Gathering Storm Over-hyped?

[Bayley]

I started civ with the fourth game and really got into it when they released civ v. I was really excited when they released civ vi but always went back to the fifth game because of some issues I had with it. They created an amazing diplomacy system in that the ai doesn't hate you automatically for going to war and you have a good chance of allying with a few people regardless of your playstyle. But alliances were pointless in the vanilla game. Research agreements were essential at higher levels but still pretty uninteresting, joint wars were useless because while civ v ai could put up a good fight with one another civ vi ai seem to only be able to take a city at most, and no world congress/diplomatic victory? maybe the rise and fall alliances helped but to me it didn't seem worth it without a victory condition or a world congress. The second major issue I had with it was that strategic resources went back to the boring civ iv standard of 1 yield allowing you to build as many as you need. This was a creative improvement in from iv-v and I liked that the demand for strategic resources forced you to fight wars against some civilizations. I just played an earth true start locations in civ V and in the 1800's I had to fight people that I didn't want to in order to get oil so I could get ahead of my true enemies. This system was very realistic and really made me feel immersed into the game. In civ vi all I had to do was build a single oil rig and I could sustain a navy big enough to fight off the rest of the world combined. This also balanced the game because larger civ's could never really build an army big enough relative to their landmass without resorting to cheaper units. Anyways what i'm really saying is that I'm incredibly excited for this dlc because it seemed to address my major qualms with the game while also finding a way to give me things I didn't even think to ask for. What are your thoughts? Am i massively over-hyping it/are there other issues in civ vi that were ignored?

 

[youngsteve]

Glancing at some of the letsplays hardly inspires you. When you see quill18, who is enjoyable but not a great player, start an expansion which hasn't been released on the hardest level, without breaking a sweat, you know this is dumbed down. Was hoping to eventually move on from Civ V but won't be for awhile by the looks of things. The cartoon look doesn't help.

 

[Rup]

I agree with what you have said.But I much prefer even vanilla Civilization VI over V overall but more so with Rise and Fall.

Only problem for me is that AI is boring.It is not only because it is unable to do good against player but more so because it doesn't do good against each other.From what I have seen they still doesn't with Gathering Storm.
It is like the map(Civilization positions) doesn't change enough and most of the time an AI cannot completely eat another AI.I really enjoyed doing AI vs AI for V but it is sooo boring to do it in VI.

 

[Victoria]

I think a lot of feel has been bought to the game with this release. I think they are trying to please the complaints and resources has been a big one.
Many of the civs are really interesting and different rather than OP. Five stars for this approach.
For some reason world congress feels no different from V for me but the jury is still out.
Apart from that, I will enjoy playing regardless, I think culture and science will have lengthened settings but pillaging will counteract this.
Yes, I would say I am more pleased with this release than any other... hyped is a bit much for me.
You cannot please everyone with a game and 1UPT does dumb down the AI but that’s life, it’s a great immersive game and if you want a challenge it is about how fast you can win, not if you can win.

 

[Onii-chan]

Some of the main issues in Civ VI I would say are more like

• Production vs Science/Culture isn't really balanced. You usually don't have time to build the things you research before you've already reached the next tier of techs etc. Though this has been improved over time compared to the base game and easily moddable but it is still noticable
• Many of the buildings in the game have pretty boring abilities or simply don't seem to be worth the investment to construct. Tier 3 buildings for districts could have some more unique ability rather than just give a flat resource bonus to be more interesting. You know, like Military Academies and Seaports let you build Armies and Armadas directly for example is a good and unique ability, but like a Stock Exchange or a Research Lab are pretty boring design-wise
• The overall complexity of Civ VI is much greater than previous installments, which is good by itself but it makes it even harder for an AI to be able to compete with a good human player
• Some general balance issues amongst governments/policy cards - I love the idea of the cards since they make the whole game require focus and timing whilst also opening up a lot of creativity and flexibility and just upping the skill cap in general... but you also realize pretty quickly that some cards are just way better than others and so you find yourself often doing more or less the same choices after a couple of games. A full rebalancing of the magnitude and/or placement of many of the cards in the culture tree could help with this issue
• Religion rarely feels worthwhile. It's hard to efficiently even get a religion on higher difficulty levels, but really the perks you get from a religion are nowhere near as good as they were in Civ V. It should be buffed in general to feel more worthwhile going for

Those are just off the top of my head but really there aren't that many things I complain about these days for the game, but of course some still exist. Most of the problems with the game are theoretically or practically fixable by mods though. The only really glaring one which doesn't have a good solution is the AI, because no one knows how to program an AI to be that intelligent. Recently there has been some development on that front by DeepMind where they demonstrated a full AI going 10-1 I think in StarCraft 2 against a couple of pro players, with restrictions set to its reaction time and multitasking capabilities so that it wouldn't be cheating. So that is a step in the right direction for AI development at least. However, for a game like Civ with nigh infinity variables to take into account it'll take something incredible to develop an AI that can play as well as a human can

 

[Sprenk]

I think this expansion looks quite promising. Yes, having units dependent on a continuing stream of a resource is more complex--hence more interesting. Several of the new civs/leaders look really interesting as well, with strong strengths and weaknesses and interesting synergies. And there is a lot of enhanced flavor: named features and a less stagnant environment. And there's finally a Hall of Fame! Woot!

No real World Builder though. Still hoping

AI problems? Sure. There always have been. But, realistically, crafting a good AI for a game like Civ is VERY difficult. You can't just brute-force it like you would to solve tic-tac-toe or checkers--too many variables. You'd have to develop sophisticated protocols after lots of play experience to make a better AI--and even then, the players will find its weaknesses soon enough

 

[Xmonger]

Looks fantastic to me, I was happy to move off V even though VI base was incomplete. GS really rounds out VI IMO. The art style is modern day that was pioneered by ILM with the Tin-Tin movie. To me V looks like it's 8 years old (actually older since development started around 2007).

I like a game with a lot of levers I can pull - e.g. complexity. 'Pew pew pew' isn't my thing. As far as I can see the complexity of VI exceeds all previous versions by quite a bit as somebody mentioned. I was surprised to see how further they went with GS - they matched the list I made after RF, and then added a overarching mechanic of climate change tied into diplomacy. Considering how many expert players use chopping this is a significant feature.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

We won't know for sure until GS is out and we get actual player feedback, but I very much expect that:

a) people who have enjoyed Civ 6 so far will be really pleased with the new toys provided in GS; and,
b) people who have been disappointed with Civ 6 so far will continue to prefer Civ 4/Civ 5/something else.

My take on GS is that it is "more" of the current Civ 6 experience. Tweaks some things, tries to improve some things, adds a bunch of new mechanics, etc. But it's still Civ 6, which is either a great thing or a "meh" thing depending on what you're looking for in a game.

 

[iammaxhailme]

I do think that R&F probably made bigger changes than GS, but even if there aren't huge gameplay changes, I'm glad just for new civs. But $40 glad? Probably not.

 

[jokii]

From YouTube videos it's not hard to see that Civ 6 GS has a lot of old and new flaws. A lot of players will only play GS for a while, and then go back to Civ 5 Vox Populi.
It's going to take a lot of modding to make Civ 6 GS competitive, balanced and fun...

 

[criZp]

From YouTube videos it's not hard to see that Civ 6 GS has a lot of old and new flaws. A lot of players will only play GS for a while, and then go back to Civ 5 Vox Populi.
It's going to take a lot of modding to make Civ 6 GS competitive, balanced and fun...

how so?

 

[criZp]

I don't actually care about the weather/climate change stuff, and I am a bit sceptical of the united nations thing. New civs also don't look so interesting, apart from incas.

Stuff like the grievances, production manager, improved naval trade and tweaked policies look more interesting.

 

[DWilson]

Honestly, I almost feel the opposite. Every single live stream and video on YouTube has made me more and more excited to play the game. It just seems more enveloping and interest consuming than ever before, for this generation of the game. I expect I might finally regularly have a one more turn moment that has been so rare in this iteration.

 

[Haggbart]

Personally, what I'm looking forward to are small changes and tweaks to different systems that force you to think a bit differently. Just the fact that they added the grievance system, changed the 3rd tier governments, added some techs/civics and changed some of the old, new wonders and buildings, changes to strategic resources, changes to victory conditions etc. Also civs like Maori and Mali which force you to play a different game.

 

[Starwars]

I'm disappointed that the AI is still in the place that it is, and I will continue to whine about it even though it's not really unexpected at this point.

As far as GS goes, I'm fairly hyped but I'm trying to set my expectations. I fully expect that there will be downright broken stuff in it, and by broken I mean "holy moly, <insert civ here> can completely break everything if you do this". I also think that it will be an easier game to win even than before. Again, disappointing, but not unexpected at this point.
I think I will enjoy the World Congress bar some oddities, and I think I will enjoy the new resource system/fuel system. The other systems and additions, well... I'll have to play to get a feel for it.
I'm mostly excited about the civilizations in this one, I think they've done a really good job of making them unique and probably fun to play.

Personally I have a really hard time playing Civ V nowadays so I definitely won't go back to that one aside from short stints where I try it and then leave it again. I mostly play Civ VI as I enjoy the building aspect and many of the mechanics. But if I want to play a tough game where I have to actually pay attention, I will always go back to Civ IV. Still my favorite game in the series overall.

But yeah, though I would love to be proven wrong, I don't think Civ VI's big flaws will be fixed at this point. There will be improvements but I don't think it will ever get the attention that I feel it needs. That said, I still think it's a superfun game overall and my second fav in the series behind IV (weeeell, maybe tied with II).

 

[jokii]

how so?

Balance, AI, Diplomacy...?
Can AI achieve diplomatic victory? Diplomatic favor mechanic is fun, but looks badly implemented.
I am afraid, right now, it is just another easy exploit against AI. I guess they did not have time to tweak it properly.
And battle AI ?
It is going to be as always... You build 5 archers and 5 warriors and conquer half of the world...
I love Civ, and I will play GS, but without a challenge it doesn't take much to get bored.
Just like before, I suppose that only community patch will make the game really good.

 

[Phoenix1595]

I don't think your criticisms are unwarranted - but as someone who has been playing on and off since CIV1, I can never go back to playing the previous iterations of the game. I'd much rather play what is current and exciting than go back to (for example) the tired old 4 cites + tradition machine.

I am a Civ Lifer too, and while I have enjoyed each Game since Civ 1, I too could never go back. I think GS really elevates the game in directions not taken before. While I wish the AI acted more adversarial and rational, I think I will be happy with the final product.

 

[Ziad]

I'll say this again but if people think that games should be measured and designed by how smart opponents are then they should be playing multiplayer. While I agree the AI should be better, nothing will ever truly satisfy as AI will always do stupid stuff.

As will humans in multiplayer by the way, just gonna point that out. Easy to armchair criticize when you're not in the driver seat.

Gathering Storm adds tons of interesting features and balance changes, new mechanics to enjoy, and new civilizations with new gameplay twists.

Ultimately it's more content to enjoy in the experience, and as far as I'm concerned that's all that matters. I can always fix the base stuff through modding, but I need that stuff to exist first.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I'll say this again but if people think that games should be measured and designed by how smart opponents are then they should be playing multiplayer.

That's arguing to one extreme. The opposite would be to say that if that's how you feel, then presumably you're okay with a Civ game in which the AI never builds any buildings or moves any units?

Ultimately it's more content to enjoy in the experience, and as far as I'm concerned that's all that matters.

Understandable, but that experience includes interactions with the foils that are the other AI leaders.

Much of the arguments about the AI are, at their heart, a discussion about whether the AI behaviour allows the player to otherwise enjoy the game experience. For some players, the current state of the AI is sufficient for them to enjoy that experience. Some of those would presumably be okay with an AI that had even more rudimentary coding that the current AI. For almost all of those players, though, there would, at some point, be a level of AI decision making which would interfere with their ability to feel immersed in the world and enjoy their empire-building experience.

For some people, the current state of the AI is at that level for them. That doesn't mean they need the AI to play at the level of civtrader6 in order to enjoy the game.

 

[acluewithout]

GS will be a big improvement. Huge.

I think GS looks great. The new mechanics are welcome, but aren’t going to radically change the game. But the work done rebalancing and polishing the game looks on point, and is going to get the game much closer to reaching its potential.

There are two catches though. First, while Civ VI is polishing lots of parts of the game, there are still going to be some mechanics that remain underdeveloped (eg Governors) and which don’t really fit together coherently (eg tourism still doesn’t effect loyalty or happiness really).

Second, as FXS improve more and more of the game, the relatively low challenge level becomes more of an issue. Challenge here means AI but also other aspects too. The game is just not hard enough, and that really limits its appeal.

GS may up the challenge level a little - it’s possible loyalty and resources reducing unit spam making conquest a lot harder, WC could also make life harder for the player if they’re ahead, and the variable maintenance cost of seawalls and greivance systems (and it’s impact on loyalty) seem like baby steps towards having some mechanics around actually managing your empire.

But so far the Letsplay suggest the GS is still easy even on higher difficulties. Playing well or playing badly just impacts when you win - not if you win. This really is going to become an increasing problem with the game. If you can just grind out a victory, even playing badly, then many players will do just that - grind. And they’ll think the game is boring as a result, because all they do is grind. There’s nothing nudging players to play the game better, and so find some depth.

I agree FXS seem really reluctant to “discourage” players. But the game could be made harder and not lose accessibility. The key thing is to make the “base” game much much tougher, and then use difficulty levels and player buffs to ensure new players or sandbox players have an easier entry point.

So. Yeah, GS is going to be a huge improvement, and Civ VI is going to be a much more satisfying game as a result. I think after GS, Civ VI will likely be the best version of Civ overall. But GS isn’t going to fix everything, and the game has a real ceiling on how good it can be unless the challenge level substantially improves.