Civ comparison

[Archon_Wing]

Fighting a joint war improves your relations with the joint war partner and there is minimal risk if the target is far away. I have done phony wars in multiple versions of Civ for this purpose, and also I will grab literally anyone to joint war with for this reason though I guess the AI probably does not have that in mind.

 

[Victoria]

but it makes no sense

It makes sense mechanically, it may not make sense from how you see she should react and I cannot fully comment as I do not know your situation.

This is how I see it works, in simple terms without too much detail.

All those + and - total up to a value. When that value is at -35 they will happily go to war against you with the right random but other things I do not know about seem to weigh against it. I know if I have a much larger army they just do not declare ... normally.

If Cleo is your neighbour and needs to expand your way, it just does not matter, while she has her capital she will happily keep declaring but normally that does include troops. Equally, if friends can be made with a joint war against you it seems this is enough excuse and will override just like the expansion issue.

The +19 may seem a bit strange but you did not say what her mood was to you... friendly?... remember there is backstabbing as well, in particular for gaining friends elsewhere. The only friend is a declared friend... and that's part time.

If you take a passive approach to diplomacy things do go a bit odd but When not warring I take an active approach to diplomacy and things can be manipulated, it's not that hard... it's just that currently the rewards are limited.

 

[Xandinho]

I think Civ6 has a long way to go, we are still in the base game and we have more mechanisms than the base game from previous versions. Of course, AI is really a problem, but it may be corrected and improved in the expansions. I really like the districts, you have to plan your cities both short and long term really captivated me, I really like this form of strategic immersion. In addition, we have civilizations more personalized and less generic, civs now have many bonuses, which makes them exclusive and unique, every game you will have a different experience. I really like how civilizations are very different from one another in gameplay.

 

[Esperr]

The diplomacy is what I don't understand. IV had perfect diplomacy, there was no guess work involved or hidden numbers. You could go to war with somebody and nobody cared unless it was one of there friends. For some reason V and VI went to this universal warmonger penalty which makes the game very binary. Either your killing everybody or not. I think VI would be so much better if it just used the diplo system from IV.

 

[Archon_Wing]

IV had perfect diplomacy, there was no guess work involved or hidden numbers

Well, you had hidden AI to AI modifiers where designated warmongerers would like each other way more than you even if you had more +modifiers and the infamous vassal averaging.

But yes, I would prefer Civ 4's way any day, and the simplistic penalties for "you declared war on us/friend" "you razed a city" , "you razed a holy city", and especially "you nuked a friend" to be far more the adequate that anyone being aggressive with the warmongering would be widely hated without the need of a deliberate addition

The other things is missing is the +/- for joining/refusing wars, civic changes, and sometimes religion. Though the problem is these systems have generally grown a bit more inflexible and passive but this is more true of religion (If you don't found the religion, you have very little control over it). It may be interesting to have some leaders aggressively shill certain specific policy cards though as opposed to making you adopt their government, and that makes sense to a degree too.

Currently the ways you have to impress other leaders are often too high of a cost for little or no benefit. In a recent game, I tried liberating a city state to be nice, but it got drowned out by other nonsense and all my effort; including avoiding warmongering penalities and managing to fulfill secondary agendas was ultimately all for naught thanks to the AI hates you for winning modifier/different governments meaning it was ultimately a waste of time.

And it's also with a hidden bit of irony that Civ 4 is still better for the "don't like war" crowd due to the presence of aggressive culture pressure being able to take cities peacefully and diplomacy naturally is a bigger role in these cases.

 

[Esperr]

Well, you had hidden AI to AI modifiers where designated warmongerers would like each other way more than you even if you had more +modifiers and the infamous vassal averaging.

But yes, I would prefer Civ 4's way any day, and the simplistic penalties for "you declared war on us/friend" "you razed a city" , "you razed a holy city", and especially "you nuked a friend" to be far more the adequate that anyone being aggressive with the warmongering would be widely hated without the need of a deliberate addition

The other things is missing is the +/- for joining/refusing wars, civic changes, and sometimes religion. Though the problem is these systems have generally grown a bit more inflexible and passive but this is more true of religion (If you don't found the religion, you have very little control over it). It may be interesting to have some leaders aggressively shill certain specific policy cards though as opposed to making you adopt their government, and that makes sense to a degree too.

Currently the ways you have to impress other leaders are often too high of a cost for little or no benefit. In a recent game, I tried liberating a city state to be nice, but it got drowned out by other nonsense and all my effort; including avoiding warmongering penalities and managing to fulfill secondary agendas was ultimately all for naught thanks to the AI hates you for winning modifier/different governments meaning it was ultimately a waste of time.

And it's also with a hidden bit of irony that Civ 4 is still better for the "don't like war" crowd due to the presence of aggressive culture pressure being able to take cities peacefully and diplomacy naturally is a bigger role in these cases.

Yes but the "hidden" things at least had a face value number right away that you could understand. Everything was just more straightforward, the +/- were what they were. VI has this weird accumulation thing going on, I don't know why they don't just say what the totals are in the diplomacy screen. Nevermind the fact that there is no indicator that the +/- accumulate.

 

[Takfloyd]

The general consensus seems to be that the games are ranked Civ 6 > Civ 4 (with a Mod like BUG) > Civ 5, Civ 6 has some amazing developments (e.g. District / Wonder placement as has been mentioned) but some people find the AI a bit easy (the move to 1UPT has really hit the AI hard) and there are still quite a few bugs (to be expected at this stage of development). To be clear there are a lot of people that like Civ 5 a lot and it has been very succesful but if you feel you have had your fill of Civ 4 I would recommend going to Civ 6.

I've literally never seen anyone with this opinion. Civ 5 is almost unanimously considered better than Civ 6 - and it reflects very strongly in that 5 still sells a lot more and is being played a lot more on Steam. Civ 4 is more divisive, mainly because a lot of people got into the series with 5 and don't know any better. Most people who have played all three games consider 4 the best.

Most people also agree that 6 is currently far better than vanilla 5 though, and the general consensus is that 6 is likely to become the best game in the series once it gets an expansion or two under its belt.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Yes but the "hidden" things at least had a face value number right away that you could understand. Everything was just more straightforward, the +/- were what they were. VI has this weird accumulation thing going on, I don't know why they don't just say what the totals are in the diplomacy screen. Nevermind the fact that there is no indicator that the +/- accumulate.

That much is true. Apparently this mystrey trend started in Civ 5, where they wanted diplomacy to be opaque and it ended up as people just pretending it doesn't exist.

The thing with the secondary hidden agendas is that it's just rather rare that they are going to come into play, except incidentally. A lot of times it's just "Oh, now we have both Pedro and someone else that is obsessed with GPs", might as well just kill them all.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Civ 5 is almost unanimously considered better than Civ 6

Seriously?? Wow, it must depend on who you interact with - certainly most of the people I discuss Civ with regard Civ 5 as the worst in the Series (I don't deny it was a great commercial success though!).

 

[trev1972]

It makes sense mechanically, it may not make sense from how you see she should react and I cannot fully comment as I do not know your situation.

This is how I see it works, in simple terms without too much detail.

All those + and - total up to a value. When that value is at -35 they will happily go to war against you with the right random but other things I do not know about seem to weigh against it. I know if I have a much larger army they just do not declare ... normally.

If Cleo is your neighbour and needs to expand your way, it just does not matter, while she has her capital she will happily keep declaring but normally that does include troops. Equally, if friends can be made with a joint war against you it seems this is enough excuse and will override just like the expansion issue.

The +19 may seem a bit strange but you did not say what her mood was to you... friendly?... remember there is backstabbing as well, in particular for gaining friends elsewhere. The only friend is a declared friend... and that's part time.

If you take a passive approach to diplomacy things do go a bit odd but When not warring I take an active approach to diplomacy and things can be manipulated, it's not that hard... it's just that currently the rewards are limited.

Hi

I play the earth maps a lot, i was on greatest earth map as the english, i was trying to see if i could win a peaceful culture game on emperor as the english...quick colonisation of the old world etc was key to my game along with efficient play. I end up with a decentish military by settling in the new world to be honest

So as you can imagine cleopatra was miles away from me .

Both were friendly before declaring- and after the pre-requisite times from making peace re-sent delegates etc and eventually went back to friendly after a little while....before restarting the never ending cycle of joint declarations. It just seems totally random (i appreciate you might feel this isnt the case)

The same happened in the same game with the guy in africa (forgotten name sorry)- positive relations then sudden declaration (with the russians brought in this time who admittedly were unfriendly) no sign of any troops from either of them at any point...then peace and back to friendly...no doubt they will re declare at some random point.

It just makes diplomacy seem pointless?

In my second game where i was still learning the game i was on prince and by mid game had 5 times the military of the nearest opponent... despite that i had declarations from people who were very positive modifiers mid game, and civs threatening me (give me this luxury or else). In one case it was comical as id conquered the vikings (sorry, norway) and left them one city ...and he dialled up demanding a luxury from me.

I miss the things such as share intrigue, friendly status meaning something, years of peace and trade being a big modifier, and at least understanding the motivation immersion wise

As an example if catherine backstabbed me, she would generally build a big force ready and hit me with it the next turn from declaring- i remember something similar happening on civ v as well, which actually caught me out.

There joint declarations where they seem to have done it 'just because' are frustrating

Sorry for the long post, you might have guess the diplomacy/lack of diplomacy frustrates me a lot.

 

[Victoria]

I can understand your frustration and it does seem wrong but it does just seem to be them making friends via joint war.
I suspect the mayhem counter has something to do with it, a lot of peace and little interaction?
The AI does try to polarise the civs into groups but it can also be possible to become allies with over 50% with work.

The issue with remote declarations was happening a lot a while ago but the did say they had fixed it in the spring patch if I remember and it does seem like you are citing old games. I used to see this too but I have not seen it for a while.... and I play a lot. Civ VI is still early in its lifecycle and issues like this happen but am wondering if you still have this issue now?

I use diplomacy a fair amount and will manipulate other civs quite happily, the main issue is the value from such things is still limited, but there is value. I will use a joint war myself to increase my value to another civ so why can't they anyway? A trade route is +3 and increases your visibility with them which can be of use but many do not read this information. Knowing that they have just started work on the coliseum can be of great use to me.
Friendly status does mean something but not as much as declared friend or ally.

Sharing intrigue was just another modifier but it was immersive. The visibility level top secret will tell you plans they have to attack someone, I guess you just cannot share it ...yet

I am not sure what else to say, I know all the modifiers and their degradations, how to manipulate and the value of such things quite well. They are limited in value currently to avoiding war, getting extra techs, joint wars and really quite fabulous intelligence but quite rightly, just because you are good friends does not mean you get a better trade deal

 

[trev1972]

I can understand your frustration and it does seem wrong but it does just seem to be them making friends via joint war.
I suspect the mayhem counter has something to do with it, a lot of peace and little interaction?
The AI does try to polarise the civs into groups but it can also be possible to become allies with over 50% with work.

The issue with remote declarations was happening a lot a while ago but the did say they had fixed it in the spring patch if I remember and it does seem like you are citing old games. I used to see this too but I have not seen it for a while.... and I play a lot. Civ VI is still early in its lifecycle and issues like this happen but am wondering if you still have this issue now?

I use diplomacy a fair amount and will manipulate other civs quite happily, the main issue is the value from such things is still limited, but there is value. I will use a joint war myself to increase my value to another civ so why can't they anyway? A trade route is +3 and increases your visibility with them which can be of use but many do not read this information. Knowing that they have just started work on the coliseum can be of great use to me.
Friendly status does mean something but not as much as declared friend or ally.

Sharing intrigue was just another modifier but it was immersive. The visibility level top secret will tell you plans they have to attack someone, I guess you just cannot share it ...yet

I am not sure what else to say, I know all the modifiers and their degradations, how to manipulate and the value of such things quite well. They are limited in value currently to avoiding war, getting extra techs, joint wars and really quite fabulous intelligence but quite rightly, just because you are good friends does not mean you get a better trade deal

Ahh well, i shouldnt rant really sorry for that!

These are current games, i only bought the game a couple of weeks ago (and ive played 7 games in total, 2 on prince, 3 on king, 2 on emperor)
It might be as you say there is some code to say 'if everything has been peaceful for a while shake things up a bit'

Or perhaps it is a peculiarity of the earth maps, aside from loving earth maps i found with generated maps they would cluster all the civs by each other forcing the game to be early conquest.

 

[Victoria]

, i only bought the game a couple of weeks ago

the joint war thing should not be that common if you purchased recently. There does seem to be some encouragement that a civ attack you at some time, often early civs will declare on you and if you play peaceful then yes, joint wars will occur more like they are, especially as you get to 50% of a victory condition but that shows as negatives.

Nothing wrong with ranting, many do it and to be fair diplomacy could be better. I just try to be devils advocate.