Is Civ6 worth it over Civ5?

[Czacki]

I pretty much skipped entire Civ5. In all honesty it began with the bland art style that repulsed me for some reason. But that's a pretty lame reason in the end.

I see Civ5 is rated "overwhelmingly positively" on Steam while Civ6 is rated "Mixed". Both games have 2 expansions now so I assume this is it for Civ6 and that it's more or less a complete product now.

The big question is, is it even worth it to get gathering storm at this point?

I got most of my Civ6 games really cheap (literally 10$ for vanilla game from Humble bundle which also gave me some DLCs; I recently bought Rise and Fall for -50%, again from humble, and I think I got all the DLCs from humble too, for like -60% of their price). GS is quite pricey at this point but I can wait for some promo a bit. However the nagging question is: do you feel Civ6 is a better game by now? Maybe I should try Civ 5 instead.



What I highly enjoy is developing cities; picking the right spots and specializing them. That's one gripe I had with various civ games: city spam (assuming those cities were decently placed) would beat methodical city planning (with great city placement) most of the time. Is Civ6 better in this department?

Was the AI fixed a bit? I heard a lot of complaints about AI in civ6.How is it compared to Civ5 AI in GS?

 

[Bradypus]

Civ VI struggled with a similar problem as Civ V did upon release. They were both trash on release. But with expansions, DLCs and other updates, they've both become a lot better. In relation to most bang for the buck, I can think of several games that provide equally as much gameplay value as Civ for far less. But these are in different genres.

But to answer your question, Civ VI is particularly relevant if you enjoy city planning and specializing. Because in Civ VI you are forced to specialize, because you can only get a limited number of districts in each city and buildings within those districts may be mutually exclusive. Also there's an entirely new mechanic with district adjency bonuses, which require you to carefully consider where to place your districts and where to place improvements. All in all, I'd say Civ VI has taken city planning to the next level as far as the franchise is concerned. Wonders also occupy land now, so you can't build them all in one city, and some Wonders require you to get creative once again with planning districts and improvements. As an example, the Great Zimbabwe wonder must be built next to a pasture AND a Commercial Hub (with a market inside). The Great Library must be built next to a Campus (with a library inside) AND on flat land.

Civ VI AI is about the same as CIV V AI. In combat it's not smart enough. If the AI cannot beat you by sheer numbers, it won't beat you by outplaying you. It fails to place its units optimally and consistently doesn't protect ranged/siege units. In the end, I still find the game enjoyable though.

 

[Czacki]

Wow, this totally sounds like my kind of game then. I love to get methodical with cities. I liked Civ4's early turns most since I loved to explore and search for good city spots.

Unexpected, but welcome.

I get what you're saying about bang for buck - I spent probably almost 2000 hours on Grim Dawn which even with all expansions was pretty cheap compared to civ games, and God knows how many on Heroes of might and magic 3. Fortunately humble is awesome so I have Civ6 for a fraction of steam price, and the DLCs/1st exp for a decent price too.

I guess that AI will never be good at 1 unit per tile combat game, are there any good AI mods already?

 

[greenOak]

While you need to be careful with where you place districts, city spam is as prevalent as ever. Currently, the most efficient strats seem to pack cities as closely as possible while keeping them relatively small. City specialization is definitely viable with the district system, but due to balancing issues you often end up spamming certain districts while completely ignoring others. In contrast, the most popular strategy with regards to city building in civ5 is to basically to have 3-4 super cities. City specialization is not really a thing since they tend to be all-round powerhouses. The AI is terrible in both games, although the highest difficulties in civ5 I would say are harder then the highest difficulties in civ6. Both are substantially easier than previous iterations of the game.

I personally would recommend civ6 over civ5, but I am definitely biased as civ5 is by far my least favorite version of civ.

 

[Victoria]

I loved earlier civ versions, hated IV, liked V but it got very same strategy wise and loved civ6 because there is choice depending on circumstance, there is not guaranteed always do it this way approach. It is a lot more about city planning and districts.
However V’s mechanics, while not the best, general had sanity and air warfare in particular worked pretty well in comparison to VI. VI’s mechanics are just a mess, bugs all over the place, they would rather give you new toys than fix the bugs, the price you pay for going for looks not content. Any game where the art department is big means you are forced to keep them busy with new stuff.
VI has great choices, great music, detailed varied art (not to my taste) but the underlying mechanics are often pointless or too strong.

I guess that’s why blondes have all the fun.

 

[MaryKB]

I used to prefer Civilization 5, but I like Civilization 6 now with Gathering Storm, I feel that fixed many things for me. I also enjoy building cities and doing different things, and many of the new global projects and Emergencies satisfy those cravings for me.

You really do have to plan your cities out, sometimes I have a perfect city spot and a grand plan for its future, and I'll then forget and make silly mistakes - like building a district where I thought I'd put a canal later. Oops!

 

[Socrates99]

Civ V is the only civ game designed to discourage city spam. If you like a few wonder filled cities more than always looking for the next great city spot it's the game to stick with.

Civ VI encourages having as many cities as possible but has more interesting city design. It's hard to reccomend it to someone who doesn't like ICS but planning out district and wonder placement is perfect for someone who likes to micromanage city design.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I bought Civ 5 and 6 at the same time; appreciated that BNW was a massive improvement over vanilla 5, but only played it a bit before I completely switched to 6.

 

[Aristos]

I guess that AI will never be good at 1 unit per tile combat game

False. The Vox Populi AI by @Gazebo and @ilteroi has become a potent adversary with less bonuses and cunning tactical operations that puts the civ 6 AI developers to shame.

 

[Tyroq]

I loved earlier civ versions, hated IV...

Wait, what!? Why would you hate 4? It was my favorite Civ game since Alpha Centauri, and I sunk so many hours into it! I felt 5 was a huge disappointment after all the cool stuff 4 had. 5 simplified the happiness way too much and made golden ages automatic, like seriously, why? And it did away with city pollution and random events. About the only thing 5 did better was combat. One thing I've appreciated is how many elements from 4 they've brought back to the game now with 6, though I would still love to see vassals and actually have health issues like diseases and such to deal with. Oh, and bring back 4's ability to go "free religion" and gain benefits for all the different religions you have in your cities, rather than being stuck with a state religion forever.

 

[Victoria]

like seriously, why?

Mainly doomstacks and sliders, there was other annoying mechanics but those 2 seriously annoyed me, so much that I burnt the disks. I am not alone BTW but that is unimportant, the fact is I just disliked it and that is the case with anything, I have a brother in law who is the nicest coolest chap in the world, really funny, self made millionaire. Nothing to dislike but my brother does. Why, because he is too damn good. There will always be someone who dislikes something and will always be people that dislike you and me. ‘‘Tis this glorious thing called a human mind.

 

[Archon_Wing]

False. The Vox Populi AI by @Gazebo and @ilteroi has become a potent adversary with less bonuses and cunning tactical operations that puts the civ 6 AI developers to shame.

Which is why the whole "1uPT is imPOSSIBLE to maKE gOOD AI" thing that's been tossed since 5 is nonsense.

They're just bad at AI, face. it =p

 

[Tyroq]

Well I respect you and your opinion, @Victoria though I do disagree about the game. I'll admit the combat in Civ 4 was pretty crap, which is one of the reasons I haven't gone back to play it in a while. But overall I'd say it balances out to a great game. As does 6! Could always be better, but to the OP, go with 6 all the way. It's great stuff.

 

[Morningcalm]

Well I respect you and your opinion, @Victoria though I do disagree about the game. I'll admit the combat in Civ 4 was pretty crap, which is one of the reasons I haven't gone back to play it in a while. But overall I'd say it balances out to a great game. As does 6! Could always be better, but to the OP, go with 6 all the way. It's great stuff.

I agree with you that Civ IV was great. Honestly it had the richest gameplay of any Civ game, and that's despite the fact that hexes are clearly better, that Civ V's leader screens are clearly better, that the music in V and VI was overall better than the themes of Civ IV (though IV's era-based background music was great).

In Civ IV I really felt like there was a story and that I wasn't just playing against robots. Also the AI by Beyond the Sword was actually challenging to fight, so diplomacy mattered a lot more. You had to make spur-of-the-moment choices based on challenges the AI issued you. A Civ IV AI asking you for tribute is *way* scarier than a Civ VI AI asking you for tribute (in Civ VI, if AI do that, I just declare war on them and wipe them from the board as punishment for their insolence). I also remember multiple games where Isabella asked me to convert to her religion, I said no, and then she declared war on me and actually took cities. I also remember domestic management in Civ IV was way more rewarding--instead of building maintenance costs you were more limited just by your production and choices, since you almost never ran out of things to make. I also remember Civ IV buildings (like courthouses) had really great sounds. In Civ V and VI building construction always makes the same noise no matter the building. In Civ IV, making a courthouse gave off a delightful "Order! Order! Order" sound with the babbling of people in the background and a gavel. Some of the random events like diplomatic marriages or quests in Civ IV were nice, others not (random natural disasters). But overall Civ IV was a huge success. And don't even get me started on how amazing the Civ IV scenarios were, ranging from tactics squad-based combat games to fantasy epics to historical simulations of war to a game where you play as barbarians, etc etc.

TLDR; Civ IV gameplay was more meaningful, AI was scarier, diplomacy mattered, and there was more of a sense that you had a great story going on. It had fewer bells and whistles graphics and music-wise than V and VI, but I will probably never stop playing IV. It's so enriching and satisfying despite the high difficulty curve.

 

[Boyan_Sun]

What I highly enjoy is developing cities; picking the right spots and specializing them. That's one gripe I had with various civ games: city spam (assuming those cities were decently placed) would beat methodical city planning (with great city placement) most of the time. Is Civ6 better in this department?

Sorry to tell you that city spam is always the BEST solution in Civ6, which is far more than in Civ5 and Civ4. In Civ5, with 6 cities you will not fall behind too much than with 15 cities if you planning well, but in C6 you might even lose your game if not have enough cities.
City spam punishment is large in Civ5, but in Civ6 there is no punishment, and even give you happiness bonus for new cities; each city can provide huge output if you have a good place and large population in Civ5, but in Civ6 each city has a cap on output, no matter how well you planning.

 

[Czacki]

That's rather disheartening perhaps I should go for 5 instead then.

 

[Patine]

That's rather disheartening perhaps I should go for 5 instead then.

I, myself, have never played Civ5, but I think it's the one that's essentially unplayable (in an enjoyable way) without one custom, highly-comprehensive, fan-made mod or another, if I recall hearing, and is very unsatisfying right out of the box, and feels unfinished. At least this is what I can gather.

 

[Bibor]

That's rather disheartening perhaps I should go for 5 instead then.

These "experts" are feeding you false information. Either they have no clue how Civ games work and differ, or don't know how share their knowledge. Also, Deity is not the only difficulty you can play this game on.

Civ6 GS is superior to Civ5 in every way. Each nation you can pick prefers a different city buildup method, then there are governors, districts etc. If city management and micromanaging everything is your game, Civ6 GS is the right pick for you.
Unlike Civ5 and Beyond Earth, tile yields are significant again, more than in civ4 even, because yields are not so generic.

"City spam", which is an ugly phrase by itself, is not really encouraged by itself, rather, you're encouraged to also have small cities to grab resources and strategic points and are not penalized for doing so! In fact, the way horizontal empire growth works is pretty neat.
Vertical growth of cities is combination of policies, city focus, buildings, trade routes, so you can finally have large cities without having farms everywhere.

Also,

Having more of something (cities) obviously works best in every scenario known to man since the dawn ot fime, so I don't think this is something that needs pointing out.

 

[Patine]

Having more of something (cities) obviously works best in every scenario known to man since the dawn ot fime, so I don't think this is something that needs pointing out.

Tell that to the Prince of Liechtenstein, the wealthiest head-of-state in the world outside the Arabian Peninsula, and a massive global banking empire and centre of more corporate registries than citizens, with only ONE city of any significant size.

 

[Victoria]

These "experts" are feeding you false information. Either they have no clue how Civ games work and differ, or don't know how share their knowledge. Also, Deity is not the only difficulty you can play this game on.

I will assume you read what @Boyan_Sun said properly and disagree that more cities is better than less in civ VI. That if you do not have enough cities you can lose due to this. Finally that there is little punishment for ICS in VI.
Sadly all of these statements are true. Yes a little clarification that 10 cities is enough for a culture victory or any victory usually but for example a points victory or a science victory 20 is far superior to 10. The only exception is a religious victory which is quite broken and you pretty much have won it when you decide to play it.
No real expert on this forum will disagree with these facts because they are correct and I am at a total loss why you would think otherwise.
Equally while I prefer 6 over 5 you cannot say that air combat in 6 is superior to that in 5. You cannot say that if you are a tall player who prefers a few cities that 6 is better than 5, world congress? .. and most importantly, the GUI in 6 has a lot to be desired.
Highly unimpressed with the approach taken to someone who passes across fantastic and highly useful information from the Chinese forum which is full of experts. To imply they do not share their knowledge when @Boyan_Sun is one of the best people out there for sharing invaluable knowledge shows a level of disrespect or ignorance that could be damaging to this forum if @Boyan_Sun takes offence. You chose the wrong person to pick on and many experts here have found that they provide hugely insightful information.

And no, having more cities is incorrect, many real civs out there did and do just fine with small countries and cities, often in real life size has big issues that come along with it, just like a 20 pop city is a pain in the game, so is a 20 city empire. Even if the pain is just extra management.

@Czacki , you can with with one city on deity, you can win with 3 cities on emperor... but you need a higher level of skill or luck to do so. That is what @Boyan_Sun was saying.