7thFloorDown
Chieftain
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2005
- Messages
- 21
Disclaimer: I am a middle-aged adult with a career and a family. I am not the 10-year old who stumbled upon Sid Meier's Civilization in Kay Bee Toys almost the day it released and was entranced by the artwork, and who then went on to play Colonization, Civ II-IV, and Alpha Centauri with the same intense gusto. I did not play much of V, and I played none of VI, because this game called World of Warcraft consumed my gaming life from 2006-2023. Then there was BG3 and Diablo IV. Anyway, I played and modded a lot for Civ IV and was very active on the Civ Fanatics forum back then. I started at a lower level so I could learn the mechanics. Also, given the nature of my career, I am much more sympathetic to game designers than a lot of people (who, honestly at times, sound like teenage edgelords who think negativity and sarcasm are signs of intelligence), so I lean toward being positive, most of the time. I can be critical of games--I was of the Shadowlands expansion and the Assassin's Creed: Odyssey afterlife expansion--but I try to distinguish between personal dislikes and actual problems with the game. I am also not put off that we don't have every age of the game at launch nor am I put off by expansion packs that cost extra.
Anyway, these are notes I stopped to make while playing. If any of this is inaccurate, I apologize. This is my first playthrough and the first time I've focused on a Civ game (other than IV, which I have continued to play off and on quite a bit) since 2008. There are probably concepts and expectations that are not familiar to me but are familiar to those who played V and/or VI.
Likes
*Not having to manage workers. Hell yes.
*Commanders (Army Leaders) as a compromise between one-unit-per-tile and stack of doom.
*Influence points are useful and meaningful.
*The age transition is better than I supposed it would be (and I assumed I would like it, having enjoyed Rhye's and Fall in Civ IV). I accidentally unlocked Inca and Songhai by having three settlements next to a mountain and three on a river.
*Units can travel on rivers and coastal areas. Hell yes.
*Even terrain that was once unusable or not useful can now serve a purpose instead of being just a waste of space.
*I love the variety of resources and their bonuses being unique.
*Units can be given the "reinforce" command, which send it to a selected commander. The unit is removed from the map and arrives at the unit commander a couple of turns later. This removes the need for me to micromanage the movement AND cuts out the chance the unit will be attacked on the way. Hell yes.
*The age transition was actually very cool. I had read about how units inside commander stacks were preserved, so I made sure nearly all of my units were in commander stacks. One benefit of age transitions is that it prevents players from rushing toward technology to gain domination. For example, in Civ IV, if I could get Macemen quickly, and then rush to Knights and Trebuchets, while also have four cities, I could count on filling out my empire for many turns by steamrolling opponents who were still defending with archers and swordsmen.
*Another benefit of the age transition system seems to be that it keeps one civ from getting so far ahead that it will win. I'm sure there are ways around this, such as possibly destroying other civs early on. I don't know how that would work.
*There are so many buildings and avenues for exploration and warring, which are great, BUT I would like to see more time in each age and fewer penalties for expansion and war (especially for razing cities).
Uncertain
*I don't know how I feel about embarked units being able to go onto the ocean instead of having to build ships to transport them. That doesn't make sense to me. I guess they wanted to encourage exploration. Note: During playthrough 2, it bothered me less, so I think it will be one of those things that just becomes "how it is" for me.
*I do like the transition between civs and the mild reset that happens, although the AI needs to be tweaked to maximize that, and I'm not sure about being locked into each age like a mini-game. We'll see how it goes. I do like that I'm prevented from rushing ahead in tech and dominating the game.
*I don't know about the resources in this game. Right now, I have 15 cities (I should have only 10 based on the limit), but I have 7 city resources that are just sitting unused because they cannot go to a town and my cities are all packed with city bonuses. I am going to have to pay to turn a town into a city, but this is expensive and has downsides.
Dislikes
*The interface is not intuitive. I'm not a UI snob (which is ironic because I designed unique UIs in WoW), but the consolesque nature of the UI is not appealing for me. I would much prefer a clean interfact with a minimap, the unit command as is, and an info bar across the top, with information panels appearing from a menu dropdown or hotkey (which is what I use for most menus anyway). Example: I don't want or need to see the opposing leader's faces and symbol in the upper right while in the game world.
*It is not always clear where your units are on the map--they get lost in the terrain and other colors. Also, you have to cick on the army commander to see how many units it has in its slots. Ben Franklin's Roman units had badge colors similar to one of the independent civs that was hostile to me, and I almost got Pearl Harbored by a spearman/archer duo because I thought they were the units I was moving to the city to deal with the independent civ's encampment.
*I had a narrative event about a diplomat whose food was stolen by a monkey during lunch. The option I chose increased my happiness but lowered my gold production by 50% for three turns. My gold went from 103 to 38 per turn. That math doesn't math the way math maths. I realize it has to do with the mechanics of the reduction, but I would have chosen the other option had I known I would have ~70% of my gold per turn got three turns.
*While having to research Economics to create new merchants in the Exploration Age probably makes sense from a design standpoint, it does not make sense historically. One of the consistent facts about civilizations is that merchants/traders existed through all ages and conditions, and were often responsible for the discoveries that resulted from exploration.
*The AI is going to need some work if their decisions do not improve with difficulty level. I spawned with three other civs on my continent. Two of them built settlements that are surrounded by my civ's borders and, since I have denied open borders, I am about to get two settlements easily. These two also built their settlements very far from their capital city, meaning good luck getting your army there, past the two commanders with four units each I have stationed along the one road. Look, I get AI isn't going to factor all of that in, but AI should definitely favor building closer to their capital and forming a perimeter, over resource acquisition.
*I have been allied with Napoleon (our relationship is at +100), and I'm by far the strongest civ, but when I declared war on a weak civ, both he and Machiavelli declared war on me. Nappy got his ass waxed worse than the civ that I started a war with. I get wanting to discourage war-mongering by making sure a strong civ doesn't just dominate a weaker civ, but this was a wild swing.
*Is the game missing the military panel so I can see how many units I have and where they are??
*When I'm placing a building, I have no idea what the impact will be to my resources. Will people starve? Will my production plummet?
*The yields in the building panel are not spaced correctly. One of them looks like it gives +1 happiness instead of culture because the +1 is closer to the smiley face.
*The hard stop end is not feeling good. I understand we'll likely have one more (two, if they can get it done), but right now I have about 100 turns left (I think we're going one turn=one year) and I'm already wondering if I should build an army commander (20 turns because I have so many of them), a department store (5 turns), or spam some more marines.
*The penalty for razing a city is too high, especially considering the settlement cap. In the Exploration Age, I chose to keep settlements, and ended up with 15/10 settlements until I ended the age (I think) with 15/12. In the Modern Age, I started razing because I figured (since everyone hated me anyway), this was the best option, being the last war. Still, I would like to see this balance changed.
*The town focus is nice, but I'd like it more if we could change focus within some restrictions: turn limit, when war is declared, etc.
*The wording of some policies is confusing. Example: Constitution. +50% food and happiness towards (sic) maintaining specialists. -- This reads like it costs 50% more. If it means what I assume it means, a better wording would be "Specialists cost 50% less food and happiness."
Suggestions/Possible Bugs
Disclaimer: It is difficult to know what's a bug and what's working as intended without me understanding it correctly.
*Display the number of units a commander has in their army on their badge. Also, when mass deploying the army, allow me to select where each unit goes. Yes, I can do this individually, but it's a QoL suggestion to remove extra steps.
*It wasn't clear that a commander (and maybe it was just the Roman commanders that had this ability) would not be consumed by founding a settlement to me, someone who has spent decades assuming founding a settlement consumes the unit.
*I had no idea that there were towns and cities, and the difference is important. In the first age, I feel like the price to incorporate a city from a town is too high and will make doing so very difficult on higher difficulties unless the gold production continues to remain high.
*Some of this will come down to players learning strategies, but I did not realize how important some aspects of the game were. Examples: (A) the Celebrations are actually very useful for more than their government bonus that lasts ten turns (or however long). (B) Achieving milestones creates legacy points that make the age transition so much better.
*Put more information in the tooltips. Example: There are some actions I cannot do with certain leaders. Is this because I have not found their capitol? Is this because I can't cross the open ocean yet?
*The "Next Turn" button was my next move, but I actually had a missionary that had moved and had a point left to spread faith. I like that little button that I can click on to get to what I need to get to, but I don't want to waste a turn because I didn't know there was a unit with moves left.
*This penalty for starting an unjust war sucks. If they're encroaching or stealing from me, they deserve to get slapped silly.
*The diplomacy screen leaves much to be fixed. When another civ wants an alliance, I have to make a decision without the ability to see anything about the civ. Am I supposed to keep a notebook?
*I would like to have 10-15 turns (maybe optional? maybe make it a feature of something like an apostolic palace where all civs vote?) when an age is ending. I never know exactly when it's coming, so I have to start thinking about how many commanders I have (to maximize the number of units I keep) and whether to build a building that is not ageless.
*It is not immediately obvious that it makes sense to build on urban lots already or that building over a building not tagged "ageless" is what you should pay attention to. There was an explanation before the exploration age, but it didn't help me out with understanding this mechanic.
*I currently have a prospector three tiles from a town. The resource (oranges) is outside of my town's radius and not in another civ's territory. The hover menu says it belongs to Herat village, which is hostile to me, but that village does not exist, at least not anywhere I can find. It is not the resource--one tile over, chocolate cannot be prospected.
*We need a way to manage units and find them. Even in Civ IV, I could just click on a unit in the menu and be taken there. It takes five minutes to upgrade units because I spend so much time searching.
*Especially in late game, when districts are built up, it can be difficult to tell where a unit will go because it is more difficult to see topography. The pathing should show up with an X or something to indicate the unit cannot go that way.
Observations
*Having Napoleon lead Greece was weird as hell for someone who never had random leaders in their games, but I got over it.
*While some of your success will be attributable to lucky placement on the map, there have been enough bonuses so far that I don't feel like I have been shortchanged.
*Many choices in the game are meaningful. I felt rewarded by making good choices. I felt torn between choices. Example: I realized that a city can sprawl out a great number of tiles (I don't know if there is a cap on it), so when my "ally" Napoleon found a settlement near some cotton resources, I had to grow my city toward that resource to snatch it away quickly, which meant I did not get to the marble quarry I had been eyeing as quickly as I wanted.
*Dickface Napoleon, my "ally", founded a settlement in the middle of three of mine and near a gold resources, so now I have to try to keep him from getting it. This isn't relevant to my review, but Napoleon is an ******* I'm looking forward to destroying eventually.
*I made it through the first age without fighting another civ (just independent civs). I'm not a warmonger player, anyway, but I'm not sure how much of this is due to the difficult level versus the nature of ages, which makes it difficult to get that big advantage on rivals early on.
*I'm not sure how they'll handle Pangea maps (or if they won't have them) since one of the ages is the Age of Exploration.
*I had two narrative events in a row dealing with bread. Are they feeding the devs over at Fireaxis??
*I don't know how I feel about this yet, but it feels like the game is forcing me to value naval exploration and units during the Age of Exploration. I understand the thematic reason for it, but perhaps I want to focus on where I currently am at this moment. I'll see how it progresses.
*So, I noticed a "2" with an up arrow by Ben's avatar on the main screen. When I clicked on it, it took me to the attributes menu. But none of my attributes shows that I had any points. I decided to click anyway, and sure enough, I had two points to spend. This seems like a glitch.
*It took me way longer than it should to notice that there is a notification in the hover pop-up when you are building over a previous building. It tells you whether the building is ageless. However, I still think some of this information is not obvious.
*The comments I have seen online about AI building explorers in the last age match my experience. Nappy currently has four explorers just running around. Now, all the AI have explorers running around. With that feathered cap icon, it looks like auditions for The Sound of Music are happening. Note: They may have fixed it.
*Blitzing the AI in war seems to be the most effective option (at least at lower levels). I knew they'd all come for me when I declared war on the civ no one else liked, so I identified the settlements they'd come from, and I had an army commander and squadron commander at each, and knocked down the settlements in two turns.
Anyway, these are notes I stopped to make while playing. If any of this is inaccurate, I apologize. This is my first playthrough and the first time I've focused on a Civ game (other than IV, which I have continued to play off and on quite a bit) since 2008. There are probably concepts and expectations that are not familiar to me but are familiar to those who played V and/or VI.
Likes
*Not having to manage workers. Hell yes.
*Commanders (Army Leaders) as a compromise between one-unit-per-tile and stack of doom.
*Influence points are useful and meaningful.
*The age transition is better than I supposed it would be (and I assumed I would like it, having enjoyed Rhye's and Fall in Civ IV). I accidentally unlocked Inca and Songhai by having three settlements next to a mountain and three on a river.
*Units can travel on rivers and coastal areas. Hell yes.
*Even terrain that was once unusable or not useful can now serve a purpose instead of being just a waste of space.
*I love the variety of resources and their bonuses being unique.
*Units can be given the "reinforce" command, which send it to a selected commander. The unit is removed from the map and arrives at the unit commander a couple of turns later. This removes the need for me to micromanage the movement AND cuts out the chance the unit will be attacked on the way. Hell yes.
*The age transition was actually very cool. I had read about how units inside commander stacks were preserved, so I made sure nearly all of my units were in commander stacks. One benefit of age transitions is that it prevents players from rushing toward technology to gain domination. For example, in Civ IV, if I could get Macemen quickly, and then rush to Knights and Trebuchets, while also have four cities, I could count on filling out my empire for many turns by steamrolling opponents who were still defending with archers and swordsmen.
*Another benefit of the age transition system seems to be that it keeps one civ from getting so far ahead that it will win. I'm sure there are ways around this, such as possibly destroying other civs early on. I don't know how that would work.
*There are so many buildings and avenues for exploration and warring, which are great, BUT I would like to see more time in each age and fewer penalties for expansion and war (especially for razing cities).
Uncertain
*I don't know how I feel about embarked units being able to go onto the ocean instead of having to build ships to transport them. That doesn't make sense to me. I guess they wanted to encourage exploration. Note: During playthrough 2, it bothered me less, so I think it will be one of those things that just becomes "how it is" for me.
*I do like the transition between civs and the mild reset that happens, although the AI needs to be tweaked to maximize that, and I'm not sure about being locked into each age like a mini-game. We'll see how it goes. I do like that I'm prevented from rushing ahead in tech and dominating the game.
*I don't know about the resources in this game. Right now, I have 15 cities (I should have only 10 based on the limit), but I have 7 city resources that are just sitting unused because they cannot go to a town and my cities are all packed with city bonuses. I am going to have to pay to turn a town into a city, but this is expensive and has downsides.
Dislikes
*The interface is not intuitive. I'm not a UI snob (which is ironic because I designed unique UIs in WoW), but the consolesque nature of the UI is not appealing for me. I would much prefer a clean interfact with a minimap, the unit command as is, and an info bar across the top, with information panels appearing from a menu dropdown or hotkey (which is what I use for most menus anyway). Example: I don't want or need to see the opposing leader's faces and symbol in the upper right while in the game world.
*It is not always clear where your units are on the map--they get lost in the terrain and other colors. Also, you have to cick on the army commander to see how many units it has in its slots. Ben Franklin's Roman units had badge colors similar to one of the independent civs that was hostile to me, and I almost got Pearl Harbored by a spearman/archer duo because I thought they were the units I was moving to the city to deal with the independent civ's encampment.
*I had a narrative event about a diplomat whose food was stolen by a monkey during lunch. The option I chose increased my happiness but lowered my gold production by 50% for three turns. My gold went from 103 to 38 per turn. That math doesn't math the way math maths. I realize it has to do with the mechanics of the reduction, but I would have chosen the other option had I known I would have ~70% of my gold per turn got three turns.
*While having to research Economics to create new merchants in the Exploration Age probably makes sense from a design standpoint, it does not make sense historically. One of the consistent facts about civilizations is that merchants/traders existed through all ages and conditions, and were often responsible for the discoveries that resulted from exploration.
*The AI is going to need some work if their decisions do not improve with difficulty level. I spawned with three other civs on my continent. Two of them built settlements that are surrounded by my civ's borders and, since I have denied open borders, I am about to get two settlements easily. These two also built their settlements very far from their capital city, meaning good luck getting your army there, past the two commanders with four units each I have stationed along the one road. Look, I get AI isn't going to factor all of that in, but AI should definitely favor building closer to their capital and forming a perimeter, over resource acquisition.
*I have been allied with Napoleon (our relationship is at +100), and I'm by far the strongest civ, but when I declared war on a weak civ, both he and Machiavelli declared war on me. Nappy got his ass waxed worse than the civ that I started a war with. I get wanting to discourage war-mongering by making sure a strong civ doesn't just dominate a weaker civ, but this was a wild swing.
*Is the game missing the military panel so I can see how many units I have and where they are??
*When I'm placing a building, I have no idea what the impact will be to my resources. Will people starve? Will my production plummet?
*The yields in the building panel are not spaced correctly. One of them looks like it gives +1 happiness instead of culture because the +1 is closer to the smiley face.
*The hard stop end is not feeling good. I understand we'll likely have one more (two, if they can get it done), but right now I have about 100 turns left (I think we're going one turn=one year) and I'm already wondering if I should build an army commander (20 turns because I have so many of them), a department store (5 turns), or spam some more marines.
*The penalty for razing a city is too high, especially considering the settlement cap. In the Exploration Age, I chose to keep settlements, and ended up with 15/10 settlements until I ended the age (I think) with 15/12. In the Modern Age, I started razing because I figured (since everyone hated me anyway), this was the best option, being the last war. Still, I would like to see this balance changed.
*The town focus is nice, but I'd like it more if we could change focus within some restrictions: turn limit, when war is declared, etc.
*The wording of some policies is confusing. Example: Constitution. +50% food and happiness towards (sic) maintaining specialists. -- This reads like it costs 50% more. If it means what I assume it means, a better wording would be "Specialists cost 50% less food and happiness."
Suggestions/Possible Bugs
Disclaimer: It is difficult to know what's a bug and what's working as intended without me understanding it correctly.
*Display the number of units a commander has in their army on their badge. Also, when mass deploying the army, allow me to select where each unit goes. Yes, I can do this individually, but it's a QoL suggestion to remove extra steps.
*It wasn't clear that a commander (and maybe it was just the Roman commanders that had this ability) would not be consumed by founding a settlement to me, someone who has spent decades assuming founding a settlement consumes the unit.
*I had no idea that there were towns and cities, and the difference is important. In the first age, I feel like the price to incorporate a city from a town is too high and will make doing so very difficult on higher difficulties unless the gold production continues to remain high.
*Some of this will come down to players learning strategies, but I did not realize how important some aspects of the game were. Examples: (A) the Celebrations are actually very useful for more than their government bonus that lasts ten turns (or however long). (B) Achieving milestones creates legacy points that make the age transition so much better.
*Put more information in the tooltips. Example: There are some actions I cannot do with certain leaders. Is this because I have not found their capitol? Is this because I can't cross the open ocean yet?
*The "Next Turn" button was my next move, but I actually had a missionary that had moved and had a point left to spread faith. I like that little button that I can click on to get to what I need to get to, but I don't want to waste a turn because I didn't know there was a unit with moves left.
*This penalty for starting an unjust war sucks. If they're encroaching or stealing from me, they deserve to get slapped silly.
*The diplomacy screen leaves much to be fixed. When another civ wants an alliance, I have to make a decision without the ability to see anything about the civ. Am I supposed to keep a notebook?
*I would like to have 10-15 turns (maybe optional? maybe make it a feature of something like an apostolic palace where all civs vote?) when an age is ending. I never know exactly when it's coming, so I have to start thinking about how many commanders I have (to maximize the number of units I keep) and whether to build a building that is not ageless.
*It is not immediately obvious that it makes sense to build on urban lots already or that building over a building not tagged "ageless" is what you should pay attention to. There was an explanation before the exploration age, but it didn't help me out with understanding this mechanic.
*I currently have a prospector three tiles from a town. The resource (oranges) is outside of my town's radius and not in another civ's territory. The hover menu says it belongs to Herat village, which is hostile to me, but that village does not exist, at least not anywhere I can find. It is not the resource--one tile over, chocolate cannot be prospected.
*We need a way to manage units and find them. Even in Civ IV, I could just click on a unit in the menu and be taken there. It takes five minutes to upgrade units because I spend so much time searching.
*Especially in late game, when districts are built up, it can be difficult to tell where a unit will go because it is more difficult to see topography. The pathing should show up with an X or something to indicate the unit cannot go that way.
Observations
*Having Napoleon lead Greece was weird as hell for someone who never had random leaders in their games, but I got over it.
*While some of your success will be attributable to lucky placement on the map, there have been enough bonuses so far that I don't feel like I have been shortchanged.
*Many choices in the game are meaningful. I felt rewarded by making good choices. I felt torn between choices. Example: I realized that a city can sprawl out a great number of tiles (I don't know if there is a cap on it), so when my "ally" Napoleon found a settlement near some cotton resources, I had to grow my city toward that resource to snatch it away quickly, which meant I did not get to the marble quarry I had been eyeing as quickly as I wanted.
*Dickface Napoleon, my "ally", founded a settlement in the middle of three of mine and near a gold resources, so now I have to try to keep him from getting it. This isn't relevant to my review, but Napoleon is an ******* I'm looking forward to destroying eventually.
*I made it through the first age without fighting another civ (just independent civs). I'm not a warmonger player, anyway, but I'm not sure how much of this is due to the difficult level versus the nature of ages, which makes it difficult to get that big advantage on rivals early on.
*I'm not sure how they'll handle Pangea maps (or if they won't have them) since one of the ages is the Age of Exploration.
*I had two narrative events in a row dealing with bread. Are they feeding the devs over at Fireaxis??
*I don't know how I feel about this yet, but it feels like the game is forcing me to value naval exploration and units during the Age of Exploration. I understand the thematic reason for it, but perhaps I want to focus on where I currently am at this moment. I'll see how it progresses.
*So, I noticed a "2" with an up arrow by Ben's avatar on the main screen. When I clicked on it, it took me to the attributes menu. But none of my attributes shows that I had any points. I decided to click anyway, and sure enough, I had two points to spend. This seems like a glitch.
*It took me way longer than it should to notice that there is a notification in the hover pop-up when you are building over a previous building. It tells you whether the building is ageless. However, I still think some of this information is not obvious.
*The comments I have seen online about AI building explorers in the last age match my experience. Nappy currently has four explorers just running around. Now, all the AI have explorers running around. With that feathered cap icon, it looks like auditions for The Sound of Music are happening. Note: They may have fixed it.
*Blitzing the AI in war seems to be the most effective option (at least at lower levels). I knew they'd all come for me when I declared war on the civ no one else liked, so I identified the settlements they'd come from, and I had an army commander and squadron commander at each, and knocked down the settlements in two turns.
