Border growth is horribly slow

[Krajzen]

One of three main negative observations I had from recent gameplays, next to way too fast techs and AI, was horribly low speed of tile cultural growth. Players buy a lot of tiles and even by the late game most cities have not very impressive borders, and even by late eras a lot of land is unclaimed. That both looks bad and feels unbalanced.

On a related note, it irritated me how apparently some players are able to easily dominate the game with really bad "infrastructure development" of their lands, with a lot of non upgraded tiles, resources, wild features remaining until absurdly late eras, often even in capital city.

Those two things combined made "empires" in this game look very underdeveloped and not feeling impressive for me. Civ5 empires maybe were small because of tall bias, but they felt very developed with huge borders "per city" and most tiles upgraded.

Am I wrong? Does anybody share those feelings?

 

[qadams]

I agree with you on all points. It's especially frustrating to me how often players can basically ignore districts and still do just fine. District development should be an absolute key to success in my mind. That's the whole point of unstacking cities.

 

[cakes]

yeah it does seem slow but i haven't seen anyone put any effort into their culture output at all, even marbozir playing as greece

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Gold purchase seems to be cheap compred to civ V and gold seems to be more plentyful.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

One of three main negative observations I had from recent gameplays, next to way too fast techs and AI, was horribly low speed of tile cultural growth. Players buy a lot of tiles and even by the late game most cities have not very impressive borders, and even by late eras a lot of land is unclaimed. That both looks bad and feels unbalanced.

On a related note, it irritated me how apparently some players are able to easily dominate the game with really bad "infrastructure development" of their lands, with a lot of non upgraded tiles, resources, wild features remaining until absurdly late eras, often even in capital city.

Those two things combined made "empires" in this game look very underdeveloped and not feeling impressive for me. Civ5 empies maybe were small because of tall bias, but they felt very developed with huge borders and most tiles upgraded.

Am I wrong? Does anybody share those feelings?

Totally agree. Border growth needs to be much faster. The other problem with slow border growth is that the AI will found cities in these empty spots that are clearly part of your empire and even when the spots are worthless. It would be like Mexico founding a city in the middle of Utah. The area might be mostly empty but it is clearly part of the US. I always liked how borders worked in SMAC because it did a great job of letting a civ claim land as their own when the land was closer to their civ than to the other civ.

 

[Krajzen]

Totally agree. Border growth needs to be much faster. The other problem with slow border growth is that the AI will found cities in these empty spots that are clearly part of your empire and even when the spots are worthless. It would be like Mexico founding a city in the middle of Utah. The area might be mostly empty but it is clearly part of the US. I always liked how borders worked in SMAC because it did a great job of letting a civ claim land as their own when the land was closer to their civ than to the other civ.

Now that continents are integral mechanic, it'd be awesome if diplomacy contained some declaration or stuff basically saying
"don't settle on our home continent unless you want war".
And if it is broken, you get Casus Belli.

 

[Lord Lakely]

In all fairness, culture is also fairly hard to come by in the early game. Theatre districts have adjecency bonuses from the City Centre and Wonders and that's pretty much it. Besides, not many players will be building Theatre Districts in the early game, literally every other district either has higer bonuses and better uses early on.

 

[King Jason]

I think the rate is just fine and it's working as intended. Border purchase seems to be a very active part of your gold economy. If natural growth were any faster, tile purchase would be as incidental as it was in civ5. Which is stupid, imo.

Frankly, when taking a fresh look at that system, I'm actually surprised they didn't tie border growth entirely to gold. Nonetheless I think they achieved a good balance. Lot's of meaningful decisions for a player to use their gold on.

Then again, in the last several let's plays I've watched - Nobody has been building Theater squares. Yesterday I watched Quill18 play an entire game and I'm not sure that he built a single one. That probably has a lot to do with the growth rate.

 

[Krajzen]

I think the rate is just fine and it's working as intended. Border purchase seems to be a very active part of your gold economy. If natural growth were any faster, tile purchase would be as incidental as it was in civ5. Which is stupid, imo.

That creates the other problem, micromanagment of tile expansion of your empire. Good Lord. Imagine empire of 12 cities and hundreds of owned/potential tiles where you have to click to buy EACH ONE tile.

 

[qadams]

That creates the other problem, micromanagment of tile expansion of your empire. Good Lord. Imagine empire of 12 cities and hundreds of owned/potential tiles where you have to click to buy EACH ONE tile.

Yes. A balance is needed, where your borders will naturally but gradually expand on their own, but where you may have to spend gold to acquire certain valuable tiles. Right now that balance is askew.

 

[Jabulani]

That creates the other problem, micromanagment of tile expansion of your empire. Good Lord. Imagine empire of 12 cities and hundreds of owned/potential tiles where you have to click to buy EACH ONE tile.

I have been telling that for 2 weeks and only a few here agrees that managing 20+ cities in civ vi is a micromanagement nightmare, now video are more and more showing that.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Buying tiles with gold is more valuable now. That's generally good. I can't tell where the right balance is, need to play it first myself.

 

[need my speed]

I have been telling that for 2 weeks and only a few here agrees that managing 20+ cities in civ vi is a micromanagement nightmare, now video are more and more showing that.

In Civilization >VI<, perhaps, sure. But not in Civilization. It is not at all uncommon to have 50+ cities in Civilization IV and Civilization III. 100+ isn't mind blowing either.

 

[Sansa_Stark]

One of three main negative observations I had from recent gameplays, next to way too fast techs and AI, was horribly low speed of tile cultural growth. Players buy a lot of tiles and even by the late game most cities have not very impressive borders, and even by late eras a lot of land is unclaimed. That both looks bad and feels unbalanced.

Do you have any evidence for slow speed or is it just your feeling? Since my impression is that borders grow similar to 5, you just need more specific tiles because of new system. And devs decided that you need to purchase those tiles instead of having faster border rate. I don't get what is wrong with this, it is just another way how to deal with it. Or at least let's really wait for couple of our own games to judge.

On a related note, it irritated me how apparently some players are able to easily dominate the game with really bad "infrastructure development" of their lands, with a lot of non upgraded tiles, resources, wild features remaining until absurdly late eras, often even in capital city.

Ah, cmon. Maybe we can't excuse bad tactical AI by Prince, but we surely can excuse the game being too easy for seasoned Civ5 players on Prince difficulty (or anyone who plays any game from time to time for that matter). My first game on Civ5 was King I guess, and it felt just as easy as this Prince.

That creates the other problem, micromanagment of tile expansion of your empire. Good Lord. Imagine empire of 12 cities and hundreds of owned/potential tiles where you have to click to buy EACH ONE tile.

It won't be easy, but this game IS about micromanagement if you want to play at certain level. And is definitely not that bad. You accumulate some money, insert correct policy (cheaper tiles), purchase all you need and move on.

 

[Siptah]

related topic: is there a way to choose which tile is acquired next by cultural growth? I haven't seen anyone setting this so far.
This would also reduce the feeling of slow growth and the need to buy certain tiles.

 

[Amrunril]

I wonder how much this perception is colored by Tradition being the default first policy in Civ V. Regardless, this combined with increased uses for tiles should make border growth increases a more attractive option, when in Civ V they were considered mostly useless unless they came attached to something else.

 

[Big J Money]

With border growth being slow and teching being fast, I wonder how many of us will switch from Standard to slower game speeds in Civ VI.

 

[joncnunn]

On slowness of cultural growth: On the videos I've seen (Quill's) he didn't build a single district that could support culture until quite late. All he had was the free Monument in each city he built from being Rome. Of course cultural tile expansion is going to suck doing that.

 

[Zanteogo]

Buying tiles with gold is more valuable now. That's generally good. I can't tell where the right balance is, need to play it first myself.

I hardly ever bought tiles in Civ 5. (with Community Patch I do now), I'm glad this becomes more of a thing in Civ6.

 

[Zanteogo]

related topic: is there a way to choose which tile is acquired next by cultural growth? I haven't seen anyone setting this so far.
This would also reduce the feeling of slow growth and the need to buy certain tiles.

The whole point is that you don't get to control it. If you want to control it you need to spend gold.