Initial thoughts

[SupremacyKing2]

Started my first game this morning before work. Standard speed and standard size continents map, Prince Level. Playing as Rome. I got 2 cities up and Pericles declared a formal war on me. I took his 2nd city and almost took Athens. Pericles begged for peace and ceded Rhodes to me. I got my first legion and getting ready to finish Pericles off. I am about 60 turns in. So far, it's really fun.

Civ6 is a more fun version of civ5. It shares a lot with civ5 like hexes and 1upt but it adds things that make the game more interesting and fun. Barbarians don't just wander around and you can easily snipe them with your city's ranged attack like in civ5. Now, early cities are more vulnerable and barbarians will attack if their scout finds you. Districts add more decisions. You can't just queue up a bunch of buildings like in civ5. Now, you have to consider where to place a district before you can build certain buildings. Governments give more interesting choices and bonuses than civ5's static social policies. Diplomacy is more refined with AI agendas and casus belli. City States are more interesting than in civ5. City States offer more interesting bonuses and you have to decide how to use your envoys, instead of just spending gold to bribe them like in civ5. Eurekas serve to shape your research instead of just queue up a bunch of techs the same each game like in civ5.

Civ6 is a marked improvement over civ5 in my opinion.

 

[PhilBowles]

Very superficial initial thoughts, as so far I started a game as Sumer which I abandoned finding myself hemmed in on an island with two city states blocking expansion, and another as Brazil (my civ selection set to random) which appears to be going okay but was accidentally set to the default Small map - so while I'll probably go back to it, I'll start a fresh game for a more thorough playthrough this weekend.

The changes to game options and interface all strike me as rather negative - the age-old ability to randomise map size is gone (hopefully this will be reinstated in a patch, but it's bewildering that it was dropped at all). Being unable to just click the city to enter the city screen may just take getting used to, but it seems objectively clumsier to have separate panels to open different sections of what used to be the city screen, without any evident changes in functionality. Unit movement seems a little clunky, and just clicking on a destination (rather than using the less convenient Move icon) only intermittently shows the route marker and destination. All of this seems a direct downgrade on what we've had in most past incarnations of the game, not just the most recent iteration. I also dislike the resource icons cluttering up the screen - for some reason people posting screenshots in Civ V mostly seemed to play with this enabled, so I presume it's just the new default and can be turned off once I'm familiar with the tile art for each resource type, but it's another nuisance that detracts from the sense of immersion. The production list also has fully inadequate tooltips - I've resorted to going back to check the tech tree to determine exactly what each district option does, as all the production queue tells me is "district for faith" or "district for science". Not having read up on the new version's mechanics in any detail beforehand, this is an issue.

I still dislike the animation style and the unit graphics. While the fog of war is pretty, the game zooms in far more than past versions of Civ and can't be zoomed out as far, so there's not much way to appreciate it and the whole gives the sense of feeling cramped (I felt the same with Civ V compared with Civ IV).

The main features of gameplay I've interacted with so far have been the new trees, government policies, city states, and in my last game initial contact with another civ - in this case the Romans. I like the government system, but the early game options don't really seem to offer much strategic choice (you're not going for Military Tradition before any form of cavalry technology and Discipline seems the only immediately viable military policy. God-King if you want to rush faith, the production boost otherwise seems a no-brainer). I hope the touted map influence doesn't railroad strategies as forcefully as it looks ("go religion if you have an astrology boost and access to stone", say).

The new city state system seems bizarre and gamey, and the value of the bonuses at a given game stage varies drastically. With access to Valetta (military production boost from envoys) and Brussels (bonuses to industrial districts) at the start of the game, I have no incentive to focus on Brussels - and if I go with Valetta I'm encouraged to play militaristically. Again it feels the game is being too heavy-handed in trying to force you to play to the map, with the correct strategy for any given map being glaringly obvious, rather than giving you more subtle incentives to choose between different options.

As for Trajan, he messaged me a couple of times to tell me my empire was too small, then denounced me. He also complained when I expanded since I expanded onto his doorstep, but that at least I can get behind. My issue there is that - as with ideology in Brave New World - the new diplomacy system is forcing AI behaviour too hard. While Trajan's agenda may make some flavour sense in a certain context, it doesn't make a lot of sense that he comes to me and starts whining because I'm not expanding, especially when this is something like 10 turns into the game. If he wants to prey upon a weaker civ, he should do so - denouncing me for being small is absurdly counterimmersive and makes it too clear I'm up against an AI with a rigidly-defined set of likes and dislikes rather than a rival who feels part of the world.

Nor has he actually declared war some turns on from denouncing me, for all that my only military units are a warrior and a slinger and the warrior was briefly dead thanks to barbarians (which seem to be a largely passive nuisance, occasionally showing up outside my cities and refusing to stand still long enough to kill, but not actually doing anything). It's very early in the session to draw conclusions, but my starting game is on Emperor and it flags warning signs given feedback before release that the AI appeared very passive (though I have seen city-states actively hunt down barbarian encampments).

On the positive side, the music is very nicely done and the game is far smoother to load and to run (at least in early turns) than Civ V ever managed.

 

[Disgustipated]

game is really slow to load :-(

Any tips to speed up performance? I'm not sure how to adjust those sliders. Interface is weird to say the least. I can't tell if my quicksave is even working.

 

[sonicmyst]

Culture victory cinematic

Spoiler :

 

[gunnerxtr]

lol yea that's kinda lame, but not what is important to me

 

[Fluphen Azine]

I basically got the game for free in a way. I live in Las Vegas and through promotions I was able to get over 700 dollars in Best Buy Gift Cards which I used 85 dollars on one card to buy the DD version of the game. My first thoughts after playing some of a 1v1 Deity Duel game against the AI is that I am having an opposite reaction compared to Civ V. When I bought Civ V from Civ IV I was so impressed with the way the game was uncovered through the clouds and I thought the terrain was popping all over the place compared to Civ IV. The game play was broken but the graphics had me hooked. Civ VI so far is very hard on my eyes, I am not finding it as easy to locate resources and in general it is taking me very long to adjust to the graphics of things like trees and farms and what not. I am sure I will get used to it but my first reactions of actually playing the game are worse than when I was watching others play the game before it was released. I knew I didn't like the look but I am finding it even more difficult to play compared to other versions. I am rambling a bit because I just want to basically say that I don't like this game so far but I will keep at it to try to get used to it since I am a civfanatic after all. So it only takes one turn to improve hexes ?

 

[CaiusDrewart]

Started a game as a random Civ on a continents map, all setting standard, Emperor difficulty. Got Spain with what I thought was a pretty bad start: coastal and in a big patch of rainforest, no river, no mountains, only one luxury.

I'd say, first, that this game is way better and richer than Civ V. The unstacked cities and policy card systems are both home runs. The decisions you make are more interesting and meaningful, and you really feel like you can shape your civ in a far greater number of ways. I particularly like the fun puzzle of district placement. The pop requirements mandate some tough decisions as to what districts to build, too.

My complaints are mostly minor. My scout stumbled upon a completely unescorted Indian settler, so yeah, I declared war (for no warmonger penalty!) and took it. I do think that poisoned my relations with India for the rest of the game, which was too bad, but completely worth it for the free settler. If captured settlers are going to stay settlers, program the AI to properly protect its own. Otherwise it's just way too good. I also thought the game was just a little too easy. My start wasn't that strong (although rainforest turned out to be better than I thought, good base yields and adjacency bonuses, plus you can chop it later for food and production), and I wasn't playing that well (made some mistakes due to unfamiliarity with the mechanics, didn't plan my districts ahead that well, and took zero advantage of any of Spain's uniques), but I was still breezing past all the AIs. They weren't really doing much all game; no one was spreading their religion or taking anyone else's cities. Japan and India did joint DOW me, so I built a bunch of archers and took a couple Japanese cities. Then they gave me lots of stuff for peace. So, a little too easy.

I'm not sure about the Eureka moments and new movement rules. My initial reactions to both are negative, but I need more time with each system. I was not finding the Eurekas quite as easy to get as I thought they would be. I couldn't even find a second continent in time for Foreign Trade! I still suspect 50% off the tech is too much, though.

Some features that should be there but aren't: we need to be able to rename cities, and we need a more robust selection of startup options. I'd also like to be able to view citizen management during the AI's turns.

But mostly, I'm glad to see some of the big annoyances of Civ V are gone. No puppet cities, no global happiness, no science and culture penalty for expanding, no inscrutable AI diplomacy. That's great.

 

[PhilBowles]

This game is SO PRETTY! The tree design that I had been complaining about actually looks much better when I play the game myself - the design works for the fog of war, too. Turns out that woods get less sparse if you increase the graphics settings.

Hmm, I find the trees even worse than I first thought - not only are the horribly conical things just ludicrous graphically, despite the overall cartoonish appearance of the game they don't actually seem to match the particular cartoon style of the rest of the game very well. For the most part the terrain and cities are fairly plausibly-rendered and the cartoonishness is reserved for the units, portraits and animation. Seeing mountains that look like mountains, resources that look like the resources they represent, etc., and then having these absurd green plastic-looking cones sticking up in the countryside is just jarring.

 

[Silverdawn]

I've probably missed something on my first playthrough, but I couldn't find exactly where it stated how close to a border expansion a city was, nor a list of units. Quite tired though, so could have easily missed that.

You can see a list of units this way:

If you click the unit name in the selector UI, it brings up a scrollable list of all your units.

Spoiler :

 

[pietro1990]

Warmonger penalty is to high declaring a formal war using the denouncement system still gives you a massive warmonger penalty wich causes everyone to denounces you.

 

[MkLh]

The combat AI is just as weak as in V. To me this isn't a game breaker, but it will likely make the game too easy for powergamers. You just don't have to worry about getting backstabbed as the AI is totally unable to cause any true damage.

 

[Cerilis]

Is it normal that renaissance/industrial era wonders take so long to build? It was like 45 turns in my 2nd/3rd cities (and even starting early modern era). Overall, I have a production problem in my first game; I know that I built too many districts early, but that shouldnt effect wonders, should it?

Also: Do neighbourhoods also suffer/cause increased district cost?

Edit: Actually on-topic! There are a lot of little things that annoy me and I hope they get patched out soon. D: And I trainwrecked my first game so bad. :X

 

[nokmirt]

This game is really fun. I started on a small map prince level just to get my feet wet. The AIs near me have been peaceful. So, I have been just taking the time to learn about the game and build up. I am in the Medieval Era close to getting Monarchy now.

 

[Xoon]

Not far into it, but right now: Eff the barbarians. Good lordt, they're ridiculous in this. The interface and mouse movement is a bit choppy for me. Too crowded with other civs (some game setup tweaking might cure this).

Right now, my impression is that I'll play this for a week or two, then set it aside until all the expansions and patches even it out a good bit, then dive back in in about 2 years and keep playing 5 in the meantime.

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

I'm about 9 hours in, t133 (slow player), and I am really enjoying myself. Prince, Standard everything, Continents, Random Leader and got Rome - nice! I'm alone on a continent with Scythia. I could have rolled her long ago, but I decided to just build and try to figure out some of the nuances.

Initial Thoughts:
- Visuals - I like the graphics better than I thought I would. I am growing more accustomed to the explored but out of sight map parts a bit, having Yield Icons on helps. I really dislike the extra-faded resource icons - my suggestion would be to up the saturation to 50% so you can scan the dim map more quickly. Plus they should add some kind of differential border on actual Luxury icons, so you can see at a glance how many are in a potential city spot. As is, it's just a mess of drab icons giving no coherent instant message.

- Interface - ouch! It's hard to believe the Wait (W) key was not coded in. In CiV I was pressing it constantly - to cycle through units for battle (who has what promotions, who should go first, etc.), check units on sentry duty, check units in a city to watch for tile assignment or production changes, etc. (No wonder I'm a slow player.) Options/Key Bindings let me change Next Action from [Enter] to [W]. Whoops! Ends your turn if on the last unit. Tried changing it back, but it won't accept the new keystroke, and simply ends each action on the game screen in the background! Come on, man! Shouldn't have to exit the game to change a Key Binding.

- Interface 2 - Esc does not do what you would expect half the time, huh? The Function keys are really re-wired and many don't make sense. [O] for great people? Why aren't Civics F5 and Tech F6? Why won't CTRL-L and -S Load and Save? Finally, it's nice you can click the right edge of a city banner to change production - they should allow clicking the pop number to bring up citizen management. Two clicks to get to that currently is wasteful.

Barbs - they were a bit of a threat, but getting 6 cities going, with neighboring CS and mtns, has made them non-existent. A definite improvement over CiV.

Sound - Overall very nice! My only complaint is the jarring whischunk sound every time I go to the next unit. It could be much softer.

Policy Cards - awesome! Very engaging and immediate.

Performance - fantastic, but I am using a two year old 3d animation powerhouse with 32 GB of Ram.

 

[Ulthwithian]

Playing with few Civs for now to get my feet wet.

First game was Rome. Someone beat me to Stonehenge and so I played for a while longer but then restarted. Chose Russia.

...

The Lavra is nuts. It's just as good as you would expect. I didn't get the first religion (someone else got Stonehenge... again), but I have the religion I want. Producing Faith out the yin-yang.

But yes, this is quite an improvement over CiV.

 

[Stilinski]

Just finished my first game - Prince continents standard 8 players as Greece(Gorgo), I spawned on a continent with England & Ghandi(his hidden agenda was Nuke Happy lolol), and like 6 CS.

Early game was really fun, so much to do. England was pretty aggressive after I settled a 2nd city that wasn't on our 'continent.' She stayed that way pretty much the whole game, Ghandi was pretty chill until modern era then he started declaring holy wars cause i converted him way back in the beginning. All 4 of the wars i got into the AI swooped in with a pretty massive army of slightly older units than i had, i bought a few current era unit mopped them up and took their closest city. Even if they cede the city to you in the peace deal, they follow up with denouncing for warmonger so..that's a little annoying.

other continent was Russia, who took out Japan early game(they had kyoto), USA, China & Kongo. Kongo & Russia loved me cause my production & pop were high, fast friends/alliance, China hated me cause i had way more wonders(and also maybe cause i forward settled him but shhh), USA was pretty indifferent towards me. Russia was my only challenger for Culture victory but eventually all the tourism modifiers broke him, Kongo was going for space race, everyone else was so far behind us they didn't matter.

All in all a very fun first play-through, now for work and then maybe staying up till...hopefully not 6am again lol

 

[Xoon]

That menu music tho makes me want to be a better man.

 

[contrasupra]

Slightly OT for the thread, but I'm confused about industrial zones. I just got the tech, but I can't build it in my capitol because it says I need pop 10 or greater...but it will let me build it in any of my other (smaller) cities. Anyone know what this is about?

 

[Frank327]

Slightly OT for the thread, but I'm confused about industrial zones. I just got the tech, but I can't build it in my capitol because it says I need pop 10 or greater...but it will let me build it in any of my other (smaller) cities. Anyone know what this is about?

The total number of districts in your city is limited by your population. So your capital has maxed its districts for population already while the other cities still have room for it.

Germany gets one extra district capacity for their cities.