How would you rate Civ VI + expansions to VP at this point?

[salty mud]

It aggravates me a great deal that the perfect strategy game exists somewhere between Civilization V and VI. Both games have innovations and mechanics I enjoy, but they also have their shortcomings that are hard to ignore. Civ VI's AI is low hanging fruit at this point and it has been improved slightly, but VP beats it hands down. VP is able to keep interest and mechanics fresh into the late game whereas VI stagnates, but VI has a much greater emphasis on playing the map and city planning/specialisation which I enjoy.

Which do you find preferable and why? Which do you find to be deeper and the more strategic experience? Which is the better empire builder?

 

[Stalker0]

So I am going to put the AI to the side for the moment. There is no contest there, and because of that VI could never hold my interest in the same way VP does. So I am going to ignore that, and just look at the mechanics of the two.

I think the district concept in VI is interesting but we never really got there. For example Wonders....I think the requirements for wonder building are too stringent in VI. I think the requirement of a district to build it on would have been fine and interesting, but they have so many other requirements that it may wonder building problematic. VP sprinkles in terrain requirements...just a few wonders, but not the majority of them.

The "card" based system of policies in VI I enjoy, it feels like a good mix between IV and V's system. Ultimately I do think there are too many cards that each do too little...I would have either liked smaller but stronger cards...or simply more slots to put them in. I always found that there were my "obvious" favorites, and then everything else was just wasted space.

Promotions in VI are very lackluster, VP has a big advantage here.

I do like the CS system in VI, I think they took the quests in VP and combined it with their Eureka system to create a nice clean synergy that works well. Compared to the diplo unit spamming of VP, I think its ultimately an improvement.

The 2 unit/3 unit system in VI is a good idea. The escort system is a really good idea...I really wish VP had a way to escort trade routes from enemy pillagers.

Ultimately the biggest problem for me in VI, the one I could not get over..... is how dang much everything costs! Production in VI is SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW. Once you have a few cities in districts, it takes a night and a day to build anything. They made adjustments over time but it was never enough. I could do all of the fancy production synergies in the late game with industrial zones, and things still took forever to build. That ultimately just sapped the fun for me. I also never understood why it was needed....the 2 unit /3 unit combinations was the answer to unit spam so its not like you had to reduce that.


So ultimately VI was 1 step forward, 2 steps back for me. Some of its innovations were great, its execution left a lot to be desired, and it felt like it took some of the lessons learned from V and just threw them in the trash.

 

[arthurF]

Civ 3 was a highpoint for me

 

[BiteInTheMark]

is how dang much everything costs! Production in VI is SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW.

Fully agree.
No clue why everything has to get more expensive the more often I build it. Over the lenght of the game, like in VP, sure, but simply increase the more often I build it? So stupid.
Combine it with the extremly slowed movement of units, everything feels so slow.

 

[Tugboatspotter]

I think civ vi is a far better designed game than civ v was. Having said that, VP has transformed what I consider a mediocre game into a polished gem.

At this moment I prefer VP because I find it more fun to play.

 

[Eddie.exe]

I never got around to playing VI. Most of the time the computers I owned simply weren't good to play VI on, and the art style turned me off. Also I'm waiting for civ VI to have a "complete" edition where I can just buy all the DLC's. But currently, I'm sticking to vox populi for the forseeable future.

 

[Drakul]

The only thing Civ 5 needs is a conversion to 64 bit. Nothing else

 

[Zuizgond]

Fully agree with Stalker's post. Firaxis didn't care about coding a half-decent AI so you are only competing against yourself. I think there is like 1 AI guy for 30 graphics/animation artists in Civ6 team. And don't start me on the cartoonish style...

Card system is interesting but can be improved. Too many useless cards and you can switch them too often. No sense of commitment.

Promotions are so disappointing.

Best idea is district/wonders using a tile. But then, cities feel too close of each other. Your empire looks like one big crowded city as one city's districts are adjacent to those of neighboring cities. There should be more hexes in maps globally and cities should be able to work a fourth ring of tiles and be more spaced out in order to look more realistic.

I also don't understand why district cost increases the more you have of that type.

Moving an entire army is even more a chore than in Civ5 due to the new movement mechanism. But I have never been a fan of 1upt.

And the religion mini-game is awful and needs a full overhaul.


I didn't buy any expansions so maybe some of these things have been addressed. But globally Civ6 is miles away from Civ5 VP or even Civ4 in terms of fun.

 

[Zanteogo]

Quick Summary:

Civ 5 + DLC without VP: 6/10
Good solid game, ok AI with only a few flaws.

Civ 5 + VP: 9/10
Though I disagree with some of the changes VP has made. (removal of the second UU is the main one) Overall the game has become worlds better.

Civ 6 + DLC: 4/10
Though they improved in some areas over Civ 5, in many areas they have taken several steps backwards.

Detailed Information:

Civ 5 + VP is probably the closest I have seen to a perfect game of it's type. Things such as Vassals, improved AI and over all more detailed, but cleaner systems make it just amazing. It's not perfect in my eyes. There are certain creative differences I have with the direction. The biggest is the removal of the second UU. I also disagree with Gazebo on things like defensive wars (not) being seen differently and that enjoyment should be more important than having things perfectly balanced (edit: to be clear, I feel enjoyment trumps balance). (though I notice the team has shifted more towards the enjoyment side with some recent changes). I also prefer a more "realistic civ simulator" rather than a "global chess game". Something that VP seems torn with, it's changes seem to flip back and forth between both schools of thought. (neither one is wrong, though I do enjoy the balance between that VP tries to ride)
Overall it's a great mod. It has extended the life of Civ 5. To give Firaxis credit though, they made a flawed, but decent base game.

Civ 6 though has some things going for it, such as civs that act and play fairly different from each other, improved city states, barbarians that can actually challenge you if left alone, and a casus belli system, it just drops the ball so hard in other areas that it probably will never recover. Civ 6 plays and seems to be designed by a corporate committee. This includes what decisions they make to ensure the maximum profit, both now and with future DLC. Making a good game is a distant second. I believe they intentionally make their game lacking in areas, so people playing it are constantly hooked into buying more DLC to make the game closer to perfect, but it won't quite get there because there is just no money in doing that. They also work on things that "market well". Having a really good AI that can match a human player doesn't market well. Having flashy new feature like a brand new civ or.... ugh... vampires.. well that can be shown quick in 30 seconds video ads. For me, the biggest back step in Civ 6 is the world congress. It's just so dumbed down with minimal input from the players. World congress Emergencies are a cool system, but that's it. The concept of a world congress leader and actually putting forth proposals? Nope, gone. I also hate the new cartoon style of the whole game. I could live with the new leaders, but the map looks like a "Clash of Clans" sort of game. Thankfully they made a developer mod that puts Civ 5 map graphics into the game. Though while playing it, I kept thinking, why not just play Civ 5 + VP?

I would be really interested in knowing what the developers and Fraxis as a whole thinks of VP. I hear rumors of a certain contempt for it, but of course these are only rumors and should never be taken seriously unless proven.

 

[Zanteogo]

Fully agree with Stalker's post. Firaxis didn't care about coding a half-decent AI so you are only competing against yourself. I think there is like 1 AI guy for 50 marketing "experts" in Civ6 team.

Fixed it for you.

 

[76ers]

I still haven't played Civ 6. I was watching a Marbozir playthrough recently and saw that they added vampires to the game. I think that alone killed any chance that I will ever play it.

 

[2506]

I still haven't played Civ 6. I was watching a Marbozir playthrough recently and saw that they added vampires to the game. I think that alone killed any chance that I will ever play it.

Thank you for giving me a permanent reason to never even read another VI vs VP discussion.

 

[Recursive]

I still haven't played Civ 6. I was watching a Marbozir playthrough recently and saw that they added vampires to the game. I think that alone killed any chance that I will ever play it.

Thank you for giving me a permanent reason to never even read another VI vs VP discussion.

In all fairness, it's a scenario/option, not part of the main game.

My own thoughts: I hate the slowed unit movement, the awful AI and the pervasive balance issues. The art style (especially how tile visibility is handled) gets a big no from me as well. I played it for about an hour or two and lost all interest not long after its release. The refusal to release the DLL means you can't even have DLL mods to improve things.

Civ 5 + VP has everything I want from a gaming experience. But I'd really appreciate it if Firaxis did a conversion to 64-bit for Windows like the Mac version has done. Without the memory and performance limitations, VP could be even better.

I'd appreciate it even more if they released their multiplayer code so we could have VP in multiplayer.

 

[JamesNinelives]

I didn't buy any expansions so maybe some of these things have been addressed.

The expansions do a lot. I was skeptical of VI for a long time, confident that VP would be my go-to but I have been playing VP for more years than probably any other game now. The most recent one in particular, with natural disasters really make be go 'ooh, that's cool.'

And I do really like the puzzle-piece city planning of 6. A few of the civs like Egypt and The Cree appealed to me from very early on. I'm playing Indonesia in VP at the moment and can't help thinking: damn, Kampungs are cool. I mean, I like Kris Swordsmen a lot more than the ship Civ 6 Indo has as it's UU. But then also, Civ 6 has Ha Long Bay as a natural wonder which is awesome! And noting historical achievement and golden ages/dark ages are pretty fun. As others have noted, the govt. system when you can pick and choose all sorts of things feels a bit gamey - I remember in Civ 3 when you used to have to go through a revolution when changing government, that was kind of cool . Ah, I still miss building a palace piece by piece, even with the graphics from way back haha.

Vox Populi is probably still going to be my main gaming 'habit' for some time, and a big part of that is the development of this mod. I love that every time I play something is a little bit different. And I really do like the feeling of community and working together on stuff. We do sometimes forget that Civ 6 has mods as well though! For example, for those who don't like the style there's a great mod that reverts it to graphics similar to civ 5! There's no massive overhaul like we have here but there are a lot of other fun things you can play with. I expect that sooner or later my curiosity about all the new stuff will get the better of me and I'll want to go try all the new things . And vampires are awesome btw!

 

[CrazyG]

Civ 6 is actually pretty good after the expansions. Some of the civs have really good designs (I like Canada's war thing, for example).

The main issue with civ6 is just the AI, which really hurts its re-playability in my opinion. I find the games end up feeling similar to each other (probably because you use a lot of the same cards and same build orders without choices like tradition/progress/authority to introduce variety). So much of the challenge on higher levels is just surviving initial AI aggression.

As someone who enjoys taking time to think about what the best play is, I just don't enjoy district adjacencies. There's just a lot of complexity that adds not that much depth. Sometimes less is more.

 

[skodkim]

During my time with Civ6 I came to hate its map integration i.e. terrain requirements/bonusses for wonders, adjacancy bonusses for districts/wonders etc. The idea was very good but it all went into a spiral of micromanagement and planning 100+ turns ahead for me. From turn1 I had the total layout of my capital mapped with map pins, from the moment I built the next cities I had their layout planned, ... It just became tedious. Must admit that I was optimistic about it at first, but...

Other than that I also felt the AI was very flat and didn't challenge me at all. I was at more or less the top diff levels (not deity I think) but just giving the AI more and more bonusses seemed like a bad way of trying to get some competition into the game.

\Skodkim

 

[andersw]

What sort of answers did you expect here?
Those who dont like VP are unlikely to hang around much on the forum.

Bought civ V when all expo were out, havent purchased 6 yet, not sure I will, maybe on a sale.
Have watched some game play on Civ6 and it looks pretty but thats not my main concern with games.

 

[SpankmyMetroid]

Civ VI is improving, but compared to VP it feels more like a simcity game of solitaire as mentioned, where you’re really competing against yourself to bring down that win time. There are a lot of fun, unique mechanics; the city planning, the card system, the CS (having unique bonuses from suzerainty was brilliant) and some of the Civ UA’s promote entirely new ways to play your game (the Mayan DLC rewards settling close to the capital but heavily punishes being more than 6 tiles away). Secret societies (despite all the hate on the vampires) is interesting and just another way to fine tune your empire. The customization is extremely robust but it way short in the AI, world congress, and religious game (it would never work in a human vs. human game and solely relies in the incompetence of the AI to work. there’s no way to convert someone without sending units over... and they can just DOW you and kill them. If you’re going to escort your missionaries anyway why not just conquer them?). It’s still fun to play but it doesn’t feel like a complete experience. Assuming Firaxis ever released the DLL it could become much better with more robust mods.

The reason with the massive increase in production is it’s supposed to be an incentive to play tall as opposed to wide, which if you don’t plop down 5 or 6 cities, you’re handicapping yourself since your yield buildings and wonders are now fixed to finite locations, and you can run out or just not have valid terrain. It goes way overboard though. That said, there are ways around the production scaling: two governers (also a system that can promote tall play) when sufficiently promoted let you purchase disticts outright with faith or gold and industrial zones are meant to provide some extra hammers to all cities within it’s range that don’t have those districts up themselves. It does kind of force you into having industrial zones up ASAP before you can start completing projects in a reasonable number of turns, though.

 

[ICanHasName?]

The additions to civ6 are good overall. Eurekas, cards, district minigame, armies, limited worker work. I think reconfiguring your entire nation every time you research a culture is a little gamey though, and should probably be gated one card at a time behind something other then researching a culture tech.

The AI cannot handle any of it at all, and seems to have regressed in handling the things that are the same from civ5. It's just so easy, and not just when fighting extensive war.

The way everything is being released 15 dollars at a time is terrible as well. It's the sort of game you want to buy on sale a few years from now when it is hopefully something like done.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

The district thing is brilliant, alone the fact that you can now settle cities one tile away of the coast and didn't have to decide go coast or full inland, even those spots may be less good is opening a lot of city placement spots. The district placement mini game is pretty nice, I love such mechanics, which are relatively easy to understand but hard to maximize.
But with wonders requiring also an own tile and requirements, they have gone too far. Wonders shouldn't eat tiles, that's simply silly. If they need a special district in the city to be unlocked (religious wonders a holy site for example), then it would be enough.
I think, if you remove production cost increase, wonders build in city center/district, give it the normal workers without charges, the normal movement and obviously a more competent AI, it would improve the game a lot.