Are People already drifting away from Civ VI?

[Disgustipated]

In short, no. Forum activity is lets be blunt utterly irrelevant. While some people might think that a handful of very active users uphold the community that is simply not the case. The game is still played moreso then ever.

For a game this old the active player count is incredible. It had a recent peak at over 60.000 players in January! (source https://steamcharts.com/app/289070). This is not even taking the multitude of other storefronts and platforms the game is available on into account.
So no the game is not dead, the franchise is not in the gutter. All that it quite bluntly put is that there is not much news to discuss no real speculation to do, the meta has long since been solved. So what else is there to talk about?

I get that some of the old guard is frustrated but this doom and gloom is uncalled for if you look at the facts. Yes I know that some people do not care about the "casuals" that do not even play on diety but those are the people who by and large buy the game and keep the lights on. The few thousand hardcore fans who sink thousands of hours into it do not account for a lot in terms of sales, so lets be realistic about it.

Edit: What this thread also does not take into account that forums and their culture are slowly but steadily dying. People prefer more immediate communication these days. Discord and other chat software is more and more taking over the gaming space.

You are right that the game is still fairly popular. There are still youtubers putting out civ6 videos. It's doing okay.

As for forum activity, without any new content, it's to be expected. I wouldn't say forum format is going to die out completely. It's just without new activity from the developers, there's not going to be a lot going on. This place gets pretty busy when new expansions or content released. And I admit I'm old school and don't want to see forums go away entirely. It's been something I've done since shortly after the internet became mainstream. I started out on the alpha.owo forums for SMAC. Damn, I've been doing this a long time.

 

[Johann khan]

Same here. After over 3k hours on Steam I moved up to other titles and after having a bit of fun with Humankind, Civ 6 looks boring to me as my combat expectations went up. That said I do not think Humankind has much of a replay value tan Civ 6 tho.

I just hope a more intricate civ 7, more elaborated mechanics in combat, culture and economy and hopefully a rework on the district system. Not all aspects of the game needs to have districts costing the same. Culture is more fluid and not a centralized thing in society, yet if you don't invest on it you are stupid behind, which forces you a more deterministic game and more of a race rather than the pleasure of the journey. Ironically economic forces were the responsible in lots of cultural changes in History. So either revamp the districts benefits into combinations (eco+encampent= cheaper maint on units of sorts) or have all districts not valued the same.

Also the AI sucks, one needs to play in harder difficulties and I even handicap myself into not dowing and still win.

 

[Siddorm]

I think that the fact that things go quiet when no "new content" is released suggests that Civ 6 will never be an all-time classic.
Games like chess, go, scrabble, poker etc. remain popular despite the lack of "new content".
My view is that Civ 6 has massive amounts of content but feels empty.

 

[Johann khan]

"All time classics" were not subject of constant improvement and competition nor are played more than less "classic games". If chess was released as a 4x game it would tank. I believe 4, 5 and six will age gracefully. I know 5 is very popular but its the one I played the least after its successor came out.

Moderator Action: Please use appropriate language in future to help us keep our site family friendly. Thanks you. leif

 

[Krajzen]

I think that the fact that things go quiet when no "new content" is released suggests that Civ 6 will never be an all-time classic.
Games like chess, go, scrabble, poker etc. remain popular despite the lack of "new content".
My view is that Civ 6 has massive amounts of content but feels empty.

The best summary would be comparing (by the end of civ7 life cycle) civ7 vs civ6 amount of players at this point and through civ7 live cycle with the same match between civ6 vs civ5
Through the entire life cycle of civ6 a very high % of total players of both games on steam were still playing civ5, even today the gap it's like 1/3 of them still play civ5 instead (today 23k for civ5 and 47k for civ6. And the gap in content between two games is huge at this point. For many years I recall civ5 was actually being more played than civ6, although I don't remember how/if I can check that now.

If civ7, on the other hand, would completely obliterate civ6 playerbase this way (assuming very similar user score aggregates and forum consensus on all websites) then this fact alone would suggest that "it is a better game" within this series. Essentially it could mean that 'it took what's best from the previous game, removed the worst, and took the vast majority of its playerbase from it as a result'. Meanwhile in civ6 case we have 'well despite enormous gap in content, graphics, innovation, fresh feel etc a huge amount of civ steam playerbase still prefers to play civ5 instead".

I specifically don't mention pre - steam civ games because there is no way to measure their popularity this way. Every civ game sells in many more copies for countless reasons (marketing, increasing fame, developing countries having more $ for video games) anyway.

 

[vorlon_mi]

I would question an assumption in @Krajzen 's post -- that Civ 5 players have stopped playing Civ6 and gone back to 5. I believe that many players of Civ games in the Steam era play *both*. I believe that the user populations overlap, not exclude the other game.

It is also correct that we cannot easily get data on the number of players of Civ3 and Civ4 to compare. Many thousands of copies were sold on CD; more thousands were sold on Steam after the changes in Windows made the old CD copy protection for Civ3 stop working. But the key point -- out of the thousands that were *sold*, how many are being actively *played*? No way to measure that.

 

[PiR]

For a fair comparison, we'd have to get the numbers from 5 years after their release, for each. Or when the next title gets out.

Not all the currently playing (2022) stats.

 

[reddishrecue]

The fans of the game will be restored and come back to civilization when the new series comes out. As long as its new and it offers new stuff to the users then the players won't just fade away. The way it's going right now with the companies going on for different games other than civilization, civilization will be kind of quiet. I've seen the multiplayer for civ 6 and there are still players around. There's still players of all levels for one to play with.

 

[fotonut]

I didn't get a chance to read through this thread, so perhaps I am repeating some observations, but: In my case I tend to away from Civ for some months, play another game, then come back. Old World was that game most recently, but after I "wrapped" that up, I decided to come back to Civ VI, and made a goal for myself: Win with every leader, playing deity. I was about 8 leaders short of that, and after several months got there. Making goals like that can work well keeping one re-engaged.

Another thing that was nice recently is that all the expansions became available for the iPad, making it possible to play while away from the computer.

Now that Humankind seems to be available for the Mac, I'll likely try that next for a while, then hopefully come back to Civ VI again. I'll have to come up with a new goal...

 

[Kotofei]

I drifted back to Civ 6, after getting a new computer with a PCI 4 SSD so the load times are finally tolerable and I can play something besides tiny maps.

Still buggy AF though. Next step is to play an Eleanor game and see if great works still lag the game out.

 

[Johann khan]

So I went back to 4 about 2 weeks ago and not just for a casual nostalgic run, I'm back at the game almost with the same passion I once had.

One downside civ 6 has that barely gets any mention its the fact that it feels lonely. AI for the most part could be ignored and its very focused on the aesthetics of building on tiles the importance that comes from the difficulty levels is something present in other games but even to a lesser extent. On civ 4 one could not afford isolationism when having Shaka eating a continent by himself. Gotta get military units and invest in spy points to track the enemy. Spying begs for an assessment of the international politik as well as religion, as religious wars are one of the worst things it could happen in a civ game. I also feel that the basic resource settings on civ 6 are far more generous than 4 as almost everyone gets all the resources they need. Also the threat is real, its harder to defend the map in 4 due to the lack of mountain corridors which in 6 is very generous and easier to defend. Also 6 is a very very deterministic game, which limits its potential when playing and tailor players to min max their abilities as opposed to dealing with what they could do. Still 6 does limit to an extent the effects of warmongering as well as 5 that 4 barely has (except for culture borders).

I think nostalgia is the biggest factor here because all these games are really good and we are splitting hairs, but that is just my opinion. When 5 BNW came out it became my favorite of the series, only to fall pale to 6's final release. Now 4 it's the only one with a true personality as 5 looks like a washed up 6. Today, aside from the artistical direction on 5 which is my fav, 4 is my favorite, and 6 on a distant second. Perhaps 7 is too distant from the formula or an even more cartonish design which will make 6 more palatable to my nostalgia.

I would totally recommend 4 to every civ fanatic if they have not yet played it.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

So I went back to 4 about 2 weeks ago and not just for a casual nostalgic run, I'm back at the game almost with the same passion I once had.

One downside civ 6 has that barely gets any mention its the fact that it feels lonely. AI for the most part could be ignored and its very focused on the aesthetics of building on tiles the importance that comes from the difficulty levels is something present in other games but even to a lesser extent. On civ 4 one could not afford isolationism when having Shaka eating a continent by himself. Gotta get military units and invest in spy points to track the enemy. Spying begs for an assessment of the international politik as well as religion, as religious wars are one of the worst things it could happen in a civ game. I also feel that the basic resource settings on civ 6 are far more generous than 4 as almost everyone gets all the resources they need. Also the threat is real, its harder to defend the map in 4 due to the lack of mountain corridors which in 6 is very generous and easier to defend. Also 6 is a very very deterministic game, which limits its potential when playing and tailor players to min max their abilities as opposed to dealing with what they could do. Still 6 does limit to an extent the effects of warmongering as well as 5 that 4 barely has (except for culture borders).

I think nostalgia is the biggest factor here because all these games are really good and we are splitting hairs, but that is just my opinion. When 5 BNW came out it became my favorite of the series, only to fall pale to 6's final release. Now 4 it's the only one with a true personality as 5 looks like a washed up 5. Today, aside from the artistical direction on 5 which is my fav, 4 is my favorite, and 6 on a distant second. Perhaps 7 is too distant from the formula or an even more cartonish design which will make 6 more palatable to my nostalgia.

I would totally recommend 4 to every civ fanatic if they have not yet played it.

I can't forgive civ 4 for how they portrayed Korean leader as Chinese.

 

[reddishrecue]

I didn't get a chance to read through this thread, so perhaps I am repeating some observations, but: In my case I tend to away from Civ for some months, play another game, then come back. Old World was that game most recently, but after I "wrapped" that up, I decided to come back to Civ VI, and made a goal for myself: Win with every leader, playing deity. I was about 8 leaders short of that, and after several months got there. Making goals like that can work well keeping one re-engaged.

Another thing that was nice recently is that all the expansions became available for the iPad, making it possible to play while away from the computer.

Now that Humankind seems to be available for the Mac, I'll likely try that next for a while, then hopefully come back to Civ VI again. I'll have to come up with a new goal...

Humankind is a nice game, I agree. It's great that the developers make up games like humankind to keep things lively while the new civilization gets back. There are even other games in civfanatics that also seem interesting as civ 7 arrives.

 

[Hickman888]

I can't forgive civ 4 for how they portrayed Korean leader as Chinese.

What do you mean?

 

[Johann khan]

I hated Korea so much that I just embraced it and played as him and had a blast. The protective trait is not as bad as I thought. I feel like he is in every match I ever played.

 

[Johann khan]

I have been seeing a lot of Civ 3 videos on youtube lately, and been reading a lot of nostalgia from Civ 3, which is like I said, nostalgia is the biggest factor here. Therefore, I just bought the game and will see how bad corruption really is.

 

[Civinator]

I have been seeing a lot of Civ 3 videos on youtube lately, and been reading a lot of nostalgia from Civ 3, which is like I said, nostalgia is the biggest factor here. Therefore, I just bought the game and will see how bad corruption really is.

This is an excellent idea! Nevertheless you should consider to play it with the Flintlock patch, that fixes several bugs that Firaxis was not able to fix in about 20 years.

 

[Johann khan]

I appreciate the gesture and will be downloading the mod. I have spent most of the day reading civ 3 forums and one can tell the intergenerational relationship with internet. But there is a lot of discussions on certain game mechanics that drives me away from the game, specially so much resentment and disappointment (unfairly imo) towards civ4.

 

[Civinator]

I appreciate the gesture and will be downloading the mod. I have spent most of the day reading civ 3 forums and one can tell the intergenerational relationship with internet. But there is a lot of discussions on certain game mechanics that drives me away from the game, specially so much resentment and disappointment (unfairly imo) towards civ4.

Johann khan, many of these things are a subjective matter of taste, per example some find it good to play on a map in a tabletop presentation, other prefer an isometric view and so on. May be it would be better in your case to play Civ 4 instead of Civ 3?

 

[Johann khan]

Too early to tell. I started playing yesterday and had a blast, lost cus the AI retaliated good, I played on regent and so far it seems to be not the hardest nor the easiest AI on the series.