Civ VI is done. So how does Civ V look in comparison?

[Linklite]

Yes! This is where I take issue with a lot of people complaining about the AI. If I wanted to play against someone who was hyper-competitive and only focused on winning, I'd play multiplayer; I'd much rather the AI play like it actually has in-game rather than meta-game objectives and like it is being driven by someone with a personality and quirks and preferences. Things like "denouncing you because you're winning" are a total turn-off for me. You might expect that from a human player in multiplayer, but I don't expect the AI to practice that kind of meta-game awareness.

Like, I agree with you in principle 100%, but I feel the AI fails at storytelling because of it's weakness. I've never had a WW2 moment (or WW1 for that moment). I've had 4v4 wars which were cool in principle, but it just ended up being 1v1 and two Andorras who declared war but nothing happened.

If the AI handled things significantly better, the storytelling aspect would be far more consistently good and I'd be happy.

 

[shaglio]

Yeah, it's always the balance between making it a game, vs making it a "sim". I mean, it's not that, obviously, but I guess a little bit since there's suddenly so many factors than can change and shape the game, it almost feels like we lost a little bit of the "personality" of the old games. But I guess that's also a little bit of the argument to "make the AI play to win" vs "make the AI play to tell a story".

After 20+ years and 6 iterations, my favorite version is still Civ 2. I'm not entirely sure why, either. I remember loving it so much that I snuck the discs to my old job and installed it on my work computer. I would alt-tab over and play a few turns and then alt-tab back to do some work. I can't believe I never got caught. Talk about one more turn!

I think part of the reason why I still prefer it to Civs 3-6 is that it was simpler. You either conquered the world or you sent a ship to Alpha Centauri (or you lost), and that's it. And because it was simpler, the AI could handle it better. The more recent games have become so bloated with features and mechanics that the AI doesn't stand a chance keeping track of all the moving parts.

 

[aieeegrunt]

?????

Every civ game since inception has involved minmaxing yields and board game mechanics. If you don't like it in Civ6 you must have absolutely hated civ 4.

Maybe you're playing the wrong franchise.

And of course there will be some choices (in this case cards) that are better than others. This is inevitable in a game where you have options, I think. People here will dissect things until finding one that is "best" in most case. And even if they were all somehow made completely even, that's not really a choice either.

I’ve been playing this franchise since the original board game and I have never had the issues I have had with this one.

The problem with Civ6 is that it has NOTHING except board game style minimaxing, and there is usually only one optimal strategy to use.

You slot the same cards everytime. Spam settlers and Magnus Chop everytime. The same wonders and pantheons get sniped by the AI every time. This game has the least variety and actual strategic decisions of any game in the series, including the Revolution games.

Slotting serfdom for a turn so I can mass spam workers and then swapping in a science boosting free thinking card, or god forbid running them together brings any sense that this is an actual developing culture to a screeching halt and planks me in the face that this is a game

Not only a game but a badly balanced and very simple one!!! There should be more cards, they should come with downsides as well as upsides and certain ones should be mutually exclusive. Serfdom should absolutly kneecap both science and wealth generation and keeping it slotted should have loyalty maluses as well.

Another huge problem is how absolutly pathetic the AI is. There is zero significant challenge, your plans are never significantly upset or derailed. Really there is NOTHING in this game that does that with fhe partial exception of the hilarity of some barbarian tribe on a glacier having the world’s largest and most advanced military.

Speaking of military waging war in this game is torture. Your troops slowly crawl forward and you have to solve a sliding tile puzzle every time you move them. There is zero room for any sort of manouver. It makes the western front in WW1 look like the eastern front in WW2. The combat system is ridiculously deterministic as well.

As well as being safe, boring and slow it’s hilariously ahistorical, continuing the trend. Continuous fronts that 1UPT imposes simply did not happen outside of western europe during WW1. They’ve taken the Eurocentric Anomaly and made it universal

An AI with twice my military score can surprise war me and it isn’t even remotely a threat because of how slow and ponderous warmaking is.

Come home doomstacks, all is forgiven.

Basically this game is a dream for passive planner builder types, and everyone else is bored to tears.

 

[Zaarin]

Like, I agree with you in principle 100%, but I feel the AI fails at storytelling because of it's weakness. I've never had a WW2 moment (or WW1 for that moment). I've had 4v4 wars which were cool in principle, but it just ended up being 1v1 and two Andorras who declared war but nothing happened.

If the AI handled things significantly better, the storytelling aspect would be far more consistently good and I'd be happy.

No, you're right--the Civ6 isn't doing anything right. I just feel like a lot of the AI complainers simply want the AI to act like multiplayer humans, which...is extremely undesirable from where I'm standing. Better, smarter AI is something we agree on--I just don't want it acting like it's in a game and knows it's in a game.

 

[aieeegrunt]

No, you're right--the Civ6 isn't doing anything right. I just feel like a lot of the AI complainers simply want the AI to act like multiplayer humans, which...is extremely undesirable from where I'm standing. Better, smarter AI is something we agree on--I just don't want it acting like it's in a game and knows it's in a game.

Forget about having a “personality”, I just want it to be an actual presence in the game and be able to do basic things properly.

Seriously getting surprised war by someone with twice my military should be a pants filling desperation moment and should punish me for neglecting my military

Instead I slot the absurdly overpowered and grossly ahistorical half price upgrade policy card, suddenly guys with clubs and arrows are elite musketeers because of course their experience clubbing barbarians two ages ago totally transfers, and meanwhile the AI has been slowly crawling forward a tile at a time getting shot to pieces by the ICBM’s that ancient walls and garrison camps come with

 

[Hatchie]

The system I miss the most from Civ V which you mentioned is the CS politics - pledging protection, warning other Civ not to attack them (thus being able to protect them diplomaticaly) and ultimately being forced to uphold the pledge or cowardly let the CS to it's fate. It would also work so well in Civ VI! CS got expanded with the benefits system that gives you even more reason to want to protect them. You can't just buy infinite favor for gold, the envoys are quite limited - so gaining some for pledging to protect a CS and loosing them for not honoring your pledge is even more impactful. The Diplomacy system could also tie into that, perhaps being able to gain diplomatic favor or even victory points for doing what is right and protecting the weak against strong would be so thematic!
I really don't understand why they haven't implemented it in Civ VI and I believe the game is lesser for it!

 

[SirMediocrity]

I've mentioned before that Civ should look to CK3 for inspiration on religion. Another point it could look to CK3 for is that sometimes the purpose of a war is something other than to take land. In fact, Civ (in any iteration) is very poor at representing anything short of total war, a modern concept.

I have a similar sentiment as well. I feel like religion should be something you cannot necessarily control, although maybe you can become its head of faith. Right now, however, religion just feels like an extension of your civ 99% of the time, which is extremely unrealistic and not even enjoyable from a gameplay perspective. It loses on both accounts there.

Another thing I'd like to see is meaningful restrictions placed upon the player based upon government form. For example, you may have greater authority as a despot or absolute monarch than as a president, constitutional monarch, or doge. Obviously, these shouldn't be too harsh (as civ is a 4X game at heart) but it would be nice if they were more immersive in that regard.

 

[aieeegrunt]

The system I miss the most from Civ V which you mentioned is the CS politics - pledging protection, warning other Civ not to attack them (thus being able to protect them diplomaticaly) and ultimately being forced to uphold the pledge or cowardly let the CS to it's fate. It would also work so well in Civ VI! CS got expanded with the benefits system that gives you even more reason to want to protect them. You can't just buy infinite favor for gold, the envoys are quite limited - so gaining some for pledging to protect a CS and loosing them for not honoring your pledge is even more impactful. The Diplomacy system could also tie into that, perhaps being able to gain diplomatic favor or even victory points for doing what is right and protecting the weak against strong would be so thematic!
I really don't understand why they haven't implemented it in Civ VI and I believe the game is lesser for it!

I really really like the way Civ6 handled city states and the envoy system, the problem here is how dumbed down and limited diplomacy is in this game.

And allies should absolutly NOT be able to declare war on one of your suzerains unless doing so breaks the alliance and has them declare war on you as well. It’s pretty ridiculous.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Another thing I'd like to see is meaningful restrictions placed upon the player based upon government form. For example, you may have greater authority as a despot or absolute monarch than as a president, constitutional monarch, or doge. Obviously, these shouldn't be too harsh (as civ is a 4X game at heart) but it would be nice if they were more immersive in that regard.

Someone else mentioned it but I like the idea where each type of government having a malus would be more immersive.
Something like under a democracy you wouldn't be able to declare surprise wars, no faith purchases of faith yields under communism, and no international trading under fascism.

 

[Zaarin]

no faith purchases of faith yields under communism

*scoffs in Russian Orthodox*

 

[aieeegrunt]

Someone else mentioned it but I like the idea where each type of government having a malus would be more immersive.
Something like under a democracy you wouldn't be able to declare surprise wars, no faith purchases of faith yields under communism, and no international trading under fascism.

I know the current trend in game design is win harder but seriously the concept of trade offs and opportunity cost needs to be reintroduced to Civ

Like whipping used to have consequences but you can have serfdom with no downsides now.

Because Russia under the Tsars was so well known for having a happy and well educated peasant population

 

[beetle]

I know the current trend in game design is win harder but seriously the concept of trade offs and opportunity cost needs to be reintroduced to Civ

+1, the opportunity costs of social policies was something I really appreciated with IV and SMAC. (Maybe even III, I don’t remember.) The lack of that dynamic was one reason I was late to try V. But I ended up liking the V model much more than I thought I would. Periodically, throughout the whole game, the player makes choices that feel important, because the benefits are immediate. And while none of the V polices have a down side, there is still tension between opening up a new tree or working to fill out an opened tree.

Now, compare this to VI. Fewer opportunities to make SP choices, an overwhelming number of them, and yet the SP picks have so very little impact on the game. (And again, no “bad” choices.) Firaxis should do a hard reset IMHO, and pay more attention to making the game fun.

 

[youngsteve]

Two words 'Vox Pouli'. It is in a different league to CIV6. In fairness if you were comparing final version of CIV5 to CIV6 that might be different, but we are not. CIV6 will always be average due to the fact Firaxis wont release the dll for the game to modders like CIV5, so they are unable to overhaul the game to take it to another level like Vox Populi has for CIV5. Many wont buy any further games in the series because of this short sightedness.

 

[Platypusbill]

What I don't like in 6 as compared to 5

What civ6 did better

• Traders building roads (no longer micro managing that)

The new road system is worse IMO. Manually managing your workers to do it in Civ 5 wasn't that tedious and you were pretty much done building roads (before the railroad upgrade) by the medieval era, unlesss you were building more orads for military purposes.

Meanwhile, in Civ 6, you often have to send out trade routes you don't want (which are locked in for like 30 turns) just to get roads between your cities, because not having them is a pain and the alternative method is ridiculously expensive and slow. Sometimes you don't even get a road with traders because the game decides to make the trade route across water.

 

[UWHabs]

The new road system is worse IMO. Manually managing your workers to do it in Civ 5 wasn't that tedious and you were pretty much done building roads (before the railroad upgrade) by the medieval era, unlesss you were building more orads for military purposes.

Meanwhile, in Civ 6, you often have to send out trade routes you don't want (which are locked in for like 30 turns) just to get roads between your cities, because not having them is a pain and the alternative method is ridiculously expensive and slow. Sometimes you don't even get a road with traders because the game decides to make the trade route across water.

I think the basics of "traders build roads" is a good mechanism that, in theory, is a great thing that can reduce micro and create a somewhat more "natural" road spam.

Where the game goes wrong is having the only manual options be super costly, come late, and be a pain to actually construct. Build charges are super valuable, and builders get expensive, and roads themselves aren't actually that important that you want to spam them that had they simply had them cost a builder charge to build, I don't honestly know how many I would build.

So to me it's a system that civ 6 has done both better and worse than past games.

 

[Linklite]

I think the basics of "traders build roads" is a good mechanism that, in theory, is a great thing that can reduce micro and create a somewhat more "natural" road spam.

Where the game goes wrong is having the only manual options be super costly, come late, and be a pain to actually construct. Build charges are super valuable, and builders get expensive, and roads themselves aren't actually that important that you want to spam them that had they simply had them cost a builder charge to build, I don't honestly know how many I would build.

So to me it's a system that civ 6 has done both better and worse than past games.

The only time I've ever considered building roads manually (railroads are a different matter) is when I'm playing as Portugal - sometimes it's useful to have roads leading to CSs and other civ's cities. Otherwise, it's just much more economical to direct a trader to that city and have it create a road for you, even if you sacrifice a few yields for x amount of turns. The few hundred gold per 3-6 tiles is just ridiculous compared to the handful of yields for a couple of dozen turns.

 

[enKage]

The biggest secret of Civ5 is how it is possible it runs far slower than civ6.

Any kind of computer I had.
Even on my curent laptop (i7, 16GB RAM, graphic 8GB) civ5 especially late takes so much time skipping turns.

The only clear advantage civ5 had over civ6 was late game and ideologies combined with ourism influence. This one element makes civ5 playable and is truely brilliant.

There are also some more advantages
a) difficulty level in civ5 is better than "endless peace" of simciv.
b) if it is the final update of civ6, too many bugs are still present. Civ5 didn't have this issue


Still both lose in nearly every aspect to civ4

 

[iammaxhailme]

The biggest secret of Civ5 is how it is possible it runs far slower than civ6.

Any kind of computer I had.
Even on my curent laptop (i7, 16GB RAM, graphic 8GB) civ5 especially late takes so much time skipping turns.

The only clear advantage civ5 had over civ6 was late game and ideologies combined with ourism influence. This one element makes civ5 playable and is truely brilliant.

There are also some more advantages
a) difficulty level in civ5 is better than "endless peace" of simciv.
b) if it is the final update of civ6, too many bugs are still present. Civ5 didn't have this issue


Still both lose in nearly every aspect to civ4

I'm not sure about speed exactly, but I have civ 6 crash fairly often and I've never had civ 5 crash except when making incorrect tweaks to the files.

 

[Xur]

I played civ1 and didn’t understand much because of my age - it was fun. I loved civ2 and played it a lot. I didn’t love civ3 much, but I enjoyed it. I lost a few years playing civ4 and loved the mods. Then the franchise changed a lot with 1upt, but I still played civ5 - less than civ4. Civ6 just sucks.

You cannot compare one version to another. You have to see it in the context of that point in time that they released. Civ4 was simply the best. Would I play it today? No.

If Firaxis goes 1/3 design again, then I’d advise them to think “AI” first. Ask if the AI can handle a certain feature before implementing it. Drop builders, and get workers back. I think that would help the AI. Drop 1upt - this would also help AI. Moving 20 units every turn isn’t what made civ fun anyway. Make civ4 baseline for civ7 design.

Having said that, civ6 was so bad for me that I am not buying civ7 if it’s anything like civ6.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I played civ1 and didn’t understand much because of my age - it was fun. I loved civ2 and played it a lot. I didn’t love civ3 much, but I enjoyed it. I lost a few years playing civ4 and loved the mods. Then the franchise changed a lot with 1upt, but I still played civ5 - less than civ4. Civ6 just sucks.

You cannot compare one version to another. You have to see it in the context of that point in time that they released. Civ4 was simply the best. Would I play it today? No.

If Firaxis goes 1/3 design again, then I’d advise them to think “AI” first. Ask if the AI can handle a certain feature before implementing it. Drop builders, and get workers back. I think that would help the AI. Drop 1upt - this would also help AI. Moving 20 units every turn isn’t what made civ fun anyway. Make civ4 baseline for civ7 design.

Having said that, civ6 was so bad for me that I am not buying civ7 if it’s anything like civ6.

Other than giving me the option to purchase tile improvements I’m on the same page