Kyro
King
- Joined
- Dec 2, 2014
- Messages
- 600
[Note: I'm just going to say these upfront so if you disagree with them don't even bother commenting because you're just plain wrong and any further discussion would be completely pointless. (I'm only refering to the content within the [ ] parentheses here and not the entire post.)
A: CIVILIZATION IS NOT A WAR GAME. War is a part of it yes but not the whole. Sure you can play it Command and Conquer style if you want, but don't shoot down players who actually want to experience the Cultural, Religious, Diplomatic, Economical, Scientific and Wonder aspects of it. I'm just gonna quote Civilization's theme as evidence. "Can you BUILD a CIVILIZATION that will stand the test of time?".
Every time non-warmongers and empire builder players criticise the game for making peaceful play inefficient they are immediately derided for being lazy, noob, etc by Warmongering players who treat Civ 6 like a war game.
More often than not players who make suggestions to buff peaceful play and building aspects get flamed for trying to make the game "easier". Why the heck would you get offended that Players who like to build/develop stuff get to actually build stuff more competitively? You're not even affected because you mostly conquer stuff anyway. This is utterly ridiculous.]
Things that really need to be changed, particularly in the context of Emperor and above difficulty games.
1: War is the New Peace
Many of you should have noticed by now. Much of the game's design culminates towards military conflict and I am sad to say it is all intentional. From the way starts are positioned, to AI's aggressiveness, to gunboat diplomacy, buffs in warmongering and nerfs to peaceful play. The developers went through great lengths to ensure that conflict is the new norm.
Because of that much of the focus of the game's challenge is now centered on War when actually War is just supposed to be part of the challenge.
Ever wondered why the World Congress/Diplomatic Victory doesn't exist in Civ 6? You need a less aggressive playstyle that befriends as many opponents as possible and that is just incompatible with Civ 6's War-hungry Design.
Here is my breakdown of the current state of things.
Warmongering VS Peaceful Play.
Civ 6 Favors War WAY too much(It is too easy and too profitable); to the point where you are penalized for playing peacefully, simply because playing peacefully incurs such an extreme opportunity cost. The reasons being:
a: AI is useless at war, period.
b: AI receives up to 80% production boosts on Deity; meaning they can build districts, buildings and even wonders WAY faster than you; which inevitably makes it much more efficient to capture "pre-built" cities on top of settling your own. Which brings me to the next point.
c: City Capture Penalties.
When you captured a City in Civ 5, there were severe penalties that prevented a player from using the City as if it were their own, at least for a significant period of time. (Revolt, Building Destruction, Happiness/Output Penalties) This was the only mechanism that made Peaceful Play just as viable as Warmongering.
In Civ 6, no such penalties exist. No player in the right state of mind would raze districts if they were planning to capture the city; which means the only unavoidable penalty for occupying cities are damaged city center buildings and some loss in population. (Which isn't really a big deal since Housing is more of an issue than Population Growth.) You can quite literally just conquer a city and it becomes no different from any of your own. (Actually those are most likely better, since AI already built those stuff you're still struggling to.) Yeah you can't grow a City the AI doesn't cede but I have never seen an AI refuse to cede one when it's being exterminated. Sure there is the "Issue" of Warmongering Penalties; but come on we all know that doesn't do much at all.
War weariness is probably the only thing that forces players to sue for peace every now and then. The issue with it is that Players conquer way too fast for it to actually take its toll.
d: Warmongering "Penalties".
First of all the term "Penalties" is very misleading in the game because they don't actually penalize anything crucial at all and is only utilized in the context of Diplomacy.
Diplomatic Relations for the game as a whole are usually terrible anyways; Warmongering Penalty or not. AI denounces you for stupid agendas that don't even make sense and which you don't even have the slightest control over most of the time . (Rome denouncing you early on for not having a big empire. I mean seriously?) War in the late game rarely happens even if the AI hates you and you don't rely on them for anything so relations are unfortunately not very important at all. Iron Curtain all the way~
e: AI Bonuses.
AI receives disgusting bonuses on Deity and peaceful play isn't going to control runaways in any way. It's way too inefficient to race with the AI; it is far better off to cut of their legs so they can't run.
f: Military Production.
In Civ 5 there was actually a balanced opportunity cost to raising armies; namely you have to sacrifice infrastructure etc. in order to do so. Well that opportunity cost is more than halved in Civ 6 thanks to 50% Production Policy Cards as well as Encampment & Militaristic City State Bonuses. You can actually raise a large army and not fall behind much. You can have your Cake and eat it.
g: Tall play is completely nullified.
This was the signature of peaceful play that was the source of most of the advantages of playing peacefully. Housing limittations in early and mid game prevents you from getting an advantage through a larger population by bottlenecking growth.
Districts and Wonders consume workable tiles; essentially reducing poductivity of larger populations.
This forces players to constantly expand and come into direct conflict with the ai's no.1 reason for declaring war; possession of land.
This in turn encourages a large military and no reason not to use it for highly profitable warmongering.
My point being. Warmongering should NOT be more efficient than Peaceful Play; otherwise there is completely no competitive reason to not play Civ 6 Command and Conquer style.
2: Imposed Scarcity of Land.
Start locations are almost always clumped as close to each other as possible; no matter how big the map is so as to encourage more conflict faster.
The amount of effort spent into preventing players from expanding peacefully is disgusting.
3: Pacing and Great People.
a: The early game and mid game ends too early because the AI advances too quickly. More than Half of the Great people don't exist because they don't have a chance to spawn thanks to AI advancements. What is the point of having great people as an integral concept "throughout" the game eras when in actual fact we're just competing with the AI for a limited few after the renaissance?
Part of the reason why game eras progress too quickly is because it is possible to do incredible beelines while completely ignoring other paths of the tech tree. The AI is notorious for doing this and this is partly why they are still using primitive military units in the modern era. You shouldn't be able to advance to an era just because you managed to research 1 specific tech from that era. An additional requirement of researching at least half the technologies or civcs from that era should be imposed and would make much more sense.
I find it ridiculous that the faster the players progress, the less great people are available. Why is the game punishing faster progress by limiting and skipping great people based on eras?
b: Some great people are just plain overpowered and their abilities favour very different victory conditions that their type would suggest. They're all great people; why are some greater than others?
Eg. Mary Leakey. Artifacts in all your cities generate 300% of their normal Tourism
First of all I'd just like to say that +300% is just absurd.
Secondly, who is most likely to get her? Science based Civilizations since GPP for Scientists come from Science Buildings.
Thirdly, who most likely wants/needs her? Cultural Civilizations who most likely aren't as well equipped to compete for her.
Am I the only one who sees how incredibly mismatched these abilities are?
The last two great Merchants are so overpowered for cultural victories they make Great Artists look like children.
Not to mention there are Great People who have very weak abilities compared with their peers from the same era. They by existing take up the chance for the drastically better ones to spawn and more often than not the era just passes without spawning the ones you were waiting for.
c: Great People points. (GPP)
The points generated from Buildings and Wonders are so weak compared to City projects; at least from the Player's perspective. Almost all the great people I get are from City Projects ; I don't remember ever getting a Great/Artist/Musician from buildings alone. This is directly related to point 2a because Great People costs scale with Era and the pace progresses too fast for GPP from buildings to have a significant effect.
This is an issue because the Game misleading presents GPP per turn like it is the main way for acquiring great people through it Wildcard Policies and Wonders when in actual fact it is Production that gets you those Great People.
4. Inflation.
Inflation as a general concept in the game sucks, both with regards to purchasing and production costs. "Too much" is the phrase I would use. What is the point of this really? So much Fun from the Civilization series comes from the experience of seeing your cities getting more and more productive over time; ie you can build/research/buy more over time because of the right decisions that you made many turns before.
Civ 6 effectively ruins this Fun through the use of excessive inflation because now players don't get to see their cities becoming more productive. All they see now is how well they are fighting inflation. What is the fun in that?
This is also a major reason to Warmonger because capturing cities bypasses a lot of purchase/district Inflation. (Also the reason why I feet Aztecs are really strong)
Also, what is the rationale of increasing Purchase Costs for each subsequent purchase? This is particularly punishing for players seeking a Religious Victory; especially on larger maps.
The only way to combat inflating costs which gets worse and worse as the game progresses is to found more cities, but the game penalizes players for expanding late game through phenomenal district costs which are unfortunately part of the inflation problem as well.
5: Religion.
a: I won't elaborate on how dull Religious Victory is because we all know that already and I already expanded on how inflation really hurts that unfairly.
b: It is impossible (You can't compete for one) to found a Religion on Deity if your opponents favor Religion (Unless you're China or Arabia). Basically the only chance of founding one is if the AI isn't actively trying to. Anyone who disagrees can trying playing a Deity Game on small against India, Japan, Russia, Spain and of course Arabia.
Stonehenge is unbuildable on Deity unless you're China. I've seen it go without fail around turn 25, earliest I've seen is turn 20. Which brings me to the next point.
6: Wonders.
More than half the Wonders are very underpowered compared with Wonders in Civ 5. I would even go as far to say that Wonders were intentionally nerfed in Civ 6 so you won't have a Significant advantage building them and won't lose out much if you didn't. Wonders are supposed to give significant advantages, if not what's the point of building them?
Also I'm sick and tired of getting beat to wonders because AI has up to +80% production on higher difficulties.
It is already unfair that they get technologies and civics to unlock wonders at an earlier stage. Production boost on top of that is a no no. There is a huge difference between competing with an unfair advantage vs ZERO competition at all.
I find it utterly ridiculous that the only way you can build a wonder on deity is if the AI doesn't go for it. That totally destroys the fun of building wonders at all because the ultimate answer to this negative experience is always "Don't build wonders at all." (Unless you're China, of course.) You simply can't risk it.
Seriously? Wonders are an Integral part of the game experience and players should have a chance to compete for them at ANY point of the game. And by compete I mean race an AI to completing one; not getting off lucky because the AI isn't gonna build it.There should not be an "Unbuildable" wonder at all. What's the point of having Wonders in the game if the most efficient strategies have to omit them?
AI don't get production boosts to Wonders in Civ 5 and that worked out fine. At least there was still a chance.
Oh and stop with the "Wonders aren't compulsory/important etc etc" arguments please. The bottom line is they are a HUGE PART of the game and should not be considered an "inefficiency" in any general strategy.
AI should not be able to construct Wonders before certain time frames just because they've unlocked it earlier than any human player ever can. Simply put, the criteria for Wonder Construction should be that an EFFICIENT Human Player CAN compete reasonably with the AI for them.
Wonders and Efficiency should not have an Inverse Relationship.
7: Theming Bonuses
Let's face it Great Artists/Musicians don't contribute much to Cultural Victory at all.
Great Musicians are very rare. Great Artists are better but the issue lies with theming their works.
It's extremely difficult to theme an Art Musuem and incredibly easy to theme Artifacts. Yet their themed output is the same. The ease of Artifact theming and collection nullifies any advantage of earning great artists and makes them redundant. It really looks like it is designed in such a way that Cultural Great People don't provide much of an advantage so that players who didn't get them can still catch up and that really defeats the point of trying so hard to earn them.
Who decided that theming bonuses should only apply to Artworks and Artifacts? The lack of theming bonuses for Writing and Music makes them very underpowered.
Also, it would appear that Cultural Wonders were created without Theming Bonuses so that they don't offer significant advanatges.
It's funny how a Hermitage/Broadway fully stocked with Great Works produces less Culture and Tourism than a themed Archaeological Musuem.
8: Diplomacy
Diplomacy is currently a wreck in Civ 6.
a: Most AI Agendas are beyond the player's control and don't even make sense. Case in point? Rome. Trajan hates anyone who has a small empire, because he likes big empires. How does that even make sense? If you like big empires then your greatest enemies are other large empires because they're taking up precious land you could be expanding to. And how is a player supposed to try and meet his agenda? Just try and found more cities like it's just so easy to do so?
Building a friendship with AI is so dependent on chance or so difficult to achieve that it is just not reasonably within the player's control to befriend almost anyone.
By the mid-late game everyone hates everyone else because nobody can meet anybody elese's agendas and this is just ridiculous. Sure you might have a friend/neutral or two because of pure chance but how does that help when everyone else hates you.
The default "everyone will hate you" state of things makes Warmongering Penalties insignificant. They already hate you anyway.
b: Diplomatic Penalties are insignificant.
So what if the AI hates you? At most you can't trade Luxuries with them without getting ripped off but if you ask me that's usually not much of a downside. In fact, even if they made the game in such a way that you can't even send traders to players who hate you it won't be a significant penalty at all.
c: There should be more options available, such as Ultimatums. "Converting my cities is a declaration of War. Settling Right beside me is a Declration of War. " etc. I'm appalled that you can only tell an AI not to settle near you when they've already done so comfortably right beside your capital. I mean how else did the AI expect me to react besides razing that city? To make matters worse after razing that offending city you are immediately labelled a warmonger for the rest of the game. They started it and I can't do anything about it without being hated for the rest of the game?
9: City States
a: City states are still too vulnerable. The AI is way too aggressive against them.There should be penalties for Conquering City States, like loss of Envoys from other city states and even the permanent war against city states for conquering too many.
b: City State Disparity.
It would appear that the production-based City States are intentionally rare just to prevent players from building more competitively. I've never seen more than two even on larger maps and the AI loves to conquer them for some reason.
c: City State Insurgencies.
For some reason City States are always facing rebellions in the late game and it's ridiculous. These Rebel Barbarians always end up spilling over to your lands and there's nothing you can do to eliminate the source without conquering the City State.
d: Reward for being the first to meet a City state.
Remember you tried to balance out starts so everyone has a fair chance? While this completely ruins it. Those +2 outputs for the Capital City can mean a very huge difference and it is completely up to luck whether a player finds them or not.
To be continued...
A: CIVILIZATION IS NOT A WAR GAME. War is a part of it yes but not the whole. Sure you can play it Command and Conquer style if you want, but don't shoot down players who actually want to experience the Cultural, Religious, Diplomatic, Economical, Scientific and Wonder aspects of it. I'm just gonna quote Civilization's theme as evidence. "Can you BUILD a CIVILIZATION that will stand the test of time?".
Every time non-warmongers and empire builder players criticise the game for making peaceful play inefficient they are immediately derided for being lazy, noob, etc by Warmongering players who treat Civ 6 like a war game.
More often than not players who make suggestions to buff peaceful play and building aspects get flamed for trying to make the game "easier". Why the heck would you get offended that Players who like to build/develop stuff get to actually build stuff more competitively? You're not even affected because you mostly conquer stuff anyway. This is utterly ridiculous.]
Things that really need to be changed, particularly in the context of Emperor and above difficulty games.
1: War is the New Peace
Many of you should have noticed by now. Much of the game's design culminates towards military conflict and I am sad to say it is all intentional. From the way starts are positioned, to AI's aggressiveness, to gunboat diplomacy, buffs in warmongering and nerfs to peaceful play. The developers went through great lengths to ensure that conflict is the new norm.
Because of that much of the focus of the game's challenge is now centered on War when actually War is just supposed to be part of the challenge.
Ever wondered why the World Congress/Diplomatic Victory doesn't exist in Civ 6? You need a less aggressive playstyle that befriends as many opponents as possible and that is just incompatible with Civ 6's War-hungry Design.
Here is my breakdown of the current state of things.
Warmongering VS Peaceful Play.
Civ 6 Favors War WAY too much(It is too easy and too profitable); to the point where you are penalized for playing peacefully, simply because playing peacefully incurs such an extreme opportunity cost. The reasons being:
a: AI is useless at war, period.
b: AI receives up to 80% production boosts on Deity; meaning they can build districts, buildings and even wonders WAY faster than you; which inevitably makes it much more efficient to capture "pre-built" cities on top of settling your own. Which brings me to the next point.
c: City Capture Penalties.
When you captured a City in Civ 5, there were severe penalties that prevented a player from using the City as if it were their own, at least for a significant period of time. (Revolt, Building Destruction, Happiness/Output Penalties) This was the only mechanism that made Peaceful Play just as viable as Warmongering.
In Civ 6, no such penalties exist. No player in the right state of mind would raze districts if they were planning to capture the city; which means the only unavoidable penalty for occupying cities are damaged city center buildings and some loss in population. (Which isn't really a big deal since Housing is more of an issue than Population Growth.) You can quite literally just conquer a city and it becomes no different from any of your own. (Actually those are most likely better, since AI already built those stuff you're still struggling to.) Yeah you can't grow a City the AI doesn't cede but I have never seen an AI refuse to cede one when it's being exterminated. Sure there is the "Issue" of Warmongering Penalties; but come on we all know that doesn't do much at all.
War weariness is probably the only thing that forces players to sue for peace every now and then. The issue with it is that Players conquer way too fast for it to actually take its toll.
d: Warmongering "Penalties".
First of all the term "Penalties" is very misleading in the game because they don't actually penalize anything crucial at all and is only utilized in the context of Diplomacy.
Diplomatic Relations for the game as a whole are usually terrible anyways; Warmongering Penalty or not. AI denounces you for stupid agendas that don't even make sense and which you don't even have the slightest control over most of the time . (Rome denouncing you early on for not having a big empire. I mean seriously?) War in the late game rarely happens even if the AI hates you and you don't rely on them for anything so relations are unfortunately not very important at all. Iron Curtain all the way~
e: AI Bonuses.
AI receives disgusting bonuses on Deity and peaceful play isn't going to control runaways in any way. It's way too inefficient to race with the AI; it is far better off to cut of their legs so they can't run.
f: Military Production.
In Civ 5 there was actually a balanced opportunity cost to raising armies; namely you have to sacrifice infrastructure etc. in order to do so. Well that opportunity cost is more than halved in Civ 6 thanks to 50% Production Policy Cards as well as Encampment & Militaristic City State Bonuses. You can actually raise a large army and not fall behind much. You can have your Cake and eat it.
g: Tall play is completely nullified.
This was the signature of peaceful play that was the source of most of the advantages of playing peacefully. Housing limittations in early and mid game prevents you from getting an advantage through a larger population by bottlenecking growth.
Districts and Wonders consume workable tiles; essentially reducing poductivity of larger populations.
This forces players to constantly expand and come into direct conflict with the ai's no.1 reason for declaring war; possession of land.
This in turn encourages a large military and no reason not to use it for highly profitable warmongering.
My point being. Warmongering should NOT be more efficient than Peaceful Play; otherwise there is completely no competitive reason to not play Civ 6 Command and Conquer style.
2: Imposed Scarcity of Land.
Start locations are almost always clumped as close to each other as possible; no matter how big the map is so as to encourage more conflict faster.
The amount of effort spent into preventing players from expanding peacefully is disgusting.
3: Pacing and Great People.
a: The early game and mid game ends too early because the AI advances too quickly. More than Half of the Great people don't exist because they don't have a chance to spawn thanks to AI advancements. What is the point of having great people as an integral concept "throughout" the game eras when in actual fact we're just competing with the AI for a limited few after the renaissance?
Part of the reason why game eras progress too quickly is because it is possible to do incredible beelines while completely ignoring other paths of the tech tree. The AI is notorious for doing this and this is partly why they are still using primitive military units in the modern era. You shouldn't be able to advance to an era just because you managed to research 1 specific tech from that era. An additional requirement of researching at least half the technologies or civcs from that era should be imposed and would make much more sense.
I find it ridiculous that the faster the players progress, the less great people are available. Why is the game punishing faster progress by limiting and skipping great people based on eras?
b: Some great people are just plain overpowered and their abilities favour very different victory conditions that their type would suggest. They're all great people; why are some greater than others?
Eg. Mary Leakey. Artifacts in all your cities generate 300% of their normal Tourism
First of all I'd just like to say that +300% is just absurd.
Secondly, who is most likely to get her? Science based Civilizations since GPP for Scientists come from Science Buildings.
Thirdly, who most likely wants/needs her? Cultural Civilizations who most likely aren't as well equipped to compete for her.
Am I the only one who sees how incredibly mismatched these abilities are?
The last two great Merchants are so overpowered for cultural victories they make Great Artists look like children.
Not to mention there are Great People who have very weak abilities compared with their peers from the same era. They by existing take up the chance for the drastically better ones to spawn and more often than not the era just passes without spawning the ones you were waiting for.
c: Great People points. (GPP)
The points generated from Buildings and Wonders are so weak compared to City projects; at least from the Player's perspective. Almost all the great people I get are from City Projects ; I don't remember ever getting a Great/Artist/Musician from buildings alone. This is directly related to point 2a because Great People costs scale with Era and the pace progresses too fast for GPP from buildings to have a significant effect.
This is an issue because the Game misleading presents GPP per turn like it is the main way for acquiring great people through it Wildcard Policies and Wonders when in actual fact it is Production that gets you those Great People.
4. Inflation.
Inflation as a general concept in the game sucks, both with regards to purchasing and production costs. "Too much" is the phrase I would use. What is the point of this really? So much Fun from the Civilization series comes from the experience of seeing your cities getting more and more productive over time; ie you can build/research/buy more over time because of the right decisions that you made many turns before.
Civ 6 effectively ruins this Fun through the use of excessive inflation because now players don't get to see their cities becoming more productive. All they see now is how well they are fighting inflation. What is the fun in that?
This is also a major reason to Warmonger because capturing cities bypasses a lot of purchase/district Inflation. (Also the reason why I feet Aztecs are really strong)
Also, what is the rationale of increasing Purchase Costs for each subsequent purchase? This is particularly punishing for players seeking a Religious Victory; especially on larger maps.
The only way to combat inflating costs which gets worse and worse as the game progresses is to found more cities, but the game penalizes players for expanding late game through phenomenal district costs which are unfortunately part of the inflation problem as well.
5: Religion.
a: I won't elaborate on how dull Religious Victory is because we all know that already and I already expanded on how inflation really hurts that unfairly.
b: It is impossible (You can't compete for one) to found a Religion on Deity if your opponents favor Religion (Unless you're China or Arabia). Basically the only chance of founding one is if the AI isn't actively trying to. Anyone who disagrees can trying playing a Deity Game on small against India, Japan, Russia, Spain and of course Arabia.
Stonehenge is unbuildable on Deity unless you're China. I've seen it go without fail around turn 25, earliest I've seen is turn 20. Which brings me to the next point.
6: Wonders.
More than half the Wonders are very underpowered compared with Wonders in Civ 5. I would even go as far to say that Wonders were intentionally nerfed in Civ 6 so you won't have a Significant advantage building them and won't lose out much if you didn't. Wonders are supposed to give significant advantages, if not what's the point of building them?
Also I'm sick and tired of getting beat to wonders because AI has up to +80% production on higher difficulties.
It is already unfair that they get technologies and civics to unlock wonders at an earlier stage. Production boost on top of that is a no no. There is a huge difference between competing with an unfair advantage vs ZERO competition at all.
I find it utterly ridiculous that the only way you can build a wonder on deity is if the AI doesn't go for it. That totally destroys the fun of building wonders at all because the ultimate answer to this negative experience is always "Don't build wonders at all." (Unless you're China, of course.) You simply can't risk it.
Seriously? Wonders are an Integral part of the game experience and players should have a chance to compete for them at ANY point of the game. And by compete I mean race an AI to completing one; not getting off lucky because the AI isn't gonna build it.There should not be an "Unbuildable" wonder at all. What's the point of having Wonders in the game if the most efficient strategies have to omit them?
AI don't get production boosts to Wonders in Civ 5 and that worked out fine. At least there was still a chance.
Oh and stop with the "Wonders aren't compulsory/important etc etc" arguments please. The bottom line is they are a HUGE PART of the game and should not be considered an "inefficiency" in any general strategy.
AI should not be able to construct Wonders before certain time frames just because they've unlocked it earlier than any human player ever can. Simply put, the criteria for Wonder Construction should be that an EFFICIENT Human Player CAN compete reasonably with the AI for them.
Wonders and Efficiency should not have an Inverse Relationship.
7: Theming Bonuses
Let's face it Great Artists/Musicians don't contribute much to Cultural Victory at all.
Great Musicians are very rare. Great Artists are better but the issue lies with theming their works.
It's extremely difficult to theme an Art Musuem and incredibly easy to theme Artifacts. Yet their themed output is the same. The ease of Artifact theming and collection nullifies any advantage of earning great artists and makes them redundant. It really looks like it is designed in such a way that Cultural Great People don't provide much of an advantage so that players who didn't get them can still catch up and that really defeats the point of trying so hard to earn them.
Who decided that theming bonuses should only apply to Artworks and Artifacts? The lack of theming bonuses for Writing and Music makes them very underpowered.
Also, it would appear that Cultural Wonders were created without Theming Bonuses so that they don't offer significant advanatges.
It's funny how a Hermitage/Broadway fully stocked with Great Works produces less Culture and Tourism than a themed Archaeological Musuem.
8: Diplomacy
Diplomacy is currently a wreck in Civ 6.
a: Most AI Agendas are beyond the player's control and don't even make sense. Case in point? Rome. Trajan hates anyone who has a small empire, because he likes big empires. How does that even make sense? If you like big empires then your greatest enemies are other large empires because they're taking up precious land you could be expanding to. And how is a player supposed to try and meet his agenda? Just try and found more cities like it's just so easy to do so?
Building a friendship with AI is so dependent on chance or so difficult to achieve that it is just not reasonably within the player's control to befriend almost anyone.
By the mid-late game everyone hates everyone else because nobody can meet anybody elese's agendas and this is just ridiculous. Sure you might have a friend/neutral or two because of pure chance but how does that help when everyone else hates you.
The default "everyone will hate you" state of things makes Warmongering Penalties insignificant. They already hate you anyway.
b: Diplomatic Penalties are insignificant.
So what if the AI hates you? At most you can't trade Luxuries with them without getting ripped off but if you ask me that's usually not much of a downside. In fact, even if they made the game in such a way that you can't even send traders to players who hate you it won't be a significant penalty at all.
c: There should be more options available, such as Ultimatums. "Converting my cities is a declaration of War. Settling Right beside me is a Declration of War. " etc. I'm appalled that you can only tell an AI not to settle near you when they've already done so comfortably right beside your capital. I mean how else did the AI expect me to react besides razing that city? To make matters worse after razing that offending city you are immediately labelled a warmonger for the rest of the game. They started it and I can't do anything about it without being hated for the rest of the game?
9: City States
a: City states are still too vulnerable. The AI is way too aggressive against them.There should be penalties for Conquering City States, like loss of Envoys from other city states and even the permanent war against city states for conquering too many.
b: City State Disparity.
It would appear that the production-based City States are intentionally rare just to prevent players from building more competitively. I've never seen more than two even on larger maps and the AI loves to conquer them for some reason.
c: City State Insurgencies.
For some reason City States are always facing rebellions in the late game and it's ridiculous. These Rebel Barbarians always end up spilling over to your lands and there's nothing you can do to eliminate the source without conquering the City State.
d: Reward for being the first to meet a City state.
Remember you tried to balance out starts so everyone has a fair chance? While this completely ruins it. Those +2 outputs for the Capital City can mean a very huge difference and it is completely up to luck whether a player finds them or not.
To be continued...
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