Is there really no build queue?

[Arkatakor]

I read in an angry review that there is no build queue in this game. Is this correct? Or did that reviewer just fail to find it?

EDIT (Nov 11, 2016): A modder named Lozenged has taken it upon himself to make a production queue mod which can be found here. He did this despite people claiming (in this thread and other threads) that production queues would not be possible due to districts. The fact that this was not prioritized for as a core necessary feature for Civ VI's launch is nonsensical.

 

[paulmclem]

Few people have asked this. I've yet to see any official word. It is bizarre. Almost like some buttons have simply not made it into the game files. Hopefully this is fixed as I don't believe for a minute it's a design feature.

 

[Katakanja]

Well, if there is one, I'm failing to find it too. There's also a weird bug that I keep seeing where the bit at the top that tells you what you've just finished producing is in fact the previous thing to that, ie. If I build a monument then a warrior, when the warrior is built it will show the monument as just finished instead.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

There is no build queue that I could see. I think it is an intentional design choice because of districts.

 

[esoba]

Yeah, no build queue. I honestly don't mind because I love that managing aspect, but I can see how it might upset some.

 

[Arkatakor]

Well if not having a build queue it makes the game more tedious then its definitely a minus point as far as i'm concerned. I've been a shortcut key fanatic ever since Civ IV (made it hard for me to move to Civ V for that reason since so many of them were removed).

Anyway i'll wait to try Civ6 and see if managing districts is so fun that I would not even want a build queue. My suspicion is, I wont miss the build queue in the beginning but after hundreds of hours of game play I will.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Anyway i'll wait to try Civ6 and see if managing districts is so fun that I would not even want a build queue. My suspicion is, I wont miss the build queue in the beginning but after hundreds of hours of game play I will.

Honestly, civ6 does not need a build queue. You won't miss it. It is not just about districts. In civ6, each decision is more meaningful. You have to think, "do I want a builder or start a district?" If you could just queue up buildings and districts, it would take those decisions away. It would be pretty boring.

 

[Arkatakor]

Ok, i'll keep that in mind; pity I wont get to try it this weekend

 

[Martin Alvito]

Somebody send an ambulance to TMIT's place, because he's going to have a stroke.

 

[Ryika]

If they made the decision that a production queue is useless because of districts, then that's a stupid decision.

It's just overall bad UI design. Like when you have border scrolling on and the map starts scrolling when you try to click a button at the edge. Or when they give you rebindable hotkeys, but not for worker actions. Or when you now have to click through menus to access basic elements of the city view.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Honestly, civ6 does not need a build queue. You won't miss it. It is not just about districts. In civ6, each decision is more meaningful. You have to think, "do I want a builder or start a district?" If you could just queue up buildings and districts, it would take those decisions away. It would be pretty boring.

It does not take decisions away to have a queue... it just means you make the decisions at an earlier time.

This is particularly important for civ because you make multi turn plans I am building X so that I can get Y, and it can be hard to keep track of what I intended to produce next

I can see not queuing up districts/wonders because of the placement issues. However, they should let you queue up buildings/units

Ideally they would allow you to queue up things you can't even build yet (ie I start building a Theater district and I queue up a Broadcast tower, Amphitheater, Archeological museum, and Archaeologist.... on the Turn I get Drama and Poetry..... whenever I need a new build, the city takes it from the first thing available in the queue that is legal.


Basically their "anti-auto" movement is forcing the player to meaninglessly click/write down a "Things to do " list to effectively play the game.

[They could have allowed "auto builders" as well... just let a person 'queue' what improvement they want on a tile....auto builders will build it as soon as that improvement becomes available.
Prioritization is important for winning play... it should not be forced at the cost of enjoyable play]

I do like what they did with auto explore. (but they need to put alert back in)

 

[paulmclem]

Honestly, civ6 does not need a build queue. You won't miss it. It is not just about districts. In civ6, each decision is more meaningful. You have to think, "do I want a builder or start a district?" If you could just queue up buildings and districts, it would take those decisions away. It would be pretty boring.

Fair point. However, in the heat of battle there will surely still be times when you'd like to queue up a couple of artillery, a mobile Sam etc without needing to request each individually.

 

[Magil]

The UI design/functionality needs some work, that is to be certain. Lots of little annoying things. I'm used to playing games like Dwarf Fortress so it doesn't bother me overmuch, but it's something they really need to work on.

 

[Nikolai II]

There is no build queue, and I don't miss it either.

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

It seems to me that if you're a micro-manager anyway, you don't need one. I only ever used it when I wanted to build an important wonder after building another building (and didn't want to forget to start building the wonder). But I understand how some players who want to play more with units than with cities may feel disappointed.

 

[Ryika]

Doesn't have much to do with "Playing with Units" vs "Playing with Cities" in my opinion, and more with how much micromanagement you're really willing to do.

I'd rather have the ability to queue three buildings/units that i know I'll want and be done with it than having to check my priorities in every city every few turns, just to gain that little bit of extra efficiency of making a separate decision for all three of them.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

It does not take decisions away to have a queue... it just means you make the decisions at an earlier time.

But shouldn't a good strategy game spread out the decisions? A build queue just lumps all the decisions in one turn and then you go 10-15 turns with nothing to do.

Granted I am only at turn 60ish in my first game. But I found that I was making meaningful decisions every single turn whereas in civ5 I would have just queued up the default build order and had nothing to really do afterwards. But, In my current civ6 game, I had to decide whether to build another spearmen or start a district (and which one). I was going to build a science district but then Greece DoW me so I built a couple spearmen, then built my encampment and then a legion.

 

[Veneke]

But shouldn't a good strategy game spread out the decisions? A build queue just lumps all the decisions in one turn and then you go 10-15 turns with nothing to do.

The thing is that a decision can often involve a selection of things to be built. For instance, if you decide you want the boost for the seafaring tech (can't recall the name offhand) then you know you need to build two galleys. That's one decision, not two, but it's being forced into two decisions by the lack of a build queue.

Honestly not a huge deal either way, but it's absence is curious. I can't think of any particular reason why you wouldn't want a build queue. I get hiding it - as they did in Civ 5 - but removing it entirely seems odd.

 

[Browd]

And if, while building your first galley, you pop the 2-galley eureka from a goody hut, you might want to rethink that second galley.

I think the only purpose of a build queue is to allow the player to "set and forget" -- which is, IMO, not the best way to play any game, much less one with which none of us are all that familiar. Firaxis may choose to implement a build queue at some point, and by that time we may all be familiar enough with the game (or so ingrained in our habits that we blindly do the same thing every game) that we might comfortably "set and forget".

 

[KrikkitTwo]

But shouldn't a good strategy game spread out the decisions? A build queue just lumps all the decisions in one turn and then you go 10-15 turns with nothing to do.

Granted I am only at turn 60ish in my first game. But I found that I was making meaningful decisions every single turn whereas in civ5 I would have just queued up the default build order and had nothing to really do afterwards. But, In my current civ6 game, I had to decide whether to build another spearmen or start a district (and which one). I was going to build a science district but then Greece DoW me so I built a couple spearmen, then built my encampment and then a legion.

A good strategy game Should spread out the decisions.... but it should spread out When you WANT to make the decision, not when you Have to make the decision.

The idea is to think of why I would not want to put something in a queue and instead make the decision later

The reason is available Information might change, there is no point for me to queue up a bunch of Catapults on turn 1 if I don't know whether I want to attack my neighbor in the Classical Era or the Renaissance Era. (because I don't know who my neighbor is)

There is no point in queuing up 5 settlers to begin with if I don't know if there are that many good spots yet.

Maybe I won't get Stonehenge, so I will need to build an early Holy Site to get my religion, etc.



The point is "set and forget" isn't always the best play... but sometimes it is, and if it isn't... you can change it make a decision Every single turn (change the queue or leave it).... you make that decision every turn, the only issue is when the game UI forces you to make a decision, having the UI force you to make a decision should be reduced.

The player should be the one to determine 'optimization' v. 'fun' not the UI.