Are People already drifting away from Civ VI?

[topsecret]

I still play occasionally on console, but more and more I yield to Civ4 calling my name. There's still new adventures in both games but Civ4 has that long lasting appeal for me. I will play Civ6 occasionally but even when I want something "new" I find complete and total conversion mods for 4.

 

[MrRadar]

I recently went back to playing Civ 5 and I'm having so much more fun. It got to the point that I was booting up Civ 6 every night because I felt like I needed to, not because I wanted to, and I would slog through playing a few hours before I went to bed. Now that I've switched back to Civ 5, I am again looking forward to playing every night and I have to force myself to save my game and head up to bed. I've never been a grognard, but this is the first time in my life that I reverted to a previous iteration of the game (and I started with Civ 1 back in 1992).

That's very close to my experience as well. Back to earlier installments of Civ or off to other games.
Unless FXS by some miracle get their stuff together and release a major patch for this broken mess of a game, I'm done with Civ 6.
And I share 0 optimism that is being expressed here on these forums for Civ 7, because with the bug ridden history of Civ 6 and the patching done at the speed of a comatose snail, and if they think that it is OK to release the Anthology version in the state it is today, well, there is no reason to think that things will get any better with Civ 7.

 

[Leucarum]

Well, at least for me, Civ multiplayer became a social lifeline during the covid times, but now that things are able to be less restricted (most of the time), I am mostly spending time with friends in person rather than settling down to a long game of civ.

I have had a few games I started that I had to abandon due to crashes, which should frustrate me more than it does... But I guess I'm just not feeling like sitting indoors after a year and a half of doing nothing but that...

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I mentally moved on to Civ VII almost a year ago, then became involved in testing Humankind pre-release, then got caught up in playing Anno 1800 and Port Royale 4, and now the Firaxis Launcher seems to be preventing Civ VI from even starting a game - I can load up the game and set a game up with the parameters I want to play, but it never starts even after uninstalling and re-installing twice and turning off all Mods. And I have too little interest in the game now to go to any trouble to make it work. Of course, if the launcher is still around when Civ VII comes out, I will probably refuse to buy or install that game: companies should be punished for doing Stupid **** . . .

 

[reddishrecue]

I mentally moved on to Civ VII almost a year ago, then became involved in testing Humankind pre-release, then got caught up in playing Anno 1800 and Port Royale 4, and now the Firaxis Launcher seems to be preventing Civ VI from even starting a game - I can load up the game and set a game up with the parameters I want to play, but it never starts even after uninstalling and re-installing twice and turning off all Mods. And I have too little interest in the game now to go to any trouble to make it work. Of course, if the launcher is still around when Civ VII comes out, I will probably refuse to buy or install that game: companies should be punished for doing Stupid S**t . . .

I Used to play Anno 1800 myself awhile back ago when it used to be free on Steam. I also currently play Humankind nowadays but I'm too into it. As for civ 6, I have yet to try out some of the NFP civilizations and features. However, I still have interest in civ 7. I don't usually get to play a lot because I'm usually busy with stuff though.

 

[Vilvatiktan]

I think the decrease is because people think that the game has gotten to its final form and there will be no more interesting updates/dlc to wait for except perhaps for Civ7.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Well, I've played only a few games since the last patch, which was bad. And the game has been left in this state for several months already.

Hopefully, the bigger issues can be fixed but at this rate the UI and World Congress and going to be a joke with most of the extra features being extremely undercooked. And that's just unfortunate because it's been pretty fun overall.

So they can probably keep some goodwill if they fix this. Until then, 7 or Firaxis is not a thing for me.

 

[Aristos]

I mentally moved on to Civ VII almost a year ago, then became involved in testing Humankind pre-release, then got caught up in playing Anno 1800 and Port Royale 4, and now the Firaxis Launcher seems to be preventing Civ VI from even starting a game - I can load up the game and set a game up with the parameters I want to play, but it never starts even after uninstalling and re-installing twice and turning off all Mods. And I have too little interest in the game now to go to any trouble to make it work. Of course, if the launcher is still around when Civ VII comes out, I will probably refuse to buy or install that game: companies should be punished for doing Stupid S**t . . .

Bypass the stupid launcher™

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/how-to-bypass-the-stupid-launcher.639325/

 

[Vandlys]

I noticed that the Civ VI Fanbase has shrunk a lot lately. There are much fewer Discussions / interactions / Engagement than there used to be some Months ago, especially since the release of Humankind.

Well, personally I think most of the topics have been discussed. Civfanatics have always been busy talking about which leader next, which systems next, why leader X works or doesn't, who they like to see. Now that there is a definite conclusion, most of these options have a limit to how much they can be discussed.

I see a lot of topics opened that could just be a new post in an already existing topic (someone finding X that looks a bit like X in Civ, doesn't need its own thread), and most threads veer off-topic amazingly fast, and always under the guise of "Well, I know this is off-topic, but..." or "But we are going off-topic so let's go back to the thread [now that I've had my say I can tell you all to stop talking]". It's almost always either discussion whether [thing in history] was like X or wasn't like X, or someone making a remark, someone expanding on that remark, and then you get a whole subthread about whether remark was true/funny/whatever.

I mean, even here, you already see people adding to their message what doesn't work in Civ, what they think will happen in the next franchise. It's low in number, and might stay that way, but I wouldn't be surprised if this thread eventually goes off-topic too, which brings me back to my opening: most things have been discussed, so that's why you see might see the same topics crop up, and consequently see less activity here.

As for why people play the game less (if that's even true?) I side with Pokiehl and Zaarin. I've been playing it since launch, have clocked in about 3000 hours, and the game has gained such a transparency that I find myself just clicking the turns away on autopilot.

 

[leandrombraz]

I'm not playing it now because I got invested on other games, and I dont' have a lot of free time to play, but I still plan to go back to it when I find the time.

There are 35.000 people playing right now on Steam, and this is a multiplatform game, so the number is certainly considerably larger than that. You can rest assured there's a lot of people that still invested on it, and that won't change anytime soon. You will see less discussion on forums, because there's nothing to look forward to, but the playerbase is still quite active.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Well, personally I think most of the topics have been discussed. Civfanatics have always been busy talking about which leader next, which systems next, why leader X works or doesn't, who they like to see. Now that there is a definite conclusion, most of these options have a limit to how much they can be discussed.

I don't know about that. Civ 4's strategy forum has (always) been more active than 6's here, and that game is like 10 years older. And heck, despite basically playing the game, strategy has changed a lot then what I remember when I played those forum games like 10 years ago when development already ended.

There's not nearly enough interest in improving one's game, probably because it really isn't necessary. A lot of discussion I had with 6 games was just like someone told me "well, and then I won after clicking End Turn a lot)

That being said, Reddit is pretty active and many users there take on some rather extreme challenges so it could just be a player base thing.

Maybe forums are just a dying medium.

 

[ezzlar]

Currently I am playing Humankind, Stellaris and Kings Bounty 2. Great games and I got them about the same time making less time for Civ 6.

But also the current state of the game, now when development probably has stopped, is not so satisfying. What could make the game shine is if more modders (like yourself) start releasing mods again for a stable version of the game. Even if modding will have its limitions some modders are really skillful in squeezing out that little extra from the game.

 

[Uberfrog]

Speaking personally, I know I’m much more engaged here when there’s new content on the horizon. There’s a lot of excitement in the run up to a new expansion, or better yet a whole new game and lots of things to speculate about or discuss, everyone’s got ideas. NFP was great for this pacing iut conent across a whole year with meaty balance patches throughout.

Now it’s over, there’s just not so much to talk about. Long standing issues that have been discussed to death, and there’s little in the way of new strategy for a 5 year old game.

I’ve not played Civ 6 in a while (limited play time for 4X these days), and my gaming time is focused more on exploring Old World and Humankind. My salivating anticipation is now reserved for Age of Empires 4, which I think looks very promising.

It’s not that I’ve given up on Civ 6, I still enjoy the game, it’s just that now development is done there’s less drawing me back to it compared with all the new games I have to explore. But I’m sure I’ll load it up again before too long.

 

[tedhebert]

I think a lot of us played 2500+ hours so it’s only normal when the dev cycle ends that people move on to other things a little. I still play a game here and there, both for now I’m spending most of my gaming time on pathfinder: wrath of the righteous and baldur’s gate 3 and it’s a good change of type and pace… unfortunately, I just haven’t hooked on humankind yet, but who knows…. anyways, I think it’s just normal…

 

[Linklite]

From what I can see, it's actually very little to do with Civ 6 per se and just nature of the beast.

Whenever new content comes out there is an uptick in activity. People came in to discuss the upcoming content, speculating about, hyoing each other up. They'd invariably make posts about Civ related stuff but not necessarily about the new content while they were here. It would peak when it was actually releases, people would evaluate it. The forum would get rammed over the following period as everyone discussed their games and different aspects of the new content and so forth. Then, people would run out of things to say and get bored, the forum would go quiet for a week or two and then a new announcement would come and the cycle would start all over again.

Now, we don't have that lure of new content, people almost immediately stopped coming. When they pretty much confirmed no content would be coming, the number of posts dropped again and most of the old regulars disappeared. It's just the die hards now. I pop my head in once a day just to see if anything interesting has happened or been said, and that's about it.

Whether forums are dying in general or whether it's Civ 6 or even the franchise is not indicated by the lower activity of this forum. It's the natural and predictable result of the end of new content for the game and this forum effectively being dedicated to Civ 6. As people are pointing out, it's still being played and still being discussed, just not here.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Bypass the stupid launcher™

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/how-to-bypass-the-stupid-launcher.639325/

Did that, and apparently sometime in the last 7 - 8 months while I was away from the game something bypassed my bypass and put me back at the Launcher's mercy. Basically, I'm tired of having to jump through hoops to play a game from a company that has, basically, committed a Denial of Service attack on the game I paid good money for. My preferred option at this point, if I could definitively prove that their Launcher is denying the game to me, would be to contact the State Attorney General's office and lodge a criminal complaint against Firaxis/2K. I'm retired, I have potentially lots of time to screw them over, and at this point they deserve it.

 

[Karmah]

I have 1k hours in the game. It's basically what I put in for an important game over years. Unless some big expansion is coming up (and it does not seem to happen) , I think this game will be a nice memory (because despites all of its flaws , it is a good memory in my world). And there is humankind that I currently enjoy a lot playing that scratches my itch for 4x game although with a vanillia version I expect the enjoyement to finish soon (hopefully not too soon). I'm pretty sure that civ devs are also letting the humankind wave pass before announcing their next opus.

 

[valerislysander]

For me Ive played 800+ hrs in civ6 and I enjoy it a lot. But overall the new frontier pass wore off quickly. I stopped using game modes so to me its a bit of a disappointment and id rather theyd just improved balance, current features and AI of the game. So I was waiting for Humandkind. Played Humankind and then moved back to Civ5 lol. Which ive been really enjoying having not played it in years.
For me Humankind is ok but not as good as civ. Civ5 has been very refreshing to go back to and Civ5 features work so well together. I feel Civ6 got a bit bloated with things.

In terms of overall Civ6 interest i saw the steam player count over 50k the other day! That is pretty sweet and at the same time HK was only 7k.
I think there is still a massive interest in the game and reddit certainly sees a lot of good posts and fun games being played.
Ive still got things i want to do in civ6 before civ7 so in no way will i stop unil then. And also throw in Civ5 and HK and that is a great selection of 4X games to play at the moment.

 

[Bruhmoment]

There's also the disloyal fans leaving for Humankind,
My reason? Just not interesting, also the graphics just look too cartoony for me. Civ 5 also has much more compatible and bigger mods than, say - civ 6.
Secret reason - I also sometimes play modded civ

Moderator Action: People playing other games are not disloyal, they want to try other games. Please do not troll the forums. leif

 

[Pfeffersack]

I think the main reason is the ended development (= no new official contant and even uncertainty, if there will be patches) itself...plus Humankind. For personally, the latter has currently my attention...no, it's not perfect...I'm not going even going to say its "better" than Civ6 - but it is in active development. There are tons of things I miss in Humankind - Minimap, Map Tacks, quantified ressources just to name the first three coming to my mind- and I'm pretty sure that I will come back to Civ6 at some point, just because I miss them. But the difference is - Humankind's bugs, weaknesses and shortages can potentially still be ironed out by future development, while (likely) at least a part of lesser good parts of Civ6 will stick around forever. I'm aware that it's likely that not every part of wishful thinking comes true with HK as well - but there is...hope for it - and don't underestimate the compelling force hope can be for people The good news for "team civ" is though...as soon as Civ7 or even a Civ6-spinoff first is announced, hope for a better game is back here as well.