[R&F] Do you still like R&F?

[AmazonQueen]

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.

Maybe places like Transnistria and Artsakh, not officially recognised, but not governed by the country that they officially belong to.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Overall I think It improved the game but it definitely doesn't feel finished, a lot of the new mechanics add something but need more work, especially emergencies and governors. Thankfully at least one is getting a massive makeover!

 

[Chefofrats]

It's a nice improvement over Vanilla and I enjoy all the new features, especially loyalty and how it hinders forward-settling - I play on King so I don't have to min-max everything, thus governor micro-management and chopping exploits aren't an issue for me, I can just ignore both and still do well, having fun all of the time.

 

[Naktis]

Its okay for me , loyalty is great for people who dont like warmongering , BUT free cities mechanics are horrible, I actually want that those free cities would turn in city states type if for some amount of turns nobody takes them or even better they're own civs

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I love Vanilla and R&F but I also find them frustrating because I see so much unfulfilled potential. They could have done so much more with the free cities!

 

[Prima Italia]

I have not bought it and will not unless it is part of a heavily discounted bundle later on down the road. The civ choices were atrocious and the mechanics seems lacklustre. I do not think they address the problems with Civ 6 but just add another layer to them.

 

[Karmah]

You know... just because a mechanism is overpowered doesn't mean you have to use it.

yeah it does

 

[blackcatatonic]

I would say that it added to the game without actually improving it much. The one big improvement I've noticed is loyalty and that forward settling now has consequences, for both the AI and the player - I really love that change. For that alone, I would never go back to vanilla.

 

[Arent11]

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.

But this is not due to "pressure" of nearby cities. If we were talking about the loyalty mechanism & pressure of nearby cities, Switzerland would have long ago been absorbed by the EU. In the real world, things work very different.

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.

The point it that this mechanism is superfluous & was better implemented by cultural pressure in civ IV. The only effect it has is that you can't conquer a city in the middle of the enemy civ - and it frustrates newbies that can't yet judge which cities they should raze and which they should keep. The effect is simply so unimportant that it doesn't justify the introduction of a new mechanic & it also doesn't justify frustrating casual players.

 

[WillowBrook]

I'll vote if an option between fantastic and alright is added. It's a solid improvement over vanilla, and I wouldn't go back to vanilla. I really like the loyalty and era systems (although neither are perfect), while governors are okay and emergencies need work. On the whole, I like the additional civs, as well.

 

[Pistol90]

It is just bare bone of what is needed. They will expand one thing in GS, but others will remain. That is the reason why I think we need third expanssion where they would expand governors and what is most important to me free cities ... they build loyalty but forgot to build what hapens after

 

[pgm123]

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

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.

Maybe pick another governor? If moving Magnus ruins your enjoyment, you can always chop with a different governor in place.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

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.

The safest way to infer intention is to look at actions. In Civ 6:

• chopping woods was boosted: whereas in past versions of civ, this gave a base yield, in Civ 6, it gives escalating yields as the game progresses
• resources can be chopped for the first time, giving additional yields besides just production (food, gold, faith with a pantheon)
• a pantheon was created that only provides benefits when chopping, suggesting that it was expected that people would chop
• a governor was added to the first expansion to boost the benefits of chopping compared to the base game

All of the above suggest, to me, that the development team planned for chopping to be a big part of the game. Possibly with the intent, all along, to then introduce climate change once they had trained players to rely on chops as a key source of production.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

The safest way to infer intention is to look at actions. In Civ 6:

• chopping woods was boosted: whereas in past versions of civ, this gave a base yield, in Civ 6, it gives escalating yields as the game progresses
• resources can be chopped for the first time, giving additional yields besides just production (food, gold, faith with a pantheon)
• a pantheon was created that only provides benefits when chopping, suggesting that it was expected that people would chop
• a governor was added to the first expansion to boost the benefits of chopping compared to the base game

All of the above suggest, to me, that the development team planned for chopping to be a big part of the game. Possibly with the intent, all along, to then introduce climate change once they had trained players to rely on chops as a key source of production.

I actually see no serious effect of climate change. Just avoid those low land tiers and my chop will only cause the sea to flood AI cities, which helps my victory.

 

[acluewithout]

Maybe pick another governor? If moving Magnus ruins your enjoyment, you can always chop with a different governor in place.

I’m not saying I chop (although I do) or that you should chop (maybe you do or maybe you don’t).

I’m saying the game is designed and balanced around players generally doing a lot of chopping. Is anyone actually disputing that?

Doesn’t mean people have to like it. Doesn’t mean people have to do it. Doesn’t mean it’s “the right way to play” - play however you want. But the game is designed and balanced for chop, chop, chop.

The safest way to infer intention is to look at actions. In Civ 6:

• chopping woods was boosted: whereas in past versions of civ, this gave a base yield, in Civ 6, it gives escalating yields as the game progresses
• resources can be chopped for the first time, giving additional yields besides just production (food, gold, faith with a pantheon)
• a pantheon was created that only provides benefits when chopping, suggesting that it was expected that people would chop
• a governor was added to the first expansion to boost the benefits of chopping compared to the base game

All of the above suggest, to me, that the development team planned for chopping to be a big part of the game. Possibly with the intent, all along, to then introduce climate change once they had trained players to rely on chops as a key source of production.

Yup. Agree. Particularly the bit about climate change - I don’t think this was some random idea they came up with at the last minute.

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

Loved it until Gathering Storm was revealed...now it's ruined for me!

 

[Cuneiform]

I just view it as a stepping stone to Gathering Storm now.

My biggest problem with it is the micro-management introduced with the Governors, but they can be ignored to a large extent. I tend to every 50 turns have a "what are my Governors up to" check, just to help things along a bit.

 

[Socrates99]

All of the above suggest, to me, that the development team planned for chopping to be a big part of the game. Possibly with the intent, all along, to then introduce climate change once they had trained players to rely on chops as a key source of production.

That'd be some pretty cool forethought on their part if they actually did plan it out like that. The game is definitely reliant on chops right now, adding another downside to chopping other than "I can't build a lumbermill there anymore" would make the decision more interesting.

 

[Wingednosering]

Seems people weren't happy with the poll options. I've added another option between "Fantastic" and "Take it or leave it", but it had to be added to the bottom of the poll.

My personal take on R&F is that the ages system is good. It could still be a lot better, but it's a nice addition. I think the saturation in golden ages could be toned down a bit for the sake of eye strain and the boosts you choose per age are lame and you usually choose the same ones over and over again.

Governors and emergencies are awful. To me, they are the biggest failing of the expansion. Emergencies being tied to diplomacy is a good idea in GS, but still worries me because they were so half baked the last time around. Governors are just busywork and lock off features that should really be in the base game behind weird characters that live for thousands of years.

Loyalty is a mixed bag. I like it in theory, but I think it's a bit too intense. Warmongering is really difficult now (god help you if you slip into a dark age mid-invasion) and settling on another player's continent feels nearly impossible.

As for chopping, I almost never use it. I've certainly never consumed a resource with it. In my few R&F games, I never once got Magnus. I like keeping the environment pretty pristine and already find the game easy without sucking up resources and features.

 

[TomKQT]

I'm not really pleased with R&F.
Governors - probably my biggest problem with R&F. Their bonuses are too specialized and either you invest too much micromanagement into moving everyone around all the time, or you just pasivelly place them somewhere and you may get some bonus or not. Things like "faster production of theatre square buildings" are a great example of this. I always have the bad feeling that I realy shouldn't chop until I move Magnus, make a builder until I move Liang etc. I know you don't have to play optimally, but why care about governors at all, then?
Eras - seemed like a good idea, but in fact I stopped caring about it after few games. The ages (golden, normal, dark) and almost the same, the bonuses are very similar and feel too random to me (or they really are?). Heroic age - have had only 1 so far (because it's very hard to get a dark age). Dark age - not really so bad, maybe even better than normal, which doesn't make sense. But I still try to avoid it, because the dark color hurts my eyes. Yea, great gameplay motivation!
Emergencies - too random, too weird. And always an easy bonus for the human player, nothing else.
Loyalty - good concept, but plays an unimportant role in my games. I wouldn't probably notice if it suddenly disappeared. I'm not kidding.