Poll: What do you like the most in Civilization games?

[Solovey]

1) City placement and exploration.
2) Building tall.
3) Diplomacy when it's not broken.

 

[purringcat]

E Exploring the map and city placement. It's the same thing that made Colonization so fun.

 

[need my speed]

The story. Which, I suppose, is strategy and diplomacy.

Of course, Civilization V and VI lack both.

 

[daft]

I'd say expansion, city placing and Exploration are the most fun. Exploring the lands, then the seas (far away lands).

City management is still excellent, time consuming and important.

Tech and Research are getting changed (slowly), from the irrational Tech Tree, that's good. (I mean, we should be only able to research a category, depending on the nature/traits of our tribe(and leader) the research would gift us one of two or three possible advancements (techs) from the category we chose.

Diplo leaves quite a bit to be improved, but it is improving, I'd say, gradually. Still fun finding new (AI) neighbours and dealing with them accordingly.

Warfare needs to be improved: armies and armadas should be possible (and advantageous) to be created, led by great military leaders (generals). Combined type units (those capable of ranged and melee combat-mounted ranged/mounted melee-dismounted melee-or dismounted ranged(or both)) and so on. So many unit types were capable of more than one type of combat engagement.

I'd say land improv strategies need to be made more important and fun to strategize upon. Civ IV was great in that department.

 

[CoconutTank]

I am a very silly person, and I voted for "warfare" as my primary choice. But if I could vote for multiple things, I would vote for "warfare", "city placement and exploration" and "city management". The city management one is new, given how good governments work in Civ6.

For starters, area control and "dudes on a map" have always been my jam, even if the folks I interact with in real life aren't necessarily as receptive. My first entry into turn-based strategy games and eventually Civ5 was from Advance Wars (points to avatar). Territory control is also a strong source of player interaction, involving players fighting over and making efficient use of dwindling resources, which usually leads to warfare.

 

[Disgustipated]

I voted city management, but overall I like the builder part of civilization with a moderate amount of warmongering.


My current game Kongo is leading culturally, and in some ways scientifically (only one certain lines). I'm tempted to attack him since I like distinctive leads, but then I realize he can't beat me to cultural victory as I'm currently gaining on him on domestic tourists. So I opt for the builder game and beat him to space race. I do my warmongering in the early game. Yeah I prefer a couple hundred point lead, but I have over 100 point lead now, and I feel comfortable finally. It would have been fun to attack him. At one point he was ahead of me with knights to my horseman, I had to settle for peace as I had no chance of taking one of his cities. At the point I'm at now, I'm ahead of him in tech, I could take him if I wanted, but I'll opt for the space victory instead.

 

[shadowplay]

The pretend feeling of accomplishment.

Followed by managing cities.

 

[Helmling]

The story. Which, I suppose, is strategy and diplomacy.

Of course, Civilization V and VI lack both.

Buddy, I hope you're not driving while wearing those rose-colored glasses. It's got to be dangerous with such limited visibility.

 

[Helmling]

The pretend feeling of accomplishment.

Oh, my God, ain't that the truth!

 

[need my speed]

Buddy, I hope you're not driving while wearing those rose-colored glasses. It's got to be dangerous with such limited visibility.

How can they be rose-coloured glasses when, at this moment, I am capable of playing them all three?

But really, Civilization V - and VI to a lesser extent - lacks the entire feeling of empire-building. The scale has been lessened. Compare medieval / fantasy 4X games - such as Warlock Master of the Arcane - to Civilization IV and V, for example. It's very much closer to V. One unit per tile as implemented serves to massively reduce the game's scale. So does cities having a three-tile radius. City's can bombard, which is a very minor point but also reinforces the medieval 'feudal castle kingdom builder'-feeling as opposed to the 'empire builder'-feeling. Maps are objectively smaller, and feel smaller still. Maps do not get settled, with vast expanses of no man's land left in the modern era - indeed, the optimum is three to five cities, the very opposite of what an empire-building game should be. And so on. There are more concerns regarding this point, but they are more mechanical and less feelings (the latter of which is what was asked here, I suppose; I like empire-building games).

I do not see how you can possibly claim that diplomacy is in any way, shape, or form a good feature in V and VI, so I won't really expand upon that. I just woke up, so I am probably not entirely coherent, but I can probably expand upon this later, if you disagree with certain points.

 

[Mahasona]

Early game exploration/ city placement. I love finding out what and who's out there and figuring out what to do.

 

[RealHuhn]

Maps do not get settled, with vast expanses of no man's land left in the modern era - indeed, the optimum is three to five cities, the very opposite of what an empire-building game should be.

What game have you been playing? In a peaceful game (apart from the initial warrior rush), 6 cities by turn 100 on standard map size is quite normal. And you still want to expand and add additional cities constantly, especially after exploring with caravels. In late game, you should be looking at 10+ cities at least. I agree that some maps can get cramped in the early game but that often means that there's more space left somewhere else.

CIV games are about micro and macro management. It sounds like you prefer games that are strictly about macro.

 

[Magil]

City management and building. It's like a big puzzle for me. Honestly, I can probably say I would probably be fairly disappointed with Civ VI if it wasn't for this. The really good thing about the game for me is that the district system works and there's so many ways to build cities and adjust to the terrain and capitalize on unique bonuses and features and other things. And the tile yields are back to where it feels rewarding to have my builders improve every hex and send my citizens to work it. That part of Civ VI works great. It makes me forget that I dislike so many things in the game (the AI is a joke in both diplomacy and combat, one-unit-per-tile ruins warfare, religious units, open borders, movement, etc; the UI is a horrendous mess of things that were half-done or just don't work, among other things).

 

[Xyriach]

I like fighting endless waves of barbarians....

Seriously though, the early game of building those first few cities and securing resources has always been a lot of fun. I prefer late game warfare though as the toys are much cooler, but given how often a game gets abandoned (you know you're going to win it, it's just a matter of clicking through, so re-roll while promising to yourself that you'll go back and finish it later....) the early game sees a lot of action.

 

[kaltorak]

Wow, I can't believe my own preference is winning by so much. But that doesn't make sense. Players wouldnt be enjoying civ6 that much then. In civ4 and 5, you searched and fought for awesome city placements, with as many resources as possible. In civ6, many small cities with industry zones are just the way to go. Nice city spots suck now.

 

[Becephalus]

I'm not surprised at how overwhelmingly people voted for E. The beginning of a Civ game has always been the most interesting part, in every version of the game. #1 you have fewer things to manage, #2 each thing matters more, and #3 the difference between things matters more. The difference between Animal Husbandry and Sailing matters a lot more than the difference between Flight and Replaceable Parts. The difference between a 2/1 Swordsman and a 1/2 Spearman can have overwhelming importance in the early game. The difference between having 3 Warriors and 4 Warriors when the barbarians come calling matters. Where you settle your 2nd city matters more than 10x more than where you settle your 8th city.

Basically all the choices in the early game are so sharp and clear, yet also interesting and difficult.

Can I like this fifty times? I actually think the game might be way way way better, f instead of ending with "victories" you were always just playing for a score victory, but it was at a random date. So it might be checking scores on turn 107 or something. Would make you still pursue both a short and long term strategy, without making you play out the tedious end game every time unless you wanted to.

They also could REALLY use a system of abstracting away management as the game moves on. With less direct control or cities. The problem is people always hate that unless the automation makes great decisions.

 

[Magil]

They also could REALLY use a system of abstracting away management as the game moves on. With less direct control or cities. The problem is people always hate that unless the automation makes great decisions.

Only if it's optional. You take away my city/tile micromanagement and you take away what makes Civ interesting to me.

 

[Disgustipated]

I voted city management, but after finishing my Japan game I kind of realize I like all of the above. It was a pretty exciting game because Kongo was so dominant. I would say what I like best is Empire management, not just city management.

Kongo ended up attacking me a second time as I was working on Mars projects. He offered me peace, but I wanted his capital. After that, he wouldn't offer me peace again. So I took all his cities. I won a culture victory soon as I took his last city. I would have never got a culture victory with him in the game. This time I was ahead of him in tech, but the first time he attacked me he was ahead in tech and had knights while I still had horseman. I took out a lot of units, but had no hope of taking any cities.

 

[Brian Boru]

So far no votes for a) Warfare
This can somehow explain why bad AI and 1UPT don't spoil the fun for many civ fans.

Still less than 5% for Warfare, which surprises me. My only AI concerns are peaceful, that it's not psycho in its trade or resource dealings, and doesn't randomly declare war without reason. If I want combat, it's so much better, and still with strategic and tactical elements, in open-world FPS or old-school RTS.

I'm so bored by war in Civ4 that when someone declares on me, my 'interesting choice' is "Do I slog with this guy for 20 turns, or will I start a new game?" War makes the game way too easy, and the logistics of it are a real drag, especially if there's overseas travel involved before Flight. The first 30-50 wars were fun, learning and mastering the military interaction; the next 50 wars were disappointing, rolling over an AI unbalanced the game too much in my favor in the days when I played to win on Emperor for the challenge.

Nowadays I typically play on Prince and get so far ahead militarily that it's very rare someone will declare--if they do, I vassal rather than eliminate, so they're still a factor in the game. I also often customize the game setup to minimize war chances, without going Always Peace which would be unbalancing in itself--and always Raging Barbarians so early military spending is still necessary.

Diplomacy is fairly similar, 'please don't screw up the game' is my main wish. Other than that, reasonable goods trading to push back the Happy and Health caps.

The interesting stuff for me is definitely in the last 3 choices [incl Religion and Culture].