How well did they create Persia and Macedonia in Civilization VI?

[bite]

So seeing as people liked my break down of Australia, here is my look at how well Persia and Macedonia was implemented in the latest DLC also a bit on the spring patch.

 

[Liufeng]

A very goog review in my opinion. You described perfectly the 2 new actors in the game in theur assets. Maybe you could have written a paragraph about the scenario, but oh well, it's not such a big deal. And you pointed out the biggest probelm this DLC brings ... three american civs (USA, Brazil, Aztecs), one black african (Kongo), four asian (Japan, India, Scythia and China), four middle-eastern (Sumer, Persia, Arabia and Egypt), one oceanic (Australia) and 10 european ... Just one native american, no south-east asian civs, the african continent is almost empty, and some major actors, like the Mongols and the Ottomans are still missing. As you said, what is a civilization ? What direction will the game take ? Will the european approach prevail, or will it broad to other cultures, instead of safely limiting some wild choices, like adding 4 South-east asian civs instead of one or two ?

All in all, it was a good read, a very comprehensive one.

 

[bite]

Maybe you could have written a paragraph about the scenario

I was planning a section but it was already getting too long, but I did a screenshot in there as a little nod to it

 

[Siptah]

You write that the Mausoleum is very powerful. Have you tried how exactly the second charges stack when used? Does Leonardo give +2 culture to all workshops? Does Isidore get 3 or 4 charges? Is James Watt as overpowered as it seem by giving all factories +4 production and 2 free factories? Does Wernher von Braun give +200% towards space race projects? What's the 2nd bonus from Leif Erikson? I asked that in the thread about the new patch as well, but no one answered.

Also, even Macedon itself is showing that the developers are being more precise with their civilizations, which I hope is something that they will translate to other areas in the world. Now given there are quite a few holes in the civilization roster and the global map I think we might be seeing a big move towards this in the future.

Amen

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Once again, another insightful report, bite.

 

[MantaRevan]

I like the cut of your gib. Superb tastes in video games based on some of the other writing on the site. And yes, I do think that the execution of Alexander was poor. Firaxis should have waited to release this pack until the other regions of the globe had gotten more development so that a trend towards more particular civilizations would be greeted as a positive measure for the franchise as opposed to the developers trying to bend over backwards to cram as much Greece into the game as possible.

 

[magha77]

Great job. Agree overall. Alexander with Macedon seems quite overpowered though, particularly in the early game. I usually play Marathon length games to enjoy each era and Alexander is frightening. If the AI was better, I would get that same feeling as seeing Shaka or Attila in the last game.

 

[bite]

Great job. Agree overall. Alexander with Macedon seems quite overpowered though, particularly in the early game. I usually play Marathon length games to enjoy each era and Alexander is frightening. If the AI was better, I would get that same feeling as seeing Shaka or Attila in the last game.

At the moment he is the scout I don't want to see showing up at the start of the game

 

[Ferocitus]

Alex might be troublesome on the toy maps that come with Civ6,
but in 20+ games on YnAMP, ludicrous size, with 20-24 civs
and 30 - 60 CS he has done very little to worry about.

Gorgo usually gets eliminated early, but Alex always seems to be very
well contained by some combination of Rome, Poland, Germany, France
and Russia.
He never threatens England, Spain, or Norway; Scythia spreads out east,
west, and south and isn't threatened by him either. The others have
almost no contact with him for most of the game.

Cyrus is a much bigger problem than boy wonder, but even he is nothing
compared to Congo or Brazil who are by far the most difficult to stop
once they get their jungle tiles working. And they have been almost
from the first release of YnAMP.

So, while your article was a delight to read, it only applies to a very
small subset of the myriad variations that Civ6 allows.

 

[Siptah]

Alex might be troublesome on the toy maps that come with Civ6,
but in 20+ games on YnAMP, ludicrous size, with 20-24 civs
and 30 - 60 CS he has done very little to worry about.

Gorgo usually gets eliminated early, but Alex always seems to be very
well contained by some combination of Rome, Poland, Germany, France
and Russia.
He never threatens England, Spain, or Norway; Scythia spreads out east,
west, and south and isn't threatened by him either. The others have
almost no contact with him for most of the game.

Cyrus is a much bigger problem than boy wonder, but even he is nothing
compared to Congo or Brazil who are by far the most difficult to stop
once they get their jungle tiles working. And they have been almost
from the first release of YnAMP.

So, while your article was a delight to read, it only applies to a very
small subset of the myriad variations that Civ6 allows.

Really? You value the performance using a mod as more important than how it is intended by the developers? And you call playing the game as it is released and patched now as 'a small subset'?
Your point might be a good one and is accepted, but the way you delivered it is 'suboptimal'.

 

[Ferocitus]

Really? You value the performance using a mod as more important than how it is intended by the developers? And you call playing the game as it is released and patched now as 'a small subset'?
Your point might be a good one and is accepted, but the way you delivered it is 'suboptimal'.

I certainly rate YnAMP light years beyond standard Civ junk. Tiny maps, and small
numbers of Civs/CS are deathly boring for me. Nobody in my circle of family/friends
plays anything but YnAMP, and they have been since the first big maps in YnAMP for
Civ 5.
I would never recommend Civ6 standard release. It means I have to set it up for
the no-hopers, but I get kudos for years out of it.

 

[magha77]

Alex might be troublesome on the toy maps that come with Civ6,
but in 20+ games on YnAMP, ludicrous size, with 20-24 civs
and 30 - 60 CS he has done very little to worry about...

So, while your article was a delight to read, it only applies to a very
small subset of the myriad variations that Civ6 allows.

Wow, your PC must be a supercomputer.

 

[bite]

So, while your article was a delight to read, it only applies to a very
small subset of the myriad variations that Civ6 allows.

Thanks for the feedback, my analysis is based off the base game which most (probably the majority) of players use so that it is the most applicable it can be, but goodness those maps must be really large

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Using mods is great. But writing up an analysis using a mods is unsatisfactory.

It's like using the results of a NASCAR race to determine how a stock Chevy midsize sedan stacks up against stock Toyotas.

An analysis using mods is only relevant to people using the exact same suite of mods.

 

[MantaRevan]

So, while your article was a delight to read, it only applies to a very
small subset of the myriad variations that Civ6 allows.

This is just silly. OP is evaluating how the civs play in the actual game, not a mod that few people with supercomputers use. You can be as arrogant as you want about calling standard civ "junk", but most of the review has nothing to do with how the civs scale to different maps, so it looks to me like you're forcing the topic.

 

[Ferocitus]

This is just silly. OP is evaluating how the civs play in the actual game, not a mod that few people with supercomputers use. You can be as arrogant as you want about calling standard civ "junk", but most of the review has nothing to do with how the civs scale to different maps, so it looks to me like you're forcing the topic.

Pffft. "Supercomputers". It runs fine on a modern PC with a reasonably
good graphics card.

Have a look at the number of downloads of Gedemon's YnAMP.
It's hardly an insignificant number.

I liked the article, as I said, but it covers the worst embodiment of Civ6, i.e. "standard" mode.
And yes, I do think that Civ6 "standard", as a game in itself, is junk. To me Civ is just a
framework on which to build a kaleidoscope of mods and enhancements.

Wow, your PC must be a supercomputer.

No. Just an i7 with 16Gb RAM, and an GTX 970.
Push the turbo button on your 286 and see if that helps you run much
better versions of the game.

Thanks for the feedback, my analysis is based off the base game which most (probably the majority) of players use so that it is the most applicable it can be, but goodness those maps must be really large

Sure: I know you aimed it at the "standard" form of the game, and didn't try
the impossible task of covering the myriad variations of mods and tweaks.
And it would have been extremely boorish of me to criticise you for not
attempting it.

But some things that apply to the standard model are not the same on
larger maps, or with more Civs or CS. There are many tens of thousands
of downloads of Gedemon's YnAMP, so it's not like I was picking an esoteric
case.

And yes, those maps are big - ludicrous size is the maximum possible: 230 x 115
hexes. (It runs on a reasonably inexpensive i7 PC, 16Gb RAM, GTX 970.)

I also mentioned that games at that size are not very everyone: available time
and inclination are huge factors for players. I just find the standard model extremely
boring and unchallenging; others would find it ridiculously long and tedious.

 

[magha77]

No. Just an i7 with 16Gb RAM, and an GTX 970.
Push the turbo button on your 286 and see if that helps you run much
better versions of the game.

Haha. My comment was in jest. But to be honest, I'm new to PC's, literally bought a laptop for Civ 6 so that I can use mods like the Earth map. I7, GTX 950 and 8gb RAM. Upgraded to 32gb RAM just to make the game run a little reasonably. Gonna have a buddy who is a PC hobbyist take a look at it to see why it's still slow. Lifelong Mac user for everything else otherwise. Hated boot camp for Civ 4 and Civ 5 on the Mac was painful.

 

[Ferocitus]

Haha. My comment was in jest. But to be honest, I'm new to PC's, literally bought a laptop for Civ 6 so that I can use mods like the Earth map. I7, GTX 950 and 8gb RAM. Upgraded to 32gb RAM just to make the game run a little reasonably. Gonna have a buddy who is a PC hobbyist take a look at it to see why it's still slow. Lifelong Mac user for everything else otherwise. Hated boot camp for Civ 4 and Civ 5 on the Mac was painful.

Just finished a game at emperor level, marathon pace, Giant Map,
ludicrous size (230X115 hex) with 20 civs, 60 CS, no barbs. Random
starting positions (because I was getting bored with Australia starting i
n Australia, and France is so much nicer at this time of year.

Apart from YnAMP I also used these YnAMP specific mods and no others:
Cliffs of Dover, More CS for the World, Remove Close CS, Resources
Placement Tweak.

Started 12:17pm 4 April, finished 10:45pm 7 April. Science victory on
move 807.

The amount of memory on the graphics card is important.
Turn all graphics to low settings; no leader animations.
I also play offline for most of the game, so I can turn virus checking off.
That shouldn't be a worry for you with a Mac.

I played on a computer running Windows 7. It should run faster on another
comp with a GTX 1070 video card under Linux when that is finally released
later this month

As I keep saying, it won't suit most people, but for us it's a hoot.

Good luck!

 

[ShakaKhan]

I really dislike the capitalist direction that the devs go when releasing new civilizations. I understand that it's a business and they do what they do to make money, but it seems that they attempt to increase sales of DLC by making each "generation" of released civs more and more powerful. They figure the audience is going to react, "wow, if I can lead a civ with THOSE abilities, there will be no stopping me," and we'll gladly open our wallets.

Now, I'm not saying that all the DLC civs are way ahead of all of the original release civs. Civs like Scythia and Brazil and Kongo are on or near par with the newer civs. The point is more that there will never be a DLC of a civ of the caliber of Catherine, Harald, or Pericles. Furthermore, as the civs get more and more powerful as new paychecks, I mean DLC's are released, they are going to have to adjust elements of the game to make it more difficult to accommodate the increased ability level afforded to the player. As they do so, the effect is that the lower tier leaders (the three mentioned earlier, Spain) become unplayable. As the next generation of civs are released, the new bottom-tier-but-still-playable civs (Roosevelt, Cleopatra, Hojo) then become unplayable. We're not actually getting more options as it seems we're paying for, instead we get 3 new options and lose 3 options.

Also, the god-tier aspect of some of these new civs is troubling, and the trend of that increasing will lead to some pretty silly prospects. Australia getting a production bonus when DoW'd? Ok. With you so far.. How much of a production bonus? 15% seems about right... No? 25%? No? Surely it isn't as high as 50? MORE!?!?! FRICKIN' 100%!! That's just stupid. Also that bonus in the same civ that has obscene housing bonus, the only unique improvement that adds hammers as well as being able to basically pyramid-scheme their way to ridiculous yields all while getting free tile acquisition even if those tiles are already owned by someone else and gets bonus district yields all while having a unique unit that gets a bonus when outside of your territory, which is where all the fighting will take place if you are playing a successful game, and how could you NOT be playing a successful games with all those ridiculous bonuses?! Compare that to Harald's set of bonuses.

If this trend continues, we'll eventually see civs like FDR of America whose abilities include being able to change the rules of the game if it helps achieve victory, or the Borg Queen of the Borg who has all the bonuses of every other civilization in the game.

 

[LuckyAC]

Wow, your PC must be a supercomputer.

I'm more impressed by the man's patience!