[GS] "Should I stay or should I go..."

[TM Moot]

Hi Civvers. I'm an old school Civ player (since the beginning!). Played them all, struggled with Civ5 and fell out of love with Civ6. Even went back to Civ4 for a few months...

Question is, should I immerse myself in Gathering Storm (and other DLC?) and give it another go?

I love exploration and Empire Building, but is this game now fit for purpose? Is it playable?

Any advice, greatly received. Thanks

TM

 

[Bradypus]

Currently there's a trade bug that is making the game unenjoyable. But Firaxis is on it, and it should be squashed soon.

That being said, I too didn't play Civ 6 despite owning it since release before Gathering Storm released. I think the game has come far now with all the additional content. It will definitely be worth trying out again for you once the trade bug is gone. But in relation to exploration and empire building, Civ 6 provides less of exploration compared to previous installations. There's not much incentive to explore. You're likely to meet other civs without actively searching for them. Only City States are worth seeking out. Finding a natural wonder only provides era score and not happiness like in Civ V. Of course Era Score can be nice, but it's more situational than permanent happiness. You might end up wishing you found a natural wonder a few turns later than you did. Also, finding a would-be nice location for a city far away from your other cities is not that nice after all. This is because of the loyalty system, which might cause you to lose your city due to lack of loyalty for being near enemy cities. Dido can play around this though.

For Empire building, in Civ 6 you'll be forced to streamline your cities. You won't succeed in trying to max out all your cities. You're better off focusing on certain areas that are beneficial to your victory condition. On the other hand, you might enjoy the district "mini-game", which I suppose is a type of empire building. And since one city's district can affect your other cities, that makes cities more cohesive and planning locations becomes a thing more so than in previous installations. I like it. In Civ V (latest version) you'd want your cities apart leaving space to grow, in Civ 6 you might not want to place your cities so far apart. Because it will takes ages to fill out working tiles and having district adjency bonuses and AoE effects from districts and wonders is beneficial all around.

All in all, I'd say give it a go. Civ 6 GS is quite enjoyable.

 

[Basajaun]

Thats a difficult question to answer, as it is very subjective.

Personally, I havent dropped GS since I put my hands on it, coming from a long break too, as there are still a couple things that irk me a bit. But the new systems implemented, and the new civs are delivering big amounts of entertainment for me. Natural disasters keep the thing interesting, where they can harm you, but be worth it, as they increase or reduce land value. Volcanos burning people, but giving very fertile soil. Floodplains ruining your riverside farms, but bringing a lot of valuable wood for production, etc.
It gives a lot of flavor in my opinion.

Then there are the new civs, with very funny/interesting choices like the Inca and their huge affinity to mountains, the Maori and their unique middle-of-the-ocean start... Theres a good amount of variety to keep me entertained

 

[TM Moot]

Thanks guys. I am tempted to have another bash, but.....

 

[Tech Osen]

Thats a difficult question to answer, as it is very subjective.

This. It's not perfect but it is enjoyable for me. I don't know your preferences though, or how tight your money is.

 

[Hammurabbit]

Far from perfect, but I think it's great entertainment. While there are probably only a handful "optimal" strategies to play I think with all the added content in GS and other DLCs I think you can play the game in many different ways. Many civs offers unique play styles which I think is great.

 

[Jkchart]

I'm basically going to jump on with what everyone else is saying here.

For me, the height of the series has always been Civ IV. I've always believed VI has been better than V, both in terms of ideas, base game, and content (Civ V was absolutely horrendous at release and there are numerous design choices with it that means I was happy to switch to VI), but your mileage will vary.

Civ VI is entertaining, if imperfect. i enjoy it as a hybrid 4x/roleplaying/city builder lite experience. It needs some more fleshing out and bug fixes, but it nails the one more turn feel that Civ V never gave me, but that earlier games in the series did. I can lose hours in it planning out my cities, warring with my neighbors, and creating the best empires I can. I play it to create my own history at my own pace. It's great fun, I think it's worth it (even more so on sale, but isn't everything?) but for you it depends on what you are looking for. I would say, if you're still tentative, wait for sales and play Civ IV while you wait. But if you're really itching to try a new experience and you want to try the new mechanics, go for it - buy the xpack, play a few games so you know what the game is like rather than reading what we all say, and then decide for yourself.

After all, our anecdotes, stories, and posts will only get you so far. You've gotta try it for yourself, but only if you want to make that leap. Is it a risk? Yes. But most people I believe think that it was worth it on some level, and many of us are happy with most of the current state of the game. I am looking forward to more improvements, but now, GS is even more enjoyable than base VI. That's my 2 cents.

 

[MrRadar]

Thanks guys. I am tempted to have another bash, but.....

"But me no buts, Bernard! Shakespeare..." Right Honourable James Hacker, PM of the UK
Also, please don't go. The builders need you. They look up to you! Give this thread a few days, man, don't decide after just a couple of posts.

For exploration and empire building, I think, this game is great. Whether you rush for a fast finish or not, you can lose yourself in city placement and district/wonder planning, if you wish. Usually I don't start the game having already decided upon the victory condition beforehand and I don't aim for fastest finish times, I tend to meander through the game with no master plans, more for the experience (Civ VI is so forgiving, you can win many Deity games this way) so early exploration will tell me if I am going for religion, or not (found a natural wonder or not, got a lucky relic from a goody hut or not), the first city states I meet will steer what my first districts are going to be, and the revealed neighbour and barb situation will make me aware, if I'll need an early army, or not necessarily. GS now delivers amazing mountain ranges Build, plan, expand to your heart's content.

A word of warning about getting involved in a wide emergency: if the emergency is joined by numerous AI allies on your side, they will reveal their maps... which may instantly take the joys of exploration away and also reveal remaining natural wonders and give a ton of era score for them.

Military challenge posed by the AI is yet to come, I hope Civ VI won't give you such suspense and put your game in the balance the way Civ IV can, but VI has gone a long way since release, it is being improved, excruciatingly slowly, but the devs are working on it, and overall the game is much better now. Every patch is eagerly anticipated... and also dreaded, because it usually breaks something important. Summers tend to be bad for AI trade mechanics - after 2017 Summer patch AI used to sell all their art for 1 gold, they fixed it in, was it 2017 Fall patch? - just a few months, we barely noticed, after the latest Antarctic Late Summer patch AI is now experiencing some sort of relapse and pays overgenerous amounts in gpt, but it seems that this time a hotfix is being cooked as we speak.

I groaned and moaned a lot about the lacking UI, well get the Concise UI mod - it addresses a lot of issues and makes life much easier.

I'm a civver since the first one as well, still hold Civ IV in the highest regard, Civ V not so much (but Steam says I clocked >2500 hours on it How did that happen?), and now I find Civ VI just magnetic, some its shortcomings are hugely frustrating, yes, but despite that, I can't escape this game's grip... nor do I want to

 

[Jkchart]

I'm a civver since the first one as well, still hold Civ IV in the highest regard, Civ V not so much (but Steam says I clocked >2500 hours on it How did that happen?), and now I find Civ VI just magnetic, some its shortcomings are hugely frustrating, yes, but despite that, I can't escape this game's grip... nor do I want to

It's an addiction, there's no way out!

 

[Socrates99]

If you're looking for challenge this is easily the weakest in the series but I still find the systems a lot of fun to play with. City planning is a blast. Finding different paths to victories are fun too. Picking different eras to do a dom rush or a culture and faith focused dom game with Poland or the Maori. Playing late game culture games with America or Canada focusing on parks, resorts and rock bands vs a great work or wonder mongering game like Russia or China respectively. A heavy production SV with Germany or a beaker forward game with Korea.

The idea that there's too few paths to victory is bogus and only really applies to RV and diplo.

If you're looking for a reskinned IV....just go, go, go....we've heard it a hundred times before.

 

[Kataklysm]

You should definitely give it a try. You seem to me like a "it was better before" type of person (no offense at all, I'm that kind of nostalgic too). But Civ VI is wonderful and addictive. Even the better if you are more of an empire-builder type of player, I think the game is way more fun that way. I've tried beating it on Deity and Immortal (with moderate success) and it just seems too tedious and mathematical for me. On the other hand, King and Emperor let you enjoy trying a bit of everything without the hassle of making mistakes. You have plenty on your plate!

 

[CPWimmer]

struggled with Civ5 and fell out of love with Civ6.

I think before any of us can give an answer that we know relates to you, we need to explore this a bit more.
What part of Civ 5 did you struggle with, and what made you fall out of love with Civ 6?

I love exploration and Empire Building, but is this game now fit for purpose? Is it playable?

Exploration and Empire Building are certainly 2 of the key building blocks of this game; and I would feel comfortable saying they are probably some of the best designed and developed aspects of the game. As a "mostly" peaceful, non-optimizer, who prefers building large empires with games focusing on Science or Culture victories, I love Civ 6!

 

[Mr_PeaCH]

Exploring has been greatly improved, imo, by GS. Giving all the natural features names was inspired. Volcanoes are a wonderful game-changer as well.

For me, the Civs have always been an exercise in finding an enjoyable playing space even if you have to tie one hand behind your back to make it a reasonably fair fight. Having new in-game experiences to surprise you, new Civs, etc. went a long way to enlivening Civ 6 for me.

 

[Aristos]

Let me put it this way:

If I want a challenging game experience focusing on "realpolitik", cunning AI rivals, projection of power, I play Vox Populi.
If I want a relaxing puzzle-like experience focused on empire building, infrastructure development, optimizing infrastructure location and deployment, I play GS.

I go back and forth between the two, depending on my mood and if I want to feel the thrill of strategy or the relaxation of construction optimization.

The best of both worlds.

 

[pkaem]

The main questions are why didn't you like the last two tiltes and what type of a player are you?

Most likely you love unit stacking, which is one of the main changes from IV to V. I played IV too, but I wasn't into beating high difficulties and interesting ideas about strategy back then. I just played on warlord to roll over horses with tanks even if my approach was bad.

Things changed some day with civ V when I tried to climb up difficulty. I was so happy wgen I won my first V deity game, I never had that kind of joy out of the game before.

Don't get me wrong but being the "exploring and empire building type of guy" sounds like you perhaps play emperor or below. Which is totally fine. But I guess you had some key features back in IV which made you enjoy it, you are missing now.

Just an idea: don't change the game back to the stage in which you learned it, try a new approach and bring your play style up to date. Bump up difficulty and try some strats. Try to win every victory type, play more shorter games, rush, appease, run a gold or a faith economy, try religion, try more civs, see what is possible with unstacked cities.

I played a lot of civ. I was sceptical first aswell. With V, with VI. I must say that civ VI seems to repeat the story of V. It was quite garbage when it came out, it's getting better with every expansion. Right now it's coming close to be one of the best civ games we had. Even if you rage about the comic art style, I am not that superficial , tge game offers a large variety of ways to win, civs are quite unique, it rewards you when playing your given map and start.

Let the game pick you up where it shines and you will have fun. If you just want artillery doom stacks, not gonna happen.

 

[jozef57]

this is indeed very personal, what do you enjoy or not i played all civ version too and was critical of civ 6 in the beginning, but wow now i feel it is best civ version ever, ofcourse i would like some changes to my personal tastes but civ is not made for me alone lol. it needs tweeks but am sure they will come

 

[CPWimmer]

I must say that civ VI seems to repeat the story of V. It was quite garbage when it came out, it's getting better with every expansion.

Not to derail this thread, but I have to say I disagree strongly with this particular line. Civ 6 was easily the strongest version of vanilla civ at launch time that I can remember (at least going back to Civ III, I don't really remember the launch of 2 and 1 anymore). I realize tastes differ, and of course the game has gotten better with each patch and XP, but I have literally not played V since VI came out, and have not had a moment's doubt about that choice.

 

[pkaem]

Not to derail this thread, but I have to say I disagree strongly with this particular line. Civ 6 was easily the strongest version of vanilla civ at launch time that I can remember (at least going back to Civ III, I don't really remember the launch of 2 and 1 anymore). I realize tastes differ, and of course the game has gotten better with each patch and XP, but I have literally not played V since VI came out, and have not had a moment's doubt about that choice.

I didn't like V at all when it got launched. Main feature was that unit stacking wasn't a thing anymore. There was no religion just archer rush. Same with VI. Just build a shitload of campuses, commercial hubs and horses = win. It got boring very fast. Depth came with addons just like in V.

 

[Aristos]

Not to derail this thread, but I have to say I disagree strongly with this particular line. Civ 6 was easily the strongest version of vanilla civ at launch time that I can remember (at least going back to Civ III, I don't really remember the launch of 2 and 1 anymore). I realize tastes differ, and of course the game has gotten better with each patch and XP, but I have literally not played V since VI came out, and have not had a moment's doubt about that choice.

Stronger than ALL, I don't know... stronger than civ 5 vanilla, well, launching a rock into the air would still be stronger than that travesty.

 

[Stilgar08]

I didn't like V at all when it got launched. Main feature was that unit stacking wasn't a thing anymore. There was no religion just archer rush. Same with VI. Just build a ****load of campuses, commercial hubs and horses = win. It got boring very fast. Depth came with addons just like in V.

@CPWimmer is right. Compared to vanilla CivV AI was Einstein in VI and that says something... I got into V a lot later than VI (preordered this one) but on these forums V got dissed for being unplayable and so bug-infested it was received as insult. I played CiVI from day one and it was nothing like that.
Anyone remembers the then infamous quote "A big sloppy kiss to our fans"?
===
Back on topic: as stated quite often now it's a matter of taste of course but you should stay! "if you go it would be double"
Been here since Civ I and the bottomline of the series was vanilla V for me (got it later after a few patches but still).
VI needs adjustments in playstyle and (at the moment) doesn’t deliver such a big challenge but I have a blast. With GS I feel VI might have reached max. no.of buckets to fill or systems to look over, it's quite crowded. But one more turn is back (at least for me). Polishing systems is still needed and annoyances are still there but to me VI is now better than V ever was. IV? Maybe on par if you can even compare...
The variability of how to play the game is definitely great as long as you are not a true warmonger, but Civ has never been the series for them IMO.