April 2021 Developer Livestream Discussion

[bengalryan9]

I guess Netherlands and Scotland is beginner friendly civ and don't deserve to be changed huh?

You have concrete evidence that they haven't been changed?

 

[Kupe Navigator]

I don't consider them beginner civs and expect them to get some changes, mostly to the leader abilities, but I'm not a game designer so who knows.

nah they won't get any meaningful changes. Korea hasn't got it because it is "strong" enough so why should they?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I mean, if you were expecting numerous civs to receive massive overhauls, I can see where this patch is disappointing for you.

It's turning out about how I expected though. Several civs got moderate updates and a lot got small touch-ups. So I am satisfied.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

You have concrete evidence that they haven't been changed?

not in meaningful way... maybe get few improvement on their UI.. but nothing esle
Maybe Robert the Bruce can get his LA changes to be more active but no changes to problematic CA.

 

[bengalryan9]

not in meaningful way... maybe get few improvement on their UI.. but nothing esle
Maybe Robert the Bruce can get his LA changes to be more active but no changes to problematic CA.

Considering how difficult polders are to actually place and how pointless Robert's current LA is, both of those would be pretty significant changes to each. But you suggested they wouldn't be changed? Which is it?

 

[Kupe Navigator]

Considering how difficult polders are to actually place and how pointless Robert's current LA is, both of those would be pretty significant changes to each. But you suggested they wouldn't be changed? Which is it?

Scotland's problematic CA won't change and I doubt polders will change except for increase in yields.

 

[slavaskii]

I mean, if you were expecting numerous civs to receive massive overhauls, I can see where this patch is disappointing for you.

It's turning out about how I expected though. Several civs got moderate updates and a lot got small touch-ups. So I am satisfied.

Definitely true, but it wasn't really right of the developers to show such major changes in the pre-update video and make us think we had similar things to look forward to when the patch dropped. It should've been abundantly clear that they were highlighting all the major changes then and there. I was expecting that someone had really gone through the civ list and tried to figure out what was wrong, perhaps even consulting people in the community and/or what modders have done. Instead, they tried to figure it out themselves and I'm still perplexed because nobody asked for many of their changes.

I know I've been on this board all day being really critical of this patch, but I just want to make it clear that it was a great effort and we should all really appreciate it. But I'd appreciate it even more (and I reckon most of the forum would be with me here) if they delayed this another few weeks. They've said countless times now that this is the final this, the final that. Civ VI would not be left in a balanced state if this is how they ended the game. I know the release date is slated for tomorrow, but the stream should've happened sooner so the community could've had a chance to comment. I sincerely hope a developer has read all these posts and realized that either a) the patch should be delayed or b) another one should be worked on before Civ VI is concluded.

When you take a look at all the threads posted since this was announced, everyone was expecting something else. Maybe more, maybe even less, but people were, for example, NOT expecting a Korea/Australia buff and a hard Russian nerf without a buff to Peter's Grand Embassy. The stream today was considerably out of left field for most of us.

 

[kb27787]

I liked some of the changes, but have to wonder at some of the choices... (buffing Korea and Aztec further? Why???)

Also, I wish they had addressed the issue of declaring war on city states that the suzerain cannot declare war back (friend or ally)

If you cannot raze a city previously belonging to your friend or ally, you shouldn't be able to raze his city state either...

 

[DWilson]

With Sumeria, Scythia, the Aztecs, and Korea, the changes didn't seem focused on stregthening, so much as enhancing. Did Sumeria get stronger? Nope, they're just better friends. Why did Scythia get changes? Most agreed the Kurgan was near useless, while the Saka Horse Archer was too weak to be of significant value. So they made them both something hopefully more people will want to use. The Aztecs were and are potent. They got a miniscule buff to what some considered the most useless Unique Infrastructure in the game (I'm not even sure the tier changed, but at least it's hopefully more desirable now). Did Korea need a buff? No, but they did need a more active focus, and that's basically the only part of it which is active game play. Basically, these are small changes to make the uniques more usable. All good.

Note that despite focus on some civ and unit changes, we have basically no idea what else is changing. Seems odd to complain about what didn't change, then.

 

[nzcamel]

TBH I think complaining about certain civs being "boring" is overstated. At least a few civs need to play the game as it was meant to be played and not every civ needs a mechanic that completely turns their playstyle on it's ear. We may enjoy unique games as Mansa Musa, Kupe, Bull Moose Teddy, etc, but for a relatively inexperienced player who is just starting out those probably aren't so great. If civs like Korea exist for them more than it does for me, so be it.

Agree wholeheartedly. And boring is subjective. What one person thinks is a great or fun playstyle another won't. Hell, if 90% of the Civs appeal to any given player they have nothing to grumble about!

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

they SHOULD'VE came honest and said this patch only contains minor changes. They shouldn't have hyped up so much.

That would be a lie in itself considering not all civs did get minor changes.

this tiggers so much since Spain and Khmer seems to be only one-dimensional civs to receive any meaningful change...
While Korea, Arabia, Netherlands and Scotland gets left in the dust...

Not sure what's wrong with Arabia? Also who says Netherlands and Scotland won't receive anything? Honestly besides their Leader abilities both are good anyway.
I also enjoy playing Korea. Sure they are a little one-dimensional but to me it's a fine playstyle. Sometimes I don't want all the civs to be too complicated.

 

[nzcamel]

they are and will be still weak on map sizes greater than standard.

That should not be a surprise, and it's fine. There's lots of other Civs to choose from if you don't want the added challenge of playing Maya on a large+ map.

Last observation - in response to a question from the chat Carl from Firaxis went out of his way to emphasise that balancing is undertaken with a view to both single player and multiplayer play. This struck me as deluded or disingenuous as it should be really apparent from how the community has played the game in the last 4 years that the Civs in this game have never been well balanced for multiplayer

A few days ago a posted a message here saying I would prefer a few well-reworked Civs like Spain or Khmer than small changes for 20 Civs because I was suspecting the things will go in that direction. Someone answered we will get both. That was a common expectation not only here. And well we didn't get both. Still, I am disappointed too.
As for balancing for multiplayer. Actually, it is really hard to ballance the single-player game with over 50 Civs for multiplayer. Either you focus on balancing Civs at the cost of design space for the single-player experience, or you focus on unique gameplay the Civ may offer for a single-player game at the cost of power creep and multiplayer issues. It is not Carls fault, and we shouldn't expect the impossible from him. That's the way it works. At least in multiplayer, you can always ban OP Civs or the weakest ones.

Balancing well for SP is tough, doing so for MP will always be almost impossible. Better than them trying to sweat too much over that would be implementing a draft system whereby MP players start with a certain amount of gold, and bid for the Civs they want to play. The winning bid is divided amongst those who are yet to win, making sure those who end up with weaker Civs are compensated. It would need a bit more work than what I've layed out here (which is normally a 1v1 tool) but will balance MP far better than any amount of trying by Devs and/or modders.

 

[UWHabs]

Agree wholeheartedly. And boring is subjective. What one person thinks is a great or fun playstyle another won't. Hell, if 90% of the Civs appeal to any given player they have nothing to grumble about!

There's also multiple aspects to every civ. Not all of them are great at being accurate representations, or they end up being meme-worthy (science Korea! science Babylon! Lol Mounties!). But just because they're not the best representations of the civ, if they play fun, they play interesting, and work for the civ in question, that's a good thing.

So I definitely see why a civ like Korea didn't get a lot of changes. Sure, I would have liked to see them a little more rounded, but on the flipside, they're always going to be a super strong science civ with half price campuses, and unless if they really dumped the default adjacency for them which made them extra unique, then making them more rounded would probably only have made them even stronger as a whole. The "buff" they added to them is pretty minor overall, as someone above said, almost more like a little bug fix than them truly sitting down, taking ages to debate the civ's history and uniqueness, and truly come up with a creative solution for that.

It is a little unfortunate for civs like Poland, which certainly are not the strongest civ out there, that it seems the crux of their changes are that their culture bomb works on non-founded religions, and their UU got shifted around. I mean, sure, not bad changes as a whole, but they still feel a little uneven in how they play, and it might have been nice to see them gain some sort of weird or unique ability. Who knows if it fits into their history, but maybe even something like "when their fort/encampment culture bomb steals territory from a city with a holy site, gain a relic". Maybe that would be too hard to code in, I don't know, but they're a civ who could have gained something else a little more fun and exciting to tie their abilities together. There's other civs like that that I would have liked to see some edits to, just add something a little more unique to them that forces you into a slightly different play style to really optimize for their bonuses.

But otherwise, we're not far from the full patch notes. There's still plenty of civs that haven't been covered or mentioned that will have more changes. One change I definitely was hoping for was to make all UB half price, like districts are. They seem to have made a choice to raise the strength of all UU replacements, so I definitely would have liked to see a little more love to those civs with buildings.

 

[sonicmyst]

Having read everyone's opinion in this update, I would say I am personally satisfied with this update.

This is a substantial update that we are waiting for so long. Maybe some of you just set the expectations or probably expected a "rework" of civs instead of "balance pass". For me, balance pass is just tweaking numbers, which Firaxis did.

I just hope they do not close the door in saying this is the final free update because us gamers can still provide feedback and suggestions for improvement of this game.

Also there are other issues still unadressed e.g. Map Editor, dlls, civs that we still want more tweaks, etc.

 

[Vandlys]

Nerfs you mean. Will surrender immediately when invaded by the German civilization.

Wow. People still say this about the Dutch? Yeah, they "only" resisted for a couple of days and then capitulated when their not-so-big army was facing a huge Wehrmacht, Rotterdam got flattened by bombs and other cities were threatened. Sure. They surrendered immediately.

 

[Disgustipated]

Is no one upset or concerned about Mali? Seems to me Spain and Portugal are so strong with trade routes with no crippling Malus that Mansa Musa has. I haven't run the numbers, but I'm willing to bet they can pull in near the gpt Mansa Musa can, not to mention other yields. You can say they are map dependent, but so is Mansa Musa.

 

[Vandlys]

Having read everyone's opinion in this update, I would say I am personally satisfied with this update.

This is a substantial update that we are waiting for so long. Maybe some of you just set the expectations or probably expected a "rework" of civs instead of "balance pass". For me, balance pass is just tweaking numbers, which Firaxis did.

I just hope they do not close the door in saying this is the final free update because us gamers can still provide feedback and suggestions for improvement of this game.

Also there are other issues still unadressed e.g. Map Editor, dlls, civs that we still want more tweaks, etc.

Completely agree, it is indeed more about balance than anything else. I'd love to see more reworks to bring all of the civs in line with all the expansions, but that's not really feasible.
I'm also surprised that they'd say this is the "final patch". Rebalancing civs without community feedback and then leaving at that seems odd to me. If I were FXS, I would love to rebalance things and get more feedback to tweak some stuff still. Who knows what exploits can still be found? Especially with reworks like Khmer.

 

[sonicmyst]

Is no one upset or concerned about Mali? Seems to me Spain and Portugal are so strong with trade routes with no crippling Malus that Mansa Musa has. I haven't run the numbers, but I'm willing to bet they can pull in near the gpt Mansa Musa can, not to mention other yields. You can say they are map dependent, but so is Mansa Musa.

Now I suddenly want to see a game with Mali, Spain and Portugal and see which civ gets the most gold.

 

[Stilgar08]

It's always intriguing to me that verdicts are made so fast with knowing so little.
Speculation is all fun but I refrain from judging the patch yet.
I'm more interested in the general fixes and improvements tbh and I'm not surprised we didn't hear much about it in the livestream since the normal audience jumps more onto "we buffed Spain! “.

- Monopolies playable, AI does resources(last fix obviously didn't do the trick)?
- General Use of Navy like they stated. Is it working?
- Impact of design changes to AI decisions and having better competition in SP?
- Trade behavior improvements would be a dream but I won't hold my breath.

These are my foremost concerns. +3 here and - 1 there is all good but not the highest priority.

Maya:

they are and will be still weak on map sizes greater than standard.

I like the Maya change. And Maya Civ.

The problem with Maya is not, in my mind, related to map size. The problem is NOT knowing the layout of the map before plopping your capital. Since everything after that is directly tributary to the map around the capital, it makes Maya completely subject to RNG. I really dislike that you'll
probably have to reroll your start all the time when you play them. I feel maya should have at least 12 tiles radius vision at turn 1 (not all game long, just at turn 1) so that you are allowed to make an intelligent decision on capital city placement.

That's the nature of tall Civs. It's vital to make the right decisions from the start so you might want to invest more time in exploring before settling. This resulting in more RNG is natural.
I personally never liked Dandolo/Venedig...

so in conclusion: New units good
Civ rework: bad and lazy.
And they highlighted civ rework as major selling point.
When will I EVER learn...

"Selling point" is funny for a free patch. And I disagree but I don't want to start this argument all over again.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

What I am worried is that after this patch Fraxis would be like "you know what? I am done." And don't touch any part of civ vi again... never mind the bugs and stuff.