My first game and impressions

[ViterboKnight]

Civ1's still by far the best.


That's weird. Do you have a HDD or an SSD?

I have a pretty modern PC, that I built less than a year ago. But my GPU is ancient.

Specs:

i5 6600 @ 3.3 GHz
16 GB DDR3 RAM
Radeon HD6870 with 1 GB RAM
Windows 10 64-bit
256 GB SSD

So everything's pretty new except the GPU, which is 5-6 years old tech now I think. Still, game runs great, even on mid-high settings. Between turn times in the early late game, which is where I timed last time, was 6 seconds!

I bought my PC on January (2016). The drive is an HDD. The OS is Windows 8.1.
I'm experimenting the game quite slow, with long loading times and waiting times for AI turns....

 

[RohirrimElf]

difficulty: Emperor
map size: huge
game speed: epic
map type: continents
civ: Rome (Trajan)
civ experience: civ 4 veteran

I started playing without a clear victory type in mind. I began with culture because my territory expanded quite slowly and buying tiles was quite expensive. I conquered 2 cities of Spain and this was the only time i waged war. Spain denounced me and attacked me twice. I just fortified on good terrain and even do his army was a good bit larger he could not hurt me if he wanted to. I was picking of a couple of units with one archer behind 2 warriors.

At the right time i beelined to legionairies, build 6 of them, and compstomped Spain. Taking control of his best 2 cities. And the only ones that were of any use to me. During the game i loved Spains animations. When he declared war on me, denounciations and the times he offered me an unfair trade deal which i declined. Philip is such a clown.

In the middle game i was very busy keeping my production up. I`ve invested way to much in culture and science as i had not decided which victory to go for. I won the game in 483 turns by science victory (the game would have ended on turn 750 by score). I guess i could have won the game at about the same speed if i would go for culture victory. I took all the culture techs in about 70 turns before the game ended. About 40 turns were wasted by science when i developed the latest tech. I would say easely a full era was spend on the last tech. Repeating it over and over again.

All in all the AI was quite passive. Only spain declared war on me 2 times. The AI fought among themselves quite a lot. When i knew i would win the game. About 100 turns before the game ended. 2 out of 3 stongest AI`s badly wanted to be friendly with me. And begged for an allience. China was unfriendly with me but could not be bothered much what i did. I declined most of his unfair trades. And he grunted.

By the end of the game i had 9 cities. 3 off them were founded in about the middle of the tech tree. I guess early modern era. They were about useless. As they never had the hammers to keep up with the rest of them. Even do the spots i settled them on were quite good.

Of my 6 tall cities i build a culture and science district and completed all buildings on them. Most of them had eather a harbor/commerce district or and a industrial zone. With the experience i have now. I would have focussed more on hammers. You can never get enough production. Besides that i would probably invested more in housing/amenities or military. My military was not very strong through the game. I could have won with 2 culture and science districts less. Focussing more on other things as there is never a time you dont want to produce something badly. Those power plants did wonders in the late game.



There are some ballance issues i`ve encountered

- hammers are very hard to get, and in some degree money as well. You get enough gold each turn but land purchases and unit upgrades are very expensive even with policy cards.

- science and culture progression goes way to fast. I would say they should have been 1/3 more expensive. I did focus on them a lot but my tech/culture boosts on them were not planned very intelligently at times. As i was rushing through them and my production could not keep up.

- The AI plays this game to passively. (It should bond up to take down a strong opponent instead of working together with the player that is one the way to win the game)

- going wide might not be that strong. Tall works just fine. You dont really need more then 6 well build cities. Undeveloped cities really could use the help of traders. I did not bother in my game. Probably should.

- there is no real point to found new cities past the modern era. They can`t keep up. At the most you could get 2 developed districts on them.

- The world councel is much needed to spice up the game behind modern era. Miss this the most from civ 5 besides an earth map.

- Most of my AI opponents stayed unfriendly with me after i captured 2 cities from spain. For an unclear reason. Our relationships were not negative from what i could see. I did have a casus belli.


Some odd things:

-China had 3 Crouching Tiger Cannon corps walking besides their anti tank crew in information era.

-Clinking through 30 turns waiting to win the game without any distraction aint much fun.

-I loved the spoken videos on the first 2 steps of the science victory. To bad the 3 mars project were kind of dull in comparison. No tekst and the same video.


(i did not read much experiences/impressions from other civfanatics up to this day. What i wrote down today is based on my own experience. Some of them might have been well known issues by now)

 

[Thorburne]

OK... It's been a good week now and I have a few things to say. First off, unfortunately I did not get to play as much as I would have liked last weekend due to the timing of getting sick on release day. Still, I've got over 30 hours so far (and counting). I also have not finished a game yet. That is something on me as I usually start a game, make it so far, start a new game, make it further, start a new game, make it even further, etc. So far, I have played as America a couple times, making it to the Renaissance/Industrial era shift. Those were on standard speed large maps and 10 plus civs. My current game is Rome. It is on a standard size continents map with marathon speed and I think 10 civs. I have just reached the Renaissance era.

So, my thoughts are overall good. I like a lot of the new systems and changes. Districts are intriguing and there are several other aspects that I enjoy. Espionage, what I have seen so far, is a lot better than Civ V.

That all said, there are a few things, mostly minor, that I have as gripes. I have seen some complaints about the AI and some have even said that the AI is poorly programmed. I don't think THAT is the case, but I do see some glitches in the behaviors. I believe that is the main problem with it. I am also sure that it will be improved over time so I am not too concerned.

Speaking of glitches, some bugs that I have noticed include the production screen when a city has finished building it states at the top what was built. Only, it is usually "delayed" for me. If I build a Harbor, then build a Granary, when the Granary is complete, it states that the city just finished building a Harbor. That is a bit of a nuisance. There were other things, but I can't recall them at the moment. Anyway, I am sure that I am not the only one to address this.

Perhaps my biggest gripe and one that stifles my enjoyment to a degree is the build time. Everything just seems to take painstakingly long, especially for newly built cities. Districts are the worst of all. My suggestion would be to reduce build times for everything by about 5-10%. As it is, it kinda makes me lean towards Rome as I don't have to worry about the monument. One less building to build in my cities.

For Districts, I would like the removal of the cost hike every time a district is built. It really makes it hard to get later cities off the ground. I'm not trying to build every district in every city, but even two or three districts is difficult to do. I think that the best suggestion would be to instead have the cost for building districts get bumped up for each era. If you build 2 or 3 or 10 in a single era, they all cost the same, but when you go up in era, the cost is increased for newly committed builds. If you start building a District and the era changes before it is complete, the cost for THAT District should not be affected.

Anyway, those are some initial thoughts. Overall, I enjoy the game, the changes, and the personality. Don't tell my fiancée, but Cleo keeps flirting with me. She really enjoys my big... army!

 

[Skybird]

Good summary. And I'm sorry to inform you but Cleo is flirting with me too...

 

[OranHarken]

I completely agree about the ridiculous build times. Given three things 1) how much more of the early game is dominated by building military units to deal with barbarians and very early surprise wars and 2) district buildings require available population to yield which will frequently fluctuate when spamming out settlers for the new mandatory wide play-style and 3) the long build times when playing on Epic timescale am usually in the mid middle ages before I can really afford to start developing multiple district cities.

It takes so long to build and see the impact of that it took me over a dozen game before I ever felt like I could afford to risk building something like an encampment or theater squares to see how they perform because every other play through I had to focus on holy sites, commerce hubs and industrial zones because they are just so much better anything else felt like it would make me lose. Especially how tedious keeping foreign religions at bay has become. Spending turn after turn micromanaging my holy sites to build missionaries and inquisitors to stem the tide of waves of dozens of my allies missionaries has literally made me decide to wait for a mod to rework this mechanic entirely. It the gameplay equivalent of filling your taxes.

 

[Thorburne]

Good summary. And I'm sorry to inform you but Cleo is flirting with me too...

Back off... I saw her first. Besides, I'm Italian... and we already know that she has a taste for Italian men.

I completely agree about the ridiculous build times. Given three things 1) how much more of the early game is dominated by building military units to deal with barbarians and very early surprise wars and 2) district buildings require available population to yield which will frequently fluctuate when spamming out settlers for the new mandatory wide play-style and 3) the long build times when playing on Epic timescale am usually in the mid middle ages before I can really afford to start developing multiple district cities.

It takes so long to build and see the impact of that it took me over a dozen game before I ever felt like I could afford to risk building something like an encampment or theater squares to see how they perform because every other play through I had to focus on holy sites, commerce hubs and industrial zones because they are just so much better anything else felt like it would make me lose. Especially how tedious keeping foreign religions at bay has become. Spending turn after turn micromanaging my holy sites to build missionaries and inquisitors to stem the tide of waves of dozens of my allies missionaries has literally made me decide to wait for a mod to rework this mechanic entirely. It the gameplay equivalent of filling your taxes.

Exactly... it takes way too long. The good thing with Rome is that the monument is already built early on, so you can pump out military units at the start. But that is Rome. It really deters me from playing as any other Civ. And I'm not suggesting that they nerf Rome either... just the build times have to be fixed. And good point about the population limit. I think that, along with the suggestion that I made about making the cost increase with eras instead of incremental to each District built, that would improve the mechanic substantially.

 

[teakbois]

I completely agree about the ridiculous build times. Given three things 1) how much more of the early game is dominated by building military units to deal with barbarians and very early surprise wars and 2) district buildings require available population to yield which will frequently fluctuate when spamming out settlers for the new mandatory wide play-style and 3) the long build times when playing on Epic timescale am usually in the mid middle ages before I can really afford to start developing multiple district cities.

It takes so long to build and see the impact of that it took me over a dozen game before I ever felt like I could afford to risk building something like an encampment or theater squares to see how they perform because every other play through I had to focus on holy sites, commerce hubs and industrial zones because they are just so much better anything else felt like it would make me lose. Especially how tedious keeping foreign religions at bay has become. Spending turn after turn micromanaging my holy sites to build missionaries and inquisitors to stem the tide of waves of dozens of my allies missionaries has literally made me decide to wait for a mod to rework this mechanic entirely. It the gameplay equivalent of filling your taxes.

I'm not finding religion worth the sacrifices you have to make to get it. So i dont worry about holy sites.

Encampments, however, are actually pretty nice. The buildings give production + housing. More housing = more pops = more hammers until neighborhoods roll around.

 

[gunnerxtr]

Speaking of glitches, some bugs that I have noticed include the production screen when a city has finished building it states at the top what was built. Only, it is usually "delayed" for me. If I build a Harbor, then build a Granary, when the Granary is complete, it states that the city just finished building a Harbor.

This is constantly happening to me too. Super confusing. I haven't seen others mention it, so I am glad to know that I am not the only one experiencing it.

 

[Von Falkenheyn]

After calming down a bit from the initial "one-more-round" frenzy over the weekend, I'd like to offer my two cents about the game as it is.

Minor Issues

• The UI could use some tweaking. As it is I find it rather bothersome when I have to assign specific places to my citizens. It would also be nice if district output could be shown visually on the map. As it is, I found it really confusing at first when those white numbers appeared next to the districts. Also, I found the "buying units with faith" button rather counter-intuitive. Perhaps it would have been better to have all build items within a central menu and have dual prices for those which can be bought with faith. I also found it hard to understand how I gathered ammenities and housing. Yes I get +3 ammenities from Luxuries for example, that's crystal clear but perhaps a mouseover of that number could provide additional info (you get +3 from a bannana there, a chocolate here and so on). I also initially found the explanations in the tech tree about the holy site and campus yields highly confusing (grassland (mountain)).
• As far as the graphics are concerned, there is the noted problem with goody huts which many other users have identified before me. You have to really look sometimes to find them. Also, sometimes when a unit is next to a city it's difficult to select it.
• Unit cycling has also been mentioned as a problem. I also have not seen (and perhaps I missed it) the sentry command which was really neat!
• Eurekas can really make or break your game! Ed beach had talked about breaking established patterns since CIV V but trust me, those slingshots he mentioned about V? Well they're back with the Eurekas. They're so big a bonus that they force you to work through them.
• As has been mentioned by others, production is KING! It took me some time to figure this out until I noticed that some buildings took forever to complete. Geography may be adaptable but if your start is "hill-poor" then you're stuck. Also this disproportionately elevates the relative values of the industrial district and the strategic/bonus resources which can be mined.
• I have a sense that defense and turtling can be really strong. In one game of mine I had two walled cities and an encampment between them. I managed to defeat two hordes of Arabian invaders with just 2 archers, 2 swordsmen and one spearman. Against prepared defenses and/or difficult terrain an attack needs to be very well prepared.
• I'm all for unit variation and the new siege units and heavy/light cavalry variance is great news. However there should be more upgrades available. Chariot to Knight and then to Tank is a stretch. There should be at least one more unit there. The same is true about Horseman to Cavalry and then Hellicopter.
• Automatic road building seems like an excellent idea and I'm not outrightly rejecting it. However, when you begin, your available trade routes are very few and you don't want to waste them building cities between your newly found cities. They should be out there on your most lucrative routes instead of building roads.

Things I would like to see

• As I've mentioned before, I would like to see more resource/building interraction. I mean, why is it important to have Gypsum? What advantage does it have over silver? For example, we could combine iron and coal to make steel weapons, we could combine say silk or sheep with a building to make textiles and so on.
• I would like to see slotted items on units and/or buildings. For example, a slotted item on a warrior could be "tower shields" = Unit recieves +5 defense from ranged attacks.
• I'm quite sure that we might see this in a future expansion and it has been done in other games such as the "Through the Ages" boardgame. I'd like to see "army type" research. For instance, if you combine say one pikeman and a musketman you get the Spanish Tercio. If you combine two spearmen together you get the Phallanx and so on.
• I'd like to see (perhaps I missed it somewhere) a war score. The other guy is offering you peace. How beaten is he and what could I ask for. This feature is prominent in most Europa Univeralis type of games.

This I like about the game

• I like that the Barbarian AI is aggresive. Early on it gives you a nice run for your money. I also like how the AI handles his units. Although they tend to focus a bit too much on retreating, suicide missions are no longer undertaken. In my games the AI will retreat wounded units and it will move agressively to hunt down yours. It will also somewhat skillfully use ranged units.
• I know that this is scenery but still, the music is breathtaking! The videos of the wonders are really nice and I really like the natural wonder cut scenes.
• Every civilization feels unique and equally strong offering great variance in playstyle. I like the fact that each civilization has various features instead of the old unique building/unique ability duality.
• Tile appeal is a nice addition! I also am looking forward to exploring further natural parks which seems like a great add-on.
• The lenses are a great tool to gather information! Continents was a very nice idea too.
• Finally, local happyness!
• I really liked what they did with city-states.
• I really - really liked what they did with the religious game!

In general, I have a positive vibe about this game which I didn't have when I got V on my hands. I'm really excited to see where this installment of the series will take us.

After 46 hours of the game:

• Building Cues in cities...Please?
• We need an indicator, just like in CIV V in how many turns is a city going to acquire a tile due to culture. And if possible which is the most likely one. Why spend precious cash on acquiring a tile if you're going to get it in say 2 rounds time.
• The Diplomatic AI needs some work on it. I've had games where the Aztecs and the Germans are all friendly and they propose friendship declarations without me even doing anything (and no, this was not due to some hidden agenda, I checked later on) and in other games they're outright hostile. In one game as Rome, Germany declared war on me (we had border issues, fine) and then Scythia, America and Norway all went to war with me with absolutely zero provocation from my part. I can rationalize Norway (they were close neighbors too) but America was too far away and on a different continent than me and the same was true with Scythia! In fact I fought out the war with Norway and Germany, completely destroyed them both before the first American and Scythian units made their appearance.
• The AI needs to learn how to upgrade their units. I mean...they keep on coming with warriors very long after they're obsolete!
• It would be nice if the tech and civics trees could visualize the other bonuses which come along with researching the tech. As it is, I have to constantly mouseover the techs to remember what else I'm getting apart from the visual icons.
• The "great works of art" could use some nicer background images. The works of art themselves are nicely done, with interesting flavor and all, but the light grey background seems a tad bland. Give us, for example, a greyscaled image of a palace or something nice to look at.
• Am I the only one who thinks that Rome has a tremendous growth advantage in the early game with its automatic roads, free trading post, free fist building and insanely powerful unit?

 

[Thorburne]

• Am I the only one who thinks that Rome has a tremendous growth advantage in the early game with its automatic roads, free trading post, free fist building and insanely powerful unit?

That is because of the long build times. I can't see playing as anybody else until this is fixed. They are not OP'd, all of the other civs are handicapped.

 

[bunnykitty]

Tomyris is a little OP, being able to spam horsemen and saka horse archers which heal on unit kill. With a horses start they can take over 2-3 AIs before turn 100.
Saka horse archers can't be upgraded for ages and soon become really squishy. At least it is easy to get a lot of them up early and rotate with their fast movement/auto-healing.

Bad

• Towards the end of the game (turn ~150) Spain's military score was 50% high than mine. But when I encountered her with bombards and cavalry she had piles of squishy warriors and slingers. Seems the military score doesn't give enough weighting to units in advanced eras.
• AI kills city states which im a suzerain of and I have no way to talk them out of it (except from liberating the city).
• Scythias unique builder improvement seems useless. Religion isn't so important for a domination win, and the gold is petty.

Good

• Love the limited embarking tiles for units - adds a realistic element of strategy (i.e. horse units cant embark the cliffs of Dover)
• Like that cities can be specialised to produce horse/land based units separately.
• When a victory is a formality the straegic view is a really fast way to play

 

[greygamer]

Religion can help you get to a win condition quicker when combined with conquest. So you can go conquer on a larger map and then spam missionaries/apostles later on to win without having to capture the last few capitals. I had a religious victory where my last two targets remained friendly to me even as I converted them (and they had their own religions).

Norway has free embarkation for all units