Is there really no build queue?

[TraderInvader]

That is a TERRIBLE idea, UI should NEVER be based on gameplay.

Despite you capitalizing terrible and never I remain unconvinced why you feel this way.
Would making a production queue interface based on a social policy or even a civic or technological research do something to the game I am not aware of?
Does having a UI feature(city production queue) that is based on civic research,tech research,or social policy(game-play,right?) break a game in a way that I may not understand?

Please elaborate on why this is terrible as I would welcome any knowledge you have on this. I just play the game and from the looks of your formula thread it appears you do much more than just play this game.

Perhaps your cities should change what they are building every turn until you have Early Empire. (so you must tell them what to produce every turn)
[same for techs and civics... you should get prompted for what to research every turn until you get Recorded History and can actually make long term plans]

I am not following. Are you exaggerating how terrible an idea it is to base a UI feature on game-play? Or is what you said an alternative suggestion to what I suggested?

If you were not exaggerating then I still do not see what you mean by having to change what each city is building every turn as relating to what I said.
You also did not specify what you meant by "long term plans" and what that entails when you get Recorded History.
Did you mean long term planning as being able to utilize city build queue?
If so then how is that not an example of a UI feature dependent on game-play?

Again,if you did not exaggerate the quoted statement it would seem that you agree with me to some extent that being able to use a build queue from the beginning of a game should not be allowed as it would take away from having to make crucial decisions and that it should be researched/earned by the players that want/need to utilize that UI feature. I would not mind having to prioritize my civic or technology research to get city production queuing, the same way I prioritize researching techs or civics for certain benefits, resource buildings, policies, wonders, districts, units,..etc.

 

[Usama84]

not sure if this discussion was sidetracked, but I also miss the queue, but I think that is because we are old stack of doomers! lol

 

[Usama84]

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

no, lol, I skipped that one because of 1UPT

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Despite you capitalizing terrible and never I remain unconvinced why you feel this way.
Would making a production queue interface based on a social policy or even a civic or technological research do something to the game I am not aware of?
Does having a UI feature(city production queue) that is based on civic research,tech research,or social policy(game-play,right?) break a game in a way that I may not understand?

Please elaborate on why this is terrible as I would welcome any knowledge you have on this. I just play the game and from the looks of your formula thread it appears you do much more than just play this game.

.

The issue is a UI improvement being locked by some gameplay element.

I can understand if a UI element would not be available (ie build queue) they might have decided it will take too much time to put it in.
However, if they Have it in, but only unlocked by a gameplay element, then it makes that gameplay element work

My examples were all sarcastic...
however let me clarify by an "ad adsurbum" argument
[sarcasm]
The computer shows you a text file with "how to play the game", you can't start playing the game on the computer until you research the "computer tech" in the game that you are playing by text file.
[/sarcasm]

If they are letting you play the game on the computer... you should be able to play the whole game on the computer, instead of doing all the calculations by pen and paper.

Just like if I want to research a tech, rather than saying
turn 1 what tech do you want to put your research in this turn?
turn 2 what tech do you want to put your research in this turn?
turn 3 what tech do you want to put your research in this turn?
etc.
The game says
turn 1 what tech do you want to research?
and then it keeps researching the tech until it finishes or you change it

I can understand if a build queue might be too complicated for their programmers (with districts and wonders being placed)
However, if they can have it should be fully functional from turn 1....because a build queue doesn't affect the game mechanics at all.. you can replicate a build queue with a pencil and paper and lots of tedium.

Basically anything that you can replicate with a pen and paper and a lot of tedium (build queue, orders that last for more than 1 turn, vision of the tech tree, a civilopedia) should be either
1. in the whole game
or
2. out of the whole game because putting it in is too complicated. (in which case some parts of the game should be simplified....so that pencil+paper+tedium is not particularly useful in playing the game)

 

[RealAntithesis]

Or more simply, we shouldn't have to unlock a social policy (or progress to a certain point) in game in order to get a better user interface which should have been in the game to start with.

 

[whyidie]

I believe the "bring the queue back please" crowd has won the argument.

The only question is degree of difficulty and priority.

Which leads me to believe it won't get to Civ4 levels. I can live with a Civ5 queue.

In terms of priorities, it would be nice to have, especially as this iteration has loosened the constraints on sprawling empires.

 

[Arkatakor]

I went ahead and created a ticket at 2K support regarding this issue. It read as follows:

I would like to outline that this game is is missing a critical User Interface (UI) feature that has been present in the franchise since Civilication III (released in 2001). This feature is the ability to queue buildings / units in cities.

I have played multiple games, each spanning a minimum of several hours to give the game a proper evaluation in order to fully understand its depth and what it has to offer. I have now come to the inevitable conclusion that the new features in this game simply do not justify the absence of this critical UI feature which makes the game very tedious to play. Thus, I must confer that Civilization VI is a product that, despite its potential, was simply not built to its previous standards.

I have contacted steam, asking them to make an exception (since I have played past the two hour mark) and refund my purchase. In the meanwhile I do hope you forward this UI issue to the firaxis team (despite my searching there seems to be no way of contacting them

Here was their response:

Hello Arkatakor!

Thank you for taking the time to contact 2K Support, and for your interest in the newest installment of the popular Sid Meier's franchise; Civilization VI! We always appreciate hearing from our dedicated fans from all our titles.

Another kind thanks for providing feedback and suggestions on Civ VI as we always enjoy hearing what our fans have to say and take everything to heart.

To ensure your voice is properly heard though, might I suggest you pay a visit over to either our Official 2K Forums or the ever informative community over at Civ Fanatics. There are many people who share the same thoughts as you (me include). That production queue would be great specially when playing long games and not forgetting the day after what you wanted to do or, just having to click production each time in online speed.

These sites help connect the community together and provide a superior platform for fan suggestions and feedback regarding Civ VI as well as the rest of Sid's beloved titles.

That being said, should you ever have additional questions or concerns related to any of our 2K titles, please do not hesitate to contact us at any point and an agent would be more than happy to assist!

Always remember; Just...one...more...turn....

Best regards,

2K Support

So I went ahead and registered at 2k and posted a thread there outlining the above correspondence. I can now say i've done what I could to make this issue known.

 

[kaspergm]

Would have voiced my support at the 2K forum, except when I try to log in, it says I log in, and then I'm not logging in after all, so I can't post ...

 

[notque]

There is a build queue. Most of the code works, and the main build orders use the queue, but only use the top level, replacing things in the queue.

There is an add to queue button, but it doesn't work. I've just spend a few hours trying to hack it in myself, and have just given up. I can't seem to get the ordering correct.

 

[Arkatakor]

There is a build queue. Most of the code works, and the main build orders use the queue, but only use the top level, replacing things in the queue.

There is an add to queue button, but it doesn't work. I've just spend a few hours trying to hack it in myself, and have just given up. I can't seem to get the ordering correct.

Its great that you looked into it. It has also been discussed that the core code already exists but we cannot say if Firaxis is actually gonna take it from there and make it work. For build queues to work one would need to get around district and wonder placement. I and others proposed solutions for this in that thread.

Would have voiced my support at the 2K forum, except when I try to log in, it says I log in, and then I'm not logging in after all, so I can't post ...

Strange indeed. I registered yesterday and did not have issues. The annoying thing there is that threads still need to be approved and are thus not viewed instantly. I was surprised that mine was approved since its not exactly good for sales.

 

[Proteus]

There is a build queue. Most of the code works, and the main build orders use the queue, but only use the top level, replacing things in the queue.

There is an add to queue button, but it doesn't work. I've just spend a few hours trying to hack it in myself, and have just given up. I can't seem to get the ordering correct.

Sounds like they haven't activated yet either due to unsolved bugs after Betatesting it,
or because they weren't able to betatest it (due to time constraints) and didn't want to risk introducing bugs into the release version with it

 

[Zhahz]

I don't see this as a big deal and when you consider that outside of a few city buildings everything else goes in districts, and district placement is different for every city, how exactly would would you queue up such things?

I'm sure the reason there is no build queue is due to the "unstacked" thing.

That and managing cities is supposed to be more interesting than a bunch of generic repetitiveness where you care so little that you just queue up a ton of stuff and go into mindless mode.

/shrug

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I don't see this as a big deal and when you consider that outside of a few city buildings everything else goes in districts, and district placement is different for every city, how exactly would would you queue up such things?

I'm sure the reason there is no build queue is due to the "unstacked" thing.

That and managing cities is supposed to be more interesting than a bunch of generic repetitiveness where you care so little that you just queue up a ton of stuff and go into mindless mode.

/shrug

You wouldn't have a mindless repetitive queue for all cities (probably)
Instead you would have a unique queue for each city

 

[whyidie]

I don't see this as a big deal and when you consider that outside of a few city buildings everything else goes in districts, and district placement is different for every city, how exactly would would you queue up such things?

I'm sure the reason there is no build queue is due to the "unstacked" thing.

That and managing cities is supposed to be more interesting than a bunch of generic repetitiveness where you care so little that you just queue up a ton of stuff and go into mindless mode.

I like my decisions to last beyond the next turn. It feels really good when a micro plan comes into play. Even feels excitawful when the plan is interrupted by unforeseen circumstances.

I'm going to activate the builder and settler policies until my next two policies are researched, which I'll queue up.

I want 3 of my 10 cities pumping out workers and builders for the next 20 turns.

Two others will be building defenses as I will have those policies in effect as well.

Four others will be focused on building their infrastructure so I'll queue up the appropriate buildings for each.

The tenth will crank out two galleys as I want the eureka for the tech I'll be researching next which will lead to a boost on a critical civic, at which point I'll change the worker/settler/defense civics and possibly have new build orders.

Or maybe I'll go back to turn by turn as it may take awhile to figure out how the next great leap will come about. At any rate it will be a golden era....unless I overlooked a patch of land and barbarians come calling. In which case at least one city will have its build orders interrupted.

I appreciate the challenge districts present to queues and hope they can come to a good solution at some point. I'd settle for district/city center buildings and units.

 

[bladex]

the multi-tasking in this is insane sometimes without the queue...

 

[RealAntithesis]

I appreciate the challenge districts present to queues and hope they can come to a good solution at some point. I'd settle for district/city center buildings and units.

There are ways. Just clear the land when the districts are placed in the queue - which means they can't then be removed from the queue, but districts can't be undone in the vanilla game either. There will need to be notifications once districts are built to give the player the opportunity to immediately add in district-specific build orders once the district is completed.

 

[Arkatakor]

I would suggest that those who feel strongly about the need for a build queue sign up for / log in to 2K and post in this thread. Apprantly Firaxis devs read that forum as well as this one (they sometimes even comment in the 2K forums though its rare). Posting in both forums is the best we can do at the moment..

 

[KrikkitTwo]

There are ways. Just clear the land when the districts are placed in the queue - which means they can't then be removed from the queue, but districts can't be undone in the vanilla game either. There will need to be notifications once districts are built to give the player the opportunity to immediately add in district-specific build orders once the district is completed.

Which is why a queue should allow you to queue buildings you don't have the prerequisites (techs or buildings) for....
I should be able to queue up Broadcast Tower, Archaeological Museum, Amphitheater, and Archaeologist on turn 1
(as soon as I finish the Theater District it would start the Amphitheater (highest thing on the queue it can build))
...districts/Wonders should probably need the tech/civic because of placement.

 

[RealAntithesis]

Which is why a queue should allow you to queue buildings you don't have the prerequisites (techs or buildings) for....
I should be able to queue up Broadcast Tower, Archaeological Museum, Amphitheater, and Archaeologist on turn 1
(as soon as I finish the Theater District it would start the Amphitheater (highest thing on the queue it can build))
...districts/Wonders should probably need the tech/civic because of placement.

While I don't disagree in concept, there will have to be a way to reorder the queue that takes into account items (buildings or units) that have prerequisites - either by not letting those items be dragged above their prerequisites or having some kind of nested queue - which is a little more complicated and possibly confusing to players.

 

[Arkatakor]

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. I have edited the OP to reflect the existence of this mod - its time to get loud on this as it proves that build queuing was possible all along and that not prioritizing it for Civ VI's release was simply nonsensical.