New Civ Tweet... what could this be?

[Gedemon]

Well, the person I was responding to referenced 'late-game improvements'. To me, that sounds like they want new content added to vanilla, for free. Of course I think we should get free bug fixes and tweaks to existing content.

Also, calling Civ6 incomplete on launch is a ridiculous statement imo. Both when comparing to previous Civ games, and to the current games market as a whole.

I suppose that "incomplete" is a matter of perception, Civ5 had less feature on launch, I agree, but, for one example, at least the Civ5 AI knew that the game featured aircraft, even if it was using them badly, while we had to wait 9 months to see the first lines of codes related to aircraft in Civ6 AI (which still use them badly)

I can't call that kind of game "complete" on launch, not when a critical late game feature like aerial warfare is missing.

And, as a modder, there was some things that I could do with civ5 at launch (like controling the AI units, for a better use of aircraft in my WWII mod for example), that I can't do even one year later with civ6. On that side it's far from complete, for another example, just compare civ5 and civ6 Worldbuilders...

Now, from the start I've seen a lot of potential in civ6, and today I do believe it will be a great game, superior to civ5, and maybe it will even be able to compete with the great memories I have of civ4 (and that's telling a lot as every one knows it's difficult to compete with a memory of the good old days...)

Civ6 has progressed a lot in one year, true, (even if I'd love to see it progress faster) but IMO the diplomacy AI (I'm not talking adding a "World Congress" but better handling of available diplomatic actions) and the UI are not worthy of a released product, just an early access. That's the kind of "improvements" (we could add the combat AI) that are not simple bugfix neither completely new features that we're surely expecting from an expansion and should be ported to vanilla (and, for the AI code, were for civ5, from my memory of the patches to the source code)

 

[dunkleosteus]

What does age have to do with it? You didn't qualify your statement to account for age, you said it was the funnest strategy game on the market. Subjectively, I can't tell you you're wrong. Objectively, I can tell you there are MANY people who disagree with you wholeheartedly.

Anecdotes! Your argument is anecdotal! Go find some statistics and come back.

I don't expect you to bother, so let's look at some Data from Steamspy at the time of this comment:
Civ 6:
Release date: Oct 20, 2016 (399 days ago)
Owners: 2,280,893 ± 45,381
Players in the last 2 weeks: 358,805 ± 18,035 (15.73%)

Civ 5:
Release date: Sep 21, 2010 (2620 days ago)
Owners: 10,781,240 ± 97,788
Players in the last 2 weeks: 671,367 ± 24,661 (6.23%)

Let's do some analysis: Civ 5 has two full expansions and had 5 years of patching and lots of DLC. Civ 5 has been out 6.57 times longer than Civ 6 has been. In that time, it's sold 4.73 time as many copies as Civ 6 has.

Currently, Civ 6 is played by 2.52 times as many players, relative to the player base. So, Civ 6 has sold better on average than Civ 5 has (although Civ 5's sales were likely heavily weighted towards it's initial release and subsequent DLC releases). Civ 5 has also had many sales where it was being sold for very low prices, my girlfriend bought the complete edition of Civ 5 at 95% off. Civ 6 has yet to come anywhere close to deals that good. Despite that, it's selling well.

While the raw numbers favour civ 5, for every time someone plays civ 5, there are 15 people that own the game and AREN'T playing it. For civ 6, that number is ~5.36.

Sources: http://steamspy.com/app/8930 http://steamspy.com/app/289070

 

[Art Morte]

Well, the person I was responding to referenced 'late-game improvements'. To me, that sounds like they want new content added to vanilla, for free. Of course I think we should get free bug fixes and tweaks to existing content.

Also, calling Civ6 incomplete on launch is a ridiculous statement imo. Both when comparing to previous Civ games, and to the current games market as a whole.

I do think the game was released incomplete and remains so. Not hugely incomplete, but still. Like, if Hall of Fame has been left out of the vanilla game just so they can add it in an expansion. That would be a very cheap strategy by Firaxis / 2K and definitely a reason, in my eyes anyway, to consider the vanilla game left deliberately incomplete. Or the way Ed Beach has clearly recognized in interviews that the late-game needs more mechanisms. I thought they had just wanted to release the game when they did, knowing that late-game wasn't great, but that their intention was to complete that part of the game via patches to the vanilla game. But now it seems their strategy might have been to deliberately hold back on late-game mechanisms to release them in an expansion, in order to milk the customer more. If it does turn out like this, I will definitely feel like I need to buy an expansion just to get a complete vanilla game experience and that doesn't sit right with me.

 

[Siptah]

I do think the game was released incomplete and remains so. Not hugely incomplete, but still. Like, if Hall of Fame has been left out of the vanilla game just so they can add it in an expansion. That would be a very cheap strategy by Firaxis / 2K and definitely a reason, in my eyes anyway, to consider the vanilla game left deliberately incomplete. Or the way Ed Beach has clearly recognized in interviews that the late-game needs more mechanisms. I thought they had just wanted to release the game when they did, knowing that late-game wasn't great, but that their intention was to complete that part of the game via patches to the vanilla game. But now it seems their strategy might have been to deliberately hold back on late-game mechanisms to release them in an expansion, in order to milk the customer more. If it does turn out like this, I will definitely feel like I need to buy an expansion just to get a complete vanilla game experience and that doesn't sit right with me.

Does that really surprise you? It was the same in civ IV and V, mechanism or at least topics of earlier civs were left out and were added back in in expansion (in a different way). To me, it was way more surprising that civ VI included things like religion, archeology, support units, espionage etc. than that they left ideas they had for an expansion. The late game has always been a problem in civ vanilla games, until expansion like Beyond the Sword and Brave New World improved them considerably. An to be frank, I rather expansions like that compared to Conquest and Play the World, that didn't change the game experience considerably. Looks we get a substantial one that makes the game very different, at least according to the interviews.

 

[Rosty K]

They're doing it for the money after all. And the whole process we've got used to - DLCs, expansions, many years of support, and so on - requires that the spice must flow as well Moreover, I'm almost sure they already knew what will be in the first expansion at the time of the game release.

 

[AmtrakQuebec]

They're doing it for the money after all. And the whole process we've got used to - DLCs, expansions, many years of support, and so on - requires that the spice must flow as well Moreover, I'm almost sure they already knew what will be in the first expansion at the time of the game release.

Dune reference noted... have a cookie.

 

[Art Morte]

Does that really surprise you? It was the same in civ IV and V, mechanism or at least topics of earlier civs were left out and were added back in in expansion (in a different way). To me, it was way more surprising that civ VI included things like religion, archeology, support units, espionage etc. than that they left ideas they had for an expansion. The late game has always been a problem in civ vanilla games, until expansion like Beyond the Sword and Brave New World improved them considerably. An to be frank, I rather expansions like that compared to Conquest and Play the World, that didn't change the game experience considerably. Looks we get a substantial one that makes the game very different, at least according to the interviews.

Well, yes, you make a fair point. However, I never felt that vanilla V was actually incomplete. I was finishing my vanilla games of V quite happily, but in VI I rarely do. And basic things like HoF were in the vanilla game.

If the announcement is indeed going to be an expansion, it comes surprisingly early. In a way that also points to a slightly incomplete vanilla game. "Oh look, player numbers are dwindling already, because there's not enough going on in the vanilla VI, we better release the (first) expansion already to give them a more complete game, lest they forget about the game and won't buy the expansion".

 

[bbbt]

I doubt it's a a case of 'lets specifically not include these features in the main game so we can include the in the expansion' (I mean, a world congress in the main game just gives other things to sell in the expansion - the opportunities are pretty limitless in that sense). It's more of a '2k wants this release date, and will budget this much money/salary hours to it, what can we accomplish from our priority list'.

Honestly it seems like that were overly ambitious on what game mechanics to include, and ended up with a less fully finished game in general. I.e. I would've actually preferred them not include religion in the initial game, and have dedicated those resources to the AI being able to handle the existing game mechanics better (and maybe implemented a more fully fledged religion approach in an expansion) and with things like 'alert', key bindings, and the like in the base game.

I'm actually not sure I'd call the UI 'incomplete', as much as a I'd call it more designed by someone who didn't seem to understand what Civ was (and the amount of management required and 'power user' featured required) and seemed to be designing for some sort of simpler tablet game where you would just go click on one thing at a time.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

You make some valid points but personally I think you sound a bit too cynical about it, I doubt they deliberately released an 'incomplete' game with the intention of 'finishing' it through expansions. Sure, they always intended to release expansions as per the IV/V model but the vanilla game is perfectly playable and doesn't need expansions, even if they are welcome.

 

[darkace77450]

IMO the diplomacy AI (I'm not talking adding a "World Congress" but better handling of available diplomatic actions) and the UI are not worthy of a released product, just an early access. That's the kind of "improvements" (we could add the combat AI) that are not simple bugfix neither completely new features that we're surely expecting from an expansion and should be ported to vanilla (and, for the AI code, were for civ5, from my memory of the patches to the source code)

It's not just the AI's handling of diplomacy and it's not just the AI's handling of combat, it's also the AI's handling of infrastructure. Some of the district and city locations the AI chooses are ridiculous. The AI wasn't ready at launch. There's no getting around that. A Civilization game with an AI that can't handle the diplomacy, combat, and infrastructure is incomplete.

 

[Haig]

Civ VI is in a very good state at the moment, I have uninstalled Civ V long time ago.

When Civ 5 came out the lack of features was unbelivable. It had crazy bully AI that was passive at attack, and had big balance issues.
Civ 4 was a mess at launch too.

Edit: But I'd like to get back to speculating next tuesday's announcement!

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I'll be really disappointed if it isn't an expansion now! Probably shouldn't get my hopes up but it's hard not to.

 

[Arianrhod]

A more interesting comparison would be % of owners currently playing either game, or % of people who own both that are playing V vs VI.

That's not necessarily a perfect comparison, either. The two inherently have different audiences. Because Civ VI is more expensive, anyone who bothered to buy it is naturally going to be more inclined to play it. Even relative to Civ V, due to the entry barrier, Civ VI's audience is more likely to contain

• diehards who have already played Civ V for thousands of hours (and would count as Civ V owners, who can't play both at once)
  
• people who just bought it (or a DLC pack for it) recently
  
• people desperately trying to justify spending $30-80 on Civ VI

...than is true of the reverse, none of which necessarily have to do with the relationship between how fun the individual games are. The opposite is true for Civ V: it's cheap enough that people can largely drop it without caring too much, it's old enough that most people have already played it for hundreds if not thousands of hours, and there should presumably not be as many people purchasing it because it's no longer the main product that the publisher is trying to sell. The numbers you mention, consequently, are ultimately going to be skewed hilariously in favor of Civ VI, even if the alternative you're attempting to counteract may indeed be skewed in favor of Civ V.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

All true! Of course, I wasn't the one trying to use a single number to make a dubious point, I was simply highlighting that you would need to look at far more data than the total number playing each game to draw any meaningful conclusions. Not that I advocate doing so, people should just get on with enjoying whichever game they like best and not worry about what everyone else is up to.

 

[Guandao]

I'll be very surprised if this will be an announcement for the first Civ6 expansion. It seems too early for that.

 

[trev1972]

I doubt it's a a case of 'lets specifically not include these features in the main game so we can include the in the expansion' (I mean, a world congress in the main game just gives other things to sell in the expansion - the opportunities are pretty limitless in that sense). It's more of a '2k wants this release date, and will budget this much money/salary hours to it, what can we accomplish from our priority list'.

Honestly it seems like that were overly ambitious on what game mechanics to include, and ended up with a less fully finished game in general. I.e. I would've actually preferred them not include religion in the initial game, and have dedicated those resources to the AI being able to handle the existing game mechanics better (and maybe implemented a more fully fledged religion approach in an expansion) and with things like 'alert', key bindings, and the like in the base game.

I'm actually not sure I'd call the UI 'incomplete', as much as a I'd call it more designed by someone who didn't seem to understand what Civ was (and the amount of management required and 'power user' featured required) and seemed to be designing for some sort of simpler tablet game where you would just go click on one thing at a time.

I dont understand things such as hall of fame or replay map being missed out though i would imagine it is a tiny amount of work to add them?. Heck the scoring system seems a bit off too (it doesnt seem to take into account speed of victory etc)

Comparing scores, victory times, watching your armies spread across the map on 'replay map' all add to replay in my opinion and help deal with the anticlimax of winning (ive just won my first immortal and...bleh im nero apparently )

 

[Westwall]

I'll be very surprised if this will be an announcement for the first Civ6 expansion. It seems too early for that.

Too early even for an announcement? They're way overdue.

 

[AvianBritish]

"Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Global House"
"Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Golden Hours"
"Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Global Hazards"
"Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gears of History"

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Too early even for an announcement? They're way overdue.

Strange timing for an announcement with the holiday season upon us, unless it's a "buy now and get the expansion" deal.

 

[leandrombraz]

Civ VI: Gandhi's Hell - Add a pos-apocalyptic era