Trav'ling Canuck
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If you don't get lucky with the relic, you're probably looking at turn 92, possibly even turn 93.
[R&F] Do you still like R&F?
- Thread starter Wingednosering
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If you don't get lucky with the relic, you're probably looking at turn 92, possibly even turn 93.
PhilBowles
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For me it's alright - it certainly seems that Gathering Storm will be more substantial, certainly at addressing the lack of flavour that was Civ VI's big issue for me. I wouldn't quite want to 'take it or leave it', as the game without the loyalty system just isn't good enough to hold my interest.
I prefer era score being in the game, but the system has lost a bit of its lustre - border conflicts and late-game expansion just don't happen frequently enough - or at least aren't important often enough - to make the system feel like more than make-work in later eras, since the major purpose of the system is to pace expansion. Even then I mostly just want to be in a normal age, as the golden age benefits don't seem especially substantial unless you can chain them.
Governors I simply don't like. They're make-work most of whose abilities barely matter, and the ones that do matter are too obvious. It might just be the maps I roll, but I keep finding myself in areas with rather little to chop and so even Magnus isn't great for me. Gathering Storm will hopefully solve some of the balance issues, but not the issue that the system is simply unnecessary and tedious, with a layer of forced button-pressing and assignments that adds more clicks for no particular gameplay benefit. I'd like this to be one of the features there's an option to turn off.
The civs are just civs. The expansion did nothing to fix the problem that AI civs seem to behave essentially identically to one another, and R&F was unfortunate in containing multiple of the game's poorest civ designs (Georgia and Mapuche) without anything much really standing out positively. I like the Netherlands and Scotland and probably haven't played enough with the Cree to appreciate them, but the rest are just piled-on stat bonuses on fairly anonymous civs, or yet more warmonger civs the AI can't use any differently from generic civs. The Zulu have one of my favourite themes, though.
In general, Rise & Fall is one of the weakest expansions to any Civ game and definitely worse than either Civ V expansion - but it is an expansion and is an improvement overall, albeit its positive changes were less flashy 'under-the-hood' improvements like loyalty.
EDIT: I forgot emergencies, which says all I need to about my appreciation of that system. Evidently the designers agree as the R&F version is being scrapped entirely.
I prefer era score being in the game, but the system has lost a bit of its lustre - border conflicts and late-game expansion just don't happen frequently enough - or at least aren't important often enough - to make the system feel like more than make-work in later eras, since the major purpose of the system is to pace expansion. Even then I mostly just want to be in a normal age, as the golden age benefits don't seem especially substantial unless you can chain them.
Governors I simply don't like. They're make-work most of whose abilities barely matter, and the ones that do matter are too obvious. It might just be the maps I roll, but I keep finding myself in areas with rather little to chop and so even Magnus isn't great for me. Gathering Storm will hopefully solve some of the balance issues, but not the issue that the system is simply unnecessary and tedious, with a layer of forced button-pressing and assignments that adds more clicks for no particular gameplay benefit. I'd like this to be one of the features there's an option to turn off.
The civs are just civs. The expansion did nothing to fix the problem that AI civs seem to behave essentially identically to one another, and R&F was unfortunate in containing multiple of the game's poorest civ designs (Georgia and Mapuche) without anything much really standing out positively. I like the Netherlands and Scotland and probably haven't played enough with the Cree to appreciate them, but the rest are just piled-on stat bonuses on fairly anonymous civs, or yet more warmonger civs the AI can't use any differently from generic civs. The Zulu have one of my favourite themes, though.
In general, Rise & Fall is one of the weakest expansions to any Civ game and definitely worse than either Civ V expansion - but it is an expansion and is an improvement overall, albeit its positive changes were less flashy 'under-the-hood' improvements like loyalty.
EDIT: I forgot emergencies, which says all I need to about my appreciation of that system. Evidently the designers agree as the R&F version is being scrapped entirely.
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acluewithout
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If you don't get lucky with the relic, you're probably looking at turn 92, possibly even turn 93.
Yeah, I usually rage quit if I don’t pop a relic by turn three, or don’t have 742 cities by turn 25.
Ideally, I usually grow my cities to -12 population and then run projects to recruiter 5 to 6 great prophets by the classical era. I can then use these to grab all the early great writers, which lets me get Earth Satellite just after Printing. I can then normally chop in my space port using 18 stone quarries or 3 crabs, which lets me secure a Boat Mormon Religious Victory roughly 10 to 20 turns before I even started the game. The important thing to remember is to not build granaries. After that it’s pretty straightforward.
Obviously, totally different game if you’re playing Norway. If you get the chop overflow just right, you can usually launch a Long boat and three berserkers to Mars by turn 86 and get a science victory that way. Although, that usually requires at least one city with 30 to 40 crab tiles to harvest.
Rock bands are a joke mechanism that will get stale real fast. Hope they can be switched off. Plenty of other stuff to keep me engaged though.
Of course, just like everything else in Civ, the big question is: how well does the AI use any of it? Honestly, one the best changes I'm hearing is that it actually occurred to Ed to tweak the AI so they don't all automatically go on city-state-toppling sprees.
Now if only they'd do the same thing with every AI civ scrambling for every wonder.
Of course, just like everything else in Civ, the big question is: how well does the AI use any of it? Honestly, one the best changes I'm hearing is that it actually occurred to Ed to tweak the AI so they don't all automatically go on city-state-toppling sprees.
Now if only they'd do the same thing with every AI civ scrambling for every wonder.
Steamboat Willem
Warlord
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Texas and California flipped from Mexico to the US.
I wouldn‘t call it flipping when war is involved. Texas - maybe, California - no.
nzcamel
Nahtanoj the Magnificent
Governors - Better way to give tall a boost than punishing wide; but annoying overall. I would have rather seen extra boosts for higher population.
Eras - I just got a normal age (it happens once a game or so); and it's such a relief to drop the golden saturation. Which like the age itself has devalued significantly.
Emergencies - Not something I really like in the game.
Loyalty - The best part of R&F. Like others here I think the happiness of cities should be a bigger factor; but otherwise think it was a great addition.
Eras - I just got a normal age (it happens once a game or so); and it's such a relief to drop the golden saturation. Which like the age itself has devalued significantly.
Emergencies - Not something I really like in the game.
Loyalty - The best part of R&F. Like others here I think the happiness of cities should be a bigger factor; but otherwise think it was a great addition.
acluewithout
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Governors work well. But they’re very bland, and FXS didn’t really innovate much with them. They’re really just ancillary to the loyalty system.
I’ve talked about how bland they are before. Or see my signature.
But mechanically they’re very simple. I mean, it’s a bit lame how everyone gets basically the same number of Governor titles. There’s really no option to just not have governors. The governors don’t really have any drawbacks - no maintenance cost, you don’t have to keep them happy, etc.
Compare Governors to EU4 Advisors and you’ll see what I mean. Kind of the same as envoys. A good system, that works really well. But also kinda mechanically overly simplistic.
I feel like FXS play it very safe mechanically sometimes. Maybe that’s the right approach too. But it can be a bit of a let down too.
I’m looking forward to GS, but to be clear the new mechanics there seem very safe too. Railways and Canals in particular are very safe - “yup, let’s let players build railways and canals, but make sure they don’t really do anything so the game doesn’t get unbalanced”.
Can’t say I blame them. Look at most of the criticism on Steam, and it has this very “I like your old stuff better than your new stuff” vibe. (...Hmm. ...These guys know what I mean.)
I’ve talked about how bland they are before. Or see my signature.
But mechanically they’re very simple. I mean, it’s a bit lame how everyone gets basically the same number of Governor titles. There’s really no option to just not have governors. The governors don’t really have any drawbacks - no maintenance cost, you don’t have to keep them happy, etc.
Compare Governors to EU4 Advisors and you’ll see what I mean. Kind of the same as envoys. A good system, that works really well. But also kinda mechanically overly simplistic.
I feel like FXS play it very safe mechanically sometimes. Maybe that’s the right approach too. But it can be a bit of a let down too.
I’m looking forward to GS, but to be clear the new mechanics there seem very safe too. Railways and Canals in particular are very safe - “yup, let’s let players build railways and canals, but make sure they don’t really do anything so the game doesn’t get unbalanced”.
Can’t say I blame them. Look at most of the criticism on Steam, and it has this very “I like your old stuff better than your new stuff” vibe. (...Hmm. ...These guys know what I mean.)
Disgustipated
Deity
Only 742 cities? You must be a casual player.
If It was the native population that flipped I would say yes. But it was massive immigration from another country (U.S.) that set things in motion. And a policy of Manifest Destiny. Interestingly they are instituting immigration causing loyalty issues in the game. Will be interesting to see how that plays out. Another mechanic to abuse the poor ai.
Isengardtom
Warlord
I thought R&F added a lot to the vanilla game.
Especially Ages and loyalty are great mechanics I think. I do agree that getting golden ages can be a bit too easy. Maybe some era score tweaking is needed. As for the saturation, personally I like it but maybe an option to turn it off could be added, similarly to the night/day cycle now.
Governors I like but I do agree that you always tend to go for Magnus and ignore Victor. They should definitely be rebalanced a bit (I think GS is adressing this somewhat at least)
Emergencies are a cool concept but they happen really infrequently. Also the AI doesn’t handle them well.(Sometimes I have 10 games without even seeing one). I think their rework into world congress is going to address this.
Especially Ages and loyalty are great mechanics I think. I do agree that getting golden ages can be a bit too easy. Maybe some era score tweaking is needed. As for the saturation, personally I like it but maybe an option to turn it off could be added, similarly to the night/day cycle now.
Governors I like but I do agree that you always tend to go for Magnus and ignore Victor. They should definitely be rebalanced a bit (I think GS is adressing this somewhat at least)
Emergencies are a cool concept but they happen really infrequently. Also the AI doesn’t handle them well.(Sometimes I have 10 games without even seeing one). I think their rework into world congress is going to address this.
mitsho
Deity
My take: Everything is nice, but could have done better. I dislike the focus of adding more stuff that needs to be micromanaged, i.e. moving governors around, timing your historical moments or calculating how quickly you need to conquer those cities due to pressure. I‘d rather have simplifications here. But for what Civ6 provides as a base game, R&F was ok (as in, the little sister of...).
Edit: what I love about them is that they hear the complaints that it is really hard to judge how much value you get from a policy card with adjacency bonus and their solution is to introduce an empire lense that highlights your districts so that you can better judge it by looking at the map. Meanwhile there's a mod that shows you the numbers straight up (which btw. would be an easy way to make the AI better as well).To be fair, the numbers are the current ones, not the potential, but that's good enough. They want to make you think by making you look at the map which only minmaxers will. Meanwhile I just want to see my empire grow and have fun with that. It's good to have such policy cards for the minmaxers, but we others (and the AI) should get mediocre ones with stable returns. (rant over...)
Edit: what I love about them is that they hear the complaints that it is really hard to judge how much value you get from a policy card with adjacency bonus and their solution is to introduce an empire lense that highlights your districts so that you can better judge it by looking at the map. Meanwhile there's a mod that shows you the numbers straight up (which btw. would be an easy way to make the AI better as well).To be fair, the numbers are the current ones, not the potential, but that's good enough. They want to make you think by making you look at the map which only minmaxers will. Meanwhile I just want to see my empire grow and have fun with that. It's good to have such policy cards for the minmaxers, but we others (and the AI) should get mediocre ones with stable returns. (rant over...)
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Lord Lakely
Idea Fountain
There are plenty of issues with Governors, which I'll list in order of urgency
1) There's only a limited amount of promotions available (about 15, not counting future civic). You can get about half of the possible abilities if you build Casa (18/35). That's really not a lot.
2) Most governor promotions are pretty useless because they only have niche value. When was the last time you used Victor or Moksha's abilities? I normally only pick them up to get the era score from hiring every governor and that's it. Because of how the game functions, you're often just parking governors in cites where their abilities don't shine, which is rubbish.
3) The usefull promotions are all on the same governors. Right now there's a distinct hierarchy between them: Magnus > Amani/Liang > Reyna > Pingala > Moksha/Victor and that's usually the order in which I pick them up.
4) The governor system is just a rehash of the Civ 5 Social Policy system, but significantly worse. It's worse because the abilities you unlock are tall, rather than wide, which is problematic for a game where wide is the *best* strategy. It looks as though GS will add local as well as empire-wide effects to abilities and that's sorely needed. (such as Liang giving extra production to fisheries if she's the governor)
5) Seven is a low amount of governors. See above, going wide is better than going tall and it's usually optimal to park your governors in your best cities, rather than send them to your newer, growing cities. Adding at least one more (AND more titles) will be a step in the right direction, so i'm curious what will happen to the Civ that gets the Unique Governor.
1) There's only a limited amount of promotions available (about 15, not counting future civic). You can get about half of the possible abilities if you build Casa (18/35). That's really not a lot.
2) Most governor promotions are pretty useless because they only have niche value. When was the last time you used Victor or Moksha's abilities? I normally only pick them up to get the era score from hiring every governor and that's it. Because of how the game functions, you're often just parking governors in cites where their abilities don't shine, which is rubbish.
3) The usefull promotions are all on the same governors. Right now there's a distinct hierarchy between them: Magnus > Amani/Liang > Reyna > Pingala > Moksha/Victor and that's usually the order in which I pick them up.
4) The governor system is just a rehash of the Civ 5 Social Policy system, but significantly worse. It's worse because the abilities you unlock are tall, rather than wide, which is problematic for a game where wide is the *best* strategy. It looks as though GS will add local as well as empire-wide effects to abilities and that's sorely needed. (such as Liang giving extra production to fisheries if she's the governor)
5) Seven is a low amount of governors. See above, going wide is better than going tall and it's usually optimal to park your governors in your best cities, rather than send them to your newer, growing cities. Adding at least one more (AND more titles) will be a step in the right direction, so i'm curious what will happen to the Civ that gets the Unique Governor.
Aussie_Lurker
Deity
Still loving R&F. It added so many great things to what I already felt was a great game in the Civilization franchise. That said, there are elements of R&F that I would love to see them drill down even deeper on-especially the idea of Loyalty & free cities. It would be so cool if a free City could turn into something like a City-State or, if there are multiple free cities clustered together, have them become a new Civilization.
nzcamel
Nahtanoj the Magnificent
The one thing that I miss from vanilla is legacy bonuses. I thought the tug between wanting to take up a new government, and wanting to stay in your current one to get a few more % bonus was thematic. Even if those small figures don't inspire some players, it had to be better than what it is now where you jump into government X long enough to get it's associated policy card as you complete a building; and then leave again. The whole "time spent in a government" shaped your civilizations strengths really did it for me 
ChocolateShake
Prince
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I think Rise and Fall wasn't bold enough in changes to existing mechanics and the introduction of new ones. Loyalty, governors and the government plaza should be a lot more closely integrated with the policies system.
Yup although playing it safe can have its own advantages, I think they should always try to ensure, as Sid said, meaningful decisions. Maybe I'm too rigid in my typical play-style (working on that), but for me (and I don't chop), I feel there isn't enough focus on that. Deciding between keeping Pingala in a city for his +15% bonus or moving him to another for the +20% campus-building or theater-building production speed one isn't appealing to me.
There is a lot of fun to be had in utilizing governor bonuses with the new era bonuses too, so there is potential in chaining multiple minor bonuses together, but choosing a promotion should always be interesting/give you the feeling of a real trade off.
I think the government plaza had/has a lot more potential to truly customize your civilization. Ideally to me, each building should tie into your policies and your governor promotions as well.
I'd say it's a decent expansion that does bring a lot more variety to the game mostly due to the eras system, but a lot of potential remained.
Yup although playing it safe can have its own advantages, I think they should always try to ensure, as Sid said, meaningful decisions. Maybe I'm too rigid in my typical play-style (working on that), but for me (and I don't chop), I feel there isn't enough focus on that. Deciding between keeping Pingala in a city for his +15% bonus or moving him to another for the +20% campus-building or theater-building production speed one isn't appealing to me.
There is a lot of fun to be had in utilizing governor bonuses with the new era bonuses too, so there is potential in chaining multiple minor bonuses together, but choosing a promotion should always be interesting/give you the feeling of a real trade off.
I think the government plaza had/has a lot more potential to truly customize your civilization. Ideally to me, each building should tie into your policies and your governor promotions as well.
I'd say it's a decent expansion that does bring a lot more variety to the game mostly due to the eras system, but a lot of potential remained.
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I won't go back to vanilla, but it isn't great
Civ 6 Vanilla has a lot of design flaws which leads to a unique optimal strategy : spam military units, crush everybody, then win as you want (why no drawbacks in conquering a large empire?). UI is terrible, you should be able to play your turn 3x faster. Some good additions like the district system. 1UPT was a great idea until you realize AI could not manage it at all.
R&F is adding stuff without any critical issue:
- loyalty is the best idea but should be linked to cultural/political power of a city and not only or not at all to his population size;
- same 7 governors for all civilizations doesn't make any sense, poor design by the way, need too much micromanagement
There is a lot of good, interesting, great potential stuff in Civ 6 Vanilla, R&F and coming GS, but all that stuff should be reworked at the light of the experience in a new game (Civ 7) with healthier core mechanics.
Civ 6 Vanilla has a lot of design flaws which leads to a unique optimal strategy : spam military units, crush everybody, then win as you want (why no drawbacks in conquering a large empire?). UI is terrible, you should be able to play your turn 3x faster. Some good additions like the district system. 1UPT was a great idea until you realize AI could not manage it at all.
R&F is adding stuff without any critical issue:
- loyalty is the best idea but should be linked to cultural/political power of a city and not only or not at all to his population size;
- same 7 governors for all civilizations doesn't make any sense, poor design by the way, need too much micromanagement
There is a lot of good, interesting, great potential stuff in Civ 6 Vanilla, R&F and coming GS, but all that stuff should be reworked at the light of the experience in a new game (Civ 7) with healthier core mechanics.
Aussie_Lurker
Deity
Yeah, with no global happiness mechanic, I was surprised they didn't re-adopt Civ4's City Maintenance Modifier system, to balance out Wide vs Tall.
nzcamel
Nahtanoj the Magnificent
I really liked the Civ IV system; but after one got enough markets and courthouses going, it really stopped constraining in any way. If they did look at that again, in the mid-late game it might have to be tightened up a bit.
Trav'ling Canuck
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I think it's a shame the global happiness system got the bad rap it did, because the core idea behind the system is excellent.
Your empire requires a certain level of happiness before you can expand in Civ 5. It doesn't matter whether you're talking expanding "wide" (new city) or "tall" (bigger city), either way expansion is dependent on the happiness of your empire. If you expand before you have the happiness, you get into trouble.
In a way it still exists in Civ 6 through empire wide luxuries feeding into local amenities. Unfortunately, since yields have been tilted towards unworked buildings in Civ 6, the easiest way to manage the happiness system in Civ 6 is just to skip it, keep your pop low, and sell all of your luxuries, the gold from which grows your empire a lot faster than the people it would make happy ever could.
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