[R&F] Do you still like R&F?

What are you thoughts on R&F now?

  • It's fantastic! Way better than vanilla Civ VI

    Votes: 77 48.1%
  • It's alright. I can take it or leave it

    Votes: 34 21.3%
  • I loved it at first, but not so much now

    Votes: 7 4.4%
  • I don't care for it

    Votes: 10 6.3%
  • Never bought it (specify in a response. Did it not appeal to you?

    Votes: 8 5.0%
  • I won't go back to vanilla, but it isn't great

    Votes: 24 15.0%

  • Total voters
    160
Joined
Dec 12, 2011
Messages
536
Location
Toronto
I asked this same question with a similar poll a month after R&F and found that most people really liked the expansion. I was excited by this and picked it up myself a few months later when I had enough spare cash in my pocket.

I think I played five games with it and gave up. Some mechanics were neat, but I felt that they failed to add any excitement to the game for me. A lot of the R&F features felt like busywork and several seemed poorly balanced.

So I'm here on the eve of the next expansion asking the same question: How does R&F hold up now that you've gotten some time and distance from it? I'm curious whether the luster wore off for a lot of people or of it's still seen as great and just not up my alley.
 
I feel like I need an option between "it's fantastic" and "its alright". I enjoy playing with it and feel like it improved vanilla but some of the additions I'm not as fond of or feel inconsequential, and the civ designs (in terms of mechanics) felt a bit bland overall.
 
Where’s the “didn’t like it and now like it even less” option?

I didn’t like RnF when it came out. As time has gone on, I have both come to appreciate some of the design decisions better (loyalty is really very good), but have also become much, much more frustrated and unhappy with the game overall.

I’m really hoping GS starts pulling the game together. Looks like it will, but let’s see.

I hate this, an expansion with just Magnus moving around, and chop chop chop.

Basically this. There are other problems, but basically this.
 
You know... just because a mechanism is overpowered doesn't mean you have to use it.

Its not so much that Magnus is OP, its that I spend too much time working out where to send him next, then getting very frustrated when I realise hes no longer needed where hes at and I forgot to move him.
He is micromanagement hell (and thats speaking as someone who never automated workers or used governors in past versions of Civ).

But in general I thought R&F was pretty decent.
 
You know... just because a mechanism is overpowered doesn't mean you have to use it.

The problem is not chopping is too powerful per se. It’s that other sources of production do not keep pace with costs compared to chopping. And at a more fundamental level, the problem is the overall pacing is off.

Not chopping is not a great option, because the game is designed around choppping and the decisions it creates. You’re playing without a core mechanic.

It’s like playing peacefully. Combat is a core design element of the game. That doesn’t mean every game should involve the total physical destruction of every city state and Civ in the game. But the game is designed around players having at latest a few fights...
 
Not fantastic but an improvement on the original game.

The biggest thing I enjoy is the loyalty system which I think is a lot of fun. I also like the ages but I really dislike the whole thing that points you get over the threshold for a particular age does nothing and I think that is quite poor design. The governors are alright.

The emergencies were a big disappoinment so I'm glad they're tying some of that stuff into the World Congress.
 
The problem is not chopping is too powerful per se. It’s that other sources of production do not keep pace with costs compared to chopping. And at a more fundamental level, the problem is the overall pacing is off.

Not chopping is not a great option, because the game is designed around choppping and the decisions it creates. You’re playing without a core mechanic.

It’s like playing peacefully. Combat is a core design element of the game. That doesn’t mean every game should involve the total physical destruction of every city state and Civ in the game. But the game is designed around players having at latest a few fights...
Comparing chopping to combat as a "core mechanic" is just silly. If you have to minmax to win at the absolute hardest level, fine, but I don't think the game is really designed to played at the hardest level. I don't usually play higher than emperor because the cheats the AI receives just get stupid, and you have to do boring nonsensical things (such as chopping everything in sight). If folks enjoy forced mixmaxing, more power to them, but it seems a little odd when they complain about it.
 
Comparing chopping to combat as a "core mechanic" is just silly. If you have to minmax to win at the absolute hardest level, fine, but I don't think the game is really designed to played at the hardest level. I don't usually play higher than emperor because the cheats the AI receives just get stupid, and you have to do boring nonsensical things (such as chopping everything in sight). If folks enjoy forced mixmaxing, more power to them, but it seems a little odd when they complain about it.

Pretty sure chopping is a core Mechanic. There’s a Governor and Pantheon dedicated to it.

For example. Jungle is basically made to be chopped. It provides adjacency to early campuses, but only a weak bonus. It otherwise lowers appeal, can’t be improved, and chopping it gives both hammers and food - so chopping let’s you both build infrastructure and increase your pop.
 
I still like it, I certainly won't go back to vanilla. I still get annoyed by loyalty on Earth TSL maps.

Honestly I don't feel loyalty adds enough to the game. Seeing cities flip in GS live plays is still weird to me. It seems to happen far too often. Are there any real world instances of this happening? Crimea is the main one that comes to mind.
 
Well, with all that it adds, I don't see a reason to go back to vanilla. I enjoy most of the new civs, and I love the ages system.

My biggest gripe is that moving governors around is a lot of annoying micromanagement. I think I would prefer if you could only move them at the beginning of an era, or something like that.

In most of my games, I just leave them where I initially put them even if it's not optimal. I just can't be assed to keep moving them around. There are a few exceptions, for example making fisheries, but I usually don't pay a ton of attention to the governors. I also rarely chop outside of chopping tiles I plan to put districs/wonders on. But I prefer to play on difficulty 5 or 6 anyway

Also, they may fix this in Gathering Storm, but the governors are not even close to equally useful. I don't think i have ever benefitted from Victor's abilities at all, only from the loyalty governors bring when using him

I also like the idea of using Loyalty to pushish aggressive forward settling, but gathering storm's grievances system may be a better way to address that. We'll see

Pretty sure chopping is a core Mechanic. There’s a Governor and Pantheon dedicated to it.

For example. Jungle is basically made to be chopped. It provides adjacency to early campuses, but only a weak bonus. It otherwise lowers appeal, can’t be improved, and chopping it gives both hammers and food - so chopping let’s you both build infrastructure and increase your pop.

Core mechanic as in "it's in the vanilla core of the game", yeah, but I seriously doubt it was FIraxis's instention to centralize strategy so much around chopping specifically.
 
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Core mechanic as in "it's in the vanilla core of the game", yeah, but I seriously doubt it was FIraxis's instention to centralize strategy so much around chopping specifically.

Are you sure?

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both districts cost increases and chopping yield increases are both linked to how many techs and civics you’ve researched.

And isn’t getting Wonders a race? Wouldn’t chopping ... help you win that race? And doesn’t that make a potentially interesting decision - chop now, get a wonder, or don’t chop and maybe miss the wonder but you get longer term steady yields (...or can chop for something else)?

I don’t think chopping is there just so you can clear spaces for districts. Pretty sure it’s meant to be a core part of the game and player’s strategy.
 
It makes the game better, it just needs some modding fine tuning.
 
I still like it, I certainly won't go back to vanilla. I still get annoyed by loyalty on Earth TSL maps.

Honestly I don't feel loyalty adds enough to the game. Seeing cities flip in GS live plays is still weird to me. It seems to happen far too often. Are there any real world instances of this happening? Crimea is the main one that comes to mind.
Switzerland consists to large parts of regions and cities that „flipped“. Even in the 20th century, an Austrian Region wanted to join (and had a vote about it that said yes), but Switzerland and Austria denied. The Italian province of Lombardy still has a movement that wants to join. Similarly, Alto Adige has a political movement to join Austria. So it is still happening today on older and more recent borders. Secession movements are even more common.
 
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