- I tend to be tired of the district plannification. It's a bit complicated for what it bring in depth to the game. It should be simplified.
It's sad to admit, but I think you're right. I loved districts after the yawn fest that was planning cities in V. In IV you had a few different ways to specialise your cities. Some will argue that all anyone did was make the optimum choice at anytime (i.e. illusion of choice); but the thing is at any given time most players had a few different objectives, and what they did city planning wise was driven by their priorities there which was genuinely their choice. i.e. in the same scenario with an optimum "best choice" two players would choose differently, and neither would be wrong.
V of course increased the area a city could work by around 80-90%; and also lessened the variability of what could be built in any tile. Not by much...but those reductions combined with the increase in workable land, it undid the choices that IV gave us (III and back didn't really have choice there either - it was all mines n farms); and of course players on mass went back to automating workers! *Yawn*
So districts was a welcome return to some city planning. Like in IV some will argue there is always an optimum choice in placing most of them...yet I think conflicting objectives do enough to make it interesting and give genuine choice. But if that is too complex for the AI then.... :/
These are very valid points, I give you that.
Having 2 agendas implies that leaders will always vary on 2 things. In Civ5 every leader was an actor who brings out their own flavor across 30 different things.
And I guess that was why it was too hard to make heads or tails of what they were up to for many players. I can't say for sure - V never grabbed me like the rest of the series has, so I didn't play it enough.
I can still use trade routes to grow my cities but not to the extent Civ5 allowed me. Early game using the first Cargo Ship for Food was a huge difference.
I would actually like to see the return of separate trade routes over land and sea with the sea ones being more profitable; just as I'd like to see embarking removed from the game altogether. I get that it was for simplicity; yet it has made the naval game a complete afterthought and VI has only made that worse.
Civ5 is open to experimentation and freestyle and if you can pull off building several wonders you could get Sistine Chapel+Hermitage+Sydney Opera House kind of combos. On the other hand, it's as if Civ6 hated powerhouses. You can't really build a powerhouse early on until you hit Neighborhoods and Collectivization policy card. For some reason they thought it was a good idea to confuse beginners by introducing Housing when there already is already a currency called Food. And it's basically another way of saying "Powerhouses not allowed until Neighborhood" What you're supposed to do instead is to go for that +2 Science by adjacency. It's micromanagement after another for a bunch of flat yields. You can't get Civ5's level of freedom where you pull off Brandenburg Gate+Military Academy+Heroic Epic for a Combat Strength increase of 15.
What you see as a restriction, I see as freedom - the housing/amenity combo allows for some brakes; while doing away with the nonsensical global happiness. And unlike districts I'd hope the AI can handle that it needs to lift both of these things to grow. I hope they have the AI solving amenities first and housing second, because (given everything else) there is no need to not to have them understanding that!
Summer Patch is what made the game acceptable for me, as Civ6 finally settled on BNW style rather than hating you by default. In BNW if AIs hated you that's because you did something unlikable to begin with. At launch I described diplomacy as "doing my calculus homework" because no matter how many positive modifiers I stack up they'll always keep hating me for some reason. It was like integrating and getting a positive value but WolframAlpha insists it should be a negative value and I don't even understand why.
I finally started another game on VI after my last message and stepped up to Emperor. On Emperor I'm friends with everyone. I haven't asked any of the 10 or so of them to be friends - they've all asked me! It was finally getting to the point after a couple of hundred turns (marathon) where a couple of them aren't automatically renewing it as soon as it runs out...but there is no way they should be that friendly! They shouldn't hate you out of the blocks...and I agree that too many did. But it's gone from that extreme to a worse one where it's a love fest! (Having said that...I also should note that Spain has taken out Macedon; and even more pleasing, Poland took out Gandhi - Whoop!! Both had a few cities plus, so some better AI combat going on in terms of taking cities) They need to make that middle ground a bit larger where you are neither liked nor disliked. Neither extreme should be so easy to get to without having done something!
Movement exemplifies very well the difference between 2 games. Civ6 slows things down. If you don't have every minor detail in mind you're penalized. If you forget to cross the river and make a movement you have to wait a turn. Civ5 is open to possibilities. Your unit can do a lot more stuff before crossing the river.
I don't get this grumble. Do you want genuine choice or not?? Moving 40 miles in the wrong direction is not a minor detail!
The changes to movement are possibly the best thing that VI has done, I love them that much
Of course, it was problematic in IV when you could only have x-1 buildings putting a limit on "tall" play.
Even then, most of them only required say 5 buildings of that type, so it wasn't much more than what you would do playing tall in V. But you weren't shut out entirely by having a large empire...in this 4X game.
Yeah, 5 to me had very repetitive strategies. Would always go down tradition early, settle your 4 cities, and then build up for the end-game. Ideologies were one place where there was a legitimate choice to be made, and it had an impact, and I definitely do miss that, but before then, I wouldn't deviate much from the path except to try something different. And it got boring fast.
Agree. Big time!
6, I'm still discovering. And while the Eureka do send you along somewhat fixed paths, and I'm sure in many ways it is an illusion of choice. But in other ways, if I think I'm making a decision but it's already sort of been made for me, is that a problem? I have found myself going down different paths, and I do actually really like what they've done with most civs - sure, the bonuses essentially pull you down a forced path (like, I don't know a Scythia game where I haven't rushed for horseback riding, and then made a beeline to cavalry later), but at the very least, every civ pulls you down a slightly different path. With Japan I cram districts together as much as I can. With Germany I spam commerce districts and Hansa in every corner of the globe. If I'm playing as England I'll be running the double harbor adjacency card all game, whereas another civ I might be forced to run holy sites across the land.
The "am I really making decisions or just taking an optimal path" will always be open to interpretation. To a degree when you get down to it all games are just about judging what is optimal; yet I think VI has given us genuine choices in ways that weren't there before - movement; more buildings/districts/etc available at any time than you can build. And in terms of optimalness, they've brought in more variety rather than the same old same old, always being best - different techs rising and falling in optimalness due to eurekas/inspirations; differnt city states to ally with depending on both their missions, and the benefits they give; and yeah, different Civs favouring very different strategies.
For some reason a lot of my recent games have involved a gigantic mountain range preventing me from attacking anyone, or at least by the time I find a passage, it's way too late. So I've ended up doing silly things such as buying a great writer, using one of the writings on the palace, and then getting seafaring technologies to meet everyone else. (Of course, I never random Vikings in these cases where they would actually be useful) Honestly, though, despite the imbalance it does feel more interesting than finding an neighboring civ 10 tiles away that sends 2 unescorted settlers to you while you roll your face over the keyboard.
