Bye for now, Civ 6 - It was nice getting to know you

[PhilBowles]

And health indeed was relevant in the early game, at least at higher levels where I believe there were less starting bonuses for health (and happiness). Ricci's explanation of the system is dead on. You could also trade for health resources and so forth, so I actually found this to be an interesting mechanic.

...

Having a cow AND a sheep mattered more than two cows. Resource diversification.

Both of which are true of luxuries as well. The issue isn't with the intent of health, or the intent of making bonus resources relevant for more than tile yields, just with the implementation. Duplicating a happiness system already heavy on forced micromanagement with limited ways to manage it does nothing to add depth or strategic diversity to the game.

I'm beginning to see what the differences are between IV and V/VI in my game play. Going back to IV for a while, I feel like a true builder again. This is what I always was in the game of Civ. With V, I feel like it is a war game. Sure, you can still be a builder, but it just doesn't feel the same.

Strange, my sense is almost the exact reverse. Building in Civ IV was tedious - a paint-by-numbers approach to choosing a resource to specialise a city in and building all the associated +X% buildings, with no real thought associated with it beyond city placement. Unfortunately Civ VI's bland build order-based districts replicate the worst of this system - everything has to be built in a set order. I don't mind the idea of prerequisites, but rigid RTS-like build orders where you have to build up your city one tier at a time doesn't allow real decision-making. Civ V was not innocent of this, but at least come BNW the different resource chains worked in slightly different ways (within the commerce chain the individual buildings did as well - markets boosted trade route income while banks gave a straight gold bonus), and you could make more generalised cities at need without being forced down the rigid paths of Civ IV or Civ VI specialisation. Civ IV AIs were aggressive and seemingly only able to win via domination.

At the same time Civ V in particular isn't rewarding as a wargame, since the AI can't compete militarily and is at its best in a race for peaceful victory conditions - something Civ IV's struggled to attain. Then again, I'd have liked Civ IV more as a wargame if building units hadn't been such a chore - even something as simple as being able to build by x5 or x10 would have help cut down on the RSI.

You lose a city, it's like losing a knight in chess. Yeah, it's not personal, it's just business. Maybe it's the 1 upt, maybe it's a combination of factors. So, I guess that would mean that I feel more "distant" from my Civilization that I create in V than I do when playing <= IV. The same is true of VI (although of course that could change in the next 3-5 years).

Obviously that's entirely subjective - losing and retaking cities has felt that way to me since Civ 1. Civ IV's characterless overspecialised cities don't really give me reason to think of them differently - I lose a production hub and it can be disastrous, lose a duplicate resource city or GP farm probably not so much, but either way I'm only ever thinking of them in terms of their functional value as game pieces.

It's not a criticism, it's just something I observed when playing my first BTS game in a few years this week. It was immediately different. It was Civ again. It was epic It was home.

I've played it on and off through the Civ V and Civ VI period mainly for comparison - uninteractive trade-screen diplomacy and the tediously repetitive nature of the game's micromanagement and (particularly) unit production have always put me off getting through a full session (when I've survived the early rushes), which is a shame as I know I'm not always getting to the meatier bits of the game. I don't even recall how much time I devoted to Civ IV when it was current - it's possible I played more Civ III in its day - but at least revisiting it it's never captured the 'Civ feel' especially well or made me fully understand why people rate it so much more highly than the other games, when at its best it simply feels functionally similar.

I'll still play VI once they fix the stupid stuff, and I'll try a game after this patch (I quit once my really fun game had the crash where you had to go to autosave and declare war -- what a stupid fix) and hope I don't have the crash again. But maybe it's just a different game now. Civ 4 will always be home. I'll still play 5 and 6 (and probably Civ 10 if they go that far).

I quite enjoyed my first full post-patch playthrough - but in part that may be because I had little exposure to some of the more annoying features of the game. For instance there's a discussion above about the religion spam, and although Poland was in my game no one seemed to be focusing particularly on religion and I saw only a few missionaries and apostles. Culture also wasn't a big issue - which ultimately flags a problem with both resources as the respective victory conditions don't meaningfully interact with the rest of the game's systems (culture in particular is all about accumulating a resource that has no purpose other than to act as a victory condition - at least my high faith output thanks to captured holy sites could be turned into Great People and occasionally religious buildings). But until they get fixed playing without them makes for better gameplay.

I do agree that my barometer of the playthrough's success was that it felt more like Civ V than it had before - the assorted efforts to ape Civ IV feel like exactly that, and impositions on the Civ V framework, rather than recalling Civ IV's actual gameplay well. Then again, as I mentioned earlier in the thread I consider Civ IV an anomaly for the series - whatever its merits as a standalone game it doesn't, to me, have the 'true Civ' board game feel of the first two games, and this is where I felt Civ V succeeded.

I mean the unmodded V still can't build a spaceship properly unless the planets align. I think it's a programmer/corporation focus issue.

I routinely lost on the highest levels of Civ V to science victories - sometimes the AI would weirdly stall and move away from building ship components, but most of the time it was quite effective at pursuing the spaceship consistently. Civ VI seems to have inherited this, which is welcome, but the AI's inability to repair spaceports needs to be fixed. Either as a deliberate fix or as a consequence of decoupling spaceports from population in the patch, the AI now builds many more of them - but can still pursue projects in only one at a time (while each project is unique, a human player in a position to do so can accelerate spaceship production by building multiple Mars modules simultaneously) and still appears not to prioritise its spaceports for counterspying. The AI came worryingly close to winning the space race in my last game, but only because I realised late how far ahead they were. Ideally that mistake would have cost me the game - instead I was able to stall the AI essentially forever by destroying spaceports each time they came close to completing the final module.

If the AI can't be programmed to repair districts, the chances to disrupt rocketry should be reduced (and possibly the Rocket Scientist promotion removed), and/or the AI programmed to prioritise spaceports over other targets for its own sabotage missions.

 

[Athmos]

Disabling religious victory doesn't stop the AI from spamming religious units and blocking all your tiles.

Fair enough. I'd really like units from each civilization to be on separate layers so long as you are at peace/open borders.

 

[PhilBowles]

Fair enough. I'd really like units from each civilization to be on separate layers so long as you are at peace/open borders.

Unlimited stacking of civilians was suggested by me and many others as a fix for traffic jam issues with workers in Civ V (and indeed missionary/archaeologist spam there). It's a real shame it wasn't implemented by default in Civ VI.

 

[DizzKneeLand33]

Phil, we can agree to disagree --- I guess there wasn't anything about my post you agreed with? I don't understand your comments on Civ IV -- I probably played the game well over 5000 hours for the 3 versions including in a 38-day hospital stay exclusively. The management of cities was much more complex than the "hey, let's give up and just go for a global happiness system." In addition, city maintenance seems to be a much more efficient way of managing cities in the beginning.

The only space races I ever lost in Civ V prior to Acken's Mod were ones in which I was TWO full tech eras behind on Emperor and above. There were times were the Apollo Program was built 75+ (on epic) turns later than it should have been. And, there were many games I still managed to win the space race even being those two eras behind -- that shouldn't happen if the AI knows what it is doing -- so imho the games lost to the space race were times the AI stumbled into the victory.

Yes, the AI was capable of actually winning in Civ IV, and not just domination. Of course level played matters as well.

EDIT: I mean, there comes a point where you *do* actually have to manage something in Civ -- that or it's not Civ. You weren't forced to micromanage in IV unless you wanted to, or we have differing opinions of micromanaging.

 

[PhilBowles]

Phil, we can agree to disagree --- I guess there wasn't anything about my post you agreed with? I don't understand your comments on Civ IV -- I probably played the game well over 5000 hours for the 3 versions including in a 38-day hospital stay exclusively. The management of cities was much more complex than the "hey, let's give up and just go for a global happiness system."

Global happiness had nothing to do with city management, it was a replacement for maintenance. It's very unfortunate that they kept the same name for an unrelated mechanic.

In addition, city maintenance seems to be a much more efficient way of managing cities in the beginning

Every Civ game has had some mechanic aimed at constraining the rate of expansion. Arguably none of them have got it right. I never felt that maintenance was any better - or at least not significantly better - as a solution than corruption, and the mechanics beneath the hood were more obscure to boot.

The only space races I ever lost in Civ V prior to Acken's Mod were ones in which I was TWO full tech eras behind on Emperor and above. There were times were the Apollo Program was built 75+ (on epic) turns later than it should have been. And, there were many games I still managed to win the space race even being those two eras behind -- that shouldn't happen if the AI knows what it is doing -- so imho the games lost to the space race were times the AI stumbled into the victory.

That wasn't my experience at all, but then I don't pay much attention to winning by turn X as long as I win - it's possible you were playing an aggressively optimised strategy, which no Civ AI in any game is going to beat. Once the AI got the requisite techs, it could easily build the spaceship - it could also win both culturally and scientifically. I have fond memories of fighting for the spaceship in Civs I and II - I don't recall it in Civ IV at all.

Yes, the AI was capable of actually winning in Civ IV, and not just domination. Of course level played matters as well.

As with any other Civ game level only affected the AI's bonuses - the behaviour has to be there for the AI to secure a given victory type. Maybe it's simply that aggression was the default mode and I'd either lost to invasions or set the AI far enough back by defeating them, but I don't recall having the same races for peaceful victories in Civ IV. I do recall that it would commonly present a challenge for diplomatic victory, but that was mostly a function of its aggressive behaviour since diplomacy amounted to domination lite. It was also aided by the fact that AIs pre-Civ V were coded to vote for the player they hated least rather than abstain forever unless they could vote for themselves, so accidental 'alliances' in the UN came up quite a lot.

EDIT: I mean, there comes a point where you *do* actually have to manage something in Civ -- that or it's not Civ. You weren't forced to micromanage in IV unless you wanted to, or we have differing opinions of micromanaging.

How is having to regulate health and happiness every few pop points not a case of micromanaging? I certainly don't recall it being optional.

Micromanagement should exist to serve a purpose, not to satisfy complaints that there's not enough micromanagement (which seems basically all it exists for in Civ VI, for instance). In early Civ games all you micromanaged were which tiles your citizens worked, and assigning specialists. Both directly influenced the production of resources you needed to win the game. Nothing else was needed - there was no need for random punitive mechanics that existed purely to be managed. Happiness was an exception then as in all subsequent iterations (save Civ V in its earliest form, before local happiness was reinstated).

 

[MyOtherName]

Every Civ game has had some mechanic aimed at constraining the rate of expansion. Arguably none of them have got it right. I never felt that maintenance was any better - or at least not significantly better - as a solution than corruption, and the mechanics beneath the hood were more obscure to boot.

I have to disagree on this; in my estimation it (together with how the tech+economy worked) has been the only solution that has the key features:

• Makes it outright challenging to grow big early
• Maintains "bigger is better" while slowing the tech rate of rapid expansion to the point that staying smaller and teching quickly could enough of an advantage to be a competitive alternative.

Also, it had the effect of diminishing the benefit of growing to work marginal tiles, which diminishes the pressure to grow your cities; instead you're encouraged to cap growth at the point where you're working all of the better tiles and putting further growth off until better tile improvements are available later in the game.

How is having to regulate health and happiness every few pop points not a case of micromanaging? I certainly don't recall it being optional.

I really get the impression that you're growing your cities too large.

 

[rambow13]

Regarding the actual points you made, they are arguable and counterpoints cannot simply be dismissed with jibes. Yes, stacked units present a formidable challenge to poorly defended cities, no argument there. But there was never anything challenging about countering a stack of doom. As long as the player kept up with the AI in military techs and kept military units up to date, 2-3 units with city walls was usually enough to defend a city or enable it to hang on until reinforcements could arrive. Not really a deep strategy there, and i suppose a stack of doom is tactical in the sense that it was the tactic to city-bust within the confines of the game.

Ummm, so your saying that having to keep up with the AI Tech wise and build a defense is not making the point that stacks of doom at least provided a challenge? You are arguing against yourself with this statement.

The Current AI, with 1UPT, does not pose a threat great enough to warrant you having to keep up with military tech or defense.

I would like to see 1UPT work, but currently it does not, and that is not because the system can't work, but because currently the AI can't handle it correct to form any kind of actual threat.

 

[Ricci]

And health indeed was relevant in the early game, at least at higher levels where I believe there were less starting bonuses for health (and happiness). Ricci's explanation of the system is dead on. You could also trade for health resources and so forth, so I actually found this to be an interesting mechanic.
...
Having a cow AND a sheep mattered more than two cows. Resource diversification. The relevance of this diversification was eliminated in V and forward, which imho is a shame.

Both of which are true of luxuries as well. The issue isn't with the intent of health, or the intent of making bonus resources relevant for more than tile yields, just with the implementation. Duplicating a happiness system already heavy on forced micromanagement with limited ways to manage it does nothing to add depth or strategic diversity to the game.

By luxuries you mean happiness resources? If so, you mean just happiness resources or resources which split in both happiness & health yields (wines, sugar, and the sort)? I ask because there is plenty to choose from!!
* Health and happiness both share a common interest within city growth; still they have slightly different impacts if held in shortage, which makes one preeminent to the other.. generally (more food consumption vs no productive citizen).
* Health also has a minor to major impact into industrializing your cities; Forges, airports, factories, ironworks, all the power plants, drydocks, resources, etc. From the classical into the modern era it increasingly becomes important and adds to how your economic and teching strategy flows.
* Happiness also plays a preeminent role against slavery and draft systems. Moreover, it has some "minor" relevance into the AP and UN voting system; allowing you or not to vote against some ugly -sometimes catastrofic (civic changes.. yes!)- diplomatic instances.

So yes, health adds to and differs quite a stretch from the happiness system. Both systems have their own stand alone part in the game. Surely I am forgetting some other semi meaningfull part of them as well. They are somehow duplicate in the roundness of the icons; not the color, mind you (white and red against yellow).. but kind of their roundness.. yes.

Getting closer to VI now. I recall Shafer`s V also added depth and strategic diversity to the game with the food buildings. Not surprisingly it was to a much lesser extent than IV but, granaries gave +2 food when built, IIRC! So, if you wanted your city to grow further you could just build a granary in it.. oh, and a colosseum anywhere, for the happiness thingy, this was. So, not a replacement for the health system, or a very lame one, but still, strategic on it`s own,

Civ VI I can`t know by now, hope the amenities and housing systems regain the depth of Happ&health. Do they, in it`s current state?

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Civ IV's characterless overspecialised cities

Isn't that an oxymoron? The specialization of cities leads to uniqueness, which then leads to character. I adored my Heroic Epic military unit pumps and my Ironworks wonder grabbers. In Civ V I never had such dedicated cities. Every city always got all the production boosters.

 

[PhilBowles]

Isn't that an oxymoron? The specialization of cities leads to uniqueness, which then leads to character.

Not when you specialise every city of each type in the same way. I felt Civ IV took options that should be strategically interesting and made them too binary - with most buildings being +X% modifiers to one resource city specialisation was a paint-by-numbers approach to matching modifiers. Much later, Total War: Rome 2 did exactly the same thing and it felt very shallow and characterless there as well. Wonders did add a little diversity, but really there was a set way to optimise any given city.

The game should reward specialisation where it's a good strategic option; that's not the same as forcing it or as penalising anything less (because % modifers don't do very much without enough of them and without enough of the basic resource to multiply).

In Civ V I never had such dedicated cities. Every city always got all the production boosters.

Civ V never got to an ideal level of specialisation, though building production boosts in unproductive cities doesn't sound ideal. Mostly Civ V specialisation was about specialising GP production by maximising GP slots of a specific type (outside cultural cities, mainly scientists or engineers). BNW trade-specialised cities were a welcome advance in that regard, one Civ VI has essentially dispensed with as there's no longer anything that rewards sending multiple trade routes from specific cities (beyond simply having a large resource boost for that city). But the fact that Civ V didn't go far enough doesn't imply that Civ IV got the balance right, or that it's not possible to go too far. Civ IV's obsession with min-maxing, to me, just emphasised the gamey nature of specialising cities - they've always been there in Civ games as resource producers, but it would be nice to get a greater sense that there's some effort to model a realistic settlement.

I felt Civ V was closer to a good spot in that regard than Civ IV, with some degree of specialisation rewarding the player but a higher degree of flexibility in the 'side-buildings ' and Wonders that suited a particular city, allowing each to be more unique between playthroughs. Where it failed was that, while specialising helped, it was too easy to win without specialising at all.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Not when you specialise every city of each type in the same way.

The Civ 4 National Wonders shined in giving specific ways to further specialize cities that involved significant choices. Let's just take military unit production cities as an example.

Do you want a lot of units? Heroic Epic + Ironworks (or Moai Statues for navy).
Do you want highly promoted units? Heroic Epic + West Point.
Do you want regenerating units or hospital ships? Heroic Epic + Red Cross (then Barracks promotion into March).

 

[PhilBowles]

By luxuries you mean happiness resources? If so, you mean just happiness resources or resources which split in both happiness & health yields (wines, sugar, and the sort)? I ask because there is plenty to choose from!!
* Health and happiness both share a common interest within city growth; still they have slightly different impacts if held in shortage, which makes one preeminent to the other.. generally (more food consumption vs no productive citizen).
* Health also has a minor to major impact into industrializing your cities; Forges, airports, factories, ironworks, all the power plants, drydocks, resources, etc. From the classical into the modern era it increasingly becomes important and adds to how your economic and teching strategy flows.
* Happiness also plays a preeminent role against slavery and draft systems. Moreover, it has some "minor" relevance into the AP and UN voting system; allowing you or not to vote against some ugly -sometimes catastrofic (civic changes.. yes!)- diplomatic instances.

A lot of people are responding to my points by reiterating what the mechanic does in game terms. I know what it does and I know how it's managed - my point is much more general. The health system is not functionally necessary to a Civ game and having one that offers slightly different bonuses and maluses relative to another existing resource does not make it a worthwhile or strategic addition. Much as having the tourism resource separate from the culture resource has failed to add anything very meaningful to the game in BNW and Civ 6 (especially Civ 6, where it doesn't even have the marginal functionality it had in BNW - it literally does nothing except act as a victory counter).

Happiness in early Civ games unlocked a specific game system that wouldn't otherwise be available - unhappiness could lead to revolts that spawned barbarians and ultimately civil war. It didn't just suppress the production of a resource; if it had I wouldn't consider it really justified its existence as anything other than micromanagement busywork any more than health did in Civ IV.

Civ VI I can`t know by now, hope the amenities and housing systems regain the depth of Happ&health. Do they, in it`s current state?

Aside from the fact that it remains obscure quite how they work or what the thresholds are, in my experience I'd say no. Amenities can apparently mostly be ignored for most of the game - it's somewhat obscure how their effects are distributed across cities, but I haven't yet had to pay attention to how many different luxuries I have or trade for excess. Other than cities that become especially unhappy spawning barbarians, I'm not even sure what the drawbacks for being short of amenities are. I'm fairly sure that on Emperor I shouldn't be able to run the amenities system on autopilot without really understanding how it works. Early on I tried prioritising civics that boosted amenities, but soon realised they simply aren't necessary.

Housing is much more relevant but managing it at local scales is achievable only by buildings and improvements (agricultural improvements add +0.5 health), as only settlers reduce population. So options are more limited and stereotyped even than in Civ IV.

Here, however, is the telling thing: the game doesn't particularly obviously suffer from lacking meaningful micromanagement resources. At this point happiness seems retained in Civ games more for the nostalgia of the name than any functional relevance (which may explain why the name was used for an essentially unrelated mechanic in Civ V). The impacts of low housing are severe because they slow population growth to a crawl far more strongly than Civ IV (for instance, having housing = citizens still causes a 50% decline in growth rate, having greater causes a 75% decline, and Civ VI has no building that functions like a granary in older Civ games or an aqueduct in Civ V that effectively reduces the food cost of growing the population).

However if this system were removed altogether the only strategic impact of its loss would be that you'd choose from a different set of civics, and maybe you wouldn't improve the land as aggressively (though that remains good practice anyway).

 

[PhilBowles]

The Civ 4 National Wonders shined in giving specific ways to further specialize cities that involved significant choices. Let's just take military unit production cities as an example.

Do you want a lot of units? Heroic Epic + Ironworks (or Moai Statues for navy).
Do you want highly promoted units? Heroic Epic + West Point.
Do you want regenerating units or hospital ships? Heroic Epic + Red Cross (then Barracks promotion into March).

In any given playthrough, sure, but any time you wanted one of those specific options in different games you'd build the city in exactly the same way you did originally. You might as well have city construction work like the Alpha Centauri unit creator - build a formula city template for each task you want and tell the game to produce that city the next time you need it, and with all the character of building an AC missile rover.

 

[MyOtherName]

Not when you specialise every city of each type in the same way. I felt Civ IV took options that should be strategically interesting and made them too binary - with most buildings being +X% modifiers to one resource city specialisation was a paint-by-numbers approach to matching modifiers. ... (because % modifers don't do very much without enough of them and without enough of the basic resource to multiply).

So... Civ 4 fails at being a strategy game because you get better results by making choices that support each other, and worse results when they don't?

...

I can't even guess at your line of thought anymore. (unless your line of thought is just being contradictory)

 

[Drakarska]

Not when you specialise every city of each type in the same way. I felt Civ IV took options that should be strategically interesting and made them too binary - with most buildings being +X% modifiers to one resource city specialisation was a paint-by-numbers approach to matching modifiers. Much later, Total War: Rome 2 did exactly the same thing and it felt very shallow and characterless there as well. Wonders did add a little diversity, but really there was a set way to optimise any given city.

The game should reward specialisation where it's a good strategic option; that's not the same as forcing it or as penalising anything less (because % modifers don't do very much without enough of them and without enough of the basic resource to multiply).

Ok, I'm trying to wrap my head around the point your trying to make here Phil. Because honestly, I'm not quite grasping it.
First off, you wouldn't be specializing every city in the same way, as city spec is map/resource dependent, and you would want to tailor your specialist cities to reflect what the map is going to give you. If I'm cs'ing all my cities the same way through out the game without bothering to take into account resources, city place, terrain, etc, then I'm just basically screwing myself over.
Your analogy of of a 1 res city as a paint by numbers approach would be counter-intuitive. Most mid to high lvl players wouldn't waste cs in a 1 res city, unless there was specific reason to do so ( strat choice, city placement to block, etc). The city in question would would probably get enough buildings to make it worth while for the one res, but specialization on it wouldn't happen.
I think where the miss-communication is, is that you are confusing the build pattern for cities to take advantage of a specific resource, as opposed to actually investing specialists in a city to maximize all of the cities BFC.
Now, if your referring to the actual build pattern a player will choose, I.E; iron/coal/wet corn, etc. Then yes, most players will follow a pattern of trying to make that either a GP farm, or a GE specialist city. Personally, If I had that kind of luck on a map with those resources, then hell yeah, I'm going to fit the pattern of trying to make it a GE city ( forge, iron works, manufacture, etc.). Pretty much anything that will give me a GE/prod boost, I'm going to place as a priority in that city. Toss in a river and flood plains ( has only ever happened to me twice in all the years i've been playing)? The you can bet you Wonka bar that i'm going to pop TGD in that city as soon as I can.
Wishful thinking aside, I'm not really seeing the point your trying to make concerning city spec as "every city the same" and "paint by numbers". Especially since most custom games in unmodded base BTS are random type maps.

 

[MyOtherName]

Your analogy of of a 1 res city as a paint by numbers approach would be counter-intuitive.

I think by resource he means things like commerce or hammers.

BTW, "specialization" does not mean "run specialists". Specialization is, for example, when you find that early game spot with pigs and six grassland hills, so you grow it to size 7 and use it to produce all of your military (and maybe wonders if applicable) for half the game or more -- and, in particular, it does not work that other food resource in the BFC (except to grow to size 7) nor any of the cottageable terrain around it, because you're better off making another city to work those tiles.

The thing I find completely mystifying is that Phil thinks it's a bad thing that a library is not very useful in that city.

 

[GT_OKEZ]

A praise and critique of Civ 6 and maybe some other thoughts.

Civ 6 is not a bad game, I just want to throw that out there so the tone of the thread isn’t to be a bashing one even though I’ll briefly explain my critique and why I may be considering playing an alternative game (most likely Civ 5) for a bit. I’ll be talking about the base game without mods though I do use mods.

Let me start with the praises and why I think Civ 6 is a good (or at least decent game) and has the potential to be better in the future.

- District System (the positive): I enjoy this innovation. It really matters to utilize the map and I like more elements of the game that become important. Also, when you construct a city with several districts the visual appeal of it looks pretty nice as you can truly see a sprawling city over multiple tiles. Mostly it’s something new and I like something new in a Civ game that distinguishes it from other Civ games. It allows you to customize cities instead of having to build things like national wonders. The cities can truly stand on their own.

- A clear religious path. There is a pretty clear cut religious victory condition so all the resources you invest into it can result in a victory rather than just some nice buffs.

- Tourism/culture is pretty straight forward in terms of a win condition.

- Plenty of new leaders we never seen before which adds a nice historical dimension to the game

- Multiple lenses. I love this feature

- Still being able to grow while building a settler.

- Builders have charges and make improvements immediately

- Getting immediate trade benefits from internal traders (i.e. you get at least 1 food and 1 production out the door instead of having to build a granary/workshop first).

- Policy cards (the positive) I enjoy the ability to customize your government.

- Amenities over traditional happiness (the positive) It’s localized so expanding at any point of the game or war wariness will only impact several cities that can use more amenities rather than your entire civilization.
- Good Music


Critique

- Districts (the negative), they sort of lock you into a linear sort of gameplay. The population caps really make this boring because you absolutely need certain districts early which means the early game will be the predictable sim for every civilization practically. Every city (yours and others) will do the same old routine until they develop later and even then there isn’t much in the way of varying and dynamic strategy (basically, get science – win).

- Policy cards and the government system (the negative), ironically Civics are quite restrictive in VI even though they were intended to be versatile. It’s because only a few cards are good enough to have a long term seat in your policy slots. You merely swap for a few turns when you want to do something in particular otherwise it’s stale and almost everyone has the same policies regardless of Civ which takes away from the Unique aspect of playing different civs.

- The specialist system is dead and strong great people strategies are basically dead. Very limited slots for specialists who do not generate great people points (rather the district does itself) which makes playing tall even less appealing. In Civ VI you’re better off spamming cities if you want to generate great people instead of growing tall with infrastructure in fewer cities. It’s counter intuitive

- A limited pool of great people that will vanish by Era (if not claimed) make great people strategies even less appealing.

- Districts and their influence in yields almost force for a wide strategy which becomes extremely boring. If you want to get ahead then you have to spend almost every game in the early eras cranking out as much settlers as possible to get as many cities as your amenities can hold. This detracts from really spending that time building infrastructure because fewer but larger cities really give no tangible benefits in Civ VI since there isn’t even a great specialist system (and the system that does exist favors wide game play anyways). This can also be a problem for Civs that depend on getting up a religion.

- I don’t mind 1UPT but the highly restrictive movement in Civ 6 is pretty crippling especially for melee. Mounted units are better in almost every way, even for defense since they can take advantage of terrain bonuses, fortify, and are not as restricted by Civ VI’s movement rules. In virtually every scenario Cav (heavy and light) is better and anti-cav units have a huge gap after Pikemen (who themselves are okay but can simply be routed since Cav ignore ZOC). This means any Civ with Cav uniques is inherently better than Civs without (with the exception of Legions due to their unique utility and absurdly high Cbt Str.

- Which brings me into the road system. Not only is Civ VI highly restrictive with movement but roads are harder to come by too which requires a trade route (Mil Engineers have only 2 charges so not every efficient road builders). Given that Cav get all the benefits of melee without most of the drawbacks most of Civ VI becomes a battle of Cav spam with generals. I like the fact that builders have limited charges and can get your improvements up instantly but lacking access to build road connections to help combat some of the restrictive movement in VI is pretty lame and boring.

- Lack of overall strategy depth. Currently the game has no great strategies as every game seems monotonous regardless of the Civs you play or policies you adopt. Build wide – get science seems to be the mantra which ignores infrastructure and means your early game will be just pumping out settlers. Civ 5’s social policies were restrictive in their own way but as they developed they really allowed for some diverse gameplay right out the door which increased the fun of the experience.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

- Policy cards and the government system (the negative), ironically Civics are quite restrictive in VI even though they were intended to be versatile. It’s because only a few cards are good enough to have a long term seat in your policy slots. You merely swap for a few turns when you want to do something in particular otherwise it’s stale and almost everyone has the same policies regardless of Civ which takes away from the Unique aspect of playing different civs.

I thought the idea with Policy Cards were that they were short-term mandates that can be changed quickly? Governments with the Legacy Bonuses are more like Civ V's Social Policies which reflect the evolution of your civ. One of the things I didn't like in Civ 4 was how societal structures would undergo drastic changes for a few turns just to get something done. Adopting Nationhood for drafting is like the US going back to the Minutemen in WW2 instead of just paying for a conscription Policy Card. In fact, Policy Cards should be balanced so they become more specific and encourage more changes.

 

[Ricci]

A lot of people are responding to my points by reiterating what the mechanic does in game terms.

This will continue to happen when your points contradict, or are seemingly counterargumented, with how the addressed mechanic plays Phil:
"Forests don´t factor in health considerations" Well look.. bla bla blahh..
"Health is irrelevant in the early game" Well, keep in mind that.. blah blah..
"City specialization and health add little or no strategy at all" Well.. so on so forth

I know what it does and I know how it's managed - my point is much more general.

Respectfully, It doesn´t show in your conclusions. The general view should go in tandem with the particulars.

The health system is not functionally necessary to a Civ game and having one that offers slightly different bonuses and maluses relative to another existing resource does not make it a worthwhile or strategic addition. Much as having the tourism resource separate from the culture resource has failed to add anything very meaningful to the game in BNW and Civ 6 (especially Civ 6, where it doesn't even have the marginal functionality it had in BNW - it literally does nothing except act as a victory counter).

The need for a system responds to the choice to represent some aspect of the game's frame or realm into the game itself. It seems as if you have some preconcieved idea of what functions civ IV needs, instead of accepting what the game has to offer, in functionality terms. It was chosen to represent social sanitation in the form of health. Health functions as a pop growth & an industralization requirement. Why not? It certainly adds strategy, it is common tu happiness in one function and separate in others. Which is the maluse? Where you see duplication I see depth & interaction.

Slavery might be as well not necessary to a civ game, offering slightly different bonuses and maluse relative to other existing production mechanics, thus it might not make for a worthwhile or strategic addition!!!


Thank´s for the explanatory text about housing and amenities man.

 

[Ricci]

I thought the idea with Policy Cards were that they were short-term mandates that can be changed quickly? Governments with the Legacy Bonuses are more like Civ V's Social Policies which reflect the evolution of your civ. One of the things I didn't like in Civ 4 was how societal structures would undergo drastic changes for a few turns just to get something done. Adopting Nationhood for drafting is like the US going back to the Minutemen in WW2 instead of just paying for a conscription Policy Card. In fact, Policy Cards should be balanced so they become more specific and encourage more changes.

Ohh, but you certainly did pay in IV, in large amounts you did. Anarchy turns (especially mid to late game) could easily translate in huge amounts of gold. Even in the early stages the anarchy loss impacts exponentially into the rest of the game. You should wisely restrict civic change as much as you can.