Does Civ 6 have the potential to surpass Civ 4?

[rezaf]

I like the 1UPT rule. It forces you to think more strategically and 'stacking' is somewhat allowed to a moderate degree with corps, fleet, and support units.

People keep saying this and I keep wondering what game it is they are playing and how to get it instead of the one I'm facing.
In the Civ4 I played, honest stacks of doom were very rare outside of marathon games and/or high difficulties. IF one made an appearance and a stack of 30 units walked out of the fog of war right into the weakly defended belly of my empire, it truly was time to face a feeling of impending doom.
In the Civ6 I played I faced this exact situation, 30 units jumped me (though carpets of doom are impossible to overlook, so of course I knew they were coming) when I had only 3 defensive units in place. I didn't even raise an eyebrow (or bother to call in reinforcements) and whittled away the entire enemy army with three crossbowmen and the two cities in the area, hardly ever taking damage.
Is this the kind of strategic thinking you're referring to?

 

[Plus Ultra]

Is this the kind of strategic thinking you're referring to?

Yes. Victory was only possible due to your superior intelect and decision making capabilities. Therefore, strategic thinking.

 

[GT_OKEZ]

People keep saying this and I keep wondering what game it is they are playing and how to get it instead of the one I'm facing.
In the Civ4 I played, honest stacks of doom were very rare outside of marathon games and/or high difficulties. IF one made an appearance and a stack of 30 units walked out of the fog of war right into the weakly defended belly of my empire, it truly was time to face a feeling of impending doom.
In the Civ6 I played I faced this exact situation, 30 units jumped me (though carpets of doom are impossible to overlook, so of course I knew they were coming) when I had only 3 defensive units in place. I didn't even raise an eyebrow (or bother to call in reinforcements) and whittled away the entire enemy army with three crossbowmen and the two cities in the area, hardly ever taking damage.
Is this the kind of strategic thinking you're referring to?

To be fair the AI is pretty dumb with Barbarians and other Civ's military. At least on Emperor. But in a multiplayer it really brings more skill into the game or until the AI becomes smarter. In a MP I was able to win a lopsided battle against me due to better placement instead of having a stack of doom just bash into my city until it was gone. Knowing how unit placement bonuses work with civics like military tradition is pretty important. It's more like playing chess in the 1UPT set up and I like it. To each their own I suppose.

 

[need my speed]

I suggest this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/initial-civfan-reactions-to-civ-4.602405/

Alas, that thread merely goes to prove the point; the complaints directed against Civilization IV dealt with cartoony graphics and the tactical combat AI (on that note, claims such as 'units attack in a random order' are flat-out wrong).

Complaints directed against Civilization VI deal with those two points, and many more; diplomacy, yield balance, the very new gameplay mechanics themselves...

 

[dexters]

Alas, that thread merely goes to prove the point; the complaints directed against Civilization IV dealt with cartoony graphics and the tactical combat AI (on that note, claims such as 'units attack in a random order' are flat-out wrong).

Complaints directed against Civilization VI deal with those two points, and many more; diplomacy, yield balance, the very new gameplay mechanics themselves...

Several quotes cite AI. and anecdotally AI is always complained about around every Civ release or the release of any 4x games.

 

[Qin Shi Hung]

Yes. Victory was only possible due to your superior intelect and decision making capabilities. Therefore, strategic thinking.

While that's technically true, being superior to the Civ AI is not much of an accomplishment.

 

[isau]

Am I recalling incorrectly or was the improved AI in Civ IV Beyond the Sword written by a modder and incorporated into the game? For sure I remember that in Civ IV the AI didn't even know about some of the victory conditions until the second expansion.

 

[ThunderLizard2]

Not likely. Civ IV worked as a whole. It was fun and challenging even on King. 1 UPT is a fatal flaw IMHO - not sure why people like it so much.

Wouldn't it be fantastic if they released an updated Civ IV with modern graphics and some clean-up of rough edges?

 

[Qin Shi Hung]

I like 1UPT, it's a shame the AI can't handle it and multiplayer takes so long.

 

[genyl]

It is only 1 week after release. The game looks good for a release but the more I play the more the cracks start to appear. There is a lot of faith in Firaxis fixing the issues but the reality is that we don't know if they will do it or not

 

[Grotius]

Absolutely, Civ VI has the potential to surpass Civ IV. The AI is already somewhat better than the Civ IV or Civ V AI at launch, especially in the first 50 turns. (Then it starts to deteriorate.) Yes, the AI needs a ton of work. Someone -- Firaxis or a modder -- will give us a better AI.

I like 1UPT, especially in multiplayer. Also, Civ VI now has 3UPT, once you get Armies, which are fun. Most serious board and PC wargames have hexes with something between 1 and 3 UPT. E.g., the Decisive Battles series. The DB games have better combat AI than the Civ games -- not spectacular, but better. On the other hand, some hex-based wargames have AI that is worse than Civ: E.g., War in the Pacific/Admirals Edition. Anyway, it can be done. I think there's hope for the Civ 6 AI.

 

[need my speed]

Several quotes cite AI. and anecdotally AI is always complained about around every Civ release or the release of any 4x games.

Yes, I said that? Again, you prove that the complaints directed against VI (and V) are of a different nature than those directed against IV.

 

[ComradeDavo]

I think that given some work on the AI (upgrading units and better at combat for a start) that the game will be superb, especially after DLC's add in more features, civs, leaders, wonders etc.

 

[rezaf]

Also, Civ VI now has 3UPT, once you get Armies, which are fun.

Corps and armies armies are not 2 or three units but merely a unit boosted by sacrificing one or two other units.
But I know it's impossible to argue reason with 1UPT zealots, so I guess it's better not to try.

 

[dexters]

Yes, I said that? Again, you prove that the complaints directed against VI (and V) are of a different nature than those directed against IV.

Yes you keep making this point about the uniqueness of complaints leveled against vI but you don't back it up except selectively interpreting to OP of quotes from civ4s release to arrive at your conclusion.

I'm actu ally pointing out not much has changed . so was the OP of the other thread

 

[need my speed]

Well, which game mechanics of Civilization IV received complaints? How was the game fundamentally flawed?

 

[Lyoncet]

I don't think Civ VI will surpass IV, for the simple reason that they're such different games I don't evaluate them in parallel. I played a few hours of IV last night, and one thing that struck me is how beautifully simple the game is. The strategic depth is immense, but the core of gameplay is pretty straight-forward. And those are good qualities, IMO.

Civ V lost a lot of that depth of gameplay, and to make up for it, added many more layers of "stuff" to do. That successfully shored it up as a game, and now is much better than it was at launch. But it hardly resembles IV. VI takes the same thing even further, with things like districts being whole mini-games in and of themselves. Those are also good qualities, IMO.

Civ VI is well beyond Civ IV in a "lots of fun mini-games" capacity. It will not surpass Civ IV in a "simple decisions with huge depth of gameplay" capacity. To me, that makes the OP's question impossible to answer. (Although for my money, Civ IV is still my favorite.)

 

[Roald Amundsen]

I like 1UPT, it's a shame the AI can't handle it and multiplayer takes so long.

Haha

 

[CrispyCritter]

I agree with the others who say that this is the most playable initial release so far.

I didn't play the original Civilization, but I've been around for the launch from Civ 2 on, and all of them had many problems in their vanilla release (including Civ 4!). Problems with the UI, basic game mechanics, and of course balance have affected all of the releases, especially for the top-level players. One thing to keep in mind is the tremendous explosion in high-level players that happened in Civ 4. That was finally a game that you could spend thousands of hours on, get deeply involved in things like balance questions, and have a community to share in. All those experts mean that problem discovery is happening much faster in Civ 5 and 6 than it did in previous releases. Hopefully that (along with mod--abilty) means that problem solutions will occur in a shorter time period.

I think there's no question that Civ 6 has the potential to pass Civ 4 for most folks, but not for all. They are different style games that appeal to different folks. I personally got bored with Civ 4 playing less hours than Civ 5 (including all updates of each). Civ 4 is a much simpler strategic game than what Civ 5 tried to be, but it was a much richer mid-level tactical game. There were only a couple of paths of victory at the top-levels - the joy and challenge come from good implementations of those paths. The lousy AI in Civ 4 doesn't matter as much because it is a simpler game, and easier to give AI buffs without affecting overall game play. The better, but still lousy, AI in Civ 5 affected game play much more because of the difficulties of both high level strategy (which improved with updates) and the low-level tactics.

AI in Civ 6 will be interesting. It appears as though there is much more freedom for AI buffs to handle the greatly increased complexity. Even at the tactical level, the individual unit strength dependency on difficulty level will be nice (corresponds well with increased units in stacks as the Civ 4 buff).

What will really be interesting is if there's enough hooks for users to write their own AI routines. I spent some months investigating freeciv (open source Civ 2 implementation) but gave up due to real-life interference. Even there, it wasn't going to be easy to modularise the AI enough. I haven't checked into what Civ 6 offers at all; just enjoying the play for now!

 

[Stilgar08]

Corps and armies armies are not 2 or three units but merely a unit boosted by sacrificing one or two other units.
But I know it's impossible to argue reason with 1UPT zealots, so I guess it's better not to try.

Nevertheless Corps and Armies DO help a bit against the 1UPT problems. But they aren't solving them.
If devs opt out of it, it would be better. Enabling different layers for tiles, making religious units one of themselves, enabling stacking of (at least) allied units (CS)...
But I don't see it happening...