[GS] CIV VI thoughts from a CIV IV player

As much as I dislike the elitism on these forums by "Veterans" and as much as I enjoy CIV VI, the highest difficulty of CIV VI probably is considerably easier than in previous versions of CIV. I won't deny that. There's a lot of room for AI improvement in CIV VI, but I have faith we're going to get it eventually.

 

I didn't know anything about the leaders, I identified a powerful leader the way I identified other powerful strategies in this very first game. That's what good players do.

Even so this walkthru is at small fraction of what I (or other CIV deity players) can bring to a strategy game we've practiced.

 

Keep hammering at it, and one day you may also become an "elite veteran". Although, I'm sorry to say, achieving said status in civ 6 will, in all likelihood, not grant you a similar status in the civ 4 arena. For that, you will have to hammer at Four.

Then you'll understand.

 

I had enough ways to deal with stacks. CIV:Warlords difficulty arose most from how fast the AI developed. They could upgrade to fully medieval army just past 1000 BC (imagine how that would look in Civ 6), hit fast victory dates, etc

 

So? My point still stands. You happened to be playing the most powerful leader and you were playing on an old version of the game. Much has changed since then. Should we start talking about the initial release of Civ IV and how terrible the AI was and how poorly the game played? Or do you only consider the later releases?

In any case, Civ IV was a much simpler game. Not easier, but simpler. Thus, the AI was easier to manage from the developer side. Personally, I prefer a more complex game with a not-as-good-but-still-pretty-good AI. You might feel differently, and that's fine. But, we probably don't need yet another thread comparing Civ IV and Civ VI. We've done that enough times.

 

You need to put that in context, though, with how few people on Steam have won Civ 6 at any level.

The average Civ 6 gamer per these stats never finishes a game at any level, and something like 15% of them never even play the game once (based on stats for the simplest achievements that you'd get if you played 50 or so turns of the game). Of the people who have won the game at all, the win % at Deity is much higher, though I don't remember what it was exactly.

I will say, though, that I believe there is a steep learning curve with Civ 6. That learning curve, however, is based more on either "un-learning" things you bring with you from past Civ game experience (don't worry about growing your population, for example) or simply being overwhelmed with choices which are not well balanced "under the hood" and it takes a while to suss out what is and isn't effective.

Once you've figured out how to win peacefully in 300 to 350 turns, it doesn't matter whether you're playing Prince or Deity. The game will play out much the same. That's a core disappointment with those who prefer a greater challenge: not that the game is too easy on Prince or King, but that Immortal and Deity aren't any more difficult.

 

FALSE choices. Why? Because for a dilemma to be meaningful, each option has to have a negative side. In civ 6, there are no negatives. It's most of the time a boring exercise in choosing among bonuses, positives, Kumbaya options. Civ 6 is the less punishing strategy game I have ever known, if it is at all. I'm sorry for the "feelings" crowd, but the truth is that without punishment for bad choices, there is no strategy.

Call it whatever you want, but it is not a strategy game.

 

No iteration of Civ 6 represents a challenge to CIV Deity veterans. My initial assessment of Civ 6 Deity difficulty was about on par with CIV Monarch difficulty, and there was a long way from Monarch to Immortal, and then the Immortal-Deity jump was as big as all the levels between Noble and Immortal.

As for vanilla CIV Deity, it was almost as hard as CIV:Warlords Deity.

 

Do you just hang out here to tell us all why this game is bad? Because it seems like that's all you do. Why bother? Don't you have something better to do?

 

Oh, please. The AI was garbage in vanilla and, honestly, it's still not great. As I said before, IV is a simpler game and the AI can better handle it. You just don't notice all of the bad decisions that it makes because stacks of doom and ridiculous bonuses cover them up.

Also, please lay off with the elitism. Plenty of people won IV on Deity. You're not special.

 

*Insert something I've posted 257 times before, because that makes it more true.*

 

If I remember correctly literally the only two people who won a CIV:Warlords GotM were Rusten and I. That's two.

Meanwhile Civ 6 first Deity GotM had dozens (50?) winning submissions a month or so after release, many of these players probably playing their first game ever the way I did and winning nonetheless.

 

Stop it with the "elitism", man. You are not special because I am not special.

I cannot fathom why the "eternally triggered" fail to grasp that us the veterans who complain, do so because WE CARE for the franchise. Worst case, if only complaining or criticizing (which is not even true for many of us, any intelligent person would check signatures, file posting, etc, for more tangible contributions), that still is a much better contribution than trying to blindly justify mediocre development "because I cannot beat it".

 

It would be nice to discuss the precise figures of this in a different thread, here i'm more curious about how many of these deity winners were actually completely clueless, unfocused or had almost no knowledge of game mechanics as claimed by the guy i quoted? My guess is not many.

It's so funny to me how AI difficulty is such a big deal to some of you because every civ game has always had the same implementation for higher difficulties: more AI handicap and nothing else. I'm not even claiming that the difficulty of playing against civ6 deity in any way equals the deity of civ4, 3 or even 5. So i guess what i'm trying to say is that AI bonuses could easily be tweaked so that it would be absolutely impossible to win without using cheesy, gamey maneuvers. This way we'd play against an almost unbeatable super-deity AI and OP would have to be satisfied.
But i'm asking you, how fun would that be to play?

 

While true, the difference is that the AI could actually win the game; which it struggles to do even with a lot of bonuses in Civ 6 on the highest levels.The AI cannot use late game systems at all. It's not just bad; it's also incomplete after 2 expansions really proving the nonsense uttered by many "Civ 5 was broken at start, so it's justifiable to release a pile of crap as long as it gets fixed some day" just didn't work. If that continues to follow, I may as well just skip Civ 7 for at least 2-3 years.

The flaws of Civ 6 are beyond that of AI implementation though. It is simply too easy to advance in the techs and civics, and this breaks the game.

I mean you could also break the game before, but it wasn't as common. Even these days people are still getting ridiculous trade deals because of the utter lack of common sense in the game mechanics.

I don't care about difficulty much. And the term "veteran" is honestly just as meaningless as "gamer"-- it's entirely self appointed and arbitrary. The other thing is that nobody actually cares. But as a whole, there are some very fundamental problems with the game that can really bring it to a halt.

 

For those who found civ 6 no challenge. May i advice picking a low tier leader like Philip of Spain. And rushing religion. (Maybe not the best example as Philip profits from its religion traits). It takes away many turns of which you could do better things in the early stages of the game. It should increase the difficulty by 2 levels. From say picking a strong leader which fits your strategy and fast expand to 6-8 cities. Grabbing the best spots. Perhaps you also savescum when needed. I don’t have much experience with early game aggression but i did some archer rushes with a single warrior for flipping the city and it took no effort on deity in the past. Play outside your comfort zone.

You could go all in on one district type like science but the game gets harder when you play the districts more spread out. And anticipate if the AI could make a strong move on you. Like leaving behind some troops on the other border in case of surprise attack. Playing it more safe.

This method is not ideal and the current AI is still terrible and irratic at points. it could mean the difference of playing civ 6 now and waiting for say another 1-2 years till the game is in a better state. Or even giving up the game. I’m currently enjoying the game on immortal with this method. I dont expand as fast as i could as it makes the game easyer to play.

I’ve been beaten by the AI 2 times just before scoring a science victory. Yes i could have won those games if i played inside my comfort zone but i would probably have quitted the game 60 turns before victory screen on autopilot and thus had more fun.

 

This entire statement is untrue on the basis of the definition of "opportunity cost".

 

Nope. Opportunity costs are not the same as "costs", or negative consequences of decisions.

Because we see the unrealized potential of the civ 6 model, and hate that it remains unrealized?

 

An opportunity cost is, by definition, literally a negative. Your criticism is factually incorrect, but you're too stubborn to understand that.