Input Requested for PolyCast Christmas Special 2017

DanQ

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PolyCast is approaching the conclusion to its eleventh season, helping keep it as the longest running Civilization podcast as well as the first. On December 9th, 2017, the show's annual Christmas Special is to be recorded live as have been episode recordings this calendar year. Its panelists are need of questions to answer, comments to reflect on and topics to investigate to drive this special stream's content: Civ in nature, strategy/computer gaming in general or even PolyCast specific inquiries are all welcome... you are not limited to just one!

To submit your questions, comments or topics for this purpose in advance, do one of the following:

a) respond accordingly to this thread;
b) send an email to thepolycast@gmail.com;
c) leave a voicemail for free by using Skype to call the show; or
d) leave a voicemail by using your telephone to call the show: (301) 637-7659 or +44 121 288 7659.

In addition, the PolyCast panel will also take them live during the recording of the 2017 Christmas Special in the chat room powered by YouTube. Help the show's panelists prepare for this event by submitting your inquiries in advance. PolyCast is a bi-weekly audio production in an ongoing effort to give the Civ community an interactive voice on game strategy.
 
1) What do you think the new civilizations and civ leaders will be in the new expansion?

2) Will the Alliance system allow for co op victories like the permanent Alliances in Civ IV?

3) What do you guys think of the new loyalty system and being able to flip cities again.
 
Questions:

1. What civs do you want to see added in the game, and why?

2. What balance changes would you make, if any, to vanilla Civ VI civs (including DLC civs like Poland)?

3. Which civ do you believe to be the most powerful at present, and why?

4. What new features would you like to see in Civ VI that were not announced with Rise and Fall?
 
New expansion pack announcement ... super hype?
 
Obviously this is going to be a huge RF episode.

Firaxis has thrown a lot of words out there highlighting the new systems, and those words are good to me :). However, once we tear through the hype, what do you think we are really left with.....what can be expected?

First (2 fold question) - These all sound like great additions, but the limitation is how well the AI uses the new systems (primarily for SP players). 1st fold - Governors has been mentioned as a "returning" system, as they have been seen in previous iterations of the game. Being a fairly new Civ player (started with Civ V), I have no idea what the Governors did. How do they compare to previous iterations based on the information we have? They seem to be primarily tied to the Loyalty system, which seems to me, a close sibling of the Culture flip system of Civ V. 2nd fold - Do any of you anticipate this to be a problem for the AI? Governors almost seem to be a mix of Great Person/Spy in that they sway loyalty (Spy-ish) and they provide decent benefits (GPs), will this be too much for the AI to properly handle? IMO, the AI has handled GPs and Spys decently, but another wrench in the mix may overwhelm?

I am also really intrigued by the new Alliances and Emergency Situations. I appreciate the fact that Alliances are now intimately tied to the civilization you are allied with. If you break the ally-ship, you stand to lose out much bigger than before and of course if the Ally-ship is continued, the benefits increase. Emergency Situations seem like they can be a love/hate relationship (which is of course realistic), but does it seem like too much of a "band-aid" of sorts to "fix" the run-away civ, sort of a faux leveling-of-the-playing-field? Saying all that to say this: I would love to hear all about your thoughts on these new systems, and to see if you have the same skepticism of the AI's ability to properly handle these new systems or if it may in fact improve the AI. Of course realizing that much of this is under the "too-early-to-tell" syndrome, but speculating is the name of the game right now :).
 
More questions:

1. Do you still play Civ V?

2. What habits did you form when playing Civ VI games? Do you prefer to play as particular civs on particular maps or particular map sizes?

3. Have you ever found the Civ VI AI to give you a combat challenge or employ interesting tactics that surprise you?
 
What's happened to the creativity of the modding scene since Civ IV? Back then we had a set of fantastic total conversion mods- Rhye's and Fall, Fall from Heaven, Final Frontier- and tons of scenarios. Since Civ V and continuing into Civ VI we've had the odd UI tweak or balance change, but total conversion mods, scenarios, any sort of art- it's pretty much gone. The modding scene is a shadow of what it once was. Is this due to Steam integration? Differences in the code? Departure of key modders? I feel like I get infinitely less value out of the newer Civs because of the conspicuously missing customization and scenarios that were so prevalent in all the iterations prior to V.
 
What's happened to the creativity of the modding scene since Civ IV? Back then we had a set of fantastic total conversion mods- Rhye's and Fall, Fall from Heaven, Final Frontier- and tons of scenarios. Since Civ V and continuing into Civ VI we've had the odd UI tweak or balance change, but total conversion mods, scenarios, any sort of art- it's pretty much gone. The modding scene is a shadow of what it once was. Is this due to Steam integration? Differences in the code? Departure of key modders? I feel like I get infinitely less value out of the newer Civs because of the conspicuously missing customization and scenarios that were so prevalent in all the iterations prior to V.

First there is a Polycast called Modcast that focuses on the modding community for all Civ games include Civ V and Civ VI.

Have you checked the steam workshop?

Civ VI: http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/...wsesort=trend&section=readytouseitems&days=90 (Has 988 entries that's a lot more than "gone")

Civ V: http://steamcommunity.com/app/8930/workshop/ (Which has thousands of items)
 
First (2 fold question) - These all sound like great additions, but the limitation is how well the AI uses the new systems (primarily for SP players). 1st fold - Governors has been mentioned as a "returning" system, as they have been seen in previous iterations of the game. Being a fairly new Civ player (started with Civ V), I have no idea what the Governors did. How do they compare to previous iterations based on the information we have? They seem to be primarily tied to the Loyalty system, which seems to me, a close sibling of the Culture flip system of Civ V. 2nd fold - Do any of you anticipate this to be a problem for the AI? Governors almost seem to be a mix of Great Person/Spy in that they sway loyalty (Spy-ish) and they provide decent benefits (GPs), will this be too much for the AI to properly handle? IMO, the AI has handled GPs and Spys decently, but another wrench in the mix may overwhelm?

I also do not recall governors in previous iterations of Civ. I've played other games that have governor characters (like Total War and Stellaris). Was this something from Civ I or Civ II? Or Civ Rev? I started with Civ III, so I'm not familiar with mechanics from the first two games.
 
The "Governors" we're in both Civ IV and Civ V but it was an abstraction calling it Governor. Basically it was the production focus button where you choose what the city will focus on and the computer or "Governor" would choose what tiles to work and what tiles to expand to next culturally.
 
The "Governors" we're in both Civ IV and Civ V but it was an abstraction calling it Governor. Basically it was the production focus button where you choose what the city will focus on and the computer or "Governor" would choose what tiles to work and what tiles to expand to next culturally.
That explains that. Interesting that they would even compare the two, the only way they seem to be alike is in name only.
 
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