Dipping my toes into Civ6, have several questions

[MarqFJA87]

I've spent 700+ hours playing Civ5, and while it's been fun, the limitations of various aspects and dissatisfaction with the available mod options for invigorating the experience in the right ways have led me to think about trying out Civ6, since I've been hearing about how more intricate it is in many ways, and I just bought the anthology edition from Steam as it was on a hefty discount.

That said, I want to ask a few questions first before I actually start it out.

1. As a Civ5 player, what should I expect would be significantly different in the game mechanics when I play Civ6, be it new additions, changes to otherwise shared mechanics, or certain elements being removed altogether?

2. Any QOL mods that I should know about, especially ones that address shortcomings/bugs in the game that linger on even after (or even as an accidental byproduct of) all the official patches and DLCs?

3. Any leader/civ mods that are highly recommended? I'm especially interested in mods for the Arabians, Ottomans Germany and Russia, particularly if they can at least emulate the spirit of those civs' Civ5 uniques and leaders that they lack in Civ6. Civ5 Germany's Furor Teutonicus getting discarded for radically different abilities in the widely popular Vox Populi and Lekmod especially irks me; I wouldn't be opposed to, say, a mod for Civ6 Germany that has Bismarck as a leader option that focuses on "blood and iron" style diplomacy and governance, and Alaric I as another leader option that embodies the "Teutonic barbarian fury" aspect.

4. Is it possible to install mods as pseudo-DLCs to avoid interfering with achievements? That's something that has been really helpful in Civ5.

 

[Monene]

If I remember correctly, there are mods for Bismarck and Catherine the Great with Civ5 animations. Since I've never played Civ5, I couldn't tell you what differences you'll find, but if you enjoy making mods or have an interesting idea, you can ask for advice on how to do it (except for animation and modeling; I never understood how that works).

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

As a Civ5 player, what should I expect would be significantly different in the game mechanics when I play Civ6, be it new additions, changes to otherwise shared mechanics, or certain elements being removed altogether?

The biggest change is probably city construction placement. You can't any longer just indefinitely plop buildings and wonders into cities. Wonders and Districts have to be placed on a tile outside of the main city tile. You'll have to put a lot of thought into whether you should put this District/Wonder here if it takes a spot that might be better taken by another District/Wonder. This also means there's a soft limit to the number of Wonders you can build in a single city.

Some buildings have to be built inside a District. For example, Culture buildings like the Amphitheatre have to built inside the Culture District. Each city can support a limited number of Districts, scaling with population. In some cases, a District forces you to choose between two buildings to construct. The only example I can think of right now is the Barracks/Stables for the Military District, if you build one not the other.

Workers are now Builders, and can only construct 3 Improvements before being expended. On the other hand, Improvements are now built instantaneously.

City-states no longer have to be won over with Gold, instead Influence is now its own currency. With enough Influence you get an Envoy, which you can send to city-states to increase your relationship with them. City-states have three tiers of relationship bonuses: having an Envoy, having 3 Envoys, and having at least 6 Envoys + more Envoys than anyone else. The first two bonuses are generic, depending on the type of city-state. The third is the bonus unique to that specific city-state.

Culture is now treated the same as Science. You use Science to research Technologies, you use Culture to unlock whatever the name for the Culture equivalent of Technologies is called (I think Civics?). So you have two technology trees, one fed by Science, the other by Culture.

Social Policies are no longer fixed. You can change them every time you research a Civic, or you can pay a fee of Gold to change them any time in between. Policies are now treated as Cards, which you can switch in and out of your deck.

Techs can be researched faster by achieving Eurekas. For example, Archery becomes cheaper to research if you kill a unit with a Slinger. Shipbuilding becomes cheaper to research if you build a Galley. Sailing becomes cheaper to research if you settle a city on the coast. And so on.

Unlike in Civ5, the special abilities for Unique Units don't carry over into their upgraded versions.

2. Any QOL mods that I should know about, especially ones that address shortcomings/bugs in the game that linger on even after (or even as an accidental byproduct of) all the official patches and DLCs?

Sukritact's UI mod and Global Relations Panel are essential in my opinion. You may also consider the mod that removes the World Congress—it's that bad.

 

[Mahasona]

I like mods that make the interface more helpful.#

Extended Policy Cards: Shows their effects on your civ

CQUI Community Quick User Interface: lots of small tweaks

Quick deals: Shows all available deals instead of manually going to each leader

Detailed Map Tacks: Helps you plan the placement of your districts by calculating the potential yields and adjacency bonuses

Better Report Screen. Much more detail

 

[SemiLazyGamer]

City-states no longer have to be won over with Gold, instead Influence is now its own currency. With enough Influence you get an Envoy, which you can send to city-states to increase your relationship with them. City-states have three tiers of relationship bonuses: having an Envoy, having 3 Envoys, and having at least 6 Envoys + more Envoys than anyone else. The first two bonuses are generic, depending on the type of city-state. The third is the bonus unique to that specific city-state.

Correction on this: the third tier of city-state bonus and the having the most envoys bonus are different and separate.

Another key thing that folks haven't mentioned is the decoupling of leaders from Civs. Not to the extent as of VII (where leaders are fully decoupled from Civs), VI separates leader abilities from the Civ, so each leader plays their civ differently from the other leaders. Since you have Anthology, it's easiest to see with civs like China (with the most different leaders at 5) or England (second most at 4).

For starting civs, most players will usually push for Trajan leading Rome or either of Japan's leaders. Although, Russia is the one of the most powerful civs in the game, and any of your other choices are strong as well, although you may want to stick with Kanuni Suleiman leading the Ottomans and Vizier Saladin leading Arabia, since they both fit their respective civs better than their alternate personas.

As for UI mods: the one's I recommend are Quick Deals, Sukritact's Simple UI Adjustments, Tourism Overview Screen, and Global Relations Panel (three separate mods by the same guy), Detailed Map Tacks, Extended Policy Cards, Great Works viewer, More Lenses, What Did I Promise?, Real Era Tracker, Better Builder Charges Tracking, Better City-State (UI), Better Espionage Screen, Better Leader Icon (UI), Better Report Screen (UI), Better Trade Screen, Envoy Quest List, Happiness and Growth Indicators

 

[MarqFJA87]

The biggest change is probably city construction placement. You can't any longer just indefinitely plop buildings and wonders into cities. Wonders and Districts have to be placed on a tile outside of the main city tile. You'll have to put a lot of thought into whether you should put this District/Wonder here if it takes a spot that might be better taken by another District/Wonder. This also means there's a soft limit to the number of Wonders you can build in a single city.

Some buildings have to be built inside a District. For example, Culture buildings like the Amphitheatre have to built inside the Culture District. Each city can support a limited number of Districts, scaling with population. In some cases, a District forces you to choose between two buildings to construct. The only example I can think of right now is the Barracks/Stables for the Military District, if you build one not the other.

I see. That would pretty much force cities to specialize depending on their location and the kind of resources/tiles within their 3-tile radius. I know in Civ5 I always felt compelled to get all the buildings in each city, especially the military ones because parallel unit construction demands it and I could never trust that said city wouldn't at some find itself needing to pump out units ASAP to hold off an enemy invasion (most especially on Small Continents maps, where often my heartland is only about two cities deep from coast to coast).

Gonna have to be more strategic with city placement, I guess.

Workers are now Builders, and can only construct 3 Improvements before being expended. On the other hand, Improvements are now built instantaneously.

Oh dear. So I'll have to train them far more often than I'm used to.

City-states no longer have to be won over with Gold, instead Influence is now its own currency. With enough Influence you get an Envoy, which you can send to city-states to increase your relationship with them. City-states have three tiers of relationship bonuses: having an Envoy, having 3 Envoys, and having at least 6 Envoys + more Envoys than anyone else. The first two bonuses are generic, depending on the type of city-state. The third is the bonus unique to that specific city-state.

How does city-state diplomacy compare to Civ5? Do most of the quests still stay unchanging if they're not fulfilled, leaving me stuck with the same two quests for eons because for one reason or the other I can't fulfill either of them (e.g. they want a barbarian encampment gone, but it happens to have sprouted on a tile that's completely locked in by mountains)?

Culture is now treated the same as Science. You use Science to research Technologies, you use Culture to unlock whatever the name for the Culture equivalent of Technologies is called (I think Civics?). So you have two technology trees, one fed by Science, the other by Culture.

Social Policies are no longer fixed. You can change them every time you research a Civic, or you can pay a fee of Gold to change them any time in between. Policies are now treated as Cards, which you can switch in and out of your deck.

Oh, neat. I like such dynamic flexibility with social policies; I may need military-oriented policies in antiquity when barbarians abound and I have a warmongering neighbor, but by the Renaissance I may find myself in such a secure position militarily that I can pursue the largely peaceful path to victory via science or culture that I had originally been aiming for, and thus need different policies in place of the old ones.

Techs can be researched faster by achieving Eurekas. For example, Archery becomes cheaper to research if you kill a unit with a Slinger. Shipbuilding becomes cheaper to research if you build a Galley. Sailing becomes cheaper to research if you settle a city on the coast. And so on.

See, this is far more plausible than suddenly unlocking an entire tech by visiting a ruin or random village.

Unlike in Civ5, the special abilities for Unique Units don't carry over into their upgraded versions.

Dammit. Good that you told me this, now I won't embarrass myself by mass-building Janissaries as the Ottomans before I research the tech that makes them obsolete.

Sukritact's UI mod and Global Relations Panel are essential in my opinion. You may also consider the mod that removes the World Congress—it's that bad.

... Why is the World Congress "bad" in Civ6? I had been anticipating the expanded possibilities for international agreements and actions that I have been hearing about.

I like mods that make the interface more helpful.#

Extended Policy Cards: Shows their effects on your civ

CQUI Community Quick User Interface: lots of small tweaks

Quick deals: Shows all available deals instead of manually going to each leader

Detailed Map Tacks: Helps you plan the placement of your districts by calculating the potential yields and adjacency bonuses

Better Report Screen. Much more detail

Oh yes, UI improvements are always welcome. It's why EUI is so essential for Civ5 gameplay IMO.

Correction on this: the third tier of city-state bonus and the having the most envoys bonus are different and separate.

Another key thing that folks haven't mentioned is the decoupling of leaders from Civs. Not to the extent as of VII (where leaders are fully decoupled from Civs), VI separates leader abilities from the Civ, so each leader plays their civ differently from the other leaders. Since you have Anthology, it's easiest to see with civs like China (with the most different leaders at 5) or England (second most at 4).

For starting civs, most players will usually push for Trajan leading Rome or either of Japan's leaders. Although, Russia is the one of the most powerful civs in the game, and any of your other choices are strong as well, although you may want to stick with Kanuni Suleiman leading the Ottomans and Vizier Saladin leading Arabia, since they both fit their respective civs better than their alternate personas.

As for UI mods: the one's I recommend are Quick Deals, Sukritact's Simple UI Adjustments, Tourism Overview Screen, and Global Relations Panel (three separate mods by the same guy), Detailed Map Tacks, Extended Policy Cards, Great Works viewer, More Lenses, What Did I Promise?, Real Era Tracker, Better Builder Charges Tracking, Better City-State (UI), Better Espionage Screen, Better Leader Icon (UI), Better Report Screen (UI), Better Trade Screen, Envoy Quest List, Happiness and Growth Indicators

Duly noted. What about World Congress-related mods? What Bonyduck had said about it has left me quite concerned.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Oh dear. So I'll have to train them far more often than I'm used to.

You can always capture them from other civs.

How does city-state diplomacy compare to Civ5? Do most of the quests still stay unchanging if they're not fulfilled, leaving me stuck with the same two quests for eons because for one reason or the other I can't fulfill either of them (e.g. they want a barbarian encampment gone, but it happens to have sprouted on a tile that's completely locked in by mountains)?

I don't remember this.

Oh, neat. I like such dynamic flexibility with social policies; I may need military-oriented policies in antiquity when barbarians abound and I have a warmongering neighbor, but by the Renaissance I may find myself in such a secure position militarily that I can pursue the largely peaceful path to victory via science or culture that I had originally been aiming for, and thus need different policies in place of the old ones.

See, now your policy slots have categories. Military, Cultural, Science, Diplomatic and Wildcard (you can put any policy in Wildcard). How many slots you have in each category depends on your Government type.

Why is the World Congress "bad" in Civ6? I had been anticipating the expanded possibilities for international agreements and actions that I have been hearing about.

That's my personal opinion, but in Civ6 you don't have to meet every civ for the World Congress to become available. You can be isolated on your own island without having met a single player and you'll still be called on to vote on resolutions. I also find these resolutions far more annoying than in Civ5. Stuff like 'All Military Units of this type will be +15% stronger' or 'All Great Artists will be +20% more expensive'. The World Congress panel also covers the entire screen, and it doesn't allow you to exit without voting, so you can't go 'Here, let me see how this resolution affects me or my enemy', you just have to vote. In the end, the World Congress is something you'll have to experience yourself to see if it works for you.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Also remembered another mechanic. In Civ6, you compete with other players to recruit Great Persons from a global pool. Great Persons now have different abilities. I recall one Great Scientist who plops a free Library and University in two of your cities. Another Great Scientist gives you the Eureka for Mathematics besides the default ability of researching two random technologies. In the Great Persons panel, you'll have the option to select this specific Great Person or pass them on and wait for the next one (you don't know who'll that be). So you'll have to be more strategic regarding Great Persons. Also, Great Generals become obsolete with time. The Great General you recruited in the Classical Era won't give any bonus to your units in the Renaissance Era; their usefulness is limited to just two Eras.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

One more thing: Strategic Resources work slightly differently in Civ6. You still need them to train certain units, but instead of a Resource improvement giving you a set number of copies of those resource (2 Iron or 5 Horses, etc.) they yield something like 2 Iron or 2 Horses per turn. When you have enough of that Strategic Resource (20 or 40) you can train your unit, and it does not require additional resources for its upkeep (except for late-game tanks and airplanes that require Oil per turn). So unlike in Civ5, if you lose control of an improvement or your trade agreement with another civ ends, it doesn't affect your existing units.

Unit maintenance also works slightly differently. In Civ5 every unit, military or non-military, has a base maintenance cost of 1 Gold per Turn, which increases for all units for every extra unit above your supply limit. In Civ6, every unit has its own maintenance cost: the Warrior has no upkeep cost, but the Archer requires 1 Gold per Turn, the Knight requires as much as 4 Gold per Turn, and so on. As far as I recall, there is no supply limit, so these costs don't scale

 

[MarqFJA87]

You can always capture them from other civs.

True, but I'm talking about the times of peace, when I'm minding my own business and consolidating my latest acquisitions, building up for the next conquests, or investing in a non-domination victory.

See, now your policy slots have categories. Military, Cultural, Science, Diplomatic and Wildcard (you can put any policy in Wildcard). How many slots you have in each category depends on your Government type.

Yay, so I don't have to neglect one aspect of my empire's development to improve another.

That's my personal opinion, but in Civ6 you don't have to meet every civ for the World Congress to become available. You can be isolated on your own island without having met a single player and you'll still be called on to vote on resolutions.

... That is mind-boggingly dumb. I already have been chafing at the fact that you're magically forced to obey resolutions and not have the slightest way to flout them like governments the world over can and often do IRL (I don't mind if it carried proportional diplomatic penalties with supporters of the resolution, that's realistic and adds to the cost-benefit analysis). Now you tell me that even if I'm miraculously a hermit kingdom that never managed to contact another nation, I am still magically called to and compelled to obey the diktats of a distant congress whose members I've never met and will probably not meet for a long time?

At least a cursory search shows me that there is at least one mod that delays the World Congress to the Industrial Era, which not only gives ample time for isolated civs to explore the ocean and finally make contact with most if not all of the civs, but is accurate with respect to real-life history (the World Congress is based on the Congress of Vienna in the early 19th century, the first international diplomatic gathering on a continental – let alone global – scale); apparently it somehow became buggy so it only pushes it back to the Renaissance, but it seems easily fixable from what I'm reading in the comments.

I also find these resolutions far more annoying than in Civ5. Stuff like 'All Military Units of this type will be +15% stronger' or 'All Great Artists will be +20% more expensive'.

Would this mod help with this?

The World Congress panel also covers the entire screen, and it doesn't allow you to exit without voting, so you can't go 'Here, let me see how this resolution affects me or my enemy', you just have to vote.

Huh. The wiki says that you can exit the session panel during the Congress phase to check the outcomes and targets of each resolution, it's just that the phase itself will not end until all civs still in play submit their votes.

Also remembered another mechanic. In Civ6, you compete with other players to recruit Great Persons from a global pool. Great Persons now have different abilities. I recall one Great Scientist who plops a free Library and University in two of your cities. Another Great Scientist gives you the Eureka for Mathematics besides the default ability of researching two random technologies. In the Great Persons panel, you'll have the option to select this specific Great Person or pass them on and wait for the next one (you don't know who'll that be). So you'll have to be more strategic regarding Great Persons.

Wait, so GPs are now finite? Or does the pool get refreshed eventually?

Also, Great Generals become obsolete with time. The Great General you recruited in the Classical Era won't give any bonus to your units in the Renaissance Era; their usefulness is limited to just two Eras.

I see. So probably should try to get the most out of them during their applicable eras, whether or not I'm on the domination path.

One more thing: Strategic Resources work slightly differently in Civ6. You still need them to train certain units, but instead of a Resource improvement giving you a set number of copies of those resource (2 Iron or 5 Horses, etc.) they yield something like 2 Iron or 2 Horses per turn. When you have enough of that Strategic Resource (20 or 40) you can train your unit, and it does not require additional resources for its upkeep (except for late-game tanks and airplanes that require Oil per turn). So unlike in Civ5, if you lose control of an improvement or your trade agreement with another civ ends, it doesn't affect your existing units.

Oh I like this model much better.

Unit maintenance also works slightly differently. In Civ5 every unit, military or non-military, has a base maintenance cost of 1 Gold per Turn, which increases for all units for every extra unit above your supply limit. In Civ6, every unit has its own maintenance cost: the Warrior has no upkeep cost, but the Archer requires 1 Gold per Turn, the Knight requires as much as 4 Gold per Turn, and so on. As far as I recall, there is no supply limit, so these costs don't scale

Huh. So I'm only limited by my gold income rate and balancing between unit maintenance and building/improvement maintenance.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Would this mod help with this?

I don't know. This mod increases their effects to make them more meaningful, but the nature of the resolutions stay the same. The World Congress is just a personal peeve of mine. Some Civ6 players don't mind it. You'll have to figure out how you feel about it yourself.

Huh. The wiki says that you can exit the session panel during the Congress phase to check the outcomes and targets of each resolution, it's just that the phase itself will not end until all civs still in play submit their votes.

I must be misremembering, then.

Wait, so GPs are now finite? Or does the pool get refreshed eventually?

I don't remember this either. They're finite in the sense that there can only a single instance of a specific Great Person in a single playthrough. So if you recruit Archimedes, no other civ will be able to recruit him and he won't appear again. Maybe the pool gets generic Great Persons added if you run out of them, but I've never seen it happen.

 

[SemiLazyGamer]

Great People have unique abilities per Great Person and are finite. There are about 3 to 4 Great People per type per era. You will almost never see all Great People of a type get used up unless you are dragging out a game.

The only exception is Great Prophets. There are only a set number of Prophets per map size (starts at 2 at a Duel maps increasing by 1 until you reach a max of 7 of huge maps) and by extension only a set number of religions. You will nearly always see the Great Prophets go by the Renaissance.

That being said, Fireaxis made it so you get a point of Faith per turn per Great Person Poin you earn once a type has ben used up.

 

[MarqFJA87]

Well, glad to know that players aren't in danger of accidentally exhausting all GP of a type well before reaching the latest eras just because they got luck with their GPP gain rates.

BTW, I noticed that nobody answered the fourth question in the OP. Should I take it as the answer being "no"?

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

See, this is far more plausible than suddenly unlocking an entire tech by visiting a ruin or random village.

To be fair you can still receive random Eurekas by visiting a village, or Inspirations on the culture civic tree. It states that the villagers shared information with you, but you still have to finish researching them.

See, now your policy slots have categories. Military, Cultural, Science, Diplomatic and Wildcard (you can put any policy in Wildcard). How many slots you have in each category depends on your Government type.

To clarify there are no cultural or science policy slots in any government. There are an Economic policy slots, which are geared more towards domestic policies and would include science and culture policies as well.

 

[Markvs]

I've spent 700+ hours playing Civ5, and while it's been fun, the limitations of various aspects and dissatisfaction with the available mod options for invigorating the experience in the right ways have led me to think about trying out Civ6, since I've been hearing about how more intricate it is in many ways, and I just bought the anthology edition from Steam as it was on a hefty discount.

That said, I want to ask a few questions first before I actually start it out.

1. As a Civ5 player, what should I expect would be significantly different in the game mechanics when I play Civ6, be it new additions, changes to otherwise shared mechanics, or certain elements being removed altogether?

2. Any QOL mods that I should know about, especially ones that address shortcomings/bugs in the game that linger on even after (or even as an accidental byproduct of) all the official patches and DLCs?

3. Any leader/civ mods that are highly recommended? I'm especially interested in mods for the Arabians, Ottomans Germany and Russia, particularly if they can at least emulate the spirit of those civs' Civ5 uniques and leaders that they lack in Civ6. Civ5 Germany's Furor Teutonicus getting discarded for radically different abilities in the widely popular Vox Populi and Lekmod especially irks me; I wouldn't be opposed to, say, a mod for Civ6 Germany that has Bismarck as a leader option that focuses on "blood and iron" style diplomacy and governance, and Alaric I as another leader option that embodies the "Teutonic barbarian fury" aspect.

4. Is it possible to install mods as pseudo-DLCs to avoid interfering with achievements? That's something that has been really helpful in Civ5.

Welcome! Some of what is below has been touched on by others, but here's my take... fwiw, I have gotten all of the Steam achievements in both 5 & 6.
Point 1. To me, its a mixed bag in my mind as to where 6 succeeds and fails vs 5.

The Good:
1. I like the way Culture is handled. It's a definite improvement as Civ 5's culture was easy to smash, esp with certain civ and wonder combos. The Civics tree makes a lot of sense. Now a nation can be socially advanced and technologically backwards vs. another civ, or vice versa.

2. I like the new city layout with districts, and that you can't just have one (or maybe two or three) cities to build ALL the wonders in. (Though having a "production city" a "trade city" a "religious city" and a "culture city" is still a mostly valid strategy.)

3. I love that Governments are back again. IMO this was a failing in Civ V -- that you couldn't choose how to rule, as one had been able to since Civ 1.

4. The map concept is simple, yet awesome. Where you've explored, you know what is there but it's in grey. If you have sight into an area, it's in color so it pays to have bases and units in strategic areas. The overlays are useful for a change as you can now see where you can and cannot build, what the land values are by color code, etc.

5. The envoy system with city states is also a game changer, you can't just "buy the win anymore". That the city states have more flair in goods and diplomacy is also good.

6. Being able to choose (or buy) specific great people or pass to get the ones with attributes you want is cool as it allows you to tailor your nation according to its cultural advantages.

The Bad:
A. I REALLY HATE what they did with roads. It's historically inaccurate, and it slows down the game needlessly, as it's pretty much impossible to link up even a small empire of 6 or 7 cities until well into the Industrial Age! Those Military Engineers are *expensive* and building roads is now basically pointless -- 3 MEs for a road between two cities 6 spaces apart?! No, thank you.
Worse, railroads are also worthless which is also historically inaccurate and further slows down the game. In most games, I have operational airports before I have railroads between my cities.(!)

B. I do not like what they did with workers, it really stunts the game. I'm paying a gold per turn for that worker, why do they disappear after X uses? I could see if they raised the rate every age so they got more expensive and/or charged a fee to upgrade like the military units or something, but it just feels clunky and cheap as a mechanic.

C. Civ 6 is too easy to defeat economically. The AI is worse than Civ 5's for trading and will often give you wild values for goods, and you can often get 10 (gold per turn for 30 turns) for 150 or 200 gold or some other absurd ratio, depending on various factors. So you can literally "beggar thy neighbor" into poverty most of the time.

D. They over-did the district improvements. It defies logic that a city can't build both (say) sewers and a lighthouse at the same time, and then made it so there are so many little-but-important things to build. Sure, eventually you can get it all done, but it becomes an exercise in monotonous micro-management if you have more than a dozen or so cities, IMO. This of course is just a more detailed failing of every version of Civ -- that you can't build more than 1 thing a turn per city with production... no matter how much production you have.

E. The global warming is overdone/too touchy, and the advancements to reverse it come too late in many games. Yes, you can delay taking Combustion for a long time and not build Coal plants, but in the end... even your microscopic warming won't matter vs the AI's building coal plants just to burn coal. Though I do like that if you build enough "carbon capture" that you can set off an Ice Age.

F. Barbarians now flee... forever. If you start beating one and they can run they will do so. I have chased barbarians over 30 tiles. This is a mechanic from Civ 1 that I really didn't miss.

Point 2. There are a lot of cool mods out there, but IMO the one that matters most is "Extended Policy Cards". This should have been a part of the game itself, and not a mod. Just knowing what the effect of the cards are in your Civ makes the game MUCH better to play.

Point 3. The built-in scenarios probably have the flavor you're looking for. I really enjoyed the Australian (Outback Tycoon) and Poland (Jadwiga's Legacy) content in particular.

Point 4. I've not had any issues with a mod conflicting with an achievement, but OTOH I don't play with many (8).

Enjoy!

 

[Markvs]

Great People have unique abilities per Great Person and are finite. There are about 3 to 4 Great People per type per era. You will almost never see all Great People of a type get used up unless you are dragging out a game.

The only exception is Great Prophets. There are only a set number of Prophets per map size (starts at 2 at a Duel maps increasing by 1 until you reach a max of 7 of huge maps) and by extension only a set number of religions. You will nearly always see the Great Prophets go by the Renaissance.

That being said, Fireaxis made it so you get a point of Faith per turn per Great Person Poin you earn once a type has ben used up.

Aside from Great Prophets, I actually run out of Admirals quite frequently, with Merchants being a close second... but that's because I prioritize trade.

 

[planetfall]

Also the easiest way to review the mechanics of civ6 is to check the fandom site. it's like an expanded civilopedia.

Civilization VI: Gathering Storm

Back to Civilization VI Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm is the second expansion pack released for Civilization VI, following Civilization VI: Rise and Fall. Gathering Storm was announced in a Firaxis livestream on November 20, 2018. It was released for Windows on February 14, 2019...

civilization.fandom.com

The nerfing of roads was a big mistake as it really slows down the game, but I think that was the idea. Many of the game/unit properties were set to make the game slower.

Particularly annoying are: builder turns til die, luxury resources only reach to a few cities, antiquity sites have to be harvested, spies are mostly worthless [unlike civ4], worldbuilder does not work, modern unit ranges are way lower than historic units, barbs spawn too quickly, navies have no power, etc. {Note if a game item annoys you, there is probably a mod, to undo the annoyance.]

Particularly fun are: policy cards, science path and civics path. tweaks can be easily made to game mechanics to personallize the gameplay to your enjoyment, hex tiles, mini map for quick movement, the better report mod to enable better gameplay decisions.

I never played 5, so don't know differences. However with 7 being a nogo, I'm thinking I may have missed something by jumping from 4 to 6.
Let us know more as you get into the game.

 

[MarqFJA87]

Welcome! Some of what is below has been touched on by others, but here's my take... fwiw, I have gotten all of the Steam achievements in both 5 & 6.
Point 1. To me, its a mixed bag in my mind as to where 6 succeeds and fails vs 5.

The Good:
1. I like the way Culture is handled. It's a definite improvement as Civ 5's culture was easy to smash, esp with certain civ and wonder combos. The Civics tree makes a lot of sense. Now a nation can be socially advanced and technologically backwards vs. another civ, or vice versa.

2. I like the new city layout with districts, and that you can't just have one (or maybe two or three) cities to build ALL the wonders in. (Though having a "production city" a "trade city" a "religious city" and a "culture city" is still a mostly valid strategy.)

3. I love that Governments are back again. IMO this was a failing in Civ V -- that you couldn't choose how to rule, as one had been able to since Civ 1.

4. The map concept is simple, yet awesome. Where you've explored, you know what is there but it's in grey. If you have sight into an area, it's in color so it pays to have bases and units in strategic areas. The overlays are useful for a change as you can now see where you can and cannot build, what the land values are by color code, etc.

5. The envoy system with city states is also a game changer, you can't just "buy the win anymore". That the city states have more flair in goods and diplomacy is also good.

6. Being able to choose (or buy) specific great people or pass to get the ones with attributes you want is cool as it allows you to tailor your nation according to its cultural advantages.

The Bad:
A. I REALLY HATE what they did with roads. It's historically inaccurate, and it slows down the game needlessly, as it's pretty much impossible to link up even a small empire of 6 or 7 cities until well into the Industrial Age! Those Military Engineers are *expensive* and building roads is now basically pointless -- 3 MEs for a road between two cities 6 spaces apart?! No, thank you.
Worse, railroads are also worthless which is also historically inaccurate and further slows down the game. In most games, I have operational airports before I have railroads between my cities.(!)

B. I do not like what they did with workers, it really stunts the game. I'm paying a gold per turn for that worker, why do they disappear after X uses? I could see if they raised the rate every age so they got more expensive and/or charged a fee to upgrade like the military units or something, but it just feels clunky and cheap as a mechanic.

C. Civ 6 is too easy to defeat economically. The AI is worse than Civ 5's for trading and will often give you wild values for goods, and you can often get 10 (gold per turn for 30 turns) for 150 or 200 gold or some other absurd ratio, depending on various factors. So you can literally "beggar thy neighbor" into poverty most of the time.

D. They over-did the district improvements. It defies logic that a city can't build both (say) sewers and a lighthouse at the same time, and then made it so there are so many little-but-important things to build. Sure, eventually you can get it all done, but it becomes an exercise in monotonous micro-management if you have more than a dozen or so cities, IMO. This of course is just a more detailed failing of every version of Civ -- that you can't build more than 1 thing a turn per city with production... no matter how much production you have.

E. The global warming is overdone/too touchy, and the advancements to reverse it come too late in many games. Yes, you can delay taking Combustion for a long time and not build Coal plants, but in the end... even your microscopic warming won't matter vs the AI's building coal plants just to burn coal. Though I do like that if you build enough "carbon capture" that you can set off an Ice Age.

F. Barbarians now flee... forever. If you start beating one and they can run they will do so. I have chased barbarians over 30 tiles. This is a mechanic from Civ 1 that I really didn't miss.

Point 2. There are a lot of cool mods out there, but IMO the one that matters most is "Extended Policy Cards". This should have been a part of the game itself, and not a mod. Just knowing what the effect of the cards are in your Civ makes the game MUCH better to play.

Point 3. The built-in scenarios probably have the flavor you're looking for. I really enjoyed the Australian (Outback Tycoon) and Poland (Jadwiga's Legacy) content in particular.

Point 4. I've not had any issues with a mod conflicting with an achievement, but OTOH I don't play with many (8).

Enjoy!

Also the easiest way to review the mechanics of civ6 is to check the fandom site. it's like an expanded civilopedia.

Civilization VI: Gathering Storm

Back to Civilization VI Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm is the second expansion pack released for Civilization VI, following Civilization VI: Rise and Fall. Gathering Storm was announced in a Firaxis livestream on November 20, 2018. It was released for Windows on February 14, 2019...

civilization.fandom.com

The nerfing of roads was a big mistake as it really slows down the game, but I think that was the idea. Many of the game/unit properties were set to make the game slower.

Particularly annoying are: builder turns til die, luxury resources only reach to a few cities, antiquity sites have to be harvested, spies are mostly worthless [unlike civ4], worldbuilder does not work, modern unit ranges are way lower than historic units, barbs spawn too quickly, navies have no power, etc. {Note if a game item annoys you, there is probably a mod, to undo the annoyance.]

Particularly fun are: policy cards, science path and civics path. tweaks can be easily made to game mechanics to personallize the gameplay to your enjoyment, hex tiles, mini map for quick movement, the better report mod to enable better gameplay decisions.

I never played 5, so don't know differences. However with 7 being a nogo, I'm thinking I may have missed something by jumping from 4 to 6.
Let us know more as you get into the game.

That's... That's a lot more serious negatives than I had ever expected; so much that I'm surprised the backlash wasn't sufficient enough to make them go a much more conservative route with Civ7 versus the even more radical changes they've introduced that nobody had been asking for (like the full decoupling of leaders from civs).

You're right, mods are a must for this game. I guess I'll be spending much time asking around in the modding section than I had originally planned; thank you for informing me of all these issues.

 

[SemiLazyGamer]

That's... That's a lot more serious negatives than I had ever expected; so much that I'm surprised the backlash wasn't sufficient enough to make them go a much more conservative route with Civ7 versus the even more radical changes they've introduced that nobody had been asking for (like the full decoupling of leaders from civs).

You're right, mods are a must for this game. I guess I'll be spending much time asking around in the modding section than I had originally planned; thank you for informing me of all these issues.

I think it would be better to play a few games first and see what annoys you first before you mod things.

Personally, the sum of the parts of the game are what hooked me into the series with VI, especially the expansion content when the base game didn't hook me in.

I'd say VI is that game you don't have to mod, but this is coming from someone who doesn't usually mod things anyways.

 

[planetfall]

Great idea to start with no changes, but again you really need to install better reporting mod, as it does not change any of gameplay events but tells you exactly what benefits each policy card will provide, a full list of units with strength and movement, overview of empire cities: districts installed, population, and offer dill down on each city production yields. All this greatly helps your gameplay. You don't have to use it if you don't like it, but if does fill the gap between civ6 standard reporting and is somewhat more like civ4 reporting screens. Just different data reported.

If you want city flipping like civ4, then governors must be modified and rest of game code makes city flipping mote. Only recommended if your play style is more "peaceful" city flipping than just taking the city. This version is designed to have city change only via military.

Play the game with just the report screen and see what you like and dislike. What I dislike, others like. If there are just a few things that make your play too annoying, many can be changed. I started with-- expanding life of builders, increasing range of modern air units to match unit details, expanding effect of sewers (should be able to service a full city, just set small to keep cities too low population). And then it has been a continue process of let me see if I can fix this. There have only been two annoyances I haven't been able to fix, so used a workaround. One was a only one worship building type/civ. I did have a mod that fixed this, but it has stopped working. It changed some lua scripts, and I never figured out what it did. Second was greek hoplite and unable to add copper dependancy, so workaround was to slight increase cost and maintenance of unit.

Granted sometimes over fix problem and have to dial back my solution. But it really makes the gameplay more interesting as I remember: this is the way the game worked with no changes, but now it works like this. I wonder what play would be like if I changed this. The appeal of this approach to the game if instead of just finding out how to play the game according to the designers idea of fun, I get to be a game designer and change the gameplay to make the gameplay more interesting.

So just do what appeals to you.