steve_indy
Chieftain
- Joined
- Feb 17, 2007
- Messages
- 23
OK, I've been playing pretty heavily since CIV VI came out. Overall, there are a lot of great moving pieces here, and they definitely did a much better job with the game out of the box than CIV V. I'm pretty excited about where it seems like they'll be able to end up here. I've tried to withhold judgment until I really understood what was going on in the game. I think these are the things they need to fix along the way here:
1) Tech is too flat (Part I). If you have legions in 1600, they should not still be a viable unit. Modern units are not that impressive relative to early units (Corps and Armies go a long way to fixing this, I like that dynamic, but there is still something missing).
2) Tech is too flat (Part II). There are a couple of tech layers missing. Units jump from swords to guided missiles too quickly. There should be another infantry layer (rifleman, great war infantry, something?) and another cavalry layer before the atomic age, and another layer overall for end-game. Airplanes are especially meh, with Jet Bombers the top of the line (no stealth bomber, with stealth tech in the game??)
3) The victory conditions drive really weird late game behavior. I've two strong civs culturally, and to win domination had to sack them both equally on the way down to avoid backing them in to a culture victory. Also, religion gets plain weird in some circumstances, where you have to take civs out in the right order. I'm not sure the fix - maybe policies to mitigate those victory conditions when you get close with domination. If you can support providing a throw-away policy on it, you ought to be able to make those other victories incrementally tougher.
4) The AI is garbage (everyone already knows this, moving on...)
5) The AI is garbage (sorry, said I was going to move on...)
6) The religious missionary/apostle game is tedious. I've seen map screens where virtually every hex was covered in a religious unit. Will two Mormon missionaries really prevent my tanks from rolling through my own territory? Really? I'm OK with the dynamics of it, but just let units from the same civ occupy the same hex (a la CIV IV), or let my units displace them in my own territory. This can't be hard to fix and keep the same "flavor" for the religious game.
7) Give us an easy way to see where our amenities are going, and how many we need. I can't ever trade with anyone, because I can't tell what the hell amenities I need.
8) War monger penalty is broken. I know I'm not the first to say this, but really if you take a single city from someone ever (no matter who the aggressor is) you will have a war monger penalty that dwarfs all other diplomatic dynamics in the game, for the rest of the game. That's not interesting diplomacy.
9) War weariness is broken. I've had short efficient wars, with -7 amenities across my empire forever (literally until the end of the game, with the last 100+/- turns having no war) and I've had long, drawn-out wars, sometimes with multiple civilizations, and couldn't find a weariness penalty anywhere. I think this dynamic is broken, but I can't be sure as the mechanics for it are opaque.
10) Make trade routes easier to manage. I love trade routes - both having them and the whole dynamic in the game. Managing 25 trade routes late game is tedious, and there should be some master screen where I can tell them what to do (or even queue to do it when the next route is done). There is no reason this is so hard to manage right now.
11) Build queues. Come on, man.
12) Wait button is on "w", Center unit is on "c". Life has been this way since 1990, WTH Firaxis? Also, don't hit "F6" for the science screen (you were warned). You don't just change ages of UI for no apparent reason.
13) Demographics, statistics, etc. This is getting incrementally better, but half the fun for us geeks is being able to chart out production, population, unit counts, etc. and compare them to other civs. The currently available tools for this are seriously lacking. And no graphs???
14) Tech is too flat (Part III). The tech tree is too short, or narrow, or both. I know there are 2 tech trees, but it's just too easy to fly through the tree, and it seems like there is generally a lot of game left at the end of the tech tree. Civics side suffers from this as well - 30 social media and 30 globalizations as we try to finish up (whatever) is not that interesting, and in a game where I'm not leading socially.
15) Faster roads in late game. Why do I have to build aerodromes everywhere to move a couple of units (tediously, I might add), across my empire quickly in the Information Age? Also, as a back-line aerodrome is useless (I need planes on the front line, with my 2-unit carriers, and 1-unit cities), this is really the only reason I'm building them.
Most of these are coming from a place where I really enjoy the game, and I'm just hoping they can fix the most glaring issues. There are a lot of things they've done extremely well, which maybe I'll list some time as well.
1) Tech is too flat (Part I). If you have legions in 1600, they should not still be a viable unit. Modern units are not that impressive relative to early units (Corps and Armies go a long way to fixing this, I like that dynamic, but there is still something missing).
2) Tech is too flat (Part II). There are a couple of tech layers missing. Units jump from swords to guided missiles too quickly. There should be another infantry layer (rifleman, great war infantry, something?) and another cavalry layer before the atomic age, and another layer overall for end-game. Airplanes are especially meh, with Jet Bombers the top of the line (no stealth bomber, with stealth tech in the game??)
3) The victory conditions drive really weird late game behavior. I've two strong civs culturally, and to win domination had to sack them both equally on the way down to avoid backing them in to a culture victory. Also, religion gets plain weird in some circumstances, where you have to take civs out in the right order. I'm not sure the fix - maybe policies to mitigate those victory conditions when you get close with domination. If you can support providing a throw-away policy on it, you ought to be able to make those other victories incrementally tougher.
4) The AI is garbage (everyone already knows this, moving on...)
5) The AI is garbage (sorry, said I was going to move on...)
6) The religious missionary/apostle game is tedious. I've seen map screens where virtually every hex was covered in a religious unit. Will two Mormon missionaries really prevent my tanks from rolling through my own territory? Really? I'm OK with the dynamics of it, but just let units from the same civ occupy the same hex (a la CIV IV), or let my units displace them in my own territory. This can't be hard to fix and keep the same "flavor" for the religious game.
7) Give us an easy way to see where our amenities are going, and how many we need. I can't ever trade with anyone, because I can't tell what the hell amenities I need.
8) War monger penalty is broken. I know I'm not the first to say this, but really if you take a single city from someone ever (no matter who the aggressor is) you will have a war monger penalty that dwarfs all other diplomatic dynamics in the game, for the rest of the game. That's not interesting diplomacy.
9) War weariness is broken. I've had short efficient wars, with -7 amenities across my empire forever (literally until the end of the game, with the last 100+/- turns having no war) and I've had long, drawn-out wars, sometimes with multiple civilizations, and couldn't find a weariness penalty anywhere. I think this dynamic is broken, but I can't be sure as the mechanics for it are opaque.
10) Make trade routes easier to manage. I love trade routes - both having them and the whole dynamic in the game. Managing 25 trade routes late game is tedious, and there should be some master screen where I can tell them what to do (or even queue to do it when the next route is done). There is no reason this is so hard to manage right now.
11) Build queues. Come on, man.
12) Wait button is on "w", Center unit is on "c". Life has been this way since 1990, WTH Firaxis? Also, don't hit "F6" for the science screen (you were warned). You don't just change ages of UI for no apparent reason.
13) Demographics, statistics, etc. This is getting incrementally better, but half the fun for us geeks is being able to chart out production, population, unit counts, etc. and compare them to other civs. The currently available tools for this are seriously lacking. And no graphs???
14) Tech is too flat (Part III). The tech tree is too short, or narrow, or both. I know there are 2 tech trees, but it's just too easy to fly through the tree, and it seems like there is generally a lot of game left at the end of the tech tree. Civics side suffers from this as well - 30 social media and 30 globalizations as we try to finish up (whatever) is not that interesting, and in a game where I'm not leading socially.
15) Faster roads in late game. Why do I have to build aerodromes everywhere to move a couple of units (tediously, I might add), across my empire quickly in the Information Age? Also, as a back-line aerodrome is useless (I need planes on the front line, with my 2-unit carriers, and 1-unit cities), this is really the only reason I'm building them.
Most of these are coming from a place where I really enjoy the game, and I'm just hoping they can fix the most glaring issues. There are a lot of things they've done extremely well, which maybe I'll list some time as well.
