I don't know about the bug-free claim. I am experiencing numerous bugs. The most notable of which involves the spawning of Barbarians. My very first attempt to play and no Barbarians, reinstalled and same issue. Third attempt and Barbarian swarm. This alone puts a player at a huge advantage or disadvantage in regards to era score. I get play the map, so I could easily say the barbarians are a part of the map, but this was not the case in vanilla or Rise and Fall, so I feel it is a bug. Any game that ships and causes me to question the validity of my game files after 30 minutes of playing, in my opinion, is not ready for the public.
I have seen the Barbarian thread here where people seem to be experiencing this. For myself, I haven't. Admittedly I have only played a couple of games and a couple of restarts, but hadn't had anything beyond the usual with barbarians. I haven't even been swarmed by an alerted outpost yet since GS came out. But I can see how this would certainly negatively affect your game.
There are more examples of bugs I had not experienced before that I do now. For time, I will speak to one other. I had achieved cultural victory and for several turns it did not trigger...
I do not run mods. I have a few times, but I have reinstalled the game since then, as well as a refresh of windows.
Fair enough, I would certainly call this a bug of some type. Again, not something I have seen myself. My victories have all triggered when achieved.
A few other underwhelming observations from my first two games. I achieved a Diplomatic Victory some where during the Atomic Era on Emperor difficulty during my first play-through. This game was played over a week or two. I found it unsatisfying that victory was so easy on level 6 difficulty, investing hours of my time, never even getting a sniff of the new late game mechanics. You could say, why did you go for it when you knew you would win? I had read that the AI works against you as you approach that victory condition, so I assumed they would vote to take away a victory point on my last vote. They did not and I won. Is this a bug? Not by definition, but starts to feel that way when you breeze to victory and never see any of the new late game.
Now this does seem odd, but I can't see it being a bug, just a quirk of the game setup where you 'lucked' out. All the AIs decided to not care about Diplomatic Victory, or perhaps some were gunning for victory points so there wasn't enough votes against you. I am not sure how your votes went, or if you have a lot of emergencies, or how you gained your points. I won my Diplomatic Victory by voting, and only won because Eleanor voted for herself rather than join the anti-Canada bloc to take away a point from me. And again, I can see how this would be somewhat disappointing that you seemed to cruise to victory and won early before really getting to experience the new toys of the later eras. But to be honest the Diplomatic Victory is normally a bit of a slog it seems. It could do with needing more points to win, but combined with more ways to get victory points beyond voting and emergencies.
Sometimes the stars just align in certain ways. I've had a game or two where absolutely no AI was trying for culture. One I remember I was trying for a science win when I started receiving notifications of my cultural dominance over civs. When checking the rankings, I saw I was way ahead with culture and tourism without even planning any of it. So much so that I couldn't get my science to catch up in time and so just took the cultural win.
You must think by this point I use exploits and cheese the hell out of things. Not in the least. I purposely avoid all exploits I am aware of, never used the trade exploit, never pillaged a tile, never fought a direct war, never took a city. I was a party to a war or two because I was allied with everyone I could ally with and wars happen, but I just defended my borders, which I think were only harassed once or twice by a single ship. I also participated in a surgical strike to liberate a city state during an emergency.
Don't think that at all. Just the video under discussion is fully about a couple of big gold-related exploits that can be done in the game. But the exploits have to be actively done by the player (well, the free units for Mali not so much, but does require a fair bit of set up and luck to get the right city state). If you don't engage in them, then they have no effect on your gaming experience, other than perhaps knowing that they are there.
The pillaging issue is an interesting one. I wouldn't really call it an exploit. It is something that the AI can engage in and profit from, though they likely don't really realize the advantage to pillaging all the tiles they can see. For myself, I still pillage, but only in the course of war. I don't delay taking a city just so that I can pillage every last tile. I will still send my cavalry off to pillage strategic resource mines or vulnerable districts on the way, but I'm not burning down every mine and farm I see. Just fighting a war in a way that I think would tactically be done ... deny the opponent valuable resources and infrastructure, and take the targets I am aiming for efficiently. The numbers will likely (hopefully) get tweaked in an update patch, or more hopefully they'll assign grievances to pillaging actions.
I am assuming your question was rhetorical here. As I stated in my previous post. I do not use exploits. Like Magnus/Policy card, never did it.
Yes, sorry, the question was totally rhetorical. I had actually assumed you didn't use any exploit, hence why you were enquiring about it from having seen the video.
FenrisWolf456. It seems we have both had wildly different experiences playing the latest iteration of Civ6. I have found it underwhelming. I would like a challenge. I hesitate to play Deity because I'd like a shot at a religion and I'd like a few wonders. I do not like bee-lining things, I do it from time to time. When I sit down to play a game I want to know I have a chance to win, but not a guarantee. I want the game to give accurate information about it's systems and give me the opportunity to experience those systems. I want the game AI to be reasonably adept at using the systems in the game. Exploits annoy me because they take me out of the game. They make me aware of the moving parts and make me feel responsible for the experience. Games are entertainment and something to occupy my mind. Escapism. As free time is at a premium in my life, I would like to use that time engaged in something of quality, something that can bring me joy and an experience that ends in accomplishment. I want to feel as though the time was not wasted away mindlessly. I am having trouble doing this with Civ 6 and especially Gathering Storm, because I feel like I have to continually modify my play-style, avoid features, be mindful of the AI and it's short comings as to not break the experience for myself.
Totally agree with you. I am not one to beeline as well, other than if my current game I decide I want a certain tech, such as my current Ottomans game, where the bombards are becoming obsolete and not packing the punch I need to get the Dutch capital I am after, so I will likely focus on getting to artillery so that I can continue my campaign.
I like some challenge too, but I am perhaps a little more casual in regards to Civ nowadays. I want to have an experience, building an empire and competing against a number of rival civs on some strange different world from our own. It's why I don't go for Immortal or Deity, I don't want the stress and restricted build queues to survive the early game, and I too would like to perhaps build Stonehenge or the Pyramids and not have to just shrug and not even try for them.
I equate it to going to the movies, paying for a ticket to be entertained and being told that I am to work the hand crank on the projector. They tell me if I do it just right the movie will be amazing, best one I have ever seen. Don't go too fast or too slow, you will ruin your own experience. Anyway, I'd just like to see some good actors, a decent script, some reasonable special effects, and if that's too much to ask, I would at least like to see the ending.
I hope that these bugs and quirks can be worked out for you. I have been trying to get a different game up and running with some mods and have ended up with seemingly random CTDs, so I can understand the frustration with something that is ruining what you would like to be a fun experience.
For me, though, it seems the game has hit it's objective. The AIs and systems have proved to be engaging enough to keep my clicking one more turn, and I often make it to the Information and now Future eras with at least a couple of the AI still competitive in culture and science (though perhaps I have seen another bug ... twice now I have had Flat Earther agenda leaders who were my main competitors for the science victory. It's a bit odd to be told how useless looking to space is, when they are launching satellites and moon missions. Though I guess technically the agenda is against other civs that pursue science and space.)
I will also say that some mods may help improve your game, so I wouldn't outright discount them from your future games. There are UI mods that vastly help provide more transparency of numbers (they don't things you can't find out, just save you the hassle of digging down into various menus to see information that is readily available). There are mods that slow the pace of the game, so that might allow you to more fully experience late games. I have been using a mod that helps the AI promote its units, and that has helped provide a more challenging experience in wars. I have also been trying out some mods that modify the resources needed for units and to tweak global warming, hoping to find something that is more fitting for how I would like these mechanics to work.
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