[R&F] So...How's R&F?

Yea, that's true. I was shocked when I saw a city state destroy two Norwegian cities I am also at war with Norway (but the city state is NOT at war with them because of this, Norway simple attacked them even before our war started) and the city state helped me from some warmonger points, because I would raize the cities anyway
I'm however quite frightened about one thing (still about to happen, I'm just in the middle of this battle) - Norway captured Hattusa earlier and the attacking city state is now close to conquering Hattusa (which is now a Norway city) - will they raze it and thus completely remove from the game? I wouldn't want to do that

 

I bought the base game back in December. Played two games at immortal and never looked at it again. The base game felt to me like some kind of mod of 5. I pretty much sleepwalked through the two games using civ 5 strats and was easily able to win...believe me, even vanilla civ 5 had more challenge than the marshmellow 6.

I wasn't expecting a whole lot from the expansion given the fundamental problems with the base game. Watched the streams. Thought the new mechanics were interesting, didn't expect them to alter the gameplay much. Bought R+F because I was intrigued by the era score and loyalty system.

Booted up a Cree immortal standard game and got myself whomped from the get go. Finally! So many small things have snowballed into making the play experience so much better. One example, I didn't go to war in the ancient because I was too busy fighting barbs. Tamar DOWed me in classical. I beat her army, beelined medieval military tech and set out to smack her down. Base game, it would have been game over. Once an army has been beaten the AI doesn't build new units (or so it used to be). Too bad for me. Tamar is allied with Granada and speed built a bunch of units. Mine were all over the shop trying to lay siege to her capital and I went from 6 xbows to 0 xbows in a couple of turns. She is also flipping cities that Gilgabro is conquernig left and right. It's suddenly a challenging game. I'm close to Renaissance but last in everything - particularly science. I haven't been able to get a golden age - just normal ages. I can't get the era score popping. I'm doing some things right. Chopped myself Petra and the Colliseum. But there's a lot to like about this Xpack.

I'm going to move down a difficulty and explore the mechanics more carefully. That immortal game isn't lost - I could possibly pull off some fast teching...but there's a lot I need to explore and understand first - which is a good thing.

I have to say, I wasn't expecting much after the seriously dull and lacklustre base game - but I'm very happy with what I've played so far. (Having said that there are still some simple things missing that it beggars my belief. 18 months after release and still no build queue?! Seriously Firaxis? WTF??? I know there's a mod - but this shouldn't need to be modded, dammit! I'm not going to let a missing build queue spoil my fun.....but it is damned annoying to keep skipping back to the city view)

 

I adore the Civ series, mostly Civ V (800+ hours played). I was very hyped for vanilla Civ VI, and yet after it was released I barely finished two games and one scenario! It just did not grab me.
But now, with R&F, DLCs and multiple patches out, I've returned to the game and find it incredibly addictive! Honestly, I did not expect the promised features of the expansion to change the game much. And I don't think they did. But somehow with all those added layers of decision-making the game finally became FUN for me to play.

To be fair, Gods and Kings did the same for me after vanilla Civ V, although I've played much more vanilla V than VI.

Now we just need a BNW-type expansion plus some serious balancing, and this game will be top-notch.

 

I'm pleased to see positive responses from people who were not overly fond of vanilla.

 

I like it alot! All the mechanics make the game much more engaging.

• Eras: In the three games I've played so far, I've had at least 6 eras where i just barely made/didn't make the cutoff for normal age or golden age. Makes those ten or so turns right before the era changes tense as you try and get last moment era score, and make use of your dedication before it goes away. It doesn't seem to matter much if at all late game, but it does make the early to mid game more interesting.
• Emergencies: Super cool! I lost a city to the Aztecs and my buddy and I joined an emergency to try and take it back from those scary eagle warriors. Seemed a little superfluous when they happen 80% of the way through a domination game however.
• Governors: Some are clearly easier to use / more adaptable than others. They do make you feel very clever when you use them right though. Like, using the Castellan late game in your capital in conjunction with a spy to completely stop all spies. Or magnus for early growth. Or using Reyna to buy districts to get some use out of late game settlers.
• Loyalty: Very interesting. I don't like how defensive it is, as it makes it very difficult to flip cities, especially if they are in a cluster. Which makes sense I guess. You can't really actively seek it out unless you are in a golden age, and your neighbor is in a dark age. I do like the challenge it poses to conquering though. It adds another layer on top of simply "bombard->conquer->repeat" that makes you have to plan your conquests a little better. I just think more city-flipping due to loyalty would spice things up.
• New Civs: Cree are really good at making tall cities, fast. You can spool up a new city crazy fast too if you got the trade routes to spare. Mongols were fun, didn't get to use their LA much. Keshigs are good. Haven't had a good game as Shaka yet; keep getting early warcarted. Really want to try Mapuche when I get the chance.

Overall, there are just more events that grab your interest now. And that is really what civ 6 needed; vanilla got boring way too fast. Now all they need to do is spice up religion in the second expac .

 

Deity.

 

I finished three games, and none of the new mechanics ever changed the way I play. The different ages just happen, and they don't really seem to matter at all. Loyalty has not been an issue for me, and in my experience only makes warmongering more powerful. The governors don't add that much besides putting Magnus in the city you're building Wonders in. That's my experience with the expansion's added mechanics.

 

Voted better than expected. I didn't have massively high expectations (I liked vanilla, but I still don't think it's quite "there"). I still haven't completed a game - had one abortive attempt at Scotland, now cruising to victory with them on Prince - but so far I'm really enjoying it. It has been very easy now that I've got my head round the new systems, but I normally play on King so I'm not concerned by that.

I absolutely love the loyalty system. It forces the AI to expand in a more logical way. The few instances where forward settling has happened anyway, it's resulted in pretty quick flipping. The flip side of this of course is that I can't build cities all over the place either, but I'll take that. Trying to get the AI's more boldly-placed cities to flip to me has become an interesting mini-game. As a peaceful player, it's great to have this option, though warmongering is still very powerful.

The era system also seems fun. I've found it very easy to chain Golden Ages on Prince and haven't actually had a Dark Age yet. I'm looking forward to trying a Dark Classical to Heroic Medieval approach on King in my next game. The timeline is a nice addition and does help with immersion.

I'm finding the AI easier to befriend and forge alliances with than before: I have two alliances going in my current game and in the modern era still haven't had to go to war with either of them. I did have two early wars but with different opponents (a city-state ally managed to raze a city for me which was helpful). Again this is something to test more extensively on higher levels.

I'm finding I'm swimming in governor titles so haven't had to plan my governors as much as I thought. Also quite a few of them have one or two useless promotions so even going wide I haven't really felt I've had to sacrifice anything. And the one time an emergency was triggered, I was too far away to be able to help. I need to see more to be able to comment on those.

All in all, it's been very enjoyable so far: very easy, but I expect nothing more on Prince. Will report back after a King map or two...

 

In other words: pretty.

No, but neither are hexes, outside of a micro strategy game, where--as I mentioned above--you need to deal with issues like turn radius. If we were going for realism, we wouldn't need any geometric partitioning of the map, we'd just point to where we want to move, and click. But, that defies most strategy game mechanics, so we're again reminded that neither is realistic. I wouldn't say any of your points are invalid, though. I just have personal expectations of strategy games on the macro and micro scale, and hexes for a game like civ are way outside the boundaries of those expectations. For me.

I've only played one through to completion, but tried another aborted start when I saw the clear change...but that's only my experience. I was playing at Emperor to give myself some time to play around with the new systems. What level were you playing?

 

Really? I've had the opposite experience in my games. The AI has won the emergency every time (I wasn't participating) and I had two tier three alliances at the end of my game. Sample size, don't expect that to happen every time.

I've liked the game a lot. I am afraid, though, that I happened into my new favorite-to-play civ first by selecting the Cree, nowhere but down from here.

 

I wrote some examples of very common situations where squares allow some kind of cheating thanks to the different length of diagonal movement, that's why I called hexes more realistic than squares (sure, none of those is really realistic). It was just a reaction to you saying that squares are actually "much more realistic" than hexes. That's something I cannot agree with at all Yes, none of those is realistic, but if we were to pick one, then squares definitely are not the MORE realistic system.
But it's offtopic, sorry for that

 

i like the gmae now with R7F much, it is no use anymore looking back to earlyer version, i like 4 next war by far the best 5 was great with last expansion pack. but we are in with 6 now. i did not like 6 much the vanilla game. some did i think these thigns will stay very personal and subjectiv, but i do like 6 now with R&F it makes a great differance. i ahve wishes for next exspansion but that is long way off. untill loving it, it needs some tweeks and i am sure they will come....

 

Loyalty was a slam dunk, though some numerical tuning will be welcome as always. Finally, a civ game where forward settling isn't super dominant!

Ages was intriguing, and turned out to fulfill its promises pretty well. It could use a little tuning (Dedications and Dark Age Policies need some nontrivial balancing, and Era scores for domination are way too high), but from a system standpoint it's an impressive success.

Governors are a tad cumbersome but seem to add enough neat decisions to carry their weight. Magnus seems overpowered, Victor seems really weak, City Parks seem underwhelming. It's a shame that [RELIGIOUS_GOVERNOR] does absolutely nothing for non-religious civs. (Besides "be a Governor.")

Alliances are a simple, nice improvement. In a game of rational agents, it's actually a great way of penalizing the leader. (No one allies with the guy about to win, everyone else gets bonuses while they get none.) Now we just need the AI to use the feature correctly!

Emergencies looks like the real dud. In theory, it's great! If a human "Dungeon Master" was hand-selecting Emergencies for games, the system would work fine. But currently, the logic that drives it seems to give random emergencies that are not interesting and are just as likely to give the leader free cash than a challenge. (I've had multiple cases where I'm clearly winning, and an Emergency is declared against some other player!) The theory is great, but in practice I have yet to see a single good Emergency in any game. (Not even getting into the AI being useless partners and the "is this a bug?" lack of warmongering.)

Overall, great expansion.

 

Rise & Fall was already in a strange situation when compared with previous expansions. Civ 6 came out of the box with almost every feature we expect from a Civ game. Despite being a First Expansion, the job it has to do is more in line with what we saw in the previous two Second Expansions - that of filling out the game that exists.

I think it is successful in doing this. The new mechanics slot in quite well and add interesting and powerful new toys to the toolkit of helping you build your empire and pursue victory. Powerful Dark Age policies, Golden Age dedications, and Government Plaza buildings have some really satisfying synergies, and Governors can help overcome some frustrations that were in the base game- like mid-to-late game settling and getting colonies up and running.

The loyalty mechanic is an interesting extra puzzle to consider, and leads to some interesting, perhaps unintended gameplay occurrences that enhance the experience of a historical simulation playing out.

The new civs are a welcome breath of fresh air, and have some interesting abilities I'm keen to play with and against.

One very nice undocumented change is that the new Global Age system means that Great People are no longer broken. You don't miss out on earlier GP just because some rapscallion has beelined a particular technology.

There remain a number of issues - the AI behaviour is still distractingly goofy, even if it has made a modicum of improvements in some places. The game is also not very good at telling you what to do, which is tolerable for us Fanatics but I pity series newcomers. The perennial Civ problem of becoming a runaway and just waiting for your chosen victory to kick in is ever-present. If, unlike me, you found yourself disagreeing with the basic design decisions of Civ VI (1UPT, district planning, the art style, sparser tech and unit trees, reduced movement and high production costs), there's probably nothing here that will change your mind - it is still Civ VI, after all.

But all-in-all, Sid's Golden Rule is satisfied. The expansion means there are more interesting decisions to be made, I think more than at any point since Civ IV BtS.

 

Firaxis is a weird company. Second time in a row they release a game in a base state that really angers me, I expect xpacs do fail, and they succeed. Huh.

I have never seen a game with as terrible initial state and reception as civ5 to redeem itself so much over years, and yet I became pessimist once again with civ6 vanilla.

I am glad to be wrong again.

Thanks to post xpac player count jump, yesterday civ6 was 6th most popular game on Steam for some time, and that's with a lot of people still playing civ5.

The only thing I am bitter about are idiots on Steam who bring down the score of an xpac because of ridiculou notion that it should have been included in deluxe edition lol. I hope firaxis devs check these forums and reddit and steam player base count (not to mention their cash flow) rather than those aggregate score fools.

 

Someone never played the base game of civ 5. That was far worse than the base civ 6 one. Not an excuse, just pointing out DLC always do this for civ games.

 

I had a lot of hope for the expansion and it's exceeded my high expectation. My favorite new mechanism would be loyalty, really adds some challenge to warmongering and makes it more rewarding to go with a peaceful civilization. I just played a game with the Cree where I never fought a battle against an AI opponent, but still flipped 4 cities. I also enjoy the ages system, the governors and the new civilization, having played full games with the Cree and Mapuche and partial games with the Netherlands and Zulu.

 

i noticed someone complaining no polders with netherlands, on an island with 6 city's i had 7 polders added one now. 2 polders bewteen 2 islands a norrow seastraight ships can still pass but landunits too which is a great tactical advantage. i think you just have to have luck in the map generation. imust sAY I REALY LOVE THIS GAME NOW. 6 IS GROWING UP. HOPE THOUGH THAT DIPLOMATIC WIN COMES BACK STILL VERY MUCH MISSED

 

Granted I wasn not expecting that much but I love the direction they went with historical moments (I have discussed this with my friend for years on how it would be cool to focus more on eras and story moments so I obviously was happy with this) but wish they fleshed this out more. Loyalty system is not perfect but it sure adds to the planning of conquests and even sometimes allow peacefull turnovers (golden age vs dark age) so I like it.Biggest gripes I have currently is AI as they definitivly still do a lot of silly things. Also I cant for the life of me understand why they took out the hall of fame, it would have tied very well with the historical moment system and could become a story of your country at the end of the game. In general I hope this expansion is sucsessfull and that we see another expansion as well to flesh out some of the other systems

 

[QUOTE="chazzycat, post: 15035955, member: 195156" I think where the expansion falls flat is in the civ roster and design. Borderline insignificant nations like Mapuche and Georgia just don't really get me that excited. I would probably get over that, if they were interesting gameplay-wise. But a lot of the new abilities are boring too (which one of the causus belli does my "unique" ability revolve around again?). Honestly I think they went a little too far with their philosophy of finding lesser-known civs and leaders. I would give up half the expansion roster for Napoleon.[/QUOTE]

Agree 100%.