Anyone else feeling discouraged?

[Jeppetto]

I only play Vox Populi these days. The last few games of Civ VI I played I got bored with very quickly, but I may return to it at some point in the future.

I have been contemplating whether I should buy Humankind. It looks lovely, but I didn't really get much mileage out of Endless Legend. I have two main concerns about it. The first is the "region" system, which I really disliked in EL, as it unnaturally subdivides the map into artificial "super tiles", and for me takes most of the fun out of city placement and building. The second is the combat system. I really like army systems when they are done well, such as in AoW 3 and Fallen Enchantress, but the way they did it in EL wasn't that enjoyable to me. I do think they have made some changes to both systems for Humankind, but I need some convincing.

I had both of these concerns too, plus I like the district planning of Civ 6 and would like to see it better implemented and expanded (on style of Preserves more than traditional districts) rather than abolished. Humankind has its "Improvements", which are adjacency based, but are so all over the place, that there's not really a bad placement, just mildly suboptimal and mildy more optimal, but I don't really feel like the distinction is so big that you go crazy with the planning. Especially If there's so much "unique" districts in style of +1 Food to adjacent Farms, +1 Industry to adjacents Craft Quart etc. Further, the forced spreading (and as such forced order of building), overload of tiles and lack of pins would make very deep planning more tedious than fun.

Also, early If you manage to make hordes, the combat is simple, your number is much larger than theirs, against AI you can often use Instant Resolution. The problem is that against more advanced units, the number vs number is decieving and you are forced into the mini game. I haven't tried it, glanced over it in EL videos, saw it in Humankind in other videos and it never appealed to me, sounds like slug pace and tidious stretch. I like more fast-paced games. If the game lasts several days, I just keep getting more and more disinvested in my empire (cities, units) and what felt like building my empire in every detail just turns into click here click there, cities and units are suddenly meaningless ants etc.

Also, the benefits of Cultures are like 75% (25% being usually exceptionally good idea for Emblematic Quarter that isn't just "What you had, but for Food this time around") on level of Social Policies. The game markets itself as you being able to play more than 1.000.000 different civs, which in flavour is true, but in gameplay, it's like saying you can play as more than 1 million Civs in Civ 5 because you can pick different combination of Social Policies every time. Civ Trait like +1 Food on each tile granting Food is on level of Social Policy, when you then encounter Culture that is "the same thing, but for Prod this time", it kills the mood.

That said, If you get into terms with heavily lacking flavour of each tile being big thing as opposed to having thousand farms to make difference and maybe combine low difficulty and decent unit health management to play the Instant Resolution Numbers game against AI and try to find flavour in the region system (which makes you feel more like spreading empire), then you can focus on the more positive things. The decision-making of Civics feels nice, albeit mildly disbalanced in favour of realism, the growing empire of outposts turned "villages" when attached or cities when independent is also nice, the flavour of evolving your Culture (although lacking in relevant gameplay impact) is also nice.

If you're very critical, I'd say soberly, all the grand marketing behind, Humankind has some leaks in its perfection, but If you don't find the price high and are the type of person who can enjoy a burger instead of restaurant dinner every now and then, you can definitely kill some time with Humankind, it has decent amount of things to offer in terms of flavour of empire-building to entertain you. Plus I think you like RPG aspect of BE, right? Humankind has it nicely done, too.

 

[KayAU]

If you're very critical, I'd say soberly, all the grand marketing behind, Humankind has some leaks in its perfection, but If you don't find the price high and are the type of person who can enjoy a burger instead of restaurant dinner every now and then, you can definitely kill some time with Humankind, it has decent amount of things to offer in terms of flavour of empire-building to entertain you. Plus I think you like RPG aspect of BE, right? Humankind has it nicely done, too.

Thanks for the mini-review, it is much appreciated. It seems Humankind is a bit of a mixed bag, and that my concerns are somewhat warranted. You are right that the RPG aspects of BE is something I enjoy, so that comparison is quite interesting. In fact, that may just add the extra spice I would need to enjoy it.

 

[Alaindor]

I still love the game and play everyday.

I don't feel discouraged and I'm guessing I'm not alone.

Same here. I thought I'd mention it to put some positivity in the forums (depressing at times)

 

[Aristos]

but If you don't find the price high and are the type of person who can enjoy a burger instead of restaurant dinner every now and then, you can definitely kill some time with Humankind

Sorry, but I don't know what kind of restaurants you have in your home city if you think Civ 6 is a "restaurant dinner"... to me, it clearly has ALL the features of Fast Food.

 

[Jeppetto]

Sorry, but I don't know what kind of restaurants you have in your home city if you think Civ 6 is a "restaurant dinner"... to me, it clearly has ALL the features of Fast Food.

Never claimed that.

 

[Vargas1]

Sorry, but I don't know what kind of restaurants you have in your home city if you think Civ 6 is a "restaurant dinner"... to me, it clearly has ALL the features of Fast Food.

To me Civ 6 is more like a diner - has everything you want, though not necessarily the best version of everything, and there are some items you just never touch (seriously, who gets steak at a diner?). But when you just want to kick back and feel comfortable, it can’t be beat.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

Sorry, but I don't know what kind of restaurants you have in your home city if you think Civ 6 is a "restaurant dinner"... to me, it clearly has ALL the features of Fast Food.

why do you say that? Maplestory is a Fast food. Nexon is a fast food EA is a fast food

 

[acluewithout]

Yes, a bit discouraged.

The last patch wasn’t great. Still not happy about the spy changes. Very much feel FXS have stopped development before the game was really complete - end game still isn’t great, meaning no matter how fun the early game is there’s nothing to look forward to.

I haven’t played much lately, but that’s more because of other commitments. It’s still a great game, but just not what it could have been. Very close, but just didn’t get there.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

and as for terrible AI... civ 6 ain't the only game with terrible AI... Look at AOE series... especially AOE3
(and for your information I mean definitive edition version not 5+year old version)

 

[Futumch]

I haven't played for a couple of weeks either. I have been doing other stuff™ in the interim. It's funny - you'd think long cold nights would be ideal for a 4X game like Civ. Anyway I am sure the bug will come and bite me again before too long.

 

[universecreep]

I haven't played in over a month. I mainly just got bored of Civ 6 which happens. I actually installed Civ 5 and I'm having a blast. Nice change.

I always liked 5 better than 6 as it felt more polished and coherent - it still does. Civ 6 is still fun but 5 is still my favourite.

 

[adrifranchise]

Extremely discouraged.

There are certain features of Civ VI I love such as districts and wonders on one tile (along with the wonder movies) and I keep wanting to give it the benefit of the doubt but it’s getting harder and harder for me.

While the building aspect of it is cool, it is clearly obvious that the game plan all along was port to multiple consoles and in doing so needed a game with mass appeal. A relaxing city builder with occasional 4X elements rather than a grand strategy game. I found myself really just not challenged at all and with no access to source codes modding has been limited in getting to the root of the problem.

I have put in a lot more hours with Vox Populi because it scratches that itch for me. And the NFP just seemed like a final squeeze of money out of the consumers with lackluster “modes” that didn’t really do much for the game. I had high hopes but like it has been said before, the patches seemed to have done more harm than good to the game.

it’s a really disappointing realization about the path that the franchise is heading down

 

[Kupe Navigator]

Vox Populi because it scratches that itch for me.

The problem with Vox is that it doesn't have separate LA and CA... for example Sweden only has offensive UA and no cultural ability at all. While for Civ 6 you could have offensive LA and cultural CA.
I liked how in civ 6 you have separate LA and UA.

 

[Kwami]

This. But much earlier, Lucy or the previous one. That was still an alpha version, and the AI was already eons ahead of Kevin et al's.

Well, I missed Lucy, but the AI in Victor and Poe was absolutely terrible. Far inferior to even the Civ VI AI. And the game itself was a disaster with a horrible UI, broken mechanics, systems that basically didn't do anything, and no real depth at all.

And why are we blaming Kevin? Isn't he just the associate producer? I doubt that he made the big decisions.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

I think people are doing a disservice to the devs by calling it a fast-food... when it is clear they had love and effort in creating it. It is just that bugs are causing it to not to reach its full potential.

 

[ezzlar]

Discouraged. Now mostly because so many modders left the game. A DLL release would have been good but seems it wont happen. The game could be improved significantly even by fine tuning (soo many yields and policies that are in need of balancing). For example, the Rule With Faith mod makes the game twice as fun but is left to die since a few patches ago. That is depressing.

 

[KayAU]

The problem with Vox is that it doesn't have separate LA and CA... for example Sweden only has offensive UA and no cultural ability at all. While for Civ 6 you could have offensive LA and cultural CA.
I liked how in civ 6 you have separate LA and UA.

I do like how civ/leader abilities are structured in Civ VI, so I will give VI the nod for this specific aspect. However, for me this is not really a major issue, and I think the more important thing is the unique flavour and gameplay each civ brings as a whole. Civ VI is good at this, but VP may be even better. To mention some examples of a few VP civs and how they play uniquely:
Byzantine - Always founds a religion, can choose beliefs already used by others, and gets a bonus belief....which can be anything you yourself have not already chosen. So you want two pantheon or founder beliefs? Go for it. Only the Celtic beliefs are off-limits.
Celts - They get a unique and powerful set of pantheons which no one else may benefit from
Inca - They can not only traverse mountains...they can actually build cities, roads and railroads on them
Indonesia - Spawns unique luxury resources whenever they found or conquer cities, and when they construct their unique building, this works well with VP's resource monopoly system. Their unique unit gets a powerful mystery promotion which is only revealed the first time they enter combat.
Shoshone - Apart from getting a massive land grab when founding a city, their recon units all get to choose their reward from goodie huts, which is pretty nice when you consider how scouting works in VP. With just two goodie huts, you can transform your humble Pathfinder into a powerful, high level Scout, which can traverse and reveal the map very quickly, and is a real force in combat.
Venice - Famously cannot found more than one normal city...although they can puppet city states, or even found puppet cities with their unique Great Merchant replacement. Puppet cities also work differently for them, as they have smaller yield penalties, generate happiness normally, and Venice may spend gold in them. Oh, and they get twice the amount of trade routes.

These are not full descriptions, nor are these civs the only ones with interesting abilities. In my opinion, VP provides a great deal of gameplay variety between civilizations.

 

[bitula]

This is actually the first time I stopped playing CIV6. The reason is simply the AI not improving luxury resources in the corporations mode. I want to play with that mode now, and anyway the mode cost money, so I don't even understand how could it be left in such a state. Regarding VOX Populi - theoretically I do like that mod, but I am not able to play it since it crashes every third game on huge map. And the crashes are irreversible, you need to go back to a save game from as old as 50 turns ago. I really tried several different versions and in different periods of time, but vox is simply not stable with the setting I like :huge maps/marathon/deity, so I just gave up.

 

[PiR]

I play it a lot less, but I don't understand the negativity on the forums. If I get too bored with it, I'll just move on to something else, and won't waste time to complain about it endlessly here.

 

[Gedemon]

It's not about being bored, it's about being disappointed by the end result, fearing it will be worst in the future for the franchise, and trying to steer it back to something it was by letting Firaxis know that some of us are not satisfied by the development cycle of civ6.