I (finally) reached the Exploration Age in my first playthrough today and, well . . . I don't know.
Hmm, where to begin. Okay, I'll admit to being very underwhelmed by the whole crisis mechanic, which just seemed super-abstract and a somewhat artificial way to inject a bit of drama into the late game (well, of the era). Mine was so vague I can barely recall what it was, something about "the scourge rising" or whatever. Really, I had so much gold and happiness by the end of Antiquity it barely made a dent in me at all.
I was a little nervous when the game switched to Exploration because I was around the year 20 BC, which seemed a bit early for such a thing . . . luckily the game jumped ahead to 400 AD at the start of Exploration.
I was slightly enjoying myself at first in Antiquity, but once I hit Exploration, a lot of my enthusiasm just kind of plummeted. As expected, I think a lot of this had to do with the civ switching aspect. Like I really just wanted to keep playing as Egypt, and was annoyed I had to switch to a new civ (I ended up settling on Abassid). In previous CIV games, I would kind of make up little narratives in my head as I played along, and this game it's hard to do that because it's so schizophrenic and all over the place. Someone said it feels less like you're playing against other Civs and more like you're playing against other Leaders, and that doesn't interest me as much. And the lack of a timeline is really cramping my enjoyment. So many things in VI felt epic, like being the first civ to create a religion, or build a seafaring unit, and so on. And I just don't get that feel here. Everything just seems so regimented and lockstep: you may do a pantheon in Antiquity, but not a religion until Exploration. You can explore only one area of the map in Antiquity. There's not much freedom here.
I just feel very disconnected from this game, in many areas. Like the map, for example. In CIV VI, I could look at a city (either my own or the AI) and instantly tell what was going on. The cities here look more realistic, but also more cluttered, and I have a hard enough time trying to figure out what's going on in my own cities, never mind the AI. I even feel disconnected from the AI. In CIV VI, I almost always had some idea of what the other civs were up to, either from gossip (which I SORELY miss in this game, the updates you get on the right of the screen are frustratingly vague, like when they say a religion has been founded, but neglect to say by who), or from the leaders popping up to interact with you. Here, it feels like me as a player has to make the effort to interact with THEM. For example, on my continent, there are 4 other civs, and aside from the one civ who is friendly with me and who pops up every now and then offering alliances, the other ones have almost totally ignored me. At times it even seems like they even ignore each other. In all of Antiquity I think I literally only saw one war launched by one AI against a neighbor.
This is the third time I've mentioned this, but I'm so, freaking, tired, of the CONSTANT screens of rivers flooding/volcanos exploding. It's pretty much every 5-10 turns, sometimes less, and it's TRULY annoying.
One final gripe for now. I really don't like how Great People have been dumbed down/oversimplified. I really think CIV VI did that one better.
Bottom line, I find this game more frustrating than fun.
