[NFP] April Update Video

[pokiehl]

I'm no computer genius, but isn't there a limit to how much you cam just bolt on? Sooner or later (sooner, judging by the frequency of bugs and issues), they'll have to optimise it. Might as well start fresh and have a blank state.

I think we’re already at that point. The game has never been less stable than it is now.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

If they are going to build on Civ6 honestly I am ok with that. If by “build” they mean make the game systems a bit more integrated and work out bugs and stuff I like it.

I'd start with removing some things actually. My start would be to blow up all of the win conditions and rewriting all of those. None of them are very great. They've tried to make cultural victories better by piling more and more things on top of each other instead of ripping it down to the studs to find where the water leak is coming from. As much as I love the religion beliefs themselves, the VC is as tedious as domination as has been expressed many times here (my personal preference would be to do away with RV and just having it as a way of reaching other victories, but I'm in the minority there).

None of this destroys my enjoyment of the game--it's always been about the journey and not the destination for me and I almost never finish a game (in 6 or older ones). However new ways to win alone would add hours and hours of trying new things.

 

[Gedemon]

Kevin tweeted today that they final word count is 3,700+.

Let's hope there are some for the [Modding] section.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I'd start with removing some things actually. My start would be to blow up all of the win conditions and rewriting all of those. None of them are very great. They've tried to make cultural victories better by piling more and more things on top of each other instead of ripping it down to the studs to find where the water leak is coming from. As much as I love the religion beliefs themselves, the VC is as tedious as domination as has been expressed many times here (my personal preference would be to do away with RV and just having it as a way of reaching other victories, but I'm in the minority there).

None of this destroys my enjoyment of the game--it's always been about the journey and not the destination for me and I almost never finish a game (in 6 or older ones). However new ways to win alone would add hours and hours of trying new things.

110% agree. I turn everything else off except score, and if my score reaches the “two power standard” of being more than the next two civs combined, I declare victory and start a new game.

Let's hope there are some for the [Modding] section.

Mods For Consoles!!!

 

[Menocchio]

To help visualise it, the April 22 patch notes will be about 50% longer than the patch notes from the first NFP update, which come to 2,366 words per Kevin:

https://civilization.com/news/entries/civilization-vi-maya-gran-colombia-pack-available-now/

 

[Kwami]

Sure, but FF14 has been going strong for over a decade with constant new content so Civ6 could probably go on a for while longer if Firaxis really wanted to.

I don't think that's a good comparison, though. FF14 is supported by monthly subscriptions that bring in a whole bunch of money. The development team is consequently much larger for FF14 than for Civ VI. I think the communities have different expectations, too. MMO games last forever (or at least for a very long time; FF11 is still going!). Civ games (and other 4X games) last a few years, then get a sequel. I'm sure that Take Two would like to change that paradigm to make more money, but they won't make any money if they lose their audience.

Besides, new games sell way more copies than expansion packs or DLCs. They're more work, sure, but I bet it still pays off better.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I'd start with removing some things actually. My start would be to blow up all of the win conditions and rewriting all of those. None of them are very great. They've tried to make cultural victories better by piling more and more things on top of each other instead of ripping it down to the studs to find where the water leak is coming from. As much as I love the religion beliefs themselves, the VC is as tedious as domination as has been expressed many times here (my personal preference would be to do away with RV and just having it as a way of reaching other victories, but I'm in the minority there).

Yeah I've mentioned before about combining religious conversion with tourism as the criteria to reach a culture victory for the future games.

 

[InsidiousMage]

I don't think that's a good comparison, though. FF14 is supported by monthly subscriptions that bring in a whole bunch of money. The development team is consequently much larger for FF14 than for Civ VI. I think the communities have different expectations, too. MMO games last forever (or at least for a very long time; FF11 is still going!). Civ games (and other 4X games) last a few years, then get a sequel. I'm sure that Take Two would like to change that paradigm to make more money, but they won't make any money if they lose their audience.

Besides, new games sell way more copies than expansion packs or DLCs. They're more work, sure, but I bet it still pays off better.

The post I quoted was talking about the size of the game file so, from that perspective, plenty of games have gone on for a lot longer than Civ6 and still run fine.

 

[DWilson]

I feel like Civ V's cultural victory made more sense intuitively, both pre and post Brave New World. VI's feels bloated, and rock bands are both cringey (genre generic touring artist would be better) and overly powerful, while the scoring metric is less interpretable.

 

[8housesofelixir]

I feel like Civ V's cultural victory made more sense intuitively, both pre and post Brave New World.

V's cultural victory system also integrated with the Ideology system very well after BNW, while in VI it is just a number of measurements in the victory board.

 

[DWilson]

V's cultural victory system also integrated with the Ideology system very well after BNW, while in VI it is just a number of measurements in the victory board.

It also integrated with their city conquering penalties very well.

 

[Aurelesk]

I feel like Civ V's cultural victory made more sense intuitively, both pre and post Brave New World. VI's feels bloated, and rock bands are both cringey (genre generic touring artist would be better) and overly powerful, while the scoring metric is less interpretable.

In Civilization V, if you didn't meet the cultural civilizations early enough, all the Tourism you accumulated before encountering them does nothing toward your victory progress. This was extremly frustrating, even if late game Tourism modifiers were very potent. They tried to change that in Civilization VI so all that early Tourism still matter. But it is kind of clunky. We went from a frustrating system to an awkward and unintuitive one.
Instead of having 100% of your Tourism applied to all met civilizations and you win when each of your accumulated Tourism toward them beats their accumulated Culture, now you have a fraction (1/X, X being the number of civilizations in the game) of your Tourism applied to all met civilization, and you win when the sum of all those accumulated Tourism accross all civilizations is superior to the most advanced Culture (→ domestic Tourism is the same thing as accumulated Culture, just a differentname). In theory, this is an improvement from Civilization V, but more fair and less frustrating. In pratice, this is not intuitive and feels awkward.

Tourism also have different uses in Civilization V. It has some Science value, since the amount of Science you get from Trade Route was dependant to your Tourism influence other them, and your Spies were better at stealing Technologies. If you did some conquest, the Population loss and the duration of Resistance was decreased too. Some cities could even switch side if they are from an unhappy civilization with a different ideology.
Too bad something like that didn't exist in Civilization VI. It is understandable, because it is really hard to have more Tourism toward a single civilization than their domestic Tourism in theory. I would love some CS maluses to culturally dominated civilizations fighting against culturally dominant civilization, or some Loyalty shenaningan.

 

[Pietato]

If you're really excited to play Georgia and really concerned about having enough units to kill to make their new ability worthwhile, just turn on Dramatic Ages. Or Zombies. Or both.

Zombies give 10 faith.

Sure, but FF14 has been going strong for over a decade with constant new content so Civ6 could probably go on a for while longer if Firaxis really wanted to.

FF14 already got completely nuked and rebooted because it was so bad when it came out.

 

[Laurana Kanan]

Moderator Action: This thread is about the April Update video. Any further discussions about leaders, in particular those not in the game, should be taken to either the Off-Topic or World History forums - unless it is Civ-related, in which case the Ideas & Suggestions forum may be appropriate.

 

[Kaan Boztepe]

dont rely on sales numbers for 2 decades old games. how many people had access to a computer and money to spent on games 2 decades ago versus today? of course a new game will outsell those.
Also free to play games or pay 2 win games have a massive following too. just look a the numbers candy crush or hearthstone bring in
the issue here is will civ franchise survive if they pivot it to always online versus their now used turn-based and of course also can this sustain the demands of todays economics of always grow bigger. As mentioned before Fallout is a prime example of how not to do it. Diablo franchise and Blizzard also learned that lesson , at least i think considering what they are doing with d4 versus what they did with d3
Then there is also the potantial of losing interest by the consumer , just have a look at heroes of might and magic series. I still play 3 although i think version 7 is out. Although it is still turn-based and has excellent modding capabilities.
The idea to add to the game via add-on game modes or continous DLCs a la Paradox is certainly possible but even paradox needs to upgrade their engine every decade or so and civ6 is already 6 years old.
Unfortunately if history teaches us anything is that the firms never listen to their fanbase or devs when making these decisions , they look at the "potantial" numbers presented by their sales people and go with that. I cant imagine that Firaxis will do anything different just a little bit later than the others is my guess.

 

[Kwami]

the issue here is will civ franchise survive if they pivot it to always online versus their now used turn-based and of course also can this sustain the demands of todays economics of always grow bigger. As mentioned before Fallout is a prime example of how not to do it. Diablo franchise and Blizzard also learned that lesson , at least i think considering what they are doing with d4 versus what they did with d3

Did they, though? Doesn't D4 require you to always be online and to share certain zones with other players? Or have they totally reversed course and allowed us a single-player or local co-op game like D2 was and D3 pretended to be? I was immediately turned off by the early D4 news, so I stopped following it.

If Civ moved to an always-online and forced multi-player system, then I'd stop playing Civ, too.

 

[Kaan Boztepe]

always online is done against piracy mainly not because it gives companies more money or access to more consumers. they all have their own launchers meanwhile so they have access to whatever they want to see on our computers anyway.
Then again if you lose internet connection your game would crash which would make quit the civ franchise ( although i would lose 1 turn maybe , it is the principle of the thing )
forcing multiplayer is something else entirely. i dont think even d3 did that. you could open your own game and not allow anyone to join.

 

[iammaxhailme]

Zombies give 10 faith.



FF14 alwaysgot completely nuked and rebooted because it was so bad when it came out.

Yeah, I tried doing a god of war game to get lots of faith from zombie kills and was disappointed that they never get more base strength (which would give more faith) and instead always stay strength 20 with a big +str promotion (which just gives the same base faith on kill; presumably same culture for Sparta too)

 

[Duuk]

My problem with almost EVERY unique improvement is that the opportunity cost for building them requires builder charges, so you always have to balance out not just "is this improvement good?" but also "is this improvement worth the production/gold/faith cost I could be using elsewhere?"

I really think builder charges were one of the worst "improvements" to Civ5/6. (Of course, I still want Call to Power 2's "public works" spending system rather than builders at all.)

 

[Linklite]

My problem with almost EVERY unique improvement is that the opportunity cost for building them requires builder charges, so you always have to balance out not just "is this improvement good?" but also "is this improvement worth the production/gold/faith cost I could be using elsewhere?"

I really think builder charges were one of the worst "improvements" to Civ5/6. (Of course, I still want Call to Power 2's "public works" spending system rather than builders at all.)

I'm not sure if I would say that they should get rid of charges, but I do agree with the UIs. It's rare that I have builder charges to spare until I get to the point where UIs have marginal utility anyway.