Did Civ6 take a significant step backward?

[Stilgar08]

Spoiler OP :

I'm still playing my first full Marathon game of Civ6, but I must say there are a couple major letdowns for me. It may be that I have simply missed a couple features, so my perceptions may very well be erroneous.

1) Racial customization: From what I had been hearing in the Press Releases, I had gotten the impression that Civ6 was going to have MORE customization than Civ4 or Civ5. In those, you could "create your own race", but they were actually nothing more than taking an existing race and simply renaming the race and leader. That at least gave me the illusion of creating MY unique race. Especially when coupled with the ability to name my cities to be this supposed unique race's naming scheme. As far as I have seen, the player can't rename _anything_. Sad. I would have thought the mechanics had already been worked out so that renaming elements would have been a simple programming task in Civ6. What I had been HOPING for was to be able to select from menus for racial traits and advantages along with leader traits. <<That would have made for some honest-to-goodness Customization. Now I can't even rename cities.

2) Warmongers everywhere I look: I prefer to play a much more diplomatic game. Given a menu of 20-30 races, it HAD been possible to find 5-8 races that did not seem determined to Declare War at every turn. Instead, as with many/most of the Civ5 races, I have even distant leaders doing DoWs for literally no reason whatsoever. I even have empires on the far side of intervening empires complaining that my Settlers are encroaching on "their" territory. Throughout the Civ series, it has always bugged me that empires would declare war for NO REASON whatsoever. Now it seems that EVERY AI empire behaves that way.

3) Load sequences: As much as I like the sound of Sean Bean's voice, do I really have to put up with his spiel EVERY time I LOAD a Saved game? I'm hoping I just missed the Mute Option.

4) Game Setup: Where's the option to select how many City-States will be in the game? How about Raging Barbarians or No Barbarians? Or empires needing to be entirely exterminated, units and cities, to be eliminated? Or a dozen other Setup choices that were available in Civ5?

Admittedly, I've only been playing the game for 9 hours so far, but this is certainly feeling like Beyond Earth. Which is to say, unlike Civ4 and Civ5 which I played many,many, many times, I will instead play through a time or two and then move on to play something -- ANYTHING else.

Well, first of all: Congratulations: If these are you're major complaints, most of it is very easy to fix:
1.: in the not distant future this will be possible (before christmas for sure)
2.: never had this problem. Maybe it's your playstyle? adapt!
3.: You DO realize that there should be a volume control right there at your place, right? I need to stretch my arm, but just a bit to raise or lower volume. Try it out: amazing stuff!
4.: in the not distant future this will be possible (before christmas for sure)

And concerning your last paragraph: enjoy!

OP... just no. I was never a Civ 5 hater and I clocked many hours on it but it was lacking in many ways. Compared to any previous game in the series Civ 6 is a triumph. It is the most complete and well designed iteration yet. As far as systems go it takes 99% of what has been done before and builds on it in innovative and fun ways. Spies, Great People, Workers, AI Wonder spam, empy build queue and so much more that (many of which we as players did not even think of could be improved) have been tweaked or redesigned and age old problems or discomforts have been fixed. Cartooney graphics or not (personal preference is completely irrelevant here) the feel and look of the game is undeniably high quality. The player has interesting decisions to make throughout the game. Dozens of various systems, themes and periods of human history are combined in a way that feels so natural and... just right.

Balancing, AI and some fluff (HoF etc) needs fixing/added obviously, but Civ 6 is a massive achievement in game design. It is sad how desperate people are to get a high reply thread that they feel the need to post stuff like this.

I'll say it again; Civ 6 is a TRIUMPH. Ed Beach deserves so much credit for this.

+1
This exactly!

 

[Nefelia]

Yyyyaaaaaaa! You just made my day! "Ludicrous, here I come!

ADDENDA: Uhm. Just Checked Steam and didn't see any Workshop associated with Civ6 yet. So where can I find this mod you mention?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/ynamp-yet-not-another-maps-pack-for-civ6.25395/

Hope you have a good system.

 

[ddd123]

2) Warmongers everywhere I look: I prefer to play a much more diplomatic game. Given a menu of 20-30 races, it HAD been possible to find 5-8 races that did not seem determined to Declare War at every turn. Instead, as with many/most of the Civ5 races, I have even distant leaders doing DoWs for literally no reason whatsoever. I even have empires on the far side of intervening empires complaining that my Settlers are encroaching on "their" territory. Throughout the Civ series, it has always bugged me that empires would declare war for NO REASON whatsoever. Now it seems that EVERY AI empire behaves that way.

You seem to not have played enough or not understood the game mechanics...
Yes your neighbours are nearly always dowing you early game but apart for that (and yes THERE IS a reason like proximity, cities, territory etc etc) it is possible to play peaceful once the first war with neighbours is over even at deity.
If it was possible to avoid always war at deity the game would be pointless, you have to fear your enemies, its a game not simcity.