Civ VI Civs - Failing in Uniqueness

[Morningcalm]

In particular, the expansion Civ designs are rather disappointing thematically, and gameplay-wise the bonuses are all very min-maxy. The Cree simply get trade route and resource bonuses with a buffed scout, and very little in the way of alliance bonuses despite Poundmaker. Robert the Bruce's Scotland has science bonuses when that was hardly his concern fighting for the crown of Scotland in his time. Korea's Three Kingdoms is a pure stat boost for their district that has nothing to do with the Three Kingdoms period.

I do like Mongolia's design, which I consider more unique (ability to convert horses especially) AND coherent (no weird modern Communist unique bonus for Genghis' Mongolia, in contrast to Scotland's golf courses and 19th-20th century science bonuses accompanying Robert's liberation wars).

Simple changes can help make the existing Civ designs better. Maybe Korea gets its ability renamed to Morning Calm and it adds a minor bonus of reduced war weariness while you are fighting a defensive war. Maybe the Cree get additional % based alliance boosts when not at war with anyone. Maybe Tamar's walls generate increased loyalty when built in cities with a holy district. Etc.

 

[Anno]

Yeah, Civ VI's uniques are definitely more diversified and game-impacting than V's. However, I think the concern here is that despite the massive amount of room that the new mechanics give Firaxis to make some really interesting & unique Civs, they feel relatively homogeneous to what they potentially could be.

Sure, I think we'd all appreciate more. But I think the context of what Civ is (a fairly mainstream and easy to understand game that needs to sell like a fairly mainstream and easy to understand game) and the vision for CiVI (a large focus on "playing the map", or whatever Ed termed it) they've done a better job than in previous games.

 

[Haig]

Wow never have I seen someone who prefers Civ 5 civilization abilities over Civ 6's.

Some Civ 5 civs like Babylon, Poland, Maya, Assyria etc. are very boring and I tried them only for like half a game.

There's plenty of cool civs in Civ 6(in my opinion) :

I love how England takes advantage of the continental system, spreads the colonies and stuffs museums full of stolen treasures. Very imperialistic Vicky!

Germany is this true industrial powerhouse. In Civ 5 they... captured barbarian camps?

Australia is this peaceful builder civ that awakenes when angered.

Civ 5 has couple very unique civs, like Venice, but then again instead of giving a challenge, playing as Venice is more like easy mode where you get so much money you can buy everything.

Maybe it's all a matter of taste.

 

[Lord Lakely]

My general impression has been that the Dev tried really hard to emulate a Civ's personality and culture. Every Civ has a distinct niche. But the way they go about it isn't entirely up my alley. The bonuses are subtle. I would like them a lot of more if they were grossly overpowered, for every civ.

 

[Morningcalm]

Civ VI England is well designed because their bonuses are unique and generally cohere (no tank to accompany the Redcoat, and generally all themed to empire, even the British Museum). But consider the design of their neighboring Scotland. Nothing about the Scottish bonuses coheres with the choice of Robert the Bruce. It is as though Gwanggaeto the Great led Korea and got a science bonus that kicks in from ancient times but is named for the Korean Internet advances, and a unique resort improvement.

It's also boring to just get plain resource bonuses. Does it take much strategy to build an improvement in an area where it gets nice bonuses from neighboring resources?

More interesting diplomacy bonuses would be nice, or mixed bonuses and risks like Civ V's Egyptian Burial Tomb building, which gave the enemy conqueror of cities with it double gold. So it was always a risk to build it, especially in multiplayer.

 

[Krajzen]

Well, in civ5 many civs had primitive, very situational or plain passive abilities with barely any interaction...

America was limited to more sight, faster infantry and bomber lol. Denmark had free embark. Rome slightly more production (sometimes) and classical era strength. Greece slower burnout of cs bar. Ethiopia free faith almost from very beginning. Carthago free port. Japan no hurt units. Egypt faster wonders. Songhai more gold from ar and barbs.

How much though is needed here, really? Venice was one notable exception. Others were Austrian marry cs, Mayan calendar, Incan hills, Persian GA timing, Indonesia (suboptimal btw). Most civs and bonuses were simple things like "same building but also +3 culture".

On top of that civ5 had bad balance of unique units. Many of them were garbage or stupidly situational (slinger, atlatl, chariot, sefari, mandekalu, carthago boat, hakkapelita, kris, balista, pracinha, zero etc...) while few were devastating (keshik, camel, chukonu, longbow)...

 

[steveg700]

Broadly speaking, there are two camps of Civ players.

There are players who are impressed by and rave about big, fat, passive, unconditional bonuses that allow them to breezily coast to victory. They want a golden hammer to smoosh things with.

There are players who are impressed by and rave about clever, strategic abilities that reward active planning, and daring decisions. They want to feel smart for having figured out how wield a rapier deftly.

When you hear someone calling a civ weak because civ's shouldn't have abilities that are situational, but rather should require bonuses that make themselves readily available for the entirety of the game, you're often dealing with the first type of player. Often, but not always, as some situational abilities really are just crappy and you can't do anything with them. But often enough, it's evident that many players just don't want to have to make tough decisions, and if they have to make trade-offs, take a path less traveled, or exercise careful timing, they will deem a civ too "weak" to trifle with.

Now, it's perfectly possible to migrate between camps. In Civ V, I probably had the most fun playing Spain.The UA gave the player nothing inherently. You had to go out and find natural wonders. Likewise, the conquistador was of no special use on your own continent. But I also enjoyed the Monguls, who had a pretty golden hammer method of conquering cities with their keshiks and horse archers.

In Civ VI, they have tossed innovation aside for the most part. I expected camp #1 to be well-served by the main content, and then the devs would get experimental with DLC. Seen a little of that. I think Indonesia shakes up the vanilla playstyle nicely. But I think R&F really just bunts its way around the bases with the new civ's.

I think the historic moments are very promising, however. I just want to see that era score is awarded for actively trying to rack up moments, rather than just be some passive award for stuff that you're already doing.

 

[Ryika]

I think the major problem is that so much of it is just yield bonuses that don't make you play any differently. Your Civ is just "a little better" at something, there's little to no thought in it. That's fine for some Civs, so beginners and people who just want to play a "generic" Civ have a number of them to choose from, but in Civ VI it just feels like it's almost every Civ. The exception are mostly the ones that have strong unique units that reward a well-timed military push.

An easy way to create more unique gameplay would be to create stronger bonuses for some Civs, coupled with unique downsides. That's reasonably easy to balance too, as long as you keep bonuses and penalties relatively generic and make sure that there's no easy way around them.

 

[N7Zebracakes]

Hoping they re-do some of these as more expansions and mechanics come out, like how America's has changed.

 

[Disgustipated]

America was limited to more sight, faster infantry and bomber lol.

Ugh, don't remind me how bad America was in Civ5. America still isn't great in Civ6, but at least better than the Civ5 version. They are still well suited for cultural victories. The sight bonus was just a kick in the teeth to us yanks. You would think developers from America would make America OP. I know I would.

 

[Stringer1313]

I agree with the general tenor of this post/thread but feel like Civ 6 has nonetheless had the most unique Civs thus far. Having said that, I would happily have every single Civ lose one of their abilities and in exchange make one of their existing abilities more ridiculous/OP.

 

[steveg700]

Ugh, don't remind me how bad America was in Civ5. America still isn't great in Civ6, but at least better than the Civ5 version. They are still well suited for cultural victories. The sight bonus was just a kick in the teeth to us yanks. You would think developers from America would make America OP. I know I would.

America was great. Felt like many people just ragged on it without playing it. Unconditional extra sight is very useful. Certainly granted a big advantage in exploration, and very handy during invasions as well.

 

[bdp612]

no one should even try to build a wonder if Egypt is in the game

Not really the type of game I would like. Especially if Egypt is on the other side of the map.

Just to be clear I was advocating for the opposite. My wording was just a little weird in the full quote.

There are players who are impressed by and rave about big, fat, passive, unconditional bonuses that allow them to breezily coast to victory. They want a golden hammer to smoosh things with.

There are players who are impressed by and rave about clever, strategic abilities that reward active planning, and daring decisions. They want to feel smart for having figured out how wield a rapier deftly.

I hear your points, but consider me as a third player type, who wants big, fat bonuses that have nothing to do with breezy victories, but rather force me to play in different ways. I want a Scottish bagpipe support unit that allows me to join units into corps before unlocking the appropriate Civic (not a game changer but unit abilities could really use some innovation), or a Civ with the unique threat to move my troops over mountains (or even settle on mountains! hey why not).

I wield these examples in kind of shallow ways, but it's not hard to balance these abilities out with real rules, like maybe an exclusive mountain-capable Settler costs double the production and takes two population from your city. Of course, if you can tie this in with "active planning" (which Civ VI does excel at) and "daring decisions" (which it does not, and that's kind of my point), as well as highly tight theming with the Civ history, that would be great. I don't think this reduces the deftness in Civ game play, and it might actually increase it. The current abilities they are adding aren't exactly nuanced or complicated.

Edit: I don't actually mean that Civ doesn't have daring decisions built in, but that the differences between Civs in Civ VI do little to add or change daring decisions.

 

[Siptah]

What if it is intentional that the R&F don't have more interesting out of the box abilities? Maybe they want to keep that for post-expansion DLC civs with big names, so that these sell even better?

 

[steveg700]

I agree with the general tenor of this post/thread but feel like Civ 6 has nonetheless had the most unique Civs thus far. Having said that, I would happily have every single Civ lose one of their abilities and in exchange make one of their existing abilities more ridiculous/OP.

I was going to roll me eyes at this, but then I remembered I was one of the few folks who appreciate Civ Rev, and one of the reasons was that every civ started with some BROKEN ability.

Aztecs: All units heal after a kill.
China: All cities start with extra population.
Egypt: Start with a wonder.
Germany: All units automatically upgrade.
Greece: Work tiles four spaces away.
India: All resources immediately available.
Monguls: Take out a barbarian camp? BAM. New city.
Spain: Start the game with a galleon.
Zulu: All units +1 movement.


With every era, a new ability would unlock. Actual gameplay was sorely lacking, but the golden-hammer unique always made it feel like I was cheating.

 

[Wingednosering]

I think Civ VI is on the right track, they just have to stop reusing elements. Nothing in Civ VI has reached the level of Venice or the Maya of V yet. Why are there no loyalty boosts? No dark age boosts? Almost no golden age boosts in this entire expansion? It would be so easy to switch yields between dark/golden ages for instance. Instead we're getting three leaders with similar abilities in the same XPAC.

 

[seasnake]

Civ V's civs were far more unique in there combination of abilities and specials, but it lead to some gross imbalances. Any civ with two UUs was at a loss generally, and if you're UA was bad you simply had a bad civ to play. Germany desperately needed the Hansa just to feel at all fun, Ottomans never really got it going, and the Iroquois were actually were worse than if they had no bonus because the Longhouse lacked the production multipliers.

HOWEVER,

I still prefer Civ V's system to VI, with so many small bonuses it rarely feels game affecting. True, some were OP but they really impacted gameplay and were fun. America bought a lot of land, Spain explored like crazy and if you found some measly city-state sitting next to your wonder you took it (like a good Spaniard should). Aztecs killed their way to a better tomorrow, Mayans watched the Calendar and built pyramids, Britain built navies, the Dutch traded, Sweden made lots friends, Indonesia settled new Islands, Inca parked their cities next to mountains, and Venice sent merchants far and wide. It made for much more different game with each civ, you could roleplay better.

Civ VI's lack of overall flavor to their civ bonuses does stagnate variation and replay in what is, in almost all other respects, a superior game.

 

[Ornen]

Broadly speaking, there are two camps of Civ players. There are players who are impressed by and rave about big, fat, passive, unconditional bonuses that allow them to breezily coast to victory. They want a golden hammer to smoosh things with. There are players who are impressed by and rave about clever, strategic abilities that reward active planning, and daring decisions. They want to feel smart for having figured out how wield a rapier deftly.

When you hear someone calling a civ weak because civ's shouldn't have abilities that are situational, but rather should require bonuses that make themselves readily available for the entirety of the game, you're often dealing with the first type of player. Often, but not always, as some situational abilities really are just crappy and you can't do anything with them. But often enough, it's evident that many players just don't want to have to make tough decisions, and if they have to make trade-offs, take a path less traveled, or exercise careful timing, they will deem a civ too "weak" to trifle with.

The problem is that there are also civs that are not just situational, but that are weak overall, so that their bonuses amount to very little. A great example would be religious civs that don't get a bonus to founding a religion –– at higher levels, it's very difficult and sometimes impossible to found a religion before the AI does. This includes civs like Spain and Norway in Civ 6 or (even worse IMO) the Byzantines in Civ 5.

Anyways, if anything the problem is we don't have enough situational civs in the game. Pretty much everyone folds into minor variations (often based around district placement tetris) on the same basic playstyles.

 

[steveg700]

The problem is that there are also civs that are not just situational, but that are weak overall, so that their bonuses amount to very little. A great example would be religious civs that don't get a bonus to founding a religion –– at higher levels, it's very difficult and sometimes impossible to found a religion before the AI does. This includes civs like Spain and Norway in Civ 6 or (even worse IMO) the Byzantines in Civ 5.

To me, having religion abilities that leave the problem of getting a religion to the player is very much in line with rewarding the player for solving a problem. If it's impossible at higher difficulties, I can't equate that to a problem with the civ's design. The game shouldn't balance civ's against Deity.

Anyways, if anything the problem is we don't have enough situational civs in the game. Pretty much everyone folds into minor variations (often based around district placement tetris) on the same basic playstyles.

For sure. And unique improvements that get more food or culture for being parked next to something. And culture bombs. And belli-buffs.

 

[steveg700]

I still prefer Civ V's system to VI, with so many small bonuses it rarely feels game affecting. True, some were OP but they really impacted gameplay and were fun. America bought a lot of land, Spain explored like crazy and if you found some measly city-state sitting next to your wonder you took it (like a good Spaniard should). Aztecs killed their way to a better tomorrow, Mayans watched the Calendar and built pyramids, Britain built navies, the Dutch traded, Sweden made lots friends, Indonesia settled new Islands, Inca parked their cities next to mountains, and Venice sent merchants far and wide. It made for much more different game with each civ, you could roleplay better.

Civ VI's lack of overall flavor to their civ bonuses does stagnate variation and replay in what is, in almost all other respects, a superior game.

Also, when you played an AI in Civ V, you had a kind of snapshot understanding of what your rival could do. A lot of rival civ's with their little pu-pu plater designs just sort of run together. Oh, there's Poland. What do they do again? Um....