drubell
Prince
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2010
- Messages
- 515
While I’m overall enjoying Civ6, I have grown frustrated in the games I’ve played multiple times because of the game’s user interface lying to me, not clearly explaining its rules, or being downright obscure. I understand the game has just released, but last night I won a game and ended up being mostly annoyed about how I had to get a lot of troubleshooting from the CFC forums or from friends when the UI or the civilopedia should’ve provided all of the information I need. No single one of these complaints is a big deal, but when I run into several of these UI issues, I feel that we need to focus on having a more helpful UI for the players.
These are all issues that I ran into in my most previous game.
1. I built a city inland and intended to build a harbor in it. However, when I want to build the harbor district, the district was grayed-out and the UI told me “no suitable location to zone this district”. This gives me the impression that there was absolutely no way to build a harbor in that city. When I questioned friends about this issue, I was told that I could purchase an ocean hex and then I could build the harbor district. This turned out to be true; if I owned an ocean tile then there WAS a “suitable location to zone the district,” which to me means that game’s user interface directly lied to me.
I can understand someone saying “well of course you need to have an open ocean hex to build a harbor,” but Civ 6 allows the player to, if they want to build a wonder or district, show all available places it can be even if buying a hex is necessary to do so. Why is this system inconsistent with the harbor district?
2. When playing my most recent game, I had a very difficult time trying to develop an archeological museum because I had to spend several minutes trying to experiment and troubleshoot understanding why I could not build an archeologist despite having finished the technology for it. Eventually I was able to figure out that you can only build an archeologist from a city that has an archeological museum. I will grant that the civilopedia result for “archeologist” does read “find an extract artifacts and antiquity sites to be displayed in their home city’s museum,” but this reading does not specifically tell you that archeologists can only be constructed in cities with the appropriate museum.
The only way I found out that you can only build an archeologist in a city with an archeological museum was that I happened to notice that the archeologist was only available in the build list for one out of my several cities that I built an archeological museum for. I should be very clear in saying that I had absolutely NO idea why I was unable to generate an archeologist despite having finished the tech to generate them.
This type of information is inconsistent with other UI features in Civ 6. If a wonder is grayed out, it will tell me something like “this building requires a Market building,” or a grayed out district will read “requires population of 7 or greater,” or a grayed out unit will read “your civilization needs 2 Niter to train this type of unit. If this city has an Encampment, you only need 1 Niter.” Why are the UI rules for the archeologist inconsistent with this information? Rather than the archeologist just not appearing if a city can’t build one, it should just be grayed out from the list with the message “requires an Archeological Museum to build.”
The archeologist also does not show how many charges it currently has (you can find that out of course by looking at the Great Works page, but that requires a click that isn’t necessary). If a city’s museum is full, the Ui should also show for a grayed out Archeologist “Archeologist is not available to train because this city’s Archeological Museum is full.”
3. Unlike in Civ 5 when I could understand why I was getting every yield I was getting from a trade route, I really don’t understand why I’m getting some yields from some trade routes. In this case, I am using internal trade routes and I am using the policy card that gives +4 food from internal trade routes. So as Kongo (who conquered Russia), I can send a trade route to a nearby Moscow for 8 food (4 food from Districts in Moscow, 4 food from other bonuses), 3 hammers (from districts in Moscow), and 2.5 gold (from other bonuses). I could also choose to trade to a Kongo city for the same yields, but for Moscow, I’m getting 64 food, 56.7 hammers, 35.7 gold, and in the Kongo city I’m getting 32 food, 49.5 hammers, and 35.2 gold. Why the disparity with the food? Or is the game calculating a different way as to what the “other bonuses” are for boosting trade routes? And if so, where exactly am I getting those bonuses? Meanwhile, sending a trade route to a city that’s generating 45.7 gold per turn will give me +1 gold instead of +2.5 gold for “other bonuses.” I would love to know why I’m getting better gold from trade routes in certain areas vs other areas.
4. I finished a cultural victory in my game and I’m still not entirely sure where many of the yields toward my culture victory are coming from. In this particular case, I was playing a game with 4 civs (3 total after I defeated AI Russia as Kongo). On the turn that I won my Culture Victory, I was generating 700 tourism and 319 culture. In Civ 5, these values made it very easy to know exactly how directly I was winning my culture victory.
But those values are different than the values regarding Domestic and Visiting Tourists. When I won, I had 365 Domestic Tourists, Spain had 22, and America had 212. Spain was sending me 110 visitors and America was sending me 109 visits, which lead to my victory of having 219 Visiting Tourists out of 213.
Now, I understand that the amount of Visiting Tourists was 213 because Teddy’s Domestic Tourist value was 212, but this doesn’t explain to me how I won. I had 365 Domestic Tourists. How was I generating that number? Neither my Tourism per turn nor my Culture per turn match this number in any way. I would like to know exactly how I was generating that exact value of Domestic Tourists, but the hovertext for the Culture Victory only shows my tourism and culture values. Similarly, I would like to know what I was doing to get 110 and 109 Visitors from the other civs, but that information is not readily on hand for me to find out in the game.
There seems to be a massive disconnect for the Culture Victory where the game’s UI will tell you how you’re generating Tourism and Culture, but not how you’re generating Domestic Tourists and Visiting Tourists. I would love to know so I can improve my Culture Victory, but that information is not available in the game as far as I can tell.
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So overall, I am enjoying the game quite a bit, but I am really frustrated with the game’s user interface lying to me, obscuring facts, or not informing me about the game’s rules. I believe that all of these issues could be resolved without too much work. I wish that game’s systems were more transparent, and that the UI was more helpful for the player.
These are all issues that I ran into in my most previous game.
1. I built a city inland and intended to build a harbor in it. However, when I want to build the harbor district, the district was grayed-out and the UI told me “no suitable location to zone this district”. This gives me the impression that there was absolutely no way to build a harbor in that city. When I questioned friends about this issue, I was told that I could purchase an ocean hex and then I could build the harbor district. This turned out to be true; if I owned an ocean tile then there WAS a “suitable location to zone the district,” which to me means that game’s user interface directly lied to me.
I can understand someone saying “well of course you need to have an open ocean hex to build a harbor,” but Civ 6 allows the player to, if they want to build a wonder or district, show all available places it can be even if buying a hex is necessary to do so. Why is this system inconsistent with the harbor district?
2. When playing my most recent game, I had a very difficult time trying to develop an archeological museum because I had to spend several minutes trying to experiment and troubleshoot understanding why I could not build an archeologist despite having finished the technology for it. Eventually I was able to figure out that you can only build an archeologist from a city that has an archeological museum. I will grant that the civilopedia result for “archeologist” does read “find an extract artifacts and antiquity sites to be displayed in their home city’s museum,” but this reading does not specifically tell you that archeologists can only be constructed in cities with the appropriate museum.
The only way I found out that you can only build an archeologist in a city with an archeological museum was that I happened to notice that the archeologist was only available in the build list for one out of my several cities that I built an archeological museum for. I should be very clear in saying that I had absolutely NO idea why I was unable to generate an archeologist despite having finished the tech to generate them.
This type of information is inconsistent with other UI features in Civ 6. If a wonder is grayed out, it will tell me something like “this building requires a Market building,” or a grayed out district will read “requires population of 7 or greater,” or a grayed out unit will read “your civilization needs 2 Niter to train this type of unit. If this city has an Encampment, you only need 1 Niter.” Why are the UI rules for the archeologist inconsistent with this information? Rather than the archeologist just not appearing if a city can’t build one, it should just be grayed out from the list with the message “requires an Archeological Museum to build.”
The archeologist also does not show how many charges it currently has (you can find that out of course by looking at the Great Works page, but that requires a click that isn’t necessary). If a city’s museum is full, the Ui should also show for a grayed out Archeologist “Archeologist is not available to train because this city’s Archeological Museum is full.”
3. Unlike in Civ 5 when I could understand why I was getting every yield I was getting from a trade route, I really don’t understand why I’m getting some yields from some trade routes. In this case, I am using internal trade routes and I am using the policy card that gives +4 food from internal trade routes. So as Kongo (who conquered Russia), I can send a trade route to a nearby Moscow for 8 food (4 food from Districts in Moscow, 4 food from other bonuses), 3 hammers (from districts in Moscow), and 2.5 gold (from other bonuses). I could also choose to trade to a Kongo city for the same yields, but for Moscow, I’m getting 64 food, 56.7 hammers, 35.7 gold, and in the Kongo city I’m getting 32 food, 49.5 hammers, and 35.2 gold. Why the disparity with the food? Or is the game calculating a different way as to what the “other bonuses” are for boosting trade routes? And if so, where exactly am I getting those bonuses? Meanwhile, sending a trade route to a city that’s generating 45.7 gold per turn will give me +1 gold instead of +2.5 gold for “other bonuses.” I would love to know why I’m getting better gold from trade routes in certain areas vs other areas.
4. I finished a cultural victory in my game and I’m still not entirely sure where many of the yields toward my culture victory are coming from. In this particular case, I was playing a game with 4 civs (3 total after I defeated AI Russia as Kongo). On the turn that I won my Culture Victory, I was generating 700 tourism and 319 culture. In Civ 5, these values made it very easy to know exactly how directly I was winning my culture victory.
But those values are different than the values regarding Domestic and Visiting Tourists. When I won, I had 365 Domestic Tourists, Spain had 22, and America had 212. Spain was sending me 110 visitors and America was sending me 109 visits, which lead to my victory of having 219 Visiting Tourists out of 213.
Now, I understand that the amount of Visiting Tourists was 213 because Teddy’s Domestic Tourist value was 212, but this doesn’t explain to me how I won. I had 365 Domestic Tourists. How was I generating that number? Neither my Tourism per turn nor my Culture per turn match this number in any way. I would like to know exactly how I was generating that exact value of Domestic Tourists, but the hovertext for the Culture Victory only shows my tourism and culture values. Similarly, I would like to know what I was doing to get 110 and 109 Visitors from the other civs, but that information is not readily on hand for me to find out in the game.
There seems to be a massive disconnect for the Culture Victory where the game’s UI will tell you how you’re generating Tourism and Culture, but not how you’re generating Domestic Tourists and Visiting Tourists. I would love to know so I can improve my Culture Victory, but that information is not available in the game as far as I can tell.
----------------
So overall, I am enjoying the game quite a bit, but I am really frustrated with the game’s user interface lying to me, obscuring facts, or not informing me about the game’s rules. I believe that all of these issues could be resolved without too much work. I wish that game’s systems were more transparent, and that the UI was more helpful for the player.
