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

[PhilBowles]

Honestly quite a fail expansion tbh. It doesn't really address any of the issues the base game had.

Even the so called 'tall' tier 1 government building is completely great when you're going wide, while the AI still is utterly crap. Religion is still fairly bad, bar a few beliefs, but now it's a full on currency. You can just get the tier 2 building to buy land units or a dedication and it's basically the same as gold. Still don't see why we need another currency in the game.

Every Deity game I play is won long before the game ends, primarily because the AI refuses to build campuses most the time.

Unless every CS gets wiped off the map, wide will always be better than tall in this game. You could go tall all you want, and I would always be able to beat you wide because of how crappy tall is.

Sadly the game chock full of bugs and exploits, and I really don't see much point in all the new systems when the AI has no clue how to use any of them.

Everything is even easier now that oligarchy legacy card stacks with oligarchy, and AI loves you to have trading posts and other crap in their cities. Easy +4 +4 +3 combat strength every time.

This speaks to a divide in the way the game's design has progressed in Civ VI. All of these complaints are about strategic gameplay, which is shallow in Civ VI and isn't addressed at all in the expansion. But the devs were pretty explicit that they were pushing more in the direction of roleplaying and storytelling - and while I favour treating Civ as a strategy game, I've accepted that Civ VI is wide of the mark in that regard.

Base Civ VI was however also terrible for storytelling, and that is an area the expansion has had a lot of success addressing.

 

[Shorlin]

I had fairly low expectations, so better than expected. I'm having fun with the new Civs/mechanics and it was a relatively bug free release. Still a lot of space for improvement though.

 

[Zike]

and while I favour treating Civ as a strategy game, I've accepted that Civ VI is wide of the mark in that regard.

Civ 6 is not really a strategy game, at least not in single player. The AI is so bad that's its more of a role-play sim city type game.

 

[PhilBowles]

Civ 6 is not really a strategy game, at least not in single player. The AI is so bad that's its more of a role-play sim city type game.

That's precisely my point, and it's a step in the wrong direction for those of us who prefer the traditional strategy side of Civ. It's not just an AI issue, it's structural - the game is designed to allow non-optimised play to succeed at the highest levels, which is great for gameplay variety which in turn helps with storytelling and roleplaying, but taken to an extreme that's bad for a strategy game.

All that said, for those willing to make peace with the new approach Rise & Fall adds in a lot of the storytelling needed to make Civ VI work as a 'roleplay sim', which it really didn't in its base form. Given the base state of Civ VI it may even be the correct decision - Firaxis have elected not to try and salvage a bad strategy game, but to make a good roleplaying game instead.

 

[PhilBowles]

Is there a Hall of Fame now? Is the AI less annoying/smarter? Is there a replay at the end. I.e. have any of the basics been improved?

Just reached the end of my Deity game and I can confirm there is still no replay - just 'replay movie', which I presume means the victory movie.

If you spawn near a good system or set of close and twisty rivers as Wilhelmina you are set to become a cultural/industrial powerhouse. She generates enough science to keep pace with most civs and the immense adjacency bonuses to theater squares in particular are better than any other civ's for focusing on culture victories. The powerful industrial district bonuses allow you to ramp production for wonders. Meanwhile, you'll be getting great people of all types in numbers only beaten by Pedro, Mvemba and perhaps Peter.

I enjoyed my Wilhemina game. I can't say her bonuses other than the early adjacency bonus were detectably powerful, but I spent the never-ending Information Era in a Golden Age which bolstered the loyalty of newly-captured or gifted (Korea gave me two cities in a peace deal, including a major one near their capital, and I ended up moving into two Arab cities that could have had loyalty issues) otherwise the trade route bonus would probably have been more relevant. I have to imagine the +1 culture per trade route added up to more than I recognised while playing, and I did end up with more Polder spots than I'd realised at first.

 

[agonistes]

Would you mind sharing which aspects you dislike? Is it the number of systems that the expansion adds in addition to the ones in the base game?

That would be a term paper. Its not the number of systems though. The more systems the better. The more detail, the better. The more management required, the better.

 

[PhilBowles]

Eras and loyalty: I really enjoy the eras and loyalty system. I like watching the AI lose cities due to placing them too close to another civilization and greatly enjoy watching cities flip. In my first game with the expansion, the Zulu were eliminated because its citizens were disloyal and caused their last city to flip. I do find it a bit too easy to get to obtain golden ages though.

Onto a new game after my Dutch victory and loyalty is a huge player. Very early, Scotland forward settled Dumbarton very aggressively in a spot I'd earmarked - and which, it turns out, was close to Rome and Ostia. It was Roman with peaceful flipping within about 20 turns. Unfortunately for me I headed the same way (the only available direction - I'm on a Tiny map for the achievement, and Scotland and Kongo are both very close), and had loyalty issues with my first city in that area. I'd planned to build a second during my coming Golden Age, ultimately helping both stabilise, but Trajan declared war. He wasn't a major threat but delayed my settlement - and as he also took Hong Kong immediately east of Dumbarton.

Entering the Medieval Era I declared a war of Territorial Expansion (it's good to be Chandragupta) and grabbed Dumbarton easily - but I'm in a Dark Age and have to max out the loyalty tools I have available to keep my cities. I'd hoped that with two cities of my own, and with Rome and Hong Kong sufficiently distant, I'd be secure - and if I weren't in a Dark Age maybe I would be. Seems my best option for stabilising is to destroy Ostia at this point, but fortunately I want the Romans gone anyway.

I've never yet seen the mythical capital flip, but in my Dutch game Geongju came close - Korea was in a Dark Age and to make peace with me had offered me their large second city, while everything further south was Georgian. Seondok allied - I presume culturally - with Tamar which let her stabilise, though.

 

[dexters]

I like it so far, hoping some of the bugs are ironed out, but liking the direction of Civ 6, it's a very rich experience after the 1st expansion.

 

[Acken]

Looks like civ6 with more features to me. Doesn't seem to really fix anything if you didnt really like the base game.