Should I buy R&F ???

[VanEyck]

Hi everyone!
I bought Civ 6 on the day it came out, but I discovered that my laptop wasn't able to play it (linux version). I finally (years later) have a computer that can play it! I was excited. Now, I'm very underwhelmed. I greatly dislike the housing dynamic and the way tall cities are basically a bad idea. And tall cities with a lot of wonders are important to cultural victories (my preferred victory type).

So my question is: What changed in the Rise and Fall expansion? Is wide still the only logical way to go? Is it worth it for me to buy it, or will I continue to be disappointed?

 

[Leyrann]

Rise and Fall is amazing. It brought out the one-more-turn in me like I've never had it before.

But no, it won't let you play Civ 5-style tall, but then again, it doesn't make sense that an empire with four cities worth of land is better off than an empire with fifteen cities worth of land - and many more people.

 

[criZp]

you can mod the game to be more tall-city-friendly

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Well, it's fun. But you might have to alter your playstyle a tad for this game--because, well, it's not the same game. You couldn't play Civ 5 the same way you played 4 either.

I like making big cities too but there are still plenty of fun things in here. Just be open to the new mechanics and there's plenty for builders.

 

[VanEyck]

Well, it's fun. But you might have to alter your playstyle a tad for this game--because, well, it's not the same game. You couldn't play Civ 5 the same way you played 4 either.

I like making big cities too but there are still plenty of fun things in here. Just be open to the new mechanics and there's plenty for builders.

I was planning on doing that (just to give the game a fair chance), but I'm still not sure if it's worth it to buy the expansion.

Rise and Fall is amazing. It brought out the one-more-turn in me like I've never had it before.

What features do you like about?

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I think the expansion makes the game better personally.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I enjoy it and there are things that definitely enhance the game.
Loyalty is a determining factor on how wide your empire can possibly spread. The more of your cities you have around with higher populations will let you keep your cities from rebelling and becoming a free city, and possibly join another Civ, while other cities not owned by you will put loyalty pressure on your cities, and vice versa. So settling far away might be a detriment but there are other ways around it like installing a governor there, and each governor have different set of bonuses as well for each city. Anyways I think they implemented this system to limit how wide empires can go, to an extent.
I also like the idea of the ages system and the way to keep track of points through a timeline. If you earn enough points in an era by doing certain things you might receive a golden age, or a dark age if you didn't receive enough points. Your citizens will also produce more loyalty during a golden age and less loyalty in a dark age and there can be certain bonuses you can choose that become more powerful every age. You can choose three bonuses during a Heroic Age which is when you go from a dark age to a golden age.
Emergencies are a hit and miss. I like the idea but I hope it's implemented better and maybe could tie into a world congress later.
Also if you just happened to be Dutch, according to your username, they are in this expansion along with returning favorite Shaka and Genghis Khan and Korea. Newcomers are the Cree Nation, Scotland, Mapuche from South America and Georgia with a new leader that's not Gandhi for India.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Hi everyone!
I bought Civ 6 on the day it came out, but I discovered that my laptop wasn't able to play it (linux version). I finally (years later) have a computer that can play it! I was excited. Now, I'm very underwhelmed. I greatly dislike the housing dynamic and the way tall cities are basically a bad idea. And tall cities with a lot of wonders are important to cultural victories (my preferred victory type).

So my question is: What changed in the Rise and Fall expansion? Is wide still the only logical way to go? Is it worth it for me to buy it, or will I continue to be disappointed?

I was very excited when Civ 6 first came out. A few issues here and there, but I figured they'd get sorted out over time. As time has gone by, I've become less enchanted by the game, as I realized the game developers were taking it in a direction that didn't address the things that I enjoy about civ.

The impression I have is that those who liked the base game, like it even more with R&F. Those who didn't like the base game, didn't suddenly come around after R&F.

Development hasn't ceased, and who knows what the next patch/expansion might bring? If you're thinking about R&F, though, as a way to solve your dislike of housing and preference for small empire with large cities, I think you'll be disappointed.

That said, Civ 6 is very forgiving, difficulty level wise. So while it definitely favours civs with lots of cities and favours aggression over war peaceful expansion, it's quite possible to play the game your way, with only a few cities, and still win. Not as easily as you could win with 10, or better yet, 25 cities, but with some practice you'd be able to win with a few, large cities.

 

[acluewithout]

I was very excited when Civ 6 first came out. A few issues here and there, but I figured they'd get sorted out over time. As time has gone by, I've become less enchanted by the game, as I realized the game developers were taking it in a direction that didn't address the things that I enjoy about civ.

The impression I have is that those who liked the base game, like it even more with R&F. Those who didn't like the base game, didn't suddenly come around after R&F.

Development hasn't ceased, and who knows what the next patch/expansion might bring? If you're thinking about R&F, though, as a way to solve your dislike of housing and preference for small empire with large cities, I think you'll be disappointed.

That said, Civ 6 is very forgiving, difficulty level wise. So while it definitely favours civs with lots of cities and favours aggression over war peaceful expansion, it's quite possible to play the game your way, with only a few cities, and still win. Not as easily as you could win with 10, or better yet, 25 cities, but with some practice you'd be able to win with a few, large cities.

Well, I may be in the minority then. I really liked the base game, but RnF and the last few patches have put me off. I agree the difficulty is very low overall. It’s fairly easy to win even on higher difficulties, but there is more challenge if you try to play the game well (ie efficiently).

I wouldn’t recommend buying RnF just now. There will be a new expansion if a few months or so. Wait until then. If you already have Civ 4 or Civ 5, stick with playing those until the next expansion comes out. If you don’t have them, I wouldn’t buy them now - again, I’d just wait for the next Civ expansion.

 

[TomKQT]

So my question is: What changed in the Rise and Fall expansion? Is wide still the only logical way to go? Is it worth it for me to buy it, or will I continue to be disappointed?

I don't think R&F addresses any of your major problems, so it would probably NOT help you enjoy the game more. For me personally, R&F made the game a bit worse, because some of the new mechanics are unimportant (loyalty, emergencies, government district) and I personally don't like the governors system. And ages - well, it's kinda neutral for me, it doesn't add anything very interesting of important, but also it isn't really bad.

 

[KayAU]

The expansion is certainly added some nice things to the game, but it does little to address your issues. Big cities are still not worthwhile, and there is no balance to warmongering and going as wide as possible.

The only real boon to big cities in R&F is that you might be able to use them to capture neighboring cities peacefully, by exerting loyalty pressure on neighboring cities while they are in a dark age and you are in a golden age. There were some other R&F features which looked like they might enable a taller play style, but they came up short. For example, the Audience Chamber is a Government Plaza building which gives cities with governors more housing and amenities, while giving other cities a loyalty penalty. In theory, this supports a tall play style, as there can only be 7 governors, and it would also add a pacing mechanism to expansion, as you gain governor titles throughout the game. However, it falls flat because:

1. Being able to grow cities taller is not all that useful in the first place, and
2. ...the loyalty penalty to cities with no governor is insignificant.

The "wide" alternative to this building is the Ancestral Hall, which speeds up settler production, and gives you a free builder with every newly founded city. The "warmongering" alternative is the Warlord's Throne, which gives you a production bonus in all cities when you capture an enemy city. These are both way more useful for their associated play styles.

Here's how I feel about each of the features:

• Loyalty - this is probably my favorite among the new features, as it discourages forward settling and gives me a new tool to control nearby territory without having to fill it up completely. I also find flipping cities with loyalty to be fun.
• Historic moments - a fun little feature which gives you a little reward and recognition for accomplishing things, and adds a bit to immersion.
• Dark/Normal/Golden/Heroic ages - a mixed bag. I somewhat like the idea of them, but the implementation leaves a lot to be desired. Dark Ages are in many ways better than Normal Ages, and overshooting the Golden age threshold is going to make things harder for you in the next era.
• Governors - I liked these in the beginning, and think they have some potential, but they do feel a bit extraneous. After a few games, I felt less and less compelled to pay attention to them.
• Improved alliances - a nice little feature
• Emergencies - another one which I like the idea of, but which turned out to be largely insignificant, as they happen rarely, and there is little variety to them
• New content (districts, leaders, etc.) - this is always nice to get, but it didn't change the game much

In summary, if you are disenchanted with the game now, R&F is probably not going to fix that. I would suggest waiting for the next expansion, and hope that improves things. I myself have gone back to other games for my 4X needs. I have played a couple of games of Civ V, which I think is still better, and am currently enjoying Stellaris. Perhaps later I will play a game or two of Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes. Perhaps at that point, I will feel like trying Civ VI again.

 

[Tech Osen]

Like others have said: the game is better with than without R&F but it doesn't fix some glaring issues. I also don't like going really wide, 10 is a nice amount of cities for me. I usually raise the waterlevel on creation so there isn't an endless amount of land to cover.

 

[Victoria]

Bugs galore not being fixed, some are quite glaring ones like air combat and carriers.
lots of lunacy like civ land abilities being able to be used at sea
Just a dirty product they keep throwing new layers of clothes on to keep the smell seeping through too much.

If you like pretty clothes and do not mind the smell then buy and play,
To me its never going to be a top shelf product and currently resides in the bin.
Low satisfaction for the amount of hours you have to invest, but was not always this way.

 

[UWHabs]

There's a decent chance that you may need to buy R+F to get the next expansion anyways. I would suggest that it may not be worth buying it at full price, but it has been on sale multiple times, but if you can find it on sale, it's worth that for sure. It's not perfect, but adds a few extra wrinkles to the base game which are fun to experience.

 

[Browd]

FWIW, in past versions of Civ your ability to enjoy XPac2 did not require/depend on whether you purchased of XPac1.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Rise and Fall is excellent, really improved the base game IMO - governors, loyalty, ages, emergencies are all great additions to the game.

 

[Archon_Wing]

In your particular case, for tall play, no.

I've already written enough on it, so quoting myself:

Rise and Fall is much better than the base game. Feel free to hit it up when it goes on sale on Steam or when Greenmangaming has one; both are pretty common. I never bought any of the other DLCs but the $20 expansion was worth it.

I would say the new civs introduced are cool because they work with the new mechanics. There's also improved diplomacy and a few minor balance changes like the addition of the Pike and Shot which actually does shake things up a bit. Loyalty means that foward settling, one of the most annoying and lame behaviors in this franchise (regardless of who is doing it) is now punished. There's also emergency events and history logs that give more of a feel of civ, and not just a board game.

Also diplomatic visibility actually does something in the form of a combat bonus; one of the new additions Mongolia can really take advantage of it and also France while being rather weak in vanilla is somewhat threatening as a neighbor now.

Entertainment Districts and Water parks are also a neat addition to the game and have a bit more depth than before.

The governors IMO are the weakest part of the feature set. At the moment they just add a bunch of micromanagement so you can fill buckets faster except you have to move the bucket loader around a lot. They're also somewhat imbalanced (Magnus cough) so that has much work needed.

 

[liv]

I think it is on sale this weekend so for reduced price I would get it but it does not really address your concerns.

 

[shaglio]

Here's how I feel about each of the features:

• Loyalty - this is probably my favorite among the new features, as it discourages forward settling and gives me a new tool to control nearby territory without having to fill it up completely. I also find flipping cities with loyalty to be fun.
• Historic moments - a fun little feature which gives you a little reward and recognition for accomplishing things, and adds a bit to immersion.
• Dark/Normal/Golden/Heroic ages - a mixed bag. I somewhat like the idea of them, but the implementation leaves a lot to be desired. Dark Ages are in many ways better than Normal Ages, and overshooting the Golden age threshold is going to make things harder for you in the next era.
• Governors - I liked these in the beginning, and think they have some potential, but they do feel a bit extraneous. After a few games, I felt less and less compelled to pay attention to them.
• Improved alliances - a nice little feature
• Emergencies - another one which I like the idea of, but which turned out to be largely insignificant, as they happen rarely, and there is little variety to them
• New content (districts, leaders, etc.) - this is always nice to get, but it didn't change the game much

I agree with every one of these assessments. Although the Historic Moments are a feature I couldn't care less about. They're just an extra click I have to make to close the window when they pop up.

 

[Tech Osen]

Bugs galore not being fixed, some are quite glaring ones like air combat and carriers.
lots of lunacy like civ land abilities being able to be used at sea
Just a dirty product they keep throwing new layers of clothes on to keep the smell seeping through too much.

If you like pretty clothes and do not mind the smell then buy and play,
To me its never going to be a top shelf product and currently resides in the bin.
Low satisfaction for the amount of hours you have to invest, but was not always this way.

Can't disagree with you but I it saddens me to see you grew this bitter. Still appreciate all the number crunching and testing you did.