[NFP] Is Civ 6 doomed?

[Gedemon]

Doomed ? Yes I think it will be unless Firaxis put more development resource in it again.

Stability is still going down from what I can see, and so far the current development process prevents any overhaul of flawed core mechanisms.

And once they stop development the game will be doomed to stay flawed, unless they release the source code later.

civ2 to civ5 survived the end of the development cycle and are still played today, for various reasons*, I don't see that future for civ6 once civ7 will have matured a bit. That doesn't mean civ6 is a commercial failure, it's the opposite, and I suppose civ7 will be an even greater success, being designed to be a consumable like some other game franchise, everyone moving to the latest iteration when it's out.

*modding is more accessible in civ2 and civ3 and deeper in civ4 and civ5, while IMO civ6 modding is at civ2 level (which is not a bad comparaison, especially if you ponder the graphic engine) but with a much harder learning curve.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Actually i'm disappointed with District systems. for some districts, it should permits additional unit training slots

 

[kaspergm]

Actually i'm disappointed with District systems. for some districts, it should permits additional unit training slots

That's certainly a novel line of thinking for Civ7: Each district can have its own production or project running. That would certainly make a major new spin on the franchise.

 

[Myomoto]

That's certainly a novel line of thinking for Civ7: Each district can have its own production or project running. That would certainly make a major new spin on the franchise.

Imagines having to set 3-5 types of production for 20 cities every 5-8 turns in the late game

 

[Zaimejs]

I agree totally with the posts about how Civ VI lacks interest in the late game stage. But I think this has been true for all Civs that I have played... it is hard for me to remember. I finished my first huge map as Gandhi (I have started plenty, but really wanted to finish one), and each turn at the end took 10 minutes or so... it was like a grudge match between me and sleep to get the final diplo points to win. 50 turns to launch the space station and win? Jesus... that is just so much clicking and waiting.

I love Rock Bands. They kept me awake. Naming Rock Bands and having them play... just a wildcard. I had no expectations of winning a cultural or religious victory, but I was having fun with them... something to do.

Coastal flooding is like torture, and I would like to shut it off because it adds nothing to the game aside from wasted maintenance time... maybe some social message about the times we live in, but makes the game slog.

I wish there were more to do with workers and engineers later... some creative land improvements to terraform and maybe make some super civ... something beyond what we have now... some clever future techs that really make it interesting... or some late game wonders that were quicker to build and actually made some difference in the end.

Maybe I am just playing wrong.

Wars take way too long to win... and way too much punishment to pursue domination on a global scale.

But the game is fun. I have a 1000 hours that attest to that.

 

[Mahi]

I think it's quite clear now that civ 6 is not going to the iteration that will stand the test of time. I agree there seems to be too many unpolished features in Civ 6.
Hopefully Civ 7 will be the one that will be remembered and loved as much as civ 4 and 2.

But honestly it's the modding capabilities that doomed the game from the beginning. The modding community never got excited about civ 6.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

I wish they would just make and release Civ VII so I could stop playing Civ VI.
When V came out I gave up on IV and when VI came out I gave up on V.
I'm ready to start the vicious cycle of complaining again about the next edition and those who develop it while they pick my pocket!
Not to mention, watching the top players in the Civ VII GOTM do things I can never do, finishing the game lightning fast.

 

[Abaxial]

I have a hard job imagining what Civ 7 will be like. It has to be more than Civ 6 with knobs on. If there are still districts instead of one-tile cities it will look very like that, but if there are no districts it will look like a step backwards. How many civs will be included? I imagine a whole bunch of new ones will be shut out before players have really got used to them. The release of Humankind limits the scope even more, as Firaxis will not want to be seen to be copying ideas from Humankind.

As I have suggested before, the best way to make Civ 7 stand out would be to put it on a globe, or at least find some way of making a degree of longitude much less at the poles than at the equator. With such a radical immovation as that, Firaxis would shield themselves from cavils that the game is still pretty much Civ 6 or Civ 5.

 

[Krajzen]

It's a good game. The problem is, every other game in a cycle is IMO a great game.

 

[AsH2]

Actually i'm disappointed with District systems. for some districts, it should permits additional unit training slots

That's certainly a novel line of thinking for Civ7: Each district can have its own production or project running. That would certainly make a major new spin on the franchise.

Imagines having to set 3-5 types of production for 20 cities every 5-8 turns in the late game

Try imagine Civ7 as a game of empire managing instead of city managing.

 

[ggalindo001]

I don't think it is doomed. but it is going to be "one-off" feature bloated that for most out there (the non-fanatics) will be fun. Because of the various platforms (xbox, ipad, etc.) getting a game with the right balance and depth for a strategic immersive experience is just not likely going to happen.

You cannot make the game so complex that people on a console cannot play it, and newbies on the PC are turned off by the complexity. And Civ 7, if there is a Civ 7, will likely continue down the path we have seen with Civ 6 from a mass market perspective.

I think the strategy around NFP highlights this -- I'm now looking at NFP as just a bunch of Civ DLCs, with some experimental game modes that I may or may not ever really want. I actually hope this strategy gets to an even more -customizable- model going forward (with Civ 6 or 7) -- by which users can get the experience that they want without a one-size fits all.

For example -- a toggle option or slider around AI aggressiveness, AI roleplay or play to win, etc. I am quietly hoping that one of the "historic" modes that will be added will emphasize political idologies, and one of the 'freebie' improvements will be to amp up AI aggressiveness. I'm not holding my breath by any means, tho.

Overall NFP has been worth the purchase simply due to the new civs (and the random tech/civics trees -- which will be a forever mode for me). Then again, I do have a library of steam games with less than 5 hours played -- and I'm sure there are many a steam owner with Civ 6 with less than 5 hours played.

 

[salty mud]

I rolled my eyes at any threads with overdramatic titles and I wondered if I should read something that I knew would be infuriating, then I saw your response and it was definitely worth the time.

If a game is doomed then still somehow comes out on top of the franchise, all subsequent games should strive to reach that doom.

What do you mean by "out on top"? If we take Steam reviews, Civ VI's all time review score is at 82%. Compare:

Civ V: 96%
Civ IV: 92%
Civ III: 90%

According to Steam at least, the largest digital distributor by far, Civ VI comes in at a distant and convincing last place.

 

[KayAU]

What do you mean by "out on top"? If we take Steam reviews, Civ VI's all time review score is at 82%. Compare:

Civ V: 96%
Civ IV: 92%
Civ III: 90%

According to Steam at least, the largest digital distributor by far, Civ VI comes in at a distant and convincing last place.

Oh, I wasn't aware that Civ 5's score was that high. I do know that it took a long time (a couple of years) before Civ 6 surpassed Civ 5 inn number of concurrent players. Still to this day, with regular content being released for Civ 6, Civ 5 still has about half the number of concurrent players. Not bad for a more than 10 year old game which hasn't seen any new official content in over 7 years.

Actually, looking at the number of concurrent players over time for the two games is quite interesting. Unfortunately, there isn't any data for the first 2 years after the release of Civ 5, but we can see that Civ 5 reached a peak with the release of Brave New World, and after that, it held a constant high number of concurrent players which didn't start to slowly drop off until 3 and a half years later, when Civ 6 was released. Civ 6, on the other hand, started out with a massive peak on release (I do remember the build up and excitement, no doubt helped by the success of Civ 5). It then immediately dropped below Civ 5's level, and stayed there until a new peak was reached with the release of the first expansion. Again, numbers dropped below Civ 5's level shortly after. Civ 5's popularity was slowly declining throughout all of this time, which is natural for such an old game which was no longer receiving content, and at some point not long before the release of the second expansion for Civ 6, Civ 6 did surpass 5 in terms of concurrent players, albeit not by a lot. The second expansion gave it another boost, but levels didn't reach anywhere near what Civ 5 did after its second expansion. In fact, it is only now that the game is getting regular content updates that Civ 6 has even come close to the level Civ 5 maintained for 3 and a half years with no new content, and is managing to hold more than 50k concurrent players consistently.

I think this speaks volumes to the lasting appeal and quality of Civ 5. I believe Civ 6 has received a higher quantity of content than Civ 5, but in terms of keeping players engaged, the more refined and interconnected systems of 5 seems to win out. At least that's my take.

 

[slavaskii]

Civ VI's release, from what I remember, was an absolute disaster. I remember people saying that it looked like a 'cheap mobile game' (I as well hated the graphics), and many were wholly unsurprised when it was immediately ported to mobile. The issue was, and still is, that Civ VI does very little to keep old fanatics interested while throwing new gimmicky content at new players. This is incredibly evident just by those statistics - why was it that over 150k people played the game day one, and why was it that after it tanked, players went back to Civ V? It wasn't at all because those new players decided to buy another Civ title, it was because the game simply didn't attract the old players and they just left for something they found more enjoyable.

While I admittedly have been getting more into Civ VI, I recognize the only reason why is because it's the newer game and will still be supported with new content. I don't want to feel 'left behind' so-to-speak, but that's not really great justification for playing a game.

Civ VI just isn't immersive in the slightest. The civs are hilariously unbalanced, mainly because some civs are just better than each other in every way imaginable. Compare Russia and literally any of the other faith civs. Or Korea and Maya. There were overpowered civs in Civ V, but I always felt like I had a chance - here, I feel like I'm flat-out at a disadvantage by playing the vast majority of the vanilla civs. There's also the warfare mechanics - after classical era and before bombers, war is a slog unless you have a really good unique unit that can effectively take down walls. Walls are your biggest challenge anyway, because the AI cannot war to save their life. Oh no, I got randomly attacked by France? They have three knights coming in, guess there must be some cannons in the back to take down my walls... no?... why are the knights just running past my border cities and suiciding straight into my capital...? There is no excuse for being able to capture another civ's capital on deity in literally 5 turns because they didn't build units and are defenseless against bombers. Another huge problem is the World Congress, which I don't think I need to elaborate on further. It made sense in Civ V and was fun to compete to be an agenda-setter and make interesting policies. How. Did. They. Screw. This. Up. So. Badly.

Don't get me wrong, Civ VI isn't a terrible game, and it's clear they started it out thinking they had a lot of room for improvement (it took a whole expansion for Civ V to get spies and religion, after all). But every time they try to work in a new mechanic, it just doesn't work, and now there's issue piled on top of issue with many core gameplay elements sorely broken. I don't think it's doomed for the people who got into the series with this iteration, but for old players it's really underwhelming - those Steam reviews are an undeniable testament to that.

 

[Uberfrog]

Actually, looking at the number of concurrent players over time for the two games is quite interesting. Unfortunately, there isn't any data for the first 2 years after the release of Civ 5, but we can see...

...In fact, it is only now that the game is getting regular content updates that Civ 6 has even come close to the level Civ 5 maintained for 3 and a half years with no new content, and is managing to hold more than 50k concurrent players consistently.

[...]

I think this speaks volumes to the lasting appeal and quality of Civ 5. I believe Civ 6 has received a higher quantity of content than Civ 5, but in terms of keeping players engaged, the more refined and interconnected systems of 5 seems to win out. At least that's my take.

That graph isn’t quite comparing like with like. As you say, we can’t see how Civ 5 was doing in its first two years. Which means the relevant comparison is Civ 6 from the end of 2018 onwards, where the numbers are more comparable to Civ 5’s. The impact of decreasing price (particularly during sales) on long term sales and player numbers is only just being felt. We will know over the next few years if it achieves anything like it’s predecessor’s long term success.

There’s no question Civ 5 has been an extremely successful and popular game, and it may be true that Civ 6 never matches it. I personally think this lifespan has a lot to do with the modding scene... for my money unmodded Civ 6 is a heap better than unmodded Civ 5...

 

[salty mud]

But neither comes close to unmodded Civ 4...

 

[KayAU]

That graph isn’t quite comparing like with like. As you say, we can’t see how Civ 5 was doing in its first two years. Which means the relevant comparison is Civ 6 from the end of 2018 onwards, where the numbers are more comparable to Civ 5’s. The impact of decreasing price (particularly during sales) on long term sales and player numbers is only just being felt. We will know over the next few years if it achieves anything like it’s predecessor’s long term success.

There’s no question Civ 5 has been an extremely successful and popular game, and it may be true that Civ 6 never matches it. I personally think this lifespan has a lot to do with the modding scene... for my money unmodded Civ 6 is a heap better than unmodded Civ 5...

Fair enough. I personally prefer unmodded Civ 5 to Civ 6 even today, when Civ 5 is old and Civ 6 is being continually updated with new content. I actually finish my Civ 5 games.

As for the comparison, while there are of course many factors which could influence the numbers, I do stand by my reading of the chart. I will concede two points, though:

• Without the first two years after Civ 5 we are missing part of the picture (specifically, the period between release and the first expansion, which was released right before the data starts)
• We do not know how well Civ 6 will do longer term

It is of course conceivable that Civ 6 will have a long term success on par with Civ 5, although the data so far doesn't really suggest it. I actually suspect that the current numbers are somewhat "artificially" high due to the way new content is being spread out in NFP. I can only speak for myself, but I find myself checking out the new content mostly out of curiosity. I played several games with the Maya, as I really like them, I played one as Gran Colombia, one as Ethiopia, and two as Gaul. I tried out the Pirates scenario once. The novelty wears off relatively quickly for me, though. Civ 5 managed to keep people engaged for years and years without any new official content, and it remains very popular even today. It is possible that unofficial content contributed to this, although it is hard to say how much. As amazing as Vox Populi is, for example, I don't know how many people have actually tried it out. It is not available in Steam Workshop, and even on these forums (civ fanatics) there seems to be many who haven't even tried it.

In any case, I do think it is fair to say that Civ VI has not been as successful as Civ V yet, at least not in terms of player engagment, or player ratings.

 

[OmegaDestroyer]

The game is what, 4 years old and still being developed? That is more than most games get. I do not think any of us expected it to be developed further after GS and should be grateful it was.

If people love the previous entries so much, it is good they still have the ability to go and play them.

 

[Disgustipated]

but it feels like Civ 6 is nearing the end of its cycle.

We already knew this. Considering how many civs are already in the game, and the fact there are certainly no new full expansion packs. It's obvious a B team is working on the game now while the A team is working on something else.

 

[Xur]

Civ6 feels like a boardgame more than any previous iteration of civ, and I think that’s a critical divide in expectations for people. It’s a fundamental design that cant be changed at this point.

There’s probably as many opinions about how the game should be, as how many players there are. I personally hate the gameboard feel and it’s railroaded gameplay. The blind research and dark ages game modes helped a bit, but it’s still too boring like monopoly.