AtlantisAuthor
Chieftain
- Joined
- May 12, 2016
- Messages
- 92
Any game where players have over 1000 hours logged (as I do with Civilization V) is bound to generate some very strong and passionate opinions and preferences, and the Civilization series is one such franchise.
After playing through a full game of Civilization VI (and dabbling in several others to get a grasp of its mechanics) I decided to write this. I was going to call it a review, but A) one playthrough is simply too small a sample size for a Civ game and more importantly, B) Civilization VI is no doubt going to change dramatically between now and its final expansion (which is hopefully a long way down the road). It feels polished in some ways and like a work in progress in others, just as Civ V did when its vanilla base game first launched. That game had its share of detractors for the new directions it took, such as going with hexes, eliminating the “stacks of death”, and of course the bugs and glitches that plagued its early post-release. But by the time the Brave New World expansion came around Civ V felt like an entirely different game; even its mechanics had received vast changes and its overall content had more than doubled. And it had grown into one of the greatest, most refined strategy games ever made.
In my personal opinion, Civilization VI is a worthy addition to any Strategy fan’s library and has the potential to be perhaps the greatest Civ entry ever…but it isn’t there yet. So then, my purpose in writing this post is to offer critical observations on each aspect of Civilization VI as it currently stands: Gameplay Mechanics, Visuals and Animations, Sound and Music, and Content. I want to share (in my own personal opinion) what works, what doesn’t (or needs improvement), and why to the best of my ability here.
GAMEPLAY MECHANICS
Civilization VI carries over and expands upon many aspects of Civilization V while obviously making numerous changes, not the least of which is the City District motif. There’s a lot to like about Districts as you can tailor each city to your own preference and adapt to the advantages of the surrounding terrain; not every city location will lend itself to a Campus or a Holy Site, for example, but knowing where to specialize can greatly help you build a strong empire.
A twofold problem arises as your empire begins to spread outward, however, is one that I anticipated but nevertheless has so far proven to be a bit frustrating in practice: with each city taking so long (often dozens of turns) to build each District, AND each building, AND each unit, the overall pace tends to feel plodding even on Quick speed. And you never seem to have enough military units to cover every approach, which is a big deal because barbarians are EVERYWHERE and they will relentlessly attempt to pillage your completed improvements. Having to spend another dozen-plus turns repairing a District (in most cases your Builders CAN’T do this; they can only repair basic improvements like Pastures, Mines, etc….and use up a precious action in the process) can really set you back and be infuriating. Oh, and until you get a Satellite in orbit (pretty much toward the end of the game) they WILL be spawning anywhere you don’t have line of sight. Having to wait so long to build or repair something that can be torched in a single turn because you couldn’t build or get a military unit there in time can be the stuff of rage-quits.
Oh, and while we’re on that topic, one thing that Civ V did that for some reason Civ VI does not was to alert and activate your cities and/or military units whenever an enemy unit approached. More than once I’ve found out too late that I have a District burning and enemies wreaking havoc at some city or other on a corner of my empire I wasn’t focusing on because the game wasn’t automatically switching to them.
And speaking of how the game automatically rotates between units and cities during your turns, Civ VI can be really annoying in how it tends to jerk the camera away from a unit you were about to manually select. This can easily result in you accidentally moving units in an unintended direction, founding a city where you didn’t intend to (this happened to me), or selecting the wrong action. To be fair Civ V did this to a degree, but combined with the inconsistency of not bothering to activate units/cities where enemies are present it can be really infuriating. No player enjoys fighting with the game itself.
As a meticulous “completist” who loved improving every single tile in my Civ V games, I was initially skeptical of giving Builders limited uses, but in practice there are legitimate reasons for this. First, you’ll find that Districts and Wonders end up accounting for many if not most of each city’s tiles by the end of the game. This leaves the basic improvements such as Quarries, Mines, Pastures, Plantations, etc. for your Builders to work on, and yes, they can also create Farms and the like from tiles without specialized resources. More than once I’ve found myself having to replace an improvement when building a Wonder or District; this is especially the case with Neighborhoods, which often replace Farms.
The Trade Routes creating roads mechanic actually works well in my opinion. Not only does it aid you in building up newer cities faster via internal trade, but it also creates roads to other Civilizations. Also, I’ve found myself using internal trade far more often than I ever did in Civ V to help build up my cities.
Religious warfare is an aspect of Civ VI that I haven’t yet begun to get a real handle on; my first full game I quickly lost my ability to propagate my native religion because Japan kept spamming (and I mean SPAMMING; seriously, I can’t see how the AI can churn out so many Missionaries and Apostles at such an absurd rate) Apostles and sending them into my territory until even my Capital had their religion as its dominant belief…something that apparently is irreversible if it happens. But the really weird thing about it…something that just feels inconsistent with the grounded concept of the Civilization franchise…are the religious battles where units exchange mystical spells or whatnot. Can’t say I’m digging that so far, to be honest, let alone that Religion is now a way to win the game.
I often felt that Religion lacked any real purpose other than to enhance other aspects of your Civilization and its direction in Civ V, but now I actually find myself missing that a bit. I’ll keep working at it and see if my opinion changes any with Civ VI, but with so many other things to keep track of in the game already, it feels like being in a constant state of warfare in a sense, and that can get annoying. And if that turns out to be combined with an inability to keep up with what the AI is producing and sending at you, I can see this quickly causing people to lose interest completely.
Unit movement is a mechanic that has so far been very frustrating in Civ VI for me. Maybe it’s the change from what I’m familiar with in Civ V, but even Scouts seem slower. The really frustrating aspect is when you can move two hexes but get stymied by Woods, Jungle or a River; where you could enter them in Civ V, here you have to manually choose to Skip until the next turn. It’s an extra mouse click (and the icons here seem smaller than in Civ V), and when multiplied by an entire game, boy that becomes tiresome.
The addition of the Civics Tree has its pros and cons. Functioning in pretty much the same way the Tech Tree does, it progresses in a realistic manner through the eras, granting new (and additional) policies and governments at the appropriate times. It even unlocks certain units, Wonders, and other features that the Tech Tree used to. And the new Cards system, whereby you tailor your government to your own immediate needs or preferences, likewise is innovative. The drawback here is that I see myself using certain cards every time and never using others because their actual usefulness really varies. It will be interesting to see how this system develops going forward.
VISUALS AND ANIMATIONS
Since the game’s initial announcement I’ve found this to be the most divisive topic among fans of the series, and most of the negative remarks I’ve read are from folks who prefer the more realistic aesthetics of Civ V. Upon close inspection of the visuals in-game I can say with confidence that Civ VI looks outstanding; the issue here is one of aesthetic approach and not the quality.
The change to a more brightly colored (“cartoony” as I’ve read from some people) motif and larger units with fewer individual members isn’t due to technical limitations but rather to helping the player more easily recognize what they have on the map. You can tell at a glance the difference between a Rough Rider or a Knight, or a Musketman and an Infantry, for examples. And it is genuinely cool to finally be able to see individual buildings go up in your city…via the Districts…where before there were few visual changes on the map to show anything had been built in your city. However…
While that is a great new feature, in practice it really doesn’t help you once your empire expands to a certain degree; you begin seeing a mess of interwoven Districts and city borders, and it can be easy to forget which city built which District and which District has which buildings. Eyeballing each District even at maximum zoom simply isn’t a practical means to get such information at a glance.
One feature that I hate to be critical of but can’t help doing so is the Map, specifically the way explored territory unfolds. Aesthetically it’s gorgeous and resembles ancient seafarers’ maps, with monsters and fantastical beasts depicted on the unexplored regions. But in practice all of that uninterrupted brown really tends to get in the way of instantly seeing where you’ve been at a glance. I’ve found myself missing Civ V’s white clouds and the darkened explored territory, because the eye can instantly distinguish the difference. I hope that Firaxis will eventually add the option to switch between the current map design and Civ V’s clouds and darkened terrain; it may sound trivial but to me it makes a big difference when exploring or navigating the map. The same issue was a big reason I couldn’t stay interested in Civ: BE; that black-shrouded unexplored territory made it feel as if the planet was eternally shrouded in perpetual night, and it actually got depressing to look at after awhile. I know this sounds weird, but the psychological effects of color usage actually are a big deal, especially in a game where you’re expecting people to sit staring at a screen for extended periods.
Leader animations are one thing I REALLY hope Firaxis cleans up. Don’t get me wrong, the animations themselves are superb, but having the screen go black and then show a static image of the Leader with the same message they just gave you with a box to click “Goodbye” is both redundant and time-wasting. I got it the first time, thank you.
Regarding the Leaders themselves, there’s an inconsistency here that I can’t help but feel needs addressing. Some of them (Peter the Great and Tomyris) have fairly normal-looking proportions, while others (Gandhi and Theodore Roosevelt) look like exaggerated caricatures. The static backgrounds behind each Leader, which are dominated by a black backdrop, are vastly inferior to the genuine sense of time and place you felt in Civ V when visiting Nebuchadnezzar’s throne room , Enrico Dandolo’s Venice, or Kamehameha’s Hawaiian beach. I know it’ll probably never happen since the aesthetic design of Civ VI is already set, but I’d personally love to see Firaxis ditch these animations entirely and start from scratch with Leader animations that more closely resemble those of Civ V somewhere down the line. As it stands there’s something off-putting about them; where Civ V’s Leader animations had such atmosphere (not to mention them speaking to you in their actual languages, which was a brilliant touch), Civ VI’s just feel bland and click-through boring.
SOUND AND MUSIC
This is one area of Civilization VI where there is very little need for criticism; the music in particular is stellar, and the evolution of individual themes for each Civilization from simple instruments to full-fledged orchestral compositions as you progress through the game is a brilliant touch that I hope Firaxis makes a permanent part of the franchise.
The narration by Sean Bean is excellent, with a plethora of all-new quotes to enjoy as you go through both the Technology and Civics Trees. The quotes themselves range from outstanding to less than impressive; they definitely have taken a step back from those in Civ V in my humble opinion. One very welcome returning feature is the Leaders speaking to you in their own native languages, which greatly helps add a sense of personalities to them. I do wish that they spoke more often as opposed to the text-only remarks you get from them in certain situations.
CONTENT
While Firaxis no doubt wanted to infuse this game with “fresh blood” and will most likely be bringing back the more familiar names of Civs past down the line, the Leader personalities in Civilization VI as things currently stand are one of the game’s weaker points, to be frank. If I had to name one key aspect of Civilization: Beyond Earth that caused an otherwise excellent game to never grab and hold my attention in the way Civ V did, it was the generic (and fictional) nature of its Leaders, whereas with Civ VI, while the Leaders are historical (with the possible exception of Gilgamesh) there are several shortcomings that MUST be addressed going forward in order not to repeat that problem.
Let’s get the BIG issue out of the way first: most of the Leaders in Civ VI thus far are like second and third-stringers compared to the likes of Napoleon, Alexander, Genghis Khan, and Nobunaga. I’d never even heard of some of these guys, and that lack of familiarity and charisma has already been felt during my early play sessions. I’m sure Firaxis will be bringing at least some of the old favorites back in a future add-on or expansion, but for now this is a liability not unlike what Civ: BE experienced. The importance of familiar and even iconic faces and personalities to any Civ game’s success with players cannot be overstated.
The Leader Agendas, a well-known mechanic from previous Civ games, are back, only this time you have an obvious Agenda for each Leader as well as a randomly selected hidden one. In practice though, this seems to make each Leader kind of one-note from a personality standpoint, and I can’t shake the feeling that Firaxis made some rather forced choices in order to have the personalities match specific Agendas. For example, Catherine de Medici was actually Italian-born, and Cleopatra, though ever associated with Egypt, was a Greek (and supposedly a blonde at that). And Gilgamesh? The guy may or may not have even been a real person.
In the end though, Agendas don’t really seem to matter all that much, because the AI tends to behave in the same irrational and often plain dumb ways it did before in previous installments. Having your nearest neighbor seemingly focus his/her entire production on building armies to invade your territory from the moment you meet them…regardless of their personality traits or known agendas…is something I’ve seen a few too many times already given the small number of games I’ve started. I came to expect that sort of behavior from the likes of Shaka in Civ V, but to see it every time out so far in Civ VI from seemingly everyone is concerning to say the least.
KNOWN GLITCHES, BUGS
For the most part Civilization VI runs very smoothly for a brand new game with so many features, but it does have some technical issues which hopefully Firaxis will address in the coming days. I had a Swordsman that suddenly refused to heal itself during the middle of a game no matter how many times I attempted to get it to do so. Also, I’ve had the game crash on two straight occasions after saving and trying to Exit to Desktop during the late game.
While it doesn’t fall under the category of actual bugs or glitches, the game’s behavior occasionally takes some wonky turns. Hearing from your “intrepid reporter” that your own Civilization is trading with another seems kind of pointless. I’ve even read from some folks that they’ve gotten messages that their own Leader has declared war on them! And being denounced for warmongering for finally running out of patience and initiating a war against another Civ who’s been repeatedly trying to invade you since the Ancient Era (when said Civ was never denounced themselves) feels off.
IN CONCLUSION
There’s a ton of promise in Civilization VI. It’s already a very good game despite everything I’ve said here; it just has certain things currently holding it back from being truly great. And as I said earlier, I’ve no doubt that we’ll be seeing vast changes and improvements in many if not most aspects of the game over time the same as we did with Civ V; Firaxis has always been great about supporting their games and listening to the concerns of their fans. This is why I can’t call this a review, because right now I feel as if this game is still so much a work in progress. I have faith that its issues will be cleaned up and that various things will be tweaked and further balanced, until similarly to Civ V, the game we end up with may well be almost unrecognizable from what it is now.
It’s a journey I look forward to experiencing.
After playing through a full game of Civilization VI (and dabbling in several others to get a grasp of its mechanics) I decided to write this. I was going to call it a review, but A) one playthrough is simply too small a sample size for a Civ game and more importantly, B) Civilization VI is no doubt going to change dramatically between now and its final expansion (which is hopefully a long way down the road). It feels polished in some ways and like a work in progress in others, just as Civ V did when its vanilla base game first launched. That game had its share of detractors for the new directions it took, such as going with hexes, eliminating the “stacks of death”, and of course the bugs and glitches that plagued its early post-release. But by the time the Brave New World expansion came around Civ V felt like an entirely different game; even its mechanics had received vast changes and its overall content had more than doubled. And it had grown into one of the greatest, most refined strategy games ever made.
In my personal opinion, Civilization VI is a worthy addition to any Strategy fan’s library and has the potential to be perhaps the greatest Civ entry ever…but it isn’t there yet. So then, my purpose in writing this post is to offer critical observations on each aspect of Civilization VI as it currently stands: Gameplay Mechanics, Visuals and Animations, Sound and Music, and Content. I want to share (in my own personal opinion) what works, what doesn’t (or needs improvement), and why to the best of my ability here.
GAMEPLAY MECHANICS
Civilization VI carries over and expands upon many aspects of Civilization V while obviously making numerous changes, not the least of which is the City District motif. There’s a lot to like about Districts as you can tailor each city to your own preference and adapt to the advantages of the surrounding terrain; not every city location will lend itself to a Campus or a Holy Site, for example, but knowing where to specialize can greatly help you build a strong empire.
A twofold problem arises as your empire begins to spread outward, however, is one that I anticipated but nevertheless has so far proven to be a bit frustrating in practice: with each city taking so long (often dozens of turns) to build each District, AND each building, AND each unit, the overall pace tends to feel plodding even on Quick speed. And you never seem to have enough military units to cover every approach, which is a big deal because barbarians are EVERYWHERE and they will relentlessly attempt to pillage your completed improvements. Having to spend another dozen-plus turns repairing a District (in most cases your Builders CAN’T do this; they can only repair basic improvements like Pastures, Mines, etc….and use up a precious action in the process) can really set you back and be infuriating. Oh, and until you get a Satellite in orbit (pretty much toward the end of the game) they WILL be spawning anywhere you don’t have line of sight. Having to wait so long to build or repair something that can be torched in a single turn because you couldn’t build or get a military unit there in time can be the stuff of rage-quits.
Oh, and while we’re on that topic, one thing that Civ V did that for some reason Civ VI does not was to alert and activate your cities and/or military units whenever an enemy unit approached. More than once I’ve found out too late that I have a District burning and enemies wreaking havoc at some city or other on a corner of my empire I wasn’t focusing on because the game wasn’t automatically switching to them.
And speaking of how the game automatically rotates between units and cities during your turns, Civ VI can be really annoying in how it tends to jerk the camera away from a unit you were about to manually select. This can easily result in you accidentally moving units in an unintended direction, founding a city where you didn’t intend to (this happened to me), or selecting the wrong action. To be fair Civ V did this to a degree, but combined with the inconsistency of not bothering to activate units/cities where enemies are present it can be really infuriating. No player enjoys fighting with the game itself.
As a meticulous “completist” who loved improving every single tile in my Civ V games, I was initially skeptical of giving Builders limited uses, but in practice there are legitimate reasons for this. First, you’ll find that Districts and Wonders end up accounting for many if not most of each city’s tiles by the end of the game. This leaves the basic improvements such as Quarries, Mines, Pastures, Plantations, etc. for your Builders to work on, and yes, they can also create Farms and the like from tiles without specialized resources. More than once I’ve found myself having to replace an improvement when building a Wonder or District; this is especially the case with Neighborhoods, which often replace Farms.
The Trade Routes creating roads mechanic actually works well in my opinion. Not only does it aid you in building up newer cities faster via internal trade, but it also creates roads to other Civilizations. Also, I’ve found myself using internal trade far more often than I ever did in Civ V to help build up my cities.
Religious warfare is an aspect of Civ VI that I haven’t yet begun to get a real handle on; my first full game I quickly lost my ability to propagate my native religion because Japan kept spamming (and I mean SPAMMING; seriously, I can’t see how the AI can churn out so many Missionaries and Apostles at such an absurd rate) Apostles and sending them into my territory until even my Capital had their religion as its dominant belief…something that apparently is irreversible if it happens. But the really weird thing about it…something that just feels inconsistent with the grounded concept of the Civilization franchise…are the religious battles where units exchange mystical spells or whatnot. Can’t say I’m digging that so far, to be honest, let alone that Religion is now a way to win the game.
I often felt that Religion lacked any real purpose other than to enhance other aspects of your Civilization and its direction in Civ V, but now I actually find myself missing that a bit. I’ll keep working at it and see if my opinion changes any with Civ VI, but with so many other things to keep track of in the game already, it feels like being in a constant state of warfare in a sense, and that can get annoying. And if that turns out to be combined with an inability to keep up with what the AI is producing and sending at you, I can see this quickly causing people to lose interest completely.
Unit movement is a mechanic that has so far been very frustrating in Civ VI for me. Maybe it’s the change from what I’m familiar with in Civ V, but even Scouts seem slower. The really frustrating aspect is when you can move two hexes but get stymied by Woods, Jungle or a River; where you could enter them in Civ V, here you have to manually choose to Skip until the next turn. It’s an extra mouse click (and the icons here seem smaller than in Civ V), and when multiplied by an entire game, boy that becomes tiresome.
The addition of the Civics Tree has its pros and cons. Functioning in pretty much the same way the Tech Tree does, it progresses in a realistic manner through the eras, granting new (and additional) policies and governments at the appropriate times. It even unlocks certain units, Wonders, and other features that the Tech Tree used to. And the new Cards system, whereby you tailor your government to your own immediate needs or preferences, likewise is innovative. The drawback here is that I see myself using certain cards every time and never using others because their actual usefulness really varies. It will be interesting to see how this system develops going forward.
VISUALS AND ANIMATIONS
Since the game’s initial announcement I’ve found this to be the most divisive topic among fans of the series, and most of the negative remarks I’ve read are from folks who prefer the more realistic aesthetics of Civ V. Upon close inspection of the visuals in-game I can say with confidence that Civ VI looks outstanding; the issue here is one of aesthetic approach and not the quality.
The change to a more brightly colored (“cartoony” as I’ve read from some people) motif and larger units with fewer individual members isn’t due to technical limitations but rather to helping the player more easily recognize what they have on the map. You can tell at a glance the difference between a Rough Rider or a Knight, or a Musketman and an Infantry, for examples. And it is genuinely cool to finally be able to see individual buildings go up in your city…via the Districts…where before there were few visual changes on the map to show anything had been built in your city. However…
While that is a great new feature, in practice it really doesn’t help you once your empire expands to a certain degree; you begin seeing a mess of interwoven Districts and city borders, and it can be easy to forget which city built which District and which District has which buildings. Eyeballing each District even at maximum zoom simply isn’t a practical means to get such information at a glance.
One feature that I hate to be critical of but can’t help doing so is the Map, specifically the way explored territory unfolds. Aesthetically it’s gorgeous and resembles ancient seafarers’ maps, with monsters and fantastical beasts depicted on the unexplored regions. But in practice all of that uninterrupted brown really tends to get in the way of instantly seeing where you’ve been at a glance. I’ve found myself missing Civ V’s white clouds and the darkened explored territory, because the eye can instantly distinguish the difference. I hope that Firaxis will eventually add the option to switch between the current map design and Civ V’s clouds and darkened terrain; it may sound trivial but to me it makes a big difference when exploring or navigating the map. The same issue was a big reason I couldn’t stay interested in Civ: BE; that black-shrouded unexplored territory made it feel as if the planet was eternally shrouded in perpetual night, and it actually got depressing to look at after awhile. I know this sounds weird, but the psychological effects of color usage actually are a big deal, especially in a game where you’re expecting people to sit staring at a screen for extended periods.
Leader animations are one thing I REALLY hope Firaxis cleans up. Don’t get me wrong, the animations themselves are superb, but having the screen go black and then show a static image of the Leader with the same message they just gave you with a box to click “Goodbye” is both redundant and time-wasting. I got it the first time, thank you.
Regarding the Leaders themselves, there’s an inconsistency here that I can’t help but feel needs addressing. Some of them (Peter the Great and Tomyris) have fairly normal-looking proportions, while others (Gandhi and Theodore Roosevelt) look like exaggerated caricatures. The static backgrounds behind each Leader, which are dominated by a black backdrop, are vastly inferior to the genuine sense of time and place you felt in Civ V when visiting Nebuchadnezzar’s throne room , Enrico Dandolo’s Venice, or Kamehameha’s Hawaiian beach. I know it’ll probably never happen since the aesthetic design of Civ VI is already set, but I’d personally love to see Firaxis ditch these animations entirely and start from scratch with Leader animations that more closely resemble those of Civ V somewhere down the line. As it stands there’s something off-putting about them; where Civ V’s Leader animations had such atmosphere (not to mention them speaking to you in their actual languages, which was a brilliant touch), Civ VI’s just feel bland and click-through boring.
SOUND AND MUSIC
This is one area of Civilization VI where there is very little need for criticism; the music in particular is stellar, and the evolution of individual themes for each Civilization from simple instruments to full-fledged orchestral compositions as you progress through the game is a brilliant touch that I hope Firaxis makes a permanent part of the franchise.
The narration by Sean Bean is excellent, with a plethora of all-new quotes to enjoy as you go through both the Technology and Civics Trees. The quotes themselves range from outstanding to less than impressive; they definitely have taken a step back from those in Civ V in my humble opinion. One very welcome returning feature is the Leaders speaking to you in their own native languages, which greatly helps add a sense of personalities to them. I do wish that they spoke more often as opposed to the text-only remarks you get from them in certain situations.
CONTENT
While Firaxis no doubt wanted to infuse this game with “fresh blood” and will most likely be bringing back the more familiar names of Civs past down the line, the Leader personalities in Civilization VI as things currently stand are one of the game’s weaker points, to be frank. If I had to name one key aspect of Civilization: Beyond Earth that caused an otherwise excellent game to never grab and hold my attention in the way Civ V did, it was the generic (and fictional) nature of its Leaders, whereas with Civ VI, while the Leaders are historical (with the possible exception of Gilgamesh) there are several shortcomings that MUST be addressed going forward in order not to repeat that problem.
Let’s get the BIG issue out of the way first: most of the Leaders in Civ VI thus far are like second and third-stringers compared to the likes of Napoleon, Alexander, Genghis Khan, and Nobunaga. I’d never even heard of some of these guys, and that lack of familiarity and charisma has already been felt during my early play sessions. I’m sure Firaxis will be bringing at least some of the old favorites back in a future add-on or expansion, but for now this is a liability not unlike what Civ: BE experienced. The importance of familiar and even iconic faces and personalities to any Civ game’s success with players cannot be overstated.
The Leader Agendas, a well-known mechanic from previous Civ games, are back, only this time you have an obvious Agenda for each Leader as well as a randomly selected hidden one. In practice though, this seems to make each Leader kind of one-note from a personality standpoint, and I can’t shake the feeling that Firaxis made some rather forced choices in order to have the personalities match specific Agendas. For example, Catherine de Medici was actually Italian-born, and Cleopatra, though ever associated with Egypt, was a Greek (and supposedly a blonde at that). And Gilgamesh? The guy may or may not have even been a real person.
In the end though, Agendas don’t really seem to matter all that much, because the AI tends to behave in the same irrational and often plain dumb ways it did before in previous installments. Having your nearest neighbor seemingly focus his/her entire production on building armies to invade your territory from the moment you meet them…regardless of their personality traits or known agendas…is something I’ve seen a few too many times already given the small number of games I’ve started. I came to expect that sort of behavior from the likes of Shaka in Civ V, but to see it every time out so far in Civ VI from seemingly everyone is concerning to say the least.
KNOWN GLITCHES, BUGS
For the most part Civilization VI runs very smoothly for a brand new game with so many features, but it does have some technical issues which hopefully Firaxis will address in the coming days. I had a Swordsman that suddenly refused to heal itself during the middle of a game no matter how many times I attempted to get it to do so. Also, I’ve had the game crash on two straight occasions after saving and trying to Exit to Desktop during the late game.
While it doesn’t fall under the category of actual bugs or glitches, the game’s behavior occasionally takes some wonky turns. Hearing from your “intrepid reporter” that your own Civilization is trading with another seems kind of pointless. I’ve even read from some folks that they’ve gotten messages that their own Leader has declared war on them! And being denounced for warmongering for finally running out of patience and initiating a war against another Civ who’s been repeatedly trying to invade you since the Ancient Era (when said Civ was never denounced themselves) feels off.
IN CONCLUSION
There’s a ton of promise in Civilization VI. It’s already a very good game despite everything I’ve said here; it just has certain things currently holding it back from being truly great. And as I said earlier, I’ve no doubt that we’ll be seeing vast changes and improvements in many if not most aspects of the game over time the same as we did with Civ V; Firaxis has always been great about supporting their games and listening to the concerns of their fans. This is why I can’t call this a review, because right now I feel as if this game is still so much a work in progress. I have faith that its issues will be cleaned up and that various things will be tweaked and further balanced, until similarly to Civ V, the game we end up with may well be almost unrecognizable from what it is now.
It’s a journey I look forward to experiencing.
I also would suggest you narrate this, with a few tweaks of course, to relevant video and post it on Youtube as an "official" review. 
