I brought this up to Magil because he/she was being arrogant and baseless about 'superiority'. There is no objective superiority when it comes to games, so arguing it is pointless. Everyone here has an opinion that they're going to hold onto and defend, regardless of being faced with logic or reasoning that exposes flaws in their current opinions. If you ask me, I'd say the popularity of a game tells me more about how well it's features and systems work than what the game's devs feel about those features and systems.
I don't think anyone is simply saying that we go with what the Devs want over other factors. Their opinion is clearly relevant from the POV that they have a responsibility to deliver a good product for 2K. I guess if we take your rationale on popularity and look at say Monopoly, then that game must be brilliant! But it isn't...it's pretty awful compared to most other board games.
What do you mean 'what forge'? Have you been reading the posts so far? I never said I don't like encampments.. Please clarify your points, maybe re-read some of the conversations so far.
I believe you said this:
"Because each hex of iron is 'infinite', there are far fewer hexes of iron.
Because there are fewer hexes of iron, there would be far fewer cities with the forge available to them.
Because there would be far fewer cities with the forge available to them, the building would just essentially be another snowball device, ie. "dude with 3 iron in his early empire also gets access to this rare, specialized building that speeds up his production..?"
Or, you make the building relatively weak, in which case why even include it at all?"
You're complaining about the effect of a forge (from V?) as a snowball device; when it isn't included in VI anyway. So what is the problem?
And:
"This shouldn't even need explaining but here goes. In situation one, you can trade your iron away in Civ5 but cannot in Civ6. In situation two, you can trade your iron away in Civ5, but doing so in Civ6 puts you back in 'situation 1' status, meaning you have to resort to encampments, which is limiting and slow."
So you are okay with Encampments; so again; why this ^^^ comment? If Encampments are fine as they are, what's the problem?
You'll have to be more specific. Are you talking strictly about strategics? What map size do you play? What difficulty? Resources set to standard? It's not reliable to bring up anecdotal evidence. The fact is the numbered strategic system of Civ5 brought with it more opportunities to trade, objectively. Not going to repeat myself, just re-read the posts so far.
I'd say it's more luxuries that other Civs are after, but every now and then they want a strategic resource too.
I play huge, current game King - next game I'll be Emperor, Resources standard. Oh, I like you

- like you don't do anecdotal evidence as far as anyone can see here! lol
I disagree that V brought with it more opportunities to trade when compared with VI. I suppose for anyone trading in single units you may have a point...but as I understand it some consider that an exploit; which needed fixing anyway.
True, but doesn't change the point of my post. In the situation I listed (creating more iron hexes per mapgen to better balance hypothetical Forges), the overabundance of iron would make the resource pretty much useless. If there's iron everywhere on the map, why require it for a unit? Why not just make the unit restriction-free? The only reason the unit should require the resource is if there's a fair chance you won't have the resource in your empire, or else the restriction is arbitrary and meaningless.
The great thing about III was that when it introduced strategic resources actually allowing for specific units etc it did create tension that hadn't existed before. IV ramped this up; and commonly wars were fought over startegic resources. With how common resources became in V; I would say it was that game that reduced this very real world situation. With that in mind, VI has taken a different approach. One that hasn't completely worked, say from the POV of AI not being able to upgrade its units etc.
In short...I don't see the issue you're raising as being specific to VI.
1. So it's not 'true to life' for a nation/state to hire workers to build road networks? Highways? Railroads? Being able to dictate where the roads go hex by hex is much, much, much more true to life. I don't think you thought that one through.
Not in 500AD, let alone 1000BC! I don't think you've thought this through

The Romans were the clear exceptions of course. Sure, heading into the medieval era others had picked it up, and some roads were planned; but most just followed the existing tried and true tracks that had been laid for centuries by traders and travellers. It wasn't until the modern era that genuinely new roads were often planned that had never existed before. So I think the game has it about bang on
Maybe engineers should have one more charge. Or even an infinite ability to build roads; but that function will (like a worker) take them more than one turn.
But the pre modern set up for road building is very immersive.
2. We're not talking about opportunity costs. We're talking about tying in two different systems' opportunity costs. Imagine if you had to sell three units every time you switched social policies. You'd have to combine your thinking regarding your military units/status and your cultural advancement, to make sure you always have 3 junk units hanging around a turn ahead of a policy switch. What a random and awkward combination of systems right? Having to choose trade routes based on both yield and desired road networks is just like that. We should instead choose trade routes strictly based on yield, and build roads strictly based on movement. And no, it's not hard to implement... Civ5 did it perfectly. Simply remove roads from trade routes and give builders the option to build roads.
But we don't. You keep doing this - making up complicated scenarios to knock something that is much more simple.
I can get on board with what you're suggesting as a "solution" in the industrial era; but not before.
Odd that you seem so sure of this. So let's do the "0 to 100" test that I like to do with my studio concepts. You're saying slow is more interesting, and speed doesn't belong in Civ games. Let's take that to both extremes so see if that statement actually holds weight (which it doesn't).
0, meaning your statement is assumed false to the extreme - Game advances too quickly for eras to mean very much. Wars are won with just a couple of units, since damage and movement has been ramped way up. More long-term systems like culture and religion are useless. Pretty much a flash game at this point.
100, meaning your statement is assumed true to the extreme - Game is incredibly slow. Every tile on the map requires all movement points for every unit, even water. Workers again require turns to complete improvements, much worse than Civ5. Roads don't do anything for movement, just there for aesthetics. Systems like religion and culture are so slow-moving that they're useless, as their costs are simply too high. Game is unplayable.
See what happened there? We discovered that speed is necessary for Civ games. We learned there's a happy medium between fast and slow. So let's stay away from broad blanket statements that don't contribute anything meaningful to the discussion, and instead progress with points we can debate with one another straight forward
No...I didn't see what happened there. You did the same thing again where you over complicated things without much nuance to...I dunno lol. I have no idea why, as there are plenty of shades of grey here and not just two poles!
I like what they have done with movement. Maybe it's because I remember pre IV when pretty much everything (cavalry aside) moved 1 square at a time. Those games weren't a fail because their slow units moved at that "speed". I remember the reason given by Soren for workers getting a second move point in IV; and it was nothing to do with speed; and everything to do with feedback they got that people would forget what they were going to do with that worker (how you did that pre IV...I dunno!!) when the next turn rolled around. So in IV you could move the worker, and then start it on it's next action in the same turn. Your non cav fighting units in IV still only moved 1.
V "sped" things up...I have no problem with VI restoring the status quo a little
My notion is that Civ5's movement system felt fine. Therefore, I believe Civ6's combined changes of increasing movement point costs and nerfing road systems so strongly has made the game feel a little too slow, as I said in the post you quoted. I also said, in the post you quoted, that I'd like to see roads be more customizable and give more of a movement impact. Agree/disagree?
Mostly disagree as stated; but I'm okay with some changes to how roads are handled in the late game.
Thank you for the in depth discussion
