Next expansion?

[blackcatatonic]

An expansion literally just came out. Another one would be too hastily made and says the game is already on its way out. What I'm curious about is if new DLC would have to stay compatible with Standard Rules only.

We're now in the middle of August. I'm not sure February counts as "literally just" any more.

 

[Cerilis]

I'd just like to make sure...

you're being sarcastic aren't you?

Judging by their posting history including constant whining about the UI, yes.

 

[Scaramanga]

We're now in the middle of August. I'm not sure February counts as "literally just" any more.

6 months is too soon to start asking for another expansion. @CivGame twitter still posts about 8 new expansion wonders like it's recent news. Maybe I just haven't played all the new civs yet so it's still fresh.

 

[Greywulf]

Looking forward to the explosion

Likewise!

 

[Lord Lakely]

it may be early for another xpac, but a few dlc civs would be nice

 

[Art Morte]

I don't mind if Firaxis take their time over another expansion if it's more hit than miss. In RnF loyalty is a hit, imo, but the more I play with Governors and the Gov Plaza the more I wish they weren't really in the game. Don't want another expansion if it just scrapes the barrel of ideas.

 

[acluewithout]

I don't mind if Firaxis take their time over another expansion if it's more hit than miss. In RnF loyalty is a hit, imo, but the more I play with Governors and the Gov Plaza the more I wish they weren't really in the game. Don't want another expansion if it just scrapes the barrel of ideas.

I find it confounding. I loved vanilla so much. But really struggle to find the energy to play the game now since RnF. The Government Plaza and Governors are a big part of that - I wouldn’t say they’re shallow, or bottom of the barrel, but they are lacking in a way the ideas in Vanilla were not.

 

[noontide]

I'd just like to make sure...

you're being sarcastic aren't you?

I think he was.

Speaking of UI, there is still this little bug that bugs me to no end: when you manually change the tiles being worked in the city screen, and exit it, the corresponding numbers of turns-to-finish and turns-to-grow in the city title bar do not get updated.

If there is no 3rd expansion, it is better that next one does get the time for development to balance out everything and let AI work properly. So somewhere between june - september 2019 would be better in that case.

To think AlphaGo beat the best player in the world, and the second generation AI beat the first after a few month, yet Civ VI cannot wage a proper war.

 

[Art Morte]

I find it confounding. I loved vanilla so much. But really struggle to find the energy to play the game now since RnF. The Government Plaza and Governors are a big part of that - I wouldn’t say they’re shallow, or bottom of the barrel, but they are lacking in a way the ideas in Vanilla were not.

The options provided by Governors and the Plaza are too obvious to make them feel like actually meaningful decisions. With the Plaza, the extra housing from Governors and the Spy thing are clearly the best, imo. I feel like the Gov Plaza is a "let's get this done and over with now" thing in all of my games rather than an important strategic decision to make. And the Governor promotions, there are a handful of really good ones while most of them feel indifferent. It's just not balanced, either of these features.

On Emergencies I'm in two minds. I like the base idea, but because the AI cannot handle them smartly, they feel random and broken.

So, I'm a bit worried that if the first expansion provided these kind of half-baked, hastily-executed ideas, what are the odds that future expansions will have better features?

Edit. Although in fairness I should repeat that Loyalty is a very good feature that makes games more interesting, imo, and for it alone I'm glad I got RnF.

 

[ZubieMaster]

The options provided by Governors and the Plaza are too obvious to make them feel like actually meaningful decisions. With the Plaza, the extra housing from Governors and the Spy thing are clearly the best, imo. I feel like the Gov Plaza is a "let's get this done and over with now" thing in all of my games rather than an important strategic decision to make. And the Governor promotions, there are a handful of really good ones while most of them feel indifferent. It's just not balanced, either of these features.

On Emergencies I'm in two minds. I like the base idea, but because the AI cannot handle them smartly, they feel random and broken.

So, I'm a bit worried that if the first expansion provided these kind of half-baked, hastily-executed ideas, what are the odds that future expansions will have better features?

Edit. Although in fairness I should repeat that Loyalty is a very good feature that makes games more interesting, imo, and for it alone I'm glad I got RnF.

Loyalty is just meh for me. I agree with your thoughts on governors, plaza, and emergencies, and I lump loyalty in with them as "half-baked". Not acknowledging military presence whatsoever in a disloyal city breaks the immersion for me, since a city "flipping" while a large military garrison is present is just unrealistic. An extremely disloyal city should starve out, its production should drop to zero, partisans should appear and fight and even destroy buildings, but to flip without having to dislodge the occupying force is just wrong. Also, basing it all on nearby population is way to simplistic and misses the mark in my opinion, I like previous versions where it was more about happiness, culture, foreign population within the city, building courthouses & jails, etc.

 

[Art Morte]

Loyalty is just meh for me. I agree with your thoughts on governors, plaza, and emergencies, and I lump loyalty in with them as "half-baked". Not acknowledging military presence whatsoever in a disloyal city breaks the immersion for me, since a city "flipping" while a large military garrison is present is just unrealistic. An extremely disloyal city should starve out, its production should drop to zero, partisans should appear and fight and even destroy buildings, but to flip without having to dislodge the occupying force is just wrong. Also, basing it all on nearby population is way to simplistic and misses the mark in my opinion, I like previous versions where it was more about happiness, culture, foreign population within the city, building courthouses & jails, etc.

Military force should have a greater effect on Loyalty, yes, but on the other hand it might become too easy to keep your cities loyal through brute force. I think I prefer that there's a fair chance of flipping cities peacefully rather than military force guaranteeing that cities never flip.

Loyalty may be a bit simple, but at least it means that the AI can handle this mechanic at least somewhat competitively, even if it's by accident. Pretty much when any mechanic or strategic decision-making gets complicated in Civ6, the AI will start to struggle to be efficient with it, so... At least Loyalty is mostly balanced between the human and the AI. It's not a perfect mechanic by any means, but I think it's the one that adds the most in RnF and works well enough to not feel broken (emergencies) or unnecessary (governors).

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Loyalty may be a bit simple, but at least it means that the AI can handle this mechanic at least somewhat competitively, even if it's by accident. Pretty much when any mechanic or strategic decision-making gets complicated in Civ6, the AI will start to struggle to be efficient with it, so...

The only place I see the AI consistently struggle with Loyalty is with integration with choosing target cities for a military attack. Sometimes the AI gets a little aggressive on placing cities for settlement, but most times it can manage those challenges through Governor placement. Militarily, however, the AI seems to often choose targets for attack - notably City States and Capitals - that it cannot hold by any means after conquest.

 

[blackcatatonic]

I don't mind if Firaxis take their time over another expansion if it's more hit than miss. In RnF loyalty is a hit, imo, but the more I play with Governors and the Gov Plaza the more I wish they weren't really in the game. Don't want another expansion if it just scrapes the barrel of ideas.

I don't mind governors or the plaza, but they are essentially just extra bonuses to tack on rather than being a whole new system that you can really engage with. I never struggle to get as many governors/promotions as I want, and I never really find it difficult to choose which ones to unlock - and I only really move them around rarely. Maybe I'm "doing it wrong" or the fact that I'm playing on King rather than something more challenging, but I never feel a strong need to make the most of them. As for the government plaza - I've only ever built the buildings that buff settler production, give free builders with new cities and the extra spy one.

Emergencies are also pointless for the most part: either they are free gold for me, or if it's something I can't win (e.g. I'm asked to take a city that is too far away from my army) I just won't accept it. The AI almost always refuses as well.

Loyalty and the era system are both big winners for me, though I still wish Dark Ages were more punishing. But what Civ VI is still missing is something to liven up the mid- to late game...

 

[acluewithout]

Governors and Government Plaza aren’t bad. Mechanically they do feel tacked on, but I can mostly forgive that. But they are very very bland and that’s a real problem for me. I really like the loyalty system. It has its kinks, but I think the basic idea is right.

Civ is in a weird place. The vanilla game was excellent. Just excellent. And RnF has introduced some features which I think are amazing - like loyalty, combat bonuses based on diplomatic visibility and alliances. But what makes the game so good is also what makes it so frustrating; because the things that don’t work or are underdeveloped just stick out against all the good stuff.

I’ve posted about my various gripes. I won’t bore people more. But there really is such a range: balance issues which have been around since vanilla (eg anti-cav, Military Tactics), stuff that needs a little more love ( eg religion generally, including being able to recruit prophets after your first, IZ and buildings, tier three buildings generally, a way to build or buy roads other than trade routes, barbairans / goody huts), stuff that’s more fundamentally bland or half-done (eg governors, government plaza, emergencies, ages (specifically dark ages)), all the way up to more fundamental issues (eg see long posts about maps and colonization, industrial revolution and governance).

Those short comings really stand out against what’s so good about the game: 1 upt is pretty much there now with its revised movement rules and limited stacking; districts, wonders, improvements really nail it and make playing the map critical; splitting tech and civics tree is genius; cultural victory is an amazing and flexible and immersive victory condition; religion and faith have successfully built on Civ 5’s religion system to make a really interesting alternative economy and game within a game; great people are flavourful and fun; spies are awesome and with religion provide a really unique way to “war” without actually “warring”; governments and policy cards are fun, flexible, and do a great job of capturing the feel of government without getting mechanically overwhelming.

The result is that although the game has more good content now then it did at release, I actually want to play it less, because what’s rubbish just winds me up so much against the stuff that’s good.

I’m positive about the next expansion. My feeling is that whatever new mechanics it introduces it will also fix a lot of remaining balance issues and expand / fill in some of the gaps - the various patches have generally been pretty good at doing that (eg tourism for walls, expanding religion, religion affecting loyalty - all good stuff). I think once the mechanics are settled, AI and UI issues can also be improved more (either by FXS or modders or both).

The only thing that worries me is this: most of what is currently ”good” about the game are mechanics that were either introduced in or were a natural progression from Civ 5. I'm a little worried that FXS won't be able to be down some of the newer ideas (e.g. governors) or deliberately leave these for Civ VII. I hope I'm wrong about that.

(Also, they need to fix England.)

 

[Art Morte]

The only place I see the AI consistently struggle with Loyalty is with integration with choosing target cities for a military attack. Sometimes the AI gets a little aggressive on placing cities for settlement, but most times it can manage those challenges through Governor placement. Militarily, however, the AI seems to often choose targets for attack - notably City States and Capitals - that it cannot hold by any means after conquest.

Yes, maybe with the introduction of Loyalty they should have introduced the AI occasionally razing cities as well. That's basically the thing to do if you capture a city you won't be able to keep.

Sometimes I see the AI settling a completely moronic city that starts instantly flipping and sometimes they inexplicably move a governor out of a city that needs one for loyalty, but at least these happen relatively rarely.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Yes, maybe with the introduction of Loyalty they should have introduced the AI occasionally razing cities as well. That's basically the thing to do if you capture a city you won't be able to keep.

It may also be a prioritization of target issue, as the problem seems to be mostly with City States and Capitals (assuming that's a true observation and not a biased perception on my part). In other words, the AI may be coded to consider City States (vulnerable on a military vs military assessment) and Capitals (presumably hard coded for Domination victory reasons) as sufficiently attractive targets that this outweighs any assessment (assuming there is one) of the possible Loyalty issues that may arise on conquest.

It's potentially a tricky thing to fix, as if you move a post-conquest Loyalty assessment too high up the decision tree, the AI may not pick any targets. Coding the AI to aim to capture enemy cities in clusters, the way a human would, may not be feasible considering how exponentially more complicated such an assessment would be compared to choosing a single city target. Razing cities would up the stakes in warfare, but could also prevent the AI from ever getting a foothold on another continent (sometimes the first city looks unholdable until you take the next city).

Perhaps the biggest issue lies with the AI's willingness to make peace after capturing a single city. In my test games, it seems to be universal that if a city falls, the AI wants to make peace shortly thereafter, often offering gold in order to get a peace treaty that lets them keep the city. Possibly that's a coincidence related to the AI's level of war weariness, possibly that's intended AI behaviour to limit the impact on a human player of a military dominant neighbour. However, when the AI chooses as it's single city to capture a capital that's surrounded by other cities, it results in the whole war being for naught.

 

[DJ_Tanner]

I don't mind if Firaxis take their time over another expansion if it's more hit than miss. In RnF loyalty is a hit, imo, but the more I play with Governors and the Gov Plaza the more I wish they weren't really in the game. Don't want another expansion if it just scrapes the barrel of ideas.

I don't see how any of those are "scraping the barrel" on ideas. I think all the items added within R&F are great, even if they are far from perfect in their current iterations. I mean its tough to add brand new concepts to such a firmly established product and I think, as they tend to do, they used a bit too much of a measured hand. In a goal to not break or upset the balance too much they made the new features in R&F too weak or too bland. However, much like how other features that were added to the Civ series these concepts should get refined and benefit from other new systems as the product continues to evolve.

 

[acluewithout]

It may also be a prioritization of target issue, as the problem seems to be mostly with City States and Capitals (assuming that's a true observation and not a biased perception on my part). In other words, the AI may be coded to consider City States (vulnerable on a military vs military assessment) and Capitals (presumably hard coded for Domination victory reasons) as sufficiently attractive targets that this outweighs any assessment (assuming there is one) of the possible Loyalty issues that may arise on conquest.

It's potentially a tricky thing to fix, as if you move a post-conquest Loyalty assessment too high up the decision tree, the AI may not pick any targets. Coding the AI to aim to capture enemy cities in clusters, the way a human would, may not be feasible considering how exponentially more complicated such an assessment would be compared to choosing a single city target. Razing cities would up the stakes in warfare, but could also prevent the AI from ever getting a foothold on another continent (sometimes the first city looks unholdable until you take the next city).

Perhaps the biggest issue lies with the AI's willingness to make peace after capturing a single city. In my test games, it seems to be universal that if a city falls, the AI wants to make peace shortly thereafter, often offering gold in order to get a peace treaty that lets them keep the city. Possibly that's a coincidence related to the AI's level of war weariness, possibly that's intended AI behaviour to limit the impact on a human player of a military dominant neighbour. However, when the AI chooses as it's single city to capture a capital that's surrounded by other cities, it results in the whole war being for naught.

Agreed.

The AI is also not necessarily designed to play well. It’s designed to make the game fun, which of course is very subjective. Making the game fun probably does usually imply the AI needs to play well, but not always. It may be that having the AI forward settle even at the risk of loyalty flipping was seems as “fun”, perhaps thinking the player would like seeing cities flip this way and that.

There are a lot of criticism of the AI here. A lot are perhaps justified overall, but I do think FXS deserve more credit than they get. It seems to me programming an AI (which is not an AI at all, but actually script / decision tree) is inherently a hard task for a game like Civ. It’s then even harder when you realise: making the AI play “fun” not just well is very hard to pin down; the meta of what is good play changes (eg settling without water was thought bad until recently, but is now seen as viable); the core mechanics of the game are still evolving.

I think the AI is okay for now. While the game mechanics are still shaking out, I’m fine giving FXS a bit of a pass. The AI is in a not a bad shape, particularly tactical combat. For now, I’d be happy if it just didn’t build one tile Petra / Chicken Pizza and didn’t found early cities without any water.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

While the game mechanics are still shaking out, I’m fine giving FXS a bit of a pass.

It is tough for the development team, you are still working on the rules, to also tell the AI how to behave. Something like the way the AI handles religious conversions (wave of Apostles followed by a wave of Missionaries) likely represents the AI guy's best guess at how to pursue a religious conversion. A game as complicated as this takes months in the field with 1000s of players putting in 100s of hours before the best strategies can be confirmed.

 

[playshogi]

My prediction for the next expansion: announcement in October release February.
No more DLC.