Is there really no build queue?

[PhilBowles]

The build queue interface was poor in Civ V - it took me long enough to learn how to set a build queue in Civ V that by that time I'd got used to playing without it.

I suspect it's just a case of the way most players now play the game making it in as a default setting - like the resource icons littering the landscape which I dislike but seemed to be commonly used in Civ V.

The long-term feature that appears to be completely gone that baffles me (I can't find it in standard or advanced game setup settings, and the random 'Create Game' setting has a set map size) is the loss of random map sizes as an option. While I never like rolling duel maps, it's always been core to the Civ experience to me that as much as possible is unknown from the start. I already disliked the various ways Civ IV and V let you 'cheat' on identifying the total number of civs in a given game before you'd met them all (information hidden in earlier iterations); losing the option to randomise altogether seems to make no sense. Even if only a minority ever did that, it was only an option and was never the default - so why remove it?

 

[Arkatakor]

I have played the game only for 25 minutes and can attest that not having build queues is completely nonsensical. I hate having to go through the same thought process twice every time I look at a city. I can only imagine how tedious the game will be at a later stage.

The district argument does not hold water - the point of build queues is that they are adjustable; you can put things in the beginning, middle or end of a queue based on what technology you just discovered and how much building backlog you have left.

This is not just a minus point for me, its a huge minus point for me. I am borderline considering refunding this game (bought the deluxe edition via steam) and waiting for a UI mod to come out and remedy this (like the community patch mod for civ5). It is sad however, that modders, who code free of charge will ultimately be the ones that will fix this overtly glaring issue, rather than Firaxis themselves.

 

[Dimoxinil]

So um...I don't see it. Is it not possible to queue more than one thing to build at a time? Am I missing something obvious?

thanks

 

[paulmclem]

There isn't one.

 

[Ashbery76]

This is just another UI thing that boggles the mind.

 

[Usama84]

No stacks of doom, so no need I guess

 

[Arkatakor]

No stacks of doom, so no need I guess

What has stacks of doom got to do with queuing buildings / units? Did you even play Civ 5?

 

[Staal]

It is a bit strange that it is missing but I can't say I am missing it. Build choice feels more important to me and I don't feel like I need help managing unimportant micro management at this point. No harm in adding it though as you don't have to use it if you don't want to.

 

[steveg700]

I have played the game only for 25 minutes and can attest that not having build queues is completely nonsensical. I hate having to go through the same thought process twice every time I look at a city. I can only imagine how tedious the game will be at a later stage.

Hopefully you've played 25 hours by now and have gotten over your initial discomfort. I have.

 

[pxpdoo]

It's odd - I feel an instinctive desire to defend Firaxis, simply because I've been playing their stuff since Civ II... But alot of these omissions are just plain irritating. And needless. I feel like they're pushing the "more thoughtful" narrative in an artificial way, by simply forcing us to personally perform additional tedious actions, and hoping that we'll feel "more thoughtful" because of it. Was that your reasoning, Firaxis?
Seriously.

 

[Arkatakor]

Hopefully you've played 25 hours by now and have gotten over your initial discomfort. I have.

Absolutely not. Not having build queues makes the game more and more tedious as it progresses.

 

[CPWimmer]

Hopefully you've played 25 hours by now and have gotten over your initial discomfort. I have.

I've played 30 hours so far (not as much as i hoped since i was busy all launch weekend) and i am seriously missing the Build Queue feature. I'm a slow builder player who plays in spurts, and often times I will have mutli-turn plans that will span multiple play sessions. The queue always helped me organize my thoughts in game. It is very likley that i will have to resort to an external text file i keep open on my second monitor and save each night when i save the game if they can't bother to manage a queue for me in game.

2 queue suggestions -
1. allow districts/wonders to be queued, but only 1 of them at most - so that only 1 tile has to be held in reserve by the queue. (My guess is that this challenge was the reason they decided they couldn't correctly design and implement a build queue feature)
2. a big help, even if you didn't allow much queuing would be to allow the first buildings in a district to be queued up with the district - for example I have found in many cases that I want to build a workshop in my industrial district right after i build the industrial district.- why make me go back into the city screen to do this at a later point.

We also have a key example 1 of why we know that Firaxis isn't 100% anti-queueing: You can still queue techs and civics in Civ VI.

 

[isau]

Altho its a weird feature to be missing I do kind of understand why its not there. The introduction of Districts makes the whole queue thing a lot trickier.

 

[Ozisl]

It's odd - I feel an instinctive desire to defend Firaxis,

I kinda lost a few pegs of my fanboi when they included Firaxite in BE. Though it was kinda funny.

EDIT

Queues are most useful late game when you have a ton of cities and/or conquer cities and need to build everything up, so yea, build queue is useful.

 

[RealAntithesis]

Altho its a weird feature to be missing I do kind of understand why its not there. The introduction of Districts makes the whole queue thing a lot trickier.

I also looked around for many minutes for a build queue, trying out various combinations of control-clicking, alt-clicking, shift-clicking, right-clicking to try to get some sort of build queue going in the hope that the fairly poor UI was just hiding what in my opinion was an essential feature, but nope. No build queue.

Districts shouldn't limit the existence of a build queue feature either. Once districts are placed into a queue, then the land for this district should be cleared to prepare the tile for the district, and other districts or other build items should then be queued the same way. I put the lack of this 'essential' (IMHO) feature down to lack of time, which is what I'm ascribing the general lack of polish and features in the UI to rather than gross incompetence.

 

[Arkatakor]

Altho its a weird feature to be missing I do kind of understand why its not there. The introduction of Districts makes the whole queue thing a lot trickier.

As a programmer (at one point I even worked in the games industry) and a Civ V modder, I can assert that it is technically possible to have build queues despite the new district / wonder placement feature. You only need to prompt the player for district / wonder placement when that item hits the beginning of the queue. Until then you would be able to queue as many districts, wonders as you want. Only when its time for the city to start building them, then you would be prompted for placement.

The fact that I know this could have been done and that firaxis chose the easy route, which was to not implement it, is what infuriates me the most.

 

[CrispyCritter]

There's no question it could have been done; the question is whether it should have been done. And I would claim the answer is no.

From Wikipedia (I couldn't find a direct quote quickly):

A major foundation of the development of Civilization VI was to prevent players from following routines in playing through a game, according to lead designer Ed Beach.

Face it: as can be seen from the comments here, build queues serve 2 diametrically opposed purposes, and in Civ 6 wouldn't do a good job at either. For those folks who don't want to get involved in the details of customizing a city, it would automate the development process. For those who who do want to get involved in the planning, it keeps track of the plans. In Civ 6, I'd rather see two separate tools: One with knobs for the AI to take over the build queue appropriately (not perfect, but much better than build queues since city geography is so important). And the other tool, much more important IMO, would be a city planner where you can lay out the master plan of the city as you currently envision it. A tool where you can try various layouts of the city and settle on a plan and save it. It's too hard to remember all your plans for every city and how they affect each other - I'm having to keep notes, and I shouldn't!

 

[Browd]

You can use map pins to mark your planned city development directly on the map (best for thoughts about district and wonder placement and resource/feature removal). Of course, that won't reflect your desired build order.

 

[RealAntithesis]

For those folks who don't want to get involved in the details of customizing a city, it would automate the development process. For those who who do want to get involved in the planning, it keeps track of the plans. In Civ 6, I'd rather see two separate tools: One with knobs for the AI to take over the build queue appropriately (not perfect, but much better than build queues since city geography is so important). And the other tool, much more important IMO, would be a city planner where you can lay out the master plan of the city as you currently envision it.

A manual build queue and an automated (city planner or governer) build queue would both be good - one caters to those players who like to setup their cities individually (but want to do so in advance rather than choose things to build one at a time) and the other for those who want things more automated. But currently, we have neither.

Whatever build queue is eventually implemented (however it is done, or if it is ever done), there still needs to be obvious notifications whenever something is built rather than being silent.

 

[Arkatakor]

There's no question it could have been done; the question is whether it should have been done. And I would claim the answer is no.

From Wikipedia (I couldn't find a direct quote quickly):

A major foundation of the development of Civilization VI was to prevent players from following routines in playing through a game, according to lead designer Ed Beach.

Your quote has nothing to do with build queues at all. That quote meant people choosing the same social policy and research orders - in Civ V for example researching tradition, slingshot the philosophy tech with the Great Library, build the National Collage wonder, making sure its done before expanding to your second city etc. I also found myself falling into those routines.

In Civ 6 the map plays you, not the other way round. Everything that you can or cannot build depends on the map. Build queues are there to help simplify building / unit construction management and thus do not affect build order or "routines". And its absence makes the game a chore.