A lot of the problems everyone is mentioning can and probably will be fixed with a few patches, updates and mods. Most of the bigger bugs are gone already (depending on platform, I guess). The UI has become okayish if you install a dozen mods, and a lot of what has been done by the modders will be incorporated into the regular game (with the modders probably adding more good stuff on top.
There are some medium annoyances, like bad balancing, which are to be expected in a game as complex as Civ, and most of which will probably be worked out over time. Civ changes bother me a bit more than I thought, but they are an interesting design choice, and I will get used to them - the lack of synergy between many leaders and their historical civilizations, however, makes me kinda mad. For some, choosing their "own" civ is a bad idea in 90%+ of games. That shouldn't happen IMO.
BUT, and that's the big BUT which kinda breaks the game for me: It suffers from the same problems that Civ VI did, and some of them are even amplified.
The AI is horrible, useless and idiotic. Watching settlers doing sightseeing tours across the continent all the time is just the most visible thing. AI can't plan ahead, can't follow a consistent strategy, can't decide on a plan towards victory and execute it. And the worst thing is: It once again cannot fight.
Dumbing down city planning to the point where you just drop buildings in the obvious best places for them helped a bit. At least the towns aren't completely screwed up when you conquer them. But the AI doesn't look for resources or good tiles, doesn't grab them fast, doesn't include defendability into choosing city locations (hence the spam all over the continent) and doesn't set aside locations for wonders, so they mostly get built in crappy places.
The introduction of Commanders, which was supposed to make fighting manageable for the AI, actually completely destroyed its fighting abilities. AI has no clue what to do with them, just letting them stroll randomly across the map, packed with troops which never see the light of day. AI lets them walk into enclosed spaces where they can't drop their troops and waits until you kill them off. It doesn't protect them at all; doesn't use them to funnel infantry through their lines of archers and reinforce strategic locations from the reserve; doesn't apply their bonuses in and meaningful way. Once you start a war, it does the same it did in Civ VI: send troops to die en masse.
Also, snowballing hasn't been eliminated or even reduced by either crises or Age reset. If you know how to handle a crisis, you will escape mostly unscathed from it, while the AI suffers. A human player knows the start of the crisis is basically the moment where you stop thinking about this age and just prepare for the next one. Stop building things which will be worthless in a few turns, get Legacy paths to the exact points where you will get bonuses, minimaxing your Army and Navy so you have the right combination of troops and commanders. The AI, however, is completely ignorant of this, and so completely wastes the final turns of each age building useless things and doubling down on stuff which will go away. You will almost always come out (relatively) stronger when the new age begins.
And this, in effect, creates the exact same problems in single player that Civ VI suffered from: If you play on anything less than Deity, your victory is always a foregone conclusion (if you're a halfway decent player). I heard that for the really good players, even Deity is too easy; that's not the case for me, but it forces me into doing the same things over and over again. You cannot win a peaceful game, with the bonuses the AI gets leaving you behind all the time. You need to fight, and basically kill off at least one other leader, which is laughably easy. After that, you either snowball to victory or just continue declaring war - because, well, you already have the troops, so why not use them? And once you're far enough beyond the settlement limit, it doesn't matter anymore.
The thing is, we waited 8 long years for Firaxis to do something about the AI. They didn't, and now they release a new game with exactly the same problem. Kinda makes me sad.
Moderator Action: Edited your post to comply with the site's rules on inappropriate language without changing meaning. leif
There are some medium annoyances, like bad balancing, which are to be expected in a game as complex as Civ, and most of which will probably be worked out over time. Civ changes bother me a bit more than I thought, but they are an interesting design choice, and I will get used to them - the lack of synergy between many leaders and their historical civilizations, however, makes me kinda mad. For some, choosing their "own" civ is a bad idea in 90%+ of games. That shouldn't happen IMO.
BUT, and that's the big BUT which kinda breaks the game for me: It suffers from the same problems that Civ VI did, and some of them are even amplified.
The AI is horrible, useless and idiotic. Watching settlers doing sightseeing tours across the continent all the time is just the most visible thing. AI can't plan ahead, can't follow a consistent strategy, can't decide on a plan towards victory and execute it. And the worst thing is: It once again cannot fight.
Dumbing down city planning to the point where you just drop buildings in the obvious best places for them helped a bit. At least the towns aren't completely screwed up when you conquer them. But the AI doesn't look for resources or good tiles, doesn't grab them fast, doesn't include defendability into choosing city locations (hence the spam all over the continent) and doesn't set aside locations for wonders, so they mostly get built in crappy places.
The introduction of Commanders, which was supposed to make fighting manageable for the AI, actually completely destroyed its fighting abilities. AI has no clue what to do with them, just letting them stroll randomly across the map, packed with troops which never see the light of day. AI lets them walk into enclosed spaces where they can't drop their troops and waits until you kill them off. It doesn't protect them at all; doesn't use them to funnel infantry through their lines of archers and reinforce strategic locations from the reserve; doesn't apply their bonuses in and meaningful way. Once you start a war, it does the same it did in Civ VI: send troops to die en masse.
Also, snowballing hasn't been eliminated or even reduced by either crises or Age reset. If you know how to handle a crisis, you will escape mostly unscathed from it, while the AI suffers. A human player knows the start of the crisis is basically the moment where you stop thinking about this age and just prepare for the next one. Stop building things which will be worthless in a few turns, get Legacy paths to the exact points where you will get bonuses, minimaxing your Army and Navy so you have the right combination of troops and commanders. The AI, however, is completely ignorant of this, and so completely wastes the final turns of each age building useless things and doubling down on stuff which will go away. You will almost always come out (relatively) stronger when the new age begins.
And this, in effect, creates the exact same problems in single player that Civ VI suffered from: If you play on anything less than Deity, your victory is always a foregone conclusion (if you're a halfway decent player). I heard that for the really good players, even Deity is too easy; that's not the case for me, but it forces me into doing the same things over and over again. You cannot win a peaceful game, with the bonuses the AI gets leaving you behind all the time. You need to fight, and basically kill off at least one other leader, which is laughably easy. After that, you either snowball to victory or just continue declaring war - because, well, you already have the troops, so why not use them? And once you're far enough beyond the settlement limit, it doesn't matter anymore.
The thing is, we waited 8 long years for Firaxis to do something about the AI. They didn't, and now they release a new game with exactly the same problem. Kinda makes me sad.
Moderator Action: Edited your post to comply with the site's rules on inappropriate language without changing meaning. leif
Last edited by a moderator:
