Reviews rise and fall

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

The most negative review I've read so far is the IGN one, in which he complains that loyalty prevents him from forward settling and rapidly expanding. Sounds like a good thing to me!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

compared to the no experience whatsoever the rest of us have, sure. as long as you keep in mind that they're on a deadline and that first impressions might not be right I don't see the problem.

Professional reviews are worse than useless in many cases. They omit known problems (see civ 5 vanilla release review and its take on MP), they don't understand the game they're playing (see anything from reviews of this series to the shameful display from that Cuphead reviewer who couldn't get out of the tutorial), and they're given active incentive to inflate review scores + active disincentive to take digs at the title.

If someone half my age gave a bullet proof list of good/bad things about a game with some footage and slapped that on youtube, I'm instantly more inclined to trust that person than any "professional" reviewer, and those operating on historical evidence should be inclined to do similarly.

Given the way games are presented and information available on them now, the professional writer/reviewer setup is obsolete. You can easily get more reliable information more quickly without paying a cent beyond what you use for your internet connection/computer.

 

[steveg700]

I just think you can enjoy a game despite that

With a poor AI, you can enjoy Civ as an activity. It's basically Farmville writ large.

But as a game of strategy, it falls down when the player is the only civ executing strategy.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

With a poor AI, you can enjoy Civ as an activity. It's basically Farmville write a bit larger.

But as a game of strategy, it falls down when the player is the only civ executing strategy.

Just saying that the Civ AI has been "bad" for five+ iterations now (plus Alpha Centauri); and over a quarter century later, it hasn't kept me from enjoying it or calling it a game.

 

[steveg700]

The problem with the review sites is that they are playing all different kinds of games, and 4X strategy occupies a niche of low priority. So, a guy like Dan Stapleton reviews a civ game, and it's all a great mystery to him. He can't pin blame on a poor AI, because he's mystified it to the point where he's giving it the benefit of the doubt for having something going on under the hood he can't appreciate. For instance, when Stapleton mentions that the AI kept declaring war on him, I suspect that he's running into the "joint-war-as-trade-item" phenomenon where civ's declare war endlessly as part of trade deals rather than an actual military campaign strategy.

Usually, this mystification has worked in Firaxis' favor, with IGN routinely giving Civ releases since V top honors. It's interesting that the review actually does cite concerns I had about R&F--for instance, that the AI would continue to *not* wage war.

 

[steveg700]

Just saying that the Civ AI has been "bad" for five+ iterations now (plus Alpha Centauri) and hasn't kept me from enjoying it or calling it a game.

Sorry to give you a hard time, but is the gist that your personal standards for enjoyment are highly forgiving, as are your standards for what qualifies an activity as a game? It's a major blindspot, but as long as you stay away from professionally reviewing games, no harm done. To each their own.

Or are you presenting the supposition that all players should give bad AI a pass now because we should all be accustomed to it? If so, Sammy, that's the worst sort of apologist rationale.

Even going by such a low standard, there are degrees of badness, and the current degree is pretty severe, even relative to previous games.

 

[leandrombraz]

Do people still take 'professional' game journalism seriously? Take notice only of people who have played the game for a few days. Only a fool trusts his money to 'professional' game reviewers.

Considering how much we already know and saw about R&F, you don't really need to rely on trust. If what they are saying is BS, you will be able to tell. The truth is that for a game that the developers expose it as much as Firaxis do, critics opinion isn't really needed, professional or not. I can see with my own eyes if R&F is good. With that said, this notes affect Firaxis, so if you like what they are doing you want them to do well in reviews. Like it or not, professional reviewers opinion have weight and will directly impact the developers.

 

[steveg700]

The most negative review I've read so far is the IGN one, in which he complains that loyalty prevents him from forward settling and rapidly expanding. Sounds like a good thing to me!

Forward-settling is an annoying AI tactic, but it's not necessarily a bad tactic. Usually, it's a sore point for players that want space to build internally while putting their military development on the backburner.

I'm not inherently against loyalty flipping forward-settled cities. If the tactic had gotten out-of-hand, I'd be pretty handily in favor. Of course, current state of the game makes forward-settling a moot point, as civ's will routinely spawn capitals right on top of each other. At least that's getting patched out. However, lack of forward-settling can also indicate lack of AI aggression. I'm already yawnquitting games because outside of joint wars, the AI seems to completely limit its warmongering to city-states. Why shouldn't Sumeria or Aztecs settle in your face unabashedly?

Granted, the AI not executing invasive warfare does seem to limit the impact of it executing invasions poorly.

 

[steveg700]

IGN: http://m.uk.ign.com/articles/2018/02/07/sid-meiers-civilization-6-rise-and-fall-review

Polygon: https://www.polygon.com/2018/2/7/16981100/civilization-6-rise-and-fall-review-pc

Both of those look quite promising from my point of view as a relatively peaceful builder who hates the AI forward settling

The Polygon reads as such a shallow impression that it should drum up precious little confidence.

It underscores the basic problem with reviewing a Civ game: thirtysomething hours is plenty for most games. How many standard-speed Civ campaigns is that? How many trips thorugh the eras to an endgame? Of course, the reviewers probably haven't spent the time we have shadowing R&F's development, so we can probably give these dabblers better perspective than their reviews can hope to offer us.

Colin Campbell's review demonstrates that novice mystification I spoke of earlier. He doesn't get why the AI is "taunting" or otherwise engaging him, when all it's doing is commenting based on agenda compliance. If the AI's agenda is that it dislikes civ's that are generating low GPT, then the overall size of a player's coffers don't matter. Nor is it 'farcical" for a civ like Cleopatra to cozy up to a militarily strong civilization; it's sensible for a civ to seek to ally with the strong, especially if it's a builder/culture civ that is not looking to vie for a domination victory. That would be especially true with the way military alliances now work.

 

[GermanSettler]

Gamestar in Germany gave it a very good 89/100, praising the loyalty system but mentioning that the AI has improved but only a bit.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Yeah, Gamestar liked the new mechanics and said they work well.
They "praised" the AI, saying it's still not good but not terrible anymore.

 

[PhilBowles]

Colin Campbell's review demonstrates that novice mystification I spoke of earlier. He doesn't get why the AI is "taunting" or otherwise engaging him, when all it's doing is commenting based on agenda compliance. If the AI's agenda is that it dislikes civ's that are generating low GPT, then the overall size of a player's coffers don't matter. Nor is it 'farcical" for a civ like Cleopatra to cozy up to a militarily strong civilization; it's sensible for a civ to seek to ally with the strong, especially if it's a builder/culture civ that is not looking to vie for a domination victory. That would be especially true with the way military alliances now work.

On the contrary, the sense I had is that he's familiar with the agenda system and its idiocy in both concept and implementation. Granted, it takes a degree of experience with the game to realise that you can simply ignore the AI, agendas and all, rather than feel forced to comply with its wishes as he does, but his stated issue isn't with the flavour that Cleopatra wants to cosy up with strong civs - it's that, as a consequence of the mechanic, she's actively demanding that her rival power boosts its military. If you play in the apparent spirit of the agenda system, and adjust your play to comply with AI agendas, you're just being prompted to make yourself a less attractive target for the AI and a more powerful competitor. The AIs end up feeling like tutorial advisors giving you hints on how to play better rather than rival nations.

To a degree it's mechanically sound that AI agendas often (but far from exclusively - things like Nubia's, Kongo's, Persia's, Norway's and England's are wholly arbitrary in a mechanical sense, as they're essentially unrelated to whether you're performing well or badly in the game overall) prompt them to dislike civs weaker than they are, since they don't benefit from agendas that force them to go to war with more powerful civs. But it makes little to no conceptual sense - even if they're things that they may not approve of, denouncing you for not having walls or whatever is absurdly immersion-breaking.

The major review site I give credence to is RockPaperShotgun, since they largely specialise in strategy games of various forms and have long-time Civ addicts on their writing staff. Their review isn't up yet, however, presumably because they work to British time.

 

[acluewithout]

I think sometimes the problem with Agendas is just how they are expressed.

Harold doesn’t really ‘like’ you if you have a navy or ‘dislike’ you if you don’t. It’s more he respects you if you have a navy, and thinks you’re weak (and so he is inclined to take advantage of that and invade you) if you don’t have much navy. That makes sense to me: a viking king will be more inclined to war with someone with a weak navy than with someone with a strong navy.

 

[3 EMS]

As I mentioned actual gameplay is the best way to evaluate. No forward settling in this game. Of course it's just one game. Still not a brilliante AI. Cyrus does a formal war instead of a surprise war negating his most powerful ability. Not to mention shuffling units around without clear focus. He wasn't discovered early by Cyrus either, so forward settling wasn't that likely.

I have seen some. Now they pay for it though as they struggle to keep them. Due to loyalty.

 

[bite]

I wanted to take some time before I put out my review and now I have played post patch I think I have a handle on the expansion

So here is my review

 

[Ferocitus]

Even going by such a low standard, there are degrees of badness, and the current degree is pretty severe, even relative to previous games.

Low standards? But I was happy to buy it in raw unfinished form, and I would
have bought it in even worse condition. It sounds like you were duped, or so
completely ignorant of past versions that took years to improve, that your
opinion means little to me, and it's just as untrustworthy as the glowing
reviews.

Your comments reek of bitterness and an inability to admit that it's all your
own fault. You had a clear alternative to wait until it met your high standards,
but you didn't.

Despite the AI and other flaws, Civ6 is still the best complex strategy game
around. Yes, the AI makes stupid mistakes, but so do I. Repeatedly.

I've melted wax to mend my wings,
I've done all the dumb things.
And I get all your good advice,
It doesn't stop me from going through these things twice...