did civ 6 improve after latest patch?

[pietro1990]

hello forum,

I've been busy with my work so i haven't had a lot of time to play civ 6 the last time i played civ 6 was at release . My question is pretty simple did civ 6 improve after the latest patch how is it at the current state?

My biggest problem with civ 6 was that the Ai didn't upgrade its units and diplomacy was pretty much problematic. The warmonger penalties where to high?

So my question is did the AI change does it upgrade its units? Has it a lower warmonger penalty? and does the tech speed go slower?

And in general what is youre thoughts of civ 6 at the current state? Share you thoughts here this should be a discussion forum of the current version of the game is it worth is usefull for people like me who want to pick up the game again but are doubting it.

 

[rschissler]

To me the AI still doesn't upgrade units, or build many units period. Diplomacy is still hate, hate, hate. I've been using a mod for warmonger penalties.

Still, this is the biggest reason keeping me from playing now: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/end-of-turn-crash-to-desktop.614936/

 

[bbbt]

To me the AI still doesn't upgrade units, or build many units period. Diplomacy is still hate, hate, hate. I've been using a mod for warmonger penalties.

I haven't found diplomacy to be only "hate, hate, hate". If you are consistently warmongering late in the game, yes. If you do early warmongering and then 'play' the diplomacy game, you can get on good terms with a majority of civs (besides some of the obvious never happy ones like Germany/Brazil). I've had two games post-patch where I completely wiped on civs early game and then was on good terms with most by end game. One of them I didn't even finish wiping out Persia until the Renaissance era, and had Declarations of Friendship with 4 out of 5 remaining civs by end game.

The AI is definitely still lacking in pretty much all 'using units sensibly' categories though.

 

[Eliminator_Sr]

They did make some minor adjustments to reduce warmonger penalties but they didn't go far enough IMO - it's still bad.

I do think the AI builds more units now and upgrades them more frequently but maybe only the military focused civs. The game is more challenging now especially at the beginning. The AI uses archers more effectively and can counter early archer rushes more often. I've seen Japan, India, and Scythia basically flood their entire territory with units and used a more combined arms type approach when attacking though they are still pretty ineffective at actually capturing cities.

 

[Tech Osen]

I do think the AI builds more units now and upgrades them more frequently but maybe only the military focused civs. The game is more challenging now especially at the beginning. The AI uses archers more effectively and can counter early archer rushes more often. I've seen Japan, India, and Scythia basically flood their entire territory with units and used a more combined arms type approach when attacking though they are still pretty ineffective at actually capturing cities.

There is something odd with the unit build up though. Have had it happen a lot that a civ would attack me with an impressive amount of units. They still can't properly siege a city so they all die. But, when I decide to invade that civ myself some time later their lands are devoid of units. Like they build up an army once, lose it, and then don't replace.

 

[MisterBoomBoom]

The excitement and interest in the game are quite evident by the lack of posting in these very forums. By this time you could not keep up with the postings after the release of Civ 5. Now you can come back weekly and rarely see anything new discussed other than the usual 'elimination' posts. Just an honest observation. Personally, I am still playing games in hotseat as it seems the only interesting method to get through games.

 

[stormerne]

hello forum,

I've been busy with my work so i haven't had a lot of time to play civ 6 the last time i played civ 6 was at release . My question is pretty simple did civ 6 improve after the latest patch how is it at the current state?

My biggest problem with civ 6 was that the Ai didn't upgrade its units and diplomacy was pretty much problematic. The warmonger penalties where to high?

So my question is did the AI change does it upgrade its units? Has it a lower warmonger penalty? and does the tech speed go slower?

And in general what is youre thoughts of civ 6 at the current state? Share you thoughts here this should be a discussion forum of the current version of the game is it worth is usefull for people like me who want to pick up the game again but are doubting it.

Since release, developers say the AI has been patched to put greater emphasis in upgrading units. That's possibly true but I find it hard to prove that one way or another.

Warmongering penalties were also reduced. In any case, if you fight a defensive war you can always obliterate all your enemy's units, pillage all their land and destroy their walls, and you'll get no penalty provided you don't actually capture any of their cities (apart from war weariness eventually affecting happiness). And if you use a Casus Belli to declare a war of liberation and you're careful to immediately give back to the original owner any cities you do capture, you'll get no warmonger penalties.

Personal thoughts: I love it in its current state. I really like the diplomacy compared to Civs 1 thru 5. It's transparent, easy to make decisions with, and easy to manipulate your relations with other civs. Yes I can see room for improvement, but I already find Civ6 in a better state after six months than Civ5 was six months after its release. I find it at least as addictive as the best of the rest of the series. I waited for till February to pick it up (when it was on offer) and I've played 370 hours since then. My only regret is that I didn't buy it earlier.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Personal thoughts: I love it in its current state. I really like the diplomacy compared to Civs 1 thru 5. It's transparent, easy to make decisions with, and easy to manipulate your relations with other civs. Yes I can see room for improvement, but I already find Civ6 in a better state after six months than Civ5 was six months after its release. I find it at least as addictive as the best of the rest of the series. I waited for till February to pick it up (when it was on offer) and I've played 370 hours since then. My only regret is that I didn't buy it earlier.

I agree with all this - Civ 6 has some cracking concepts and really takes the series forward, IMO it's already a better game than Civ 5 which I really didn't get into.

 

[Uberfrog]

I just last night started a new regular game after a relatively long hiatus that was only interrupted by the DLC scenarios (which aren't really representative of the base game in terms of the features you mention). I'll keep you posted whether I can notice any improvement to AI behaviour. Unfortunately I managed to roll a map where I am the only civ on an isolated continent with two city-states, so I have nothing to comment on yet!

 

[bcaiko]

Has the game improved? Yeah. I've even gone back to playing myself after a good amount of time away. Slowly but surely, the game is becoming more enjoyable despite its flaws.

But are the problems you cite solved? No. Diplomacy is still lackluster with occasional nonsensical bouncing-back-and-forth behavior from the AI. They reduced warmongering penalties, but not nearly enough to be reasonable. You won't be able to get the AI to sue for peace until you start taking its forward-settled cites, and then you'll receive unreasonable warmonger penalties that don't degrade fast enough to prevent a snowball of hate from every corner of the world. The game's tech path is probably a bit too quick, and you'll be into the Modern Era by the 1500s if not earlier. The AI has gotten better tactically and does seem to upgrade some of its units, but there's still seemingly some issues there.

 

[Victoria]

Diplomacy is great, its just one of the last things people are starting to learn properly how to use

@stormerne comments above are a good indicator of this.

A good example I can cite is this link, i think if I had posted it when it was released maybe people would have started looking differently at diplomacy but I was as innocent as a new born babe
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/joint-wars.615335/

 

[Mahatmajon]

Diplomacy is definitely improved and the AI builds archers now. Those two changes alone have been fantastic.

 

[Eliminator_Sr]

Diplomacy is great, its just one of the last things people are starting to learn properly how to use

Probably because they don't have to. I personally find diplomacy to still be very lacking from a game play perspective, but the potential is there if they refine the mechanics and make it more relevant. Many of the negative penalties are still counter-intuitive, bizarre, too harsh, or overly simplistic and the agendas could use some fine tuning.

 

[Victoria]

... and broken

Razing cities and Culture bombing penalties should decay but do not.
Friends and joint wars sometimes keep decay when renewed.
Ceding cities is feeble in comparison to gifting and freeing during war.

I'm OK with the agendas, they are variety just like peoples tastes, some good ... some not so good

 

[bcaiko]

Probably because they don't have to. I personally find diplomacy to still be very lacking from a game play perspective, but the potential is there if they refine the mechanics and make it more relevant. Many of the negative penalties are still counter-intuitive, bizarre, too harsh, or overly simplistic and the agendas could use some fine tuning.

This. While diplomacy isn't in the dirt with CivBert, it could definitely be improved. The AI will denounce you one turn then praise you for agenda fitting behavior the turn after. Then it will flip its lid about the same agenda a turn later. It's too wishy-washy and unreliable. And if you've declared a single, mid-game war, you might as well give up on diplomacy altogether with the overly punishing (and at times nonsensicle) warmonger penalties that don't degrade at a pace that keeps up with the timeframe of the game or how quickly the game chews through the tech tree.

 

[Eliminator_Sr]

And if you've declared a single, mid-game war, you might as well give up on diplomacy altogether with the overly punishing (and at times nonsensicle) warmonger penalties that don't degrade at a pace that keeps up with the timeframe of the game or how quickly the game chews through the tech tree.

Yup - I agree. More often then not I find everyone just falling into permanent anger for a variety of reasons. Even when I manage to get allies - I can never really tie it to something specific that I've done - it just seems like coincidence (usually it's Trajan because I expand a lot but so does everyone). I'm also one of those people that will take cities out of principle though if an AI declares on me. I don't think that should give negative penalties globally when two civs declare a joint surprise war on me which seems to happen a lot for leaders who are so sensitive about warmongering.

 

[Victoria]

While diplomacy isn't in the dirt with CivBert, it could definitely be improved. The AI will denounce you one turn then praise you for agenda fitting behavior the turn after. Then it will flip its lid about the same agenda a turn later. It's too wishy-washy and unreliable. And if you've declared a single, mid-game war, you might as well give up on diplomacy altogether with the overly punishing (and at times nonsensicle) warmonger penalties that don't degrade at a pace that keeps up with the timeframe of the game or how quickly the game chews through the tech tree.

So inherently old school thinking.

When you say it is wispy washy, it is not, it just telling you one turn it likes your income, telling you it has positive thoughts about you, and the next turn denouncing you because you are warmongering and is unhappy with that. If you bother to look at the modifiers, that's exactly what those 2 screens were for, notification about important values. It's overall mood has unlikely changed due to warmongering but has got more positive due to your income (for example)

The warmonger points are no longer punishing and nonsensical apart from if you raze a city it gives a permanent -20 with that civ that never decays. Lots of people that understand diplomacy can win a domination with allies still in place so clearly you are not playing the game efficiently. If you want to totally destroy every civ then that's your choice and not the victory conditions. You can still do it but do not expect civs to be friendly to you in any way doing so.

Equally not every civ will like you, the game is designed for groups of civs to form, but if you do not join an alliance at some stage around T100 you will be missing out on some great intel.
Declaring surprise wars are just asking for trouble, just giving one city back in a peace deal or later removes a -18 with the enemy civ.

Even a formal war in the Information Age will only give -24 warmonger points with the most hating civs which decay at -1 point every 2 turns from the moment you get them. Sure you get more for each city you take but these are removed for each city you give back, and if smaller cities than average they are quite reduced. Anyone you joint war with will not get warmonger for your actions and those at war with the same enemy or denounced will get less. Gorgo and any civ with a secondary agenda ignore all warmonger points. Casus reasons can significantly reduce warmonger.
If you want to ignore all these and declare surprise wars you are not really playing efficiently.

 

[Uberfrog]

So, having played a bit longer I think there's some improvement - or maybe, as @Victoria says, I just understand diplomacy better

My secluded start has helped, because I haven't needed to get involved in any wars so obviously have no warmonger penalty. A bit of a shame I didn't get to exercise Cyrus' leader ability, but hey, you can't have everything.

Harald found me with his caravel and shortly after I sent my own out into the world and quickly met everyone. Soon enough, their agendas kicked in. You still get some annoying things, like Mvemba moaning you haven't spread your religion to him when you live on an isolated continent . After that, a bunch of denouncements came and I saw a lot of frowny faces and thought, "oh boy here we go again..."'

But then I started actually playing the diplomacy game. One common point of criticism was I had the wrong government. So I switched to Merchant Republic and a lot of those frowns disappeared. I then picked my friends: Harald, Hojo, and Mvemba were pretty pally, so I thought I'd focus on them - I was never going to satisfy Qin, Alexander, or Saladin's agendas anyway. As it stands as I stop for the night, I have those three friendships declared (despite not sharing Mvemba's religion) and smiley faces with Gandhi and Cleo. It can be done!

 

[rschissler]

So, having played a bit longer I think there's some improvement - or maybe, as @Victoria says, I just understand diplomacy better

But then I started actually playing the diplomacy game. One common point of criticism was I had the wrong government. So I switched to Merchant Republic and a lot of those frowns disappeared. I then picked my friends: Harald, Hojo, and Mvemba were pretty pally, so I thought I'd focus on them - I was never going to satisfy Qin, Alexander, or Saladin's agendas anyway. As it stands as I stop for the night, I have those three friendships declared (despite not sharing Mvemba's religion) and smiley faces with Gandhi and Cleo. It can be done!

Why can't they (the AI civs) see you as a leader of the world, and want to be like you and be friends with you , by them changing to your chosen government?

All the denouncements I get for having the wrong government drive me crazy.

 

[oedali]

Short answer is yes the AI has improved since last patch.

Long answer = still not challenging enough. I would love it if it were less predictable by turn ~100 whether I will win a game or not. AI doesn't play "to win" hard enough, at its current state. I was too spoiled by Civ 5 VP mod in that regard.

But tactical combat and diplomacy are both improved IMO.