Map generation criticism

[Naokaukodem]

I've searched if there was a similar topic already and find none, surprinsingly.

I guess people are more satisfied with Civ6 that they were with 5. (there's a rant topic in Civ5 forums)

I must say my main rant is about the world generator : feels too odd, too often.

Lastly i played with Portugal... y'know, where you NEED coastal cities to trade with... the only map generation i got "normal" (in the YouTubers book) outcome I was in a long island, with few land tiles to work, very few production, and very little space for districts... I was RICH, but : after turn X (probably around 150) I was last in tech, the second last had 10 techs more and the first : 30 techs more !!! Can you imagine ? I think I can't realize this myself yet.

Well, the other tries were that there was no coastal city to trade with whatsoever, what makes me angry. Seriously, what game settings must i set up in order to have proper world generation ? My "normal" try was Archipelago high sea, but there's that... all my other attempts finished with no coastal city to trade with whatsoever... I'm desparate of that game, it disgusts me greatly.

I'm believing in luck... or in RNG, where some computers would have better results than others... or maybe all this depends on how the Moon is high in the sky (I mean, the time you usually play at Civ6) ?

There MUST be something ! Hocus Pocus...

 

[Aurelesk]

I agree, map generation is rather tricky. It is a RNG component but somehow I mostly like it, since you can adapt from it.

I believe that starting each time at the best location does not make me able to really adapt and improve at the game. In the end, I am okay with "bad" spot as long it is not too bad or stupid (like starting on a 10 straight tiles long island of snow which happens way less: has the map generation been improved?).
I would love to see Tundra and Desert be less inhospitable if you start there, like 1 Food/Faith for Tundra, 1 Production/Gold for Desert, and the ability to put Farms on Tundra/Desert tiles with fresh water. It would still be bad, but at least you have a different perspective and gameplan if you start there, instead of "well I guess I am going to lose the game due to a slow start".
I believe the Maori tend to screw up map generation, as if the game put a massive hole of water in the middle of a continent each time they appeared.

In the end, I am roughly okay with map generation and its RNG component, even if it could be improved. What I am not okay with as an RNG component are Natural Disasters. I want to rant against Natural Disasters. Yeah, I am not the greatest fan, and I have many complaints about it. Namely: the yield inflation. Why?

Volcanoes do not start with Volcanic Soil around them, as if they never erupted before humanity started Agriculture. Furthermore, if a Volcano is surrounded by water tiles, those tiles are wasted since you cannot "fertilize" them. I would love to see some land expansion thanks to Volcanoes. Or instead, have Volcanoes systemically surrounded by Volcanic Soil.

I am coming back to yield inflation: since Volcanoes should have already erupted before civilizations appeared, Rivers flooded, and more... then, by that logic, those tiles should be already inflated long before! I know, logic is scappred for gameplay, but that illogical thing is upsetting me for some reason.
Shouldn't the yield be temporary? After all, Droughts are temporary negative yields so it is doable.

Droughts are not mitigated by Aqueduct since the Farms are still pillaged (I need to recheck that). Putting Woods doesn't prevent Drought either, since they can snake around Woods for some reason. Also, Droughts are always going to start on the same tiles, the same cursed tiles all the game. I believe that the game rolls a dice, says that Drought has 10% to appear each turn. If it is Drought time, then the game checks where the Drought can appear and, either it picks the location available or something.

Tornadoes are just random free destruction. Haboob and Blizzard are really detrimental to the point of settling in an inhospitable area even more unhospitable. Liang is not going to save you. With her Reinforced Materials, she is an expert at improvement saving but the Population can die, she doesn't care!

In the end, I believe Apocalypse Mode failed not because of its silliness, but how Natural Disasters works. The only thing that keeps Apocalypse Mode played is the hope to do the Great Bath trick.

 

[The googles do nothing]

I feels like the game is designed for you to settle on resources and chop everything.

People complain that the AI doesn't try to win. People quit public MP game after 10 minute if they don't think they will win.

 

[Aristos]

As much as I would like to see everyone expressing their frustration with the direction the franchise has taken in a huge rant festival, I can only say this: it's useless. Civ 6 is done, and will remain forever (or until the next worse) as the iteration that did not live to its potential (AI, shameful bugs, questionable modes, money grabbing business model, etcetcetc).

If anything, rant with your WALLET. You will have your first opportunity in August.

 

[Aurelesk]

If anything, rant with your WALLET. You will have your first opportunity in August.

This is where you are wrong! You can rant against a peculiar thing on something, while not being against that very something. You can love pizza, but dislike the very thought of having pickled herring on said pizza (it is too strong: you are ruining it!). I love Civilization VI, at such a point that I would buy Civilization VII without being too afraid about the quality of the game. However, you can love something but still not love everything about it

This is the whole point of it. Ranting is caring. You don't want to surround yourself with yes-men that tell you every aspect of the game is superb and nothing is wrong: because it is the best way to fall down while thinking you did only good and nothing bad. But I guess it is a cultural thing: some areas and people are more prone to tolerate or even adhere to the whole concept of ranting, and some areas and people are more prone to think ranting as free wickedness and unwanted behavior.
I am pretty sure I am confusing "ranting" for another word.

 

[Conquistador_514]

They didn't bother to make an AI that can even play the game, and that is quite frankly unforgivable, the AI is even worse than in Civ 5, and that was a really dumb downed civ. Then they added all these new modes, and the AI can't even play them either, just making the whole thing into a joke, I wasn't expecting Sky net or anything either, I just wanted it to be able to play the game, use an air force and naval units, not suicide all it's units into a frontal attack on walls without any ranged or siege support, be able to use heroes, secret societies etc, to actually pick a victory type and go for it etc. It can't even improve it's land, just building farms, it's just so pathetic. I do however like the district system, but that's about it.

 

[Aristos]

You don't want to surround yourself with yes-men that tell you every aspect of the game is superb and nothing is wrong.

No I don't. Yet here we are.

 

[hhhhhh]

The only thing I want to rant is that the program of civ is too slow and it's very inefficient. It's a bloatware. If you dig a little it hurts your feelings.

I will list some below. To clarify I'm not being picky but these findings convince me that the program is probably very inefficient and could partly explain the complaint about AI being stupid -- it's possible that given the current state of the code base, if you add a reasonable code on AI then every turn would take 3 minutes (and the same AI would only take 15 seconds if the program is more optimized). Same applied to things like loading times (it's very long for me!).

------------

Do you know that every single save file contains translations of map types and game difficulty level into different languages? To quote from a save file: {"LOC_DIFFICULTY_EMPEROR_NAME":[{"locale":"en_US","text":"Emperor"},{"locale":"fr_FR","text":"Empereur"},{"locale":"de_DE","text":"Kaiser"},{"locale":"it_IT","text":"Imperatore"},{"locale":"es_ES","text":"Emperador","plurality":"1","gender":"masculine"}, ...

and then it goes on to log leader names in different languages, e.g. {"LOC_LEADER_WILHELMINA_NAME":[{"locale":"en_US","text":"Wilhelmina"},{"locale":"fr_FR","text":"Wilhelmine","plurality":"1","gender":"feminine:no_article"},{"locale":"de_DE","text":"Wilhelmina","plurality":"1","gender":"feminine:no_article"},{"locale":"it_IT","text":"Guglielmina|di Guglielmina|a Guglielmina|Guglielmina|da Guglielmina","plurality":"1","gender":"feminine"},

Or in every turn you take there are possibly a lot of RNG calls of every turn that's generating a random number between 0 and 0? (randcall with range 1). Every turn the game calls the RNG to decide which tile your city is going to expand to, and a lot of times you only got one choices, but it's still called and logged.

And there are some bugs where modders can fix in one day but is never fixed by Firaxis. Talk to modders and you will know.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

No I don't. Yet here we are.

are you sure? You calling civ frantics a yes man? Cause I have seen MANY AND MANY criticism against civ 6 and hardly any praises for civ 6 here... some even calling it worst game of franchise that will be forgotten in the future.

 

[Tigranes]

As much as I would like to see everyone expressing their frustration with the direction the franchise has taken in a huge rant festival, I can only say this: it's useless. Civ 6 is done, and will remain forever (or until the next worse) as the iteration that did not live to its potential (AI, shameful bugs, questionable modes, money grabbing business model, etcetcetc).

If anything, rant with your WALLET. You will have your first opportunity in August.

And what will happen in August? Civ7? New Pass?

 

[The googles do nothing]

iv6 builds a map and then try to fit the civ based on a start bias. Civ7 should be the opposite - take the start bias of the civs selected and build a map with it. Perhaps not the opposite but some melding of the two ways.

FYI... There was a interesting discussion about this issue. Many civs are now terrain dependent but map generation doesn't guarantee that that abilities will come into play.


https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ndamental-changes.664823/page-2#post-15968365

 

[Aristos]

And what will happen in August? Civ7? New Pass?

The monopoly gets broken. And it was about time.

 

[Buktu]

If anything, rant with your WALLET. You will have your first opportunity in August.

Actually I already bought the game so technically you can do this now (well since month at this point).

 

[Aristos]

Actually I already bought the game so technically you can do this now (well since month at this point).

That's the way, aha, aha, I like it.

Super wallet rant.

 

[Aurelesk]

The monopoly gets broken. And it was about time.

Turn-based strategy with semi-historical frontage game? This is a very niche genre! I
I always saw Civilization as a "what if" game, like your home alternative history adventure. What if the USA existed since the years -4000? The premise doesn't make sense, but it doesn't mean it isn't enjoyable!

When that other game will come out, I do intend to play it. It doesn't mean that I will not play Civilization VI anymore. Like some of us didn't stopped to play Civilization V when Civilization VI came: you can play both of them!
Don't get me wrong, I believe Civilization VI is a better game then previous iteration overall, but some features and gameplay mechanic from Civilization V were better for me.

I just hope both franchise will not converge into too similar game. They both need their own identity and their own gameplay.

 

[Kwami]

As much as I would like to see everyone expressing their frustration with the direction the franchise has taken in a huge rant festival, I can only say this: it's useless. Civ 6 is done, and will remain forever (or until the next worse) as the iteration that did not live to its potential (AI, shameful bugs, questionable modes, money grabbing business model, etcetcetc).

If anything, rant with your WALLET. You will have your first opportunity in August.

I think we all voted already and VI is by far the best selling entry in the series. Besides, Humankind isn't really like Civ and who even knows if it's actually going to be released in August?

As far as the map generation goes, this is one area where modders could make a big difference. But, unless you want Earth-shaped maps or giant maps or something, there really isn't much out there. I'd love to see a mod that just makes Continents as good as Pangea, for instance. The newer maps are usually better, but the older scripts would really use some love.

 

[8housesofelixir]

I like how posts criticizing a mechanic of Civ VI usually ended up with a couple of people shouting "Civ is dead, long live Humankind!" in the comments.

I'm a fan of both games, and I don't think "A is bad" equals to "B is good". Even if B is good, the reason will not be based on echo-chamber-ish praise but concrete playability.

 

[Kwami]

I like how posts criticizing a mechanic of Civ VI usually ended up with a couple of people shouting "Civ is dead, long live Humankind!" in the comments.

I'm a fan both games, and I don't think "A is bad" equals to "B is good".

There are a few posters lately that like to just ruin every topic.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Back to the map generation topic: As @hhhhhh implies, the coding of map generation is very meh. Due to the logic of the code, you will always have continents stretch to poles like an octopus, swamps clustered near tundra, the (now fixed) snowy Ley Lines, patchwork deserts, literally no outlying islands on normal setting maps, Tribal Villages distribution follows a particular line, not to say the good old bug of 1 tiles mountains in the Island Plates map type.

IIRC there are some people in the Chinese civ community trying to dig out map generation codes and optimize them as a mod. Looking forward to their work.

 

[aieeegrunt]

This is where you are wrong! You can rant against a peculiar thing on something, while not being against that very something. You can love pizza, but dislike the very thought of having pickled herring on said pizza (it is too strong: you are ruining it!). I love Civilization VI, at such a point that I would buy Civilization VII without being too afraid about the quality of the game. However, you can love something but still not love everything about it

This is the whole point of it. Ranting is caring. You don't want to surround yourself with yes-men that tell you every aspect of the game is superb and nothing is wrong: because it is the best way to fall down while thinking you did only good and nothing bad. But I guess it is a cultural thing: some areas and people are more prone to tolerate or even adhere to the whole concept of ranting, and some areas and people are more prone to think ranting as free wickedness and unwanted behavior.
I am pretty sure I am confusing "ranting" for another word.

People who generally hate this game/franchise are not going to join a forum for it

You’re ranters are probably big fans who see so much wasted potential it’s killing them