit when they try.

 

[Plus Ultra]

Might want to share your map seeds with these guys: http://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/anyone-else-getting-a-lot-40-of-isolated-starts.601616/

 

[Takfloyd]

Takfloyd, if you know how to mod the number of City States in a game can you or someone on the forums please either PM me or post in this thread on what file to look for and how? I would be most appreciative. I do like a game that has some room to grow and that in turn allows the ai to build out a bit when they try.

I saw it while rummaging through the files, I'm pretty sure the map sizes file in Steam\SteamApps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization VI\Base\Assets\Configuration\Data is what you want to edit.

 

[Horizons]

I feel totally alienated by Civ6 and I'm struggling to come to terms with it ... totally swamped by choices, a million little things that give tiny bonuses here and there, so confusing, counterintuitive, and the interface and graphics to me are just horrible, it's not just a downgrade from Civ5 but even from Civ4.

I haven't seen any negative reviews anywhere.

Am I the only person who finds Civ 6 really overwhleming, clumsy, over-complicated and difficult to follow?

Help

 

[JosephC]

if you are playing on a large or huge map it is actually MUCH smaller than the maps for those seizes in Civ 5 so you are packed right on top of each other. One of the reasons i play huge map games all the time is i love exploring so much which is taken away in this civ game.

I've been playing around in the config files, I've doubled both the height & width of the Huge map (from 106x66 to 212x132). Will be starting a new game on it later tonight.

 

[Assault Lemming]

This is after starting many, many, many news maps, and dropping out multiple Civs as you suggested. I always start on top of someone else, and there is an infestation of city states.

I think "war, duh" is sort of a BS answer... is there only one way to play the game now? No peaceful building? No early game expansion? This sucks all the fun out of it for me.

It's almost always war in the ancient era because no warmonger penalties. Seems the only way to avoid it is to build a big enough military that the AI is too scared to attack you.

In the ancient era production and military are everything.

 

[faberGe]

I feel totally alienated by Civ6 and I'm struggling to come to terms with it ... totally swamped by choices, a million little things that give tiny bonuses here and there, so confusing, counterintuitive, and the interface and graphics to me are just horrible, it's not just a downgrade from Civ5 but even from Civ4.

I haven't seen any negative reviews anywhere.

Am I the only person who finds Civ 6 really overwhleming, clumsy, over-complicated and difficult to follow?

Help

Sorry to hear so.
At the moment, event with the erratic IA, i'm in love.
Civ IV was my previous love, while the (for me) forced tall empire logic of Civ V killed my love, even if i liked the 1Upt introduction.

It's a different game from 5, like 5 was from 4 and so on.
Personal tastes i suppose, and some patience for patches for weak points.
I'm surprised for how much i like the graphics, i hated the previews and looked cartoony but once i started playing it just... clicked.

 

[spherejoint]

There is a quick edit to xml files where you can increase the distance between starting civ's. It works very good. Default is 9 hex's which I do think is too close. You can change it to anything you want. I adjusted mine to 13 after the first game and the past 3 games since have been much better starts.

Ah this seems like an awesome solution. Thanks!

I wonder if the disparity in experiences is, as someone mentioned, the smallness of the Huge maps. They are smaller than Civ 5 Huge maps and yet have the same number of Civs: 12.

Ironically it is people who play on Standard maps who say there is too much room to grow, and people who play on Huge who say there is too little because of this!

EDIT: If anyone's interested, the XML file mentioned is GlobalParameters.xml. I'm also bumping the Huge map size up to the 128 x 80 of Civ 5 and reducing city states on Huge from 18 to 24. Let's see how this goes!