First impressions of Civilization VI on Nintendo Switch

[Boccages]

Since this brand new version just came out today, a lot of users will want to share their first impressions and so will I. In the meantime, I’m leaving this picture I just took before driving off the store’s parking lot.

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• Boccages
• Nov 16, 2018

Nintendo Switch physical version user photo

 

[Boccages]

I'm pleasantly surprised by this release of Sid Meier's Civilization VI. I already own the game (I bought the Super Deluxe version when it came out) for my Mac, but I always felt that Aspyr did a bad job at porting this OpenGL game to the Mac. My 2016 Macbook Pro Retina 15 inches (not a shabby computer by any means) has a hard time with it and I'm forced to play at the lowest graphical settings, but the turns get damn long after the Renaissance era.

With that being said, I happily reserved my copy of Sid Meier's Civilization VI for Nintendo Switch 2 weeks ago and once I got back home today with the game, I plopped in the cart in the console's slot and proceeded with the update. Once that was done, I went on the Nintendo eShop and bought the Indonesia, Khmer and Nubia DLC packs.

I was first surprised by all the options that were offered to me. In fact, I had all the same options than on the full PC version of Civilization VI. So I went ahead, picked a big map, switched the game speed to Epic and added in all the civilization slots I could open (althought I found that last maneuver was not as intuitive as it should have been).

So I fired up my first game and the wait for creating the random map was a bit longer than what I was used to on my Mac. But once it was ready, I was quite satisfied by what I saw : the lush map in HD displayed on my television set. The water, the terrain is animated and I could even turn on the day and night circle that I dared not switch on when I was playing on my Mac. You can easily zoom in and out on the map with ZL and ZR. You can move the map with the right joystick at any time when you need to take a decision even though you are in a different menu. It works great. I also really like the diplomacy screen with the animated leaders, the Nintendo Switch version of Civilization VI (I played in docked mode) has no trouble rendering them.

The UI (although big for someone used with the PC version) does the job very well and learning how to use it to manage my small nation was fast and intuitive. Playing with the Nintendo Switch controller isn't bad at all! I even stumbled on a maneuver I really like. If I want to chose another unit than the one the game picked for me to play next, I just push the left joystick and then I can quickly chose the unit I want from the list that popped up.

The only 2 adjustments I would make, right off the bat like this would be :

• I would like to know at a glance, on the map how many turns left until a city completes the production of what it's working on. Currently, you have a coloured jauge that displays that information, but still, it's not as precise as a number of turns.
• The way the UI displays the possible actions a worker can take on a turn is a bit confusing at first. I had the worker on a wheat field and the "building a farm" action button was at the top of the worker's pop up window and not within the row of actions at the bottom of the window. That's OK, it's the way the UI is built (just like in the pC version) to suggest what action you should take, and in this case building a farm is the best action. The problem is that on the Nintendo Switch version the cursor starts at the bottom, so the closest button is the "harvest button" and that button looks a lot like I'm reaping the wheat (hence someone with no Civilization VI experience would think it's the "building a farm" button). Had I not played Civilization VI before, I would have probably chosen that option and wondered why the wheat field had disappeared.

I even found a small bug : when you first meet a new civilization, the leader starts chatting about them and a music plays in the background. At any time, if you click on the choices offered to you then, the background music abruptly stops playing. Nothing game breaking, but it still felt weird to me.

 

[AtlantisAuthor]

I encountered another glitch where my Warrior and Scout received a prompt for promotions, but once I entered the screen I couldn't select anything and was forced to back out. I'm honestly not surprised there are some bugs here and there, especially in a game this complex on its first foray onto consoles; I just hope that Firaxis/2K/Aspyr will work quickly to address them. On that note, does anyone know if they monitor these forums or if there's another way to report issues? It's hard to know who to go to with Aspyr in the mix now, let alone how...or whether...our voices will be heard.

 

[Boccages]

I encountered another glitch where my Warrior and Scout received a prompt for promotions, but once I entered the screen I couldn't select anything and was forced to back out. I'm honestly not surprised there are some bugs here and there, especially in a game this complex on its first foray onto consoles; I just hope that Firaxis/2K/Aspyr will work quickly to address them. On that note, does anyone know if they monitor these forums or if there's another way to report issues? It's hard to know who to go to with Aspyr in the mix now, let alone how...or whether...our voices will be heard.

Hi AtlantisAuthor. Make sure your warrior and scout really did attain the first level needed to get a promotion. I think you need 26 exp points to do so. I also first thought my unit was ready for a promotion because the promotion button appeared, but when I looked at its experience, I soon discovered the reason I could not promote it was because it had not yet passed the first threshold even though the promotion button was there. I was baffled at first as to why that button would appear if I did not have to promote the unit, but then I found out it appears as soon as your units has experience points and it does so in order for you to check the unit’s experience out.

 

[AtlantisAuthor]

Good to know, Boccages. Thanks.

 

[coned]

agreed with wanting to know how many turns are left and the way worker improvements show on the UI. it took me far too long to figure out how to improve anything.

i cant really think of anything major i DON'T like about this. i wish there were more scenarios or a way to create/share yer own. i always loved doing (american) civil war and WW1/2 scenarios in civ games. i also wish there was that 'cheat' menu that was in 4 where you could add/manipulate/do whatever you wanted to the map/game while playing. i was pretty let down that i had to mod that in to 5. not having a scout on turn 1 is weird to me after 2 games and so many years of having a scout immediately. none of those are major issues to me, though, just stuff i'd like to have.

it's been running really well for me (though i'm only up to like turn 60 on a tiny map as i feel out some of the new stuff). the touch screen controls are nice and it controls surprisingly well with a controller. it didn't take me long to figure out the physical controls and i thought that would be a major issue. i absolutely love art style they went for in this. i think it look soooooo good, especially on a big TV.

 

[Vandlys]

Hi AtlantisAuthor. Make sure your warrior and scout really did attain the first level needed to get a promotion. I think you need 26 exp points to do so. I also first thought my unit was ready for a promotion because the promotion button appeared, but when I looked at its experience, I soon discovered the reason I could not promote it was because it had not yet passed the first threshold even though the promotion button was there. I was baffled at first as to why that button would appear if I did not have to promote the unit, but then I found out it appears as soon as your units has experience points and it does so in order for you to check the unit’s experience out.

I was at the launch party for Civ VI on Switch yesterday, and we encountered the same bug. At some times it even appeared to go over the 'delete unit' button. Other bugs were the sound of a gear turning when opening the Civics Tree.

My initial impressions of the game were very good, and unlike others at the event I didn't merely start playing in the Ancient era to see how to game works at the start, but I also started an information era game, on a huge map, with all possible Civs selected, max. city states, online speed. I was surprised to see the initial turn times only taking about 20 seconds to load. I didn't get much further than an initial couple of turns though, before I had to quit to go home.

Also, I couldn't find the strategic view, and the auto-unit cycling was quite annoying to me. Other than that, I'm surprised how well they designed the interface.

 

[ToothedBomb]

I just finished my first game (standard map, fractal, King difficulty) and found the game to slow down significantly as time went on. The framerate takes a real dive as units fill the screen and districts and improvements are built. Scrolling the map becomes a bit of a chore, and even just selecting a city to choose its production eventually took up to 3 seconds to load that menu. I have the digital version of the game loaded onto a 400GB MicroSD card, which may or may not have something to do with it. All of this is for handheld mode by the way, I haven't tried it docked yet as my TV broke. Fortunately performance isn't that important on a turn-based game like this. Still it somewhat hinders the enjoyment.

The controls are somewhat inconsistent (I had to figure out how to select the recommended tile improvements, and ranged attack work differently for units and cities/district) but mostly fine. I do miss not being able to take a quick glance at my research, as they're hidden in tabs. Sometimes it's a bit difficult to see what option is highlighted, for example in the great works screen. Most of these are just tiny nitpicks, things you have to get used to, and it's not fair to expect the same ease of use as on PC with keyboard and mouse anyway.

Overall though I'm happy with the game. It runs fairly well and is a great fit for the Switch. The only problem is the battery running out while you're playing, though you could see that as a sign you should probably stop playing!

 

[fantsu]

I just finished my first game (standard map, fractal, King difficulty) and found the game to slow down significantly as time went on. The framerate takes a real dive as units fill the screen and districts and improvements are built. Scrolling the map becomes a bit of a chore, and even just selecting a city to choose its production eventually took up to 3 seconds to load that menu. I have the digital version of the game loaded onto a 400GB MicroSD card, which may or may not have something to do with it. All of this is for handheld mode by the way, I haven't tried it docked yet as my TV broke. Fortunately performance isn't that important on a turn-based game like this. Still it somewhat hinders the enjoyment.

The controls are somewhat inconsistent (I had to figure out how to select the recommended tile improvements, and ranged attack work differently for units and cities/district) but mostly fine. I do miss not being able to take a quick glance at my research, as they're hidden in tabs. Sometimes it's a bit difficult to see what option is highlighted, for example in the great works screen. Most of these are just tiny nitpicks, things you have to get used to, and it's not fair to expect the same ease of use as on PC with keyboard and mouse anyway.

Overall though I'm happy with the game. It runs fairly well and is a great fit for the Switch. The only problem is the battery running out while you're playing, though you could see that as a sign you should probably stop playing!

I'm still in my first game (standard settings for speed and size, continents, prince).
Around turn 200 the game does lag more and more when you zoom out. It doesnt help when every city states just spam 100 units out. Zoomed in it still runs really well, and I hope it wont get worse. For some people this might be bad, but I am used to terrible framerates on PC also, on civ 4 actually much worse than this, much worse.
The games does slow down, theres no denying that, but its pretty intense game too.

 

[ToothedBomb]

I'm still in my first game (standard settings for speed and size, continents, prince).
Around turn 200 the game does lag more and more when you zoom out. It doesnt help when every city states just spam 100 units out. Zoomed in it still runs really well, and I hope it wont get worse. For some people this might be bad, but I am used to terrible framerates on PC also, on civ 4 actually much worse than this, much worse.
The games does slow down, theres no denying that, but its pretty intense game too.

I think I finished around turn 250. I had medium zoom to the point where I could see a single city and its surroundings, but not much more than that. And yeah, that framerate was a bit rough. I must add though that I did turn on the day/night cycle. That may not be a great idea for handheld play. For my next game, I think I'll turn that off, see if it makes a difference.

 

[fantsu]

My first game as Rome is now done.

Turn 268 domination victory. I dont know when I actually won the game, last hundred turns were, well, domination. I think I was pretty far ahead on turn 180 at least.

Now I have to play on harder difficulty than Prince for sure. I dont know how the score works, but it was pretty bad, 750.

This is definetly a civ game with its ups and downs. Man those late turns take a long time! I actually stopped microing city yields on turn 212.

Gandhi tried to go for religious victory until he declared war on me for no reason at all. He was on other continent and never send troops, so I took few catapults and took Delhi. I had no friends around, every AI were pretty much friendly with each other, so I had to take them all out. Last opponent, Pedro II had over 450 negative diplomacy on me.

 

[Boccages]

My first game as Rome is now done.

Turn 268 domination victory. I dont know when I actually won the game, last hundred turns were, well, domination. I think I was pretty far ahead on turn 180 at least.

Now I have to play on harder difficulty than Prince for sure. I dont know how the score works, but it was pretty bad, 750.

This is definetly a civ game with its ups and downs. Man those late turns take a long time! I actually stopped microing city yields on turn 212.

Gandhi tried to go for religious victory until he declared war on me for no reason at all. He was on other continent and never send troops, so I took few catapults and took Delhi. I had no friends around, every AI were pretty much friendly with each other, so I had to take them all out. Last opponent, Pedro II had over 450 negative diplomacy on me.

Great read! If you won domination, I would jump right to Emperor difficulty as I did not really see any difference before that level.

BTW, you micro your city yields? Wow. I rarely do that unless a city’s growth stops to a crawl because the AI picked production only tiles over farmland.

 

[fantsu]

Great read! If you won domination, I would jump right to Emperor difficulty as I did not really see any difference before that level.

BTW, you micro your city yields? Wow. I rarely do that unless a city’s growth stops to a crawl because the AI picked production only tiles over farmland.

I probably start on King next and try to force myself learning religious game next. Emperor sounds like big problems for second round.

We will see I guess. I think about it.

 

[mitsho]

So I just bought the switch game and tried it out a bit yesterday. I play with mods normally on the pc so it took me a while to realise that - of course - Rise & Fall is missing. But it made the game feel more streamlined and faster which is a good thing. While the historic moments & Governors are really nice, they take up time as well. Which makes me right no rethink whether to buy Gathering Storm in the Spring...

But since I do like to play fast, I was kind of annoyed about the leader animations and the fact that attacking a unit always asks you for confirmation. That can get quite annoying quite fast and I didn‘t find the options to turn those off yesterday (I do hope those exist!). But otherwise, I do like the controls and that the switch allows you to quickly jump in and out of games.

 

[fantsu]

So I just bought the switch game and tried it out a bit yesterday. I play with mods normally on the pc so it took me a while to realise that - of course - Rise & Fall is missing. But it made the game feel more streamlined and faster which is a good thing. While the historic moments & Governors are really nice, they take up time as well. Which makes me right no rethink whether to buy Gathering Storm in the Spring...

But since I do like to play fast, I was kind of annoyed about the leader animations and the fact that attacking a unit always asks you for confirmation. That can get quite annoying quite fast and I didn‘t find the options to turn those off yesterday (I do hope those exist!). But otherwise, I do like the controls and that the switch allows you to quickly jump in and out of games.

Confirmations can be turned off. I dont remember if there is option to turn off leader animations.

 

[OmegaDestroyer]

I am displeased to see the bugs that plagued vanilla were not ironed out in this edition. I have encountered many sound and musical bugs. I also am concerned that the expansion content is not going to be released.

Other than those quibbles, I enjoy the Switch version. I like handheld mode much more than docked oddly enough.

 

[oninowon]

I encountered another glitch where my Warrior and Scout received a prompt for promotions, but once I entered the screen I couldn't select anything and was forced to back out. I'm honestly not surprised there are some bugs here and there, especially in a game this complex on its first foray onto consoles; I just hope that Firaxis/2K/Aspyr will work quickly to address them. On that note, does anyone know if they monitor these forums or if there's another way to report issues? It's hard to know who to go to with Aspyr in the mix now, let alone how...or whether...our voices will be heard.

You cannot promote them right away if their turn was used up. The promotion uses up the units turn.

 

[Farman]

It's interesting to read about the Switch (and Mac) side of things, I was considering the Switch version myself so I'm glad to hear it runs decently.
The reason for my doubt is that I normally run it on Linux + 4.1GHz i7-6950X + RTX 2080 TI, and it runs ridiculously slow (while other things such as XCOM2 runs beautifully), compared to Win10 in a virtual machine with the same GPU forwarded to the VM (Frametimes avg./1%low, Linux: 32/56ms vs Win10 in a VM: 8/10ms (everything on max)).

 

[oninowon]

Honestly, if my laptop had the specs, I would have bought the pc version...just not right away. I usually wait for the complete version. That is what I did with CIV III all the way to CIV V. I made the exception this time because I wanted a deep 4x strategy game for the Switch and the graphics looked decent enough on the Switch (unlike CIV II for the PlayStation). Also, playing this game on a 40" tv is nice!