How much do you care about scenarios?

[DeutschDachs]

I think the only game I enjoyed playing scenarios in was Civ II. I found the WWII and Civil War scenarios fun.

In fantastic worlds I also enjoyed some of the off-the-wall game modes like Santa Is Coming which was really just different christmas themed sprites instead of the regular sprites. Also I think a one or two alien themed scenarios that had different units entirely


But I haven't played a scenario to completion since II

 

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

I would've liked to play the Pirates scenario, but alas, it's multiplayer only.

 

[Aurelesk]

Do not ask me why, but when I first discovered Civilization with V, I was instinctively attracted to the "Wonders of the Old World" scenario. I didn't understand how to play the game yet, but this is game just left a really good impression on me.

So when I saw the same scenario existed in VI, I was ecstatic. Then I played it...
...it is a 50-turns score victory game, where you can pick whatever Civilization. You want to play as Japan against Brazil to build Stonehenge on a random map? Go ahead, this is the scenario.

Somehow, I wish to have that Civilization V scenario in the game again, knowing very well I will play it like 4 times (for each nations) before not touching it for a year at least.

There are a lot of "online" scenarios that just feel like "playing Civ VI but without the fun". Only the WWII one was interesting enough. But maybe because I don't play in multiplayer, I don't see the value of those online one.


Talking multiplayer, the Red Death wasn't my cup of tea. The insane amount of task to do for the achievements made the final push to create a sudden and uncontrollable aversion to it. And I hate that feeling: they put so much effort on it and I will never truly appreciate its real value.

Oddly, I liked Pirates. The AI is bad at it, but I like the spirit. It feels like a good concept that wasn't fully exploited.
Same thing with the Australian one, I liked the spirit, and I could play it again once in a while, but not deep enough to real play a lot of it.

The great plague is an interesting concept, but the AI cannot deal with the Loyalty at higher level, so you end up as the last remaining Civilization alive.
The pillage update quite trivialize the challenge. Even if I criticize it, I did like it somehow.

Alexander felt like a glorified war tutorial on how to use flanking, support and Great General. A tutorial that I will reluctantly have to do for the last achievement.

I... remember I didn't like the Viking one. I should try it again, at least to know if the pillage update trivialize the scenario. In my memory, it was some sort of playing a game with removed feature, where what you are doing doesn't matter because the one who sacrificed most Admiral to Viland won.

 

[Urlance Woolsbane]

I would've liked to play the Pirates scenario, but alas, it's multiplayer only.

You'll be pleased to know that it's possible to play a "multiplayer" game in which the host is the only human player

 

[Equilin]

I love scenarios, but the ones in VI is not enough. I think they focused too much on "unique-named stuffs" (e.g. techs/civics/government with new names) rather than actually having a different mood. Black Death managed that, but seems to not have any objective than "survive" (which is trivial since AI can't deal with it). Alexander is ok as the classic "time attack" scenario, but the map feels too small. Pirates also great but multiplayer only (hotseat is somewhat annoying, and AI can't compete). Australia is too big to feel the landgrab competition (not to mention lategame being too strong it makes early almost irrelevant).

 

[CaesarCS]

I love playing scenarios in Civ II&III. The WWII scenario in the base game of Civ II is an absolute blast, even to this day. I actually prefered historical scenarios over the grand campaign in those games. Civ IV I played some scenarios, as well the grand campaign. Could never love Civ V like I did the earlier games, and with Civ VI I've been a strickly grand campaign player, though I did have some matches with a cousin using the War Machine scenario. I prefer historical scenarios, and I just don't think current versions of Civ lend themselves well toward historical scenarios.

 

[civviefan]

I couldn’t get into the Civ 6 scenarios. Very one note and they are adding little to the gameplay

 

[Prester John 2]

As others I very much enjoyed the Civ2 and Civ4 scenarios, from the expansion packs, such as Rise of Rome, WW2, Crusades and from Civ4 the fan-made Fall of Heaven and Rhye's and Fall. I tried the Civ6 ones but as someone here wrote they are a one trick pony. I'd like to have a complex world set up and then having to navigate to finish certain goals. Plus, a game where I can play any civ and have interesting challenges. Civ2 accomplished that in Rise of Rome, WW2 and Crusades. Unfortunately the modding community hasn't built much interesting pre-set scenarios in Civ6. Gedemon created the mod Historical spawn dates which has delivered good results (similar to a random version of Rhye's and Fall) but apart from that nothing much has been done.

 

[Disgustipated]

On older civ titles like Civ2 and Civ 3 I really enjoyed scenarios. But not so much on the later titles, I'm not sure why. I think the issue is Civ 6 is far different from past civ titles with districts taking up actual space on the map. And Civ 6 seems more like a builder game anyways, not a war game. In past civ titles I've always enjoyed a good WW2 or American Civil War scenario, both of which are absent from Civ 6. Civ 3's WW 2 sceario had actual names of the ships in the Pacific which I liked.

I would say that the core gameplay of Civ 6 is so good (at least for me), that scenarios really aren't necessary for the most part.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Older Civ titles I played them all the time, nothing comes close to the Civ2 scenarios, especially WW2

The 6 ones are one trick ponies

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Someone posted a question on Steam asking why Civ6 had fewer scenarios than earlier versions. I replied that players don't care all that much about scenarios. Do you think that's correct? I don't notice much commentary on the historical scenarios such as Australian Tycoon. Even later adds like Battle Royale and Pirates don't seem to get much commentary after a brief spike when thry were new.

I love history. It is one of the big reasons I got into civ in the first place. So I really like historical scenarios. I also love scifi so I love future scenarios too. So if the scenario is done well and focuses on a historical or futuristic event that I am interested in, I will like it. My favorite scenarios would be things like the US civil war, WW1, WW2, Rise of Roman Empire, Peloponnesian War, Napoleon's conquest of Europe, English civil war, Cold War, hypothetical WW3, Alien invasion of Earth. There are a ton of possibilities. But they need to be done well and not be half-baked. I think to do a scenario justice, it needs to be a total conversion of the base game. So I imagine that the devs probably stopped doing scenarios because it was too consuming and takes up too much time from the development of the base game.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I love history. It is one of the big reasons I got into civ in the first place. So I really like historical scenarios. I also love scifi so I love future scenarios too. So if the scenario is done well and focuses on a historical or futuristic event that I am interested in, I will like it. My favorite scenarios would be things like the US civil war, WW1, WW2, Rise of Roman Empire, Peloponnesian War, Napoleon's conquest of Europe, English civil war, Cold War, hypothetical WW3, Alien invasion of Earth. There are a ton of possibilities. But they need to be done well and not be half-baked. I think to do a scenario justice, it needs to be a total conversion of the base game. So I imagine that the devs probably stopped doing scenarios because it was too consuming and takes up too much time from the development of the base game.

I find that baffling, because if you designed the game system right and your dev tools right making scenarios should be fairly trivial

Civ2 is an excellent example of the former, and Civ3 is an excellent example of the latter.

Civ3 they took the 15 goddamn minutes to put a SQL GUI together to make a worldbuilder, and you can literally make a new Civilization with a couple mouse clicks if memory serves.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I find that baffling, because if you designed the game system right and your dev tools right making scenarios should be fairly trivial

Civ2 is an excellent example of the former, and Civ3 is an excellent example of the latter.

Civ3 they took the 15 goddamn minutes to put a SQL GUI together to make a worldbuilder, and you can literally make a new Civilization with a couple mouse clicks if memory serves.

I am not a modder. Does civ6 work that way? Does civ6 have a worldbuilder and easy tools for scenario creation?

 

[aieeegrunt]

I am not a modder. Does civ6 work that way? Does civ6 have a worldbuilder and easy tools for scenario creation?

Nope, it’s a lot of roll your own SQL in a glorified visual notepad.

I’m just like…I can’t be bothered when I know for 90% of what people want to do it’s unneccessary

 

[Kaan Boztepe]

i played each scenario once or twice for alexander in order to beat it and never looked back at them. they were not there to be done to enjoy long term for dozens of play throughs.

i love the ynamp mod , the europe map in particular since it is gargantuan. the firaxis one is simply too small to enjoy for me.

in other civ games the scenarios were open ended with similar sandbox ideas as the vanilla but with unique gameplay making them repeatably enjoyable.
unfortunately with civ6 they missed that. they made one for multiplayer which is nothing like the original game but still with longevity but too different for me.