The 4 X'ses that make up 4 X: eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate. The entire meaning of 4X is describing conflict and winning by being faster/better at executing the earlier stages of the game, leading to a swifter eXtermination phase at the end. Now this conflict can be non-warlike (for example "exterminating" your rivals in Off World Trading Company by buying them out) but conflict is a central part of any proper 4X. There is also a ton of viable different startegies in civ 6, so I don't know what you are even on about there?
I'll call the straw man again, whoever said anything about making Civilization without conflict again? Conflict and power struggles come in myriads of forms when it comes to human existence. Not all forms of conflict are inherently evil in that power struggles exist in every situation whenever there is an obstacle to overcome and is the basis of any story. You have made the error of lumping them altogether on equal ground when truly, there exists a fundamental difference between bloody military conquests and peaceful competition. The term peaceful does not imply a lack of objective or competition but refers to a alternative path that does not prioritize bloodshed.
Right, "Ton of viable different strategies". Tell me how there is a "Ton" of viable options to keep city states alive past early game again? You can't say this "Don't want to build an army and liberate city states? --> Don't have City States!" then go on to say there is choice on the matter. Having to build an invasion force just to liberate city states so that they can even exist defeats the whole purpose of going the peaceful route in the first place. Mind you I'm not even talking about defending them, I'm talking about having them exist. A peacekeeping force and an Invasion force requires very different investments in case you haven't realized. And having to invest in a invasion force when going the peaceful route renders any advantage of not warmongering moot.
BNW a good "builder" title? Have you even played any of the previous games in the series? Civ 4 blows it out of the water in builder options and different strategies (to the point that now a decade beyond release people are still discovering new ways to balance their economy) Civ 6 is also already vastly superior to BNW in terms of buildering, with districts and tons of other new features. Yes you need a standing army to defend yourself and occasionally fight in both 4 and 6, but I'd argue that is entirely how civ should be designed. Civ's that spend their entire existence at peace IRL don't achieve much at all either.
What does BNW even really have to offer a builder player? The shallowest worker game in the whole franchise? Expansion so nerfed that you might as well not bother settling anything yourself beyond 3-5 cities? Yeah great builder game that
The reason Brave New World was so popular is because it build on what was already a popular title, and civ 5 became popular because it "streamlined" away half the core civ experience to cater to a casual audience. Not because its builder game was vastly superior (as it wasn't)
BNW is a superior "builder" title simply by the fact that it prevents ICS. ICS makes quality, the central tenet of building strategies, redundant by prioritizing quantity. There is no fun to building strategies when quality doesn't matter. Civ 6 repeats the same mistake unfortunately. Not saying expansion is a bad thing but there needs to be proper limits somewhere so that choices matter and not simply more = better. Whether or not it is more popular because of whatever reason is debatable and we should stop there or we'll need market statistics.
Again, did anyone mention anything about not building a military again? You really should stop implying that as a pretext because it makes it seem like I'm advocating a defenseless play when I'm clearly not.
What BNW offers? You can't do this In 6 or 4 you know? Even if you did they won't make a significant difference in the light of sheer quantity.
I did not say that at all, in fact I have the utmost respect for people who try a pure builderish path to victory, some of my favorite civ 6 videos where civtrader6's peaceful Deity attempts. I said that pure builder is an inneficient strategy in any 4X worth its salt. I've played variant peaceful games myself as well, I quite enjoy them in fact, still doesn't mean I think it should be equally viable to play peaceful, since that is of course a nonsensical and arrogant demand.
Oh you totally did.
I think the fact that civ 5 had such braindead AI that you could happily just Builder your way to victory without even needing more than token defenses, even on Deity, has falsely changed peoples viewpoint that peace had been any more than a variant in previous games (above a certain level of competance at least, of course if you putter around in your sandbox on lower difficulties you can do whatever you want)."
You have
a: Directly implied that building/peace play is and should be an inferior sandbox strategy and by extension anyone who does it is therefore less skilled.
b: Directly implied that warmongering deserves more credit than peaceful play, and by extension implied that building players don't deserve as much credit for not doing so
c: Called such players "arrogant" and "nonsensical" for wanting it to be equally creditable as warmongering.
All 3 implications cannot be justified just by you saying you have "utmost respect for people" when what you stated clearly betrays your true opinions.
Both example players (the one who doesn't build Campuses and the one who refuses to war) are ignoring an obvious solution to their problems that is already in the game and wanting the game to then be altered to suit their playstyle, and both are pursuing an equally, obviously, flawed strategy. I also said nothing about a science victory in the context of the campuses example, so who is erecting a strawman here!
And players who state stuff like "wanting the game to then be altered to suit their playstyle" build their arguments on the false assumption that the game is
not biased towards any play style when it clearly is and the argument holds no water when that presumption is exposed. Yes we want it altered but only because it is biased right now and should be altered. The way you phrase it makes it seem like it is unreasonable to demand fixes to an imbalanced game.
Oh so you weren't talking about Science Victories. What context were you driving at then? The context I provided is not excluded as a possible extension of what you have stated by the way, so it's not exactly a Straw Man. Giving more Science to players who don't build Campuses can be done in the name of balance if Science costs are off and I see no inherent wrong in that.
Very far off-topic there, but the only reason we live in a world where everyone peacefully "collaborates" is not beacuse we've turned into a planet of hippies or something, but because world conflict would cause more losses than gains for anyone involved (nukes, collapse of the global economy, etc.). AI loses nothing, gains everything by killing city states, so logic dictates it should do it.
So why are people against such a cost being reflected in Civ 6 and at the same time against any non-conquest route being buffed in the game?
Alright then what if we didn't nerf AI aggression to City States but buffed their (AI) defensive capabilities instead? Oh I'm sure some would be opposed to this as well because City States being captured doesn't affect their play style at all and they would hate that players who don't play the same way get some advantage that in no way affects their own play style at all.
