Millenia vs. Civ VI

[Nikolai II]

Wow for multiplayer as well? I guess that's why I like civ 6 because it has good mods for multiplayer.

It can be turned off if wanted. But I am in three PBC games in OW now where it is on.

 

[pokiehl]

It can be turned off if wanted. But I am in three PBC games in OW now where it is on.

This approach is the way to go, IMO. Let players have it as a togglable option, even in MP. Let me play the game how I want to play it.

 

[MrRadar]

Well, I have now had 6 runs of the demo, and tldr; at this moment is this: when this game comes out, there will be no reason for both Civ V and Civ VI to exist on my hard drive anymore.

This is the best synthesis of different elements from other 4x games so far, leaving out all the fluff, and that results in quite simple systems that nevertheless are very engaging and offer a lot of worthy choices and tradeoffs at every step. I find settling control mechanics best since Civ IV: no predefined regions, no predefined settling spots (and those two elements immediately ruin player's experience a bit), but the choice is given between having a new policy, an integration of an existing settlement or producing a new settler - and everything can be worthy of consideration depending of the circumstances. There seems to be a lot of game currencies, and the ways to spend them seem quite logical and interesting. I can't wait to see the mid- and late gameplay.

UI: I've seen quite some critisism, but, frankly, I don't get it. UI seems very fine to me, it's handy, friendly, no unncessary clics so far. Anyway, I find it incomparably more user friendly than in Civ VI where the UI is bordering user hostile, misinforming the player (e.g., length of trade router), not giving information and forcing to make 10 mouse clics where a couple would be enough (compare trading luxuries and other resources without and with the Quick Deals mod). Civ VI has never had a finished UI, in fact its systems look like Civ VI never left early access either.

Graphics: its a question of taste and personal preferences, of course, but the longer I look at it, the nicer it becomes. The picture is clean and neat, tiles are instantly recognisable, I find the looks good.

I think I'm done with the demo though, it is just too hard not to be able to continue after 60 turns and see further consequences of the initial choices made.

 

[pokiehl]

Graphics: its a question of taste and personal preferences, of course, but the longer I look at it, the nicer it becomes. The picture is clean and neat, tiles are instantly recognisable, I find the looks good.

I think even Paradox knows the game is ugly, man…I just saw an ad for the game that said something like:

“A strategy game for the thinker, not just someone who likes visual appeal”

 

[Scrabbler]

I have yet to play Millenia, but what I have seen so far looks very promising. The main mechanics that stand out so far include:
1) Uncertainty caused by the Age system, which means that players must be flexible and prepare for different game rules that may come into force, unlike in Civ 6 where you can pick a victory type and pursue that strategy for the whole game with few surprises.
2) Much more interesting use of resources than in Civ with multiple uses for resources including production chains.
3) Very different strategic paths depending on your focus on different domains and national spirits (although I am also slightly wary of the "too many currencies" problem).
4) General focus on player immersion.
5) Victory ages to end the game early if a player gets too far ahead.

It is too early to say if the final game will be worth playing, but this is what stands out to me so far.

 

[MrRadar]

I think even Paradox knows the game is ugly, man…I just saw an ad for the game that said something like:

“A strategy game for the thinker, not just someone who likes visual appeal”

Idk, are you sure the meaning of this isn't rather opposite? Like, not only we provided a nice wrapper, but the candy inside is pretty good too!

And no, it is far from ugly. I agree that the graphics won't win beauty contests, but they're not at all off-putting, they're nice enough. It is all a matter of getting used to.
Remember the very first screenshots of Civ VI? That zoomed-in swordsman with cartoony, stylized sword? And some other equally questionable zoomed-in shots? And how much virtual ink was spilt over that? Civ VI ended up being a game with very pretty graphics. However, the content inside under that wrapper turned out to be much less pretty. And I'm not gonna lie, when I saw the first screenshot of Millennia, I was much less enthusiastic about the art style, but when I loaded the demo and saw how it looks in front of my eyes, suddenly it was much better.

Now that I thought about it more, Millennia might be shaping up to be what some of us waited for for a long time - a thorough remake and remaster of Civ IV, in very broad sense, of course. Where Civ V and Civ VI increasingly took a route of ever bigger visual appeal, and dumbing down their systems, and in case of Civ VI it has approached tragic levels of mismatch between visuals and gameplay quality - a huge amount of development resources was dedicated to leader figures and animations, for example, and the actual programming of the AI was left in the hands of the proverbial single employee, probably intern, and the gameplay and quality of the product indeed kinda supports such allegations. Meanwhile, Millennia might pick up things where Civ IV and CTP2 left them, and take another route, cooking us a magnificent cake, which also integrates some of the spicier things from later civ installments, but avoids their culinary mistakes in the process. But we'll see. It is far too early to say something for sure. So for now, I'll just cross my fingers and hope for the best

 

[_hero_]

I think even Paradox knows the game is ugly, man…I just saw an ad for the game that said something like:

“A strategy game for the thinker, not just someone who likes visual appeal”

Hot take: I think the obsession with pretty graphics is why so many AAA games fail to live up to expectations. These companies blow their budgets on beauty at the expense of gameplay, then they try making all their money selling cosmetics. Meanwhile, you have low-budget indie games that focus on gameplay or at least making some fun, industry-defying experience.

I used to think "This game looks low-budget, it won't succeed" back in the day too. Then Minecraft happened. Turns out there are plenty of people who will play a game that you can run on a toaster if the game itself is fun.

 

[pokiehl]

Hot take: I think the obsession with pretty graphics is why so many AAA games fail to live up to expectations. These companies blow their budgets on beauty at the expense of gameplay, then they try making all their money selling cosmetics. Meanwhile, you have low-budget indie games that focus on gameplay or at least making some fun, industry-defying experience.

I used to think "This game looks low-budget, it won't succeed" back in the day too. Then Minecraft happened. Turns out there are plenty of people who will play a game that you can run on a toaster if the game itself is fun.

Hot take: great games need to excel in all dimensions, presentation included. Doing well in one part but neglecting another isn’t enough.

I have a big 4k OLED monitor and a high l-end graphics card. I don’t want to spend my time looking at something ugly.

And by the way, good presentation doesn’t necessarily mean expensive photorealistic graphics with raytracing. It’s about having an aesthetic and cohesive art direction.

 

[Solver]

I've always said that gameplay is way more important than graphics. Doubly so for strategy games, I'd still happily play strategy games with isometric sprites, Civ3 style, if the gameplay is good.

What's strange to me is when a game picks an art style incompatible with its goals and budget. There are many ways to do simple, cheap graphics even now. Look at Into the Breach, Slay the Spire, This War of Mine, Pentiment and other games from recent years with a lower budget and great presentation. It's very difficult on the other hand to do 3D art without a certain budget. 3D does not age as well as 2D does, so low-poly models with stilted animations do not look retro, they look cheap and/or incompetent like a student project. Unless, I guess, a game manages to pull off a very particular 3D style, like Superhot did with its low-poly graphics.

 

[Quintillus]

I agree with MrRadar. Millennia could (key word "could") be the Civ IV successor that some of us older-time Civ players have longed for, and which Civ V definitely wasn't, and Civ VI isn't really either. A return to a focus on core game mechanics and competent AI play, while thematically covering all of human history. The demo doesn't include enough of that timespan to say if it will work out in practice. But the game play in the first few eras is, IMO, promising. It was that "one more turn" appeal that Civ III and IV do, and (in part due to the tedium of 1 UPT, trade route reassignment, deals expiring, etc.) Civ V and VI don't to the same extent.

Graphics and user interface? I consider them separate. Graphics, I'm very much in the "I play strategy games for the gameplay" camp. Admittedly, if a game is limited to 640x480 resolution, that's not a point in its favor, but in practice, for any game that's new today, as long as I can discern which element is which, the graphics are probably going to be okay. Millennia is, IMO, perfectly adequate in the graphics department. I'd much rather they focus on good gameplay and figuring out the design for the remaining 6 eras (and the various alternative-eras) than blowing their budget on pretty graphics and not having good gameplay.

User interface? It's not bad. I've seen information better-surfaced in other games, but what already exists in Millennia is good enough. It's notable here that Civ VI also does a fairly poor job of surfacing information and explaining its systems, and has the dubious distinction of being the first Civ game for which I play with mods in single player specifically to improve the user interface and availability of information. So, if you find Civ VI's non-modded UI to be sufficient, I think you'll find Millennia's UI to be sufficient as it is today, and it may wind up being a lot better if they incorporate some of the suggestions from players of the demo.

So... we'll see how it is at launch. But at this point, I'm cautiously optimistic that Millennia understands that gameplay is what made Civ I through IV great, makes Old World great (along with the storytelling), and can propel it to success.

----

Edit: I'll also note that if you've only played Old World through the tutorials, you really need to give a whole game of Old World a try. The tutorials do a good job of teaching you the mechanics, but a full game is necessary to really appreciate why it's such a good game.

 

[pokiehl]

I'd much rather they focus on good gameplay and figuring out the design for the remaining 6 eras (and the various alternative-eras) than blowing their budget on pretty graphics and not having good gameplay.

This is a non-sequitur false dichotomy that keeps getting brought up. There’s no disconnect or tension between having good gameplay and having a polished, aesthetic presentation.

Graphics and gameplay are not zero-sum. Good graphics do not preclude good gameplay. And if graphics didn’t matter at all, you’d be happy playing Civ with the interface reduced to an Excel spreadsheet.

Again, “good graphics” doesn’t have to mean photorealistic, state-of-the-art graphics with raytracing, and it certainly doesn’t have to be some scary line item on the budget that destroys the rest of the game (this isn’t even how game development works. The art team and the programmers aren’t drawing from the same bucket. Having a better art style for Millenia wouldn’t stop programmers from fleshing out the eras or whatever).

There are plenty of lower budget games with amazing graphics (meaning, amazing art direction and focused execution). Games like Tunic and Sifu look really nice but are by no means high-budget AAA games.

 

[Solver]

this isn’t even how game development works. The art team and the programmers aren’t drawing from the same bucket

That's not necessarily accurate either. For a small-budget game, the real limit is how much development money there is in total, either self-funded or through a publisher deal. Of course the money will then effectively be split into different areas, but if a publisher has agreed to give X million then that's all you have, for art, programming and everything else in total.

If you're a big franchise guaranteed to make a profit, that's then a bit different, you can then go and say we need X for art, Y for programming so we need X + Y in development budget.

 

[HktkNban]

To hire good people, you need to pay them well.
Hiring both good artists and good game designers requires a high budget.

However, a combination of a terrible artist (who can be hired for cheap wages) or a generative AI (no wages required) and a good game designer would suffice on a smaller budget.
On the other hand, even a combination of a good artist and a terrible game designer can save the budget.

Limited budgets require sacrificing either graphics or gameplay.

 

[Marla_Singer]

To hire good people, you need to pay them well.
Hiring both good artists and good game designers requires a high budget.

However, a combination of a terrible artist (who can be hired for cheap wages) or a generative AI (no wages required) and a good game designer would suffice on a smaller budget.
On the other hand, even a combination of a good artist and a terrible game designer can save the budget.

Limited budgets require sacrificing either graphics or gameplay.

Frankly, nowadays I would say good graphics is more a matter of time allocated to developping them than a matter of talent. And by time allocated I mean both the time spent per art designer and the total number of art designers hired in the project. That's what is expensive to me, more than finding talented ones. That's what exploded the resources required to develop a game.

 

[Zegangani]

And no, it is far from ugly.

I agree, they are not ugly. Some of the Improvements' Graphics would actually fit in Civ6, if reskinned. But you can hardly fall in love with it either.

Civ VI ended up being a game with very pretty graphics

This is not quite true. Civ6 didn't end-up being pretty, it always was. It's just that people at that Time weren't yet ready for a very cartoonish looking style in a Civ Game. Especially after the 1st realistic (muddy) looking Civ5. But that was it: Civ5 Players being too used to that, and most of them not having played Civ4 and previous Civ Games to realize it was always like that. And especially at that Time, Civ5 Players were the most vocal Civ Players, with most Civ Youtubers (at least the ones with big Fan Communities) also being Civ5 Fans, you can easily see how that may have affected how people perceived Civ6. This is not to bash on Civ5 Players, afterall my first Game was Civ5, which is what hooked me into Civ, and I'm also guilty of being one of those who thought Civ6 was ugly when it first came out. I was too used to Civ5, too.

However, the content inside under that wrapper turned out to be much less pretty.

This couldn't be further from the Truth. As I said above, I was at first turned off by the Graphics, but since I couldn't find an alternative to Civ, I just gave it a try nonetheless, to see what it has to offer before I return back to 5. And Boy was I surprised to see it having improved on nearly every aspect of the Game. If it wasn't the deep and interesting mechanics of Civ6, I wouldn't have kept playing it. Beside this personal opinion, you can easily take a look at the Civ6 Wiki and compare it to Civ5, Civ4, Stellaris, EU4...etc. to notice how well designed, detailed and rich its mechanics. So, I have no Idea what you mean by "content inside under that wrapper turned out to be much less pretty" if not the mechanics and how they work, bc I totally disagree with you here.

Millennia might be shaping up to be what some of us waited for for a long time - a thorough remake and remaster of Civ IV

Maybe. In the Future. But I didn't see anything in the Game that would indicate that. As many have noted, the Game is just a combination of old mechanics from different 4X Games, with nothing new or innovative even. Shallow and boring mechanics (resource chains just giving more of a yield? what's the point of the production chains if they don't give something unique and actually useful?), unintuitive and for-mobile looking UI (I can't get behind why the City Panel takes you unnecessarily out of the Game just to scroll over extremely enlarged Icons), neglected Diplomacy... too many things to count here. I don't see what made you think it could be a good sequel to Civ4, but I would love to hear what exactly you mean here.

Where Civ V and Civ VI increasingly took a route of ever bigger visual appeal, and dumbing down their systems

I think you're talking more about Civ5 here, because I'm of the same Opinion here.

a huge amount of development resources was dedicated to leader figures and animations, for example, and the actual programming of the AI was left in the hands of the proverbial single employee, probably intern, and the gameplay and quality of the product indeed kinda supports such allegations.

Even though I don't agree on this for Civ6 as a whole, but in terms of DLCs only Gathering Storm was a well done DLC for Civ6. What you said applies to Rise and Fall and the New Frontier Pass IMO. They disappointed me a lot tbh, especially Rise and Fall as an actual Expansion. But AI was also getting worse with each Expansion, even in GS, but also especially with NFP, where Firaxis, as you said, focused more on pretty Leaders with broken Abilities than making a good AI and polishing the Game. Which also shows in the state of the Game before NFP (stable) and after NFP (prone to crashes, Asset Limit).

Civ VI also does a fairly poor job of surfacing information and explaining its systems, and has the dubious distinction of being the first Civ game for which I play with mods in single player specifically to improve the user interface and availability of information.

What's so bad about Civ6's UI? and what's better about Millennia's UI? The only must have UI Mods for Civ6 are the detailed map tacks mod for Districts and the Extended Policy Cards that shows the yields you gain from Cards (ofc there are cool UI Mods out there, but I would hardly call them "a must have otherwise unplayable game"). That's about it, and it's not enough to claim "Civ6 has bad UI". Yes, some things can be improved, but it's not worse than any other Strategy Game, and if you've played any of Paradox's Games you would know how bad UI looks like.

But at this point, I'm cautiously optimistic that Millennia understands that gameplay is what made Civ I through IV great

I would also be interested to hear what you think Millennia understands here that Civ6 or Civ5 didn't understand.


All in all, I think it's too early to judge whether Millennia will turn out to be good or bad. I hope it will be the former, bc I like some of their Ideas, even though the demo didn't do much in showcasing how good they are. But I also think that the reason why many people seem to like the Game, is because they played a very short 60 Turns of the early game. That's never a good indication whether a game is good or bad. And the Early Game is almost always interesting in any kind of Game. I also wanted to mention that even Humankind's first early Access(es) were mostly seen positively at first (bc most of it was scripted early game), but the released game... wasn't that good as people hoped. I think it's advised here to not get your hopes too high.

PS: As a side note, I find it very funny how a Paradox published Game looks less like a Game from Paradox, where ARA, a Microsoft Game, looks more like one. This latter looks like a Game halfway between a Civ and a Paradox Game, which I find about time that we get a Game with more involving mechanics and complex strategies, while still being a Civ-like Game.

 

[Patine]

Civ5 Players being too used to that, and most of them not having played Civ4 and previous

This notion, while not incredulous, seems surprising, somehow, given a lot of people these discussions talk about experience with multiple iterations, and fond memories of their favorite (which I have done too, I admit). Then again, I haven't actually played Civ5 - I, "skipped," that one.

 

[Solver]

Anyone who's on CFC is likely to be an especially dedicated veteran of the series. Some of us have been on Civ forums since before CFC existed.

But Civ5 was definitely the entry point for many, many fans. The gaming industry changed completely between the release of Civ4 and 5. Civ4 was released in the very beginning of video games going truly mainstream (I'd argue a bit before as 2005-06 were the turning point), and Civ5 was a few years after that. Civ4 released as a huge hit in a fairly nerdy industry, Civ5 released to the broadest audience. Civ5 has ~10 million sales as a low estimate, Civ4 probably sold ~4 million, maybe 5? So it's definitely common for people to have Civ5 as their first Civ game.

 

[Patine]

Anyone who's on CFC is likely to be an especially dedicated veteran of the series. Some of us have been on Civ forums since before CFC existed.

But Civ5 was definitely the entry point for many, many fans. The gaming industry changed completely between the release of Civ4 and 5. Civ4 was released in the very beginning of video games going truly mainstream (I'd argue a bit before as 2005-06 were the turning point), and Civ5 was a few years after that. Civ4 released as a huge hit in a fairly nerdy industry, Civ5 released to the broadest audience. Civ5 has ~10 million sales as a low estimate, Civ4 probably sold ~4 million, maybe 5? So it's definitely common for people to have Civ5 as their first Civ game.

Although true player base of Civ1-3, like many older games, are hard to gauge, because of shareware, and, due to the lack of needing a specific sign-in ID, security theatre, and to be online when playing, buying, or borrowing copies from friends - or even Limewire - I do see your point. 2005 is roughly around when things like WoW and FFVII and such hit the market, I believe, too.

 

[MrRadar]

But you can hardly fall in love with it either.

Idk, I'm quite close to that

This is not quite true. Civ6 didn't end-up being pretty, it always was.

Yes, my bad wording prehaps, I wanted to say it turned out to be pretty when we saw more of it and especially when it came out and I had it before my eyes.

This couldn't be further from the Truth. As I said above, I was at first turned off by the Graphics, but since I couldn't find an alternative to Civ, I just gave it a try nonetheless, to see what it has to offer before I return back to 5. And Boy was I surprised to see it having improved on nearly every aspect of the Game. If it wasn't the deep and interesting mechanics of Civ6, I wouldn't have kept playing it. Beside this personal opinion, you can easily take a look at the Civ6 Wiki and compare it to Civ5, Civ4, Stellaris, EU4...etc. to notice how well designed, detailed and rich its mechanics. So, I have no Idea what you mean by "content inside under that wrapper turned out to be much less pretty" if not the mechanics and how they work, bc I totally disagree with you here.

OP in this thread sums it up quite well and I agree with pretty much everything that's being said there.
To mention one thing off the top of my head, how can it be a well designed mechanics, when you can lock the civs you want into unbreakable peace for the meaningful lenght of the game, quite easily, just paying attention to their agenda, and then they can do absolutely nothing about that even if you immediately stop tending to their agenda and play outright against it, but that's now ok, and the renewal is a given, if offered on the turn of expiry, and you can do everything to the rest of the world with no reaction from your declared friends. For quite some time after game's release, maybe even a year or more, you could also nuke your declared friends and allies with total impunity, until they finally fixed that bug very silently, I have never seen the fix mentioned in patchnotes.

Maybe. In the Future. But I didn't see anything in the Game that would indicate that. As many have noted, the Game is just a combination of old mechanics from different 4X Games, with nothing new or innovative even. Shallow and boring mechanics (resource chains just giving more of a yield? what's the point of the production chains if they don't give something unique and actually useful?), unintuitive and for-mobile looking UI (I can't get behind why the City Panel takes you unnecessarily out of the Game just to scroll over extremely enlarged Icons), neglected Diplomacy... too many things to count here. I don't see what made you think it could be a good sequel to Civ4, but I would love to hear what exactly you mean here.

Have you really played the demo enough? How the UI is unintuitive? Isn't it that it is a new thing and you just allowed too little time to get used to it? Now that I learned where everything is, it feels very friendly. No unnecessary mouse clicks, everything seems to be quite at hand. And I don't get that comparing with the "mobile looking", and as a negative thing, never thought about that myself.
Neglected Diplomacy? The period at hand is Stone to Iron Age. Give it time to emerge. Already it is better than all Civ installments, as it is not binary: either peace or war, there's an intermediary stance, where you can attack each other in neutral lands, but not in national territory. Let's wait for later ages to see how it evolves further. There are already envoys. How do you think diplomacy is in Civ VI? If it's neglected somewhere, it is there.

What's so bad about Civ6's UI? and what's better about Millennia's UI? The only must have UI Mods for Civ6 are the detailed map tacks mod for Districts and the Extended Policy Cards that shows the yields you gain from Cards (ofc there are cool UI Mods out there, but I would hardly call them "a must have otherwise unplayable game"). That's about it, and it's not enough to claim "Civ6 has bad UI". Yes, some things can be improved, but it's not worse than any other Strategy Game, and if you've played any of Paradox's Games you would know how bad UI looks like.

Oh my. Have you ever needed to know how long your new trade route will run, how many turns existing ones have remaining? Try to learn this from the unmodded UI. It may be useful to know when considering if its worth to pick Reform the Coinage Dedication. I'll just tell that the number next to the clock there is not the trade route duration, it's the shortest distance to the destination in tiles as the crow flies. Without mods, the only way to know is to count tiles yourself and do the maths. Time waster.
Do you trade luxuries and other resources with AI? Try to do it without any mods. In the deal screen tell, what unique luxes do you really need from the given AI and what can you sell them? Then try to do it with Quick Deals mod. Over a couple or three games with this mod, it will save you enough time for another game.
Can you tell at a glance what deals with AI you have and when do they end? Good luck scrolling the reports.
Try to drag the map when you have a unit selected. Sooner or later there will be a glich or smth and move order will be issued and if you don't notice at the time, 30 turns later the unit will require your attention from the other side of the world.
And so on. Hundreds of unnecessary mouse clicks, missing, misleading or hidden info, unexpected disembarcations, etc. Civ VI UI is a huge time waster for the player and major factor of annoyance. I'm tired to repeat this on these forums for years.
And in Millennia, so far, I do not have that feeling of having to fight the UI, everything is at hand and only a click or mouse hover away.

I would also be interested to hear what you think Millennia understands here that Civ6 or Civ5 didn't understand.

I'Il quote @Quintillus here, from another thread:

None of the things that make Civ VI tedious - most notably, 1 UPT movement/traffic jams and calculating adjacency bonuses and ranges on tile improvements - are present, so the pace is more like the older Civ games, with nice new twists.

I understand that we have only a very short demo. But you can see already how systems start to evolve, and how they are intertwined, making for interesting decisions every turn, but not owerwhelming you with the quantity of them to devalue them and cause tedium. But here we'll have to wait and see how later game looks like. So far things only became more and more interesing.

 

[pokiehl]

2005 is roughly around when things like WoW and FFVII and such hit the market, I believe, too.

FF7 came out in 1997