Really Boring... or just me?

[manu-fan]

It's weird why I love this game so much. Everyone else seems to have problems with it. Look on the Civ5 forums and everyone is playing that game rather than this one. I can't even bear the thought of playing Civ5 over this one. I absolutely love the district system, it's what puts this game above Civ5 imho. Yeah they are expensive, but I'm okay with that. It really forces you to make a choice whether you want to build your cities up, or keep on the offensive or expansionist route. Of course it is far from perfect. I really do want to see more challenge when someone declares war on me. That's the part that's missing the most.

I totally agree with you. I'm having a blast and not going back to Civ 5. I spend my time looking ahead in the Tech and Civics trees, looking at what Eurekas I can get next, checking City States for how I get a free envoy, and planning and strategizing a lot more than Civ 5. Even on the opponent's turns, I'm checking my cities for Amenities etc., planning ahead, checking the scores for who's ahead in what etc. I think Civ 6 is very engaging and engrossing.

 

[isau]

I am hoping we get ahold of strong mod tools soon. That is what is going to define the game for me.

Even without them, I have to say that overall the game's data structure is "clean." But it will come down to what we can do with DLLs.

 

[PendragonWRB]

It's weird why I love this game so much. Everyone else seems to have problems with it. Look on the Civ5 forums and everyone is playing that game rather than this one. I can't even bear the thought of playing Civ5 over this one. I absolutely love the district system, it's what puts this game above Civ5 imho. Yeah they are expensive, but I'm okay with that. It really forces you to make a choice whether you want to build your cities up, or keep on the offensive or expansionist route. Of course it is far from perfect. I really do want to see more challenge when someone declares war on me. That's the part that's missing the most.

The districts are fine at the beginning of the game, but once your empire grows to ten or more cities, they get more and more expensive, requiring trade routes to get them built. The management changes from fun to a chore, and it doesn't stop there. I only play on small maps, I cannot image managing 20, 30, 40, 50 cities and the ridiculous amount of trade routes to keep them all growing. I understand puppet cities might be hard to implement because of districts, but without them the end game is a NOT fun.

 

[HF22]

I totally agree with you. I'm having a blast and not going back to Civ 5. I spend my time looking ahead in the Tech and Civics trees, looking at what Eurekas I can get next, checking City States for how I get a free envoy, and planning and strategizing a lot more than Civ 5. Even on the opponent's turns, I'm checking my cities for Amenities etc., planning ahead, checking the scores for who's ahead in what etc. I think Civ 6 is very engaging and engrossing.

I would find this stuff more engaging if it mattered more to winning. At the moment, even on deity, you can do a half baked job at all of these systems & still win comfortably.

 

[Stilgar08]

It's weird why I love this game so much. Everyone else seems to have problems with it. Look on the Civ5 forums and everyone is playing that game rather than this one. I can't even bear the thought of playing Civ5 over this one. I absolutely love the district system, it's what puts this game above Civ5 imho. Yeah they are expensive, but I'm okay with that. It really forces you to make a choice whether you want to build your cities up, or keep on the offensive or expansionist route. Of course it is far from perfect. I really do want to see more challenge when someone declares war on me. That's the part that's missing the most.

I totally agree with you. I'm having a blast and not going back to Civ 5. I spend my time looking ahead in the Tech and Civics trees, looking at what Eurekas I can get next, checking City States for how I get a free envoy, and planning and strategizing a lot more than Civ 5. Even on the opponent's turns, I'm checking my cities for Amenities etc., planning ahead, checking the scores for who's ahead in what etc. I think Civ 6 is very engaging and engrossing.

You are not alone. And I completely agree with Disgustipated on the whole issue. I think the perception is askew in this forum. First of all there are over a million players already and I doubt the traffic and level of complaint here is in any way representative for the mass of players. This is civfanatics after all and therefore the engagement and expectations are high and the frustration-limit is low. Which must not be bad!

 

[ThERat]

At the current state, Civ6 is entirely a sandbox game with some initial challenge to fight off barbs and the usual AI trying to win a war against you with a carpet of ancient units. Once, the initial game phase it's over, you start to play a 'sim-civ' game where you can set your own targets and goals as there is no competition whatsoever. Since there is no meaningful interaction with the AI in diplomatic matters too, it's really just your personal goals that keep the game going. Not the game I have fun with.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The districts are fine at the beginning of the game, but once your empire grows to ten or more cities, they get more and more expensive, requiring trade routes to get them built. The management changes from fun to a chore, and it doesn't stop there. I only play on small maps, I cannot image managing 20, 30, 40, 50 cities and the ridiculous amount of trade routes to keep them all growing. I understand puppet cities might be hard to implement because of districts, but without them the end game is a NOT fun.

Give us back civ 4 hotkeys, city selection, build queues, and city list UI + automatic trade route renew option and you cut down on the vast majority of the extra micro from more cities.

The main issue here is that the implementation is a joke against the design. Players are asked to do heaps of unnecessary inputs, on a per turn basis.

 

[smartcanuck1988]

I echo what others have said that the game itself isn't boring in terms of the features/concepts and what you can do, but at some point the game becomes very tedious and the trouble of slogging through each turn will start to outweigh what fun you will get out of it. I'm tempted to plot a graph of number of clicks per turn vs meaningful/impactful decisions in that turn. Sure the early game will always be the most interesting because every "click" you make will dramatically influence your civ for the next several turns, and sure I fully expect that the "fun-to-clicks ratio" will decrease over time. But in Civ6 right now, it is decreasing way too fast, way too soon.

I'm sure expansions will add more things to do, but 6 vanilla already introduces new concepts to have fun with so that's not my issue. To me the devs didn't take the user experience seriously and all they wanted is throw everything in there without thinking how all mechanics are meshing (and often, interfering) with each other.

 

[bladex]

they failed to improve the AI in the patch AGAIN

 

[Thrust123]

Tried at a friend's house. Yes seems a bit boring. Don't see any sense to the districts system, just makes the game slower and exposes more of your improvements to the enemy. And what to say about the only one combat unit per hex? Same as in CIV V. It makes combat quite unrealistic, not being able to protect for example your archers with swordsman in the same hex. Otherwise I do like the graphics. Some complain of them being too cartoonish but I love them.

 

[Knoxbanedoodle]

Completely echo the sentiments here that the game is fairly dull, that it lacks the "one more turn" impetus inherent to the franchise, and that it's a little hard to say why, exactly. I really really really miss the city screens, and (I haven't heard this anywhere else) I'm not that impressed with the actual *look* of the game. The colors are eye-popping, but the contrast between the fog-of-war map and the true unknown is not defined enough and the resource icons are, IMHO, surprisingly crude. I'm still wobbly on the diplomacy screen, and the district system doesn't yet do anything for me--though I readily acknowledge that it might just take me a while to catch on to the fun of it. Most of the maps definitely seem wanting in the early going, and the civics tree (and the boosts) leave much to be desired, as others here have amply detailed.

It doesn't help that I've only just recently become competitive on Deity in V. I hope VI gets there. I've never played Beyond Earth, but it doesn't seem like there's been much interest in it here. Or is that a false assumption? Similarly, the Starships game was a flop. I hope the franchise isn't actually just flat in decline.

 

[GhostSalsa]

the resource icons are, IMHO, surprisingly crude.

This isn't a graphics thread, but I find it amazing how much variety there is in the design quality, as if totally different teams had to be called in for things added closer to release - the pantheon emblems are incredible, just perfect. And world wonders in strategic view are so cool.

I think the best think they can do to make the game better is the thing that will upset and worry the casual base the most, which is take out 20% of the features (religious warfare and VC, district overlap, the bad movement rules, some others) in the very next patch so they can balance the core of what is left.

Less is more, or it's certainly more than a huge unfixable pile of meaningless broken systems

 

[TomKQT]

And what to say about the only one combat unit per hex? Same as in CIV V. It makes combat quite unrealistic, not being able to protect for example your archers with swordsman in the same hex. Otherwise I do like the graphics.

One unit per tile (together with hexes instead of squares) was IMHO the best improvement that the Civ series could get. Battles in CivV were suddenly a lot about tactics and not just about the size of your military, which made it both fun and realistic. Yes, some details aren't really realistic, becase archers really would be able to stand closer to warriors than tens of kilometers (the size of hexes) But you have to take this as a tactical battle mini-game inside the civ world. The scale makes no sense, but it's a game, not a simulation. You have to put archers BEHIND warriors, as you would do in a real battle. In Civ this means to put them on the hex behind them.

With the ability to put a ranged and a melee unit on the same tile you would suddenly create a combined unit with ranged abilities (from the archer) and with good melee abilities when defending (from the swordsman), which would break the differentation of unit types and the rock-paper-scissors system.

 

[Vasire]

One unit per tile (together with hexes instead of squares) was IMHO the best improvement that the Civ series could get. Battles in CivV were suddenly a lot about tactics and not just about the size of your military, which made it both fun and realistic. Yes, some details aren't really realistic, becase archers really would be able to stand closer to warriors than tens of kilometers (the size of hexes) But you have to take this as a tactical battle mini-game inside the civ world. The scale makes no sense, but it's a game, not a simulation. You have to put archers BEHIND warriors, as you would do in a real battle. In Civ this means to put them on the hex behind them.

With the ability to put a ranged and a melee unit on the same tile you would suddenly create a combined unit with ranged abilities (from the archer) and with good melee abilities when defending (from the swordsman), which would break the differentation of unit types and the rock-paper-scissors system.

As a veteran Civ player I completely agree with you. 1UPT was a revolution that was long overdue. Now if only the AI could finally learn how to use this.. And in CivVI the situation seems to be even worse than it was in CivV.

 

[Zuizgond]

Battles in CivV were suddenly a lot about tactics

Not sure we played the same game.

 

[Thrust123]

First impressions is that CIv VI is more about city building than about what we all like: WAR !

 

[rockhpi]

So far, I feel that the research happens too quickly to give a feeling of accomplishment and everything else (production, unit movement) is very, very slow. I'm also adjusting to the elements that are all still there from previous editions but now mean something totally different. "I want to do X so I'll research Y. Oh wait...Y won't let me do X anymore..." As a result, I do feel like I'm clicking "next" pretty mindlessly and I'm not having a ton of fun. I imagine this will get better as I understand the new systems better. I have yet to take a game past the medieval era.

 

[smartcanuck1988]

First impressions is that CIv VI is more about city building than about what we all like: WAR !

Yeah and I like city building more than wars, but even still the options feel limited. I was hoping with the introduction of districts that the building choices would be many and tough. Instead they're easy and straightforward. Sure some wonders you have to carefully plan for, and the adjacency bonuses could mean a lot in the early game, but very quickly it becomes meaningless in my opinion.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

One unit per tile (together with hexes instead of squares) was IMHO the best improvement that the Civ series could get. Battles in CivV were suddenly a lot about tactics and not just about the size of your military, which made it both fun and realistic. Yes, some details aren't really realistic, becase archers really would be able to stand closer to warriors than tens of kilometers (the size of hexes) But you have to take this as a tactical battle mini-game inside the civ world. The scale makes no sense, but it's a game, not a simulation. You have to put archers BEHIND warriors, as you would do in a real battle. In Civ this means to put them on the hex behind them.

With the ability to put a ranged and a melee unit on the same tile you would suddenly create a combined unit with ranged abilities (from the archer) and with good melee abilities when defending (from the swordsman), which would break the differentation of unit types and the rock-paper-scissors system.

If you think civ 5 ranged spam had a significant increase of tactical consideration over civ 4, you don't know tactics in civ 4.

Thinking you can enter the borders of a competent opponent just because your military is larger, even 50% larger, in Civ 4 was asking to remove yourself from the map in 20-30 turns. If the reason for that isn't immediately obvious, you're not giving the stacking model a remotely fair shake.

Ranged spam with blocker units is not particularly deep, and has roughly the same alpha strats + variant strats as collateral initiative/split stacking. Civ 5/6 starts with ranged + blocker units early and stays that way until late game. 4 had numbers game super early, collateral initiative most of the game, and then just like civ 5/6 converged into air/nukes late. It is vexing too see people claiming there is significant tactical depth added by 1 UPT. The number of unit movement considerations that matter did not meaningfully increase.

What did happen, however, is that it nerfed the AI production advantage substantially and implemented a feature the developers apparently couldn't handle from a UI design perspective, though the UI design failure travesty that is civ 6's presentation is not the fault of 1UPT.

 

[ww2commander]

As countless posts already mention, Civ6 has fallen into the same design traps that plagued vanilla Civ5...superficial choices with no real rewarding reason to do things differently. 'Bucket filling' in civ5 has now become 'tailored-bucket filling' in Civ6. There is no real choice as all you have to do is wait until the bucket fills and progress to the next empty bucket (and yes, I am well aware that most games revolve around bucket filling!).

The fact that the Civ6 AI is a non-entity to the grand scheme of things makes the journey a very hollow experience. They occasionally remind you of their presence through pointless banter and (non)suprise DoWs, but you don't need to directly engage with them to win the game as they are extras and not main characters on your journey. Whether you have 2 or 20 civs in a Civ6 game, the result always feels the same walking a tight-rope of agenda rage to ensure your bucket filling is not disrupted. Where players expect diplomacy, grand strategy and nail biting choices, they instead get a sprinkle of Simcity, min-maxing choices and puzzle-solving that can't be deviated once set in motion (i.e. you tend to know the outcome by Middle Ages).

Paradox games are mentioned frequently in posts which makes me wonder why I quit Civ6 by turn 100 and fire-up another game of EU4. Maybe it's due to no two games ever feeling the same. Diplomacy and alliances serve useful purposes, choices are reversible as you adapt to situations, every decision (feels like it) matters and you don't know what might be around the corner. Civ6 includes (or emulates) these same concepts but for some reason it feels meaningless.

However, the OP nailed the solution in their last sentence. The game's success and drawcard has always been customisation with Civ being a pioneer in game modding. What 'makes' the civ experience is the mods that throw 'spanners in works', refine (or fix) bland vanilla concepts and allow the fulfilment of 'what-if' scenarios.

The vanilla game (since atleast civ3) has always been like that Lego starter set you got for Christmas but just didn't know what to make of it until a relative gave you a container full of Lego bricks from when they were a kid. Suddenly the excitement and realisation kicked in at the endless possibilities. Playing vanilla civ (especially Civ6) is exactly like that for me right now. I am sure that once the modding tools are released, attitudes will change rapidly as the stream of mods trickles through. But until then, I (like many others) have placed Civ6 in the 'revisit it in 6 months' group of icons on my desktop.