[GS] Giant Death Robot is back?

[SupremacyKing2]

I think it's kind of a reward for "making it" to the last years of the game time span,

Well, I guess for players who love the GDR, it should motivate them to play until the very last era. So it should work to keep those players from quitting early.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

In all its glory!

Oh, wait... wrong GDR...

Germans appear be rallying around the GDR, I think they like the name .

Spoiler :

 

[Tech Osen]

FWIW, I think the GDR is non-historical because anything set in the future is by definition non-historical. They certainly could have gone a more conventional route with incremental upgrades for existing unit paths, but why not try to do something different in the future?

I think my issue with the GDR is that it would be completely impractical IRL. It's just a huge walking coffin with a ridiculous price tag. One cruise missile to the legs and it's scrap. Real live military units are becoming smaller rather than larger. Heck, you can shut down an international airport with a single drone...

 

[pgm123]

The negative reaction is because some players were hoping the future era would be a serious look at near future ideas. Also, the GDR completely breaks immersion if you are trying to play civ as a real world alt history game. For 6000 years, you are playing with real world units and real world buildings and wonders and then suddenly you get this Pacific Rim style mega robot that can stomp cities. It breaks the historical immersion for some players.

But the truth is that the future era is really just a book end to help players finish a game that has gone on for way too long. The devs went with the GDR because it's a fun nod to civ5.

I do find it interesting that the devs went with a Pacific Rim style robot for the GDR instead of the Battletech mech style robot like in civ5. Personally, I find the battletech mech more "realistic". But again, the devs are just going for something fun that's a callback to a previous civ game. Most games won't reach the GDR but if the game does get that far, players now have something cool and fun to end the game in spectacular style.

If we want realism in the future, we should probably phase out all tech in favor of missiles and drones. Infantry would just be to take cities and wouldn't see all that much combat.

There are other things that just don't make sense in terms of realism. Bronze working comes entirely too late and too close to Iron working. Masony without bronze working was less effective. Spears were the default form of fighting before bronze. If anything, what you're actually getting is armored heavy infantry, but the Egyptians didn't tend to armor their troops. It's alt history, but one in which every civ tends to follow the path of Greece to Rome to Germany to England to America.

 

[ChocolateShake]

If we want realism in the future, we should probably phase out all tech in favor of missiles and drones. Infantry would just be to take cities and wouldn't see all that much combat.

There are other things that just don't make sense in terms of realism. Bronze working comes entirely too late and too close to Iron working. Masony without bronze working was less effective. Spears were the default form of fighting before bronze. If anything, what you're actually getting is armored heavy infantry, but the Egyptians didn't tend to armor their troops. It's alt history, but one in which every civ tends to follow the path of Greece to Rome to Germany to England to America.

I think the GDR though is a bit on the line between Civ's traditionally historical flavor and sci-fi, as fun as it is!

Personally I like the gameplay aspect of the GDR, but I agree with @SupremacyKing2 in that the battletech art for it is a bit more realistic. Looking forward to using it to crush any AIs that dare to make me angry towards the end of the game I can definitely see why they chose this (table flipping from multiple units), it's certainly a very strong statement on the map and as was said, a nice end-game reward.

 

[Gamling80]

Since the other thread was closed this was my remarks.

The GDR jump is a nice feature, but it looked very unrealistic in the video. They should ad a jet pack to the GDR make it look "more realistic" and perhaps ad a cost of uranium every time you use the ability. The particle beam which is supposed to neutralize cities should also cost uranium to activate so you can´t use it every turn for infinity. Perhaps the normal ranged attack could be a separate attack that would not require any resources and be mostly used against units but won´t kill cities in a strike or two.

Also I would ad some graphics for units entering tunnels at least when you move units along rails. The instant teleportation is breaking the immersion. Convert them into trains and it will look much better like they did in Test of time. I would also prefer if they disable the tunnel teleportation for the GDR and just let them rely on the jump jet pack thing. They are to big!

I would also ad a tech for boasting GDR melee combat against other GDR. Think big robots battling out with big energized swords. Awesome! So you got the tech to kill my cities! I got the melee tech to kill your GDRs! So now you will need more GDRs than me! First you need to take out my defense, before you get near my cities. The melee sword thing would not increase the GDR strength against other units. The other units are to small and to many for using the sword..

Another GDR tech could be an energy shield tech that would protect them and the units, cities, districts and improvements in the tiles around them from nuclear strikes. But after the shield have taken a nuclear hit or two it would be empty and you would be required to spend an action/turn energizing it with uranium roughly costing as much as a nuclear strike or two if it can withstand two hits. The shield could also prevent a little against normal ranged strikes much like a city wall takes damage from archers but it should let like half or two thirds the ranged damage through. This would also deplete the shield slowly. And it would ofc not protect the GDR or units in the tiles around it from any melee attacks. Think how tanks and infantry first go through to shield to attack inside it. There could even be an animation showing how units enter or leave the shield while moving to or attacking the tile next to the GDR.

 

[Disgustipated]

They should ad a jet pack

Not sure that adds realism to the unit LOL. That would have to be one powerful jet pack. Like SRB boosters for the space shuttle.

I like some of your other ideas though. I wouldn't mind the unit in the game so much if they at least tried to balance it, and add some slight realism changes. They should expend uranium for their major actions.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I would also ad a tech for boasting GDR melee combat against other GDR. Think big robots battling out with big energized swords. Awesome!

Your post is making me want to go watch another episode of Voltron on Netflix.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I know that time and resources for creating units for the game is limited, but sure would have been amazing to have a couple more late information era units in addition to the GDR just to make the late game more complete. There are so many cool ideas for late game units that could be added to the game.

 

[Disgustipated]

I just wanted to second the recommendation above about additional prerequisite. I mainly want Firaxis to see this. Fusion power should be a prereq for GDR/robotics. I would say this would impact science victory, but that's being reworked anyways, so no big deal.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I just wanted to second the recommendation above about additional prerequisite. I mainly want Firaxis to see this. Fusion power should be a prereq for GDR/robotics. I would say this would impact science victory, but that's being reworked anyways, so no big deal.

Yes, there should be more prereqs for the GDR. It should not be too beelineable.

 

[BTSeven7]

There needs to be a mod where a GDR is awarded randomly from a goodie hut. Visited by aliens and awarded a death machine. I think it would be fun to explore the earth and conquer ancient civs with one of these.

At least fun to try once or twice.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

There needs to be a mod where a GDR is awarded randomly from a goodie hut. Visited by aliens and awarded a death machine. I think it would be fun to explore the earth and conquer ancient civs with one of these.

Then it sits gathering dust until you have the 3 uranium per turn needed to move it.

 

[Leathaface]

I hope it is possible to counter the GDR. I know a single unit probably wouldn't be able to, but 2 or 3 units of a certain unit type should be able to hold a single GDR back. I like to play peaceful so I wouldn't take advantage of the offensive capabilities of the GDR, but I like to watch streamers on Twitch play Civ VI and I don't want them to just steamroll the AI when GDR's become available.

That'd just be so boring.

 

[Steamboat Willem]

There needs to be a mod where a GDR is awarded randomly from a goodie hut. Visited by aliens and awarded a death machine. I think it would be fun to explore the earth and conquer ancient civs with one of these.

At least fun to try once or twice.

During Civ4 someone on this forum did play throughs that were basically stories where he would play a Civ with certain restrictions. One of them was with Gandhi where he couldn't build any units or so, and it was always war and aggressive barbarians, but he started out with a Modern Armor that wasn't allowed outside his own borders. Ended up with every promotion in the book, and there were many in Civ4.

 

[AriochIV]

Then it sits gathering dust until you have the 3 uranium per turn needed to move it.

Surely the alien version runs on an internal supply of Element 115.

 

[Disgustipated]

So the real question is why would you build GDR when you can just use nukes? I'm playing a game now where I'm just throwing around nukes. It certainly is the fast way to take cities, and will always be faster than GDR.

though we still don't know what the environmental effects of using nukes will be, do we? And of course that triggers an emergency, but that's hardly a problem at that stage of the game.

 

[Deggial]

They added a HoF in GS (finally!). Nukes will kill lots of citizens and therefore reduce the score.
If not for any moral reservations, some people might avoid nukes for this reason alone.

(Speaking about the HoF ... as great as this is, we indeed need a 3rd expansion to give them a chance to also implement the visual replay. As nice as the timeline is, I never revisit it after I finished a game. But I always re-watched my games in Civ5. (I usually played towards a conquest victory though and the map-changes are most fun when lots of changes actually happened.)

 

[Josephias]

Personally, I don't have a big problem with a GDR in the future era. Although, personally, I would have picked a different design aesthetic. I find the pacific rim style robot to be less realistic in terms of what a real world GDR might look like if we ever did build one in real life.

I think a compromise between the gameplay element they are introducing with the GDR and something that is more realistinc IRL would be a flying (hoovering) fortress a la S.H.I.E.L.D. Take the idea from current Aircraft Carrier evolution that are becoming more and more multi-purpose (take landing helicopter classes LHx, and make them bigger and able to opérate also in land…). Make the GDR modules become different kinds of carrier modules/facilities/drone "nests" incorporating different unmanned-aircraft attack types (anti-air, anti-city, long-range…). The concept is basically the same, with the difference it does not need to stand in two legs

Not expecting to see it in GS, as the art is already done for the GDR and there is probably no time to rework… but just trowing in the idea for future games

 

[Gorbles]

The GDR was an aesthetic favourite in CiV, it doesn't surprise that we're seeing it here.

Kinda funny to see criticisms about being "lazy", though. Then again, we're also criticising it based on "realism", which is never not going to be funny. So, go for it