[GS] CIV VI thoughts from a CIV IV player

[leif erikson]

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

The answer to that potential will not be found in Civ4 imnsho.

One can argue that some of the concepts from Civ4 may be applicable. The way they get implemented would probably be quite different.

 

[greenOak]

I'll start of by saying that civ IV is by far my favorite version of civ. I agree with some of what you say, but I think a lot of it is unfair criticism.

Some thoughts on civ vi from a civ iv fanatic. Hopefully some fresh stuff in there that hasn’t been mentioned more than 100 times already .

Overall, I find CIV VI enjoyable and I like trying out the new mechanics after each expansion. However, I can’t see it standing the test of time since it suffers from a well-documented lack of challenge due to the terrible, terrible AI….so much so that I would go as far as calling this a bad civ iteration due to the BAD AI.

Yeah the AI is terrible - probably the worst its ever been. Although, this doesn't bother me personally that much since I don't find playing against a 3/10 AI to be significantly more enjoyable than playing against a 1/10 AI.

Also, major era changes don’t feel that powerful (renaissance, industrialization etc…). I hardly feel any difference in my empire when hitting those key moments in history.

Agree 100% - especially with regards to industrialization. This is probably my biggest gripe about the game.

Placing districts on the map: fine, but is it really such an interesting/impactful decision whether you go for a +2 or +3 adjacency? It feels like a very ‘local’ decision with little impact. Creating a ‘specialist’ or ‘cottage’ city in IV was a lot more fun (and had a lot more impact thanks to the huge multipliers you could apply to a city).

The difference between a +3 and a +2 campus in the early game is actually quite significant. This gap also increases throughout the game with certain policy cards and/or dedications. Big cities suck in Civ VI, and while that is something that needs to be addressed, I don't feel there was much enjoyment in spamming cottages/farms on all your flat tiles. The end result was satisfying though.

Placing wonders on the map: fine, but does it really make the game more fun?

Don't really have an opinion on this.

Trade routes: maybe too powerful, and maybe too much time spent on them? Time that could have been spent on more interesting/strategic decisions (most of the time you’re just sorting the trade routes by whatever benefit you want and sending the trader accordingly…where’s the strategy?)

I don't think trade routes are too powerful. The bigger problem stems from lack of production which makes gold buying superior to hard building in a lot of situations. The strategy in trade routes has more to do with timing than route selection. And quite frankly, I'm okay with this as I doubt I'd have much enjoyment out of micromanaging 20+ trade routes.

Policies, border expansion, harbors in non-coastal cities, expendable workers, great works, no transport boats for troops at sea, no anarchy when switching governments, unique bonus per great person, limited strategic resources: all great changes, especially policy cards (one of the few areas where I find the decisions you make can have a big/strategic impact)

Agreed.

Natural wonders: nice, but, again, do they really matter? Overall another minor mechanic that adds some interest on the map but doesn't really change/affect much

Settling near an early game natural wonder is an extremely strong play often giving you precious yields such as culture, science, and faith. Starting near a good natural wonder can definitely slingshot you forward in this game.

City states: nice addition (not sure it makes sense from a historic point of view to have so many of them around for so long but at least they make the game more interesting by providing nice bonuses)

Well from a historic point of view it doesn't make much sense for it to take 500 years to march your troops across your empire. Of all the historical immersion complaints, city-states lasting forever seems like it would pretty far down on the list.

Civic tree: fine, but again most of the time it seems it doesn’t matter what I select as my next civic, I just click on whatever and move on (especially late game)

Beelining certain civics can be strong (ie political philosophy), but for the most I agree.

City specialists: A traditional and great CIV mechanic is unusable in this iteration.\

Agree 100%.

No research trading: big change, I think I’m ok with it.

I agree. I'd kind of like to see a system where techs from previous eras were discounted while techs from future eras have extra cost. The AI is simply incapable of catching up on tech if it ever falls behind. Tech trading mitigated this problem to some degree, but it always felt gamey.

1 UPT: very long discussion has already been made about this… Only thing to add is that I miss “preparing for massive war” by switching all major cities to building tanks and stuff (like one would do in IV). In VI you just need to keep upgrading your early units and sprinkle a few extra units here and there to create armies…

Yeah this is a big problem. However, lack of late game production is a bigger culprit than 1 UPT. It is just far more efficient to build your army in the ancient/classical eras when units can actually be produced quickly.

Natural disasters: for me it’s another mechanic that usually has small impact and can be ignored

I agree.

CO2 stuff: probably requires another thread to discuss this in depth but I don’t really find the mechanic entertaining (too repetitive/predictable). Btw, didn’t CIV 2 have a mechanism where the sea levels would rise if one used too many nukes?

I'd like to see them bring back the grassland -> plains -> desert transformation that occured in prior games. I find global warming a nuisance right now. It discourages settling from the coast which is already weak, and pushes you to beeline flood walls which then take a painfully long time to build because of the lack of late game production (see a trend here?) And of course you can just ignore the whole mechanic and be fine.

- Victory conditions:

o religion: unplayable (seriously, what were the devs thinking?)

o domination: fine

o science: exhausting (takes too long with the GS changes)

o diplo: I haven’t tried it, doesn’t look that interesting

o culture: incomprehensible, but worth a try as a peaceful option

Eh don't have much of an opinion on this.

And a final thought:

For a CIV iteration that puts so much emphasis on the map, it is very disappointing that one cannot even see which tile has a hill and which resource has been improved….

Don't have a strong opinion on this either.

 

[Aristos]

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

No. An opportunity cost is "the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen" by economic definition. If you can read, the quote does not need explanation now does it? A negative consequence is different. I.e. choosing Free Market has the opportunity cost of NOT getting the benefits of choosing Rationalism, but has no negative consequences represented in civ 6 ( in real life, the similar "policies" would each have their own negative consequences, as with almost everything in life; nothing is "pure positive").

A good game example, from the old school of Firaxians, is the Social Engineering policies in SMAC. Each option had positives and negatives. Almost everyone here agrees that SMAC is a masterpiece, perhaps THE masterpiece that came from FXS. Another example is the Social Policies in civ 4 (although weaker already in this sense).

Your opinion is by definition and by facts incorrect, but you are too arrogant to understand that.

The answer to that potential will not be found in Civ4 imnsho.

One can argue that some of the concepts from Civ4 may be applicable. The way they get implemented would probably be quite different.

Not completely, no, obviously. But some components (many?) in civ 4 had superior development and realization; same for even Civ 5 after BNW. Now they had these very grand ideas (which is good), but most of them very poorly implemented (which is very bad, to the point of being worse than no innovating at all), coupled with the WORSE AI of the series bar none (I have been here long enough to draw that comparison). Previous versions had their share of good innovative ideas, and for some or most the execution was also on pair. Not with civ 6, IMVHO.

 

[Nefelia]

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

While technically a strategy game, I view Civ as a game where one can build an empire while creating an alternate history and some interesting lore. If you are looking for a strict strategy game that provides a challenge, you obviously chose the wrong game.

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.

I've never even tried a Deity game. I have read enough in these forums to know the strategies, and given a bit of practice and refinement I'm sure I could pull it off. I don't bother because I have plenty of fun on Emperor/Immortal while creating my own challenges.

If you are not challenged by Deity, can you not find a way to create additional objectives in order to increase the challenge? Try a larger map, perhaps? Maybe stop exploiting the broken strategies developed on these forums and build more organic cities and empires.

Civ 4 was great, as was Civ 5, and as is Civ 6. They each play differently, but all of them were fantastic. If you don;t enjoy Civ 6 in its current state, them I can only hope you have better luck in Civ 7 (or perhaps in another game that better focuses on challenging strategic play).

 

[footslogger]

G

Almost everyone here agrees that SMAC is a masterpiece, perhaps THE masterpiece that came from FXS.

Firaxis should consider updating the graphics of that game and relaunch it at a low price for more recent gamers.

 

[Browd]

Firaxis didn’t develop SMAC and doesn't own the SMAC IP.

 

[MrRadar]

Firaxis didn’t develop SMAC and doesn't own the SMAC IP.

I don't know about the current ownership status of the IP for sure, the publisher was EA, so maybe they retain the rights, but as for the development... could you comment the first 8 seconds or so of this clip:

 

[Aristos]

Firaxis didn’t develop SMAC and doesn't own the SMAC IP.

Oh come on man, you know what I meant... it was developed by the old school pre-Firaxis Firaxians (Reynolds et al).

While technically a strategy game, I view Civ as a game where one can build an empire while creating an alternate history and some interesting lore. If you are looking for a strict strategy game that provides a challenge, you obviously chose the wrong game.

False. It was a very good strategy game pre-Civ 5.

 

[Kwami]

False. It was a very good strategy game pre-Civ 5.

And yet, you're still here complaining nine years after V launched. There must be something that keeps you here!

 

[Aristos]

And yet, you're still here complaining nine years after V launched. There must be something that keeps you here!

Yes. The likes of you.

 

[Kwami]

Yes. The likes of you.

Aww. <3

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

But i'm asking you, how fun would that be to play?

More enjoyable than the current version, as there would be more of a reason to pay attention to what the other civs are doing. The irrelevance of who your neighbours are or what they are doing is one of the reasons Civ 6 is my least favourite iteration in the Civ series. They neither act as a speed bump, interfering with your plans, nor do they act as a meaningful pace car, as they are so slow to their own victory. Those aspects are important to me. I also like the AI leaders to have distinct personalities, another place I find Civ 6 weak. Playing as each leader is more distinct in Civ 6 than any prior version of Civ, and the dev team has done a great job there. For my tastes, though, they all behave more like each other than they did in Civ 5, for example.

For the life of me I cannot understand why we cannot see each version of the game as different and simply enjoy the version we prefer without these comparisons?

Agree with this wholeheartedly. Some of the things I dislike in Civ 6, for example, are purposeful design features that make the game more enjoyable for other people.

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.

Before dropping the game, I did all of these. Play as Tamar, build a Holy Site first, run projects until you get a religion before settling a second city or a second district. Don't chop (I was surprised, actually, how little impact chopping actually had; win times barely increased with no chops). No taking AI cities, obviously. Also no trying to make friends with the AI, don't do anything to improve your relationship with them, don't accept offers of friendships, etc.

The AI still doesn't win before T300 (I haven't played GS, so maybe this has changed), still won't attack you or do any damage if they do, and you still win science or culture victories by the mid 200s or earlier.

Most importantly, it didn't make the game more enjoyable. It didn't create the one more turn feeling, there was never any pressure or concern about getting a settlement site or a wonder or worrying about whether a neighbour would attack and would they hurt me if they did. Also, the city building and empire building I found weaker than in more recent versions of civ as there isn't the same balancing act around expansion that there was in Civ 4 or 5. Most of the time you don't need to build anything, just run projects because very few things to build offer a positive return on investment, and managing the happiness/corruption of your cities is easier than in any other version.

These, though, are just my thoughts, and the things that I enjoyed in prior versions of Civ that I find missing in Civ 6. Other people enjoy other aspects of the game. For them, I have no doubt Civ 6 is a great game!

 

[S1AL]

No. An opportunity cost is "the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen" by economic definition. If you can read, the quote does not need explanation now does it? A negative consequence is different. I.e. choosing Free Market has the opportunity cost of NOT getting the benefits of choosing Rationalism, but has no negative consequences represented in civ 6 ( in real life, the similar "policies" would each have their own negative consequences, as with almost everything in life; nothing is "pure positive").


A good game example, from the old school of Firaxians, is the Social Engineering policies in SMAC. Each option had positives and negatives. Almost everyone here agrees that SMAC is a masterpiece, perhaps THE masterpiece that came from FXS. Another example is the Social Policies in civ 4 (although weaker already in this sense).

Your opinion is by definition and by facts incorrect, but you are too arrogant to understand that.

Read the first two words of the definition you quoted. Then read them again.

What you've repeatedly and explicitly failed to acknowledge is that the Civilization series playstyle is inherently designed to be progressive and compounding. When advancement is the default, opportunity cost is a true loss; therefore a sub-optimal choice is de facto penalized, even if it's not spelled out for you in big, bold letters.

The issue is not "false choice", which actually has a definition you should look up, but that you do not like hidden rather than explicit penalties.

 

[mitsho]

Civilization should be split up into several games within itself: An ancient era where you settle*, an empire era where you build up and a modern era where you mess around. They need different set-ups, different goals and different mechanisms since playing with the lense of the settling era in the modern times is just not fun (just click next turn).

*I‘d even split that up into a roaming era and a settling era. As the Mongols for example, you may then want to stay longer in the roaming era and maybe even skip the settling era altogether.

That would be one way to break the „always advance“ cycle, victory conditions then would also have to be split over the four phases or so. Oh, and the map needs to be full from the start, no empty lands free to settle, that feels like something out of 1994...

 

[Aristos]

Read the first two words of the definition you quoted. Then read them again.

What you've repeatedly and explicitly failed to acknowledge is that the Civilization series playstyle is inherently designed to be progressive and compounding. When advancement is the default, opportunity cost is a true loss; therefore a sub-optimal choice is de facto penalized, even if it's not spelled out for you in big, bold letters.

The issue is not "false choice", which actually has a definition you should look up, but that you do not like hidden rather than explicit penalties.

No matter how much you try to twist words to accommodate your "understanding", the definition is pretty clear, and the examples I provided are even more so. If you cannot or do not want to understand the difference, I cannot help you anymore. Your problem.

As for false choices, I find it funny that you are suggesting an optimal meta as a defense for your misunderstanding of the concept of "opportunity cost", while you fail to grasp that the existence of an "optimal path", or meta strategy as many like to call it here, is the very case of a long series of nodes each of which representing a false choice (that is, if you do not choose the optimal link out of every node, you are sub-optimal; hence, false choice). Once again, if you cannot or do not want to understand what you yourself are saying, I cannot help you.

 

[Archon_Wing]

What is this optimal path though?

This gets memed around a lot, but falls apart under scrutiny.

 

[Aristos]

What is this optimal path though?

This gets memed around a lot, but falls apart under scrutiny.

I don't know, ask him, he was the one that used "optimal path" as a defense against the existence of "false choices"...

I am not sure there is a true optimal path in civ 6 as there was in vanilla civ 5 (including expansions). To me, the false choices in civ 6 come from the seemingly opposed concept: that most of the choices in game (early, mid and of course late) have no real impact in the end result, hence false choices. In a sense, it's the exact opposite of "optimal path", but it still produces the same effect: many decisions, as cool as they look, are irrelevant in establishing the victor (the human).

 

[Archon_Wing]

Yea, well, that's my problem with this whole line of discussion. It's a whole lot of abstraction. What kind of "decisions" are we talking about here, vs them made in other games are we talking about here?

For example, I would say the World Congress is really just noise and has basically no impact on gameplay strategy due to the inability to control things to meaningful effect as it to drive one's strategy as well as a far more shallow concept of player interaction as well.

If you ask me, the superiority of Civ 4 arises from it rewarding the player from understanding the mechanics while still providing variety; it is leagues above shallow concepts such as "punishment" or "follow this rail" that many other games are accustomed to because they can't think of a real way to challenge the player. In Civ 6, you don't need to master or even understand most of the mechanics to beat the game at any level because as you implied-- it doesn't even matter. We can easily observe this pre-GS where your ability to micromanagement chops is like 90% of winning,.

I could write a pretty huge essay on why but I'm just wondering why it's hard for other veterans to explain. And it's not just because Civ 4 is some exercise in Masochism; considering its sequel delved into it far more-- punishing the player for doing like anything. Perhaps they're too good for it?

 

[Aristos]

Yea, well, that's my problem with this whole line of discussion. It's a whole lot of abstraction. What kind of "decisions" are we talking about here, vs them made in other games are we talking about here?

For example, I would say the World Congress is really just noise and has basically no impact on gameplay strategy due to the inability to control things to meaningful effect as it to drive one's strategy as well as a far more shallow concept of player interaction as well.

If you ask me, the superiority of Civ 4 arises from it rewarding the player from understanding the mechanics while still providing variety; it is leagues above shallow concepts such as "punishment" or "follow this rail" that many other games are accustomed to because they can't think of a real way to challenge the player. In Civ 6, you don't need to master or even understand most of the mechanics to beat the game at any level because as you implied-- it doesn't even matter. We can easily observe this pre-GS where your ability to micromanagement chops is like 90% of winning,.

I could write a pretty huge essay on why but I'm just wondering why it's hard for other veterans to explain. And it's not just because Civ 4 is some exercise in Masochism; considering its sequel delved into it far more-- punishing the player for doing like anything. Perhaps they're too good for it?

The implementation of the World Congress is noise and impact-less, not the idea. A good example for this is: the WC in Vox Populi packs a punch, and is essential in the late gameplay. Same idea, even same engine, different implementation and much better results. Which, once again, puts the spotlight on the devs...

The immense superiority of Civ 4 arises from the fact that it not only does reward the player for good choices (most of them real choices which have big impacts on how the game devolves), but it also punishes the player for poor or bad choices, which is at the core of a game that wants to call itself strategic. Punishment ala Civ 5 is fake difficulty, not the consequences of bad choices, and hence not desirable. When veterans like me or @TheMeInTeam refer to punishment in the civ world, we refer to the necessary consequences for the player resulting from bad decisions. For that to happen, you first need real choices.

And for the choices to be real, they need to have an impact on the short, mid and long term of the game flow AND on the end result. Civ 4 managed to achieve that in most, if not all, of the decision nodes in a typical game. Civ 5 faked punishment by doing what you said: punishing every decision. Civ 6 eliminated punishment: do whatever you want, you are here to win. A WIN button would have been an insult even to the most Instant-Gratification addicted fellows, so they wrapped it with beautiful, inconsequential fake choices.

 

[Archon_Wing]

The implementation of the World Congress is noise and impact-less, not the idea.

Yea, but you could extend that to a lot of the game. I only judge things as they are.

The immense superiority of Civ 4 arises from the fact that it not only does reward the player for good choices (most of them real choices which have big impacts on how the game devolves), but it also punishes the player for poor or bad choices,

Such as?

Punishment ala Civ 5 is fake difficulty, not the consequences of bad choices, and hence not desirable.

Honestly, I think like with most fake difficulty, it arises from simply thoughtless design. Aka, "nobody tested it". Granted, it's now standard fare to make players beta testers now.

OTOH, pretty much all of Civ difficulty is fake difficulty, since it just gives the AI massive bonuses, though.... so one should be careful.