[NFP] Civilization VI: Possible New Civilizations Thread

[Zaarin]

Lol I thought you said it was Sumeria with Gilgabro that was designed the worst?

It was Sumeria and Gilgabro until Babylon outdid them.

 

[AntSou]

Except NFP pretty clearly signals they've run out of civ design ideas given how unimaginative most of the designs have been.

I disagree. Maya, Vietnam, Gaul and Portugal (it seems) are some of the most fun Civs in the game, especially because Firaxis seems to have more openly embraced asymmetric designs. I'm hoping they do the same for other Civs in April.

- Byzantium/Basil's abilities are all smoothly interconnected;
- Babylon is fun even if a bit bonkerish, but I enjoy it a lot. I honestly don't find it more "broken" than Russia;
- Ethiopia is basic but that's fine too. They shouldn't all be at the same level of complexity. E.g., Rome;
- Gran Colombia's Comandante Generals are awesome. The promotion ability is a tiny fun detail and I've come to embrace the extra movement. Even if it feels flavourless, it makes for fun gameplay.
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I'd say:

1. Vietnam
2. Portugal (?)
3. Maya
4. Gaul
5. Byzantium
6. Gran Colombia
7. Babylon
8. Ethiopia

 

[Zaarin]

especially because Firaxis seems to have more openly embraced asymmetric designs.

I like asymmetric designs, but I haven't seen any in NFP except Maya.

Babylon is fun even if a bit bonkerish, but I enjoy it a lot. I honestly don't find it more "broken" than Russia;

At least Russia's brokenness is Russian flavored brokenness. I did enjoy Babylon once Port Limes fixed it, but I shouldn't need mods to make a civ seem even vaguely related to the civilization whose name is slapped on it.

Ethiopia is basic but that's fine too. They shouldn't all be at the same level of complexity. E.g., Rome

That would be fine if Ethiopia weren't also one of most brokenly OP civs in the game.

 

[AntSou]

I like asymmetric designs, but I haven't seen any in NFP except Maya.

What do you mean? Gaul can't build districts adjacent to its city centre, Vietnam can only build them on features and Portugal can't trade via land.

World Wonders as well.

Nah, World Wonders do bloat the game since they're buildable in every playthrough. So it matters where it's placed on the tech tree, how it affects every other element in the game, etc.

Civs/Leaders, Natural Wonders and City-States have more design freedom. Especially the latter two.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Vietnam and (presumably) Portugal have been solid, and I like the Maya. But Gran Colombia, Gaul, Byzantium, and Ethiopia have all been pretty boring, and I think Babylon is the worst design in the game.

The only thing that makes Gran Colombia interesting is they have the only civilian UU in the game.
I can see Ethiopia being simple though I do like the idea to purchase things easier with faith, especially archaeologists, and not necessarily needing to found a religion, just acquire faith to gain tourism.

I like asymmetric designs, but I haven't seen any in NFP except Maya.

Does Gaul, Vietnam, and Portugal not count?
Gaul can't build specialty districts adjacent to the city center and gain adjacency bonuses from each other.
Vietnam can only build specialty districts on woods, rainforest or marsh.
Portugal can't trade internationally unless the cities are on a coast or have a harbor. Not to mention they can build their Feitoria in foreign territory.

Edit: Triple ninja'd above

 

[Zaarin]

What do you mean? Gaul can't build districts adjacent to its city centre, Vietnam can only build them on features and Portugal can't trade via land.

Vietnam and Portugal seem like very minor asymmetries to me, but I will grant Gaul--unfortunately I found Gaul's design more tedious than fun, but it is asymmetrical.

I can see Ethiopia being simple though I do like the idea to purchase things easier with faith, especially archaeologists, and not necessarily needing to found a religion, just acquire faith to gain tourism.

I really like Ethiopia's design on paper; in practice they are so bonkers over-the-top powerful they're not even fun to play. At least that was my experience.

 

[DogeEnricoDandolo]

I just want to add that since Ethiopia was released at the same time as SS mode, and 99.9% of you played it with Voidsingers, which is the most broken society and combos incredibly well with Ethiopia, and then found the civ both boring and broken and never touched it again. I have to say that the standard Ethiopia is not as insane as you may have thought, since you don't have the obelisk anymore but they are still very strong. The issue I have is that civs that get rewarded for doing something any civ would do anyway would lead to that civ feels like a standard civ with nothing unique.
If you ask a casual player what Ethiopia's civ ability does, a lot of them will tell you you get 1 faith for every improved resource, which is wrong. Any civ that is so strong it doesn't require correct understanding of what it does, to me, is a bad design.

 

[Zaarin]

I just want to add that since Ethiopia was released at the same time as SS mode, and 99.9% of you played it with Voidsingers, which is the most broken society and combos incredibly well with Ethiopia, and then found the civ both boring and broken and never touched it again. I have to say that the standard Ethiopia is not as insane as you may have thought, since you don't have the obelisk anymore but they are still very strong.

I am the 0.1% then: I chose Owl of Minerva in my Ethiopia game--strong, but not game-breakingly strong like Voidsingers. Then I tried the Hermetic Order with Bull Moose Teddy, and, uh, wow. What a great concept. What a horrible implementation.

 

[Futumch]

Zaarin, do you play with lots of game modes toggled on together, or tend to use just one at a time ?

(on topic) : Portugal looks like it'll be fun to try tomorrow. Given that the March DLC pretty much wraps up the new civs, I wonder if that will put the brakes on this topic ? I know, not likely : )

 

[Zaarin]

Zaarin, do you play with lots of game modes toggled on together, or tend to use just one at a time ?

One at a time for the most part, except I've never used Apocalypse or Tech Shuffle modes (no interest in either), and in my Vietnam game I used both Heroes and Legends and Dramatic Ages as well as Barbarian Clans because I was behind and hadn't tried them yet (probably won't use either of the first two again--unless I decide to take Dramatic Tamar for a spin at some point). Barbarian Clans is probably the only one I'll use consistently--at least until Corporations and Monopolies is fixed. I like the idea of Secret Societies, but mostly it feels...awkward? I like the Owls of Minerva and I like the idea of the Hermetic Order, but it just needs a lot of polish before I'd make it a staple of my game. Same with Heroes and Legends.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I am the 0.1% then: I chose Owl of Minerva in my Ethiopia game--strong, but not game-breakingly strong like Voidsingers. Then I tried the Hermetic Order with Bull Moose Teddy, and, uh, wow. What a great concept. What a horrible implementation.

I wonder how fun, I mean broken, Owls of Minerva will be with Portugal?
Or is it the other way around?

 

[Zaarin]

I wonder how fun, I mean broken, Owls of Minerva will be with Portugal?
Or is it the other way around?

Guess who's suzerain of all the coastal city states?

 

[ManoftheHour333]

I like the idea of Secret Societies, but mostly it feels...awkward? I like the Owls of Minerva and I like the idea of the Hermetic Order, but it just needs a lot of polish before I'd make it a staple of my game. Same with Heroes and Legends.[/QUOTE]


I could not agree more-many of the modes seem fun at first but then reveal themselves to just be so awkward (And in the case of C&M gamebreaking). Like I was saying-they need to polish and streamline these systems. There is always a surprising level of depth and replayability when a feature is implemented well...but when it's just "another thing" on an already bloated system then it just comes off as annoying.

Barbarian clans is closest thing to alright but I'd like to see barbs continue to persist/more clans to pop up over time. But the game mode just adds some niche options and new reward system so it's not much. C&M is close to being phenomenal but just needs that last layer of polish so that you don't only win CV every game. Compare those to SS or Heroes where you have entirely new menus, options, and insane mechanics/bonuses (Mostly in SS)...it just comes off as shallow and unnatural. Which is a shame could SS is a fairly cool concept (Besides the vampires that shouldn't be there and SSs shouldnt affect diplomacy since they're supposed to be secret lmao) and could lead to come awesome bonus-combos like many have already found...but I digress.

Simplicity is underrated and polishing systems often keeps them more simple on the surface. It's this kind of simplicity that gives an antacid to a bloated game like the current Civ VI

 

[DogeEnricoDandolo]

What I can I'm glad about in Civ6 is the overall improvement in civ designs. It is unavoidable that there are civs that are strong and ones weak, but apart from Norway and Georgia upon release, there is no civs where you can say "There is literally nothing going on for this civ." And after numerous buffs and hopefully after the April patch, I think it is safe to say that even the weakest civ has at least 1 out of the 4 bonuses usable. You cannot say the same thing about Civ5. The Ottomans is barely playable, all Japanese bonuses are borderline worthless with the Longswordsman replacement (Samurai) that gets outdated in 2 turns, and of course, most infamous of them all, the Iroquois with a bugged Civ ability (to this very day), a worthless Swordsman replacement that no one builds and a building so notorious that it goes down in the Civ history as the only case where the unique bonus is somehow detrimental to the civ and worse than the standard version. Even the Tsikhe when it first came out was better than its standard version.

 

[ManoftheHour333]

What I can I'm glad about in Civ6 is the overall improvement in civ designs. It is unavoidable that there are civs that are strong and ones weak, but apart from Norway and Georgia upon release, there is no civs where you can say "There is literally nothing going on for this civ." And after numerous buffs and hopefully after the April patch, I think it is safe to say that even the weakest civ has at least 1 out of the 4 bonuses usable. You cannot say the same thing about Civ5. The Ottomans is barely playable, all Japanese bonuses are borderline worthless with the Longswordsman replacement (Samurai) that gets outdated in 2 turns, and of course, most infamous of them all, the Iroquois with a bugged Civ ability (to this very day), a worthless Swordsman replacement that no one builds and a building so notorious that it goes down in the Civ history as the only case where the unique bonus is somehow detrimental to the civ and worse than the standard version. Even the Tsikhe when it first came out is better than its standard version.

LMAO very true-most of the civs at least have improvements that are more substantial and you don't get dud civs like . I will say that the multiple bonuses for each civ can often complicate the game a bit more than the Civ V ones...typically the bonuses are more "must do A so you can get B plus C to get a bonus". Obviously that's not the case with every civ (See GC, Maori, or Babylon) but Civ VI is more "challenging" in that respect.

What I like about Civ VI compared to V is that due to what I was getting at above, the game really rewards players who have done their homework and know to really reap/play the benefits of each civ. However I will say that a fair few of my friends (I got a LOT of people into Civ V) decided to drop Civ VI cause it just took to much time. I think a lot of those issues are more systematic to Civ VI (And why it really needs some deep patching...) but it is a note to take into account when planning Civ VII. Keep it simple, yet reward players who know the detailed strat...a rough plank to walk but Civ VI has really helped with that latter this go around.

Just some perspective to other civ fans as everyone here is pretty hardcore. I often forget this when playing multiplayer with my friends lmao

 

[DogeEnricoDandolo]

LMAO very true-most of the civs at least have improvements that are more substantial and you don't get dud civs like . I will say that the multiple bonuses for each civ can often complicate the game a bit more than the Civ V ones...typically the bonuses are more "must do A so you can get B plus C to get a bonus". Obviously that's not the case with every civ (See GC, Maori, or Babylon) but Civ VI is more "challenging" in that respect.

What I like about Civ VI compared to V is that due to what I was getting at above, the game really rewards players who have done their homework and know to really reap/play the benefits of each civ. However I will say that a fair few of my friends (I got a LOT of people into Civ V) decided to drop Civ VI cause it just took to much time. I think a lot of those issues are more systematic to Civ VI (And why it really needs some deep patching...) but it is a note to take into account when planning Civ VII. Keep it simple, yet reward players who know the detailed strat...a rough plank to walk but Civ VI has really helped with that latter this go around.

Just some perspective to other civ fans as everyone here is pretty hardcore. I often forget this when playing multiplayer with my friends lmao

I don't think many people here know of the horror of playing multiplayer in a public group when you couldn't quit out of decency and randomed Iroquois. I remember I used to play in the No Quitter (NQ) group (that group had a lot of streamers back then, including FilthyRobot, the one with the famous 4 hour long tier list video), you were allowed to ask for a reroll if you rolled Venice, but not allowed for the same thing if you rolled Iroquois. I guess from now on, in order to remind myself, I would probably just "well, at least it is not at the tier of the longhouse" whenever I see a bad bonus.

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

Asymmetry isn't a black and white thing. In fact, every Civ is asymmetric because it has a unique set of rules.
There are different types of this uniqueness:
A) Rules on top base game rules: Some of them are more simple like Germany, Rome, or Korea some of them are more unique like Ethiopia, Inca, Phoenicia
B) Rules breaking the game rules: In this term, Vietnam or The Gauls are in this group.
I think what @Zaarin means here is a degree of this rule-breaking factor. There are Civs with a major rule-breaking factor: Kongo, Maori, Mali, The Maya, and Babylon and those with a minor rule-breaking factor: Vietnam, The Gauls, Portugal. What makes the factor major is how it affects the gameplay. The Gaul or Vietnam rule-breaking factor affects only district planning.

 

[AntSou]

Asymmetry isn't a black and white thing. In fact, every Civ is asymmetric because it has a unique set of rules.

I don't think so. When we speak of asymmetry we usually mean it to imply a design which has both a bonus and a malus in regards to the core rules. Otherwise the use of the word would be unnecessary.

Russia is not asymmetric. It has a bonus, that is, a rule-break which favours them (more land, Lavra), but not a negative rule-break. So it's one directional.

Asymmetry may also imply symmetry in the bonus/malus design itself (e.g. 100% Tech boost BUT -50% Science / 50% Trade Route Boost BUT no Land Trade Routes / Gold from Mines BUT Less Production), but not necessarily (e.g. Gaul, Vietnam).
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I also don't think there's a distinction between A and B. I consider all bonuses/maluses rule-breaking.

Rule - Must Send Trade Route to create road.
Rule - Must complete Trade Route to establish Trading Post.
Rule Break - IF Rome, roads are automatic.
Rule Break - IF Rome, Trading Posts are automatic.

 

[Lokreah]

I don't think many people here know of the horror of playing multiplayer in a public group when you couldn't quit out of decency and randomed Iroquois. I remember I used to play in the No Quitter (NQ) group (that group had a lot of streamers back then, including FilthyRobot, the one with the famous 4 hour long tier list video), you were allowed to ask for a reroll if you rolled Venice, but not allowed for the same thing if you rolled Iroquois. I guess from now on, in order to remind myself, I would probably just "well, at least it is not at the tier of the longhouse" whenever I see a bad bonus.

But here's the thing - I was the one that picked Iroquois. But I also didn't play Tall lol +1 Hammers is much better Wide on V than tall but you needed specific maps for that, such as Hell blazers. Most used Hellblazers though because of how much better map generation was compared to the original.

Now, Civ V Spain

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

I don't think so. When we speak of asymmetry we usually mean it to imply a design which has both a bonus and a malus in regards to the core rules. Otherwise the use of the word would be unnecessary.

This is not true
https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/KeithBurgun/20151001/255058/Asymmetry_in_Games.php
Quickly, a definition - "asymmetry", in this context, refers to the player or players having different abilities from the start of a match. A Street Fighter II character, a StarCraft race, or a Magic: The Gathering deck all would qualify (for the purpose of this article, I will just use "character" to refer to any of these, as a shorthand).

It don't have to break the base game rule. It just needs to provide different (additional) set of rules