[GS] Expansion what you expected?

[Xmonger]

How well does the expansion fit your predictions/expectations?

Here is my post a year or two ago about what I was looking forward to

• New mechanic: Influence points (note, called Favor)
• Gain Influence (Favor) throughout the game (being strong militarily, sticking to your promises, being loyal etc etc)
• Diplomatic Victory is back
• World Congress is back
• Upgraded Spy system (note: looks like enhanced, not upgraded)
• Enhanced Diplomacy system which ties together City States, Alliances, Deals etc and adds some new overarching element
• 9-10 new Civ
• Maybe new district - Diplomatic Quarter

In bold the misses. I also added it would be neat if you could form 'pacts' with the barbs and city states to gain Favor.

Did pretty well but it wasn't hard to guess these features, completely didn't anticipate that global warming and weather to be the arching feature. Pleasantly surprised - kudos to Firaxis for doing that. Possibly a risk as surely some political wing nuts would take issue with it but they're just going with the climate theme and science anyhow.

 

[Hawke9]

The expansion contains everything I had hoped for, and much more. Firaxis really knocked it out of the park.

 

[blackcatatonic]

Can't recall if I made any prognostications (and I'm not going through my 2.5k+ posts to find out )

I expected diplomatic victory and the World Congress, but most of the other stuff has been a pleasant surprise. I didn't really consider that climate change and natural disasters would be a major focus until the Vesuvius leaks started to come out.

 

[Stilgar08]

I voted no, because I never thought it would be that packed with new stuff. Everyone expected World Congress, but apart from that I thought they would more go to build upon existing mechanics instead of throwing in tons of new stuff.
More like deepening existing vanilla and R+F features... I was completely wrong.

 

[Leyrann]

Better than I expected, I think. All of canals, railroads, natural disasters, improved diplomatic victory, science and civic tree expansion and a climate change mechanic that I actually have faith in, something I didn't think possible? Take my money Firaxis. And spend it on making that third expansion. You're on fire.

 

[Morningcalm]

Feature wise, I like it, though I also hope for naturally regrowing trees, forest fires, and the like. I also expected more African/American/Middle Eastern civs and fewer European ones, but oh well.

 

[Elhoim]

A bit of a mix. I expected railroads and diplomatic victory, canals, disasters and electricity were pleasant surprises.

I only hoped we had an enlarged city work area, as the districts are getting a bit crowded, and would help the AI not to place the cities too close to each other.

 

[Leyrann]

I only hoped we had an enlarged city work area, as the districts are getting a bit crowded, and would help the AI not to place the cities too close to each other.

Then maps would also need to be bigger.

They need to be anyways though.

 

[Amrunril]

The combination of climate change mechanics with diplomatic interactions has been at the top of my civ wish list since before the current game even released. I can't say I expected it to be the focus of the next expansion, but I'm certainly excited to see it.

My dream expansion would be one focusing on trade offs between conservation and economic growth, in terms of both local land conservation and global use of fossil fuels. Different civs could have different priorities based on civics, terrain etc, and these mechanics could play into diplomacy as well (Russia for instance, might have lots of oil resources that it wants to exploit and not mind too much if Siberia warms up a bit. Polynesia, on the other hand is likely to have problems with this).

Climate change could be an incredibly interesting mechanic if handled well, with powerful buildings, improvements and resources contributing to a global tracking system. The trade off between short term economic benefit and longer term environmental effects [which could include sea level rise, conversion of tiles to desert and biodiversity loss (perhaps represented as reduced tile appeal)] is interesting in its own right, but the diplomatic implications are equally fascinating. Players would suddenly have a reason to care what their neighbors are doing with their own resources in their own land, and different civs might have dramatically different priorities based on their geographic positions and playstyle choices. A player with lots of coastal/island cities and heavy investment in national parks would want to stop climate change at all costs, while an inland player with rich reserves of coal and oil would feel somewhat less urgency. A player with ice-locked cities might even want to encourage climate change. All of this would provide dramatic incentives for late game conflict and cooperation and provide new issues for a hypothetical world congress to consider.

 

[AntoineS]

I voted no because I did not expect such a nice random events system, although I already see improvement potential, which is great! I like canal cities, it would be awesome if rivers became navigable too.

I like the focus on the map, I like the direction Civ 6 is moving in, I would have expected improvements for the government system, more Alt Leaders... But it's coming in the next 2 expansions right Firaxis?

 

[Rup]

I never wanted a non optional natural disaster mechanic.But Firaxis turned me.
Now I am uber excited for the expansion.
However there are things that I wanted to see are missing like Vassalage.

 

[Aristos]

It's a nice set of features to play solo simcity-like building without serious opposition, granted... but Cities:Skylines is even better and more loaded for a solo city builder.

 

[masda_gib]

No, not really. It has way more in it than I expected.

I expected the Word Congress, Diplo Victory and canals (after all the whining).

I did not expect a whole additional era, natural disasters and climate change with dynamic map changes! Oo

 

[Giskler]

Expansion has more than I expected, but I still miss vassal/client states.

 

[Cerilis]

It appears to actually outdo my expectations.

 

[AriochIV]

I had no expectations at all; the announcement took me by surprise. I hadn't realized it has been a whole year since the Rise & Fall announcement.

 

[ButtBillionaire]

I did not. When the tornadoes showed up on the storm stream, I expected natural disasters, but apart from that, I was surprised with how much content this expansion has - and it all seems to be very good! I think I'll be happy to give Firaxis funds for this one, and hope that they'll have, and take, the opportunity to make one more expansion (or more DLC) after Gathering Storm, filled with even more great content.

 

[Xmonger]

I also expected more African/American/Middle Eastern civs and fewer European ones, but oh well.

I'm pretty sure the new civs haven't been announced yet, though there was one I think that popped up accidentally in the live stream (I think it was civ they've done before)

I never wanted a non optional natural disaster mechanic.But Firaxis turned me.

Disasters are entirely optional. We get a slider on game setup to how much we want.

 

[Naktis]

Maybe I missed , but it lacks thunderstorm and rain.
Also mud from rain , blizzard that could slow unit advancement would be really fun feature, you wanna invade , get stuck and by the time you "unstuck" to continue enemy already rebuild his army. Just like all those invassions into russia and how it ended for France and Germans , environmental hazzards - OP. PLS ADD.

 

[PhilBowles]

I voted no, because I never thought it would be that packed with new stuff. Everyone expected World Congress, but apart from that I thought they would more go to build upon existing mechanics instead of throwing in tons of new stuff.
More like deepening existing vanilla and R+F features... I was completely wrong.

Natural disasters as a focus seem a clever way to add content without exacerbating the game's existing feature bloat too badly, since they aren't a mechanic the player directly controls. Not altogether a fan of them being 'periodic' rather than random, especially as a relative minority of volcanoes are dangerously active, and not all rivers flood destructively. I have the sense that every river will flood and every volcano will erupt at multiple, predetermined points during the game - and I don't know if volcanoes will spawn with different periodicities. Will each of them erupt every, say, 50 turns?