Is CVI going to blow?

[Felis Renidens]

Was that one that literally wouldn't load on my PC when I first bought it?

I could load it and even play it if I haven't made the stupid mistake of telling my settler to build a city, causing the game to crash. It was fixed, soon enough, and anyway, who builds cities in a game of civ?

 

[14thwarrior]

Yeah thanks all I appreciate your input. I am not of course about demeaning the product when it starts, but, I just wanted to get a dialogue going. We're not of course expecting miracles on release, but it is of course nice to talk about it. And for that I thank your input.

I liked Gorbles post in particular, but if I was honest I liked the contributions as a whole.

 

[Roxlimn]

Civ has ALWAYS sucked on release. You young uns know about the first days of Civ V but not about the unplayable mess that was Civs III and IV on their release day states. Before the first patch, Civ IV AI was so pathetic at improving its tiles that you'd be forgiven for thinking that it was virgin wilderness. Heck, it was nearly that bad several patches in. Civ III was unplayable.

All Civs have issues on release day. This is especially true when they're "improving" a preexisting feature or introducing new ones - and Civ VI introduces a lot of new fundamental features. It's going to suck big time.

The key is to manage expectations. It's going to be a 4X and feedback from the fans (like the threads on this site) will be fodder for improving the game as it goes along. It'll have some shape of what it will ultimately be, but that won't be apparent until the second expansion. Until then, treat it like a nice new Civ - unbalanced, possibly broken, but okay if you don't exploit things too much.

 

[14thwarrior]

Roxlimn this is very true, although I would not say I was a youngen per se, having played CIV I, and being 43 years of age. But your points are apposite.

 

[Thormodr]

Civ III and cIV were in a lot better shape than Civilization 5 was upon release.

None of them were particularly good but Civilization 5 was horrendous.

Let's hope that Civ VI reverses the course and has a half decent launch.

 

[Acken]

I have good hopes its decent since its based on Civ5 BNW while Civ5 was a big break with the series.

 

[14thwarrior]

Yeah, you're right Acken, and Thormodr, we are kinda hoping that the first release wont be awful. We shall of course see.

 

[Acken]

Also I have my hopes not too unrealistic either. It will be a pile of unbalanced mechanics but I'm confident in the game being playable and not too broken (no TR spam).

Whether or not it will become good will be decided by following patches (or the modding community).

 

[Aristos]

Civ III and cIV were in a lot better shape than Civilization 5 was upon release.

None of them were particularly good but Civilization 5 was horrendous.

Let's hope that Civ VI reverses the course and has a half decent launch.

None of them were as bad on release as Five. Three and Four were smooth and pleasant for me, I know many people had technical problems with Four, but those were quickly solved (Soren himself worked on those initial problems, IIRC).

 

[Spartan_X]

I think the Civilization game that delivered the most on the promise to be the best Civ game ever .... was Civ II. That game was unquestionably better than Civ I, from the very first day it came out. Every Civ game since then was a bit a mixed bag on release and only got better after the expansions. I expect this to be true for Civ VI as well - although I am certain that it is bound to be at the very least better than vanilla Civ V.

 

[14thwarrior]

True Civ II fixed all the stuff that was wrong with civ I, you could win CIV by spreading out like a virus. CIV II somewhat made the whole viral spread win thing a little more manageable with the "unhappiness". CIV III and CIV did the same, they simply made it unplayable to just pop out settlers all over the place and settle as much land as possible.

Anyway we will see with CIVI, if they can balance it at the start instead of relying on expansions/DLC like CIV V did to make it vaguely playable.

Let's hope the beta testers are going to release a somewhat finished product on launch. Not expecting miracles but a playable game on launch not CIV V is at least achievable as Thormodr said.

 

[x2Madda]

The main things that will blow the game up in glorious Rugal-Style self destruction are:

*Infinite trade routes. Capping this figure is important but even more so, how we gain more TR also needs to be done in in a slow, meted out way as opposed to being tied to population size of a large, ungrowing number given right from the start of the game.

*Infinite City Spam. Signs are pointing to this being a thing and honestly, given how cities now build outwards, this compounds the issue which is already a dangerous issue normally but in Civ6, claiming land purely to exclude your foes from having access to any land seems like it will become a dominant strategy to lock enemies in. This will probably be the biggest flaw on release

*Not being Civ5 enough. Now we are civfanatics, but Civ5 blew up in a way prior entries in the series hadn't quite reached. They were good games but Civ5 is still going strong and accepting change is really really hard. Prepare to read for weeks after release, how Civ6 failed at X activity that Civ5 did "perfectly".

*Genuinely being terrible. I'm not seeing it being overall terrible but Civ:BE sounded amazing on paper and we know how that ended. Poor optimization or crysis level spec requirements or FORCING WINDOWS 10 are the kind of things that would hurt initial sales.

So far I am perfectly luke warm. I have learned that Firaxis is good at making games sound good and seem good but with the opposite hand, some bugs either take too long to fix or never get fixed and are also very poor at communication with the fanbase. But at least they have some communication, I have certainly seen worse!

 

[stiiknafuulia]

*Infinite City Spam. Signs are pointing to this being a thing and honestly, given how cities now build outwards, this compounds the issue which is already a dangerous issue normally but in Civ6, claiming land purely to exclude your foes from having access to any land seems like it will become a dominant strategy to lock enemies in. This will probably be the biggest flaw on release

If you consider it one. I'd certainly prefer it to the 4-city rump 'Empires' of Civ V, where vast areas could remain unsettled way into the industrial era (when the AI got ideologies and finally spammed cities in every corner of the map).

*Not being Civ5 enough. Now we are civfanatics, but Civ5 blew up in a way prior entries in the series hadn't quite reached. They were good games but Civ5 is still going strong and accepting change is really really hard. Prepare to read for weeks after release, how Civ6 failed at X activity that Civ5 did "perfectly".

Speak for yourself (which you probably did though). To me, Civ V was a major disappointment, and the further we move from it, the better. The only 'new' things worth keeping from V are hexes and the unique abilities (which were partly poorly balanced).

 

[Ikael]

If you consider it one. I'd certainly prefer it to the 4-city rump 'Empires' of Civ V, where vast areas could remain unsettled way into the industrial era (when the AI got ideologies and finally spammed cities in every corner of the map).
Speak for yourself (which you probably did though). To me, Civ V was a major disappointment, and the further we move from it, the better. The only 'new' things worth keeping from V are hexes and the unique abilities (which were partly poorly balanced).

Nah, while vainilla Civ 5 was a mediocre game and BE was an atrocious one, Civ 5 with expansions was a great experience with many ideas worth of being preserved into the series.

And I am glad that Civ 6 seems to have recognized that: Hexes, archeology, civ 5's religion system, social policies and trade routes are indeed ideas worth of being carried out into Civ 6, me thinks.

 

[stiiknafuulia]

Nah, while vainilla Civ 5 was a mediocre game and BE was an atrocious one, Civ 5 with expansions was a great experience with many ideas worth of being preserved into the series.

And I am glad that Civ 6 seems to have recognized that: Hexes, archeology, civ 5's religion system, social policies and trade routes are indeed ideas worth of being carried out into Civ 6, me thinks.

Now that I think more of it, I was being a little harsh. The problem with trade routes and religion in Civ V was that they were terribly balanced; the concepts themselves were fine and worth preserving. The social policy system had a balance problem too (lol Tradition + Rat), but the main issue with it was the total permanence of your choices, which is nothing like how a real government functions. You could say that it's being 'preserved' in Civ VI, but I'd argue the difference to be great enough that the right word choice is 'used as an inspiration'. Archaeology always felt tacked-on to me, but I admit not playing too much with it (I rarely went for cultural victories). I never fully figured out the 'theming bonus' system, either; I sure hope they'll make that more transparent in Civ VI.

The extra working range of cities was nice too (forgot to mention it before).

 

[CultureManiac]

Maybe it's time for the moderators to combine all of the "Why I think CIV 6 is going to suck even though I haven't played it yet" threads into one, like they did with the complaints after vanilla CiV came out.

It's already getting monotonous.

 

[CoolLizy]

At this point "is Civ VI going to blow?" is as meaningful a question as "is Civ VII going to blow?"

 

[14thwarrior]

At this point "is Civ VI going to blow?" is as meaningful a question as "is Civ VII going to blow?"

I disagree, opening up a forum to ideas is never a bad idea. Even if it is wild speculation. You never know maybe the beta testers and devs actually read forums like these: that would be an eye opener and no mistake.

People come up with all sorts of great ideas all the time, and they seldom come from love ins.

 

[Thormodr]

Maybe it's time for the moderators to combine all of the "Why I think CIV 6 is going to suck even though I haven't played it yet" threads into one, like they did with the complaints after vanilla CiV came out.

It's already getting monotonous.

Herding all dissenting opinions into one thread? So much for the free exchange of ideas and opinions on this forum. No thanks.

Considering the previous iteration, some healthy scepticism is warranted. I'm optimistic for the game but I can understand why quite a few people are once bitten, twice shy.

Plus, how many threads are there that are bashing Civ VI? One in a hundred?

 

[14thwarrior]

No one's actually bashing CIV VI that would be a non sequitur "sort of" - if you catch my meaning - because it isn't out yet, pedantic and semantic at the same time, but as for the rest of your post, you pretty much nailed it.

At the end of the day if you are a games manufacturer, there are several things that are very important. Almost nothing though is more important than listening to the masses, the customer is always right. Whether they do or not...

What a customer likes is pretty much what is going to make them shift more products, it's not just a fundamental of business, but Henry Ford would spin in his grave if you didn't like that, or black.

" It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages."

Henry Ford.

he made quite a lot of money, he's probably right...