Finally got around to playing a full game of Civ6 over the weekend. While it doesn't have the elegant simplicity of Civ4s systems, it is still a lot of fun. Especially late game when turns are finally processed in a reasonable time.
I do dislike how religion no longer plays a role in diplomacy and how sensitive countries are to warmonger penalty. I got double teamed by Brazil and the Aztecs; but decided to focus against the Aztecs because they were two eras behind me and their cities were disrupting the nice swathes of Greek territory I had settled. I rejected one peace treaty while laying siege to one of his cities and suddenly half the world hated me. What gives? Took me ages to loose the warmonger penalty.
Yeah, diplomacy is really a weak point in Civ 6. Most of the reasons the AI hates you for are total BS.
Something that annoys me but doesn't quite warrant a rant is that there are so few games I look forward to that don't disappoint me before I've even played them with commmon deal breakers like off-putting pre-order and DLC schemes that just make me want to wait for a complete edition. Didn't get Deus Ex: Mankind Divided for this reason. Reviewers praised the gameplay but complained about an incomplete story that looks like parts have been cut out to be sold in sequels. Apparently too many people felt the same, and now the series is "on hiatus" i.e. probably cancelled because it didn't sell that well. Great job, Square Enix.
The other reason I didn't get the game was the installation size, which has completely gone out of control in the past two years. 45 (55 with DLC) gigabyte ? Uhm, no. I made the jump from HDD to SSD and I'm too tight on money for another upgrade. I have about 220 gigs. One game does not get a fourth of that. You don't need all that data for a great game. You "need" all that data because you've stopped bothering to properly compress textures because current consoles can't decompress them fast enough and you keep perpetuating a graphical arms-race so that you can impress shareholders and CEOs who don't know anything about video games with shiny trailers.
Do those nice textures improve the game ? No, not really. Witcher 3 has a huge world and great graphics, and it's under 28 gigabyte. Still very large, but still
somewhat reasonable considering the content.
Newer AAA games are
not reasonable.
I was cautiosly optimistic about Mass Effect: Andromeda but I'll pass for the time being. Tacky "romance" stuff, open world reservations and Bioware's de-RPGization aside, the retail version is a mostly empty box with a download code and it requires 55 gigabyte of space, + obligatory and these days acceptable day one patch.
If I want to download 55+ gigabyte I'll...
...I'll do no such thing. I don't want to download 55+ gigabyte and piracy is evil and shouldn't even be brought up. Downloading would take a couple of days with my internet. So, another game that I'll maybe buy in a year or so. By the time I have upgraded my internet connection and bought a new 500 GB SSD there's going to be a cheaper GOTY or complete or ultimate edition with all the DLC.
I hope just the right amount of people do the same and Mass Effect: Andromeda sales are just the right amount of disappointing. Enough to make Bioware and EA reconsider their priorities but not enough for EA to put a bullet in Bioware's head and dump them in the same ditch with Bullfrog, Origin, Maxis and the others.