My first game and impressions

[kaspergm]

I'm most of the way through my first game, Brazil, Epic speed, King difficulty, normal size, continents map.

Here are a few thoughts.
- Gold cost of buying tiles is absurdly high. Already in midgame, I'd pay more than 300 gold for one tile in the outer ring, late game it was over 450. For one tile. Seriously?
- Gold cost of upgrading units is absurdly high. 300 gold to upgrade an Archer to a Crosbowman. Again, seriously?
- Gold cost of buying units or building is (take a guess) absurdly high. Buying a modern era building is about 3000 gold. lol?
- I'm gonna be dead tired of the religious victory. It's Civ5 missionry spam x 5 without the ability to block it with inquisitors. Yay. Not.
- Here's my first meeting with Arabia. That's going to be one hell of a party. Screenshot
- Late-game AI seems capable of building decent armies. It also seems to have moderate succes takign over city states. It seems less succesful in player vs. player combat. Screenshot
- Cities are way too easy to capture early game. A couple of archers and a couple of swordsmen, and you're on a roll. Maybe bring a battering ram for safety but mostly it's not even necessary, even if city has ancient walls.
- AI loves to make absurd trade offers. Like, will you give me 4 luxes in return for 1GPT and open borders. Then it looks very offended when you answer no.
- The formal war feature seems to be bugged. I can declare formal was on people without denouncing them. Unless them denouncing me also counts for reasons for formal war. But even then, it was less than the 5 turn limit.
- Game is quite stable for a first day release. I did have one freeze and one crash to desctop, but overall it runs very well.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

I'm most of the way through my first game, Brazil, Epic speed, King difficulty, normal size, continents map.

Here are a few thoughts.
- Gold cost of buying tiles is absurdly high. Already in midgame, I'd pay more than 300 gold for one tile in the outer ring, late game it was over 450. For one tile. Seriously?
- Gold cost of upgrading units is absurdly high. 300 gold to upgrade an Archer to a Crosbowman. Again, seriously?
- Gold cost of buying units or building is (take a guess) absurdly high. Buying a modern era building is about 3000 gold. lol?
- I'm gonna be dead tired of the religious victory. It's Civ5 missionry spam x 5 without the ability to block it with inquisitors. Yay. Not.

Overall I'm enjoying the game, and it certainly compares well to Civ 5, but totally agreed on these four points. For tiles in particular--there aren't enough ways to get them quickly, and the relevant policy only offers 20% off. Not enough.

I think religious combat is way too gimmicky and too much of a slog to be the central mechanic behind a victory condition. Yuck.

 

[Atwork]

I really enjoy the early barbarian wars. It makes having an early standing army to protect your early builders/improvements really important. And it gives the feeling of having to claw your way to a secure foundation before being able to consider expanding. In C5, I used to play with 'raging barbarians' for a similar feel. But, these barbarians are deadlier.

 

[pietro1990]

- The formal war feature seems to be bugged. I can declare formal was on people without denouncing them. Unless them denouncing me also counts for reasons for formal war. But even then, it was less than the 5 turn limit.


Yeah i don't thinx it works after you declare war a formal war everyone starts denouncing you

 

[V. Soma]

Renaissance Era

Brazil has 6-7 units at their capital: some warriors, lots of heavy chariots,
I have a CS ally near Brazil, they help (Seoul)

turn 142
I begin siege of Rio
I have the galley upgraded to caravel - begin exploring…

note: At the siege I switch to strategic view and LOVE it!

turn 143 (AD 640):
Rio is captured, and this was Brazil’s ONLY city! Pedro is defeated…

I am all alone on my continent (with 3 CSs)
note: when sending envoys, I don’t like UI that I have to confirm…

time to discover the other half of the world…

turn 150
I meet Japan and Sumeria - Sumer is the big boy… he is in late Mediaval era

I try to be friends with them,
they don’t see me as warmongering, since they did not know about my wars

turn 155
Great Scientist Galilei gives me lots of science near mountains and so
I reach Industrial Age (AD 800)

notes:

- teching is way too fast… Renaissance Age was 25 turns!
- I like it that settlers and builders become more and more expensive…
- I did not like that Brazil had 1 city only… maybe barbs hindered him?

 

[kaspergm]

- I did not like that Brazil had 1 city only… maybe barbs hindered him?

There seems to be a problem with this. I've seen several cases in the videos. In my first game, Egypt was 1 city all the way into information era. There was plenty of open land right south of her. No barbarians there what so ever. It was good land, with rivers and resources, she just never claimed it. I don't know if she build settlers and send them north to be captured by barbs - might be, we've seen cases of mass civilians graveyards in the videos. But yeah, that then needs to be fixed so AI sends settlers in other directions if there's a barb camp.

 

[redwings1340]

Woot, just won a religious victory as Rome as my first game, king difficulty! I thought food and production was really slow at first, but I think I just need to make more builders. When I came on today and created more builders while getting industrial zones and production buildings running, the second half of my game got a lot more production than the first half.

It was pretty fun.

Pros:
-District system was great, as expected. I loved trying to match my gameplay to the terrain.
-Civics was fantastic, I loved working through that system and unlocking governments over time. Maybe I'll try Greece next to try the culture game.
-The game itself seemed very well designed at first glance. In V I would never build a library in my capital in the modern era, in VI, it seemed pretty natural not to produce a campus there for a while because I had no adjacency bonuses there. I could still keep up with science in my second city campus. Your capital is an important city in your empire, but it's no longer going to be a better version of all of your other cities. That's great and adds variety.
-Though diplomacy was weird, I must say, I think civs got over my midgame declarations of war and raising of cities relatively fast. You definitely can rebuild a relationship with the AI. I don't think I did, because I decided to spam the AIs with apostles after that, but I'll have to look further to see whether diplomacy works here. I think they have a good concept.
-City states and the envoy system work great. The choice was more meaningful, and it encouraged specialization. With six envoys in two religious city states, I was able to play the religion game much faster than I would otherwise, but only because I also focused my empire on religion.
-Basically everything good about V was still good in VI.
-The AI kept up with me in tech, and though I was probably going to pull ahead near the end of the game, when I won in the modern era, I was third in technology, and I don't think I was leading in civics either.
-Barbarians were a threat but manageable. Keeping a few horse units around in the midgame to get rid of scouts before they can report back is very useful.
-Disabling auto unit select makes the game much better.
-Overall, ammenities seemed nice. I was trying to keep my individual cities happy instead of my entire empire, not feeling artificially restricted in expanding is good.
-Only being able to make a few wonders in any city was pretty cool. I liked spreading them out instead of making them all in my capital.

Cons:
-AI is still awful at military combat. Twice I was early DOW'd by a ton of warriors, and twice the enemy refused to engage my army, just running around in my borders, not pillaging or attacking. I would have been in trouble if the combat AI were better. Later in the game I got DOW'd by Norway, who was very far behind and sent outdated units in the ocean unescorted by naval units. Arabia DOW'd me midgame and used their UU to attack me, but only sent them one at a time. I imagine France's borders were annoying Arabia, as they had to march their units through a narrow pass, since France was between us, but it still accomplished nothing, coming in so little force (maybe they were hoping to pillage though?). I also fortified a scout in the early game and left it in the middle of Arabian borders, then forgot about it, then had it pillage four arabian trade routes in the war. No Arabian troops came to attack it, and it survived the entire war (it was a pretty long war too). This needs to get better, fixing the AI should definitely be Firaxis' #1 priority, because they have a pretty good game otherwise.
-The religious system was a little awkward, and I think they should improve this. After a certain point, my apostles just stopped getting promotions, which was weird. The fact apostles don't stack with enemy melee units is a problem too, especially for multiplayer or higher difficulties. The religion game shouldn't be stopped by carpets of peaceful military units.
-I think this is a bug, but enemy civs do not attack your religious units with troops, even if you are at war with them. I converted the entirety of Arabia when they were at war with me. Military units can destroy apostles, I lost a ton of apostles to barbarians actually, but none to enemy civ units, even when they were surrounding my apostle in enemy territory.
-The AI didn't really seem to produce inquisitors. Their apostles also seemed to prioritize attacking high health apostles over low health ones, or maybe they just randomly search for apostles to attack.
-This might be a bug, but I made peace with two city states that Arabia was suzerin of before I made peace with Arabia. Not sure that should be able to happen.
-Spies seemed mildly disappointing. They get captured just as often as they get away, their missions don't really give much, and I haven't noticed a huge benefit to getting higher access levels to civs. I feel like they just hurt the AIs because they had to give me gold to get their investments back.
-Since multiple ammenities can be useful, it's hard to know if you're using an ammenity, or how much you're using it, when the AI asks you to trade for it. This didn't break my experience, but without global happiness, I found it a lot harder to decide what would be a good and bad deal, and I ended up accepting most deals without initiating them until the late game, where I started to reject deals that would have me lose ammenities.

Oddities (neither good or bad, just interesting observations)
-The granary and water mill is the only way you can increase food with buildings in your city, at least before the modern era. That means that if you have a bad food spot, growing is tough. Really tough. I had two cities in the southern snow sitting at 4 pop the entire game because they just couldn't grow, and I didn't really care about getting them to grow. Luckily you don't need all your cities to grow to have a successful empire.
-The theatre district has super weak adjacency bonuses. Civics looks very strong, and I'm guessing you need them to gain a tourism victory, but I'm not sure when I'm supposed to get these. I figure I'll get the industrial district near mines/quarries, campus near mountains/rainforests, holy site near mountains/natural wonders, commercial district near harbors/rivers, aquaducts, neighborhoods, and entertainment complexes when I need them to continue growing, and theatre districts... After I get a wonder? Just because? When I'm japan or greece? It's hard to build a theatre district adjacency bonus, so I didn't get many of them in my first game, but I could be underestimating them.

 

[V. Soma]

first game
ROME (Prince, small, continents, standard)


Industrial Age

turn 157: I meet England (I am surprised, wasn’t one civ defeated earlier?)

Sumeria is going for Religious victory, going to be the only concern for me?

turn 161 - AD 1000 let’s have a look at my cities:
Rome (size: 12): Campus (library, univ.) , wonder: Great Library
Arretium (8): Encampment (Barracks, Armory), Theater D., wonder: Hanging Gardens
Mediolanum (8): Campus (library, univ.)
Puteoli (5), not at river: Commercial Hub (Market), wonder: Pyramids
Ravenna (5), at coast: not much
Madrid (4): Holy Site (shrine), Campus (library), wonder: Oracle
Toledo (5): not much
Rio de Janeiro (7): Commercial Hub (Market), wonder: Stonehange
Cumae (1): new city,north of Rome near Torres del Paine wonder

turn 167: I change to Merchant Republic

I found coastal cities

My caravell explores two habitable islands in the ocean

I have 13 cities when
in turn 176
I reach Modern Era

Notes:
- teching is even more faster - Industrial Era was ca. 20 turns
- Prince seems too easy, biggest AI Sumer is in Renaissance era now
- well, quiet development isn’t too exciting, as by this situation now

 

[V. Soma]

first game
ROME (Prince, small, continents, standard)

Modern Era

England reaches Renaissance in ca. AD 1300, turn 192
I research Chemistry…

I make trade routes
and now I can have spies, too

I fight housing and amenities problem

all AI civs are unfriendly to me:
England wants to settle my continent
Sumeria hates my wonders
Japan has different government
oh, well…

turn 209: AI Sumeria is in Industrial Era

My city Rio has a great moment:
Great Scientist Newton builds Library and University in the newly built Campus!
This makes 34 sci in Rio, only Rome is better with 45!

turn 211: I place my first spy in Lisbon (Sumer)

AI England reaches Industrial Era

turn 220 (AD 1545): I can begin Spaceport district
and I enter Atomic Era

notes:
- things getting interesting with space victory buildings near
- I like Great People, they are all different (but why they do not have own portraits?)
- it is nice to think about what district should go to what city
- Modern Era was a bit longer, ca. 30 turns…

 

[Raider]

Well, sounds like, given the AI, this game doesn't present a challenge or interesting gameplay beyond the game of SimCity.

I bought the game on Steam and it's sitting there with 109 minutes played. I have to make a decision before I get to 120 whether or not I am going to keep it or ask for a refund. Most things I read in this thread indicate the game isn't really worth my money, as the developers once again made a single player game with worthless AI. To add to this, I was watching a stream of a Deity game yesterday by Trump (a Hearthstone player) and he was crushing the AI even though it was just his 2nd game.

And while the AI is the main issue, other weird quirks don't help. Most importantly, research pace seems far far too fast.

 

[MkLh]

The tactical AI is not as bad as in CiV. It's worse. In CiV the AI was at least aggressive. This almost never attacks, just moves troops back and forth, even when it could hurt my unit.

 

[CellKu]

I am playing as Rome on continents/standard size and speed/King. I have just entered the Atomic Era and attempt a ScienceVic.

What I liked in my first game:
- Lots of choices, I am playing much more slowly than in Civ4 and CiV. The government system is so much better than in CiV.
- AI escorted settlers
- Slingers can move and fight in one turn (lost a wounded warrior because of that)
- AI fought Barb camps with two units, thus ensuring that they would get the boot and not my warrior
- Germany declared a surprise war in the beginning of the game (even though there were more friendly modifiers, but I had locked them in a bit, so I would have done the same)
- When I sieged Aachen Barbarossa churned out units almost every turn and sent his existing units back to his capital. Gave me a great fight. It took me longer than I had expected.
- I am glad dead-end techs are back. The heurekas are nice. However, since the midgame I am teching much faster than I get the heurekas. As in CiV the AI is quite behind me, but well this is only King, so I don't mind.
- The fight for great people is great, even though I lost almost all GPs (except most of the Great Scientists) to the AI, especially to Kongo.
- The Scientific Victory has become much more onerous - in a good way though.
- With regard to museums, I have to be more careful. I thought I could place all museums in a District, but couldn't, now I amwith Art Museums and have only build one Nat Museum. And I wanted to send out many Archaeologists...
- One of the greatest moments: When Scythia approached me to ask aboutting get her spy back whom I had captured. She offered quite a bit. Wow! They have implemented even that!
- Another great one: my first heist of a great work from Kongo. I snatched so many GPs, now I get some GreatWorks...
- I also liked the invasion of English apostles form overseas that I had to repel. If the AI went to war with their military units as it did with the apostles, that would be great...
- Regarding City States: The AI seems to do quite well there: I fought heavily with Scythia for the Suzerainship of Seoul. She was pretty persistent. Not bad!

What I didn't like:
- How the AI upgrades (or better: not upgrades) units.
- When I had accidentally placed a World Wonder and decided get rid of that to build a district on that tile, I could not open the tile again. At least before the Wonder is finished it should be possible to get the tile back (without getting gold for it).
- Naturalists are so expensive (I am supposed to pay 1600 faith or so). I am not sure if that is worth it. Especially since I have to defend my faith against England right now...

I miss:
- The build queue for city production
- The city screen (where you can see everthing at once)
- (Better) overview screens for your cities, resources (esp. lux resources) and trade routes
- A real demographics screen (with everything in a list, not as it is now) and a graph to show you progress in comparison to AI/other players
- Golden Ages
- That I can't use a Great Engineer to finish a Wonder (at least the one that I got, wasn't able to do that)

 

[V. Soma]

first game
ROME (Prince, small, continents, standard)

Atomic Era

Sumer attacks with apostles!

religious war is going on around Rio, so far I can hold my own…

turn 231: Sumeria declares war on Japan
I finish Computer tech, but I did not begin to build Spaceport yet

Sumer apostles are not coming - perhaps Sumer targets others with religion?

turn 250: Sumeria is in Modern Era
I reach Information Era, 33 more turns to build Spaceport…

Note:
- I could not Launch Inquisition - do I have to be founder of a religion for this?
- Atomic Era was 30 turns

 

[V. Soma]

first game
ROME (Prince, small, continents, standard)

Information Era

With the help of two Great Admirals I have a destroyer armada and fleet and
I declare war on Sumer to catch all thos apostles while they are on water…
I used the colonial war casus belli!
…yet England denounces me immediately

turn 257: I build the wonder Mont St. Michel, for fun…

turn 265: Japan is defeated by AI Sumeria!

I rule the seas…

I see a Sumerian bombard unit, it shot my destroyer at coastal tile…

turn 283: Spaceport is done in Rome (AD 1824)

turn 289: Sumeria attcks with a catapult and a crossbowman on my land,
I kill them with helicopters…

turn 298: I make peace with Sumeria for gold and luxuries

turn 302 (AD 1862):
I completed the tech tree!
in the civics tree I will get to democracy in a few turns…
Rome (makes 70 prod/turn) is about to finish Earth Satellite
Mediolanum (also 70 prod/turn) will also have Spaceport

 

[Catt_Ironheart]

So I played my first game to a Domination victory on King level (Rome, Pangea, Standard Map, Marathon) and I am not impressed. I feel much like I did with the Beyond Earth one … bored. I hope they fix a lot of things, because I only played a few games when Beyond Earth was released and deleted it a few days a later (reinstalled a few weeks ago, but couldn’t play an hour before deleting it again.) Civ 6 is looking like a good candidate for that.

So the first thing I notice is that I can’t modify my civilization / ruler name and can’t rename cities. This bothers me a lot. I know not everyone feels that way, but I recall that always being an option. I would rather lead the people rather than a leader that the company selected for me. I mean they allow you to customize the religion so why not the other stuff? I remember playing hot seat with my brother with Civ 2, 3 and 4 all the time and we both did it. The other thing I noticed was the lack of map options. Seriously I can’t stand city states and I want them off, and I know I am not the only one that feels that way. I also noticed that I couldn’t even set how many of them popped up. So I started and had one right north of me, south of me and two my west. East was water so I am sure if it wasn’t there would be another there.

Here are a few notes (and these are my opinions not an attempt at insulting anyone):

1. Terrible AI!

a. The AI can’t seem to take my cities even when they are barely defended and swarmed by the AI units. They also can’t defend cities very well.

b. Unescorted settlers keep coming to my border. “Thanks, again for the free city!” I swear I built 4 or 5 cities from settlers I captured. I wasn’t even looking they just popped up near my units!

c. Diplomacy is like playing Axis and Allies with a bunch of ten year olds. So instead of playing nice I found that domination was the way to go.

d. Strange expansion. Cities all over the place or settling places that is rather poorly suited for a city.

e. Barbarians are tougher than the nations! They are also annoying with a large empire and the lack of border growth. I had to keep units all over to keep that ugly map area away!


2. Districts Fail!

a. Nice idea, but it just makes building take even longer. I get they want to force people to specialize cities, but it doesn’t work in my opinion. This was really something right out of the Endless Legend game which isn’t installed on my computer anymore; it didn’t work for that and I don’t see it working for Civ without major changes.

b. They look terrible. If they are built next to the city center can it look like the city and blend together nicely? To add to the terrible look the trade route roads get really messy especially playing as Rome. (and borders are terrible and blocky ... like when 5 was released ... you think having to fix it once was enough)

c. The cost scaling is harsh. I don’t understand that just because one city has a port then why does it cost more for the next city to build one? If history went with this then the US would never have left the eastern seaboard!


3. Wonders – not feeling it.

a. Them being outside of cities doesn’t always make sense. Some don’t justify needing the entire square because they are not really that big. Pyramids I understand, but Eifel Tower, or an opera house taking up essentially the same space as a metro downtown? Maybe some of these need to be built into a district? Like a spot on the cultural district for the Eifel Tower?

b. They are pretty weak. That is a lot of time spent making something that just doesn’t have much impact especially since I take up some usable plot of land. Oh, and not getting anything out of it if the AI ninjas is pathetic, "Stop everything, tear it down. The Germans built the Pyramids!" "But sir, can we just use those stones for something else? Maybe like a Stone Henge, or a smaller pyramid, or a nice shrubbery?"


4. Civilian units get more expensive for each one you buy / build. I can’t fathom why it should matter that because one city built some improvements that another city would have to pay more. This really slows down the empire building aspect of the game I like. It took so long that I decided to just send my Army on the war path and forget all those fancy things like farms, mines and luxury … that stuff is for the weak.


5. Build queue? Why is this thing missing? I mean does it make sense that when the crap hits the fan that the city says, “No sir you can’t train a slinger, we are building a cultural district that will be ready in a few centuries and we can’t stop working on it for anything.” My response .. “Uh, you want to tell the barbarians at the gate that?” Iknow in previous Civs I used it a lot. Usually when I needed to churn out troops because Nuclear Ghandi has decided that he wants my land so I need to pause all construction and focus on a war economy. I know that sounds like fantasy and that stuff never happens in history.


6. Border growth … how long and which tile is coming up. Oh and why do borders take so long to grow?


There is probably more (UI, and confusing unit scroll), but I think that is enough of a list. I know when 5 came out there were a lot of issues and they worked it out, but still needed a lot of work. I am now debating if I will play 6 again or wait for some fixes. I know it sounds silly, but being able to name the ruler, civ and cities is the one that doesn’t make me want to play. So what if I want to be Gozer the Gozerian of Gozeria? Oh, this had better be in a patch, if they make us pay for it then I am done with Firaxis games, after all the game was expensive enough.

 

[Socratatus]

I know it sounds silly, but being able to name the ruler, civ and cities is the one that doesn’t make me want to play. So what if I want to be Gozer the Gozerian of Gozeria? Oh, this had better be in a patch, if they make us pay for it then I am done with Firaxis games, after all the game was expensive enough.

So you can`t name yourself. WTH? Why?? No wonder nobody answered my thread question on the topic. You always know that if a forum about a game can`t answer in the positive on release, but won`t answer in the negative either- something is bad.

Thanks for writing it here.

 

[Vajrajina]

Okay, I know everyone has different tastes and preferences, what I don't understand is not why people like this game, but why they like it so much. It just feels like everything has been made weaker.

The Civ leader bonuses are meh, most of them anyways, and some of the leaders are also dumb, how can you possibly put Catherine de Medici as leader of France WHO WASN'T EVEN FRENCH?! Civ leader choices reek of political correctness, a 50% female employment target does not apply to the greatest leaders of history, the overwhelming majority of which were male, weather your feminist ass likes it or not. The only good one is Trajan, but he is not just good, he is ridiculously overpowered.

Districts are stupidly expensive, by the time you finish a campus your AI neighbour built about 5-6 units from a city of the same size. The AI's higher difficulty cheating also got a lot worse, since your cities are a lot weaker. I remember being able to hold Shaka's Impi hordes with a walled city on a hill behind a river and 3-4 crossbowmen. In one of my Russian games I had 5 warriors and a catapult wreck my capital because Catapults 2 shotting cities is apparently a good idea. Because of this, hard difficulties just got a lot harder, because we no longer have an easy way to hold an overpowered AI back.

Also, the spearman nerf. I understand why, but this now means if you don't have Iron you are boned. After getting Iron working I can just have a look at my neighbours, pick one that doesn't have Iron and kill it, knowing that he will have absolutely no way to stop me.

Diplomacy? I didn't DOW city states yet, but AI civs that attacked them got denounced by everyone immediately. From my experience in Civ5 this means that if I annex a city state I will never be able to trade again. Why give us the option to attack city states if it's always a terrible idea? Just make it so that you cannot attack them, it will achieve the same thing. Also, because of this, Frederich is the new Genghis Kan who has a useless civ leader bonus.

The new road mechanic is stupid. In my French game it is turn 180 and I still only have one road built between my cities. Who's idea was this? 'Oh, you want your cities connected?' Too bad you only have one trader....oh, so you wanted to trade with another Civ? Well, that's even worse, no roads for you buddy.

Every unit slowed is also lame, a single barb horseman can run amok and pillage everything you hold dear and there isn't a thing you can do about it.

Speaking of Barbs, I had one game where I had 2 horsemen and a mounted archer camping around my capital at turn 15. In a multiplayer game I would have called GG and left immediately because, well, no settlers, no tile improvements, and by the time you have spearmen the other civs will have 4-5 cities. How can this possibly be balanced?

And if you thought finding an appropriate city spot was hard in Civ 5, now you have cliffs to make it even harder.

I haven't found a single thing I like about Civilization 6 yet, perhaps I am just stuck in Civ 5 mode, but I genuinely cannot tell what everyone likes about this game.

Moderator Action: Merged with existing thread

Moderator, are you dumb ? My thread had nothing to do with THIS one. Which manager told you to bury threads that bash the game? If you don't want people to notice my thread or comment on my impressions just delete it. Making my stuff disappear in this thread makes no sense because I'm not talking about my first game...I started like 15 separate games and usually quit in disgust.

 

[Nick31]

First game: Aztecs, Emperor, Standard Speed, Large Map, Continents (with low sea level).

Ooooof, I'm really not sure what to make of this game. By Turn 200 I am almost at the SpacePort, and My science is double the AIs. That, however, isn't my issue... it is Emperor after all.

1) The Plateaus in this game are severe. It's immensely difficult to get your capital over 15 pop, and your other cities above 10. So, it feels like a race to get as many "good" cities up and running and then cycle on to the next one, as you can't grow it too much once you hit double figures. The fact that your growth is -50% as soon as you get within 1 of the housing cap is immense. Basically, once I teched hard enough, and had the Serfdom policy, I spammed out builders to build combo farms for housing and food, but that's still only getting me to a 15 housing cap at most. I went slowish on culture (focused heavily on gold and science), so I don't even have access to neighborhoods yet.

2) Rising district costs; I mean, why so high? At least with the Aztecs you can spam builders and go to new cities and build districts with builder charges. That helps a lot. Otherwise, this game is just waiting around for 20+ turns to complete something.

My hammers are significant, I have lots of industrial zones, 8 nice cities (when, frankly, I should have gone to 12 because of the Aztecs abilities, but slowed down to long in expansion), and it takes forever to build districts (except when I pump on a 3-turn builder in the capital and then go send it to complete a district in 5 turns.

3) The only way to keep 'rolling' in this game is to go on the warpath and take out your neighbors. You cannot grow "tall' because the housing penalties are immense, and there's not growth holdover like aqueducts in previous games. Going wide means lots of cities, but the district penalties are immense, and you can't "buy" districts... except as Aztecs where you can buy a builder and then use 5 charges to complete a district. So, you buy a Granary, a monument, and then builder spam to get your districts up and running.

4) My issues are that I don't know what to do besides hit "end turn" button and micro my cities (because I'm anal like that). I had infantry 30 turns ago, but don't really need to go stomp on my neighbors. Frankly, I don't want to play through to the space victory... what's the point? I just have to research the Mars Mission and then wait 20+ turns to build the mission.

5) Every AI dislikes me (which doesn't impact my play much), but it'd be nice to find away to have friends. Or interact with them besides sell a lux for some gold.

Conclusion: There is SO much to like about this game... and then you play 200 turns, and you're like, huh: where is my sense of grandeur and excitement? I can't even get a 20-pop city, let alone a 30-pop one. I HATE all my cities are in constant growth penalties. Why is the Housing cap so low? It's like spending a ton learning how to be a gardener, and then putting ceilings on top of your fruits and vegetables. I "like" the concept of housing, but it's insane how immediately it handicaps your work. I'm looking around at turn 200 at AI cities at 8 and below, and capitals around 12. That's not fun. It feels like dark ages, even if I'm almost in Space.

I don't know... I feel there's a great game in here, but the balance is awfully out of wack. The fun of the first 150 turns quickly dissipates, as you've "won" the game and just figure out if you want to go to the bother of taking capitals or space-racing. And the sandbox joy of building your empire is stripped from you, as you cannot grow tall. You just can't. Building or buying a sewer is immensely expensive. And why do it if it's just 2 housing? No food carryover, and 20+ turns?

As much as I believe in Beach, he's taken the fun from me as a builder: I want my cities to be able to grow. You can make it hard, but not impossible. Right now, growing your cities feels impossible, and that's no fun.

 

[Gorbles]

Oh, a thread on "political correctness" in Civ. leaders. We haven't had one of those in a while.

 

[Vajrajina]

Oh, a thread on "political correctness" in Civ. leaders. We haven't had one of those in a while.

That's just part of why I don't like the game. I dislike the game mechanics a lot more