Millenia vs. Civ VI

[Zegangani]

I would be curious about those detailed map tacks/extended policy card mods though. The latter in particular is one I have wished existed.

Detailed Map Tacks:

Steam Workshop::Detailed Map Tacks

steamcommunity.com

Extended Policy Cards,

Steam Workshop::Extended Policy Cards

steamcommunity.com

the latter requires the Better Report Screen Mod:

Steam Workshop::Better Report Screen (UI)

steamcommunity.com

you can even move Districts with:

Steam Workshop::Movable Districts

steamcommunity.com

 

[civac]

I'm seeing a Symptome of Mods here rather than bad game UI. Just bc now we have Quick Deals doesn't mean that any Game that doesn't offer that is now bad. Quick Deals is a Cheat. You're supposed to interact with the Leaders, and bargain with them, where giving demanding less gold from them or offering more than necessary has a positive effect on Diplomatic Relationship. Quick Deals skips that and gives you the lowest/highest prices immediately (no diplo gains). And AFAICT, no Game that doesn't have an Open Market offers that. Why is it now the fault of Civ6? Just bc this is made as a Mod now (and hopefully also implemented in future games in more interesting ways, mainly as a Market tool, bc just like you, I like that ease of use) doesn't mean that all previous games that didn't have it are dumb and bad for not having thought of that prior. In other words, it's not bad UI. It's just an over-convinience mod, which is fine, I use it too, but I don't look at vanilla Civ6 trade and say "that's bad UI" now that I'm using Quick Deals.

Civ4 automatically sets it to the best deal for you the AI will accept the same way the Quick Deal mod apparently does.

 

[blackbutterfly]

Civ4 automatically sets it to the best deal for you the AI will accept the same way the Quick Deal mod apparently does.

Civ has been on a gentle slope of regression at least since Civ 4.

I mean SMAC/X had terraforming in the early 00s.
Only with Civ VI GS did we get any kind of landform changes (by flooding, etc).

So what do you folks think of Millennia vs. Civ VI?
(I uninstalled mine to play Homeworld 3 Demo).

 

[Zegangani]

Civ4 automatically sets it to the best deal for you the AI will accept the same way the Quick Deal mod apparently does.

But, AFAIK, you don't get a Diplomatic Modifier for offering a favorable Deal for the other Player like in Civ6, so it doesn't make sense to offer more, less is always the optimal choice, which makes sense there, but not in Civ6. But you also still have to visit each Leader to know the best offer you can get for your Marble, there is no Panel where you have everything listed and sorted, which is what Quick Deals does.

I also wanted to partially correct myself here, bc I forgot about Total war 3 Kingdoms, which has a Quick Deals option, and which seems to be the inspiration for the Mod for Civ6. But only "partially" bc even in this Game that offers this Option, which many People seem to perceive as the best way to make Deals, still has it as an Option, not as the main way to enact Deals. Why? Bc even though the Devs came up with such a Tool, they still know that the best way to make Deals is through bargaining. Why? Bc with bargaining you can customize the Deal however you want, add more Items to offer if you don't have enough Gold for the Great Work you want from the other Player, or even close more deals in 1 Go. You can't do that with Quick Deals. Bc that's what it is, a quick way to get the best Price for a specific Item or Items, with the Cost mostly paid with 1 Resource (Gold). In other words, each has its purpose, its pros and cons. None should be the only way to make Deals.

That being said, the Deals (and also Diplomacy as a whole) in Total war 3 Kingdoms are better designed than Civ6. You can easily see at a glance if the other Player likes your Offer, and any change in Offer or Demand is immediately reflected in the UI at the Bottom whether the other Player likes it or not, makes bargaining much easier. And the "Make This Work" is also a life saver if you don't want to negotiate yourself. We do have the "Make this Deal more equitable" in Civ6, but I'm not sure it works as intended tbh.

 

[MrRadar]

But, AFAIK, you don't get a Diplomatic Modifier for offering a favorable Deal for the other Player like in Civ6, so it doesn't make sense to offer more, less is always the optimal choice, which makes sense there, but not in Civ6. But you also still have to visit each Leader to know the best offer you can get for your Marble, there is no Panel where you have everything listed and sorted, which is what Quick Deals does.

I also wanted to partially correct myself here, bc I forgot about Total war 3 Kingdoms, which has a Quick Deals option, and which seems to be the inspiration for the Mod for Civ6. But only "partially" bc even in this Game that offers this Option, which many People seem to perceive as the best way to make Deals, still has it as an Option, not as the main way to enact Deals. Why? Bc even though the Devs came up with such a Tool, they still know that the best way to make Deals is through bargaining. Why? Bc with bargaining you can customize the Deal however you want, add more Items to offer if you don't have enough Gold for the Great Work you want from the other Player, or even close more deals in 1 Go. You can't do that with Quick Deals. Bc that's what it is, a quick way to get the best Price for a specific Item or Items, with the Cost mostly paid with 1 Resource (Gold). In other words, each has its purpose, its pros and cons. None should be the only way to make Deals.

That being said, the Deals (and also Diplomacy as a whole) in Total war 3 Kingdoms are better designed than Civ6. You can easily see at a glance if the other Player likes your Offer, and any change in Offer or Demand is immediately reflected in the UI at the Bottom whether the other Player likes it or not, makes bargaining much easier. And the "Make This Work" is also a life saver if you don't want to negotiate yourself. We do have the "Make this Deal more equitable" in Civ6, but I'm not sure it works as intended tbh.

I'm sorry, but that is a most convoluted way to justify a huge waste of players' time and actions every time they want to make a deal. Who am I playing as, after all: a ruler or some trade office employee? If as a ruler, I just want to tell my Trade Secretary: shop around and find me best deals, come back when you're ready for my signature. And Trade Secretary, aka, Quick Deals do their job, I sign, done, I'm back to more interesting decisions of statecraft. I should not need to be my own accountant as well and keep written notes when my deals end, that's the job of the UI.

Similarly with the tactics in the combat in such games. Civ 5 and 6 forces me to play as some sort of military shunter, burdening me with manually moving 30 units one by one, and where in Civ 6 they can't even swap positions if two tiles apart, while in 5 they could still do that. I'm more than happy to forfeit all such 'tactics' and abstract that into something Civ IV did, or Millenia offers to do now.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I'm sorry, but that is a most convoluted way to justify a huge waste of players' time and actions every time they want to make a deal. Who am I playing as, after all: a ruler or some trade office employee? If as a ruler, I just want to tell my Trade Secretary: shop around and find me best deals, come back when you're ready for my signature. And Trade Secretary, aka, Quick Deals do their job, I sign, done, I'm back to more interesting decisions of statecraft. I should not need to be my own accountant as well and keep written notes when my deals end, that's the job of the UI.

Similarly with the tactics in the combat in such games. Civ 5 and 6 forces me to play as some sort of military shunter, burdening me with manually moving 30 units one by one, and where in Civ 6 they can't even swap positions if two tiles apart, while in 5 they could still do that. I'm more than happy to forfeit all such 'tactics' and abstract that into something Civ IV did, or Millenia offers to do now.

You see this in all aspects of Civ6; the game design lives and dies by tedious munckin minimaxing, which is why mods like Quick Deals exist.

It’s also often terrible at giving you the information you need to be a minmaxer; the policy cards are an excellent example. Clearly the game wants you to swap cards in and out willy nilly to maximize yields, but without mods you have no idea what changes will actually happen until after you lock your cards in unless you are Sheldon Cooper and have the entire game state AND the various card effects memorized and can do all of the neccessary math in your head.

Which is why there is a mod that does that for you; blanking on the name right now but I believe it’s Extended Policy Cards

I think Millenia is going at this from the opposite end of the telescope, where it’s more about making big picture decisions and building a narrative experience.

 

[Patine]

I'm sorry, but that is a most convoluted way to justify a huge waste of players' time and actions every time they want to make a deal. Who am I playing as, after all: a ruler or some trade office employee? If as a ruler, I just want to tell my Trade Secretary: shop around and find me best deals, come back when you're ready for my signature. And Trade Secretary, aka, Quick Deals do their job, I sign, done, I'm back to more interesting decisions of statecraft. I should not need to be my own accountant as well and keep written notes when my deals end, that's the job of the UI.

Similarly with the tactics in the combat in such games. Civ 5 and 6 forces me to play as some sort of military shunter, burdening me with manually moving 30 units one by one, and where in Civ 6 they can't even swap positions if two tiles apart, while in 5 they could still do that. I'm more than happy to forfeit all such 'tactics' and abstract that into something Civ IV did, or Millenia offers to do now.

This speaks as though all players considering such bargaining a waste of time and trust such delegation.

You see this in all aspects of Civ6; the game design lives and dies by tedious munckin minimaxing, which is why mods like Quick Deals exist.

It’s also often terrible at giving you the information you need to be a minmaxer; the policy cards are an excellent example. Clearly the game wants you to swap cards in and out willy nilly to maximize yields, but without mods you have no idea what changes will actually happen until after you lock your cards in unless you are Sheldon Cooper and have the entire game state AND the various card effects memorized and can do all of the neccessary math in your head.

Which is why there is a mod that does that for you; blanking on the name right now but I believe it’s Extended Policy Cards

I think Millenia is going at this from the opposite end of the telescope, where it’s more about making big picture decisions and building a narrative experience.

I, myself, enjoy such fully hands-on playing in a 4X game, and I know other players do too. I greatly enjoyed MoO2, but gave MoO3 a miss when they proudly advertised game features to mandatorily restrict a player's micromanagement as a feature, for example.

 

[LastSword]

UI / UX
I don't know why but main menu's animation was lagging.
Hotkeys present to some extent, actions' tooltips should display them (guessing is not fun). No Ctrl-S/L though. ESC deselects units (therefore double tap is sometimes required to access game menu).
Dragging around the map feels... weird. It doesn't help that you can actually select individual plots. Maybe WSAD is the way to go.
No "swap" or "declare war" movement available. Though swap is understandable due to how army system works.
Information is lacking, warfare, goverment, exploration (etc.) points could easily display value per turn.
The innovation effect is hidden in accept button tooltip (the message is pure flavour, there should be bullets with effect).
Moving/attacking is less clunky than civ6 but still not perfect.
Some weird stuff in city-view which I didn't bother to decipher (not the best betatester - I know) - production panel looked nice though.
Imperfect UI refresh - (displayed values do not refresh instantly on obtaining a bonus). Same as civ6.
Plot highlighting (/lens) is almost non-existent. There are some icons when you want to place an improvement. However to check valid location for a town you have to hover over plot.
Improvements are created by spending special yield by purely clicking on interface and map. Feels satisfying. Civ6 deaded and obsoleted.
Finally, the combat screen. They have to add an option to disable it. Add some floating numbers/texts instead (or just a conclusion popup). Right now you have to click ESC just after an attack.
Clouds (also weirdly present in fog of war areas) can be turned off, even though the alternative is also medicore. Unfortunately there are also passing shadows (of clouds probably). They blend visible areas with those of fog of war. I was unable to turn off those shadows. In general a better contrast/visualization between visible/revealed/unrevealed areas would be great.
The options are promising, a lot of customizable stuff - I hope they will further expand on that.
What is more, Millenia has 3D UI animations while civ series are still stuck in 2D of lua/xml UI.

I would say a tie.

Excel layer
Refreshing minor starting bonuses.
Millenia is based on mutually exclusive sets of social policies' trees called National Spirits. They are obtained upon entering 2nd/4th/... era and players gain small reward if they are the first to choose certain spirit.
There are no workers, players generate empire-wide Improvement points that can be used to create Improvement (which costs vary) and repair them. Much better system.
Millenia has a greater amount of yields, interaction with resources. Civ6 is more causal.
Game also offers very minimalistic technology... sets of five, in which player will most likely choose 3 and rush next era.
Players gather various special yields (Warfare / Exploration / Engineering) which can be spend on special actions. Quite neat.

In general excel layer is excel layer. I personally favour Millenia's solutions. Civ 6 governments and cards never felt good to me. National Spirits have better vibes and seems to be better designed than Governors. Special yields and Innovations nicely offset Great People.

Math
Good and simple. Haven't found anything as disgusting as district cost formula yet.
The most oblivious thing to me was city defenses and its heal rate.
Classic integer issue of yields (from 1 to 2 = +100% growth). Early game might be hard to balance.
It has this cute semi-random formula for Chaos and Innovation: once you exceed 100 points you have (X - 100)% to trigger an event. Very cute indeed.

AI (combat)
No fireworks. It threw 44 power army adjacent to my 90 army (despite seeing it) - thankfully not attacked .
Units sent to pillage my improvements started to fight with barbarian troops within my borders.
Units loosely parked outside a city (I would probably had an issue to conquer it otherwise).
However it does not seem that barbarians can overrun an AI.
In two games I got one notification about eliminated civilization.

Seems like a Millenia victory.

AI (economy)
Impossible to tell. There was no information about handicap in-game. It looked okay.

Vibes, map and diplomacy
There are flavour texts (goody huts popups/innovations).
Map feels like a world, cities are cities. Towns, outposts and border expansion feel all right.
Seems like AIs have personality traits - hopefully it will be noticeable in gameplay.
I have noticed nothing utterly ugly (like Pingala) which would break immersion.
Music and sound effects are rather lackluster.
Forests actually look better than in civ6... unfortunately that's it.
Adding even 2D leader portraits could enhance diplomacy / overall experience.
Vassalage (delayed control of founded and conquered cities) adds this nice tone of lack of total control.
Feels macro-oriented. Decisions seem to have more weight.

Balance
Can a game with goody huts be balanced? They felt truely powerful.
Social policies are not something that can be easily balanced either. I have already my concerns about Exploration trees.
However I believe that devs noticed the genre's issue of early expansion and tried to counter-balance it. Full wars are currently delayed by 3 turns (proceeded by fighting only in neutral territory) and there are the Vassalage and the Chaos system. Though maybe Chaos triggered due to me ignoring unrest rather than my warmongering...
Unfortunately I have a subconscious feeling that game will not be free from braindead decisions... across the technologies, buildings, goverments and national spirits.

Overall
My biggest concern is release date: "coming soon". Right now it feels like a project needs time. At least half a year.
I wish them the best, success and a budget for expansion.

Millenia right now would have to have near perfect, balanced and interactive gameplay to offset the advantages civ series have.
On the contrary to OP I believe Millenia is very very very civ like.
However I agree with OP that it seems like a more interesting Old World.

 

[civac]

But, AFAIK, you don't get a Diplomatic Modifier for offering a favorable Deal for the other Player like in Civ6, so it doesn't make sense to offer more, less is always the optimal choice, which makes sense there, but not in Civ6. But you also still have to visit each Leader to know the best offer you can get for your Marble, there is no Panel where you have everything listed and sorted, which is what Quick Deals does.

That's also false. You do get diplomatic credit with an AI for giving it favourable terms up to a limit of +4 relation modifier. Nothing blocks you from offering something extra once you know the optimal terms. Or gift say a happiness resource outside of that deal to gain favour.

Sorry about messing with you a bit. Of course, it's unreasonable to expect you to know these details and it's tangential to the discussion anyway. More to the point, I fully agree with Mr. Radar (again). Defending the triangulation algorithm necessary in Civ5/6 to arrive at a good deal is wild! Btw, in Smac the AI would make an offer and you could make a single counteroffer which they sometimes would accept, sometimes not. You do get some of the negotiation without all of the pain.

 

[Gorbles]

Civ has been on a gentle slope of regression at least since Civ 4.

I mean SMAC/X had terraforming in the early 00s.
Only with Civ VI GS did we get any kind of landform changes (by flooding, etc).

So what do you folks think of Millennia vs. Civ VI?
(I uninstalled mine to play Homeworld 3 Demo).

SMAC doesn't work . . . anything like Civ V does, nevermind VI.

This is like saying "Dawn of War had death animations". Yes, it did. It had timed animations that played out on death that you couldn't interrupt or opt out of. Later iterations of the franchise used a more modern animation system (Havok) that afforded more control (at the cost of more complicated models and sim data).

I will champion SMAC until the end of time, but "this 25 year old video game managed to simulate something in a vastly less complicated simulation than modern games simulate" ain't the gotcha you think it is. Also, I hope to never abuse the word "simulate" that much in a sentence again

 

[Nikolai II]

SMAC doesn't work . . . anything like Civ V does, nevermind VI.

This is like saying "Dawn of War had death animations". Yes, it did. It had timed animations that played out on death that you couldn't interrupt or opt out of. Later iterations of the franchise used a more modern animation system (Havok) that afforded more control (at the cost of more complicated models and sim data).

I will champion SMAC until the end of time, but "this 25 year old video game managed to simulate something in a vastly less complicated simulation than modern games simulate" ain't the gotcha you think it is. Also, I hope to never abuse the word "simulate" that much in a sentence again

Removing massive amounts of terrain with planetary super weapons never got old though.

 

[Patine]

Removing massive amounts of terrain with planetary super weapons never got old though.

But it dropped Godwinson and the UN guy and Gaian woman's attitude to you VERY quickly - even if they weren't being targetted.

 

[civac]

One of my most memorable Smac games included a very extensive and protracted nuclear exchange between Zac and Miriam. They created a new inland sea between them.

 

[Solver]

But it dropped Godwinson and the UN guy and Gaian woman's attitude to you VERY quickly - even if they weren't being targetted.

Yeah but then you could proceed to drop their cities into the ocean so who cares?

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Actually i'm more into Microsoft project. can't remember a name but it looks more promising.
Millenia combat looks too much like Call to Power series. while it's quite more appeal to me with how army actually moves around the map and scale is not really OFF. it looks like CTP with HOMM rules added on (walls had to be tore down first in siege i think).

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Actually i'm more into Microsoft project. can't remember a name but it looks more promising.

ARA?

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Yes.
I begin to think ARA is the future of 4X Grandscale game. something @Boris Gudenuf kun is looking for. if he's looking for that 4X game that truly simulates mankind history developments and empire buildings

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Yes.
I begin to think ARA is the future of 4X Grandscale game. something @Boris Gudenuf kun is looking for. if he's looking for that 4X game that truly simulates mankind history developments and empire buildings

Right now ARA and Millennia appear to both have things they do well and a lot of things that, as far as I can see, they do poorly or not at all. Still waiting for the Perfect 4X unless one of them pulls a massive Gaming Rabbit out of their designer's hats by their Release date . . .

 

[aieeegrunt]

Right now ARA and Millennia appear to both have things they do well and a lot of things that, as far as I can see, they do poorly or not at all. Still waiting for the Perfect 4X unless one of them pulls a massive Gaming Rabbit out of their designer's hats by their Release date . . .

I have 18 pages of mods trying to bash Civ6 into that.

Excelsior!

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I have 18 pages of mods trying to bash Civ6 into that.

Excelsior!

I haven't even tried playing Civ VI without Mods for over three years, and even with Mods I've played less than 50 hours in the past 24 months . . .​