[NFP] Is Civ 6 doomed?

[oSiyeza]

Yes, Civilization was always a synonym of a big scale game for me (grand strategy), but they really made it a cheap change in VI (past IV really, although YAMP really tries) .
I mean it feels like Firaxis could no longer deal with the problem of micromanaging, so made a game smaller it would not be such a pain in the ass. And with NFP it's like adding a bunch of new sudo mechanics (without fixing problems that exist since the beginning) that only make whole experience even more tedious. I don't get it - why change things no one asked (no more spying allies?!) and why don't fix things that are a real pain - there is a thread bout minor pet peeves with quite a list already...
I LOVE music in VI though...

Even worse to avoid the problem of micromanaging, they removed big empires, and deep civilization interactions; and replaced these systems with repetitive and boring micromanaging pointless mechanics. Basically replacing the old micromanaging problem with new micromanaging problems, that also add nothing.

 

[need my speed]

Good UI design (which peaked at Civilization IV) solves many micromanagement issues. And you need scale for logistics, issues of distance, to truly matter. I had to keep an army at my once-border with Sumeria, an army near the French enclave, an army to the south, and an army to the north-east to deal with naval landings of Scandinavia (and the eventual pushback to take over Greenland) - not to mention broad strokes like 'colonise the arctic islands', 'garrison the recently occupied lands and improve the terrain', or smaller considerations such as 'amass a naval force here and there', 'prepare this and that city for wonders' - multiple larger goals / theatres are going on at once, which you just don't really have when you play at the scale of five cities with an AI that does nothing.

Civilization is, in its origin, a game about (the rise and fall of) civilisations. Not about meaningless minigames (Archaeologists, religion spam...) or boardgame-esque micromanagement, all hampered by bad UI design.

 

[DizzKneeLand33]

And just to have some more fun, when Civ 6 didn't have a production queue, even Civ *3* had one. Just sayin'.

 

[Krajzen]

Civilization is, in its origin, a game about (the rise and fall of) civilisations. Not about meaningless minigames (Archaeologists, religion spam...) or boardgame-esque micromanagement, all hampered by bad UI design.

Ah yes! That is yet another aspect of this game's design philosophy that I'm very critical of. Just forgot about it but I had similar idea once.
A game about civilizations should be naturally, realistically devoted to empire building, grand military campaigns and battles, global diplomacy, coalitions, world wars, industry, trade, culture, taxes, internal stability, research, and so on. Religion - on the macro level of state policies. Espiongage - on the global scale of intelligence and great conspiracies.

It shouldn't be devoted to ski resorts, beach resorts, natural parks, sending individual missionaries to individual cities, placing science house in a nice place in every city in the empire, rock bands, blizzards, getting a goddamn catapult unit on a hill through a forest, stealing a painting from a museum, golf courses, housing projects in each city, selling 1 crab for 6 gold (repeat this action 100 times through the game)... For both frustration reasons and game focus reasons. We got the confusion of all layers at once.

 

[TreVor_ish]

And just to have some more fun, when Civ 6 didn't have a production queue, even Civ *3* had one. Just sayin'.

And You still can't put buildings with their prerequisites in it....

 

[glider1]

Civ6 is a politically correct edu-tainment game for children and young teenagers. That is what it is. The rest of us are left desperate and frustrated with no suitable alternative. It didn't need to be that way because they could have evolved it gradually including automation of micromanagement and grand scale design simultaneously but that was not to be.

 

[lindsay40k]

I think it’s been broadly successful. I find it a lot more enjoyable than V’s late game logjams, and the peaceful victories feel distinctive. They’ve rolled out experimental features - societies, apocalypse - without making them controversially compulsory. They’ve hit a load of zeitgeist stuff, with the global climate mechanisms making it absolutely feel like a game of our time, whilst having mechanics that present a pathway to victory. My main disappointment is they built the whole thing with tablet and console support in mind, and yet it has some pretty demanding specs on computers, and that the strategic view is so flat and lacks the clues you get with the 3D map’s bleeding edges of fog. I don’t like how extreme an impact the weather system has on military campaigns. If we must get Napoleoned by the weather, it should be in the form of simple damage modifiers and nonlethal chip damage, rather than ‘RNG says your army’s dead’. I’d honestly love to see the next one have a board game inspired simple graphics mode, where it looks like a game of Advance Wars, and can run on anything.

 

[Mahi]

The climate stuff is probably the most insignificant gimmick introduced in civ 6. I don't know why people keep bringing it up as a good thing. I've played 800 hours of civ 6 and I have NEVER had a game, where climate change had a serious impact on the game. Yes, I've settled cities, which where exposed to level 2 flooding but nothing a flood barrier can't solve. It's just proves developers had an approach of "quantity > quality" (which is unfortunately the case for the majority of the gaming industry). I mean I understand the business model and most of us have probably been gaming for long enough to know that successful games often migrates into a more "profitable business model". There is so much content in all modern games, in all genres but alot of the stuff just comes up as neglectable or unpolished. It just sells better. But I hope they realise at some point that a modding community can increase the value of a game, instead of cutting them off to maximize short-termed profits. Look at Skyrim, or civ !V.

 

[Krajzen]

The climate stuff is probably the most insignificant gimmick introduced in civ 6. I don't know why people keep bringing it up as a good thing. I've played 800 hours of civ 6 and I have NEVER had a game, where climate change had a serious impact on the game. Yes, I've settled cities, which where exposed to level 2 flooding but nothing a flood barrier can't solve. It's just proves developers had an approach of "quantity > quality" (which is unfortunately the case for the majority of the gaming industry). I mean I understand the business model and most of us have probably been gaming for long enough to know that successful games often migrates into a more "profitable business model". There is so much content in all modern games, in all genres but alot of the stuff just comes up as neglectable or unpolished. It just sells better. But I hope they realise at some point that a modding community can increase the value of a game, instead of cutting them off to maximize short-termed profits. Look at Skyrim, or civ !V.

Nice to finally meet someone else who is critical of the climate stuff of GS. And honestly, I don't think it's just a design failure, but also a feature of the global warming itself - how are you supposed to make a major mechanic out of the process which historically only started being relevant at the very end of 20th century? I mean, seriously. The game lasts from 4000 BC to 2050 AD. Of this, IRL global warming is a significant phenomenon on civilization level maybe since 1990s. It's basically the feature only significant in the very last era of the game, if made realistically. I honestly think climate change in civ6 is more about message and virtue signalling that anything profoundly impacting the gameplay. I'd go even further, I consider all environmental effects of GS insignificant. They are basically a shadow of usual feature of other such games, random events. Few random events per game is not something profoundly impacting the gameplay, it's more of a flavour thing (God these games need random events and such dynamic processes so desperately). And again, it's reflected by the reality itself - tell me, how many cases do you know of volcanoes ending civilizations, besides one moderately sized city of Pompeii and Minoans? I won't even comment on the presence of blizzards and tornadoes on the scale of centuries and continents, cause that's just stupid. Global - sized imperial - scaled game shouldn't follow such micro events, but here we are.

Climate has been very influential in the world history, but in much more subtle way: dynamic changes of regional patterns of climate in the background. You know: small ice ages, climate optimums, centuries lasting droughts, desertification. Such things were very interesting and influential. They had their impact on the collapse of Maya, rise and fall of Andean civilisations, North American natives, history of Sahara, fall of Rome, Migrations of Peoples, early modern European economy etc. Now if something like that has been happening and you were forced to adapt to that, that would be very interesting. You don't get perfect, predictable, fertile area forever - in one age yields may drop for you, slightly, but enough to cause a deficit and crisis. This way global warming could be an influential mechanic in the information era. Of course that would be too deep for this game so it could never be in.

Don't get me wrong, it is nice for the game to have an occasional volcano and moderately important global warming. But those are small micro features, third tier of importance for the global strategy.

 

[Elhoim]

I have to agree with most that it's said here regarding the direction of the franchise. While OF COURSE "Doomed" is an hyperbole, it does have an inherent flaw in the design process that creates an unsatisfactory game for a subset of the player base. Right now, the game is filled with some nice ideas that are either not polished, or that suffer from trying to achieve opposite design goals and ending up in an uncomfortable middle. I guess the franchise became too big and the player base too varied. And for some, it's time to move on.

 

[salty mud]

Watching the new update video for November, it's blindingly obvious the audience the team are trying to reach. I've never felt so belittled and talked down to since I left school.

Heroes and Legends mode is yet another gimmick, another tacky add-on just contributing to the game's bloat problem without actually addressing anything. We aren't getting ideologies or corporations. Just another silly add-on, shoehorning in some mythical characters to attract the "oh look, shiny!" crowd.

I think after 50 hours I'm done with Civ VI. I've had some fun with it and it does some cool things, but the total flop that is the NFP has killed any further interest I may have had.

 

[pokiehl]

Watching the new update video for November, it's blindingly obvious the audience the team are trying to reach. I've never felt so belittled and talked down to since I left school.

Heroes and Legends mode is yet another gimmick, another tacky add-on just contributing to the game's bloat problem without actually addressing anything. We aren't getting ideologies or corporations. Just another silly add-on, shoehorning in some mythical characters to attract the "oh look, shiny!" crowd.

I think after 50 hours I'm done with Civ VI. I've had some fun with it and it does some cool things, but the total flop that is the NFP has killed any further interest I may have had.

Who on earth is talking down to you? Carl and Andrew just came across as earnestly excited.

 

[Casworon]

I wouldn`t feel so bad about Civ VI if it had DLL modding.

It`s like all the ideas are there. It just needs some polish and some reworking and tweaking here and there. And I don't think it`s gonna come from Firaxis.

I think all hope for a DLL is dead though

 

[Krajzen]

Aaand the new update will bring heroes, such as Hercules, with magical abilities. I guess that's what this game needs. Although honestly I'd despise adding such cartoons to the game even if it was actually polished and devs had too much bonus free time.

Yep, civ6 is doomed.

I'm just wondering who will design civ7 and whether they will have other design philosophy.

Civ6 is an edu-tainment game for children and young teenagers. That is what it is. The rest of us are left desperate and frustrated with no suitable alternative. It didn't need to be that way because they could have evolved it gradually including automation of micromanagement and grand scale design simultaneously but that was not to be.

Well, Humankind is going to be released next April, so maybe this will be suitable alternative; I am quite optimistic so far, especially after playing its combat system with my own hands.

As 'for children and young teenagers' - I'd rather say the game is made for Reddit community, who wouldn't be able to have an intelligent critical discussion about the game if their life depended on it. With all respect, the only thing this community is capable of seem to be memes. They praise almost everything that was ever done with this game, and it appeals to them because they seriously seem to adore shiny, superficial, popcultural stuff. I have never once seen significantly popular Reddit thread about AI in this game (or about any serious problems), while civ fanatics, steam, and other forums spent four years complaining about it. They don't care about difficulty, they care about building perfect cities with a lot of modifiers and conquering the world with ease. I honestly feel strange typing this, because I have always been this kind of person who is irritated by 'old men' complaining on 'young shallow stuff', so that's the first time I guess. I also wouldn't like to complain on young people (see above, also I'm not THAT old myself) but Reddit also has demographic much younger than CF, with average age on the website being IIRC 22 and a lot of teenagers from the age of 15 - 16 are there. The game seems to cater to this community, unfortunately. But game's ratings on all 'global' websites reflect overall decline from civ5, as I said before.

I do really hope that Humankind succeeds and becomes a serious rival, if that wouldn't force more revolutionary and brave development of civ7 then at least fanatics of the genre would have some other game.

 

[glider1]

Aaand the new update will bring heroes, such as Hercules, with magical abilities. I guess that's what this game needs. Although honestly I'd despise adding such cartoons to the game even if it was actually polished and devs had too much bonus free time. Yep, civ6 is doomed.

Fingers crossed on Humankind. I'll be there with you guys hoping for the best. We share a very similar concept of what we think a Civilization game should be. The definition of insanity is hitting the end turn button over and over again expecting a different result (but there never is).

I cannot believe how stupid I was buying NFP though. Totally sucked in by the "dramatic ages" mode which turns out to be a half baked second rate pay-ware mod that should have been done properly in the main game. Every time we buy a Firaxis product we are sending them a signal that it is ok to produce mediocre content. I literally have Civ6 installed but cannot bring myself to play it again with only a few hours on it. So I scout around looking around for any fragment of a mod that might make it worth playing but there cannot be one because the DLL is locked.

 

[Bechhold]

Definitely. Almost too much, this latest update points to them losing the plot.

 

[Elhoim]

I'm just wondering who will design civ7 and whether they will have other design philosophy.

Most probably Anton. In general he seems interested in a bit more hardcore approach to some things, but his works seem to always have some blind spots. Going by R&F:

- The loyalty idea is hardcore by itself, and he wanted to make the civs lose cities in the Dark Ages (only to held back by QA complaints, Jesus). But... The loyalty system was not really well integrated into the design (later they added religion but a lot more could have been done in terms of interaction with other systems), and when he had the chance with the Dramatic Ages, it also wasn't very polished in the design.
- The era score system is nice, but also filled with issues: Too easy to string Golden Ages, too many sources plus some really exploitable, no scaling with speed, points over being pointless (fixed in DA but not patched), plus extremely gamey (as other said, the micro on stuff that's not very empire building).

So maybe he could make some interesting choices in Civ 7, but I wonder if he'll be able to make a cohesive whole instead of some good ideas that are never fully realized, either by some design demands, or by a flaw in his way of designing things.

There seems to be a core mentality currently in FXS to avoid at all costs taking something for the player, having something "bad" happen to him. And BTW, it's shown how badly some people react to it, so it's understandable they take this path. But also the possibility of creating interesting narratives is lost, it's all bland sailing into the land of yield porn.

 

[8housesofelixir]

- The era score system is nice, but also filled with issues: Too easy to string Golden Ages, too many sources plus some really exploitable, no scaling with speed, points over being pointless (fixed in DA but not patched), plus extremely gamey (as other said, the micro on stuff that's not very empire building).

The moment I saw Humankind's Fame system I view it as an actual working version of Era Score - it doesn't have far too many trivial sources, and actually connects with various empire building styles.

 

[TreVor_ish]

Right, so now playing as Jadwiga, I can sacrifice a Winged Hussar Unit to a Volcano that's right beside a Vampire Castle with Mulan, Maui and King Arthur giving me a thumbs up to Appease the Gods.
That's definitely gonna be my top 10 Civ Screenshot of all time.

 

[Slayan]

With 2,795.6 hours into this game I for one am loving the game and I started my Civ addiction the day that Civ 1 was released. I think that there is a very small group that don't like the game and that's fine everyone is entitled to their opinion but I wouldn't say its DOOMED