Civ VI reviews on Steam

[c4c6]

Civ games always seem to release to divided opinions. The vanilla is always less than the sum of it's predecessor + the expansions. [...] It's not until the game is really rounded out that I really begin my grand Civ endeavours in an obsessive way.

Yes, some structures seem repeatable forever ... despite many believe again and again "This time ALL IS DIFFERENT" (with the new woman/man, the latest investment in stock market, the recent Civ version ...)
One who has 'hopes' and strange/too high expectations can easily fall victim to dissapointment and even anger ...

It reminds me of what I wrote Oct 20, 2016:

And it has really been a long way since I discussed in the newsgroup 'comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic' in the 'civ2proposal' thread the advantages of hexes over squares ...

Traditionally in Civ the odd numbers bring new elements and the even numbers find perfection.
So I feel, the goal is near, finally. Just two more little steps, just two expansions and I'll find salvation.

 

[Guandao]

Apparently, Civs can declare war on each other in my game. Norway declared one on Sumeria late in my Nubia game. However, the AI Civs tended either to denounce each other or make a Declaration of Friendship. Very few AI wars.

Towards the end, I became friends with Norway, and the rest denounced me because "they feared me winning the game". Except for Sumeria, which was bugged. At some point while friends with him, his Civ declared war on me (a very serious bug, since I don't think that's supposed to happen). This has happened at least once in a previous game (with Poland) and that was before the current patch. There was no way of making peace with him, since that option never showed on his leaderscreen. I would say this specific bug is even more game-breaking than the trade deal ones, since this supposed friend of my was sending units to attack my cities.

 

[blackbutterfly]

in my opinion civ 6 is very well playable and a lot of fun, especially with my friends in multiplayer!

AI don't count as friends!

I gave Civ VI a thumbs up review and I now think that maybe a little generous. FYI I'm a huge fan of the widely derided Beyond Earth. I actually really enjoyed that game playing 1000+ hrs of BERT!

 

[Siptah]

Yes BERT was a lot of fun for me, too. Just a bit too one dimensional.

 

[HEF]

Oh, I hope & pray for another Beyond Earth, Rising Tide type game spinning off Civilization VI!

 

[nzcamel]

It doesnt feel like an Empire builder.

At least you can build more than 4 cities.

 

[Zuizgond]

No, wait. It is obvious that this game requires expansions to be worth anything - UI continues to be a mess, the AI continues to suck and worst of all, it isn't fun. Too clicky and too repetative. It's the SimCity societies of civs. It doesnt feel like an Empire builder.

My problem is civ6 DOES improve on some things, so I have a hard time going back to civ5. The franchise is in a weird limbo for me, and I just hope that Firaxis Can salvage it.

Why an expansion? Do we need to pay again to have a proper UI and AI?

 

[Victoria]

Do we need to pay again to have a proper UI and AI?

Of course! Its likely not designed that way, its just budgets and the unforeseen that cause these issues. We are merely the cattle that graze on the grass of quiet desperation.

 

[Ryika]

At least you can build more than 4 cities.

You could always do that in Civ 5, just wasn't that easy, and not very strong without a good plan.

But I do agree that, in terms of encouraging players to build an actual empire, Civ 6 does a way better job at making than Civ 5. It's just that every other element in the game tells you constantly that you're playing a virtual board game, and not actually leading an empire that puts me personally off.

 

[c4c6]

Why an expansion? Do we need to pay again to have a proper UI and AI?

Of course! You can get the whole fun in the 'complete edition' for the price you paid already. But you decided to buy too the ticket for the 'be part of the "Making of civ6" - Live Challenge' beforehand, so that is ok.

Btw, it's not the money - the real cost is the invested lifetime. So enjoy it.

 

[God of Kings]

I have created a thread about Civ VI reviews on the Mac App Store: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-vi-reviews-on-mac-app-store.622551/

Apparently, reviews on the Mac App Store tends to be more positive than on Steam, but still has harsh criticisms.

 

[Acken]

You could always do that in Civ 5, just wasn't that easy, and not very strong without a good plan.

But I do agree that, in terms of encouraging players to build an actual empire, Civ 6 does a way better job at making than Civ 5. It's just that every other element in the game tells you constantly that you're playing a virtual board game, and not actually leading an empire that puts me personally off.

The balance wasnt even so far off as people trying to make it seem look like. A slight nudge toward easier happiness control, no scaling of NW in Civ5 would have been just fine to make playing wide easier to play without requiring good conditions.
Meanwhile, yes we can make bigger empire but at the cost of barely any mechanic that slows it down and where spamming city is just the way to go. 4X games need strong expansion slower mechanics. It needs to force you to slow it down but also give you interesting tools to make late game expansion interesting (something Civ5 failed as).

 

[Xur]

The balance wasnt even so far off as people trying to make it seem look like. A slight nudge toward easier happiness control, no scaling of NW in Civ5 would have been just fine to make playing wide easier to play without requiring good conditions.
Meanwhile, yes we can make bigger empire but at the cost of barely any mechanic that slows it down and where spamming city is just the way to go. 4X games need strong expansion slower mechanics. It needs to force you to slow it down but also give you interesting tools to make late game expansion interesting (something Civ5 failed as).

Civ6 slows down spamming cities via the subpar UI. It drains time and fun out of the game. Why should it be discouraged to "fill in" the map with cities anyway? Just get me a build queue, governor autobuild or the old infinite production to gold. I need my UI to help me - not fight me. I prefer an autobuild option that just leaves districts to be player choice.

Might be a feature request, but in my opinion it just displays how little thought and time that went into the UI. Why do I have to babysit every single city? I some times build a really crappy city in desert or tundra/ice just to prevent the AI to build there, and on super large maps there's a lot of these cities I'd rather just forget about.

I doubt it changes though... pretty sure Ed Beach isn't a fan of automation like I am. He said in a video that automation is used when something isn't fun (paraphrasing). I love automation, I love games like factorio... I know they cant be compared, but automation isn't bad.

Userinterface is like a joke. If you have to explain it, then it's bad. Nothing about civ6's UI is intuitive... it's bad and makes for a bigger opponent than the AI.

 

[Zuizgond]

But you decided to buy too the ticket for the 'be part of the "Making of civ6" - Live Challenge' beforehand.

I never decided to buy that. I wanted a finished product.

 

[God of Kings]

Civ VI is far from complete.

We can't rely on fan-made patches forever.

 

[c4c6]

I never decided to buy that. I wanted a finished product.

I have no idea how far your experiences with computers or software etc go.

From my point of view it was not very likely to receive 'a finished product' when purchasing VanillaCiv6. But then it is more than 30 years that I've sworn to myself: NEVER buy again a V1.0 program ... the naming conventions changed since then (probably because of this ), but technically we have now civ6 v1.0.5 or so and I'll still wait, perhaps for civ6 v1.2.2 or so. Just because I know myself: In the current state I won't enjoy playing civ6 as much I want me to enjoy it.

civ1 had no expansions; civ2 addons were nice to have, but nothing really important; civ3 started AFAIR with leaving away essentials in the vanilla for later release with expansions. For civ4 & civ5 you can read in every second thread, that the final version was BY FAR BETTER than the vanilla. So what could a informed customer expect?

Did you really believe you will get 'a finished product'?

 

[LedStone]

While it doesn't make it okay, Firaxis is not the only game studio to put out games that aren't a finished product. Does Civ VI work as it stand and provide fun games a good part of the time? Yes. But could it use some work, namely on UI, AI and more depth to the game? Yes as well. IMO so many of these studios put out games basically in Beta nowadays, like the Battlefields, Call of Dutys and tons of others. Most games come out as Betas because games are super expensive and time consuming to make, to get playtesting on a huge scale, to get money into the studio so they can keep developing and because some studios (EA #1) give themselves Holiday season deadlines and release stuff just to release stuff. COD 11 anyone?

On the bright side it looks like Firaxis's XCom 2 just received a major dlc so you'd hope they'd be focusing on Civ VI expansions more now. With Civ V and even Beyond Earth receiving dlcs out the wazoo in recent years I think it's safe to say Civ VI will be seeing some improvements sometime soon. Is Xcom 2 any good by the way? As a huge Civ fan I might have to check it out

 

[Siptah]

Both XCOM games by Firaxis are really, really good. No comparison to the state civ V and civ VI have been in at release. It shows that Firaxis is able to deliver great products even on release. I remember some bugs in XCOM 2 at release, but nothing too bad.

 

[Xur]

I have no idea how far your experiences with computers or software etc go.

From my point of view it was not very likely to receive 'a finished product' when purchasing VanillaCiv6. But then it is more than 30 years that I've sworn to myself: NEVER buy again a V1.0 program ... the naming conventions changed since then (probably because of this ), but technically we have now civ6 v1.0.5 or so and I'll still wait, perhaps for civ6 v1.2.2 or so. Just because I know myself: In the current state I won't enjoy playing civ6 as much I want me to enjoy it.

civ1 had no expansions; civ2 addons were nice to have, but nothing really important; civ3 started AFAIR with leaving away essentials in the vanilla for later release with expansions. For civ4 & civ5 you can read in every second thread, that the final version was BY FAR BETTER than the vanilla. So what could a informed customer expect?

Did you really believe you will get 'a finished product'?

One problem there. Firaxis also said this about previous games with expansion packs, and said that civ6 was different. It was a "complete" game, and here we are again... a shell of a game. We got the delivery vehicle and just need to content now.

 

[krc]

It's not terrible. You can successfully play it (if you are willing to work around some bugs and the UI, which _is_ terrible). The problem I have with it is that I find it incredibly slow and tediously boring -- even at standard speed. I've gone back to playing Civ V or BERT, and only read the Civ6 forums occasionally in order to see if there is an expansion yet, and to see if the expansion (when it arrives) is likely to remove some of the boredom.