Civ4 Lovers/Civ5 Haters Level of Optimism for Civ6

[Fippy]

1UPT could actually work if you made the maps, say, 3-4x as large, gave units actual movement points (5+), and let cities expand 7 tiles wide (obv with much faster city/border growth and reworked tile yields).

Let's not give them ideas
1upt can never work in any Civ game, only for the "enter your favorite term here" generation of players.

Joking, i agree with your post and arrived at that same conclusion.
1upt destroys the whole game alone, it's so bad i have no interest even trying the rest and that's new in Civ -.-

 

[Staler87]

Got the game and had fun for a few days but today im playing civ IV again Therefore I'm pesimistic so far. Although most of the community like 1 upt i don't. I think it changed gameplay of the civ series negatively. I got bored so easily. In fact i couldn't get the feeling of managing an empire which civ IV always give. I'm sure there will be at least 2 big expansion packs and numerous patches. So it's better to wait for a while before playing.

Many peope who didn't like the game told their reasons here. Especially diplo is like random events taking place out of your control. Luck is more important than player's abilities. UI is a joke, AI is terrible, so on.

Something i also didn't like is civilizations and leader choices. I guess some of them will be added later with expansions. But i'd like to ask where is persia, portugal, alexander, mongols, huns, netherlands, ottomans, caesar, napoleon, etc. I think this was the last time i pre ordered a civ game before release.

Diplo may be frustrating but everything that happens is very much in your control. I don't see how luck has much to do with the game either, it actually eliminated a lot of the luck based elements from civ V (like tribal villages that gave you game-breaking rewards). To be honest the game probably has less of a luck component than civ IV.

 

[georgjorge]

I don't think Diplo is "very much under my control" when an AI attacks me on turn 9. Which attitude bonuses should I have racked up before then? Also, hidden agendas - not much you can do about it at the beginning. In VI I definitely need to maintain somewhat of an army because declarations of war will happen. What also bothers me is that I have no incentive at all to meet new AIs. With no tech trading, the only thing I can get from them is resource trades. On the other hand, if they know me they can attack me, so I don't bother getting to know them early. Since AIs also are not good at exploring far, in 500AD I still don't know all the civs on my continent, and am perfectly happy for it to remain so.

I'm still enjoying the game a lot so far. There's one massive bug which can definitely break the game: the AI doesn't upgrade its units. It does of course produce new units which are adequate for the era, but it also has a lot of slingers, chariots and even warriors running around in 1AD instead of archers/crossbows, knights and swordsmen. Doesn't exactly add to the challenge. I'm puzzled why this is still in this game, as the devs themselves noticed it before release and it should be really easy to fix.

 

[MyOtherName]

I've heard it suggested that the resource requirement for upgrades is getting in the way -- e.g. you can't upgrade warriors if you don't have iron.

 

[georgjorge]

If that's the case, then something is wrong with AI settling/resource trading. When the AI has 8 cities in the Industrial era, maybe one of those should access Iron? And I have seen instances of the AI having many cities with Encampments (reducing the resources needed for units to 1) and having Iron, and still running around with Horsemen instead of Knights. I mean, at that point I would gladly take the option for AI upgrades to not require any resources compared to what is now.

 

[ununcle]

I've heard it suggested that the resource requirement for upgrades is getting in the way -- e.g. you can't upgrade warriors if you don't have iron.

Even worse. I had Iron. You have to have 2 iron resources to build "Iron age" units if you don't build a certain district in your city. The same goes for horses. The trouble is in the 8 games I played, Iron and horses are rare and in most games nonexistant.

 

[MyOtherName]

Even worse. I had Iron. You have to have 2 iron resources to build "Iron age" units if you don't build a certain district in your city. The same goes for horses. The trouble is in the 8 games I played, Iron and horses are rare and in most games nonexistant.

I believe upgrading also requires only one of the resource.

 

[Staler87]

I don't think Diplo is "very much under my control" when an AI attacks me on turn 9. Which attitude bonuses should I have racked up before then? Also, hidden agendas - not much you can do about it at the beginning. In VI I definitely need to maintain somewhat of an army because declarations of war will happen. What also bothers me is that I have no incentive at all to meet new AIs. With no tech trading, the only thing I can get from them is resource trades. On the other hand, if they know me they can attack me, so I don't bother getting to know them early. Since AIs also are not good at exploring far, in 500AD I still don't know all the civs on my continent, and am perfectly happy for it to remain so.

I'm still enjoying the game a lot so far. There's one massive bug which can definitely break the game: the AI doesn't upgrade its units. It does of course produce new units which are adequate for the era, but it also has a lot of slingers, chariots and even warriors running around in 1AD instead of archers/crossbows, knights and swordsmen. Doesn't exactly add to the challenge. I'm puzzled why this is still in this game, as the devs themselves noticed it before release and it should be really easy to fix.

There are no attitude bonuses you should have racked, the early game rush by the AI is kinda standard in civ VI unless you're playing on a difficulty that is too low for your skill level. It isn't too hard to prepare for and crush so although the declaration of war may not be in your control you can control how you prepare for what you know is probably coming. I will agree that early game meeting new AI's is relatively useless, but I don't think that is necessarily a problem. In civ VI my first build is usually going to be a slinger.

 

[georgjorge]

I see, that makes a lot of sense. I need to get away from the IV attitude of "don't pay any attention to AI units the first 40 turns". Yesterday I lost - I am afraid to confess - an Immortal game by being Warrior rushed by turn 20 or so. I just didn't think those five Kongo warriors hanging around my capital would really attack me, so I sent out my units to explore...two turns later the city was gone.

My first builds are Warrior, Slinger, and then sometimes even another Slinger or Warrior. More for barbarians than AI though, Settlers and Builders don't do much when you can't control the territory.

 

[Chinese American]

Sid Meier's original Civ goes beyond just providing a computer version of a board game. He added many human elements to make players feels engrossed for "one more turn" addiction. You were not just a player. The game really made you feel like a leader leading his people to glory.

The 1UPT debate is really turning point of the direction for the franchise. Not about the merits of it nor the implementation. But the vision of what made the series great has been lost. Civ 5 and 6 are merely board games. It's just a set of mechanics and rules. The presentation are mere spreadsheets and severely lacks ergonomics and motivation. You are just a player in a board game. No longer the feeling of leader-citizen relationships.

 

[elitetroops]

There's been reports that the AI does early rushes even on settler difficulty. I think it's pretty dependent on how strong your military is. The weaker you are, the more likely you are to be attacked. I don't think it's possible to build up enough positive diplo early to avoid it. Diplo relations works very differently than in previous games, as it appears to be a running counter. The numbers you see are just modifiers that are either increasing or decreasing your diplo level every turn. If the modifiers add up to +5, it doesn't mean the AI likes you, only that the total diplo level goes up with +5 every turn. So if you are at -5 when you meet and 10 turns later get it up to +1, you are still far in the negative and it would take 50 turns to get it up to positive. The exact mechanics are still unconfirmed, I think, but it appears this is how it is. Therefore getting a +3 from sending a delegation immediately when you meet makes quite a big difference.

I agree that the game does not encourage you to meet other AI. On the contrary, it's often better to meet them later. For example, you can avoid a lot of warmonger penalties by not knowing the other AI.

One thing that really baffles me over in the Civ VI forums is how lots of people are complaining about how much micro management is needed when wide empires are encouraged. One of the biggest surprises for me was how little there is to do. Even in the later eras of a space game, with a very wide empire, there's like 10 clicks/turn. Select a few builds, move a few builders, then the end turn button already comes up. I was just as surprised every time how fast the turns went. It actually didn't really even feel like I was managing the empire, more like watching it develop with minimum input from my part. I mean, if this is too much micro management, what was Civ 5 like? Press the "win game" button, then watch your empire win?

On the other hand, warfare feels like way too much micromanagement. I'd be fine with it if I felt that I'm making important choices, but unfortunately I don't feel that. The AI is just so bad that it's kind of impossible to lose a war, as long as you have a semi-decent amount of units. 1UPT only makes the whole thing a lot more tedious and boring, it doesn't make it strategically interesting. Here there could just as well be a "win war" button. The result would be the same, but with much less micromanagement.

 

[MyOtherName]

One thing that really baffles me over in the Civ VI forums is how lots of people are complaining about how much micro management is needed when wide empires are encouraged. One of the biggest surprises for me was how little there is to do. Even in the later eras of a space game, with a very wide empire, there's like 10 clicks/turn. Select a few builds, move a few builders, then the end turn button already comes up. I was just as surprised every time how fast the turns went. It actually didn't really even feel like I was managing the empire, more like watching it develop with minimum input from my part. I mean, if this is too much micro management, what was Civ 5 like? Press the "win game" button, then watch your empire win?

Good UI makes a tremendous difference in regard to how tedious micromanagement feels. The Civ 4 UI (especially with BUG mod) is informative, quick, and responsive. The Civ 6 UI... is not.

One particular annoyance I had in my space race is every other turn having to click through "yes, I really do want that trade route to keep going" or "yes, spy, you should continue performing counterespionage there". Doubly so since there isn't a "do it again" button and you actually have to click through the poor interface to reselect the option.

 

[elitetroops]

Yes, I totally agree on the UI. That should be improved and does cause unnecessary clicks. The spies are especially annoying, though I've never built too many of those. They don't feel that useful, except for to protect the IZ of your capital, which always seems to get wrecked by enemy infiltrators.

 

[Cyborg T]

After reading that some players were able to win their first deity game of Civ6, on the first day this game was available, I wonder... how long did it take for someone to claim that he/she won a deity game of CIV?

 

[f1rpo]

After reading that some players were able to win their first deity game of Civ6, on the first day this game was available, I wonder... how long did it take for someone to claim that he/she won a deity game of CIV?

I didn't visit CFC when Civ4 came out, but I've just browsed through the early pages of this forum and the "Strategy & Tips" subforum. The game was released on Oct 25, 2005. The earliest mention of Deity that I've come across (Nov 1):
Deity Difficulty Strategies
Consensus: It's doable on Duel-size maps, otherwise perhaps impossible.
Poll from Nov 7:
What difficulty level do you play at ?
1 vote out of 100 for Immortal; the author forgot to put Deity in the poll, but it doesn't sound like anyone would have picked it.
Nov, 25: Anyone try Deity difficulty?
Immortal on normal settings looks easy enough, Deity doesn't, but is probably beatable.
First patch (1.09) around Dec, 5.
Dec, 17: Beating deity on archipelago
I've stopped there. Seems like the first proper victory (i.e. on the standard map) reported to CFC didn't happen until [edit] 20106 with version 1.52.

I've also kept an eye out for threads about the AI in general. I've seen claims in the Civ6 forum that the Civ4 AI was terrible at launch and didn't improve much until BtS, which doesn't match my memories as a player, and the forums don't corroborate this story either. The only early recurrent complaint seems to have been that, in some games, the AI doesn't start any wars, even with Aggressive AI enabled. I think this is still true in BtS 3.19, at least on the moderate difficulty settings. A bit later, players began to complain that the AI doesn't aggressively pursue the victory conditions; this was indeed only improved in BtS.

Nov, 18/ Dec, 1: Pleasantly surprised by the AI! + Is the AI great or what?
I'd love to see the responses if someone started threads with these titles in the Civ6 forums.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

I'd love to see the responses if someone started threads with these titles in the Civ6 forums.

You'd be shouted down, flamed, tarred and feathered, and tied to a horse and dragged away.

 

[f1rpo]

You'd be shouted down, flamed, tarred and feathered, and tied to a horse and dragged away.

Well, no one's praising the Civ6 AI. Many say the issues don't bother them much, it has always been bad, will soon be fixed etc., but some are really upset. The first few pages of the thread about the "braindead" AI are too funny: "abysmal", "the worst", "pretty bad", "really terrible", "a disaster", "utter garbage" ...

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Well, no one's praising the Civ6 AI. Many say the issues don't bother them much, it has always been bad, will soon be fixed etc., but some are really upset. The first few pages of the thread about the "braindead" AI are too funny: "abysmal", "the worst", "pretty bad", "really terrible", "a disaster", "utter garbage" ...

But the really funny thing is that some of the people who are now complaining are the ones who were getting snarky about anyone saying that Civ6 might have problems on release. To the point of some serious vitriol. Those of us who pointed out that Civ does not have a good track record of bug free releases were shouted down and called "haters". The same thing happened with Civ5. The amount of pre-pubescent name calling over the most trivial criticism or suggestion was ridiculous. This is a the problem with gaming forums in general. There is too much fanboyism prior to release, and even after, and it stifles any serious or intelligent discussion of the issues of the upcoming or newly released game.

I read about 8 pages of the thread that you linked, and so far, none of the really big mouths have logged in, but I did notice their bellyaching in another thread. I'm sorry, but given the history of Civ5 and BE, this should not have been a surprise. But everyone dutifully wore their rose-colored glasses on this one, and bought the pre-release anyway. Now they are beta testers for Firaxis, and are paying good money for the privilege, and they are complaining about it. I'm sorry, but that is the nature of the gaming industry right now. Release a half finished, or borked product, and then improve it with patches based on player feedback.

The problem is that this new trend will never change because of rampant, rabid fanboyism in the target audience. We're collective sheep when it comes to gaming, so I guess we should all get on the complaint bandwagon, because nothing will ever change unless we do. Or if we start voting with our wallets, and take mummy and daddy's Visa card away from little Tommy so he can't buy unfinished games, and then get on internet forums and yell at everybody to justify his purchase. If we stop buying unfinished games and stop being "pay for beta" testers, maybe the industry will smarten up and treat us fairly, and not release games with badly broken AI.

It will also have the side effect of not allowing me to make fun of the people who yelled at me earlier, but I'm willing to live with that.

 

[Bandobras Took]

That's actually why I didn't bother with Civ 6; they didn't support Beyond Earth nearly enough for me to feel I should give them more money.

As a side note, at least with Civ 5, the blind and rabid commentary came at both extremes -- the number of people who exaggerated or outright lied about the game's flaws was roughly equal to the number of who thought it could do no wrong and had done no wrong.

 

[georgjorge]

I have now played a good amount of time, and I think they really did a very good job on many aspects of this game. I'm enjoying almost all of it...but the incredibly stupid combat AI threatens to ruin it all. I just shouldn't be able to defend myself against an early declaration when I have two Archers and the AI has twelve Chariots (Sumeria's unique unit, pretty overpowered). But now I don't even get nervous on these occasions because I know I won't lose a single city. And I can conquer pretty much any AI just by building seven or eight units - and not because I am such a great tactician.

If some modders manage to make the AI decently competent at combat (not holding my breath for Firaxis doing that after not managing it over the years before the release), this game has a lot of potential. Diplomacy is also a mess, but that seems like it could be fixed rather easily in a patch or expansion.

The comments about paid beta-testers are not entirely fitting for the whole game, but they are true when it comes to the AI. Though I start suspecting that even with two years more development time we still wouldn't have gotten a better one, because reviewers and many players may care more for other things than challenging opponents.