Some thought after playing EUV.
PDX devs are not too shy about adding tooltips, nesting tooltips, windows, tabs, even more windows. Sometimes you get even circular tooltips where the hunt for information ends up back to square one. There is information that you have got something wrong but there is no information on why. Finding the information is sometimes cumbersome. You are navigating through a sea of dialogs.
Firaxis hates providing information. Windows and dialogs are kept to a minimum, which, on the other hand, lessens the mental burden. Only few windows to check, and if it is not there, it wont be anywhere. Perfecting UI is easier and generally Civ UI is very polished, lean and sleek. Sometimes they fail. In Civ 6, the spy assignment dialog is messy and difficult to understand. Or when using a builder to improve tiles in the late game, the UI is lying about yields. But those issues are easy to ignore. I can say with confidence that Firaxis UI devs are more professional than their PDX colleagues. When it comes to balancing information and screens, Old World devs win, but the UI is not that sleek.
Then the game play loop. Firaxis obviously has an advantage, because civ is so simple to start. Found a city, explore, build and research. Repeat until you win. In EUV, you must first check what your existing kingdom is about, learn what has to be improved, define your strategy, adjust taxes, goods, production etc. In EUV, I am still learning what I should do. In HOI4, I have a checklist that I go through when I start a new campaign
Mental burden is massive because you dont start with an empty canvas but with ready made empire.
Which is fine for me, I have more hours in PDX games than in Firaxis games, but the Civ franchise is not threatened by competitors. Their only threat is Firaxis itself and 2K.
