So really where is this?

[Larsenex]

Greetings,

This post is really directed at folks who have been on the boards lately that have (rightly so) complaints about the launch of our game Civ VI.

I get it, you are not happy with things,.be it Ai, bugs, UI, Diplomacy, War mongering penalties, performance, and exploits....

A few here say we should never accept anything less because we are idiots to spend our money and allow evil game companies to force us to lower our standards and 'let them get away with it'...

I get it...

What I would like to know is..Where is this other 4x game you <all> speak of?

Where is this perfect 4x game that launched bug free.

Where is this 4x game you claim launched feature complete and has story and dynamism?

Where is this 4x game that you purchased at launch and is so awesome you never looked back?

Where is this 4x game you want that has awesme ai and diplomacy that you like?

I ask this as the game we have in Civ 6 may not be that, but it is pretty damn close and I am very happy with it...

If you know a BETTER 4x game at launch please post here, I want to see it.

>>> back to pillaging with the 'sack' military card!

 

[Stilgar08]

Very good post !

 

[MyOtherName]

Civ 4.

The only severe problem I had with it was graphics related, and it's fair to give Civ 4 a pass on that because graphics standards... weren't back in the day.

 

[Jeckel]

Since there wasn't really a 'day one' as it is known today, I can't speak to the very initial launch, but I know when I got Civs 1 though 3 not long after their release they were more or less complete with relatively few bugs. Same with the original Colonization and Alpha Centauri games. Perhaps they patched stuff in the first couple weeks before it got to my local walmart or babbage's, but I know that the only one I ever patched my self was Civ 3 and that was mostly balancing from what I remember.

More to your apparent point, why does there have to be another 4x game that does it 'right' in order to point out what this game has done wrong? I'm certainly not going to call anyone an idiot for spending their money how they see fit, but in general buying games before they are actually released does lower standards and give companies an incentive to release less complete, more buggy games.

Anyway, I'm going to get back to us trying to conquer the world after having already won culture victory. Big thanks to the modders that are already making improvements to the UI that should have been in the design from day one.

 

[Raider]

So, first of all, Civ4.

Second SMAC.

Third, GalCiv2 (was known for having a strong AI at launch btw)

AoW3

And those are just without pausing to think...and I could go on.

Now, here's the real question, and the reason I requested a refund for this game... Give that the issues in Civ 6, especially with AI in a single-player game, make it basically are present, clear and obvious (to the point where leaving them in had to be a conscious decision), why would I spend my time and and money paying for and playing Civ 6, when there are TON of other 4x games, in various stages of life cycle, that are better and more complete and have better AI than Civ 6?

So yeah, in the population of games made up of Civ 6 and nothing else, it's great and nothing is better. Once you add in the real world, it turns out there is a ton of games out there that were better at launch and are better in their current state.

 

[Haggbart]

So, first of all, Civ4.

Second SMAC.

Third, GalCiv2 (was known for having a strong AI at launch btw)

AoW3

And those are just without pausing to think...and I could go on.

Now, here's the real question, and the reason I requested a refund for this game... Give that the issues in Civ 6, especially with AI in a single-player game, make it basically are present, clear and obvious (to the point where leaving them in had to be a conscious decision), why would I spend my time and and money paying for and playing Civ 6, when there are TON of other 4x games, in various stages of life cycle, that are better and more complete and have better AI than Civ 6?

So yeah, in the population of games made up of Civ 6 and nothing else, it's great and nothing is better. Once you add in the real world, it turns out there is a ton of games out there that were better at launch and are better in their current state.

Well yeah, Civ4 is great but they don't need to remake an old game.

SMAC is good, but one of the most unbalanced ICS-games ever, and diplomacy is schizo to a stunning degree.

The two other you mentioned better than any civ-game? Cool story bro. I even played BE more. Where are those "tons" of games you're talking about? So far you mentioned four games, of which only AoW3 is from the last decade (!). And Gal Civ2, yeah that one was awesome at launch. Sometimes you could even play 10 minutes without the game crashing to dektop.

I'm quoting the Game Revolution review:
"I almost feel like a jerk having to complain about its myriad bug issues, but a final release with this many problems just isn't acceptable. If it were any other type of product, from a television to a pork chop, I'd return it to the store"

So please take of the rose tinted nostalgia glasses.

 

[bladex]

where is this?
it's the civfanatics civilization VI general discussion forum!

 

[pulzar]

A few here say we should never accept anything less because we are idiots to spend our money and allow evil game companies to force us to lower our standards and 'let them get away with it'...

This seems like a separate argument from the rest. I don't know of any better 4x games than the Civ series, but I certainly spent way more time on Civ 3, Civ 4, and Civ 5 release version before I got bored. Still Civ is the best 4x, and that's why we're all here. That's tough to argue.

But that's still not an excuse to launch games with major flaws. There are many other types of games that come out without major bugs and key pieces way out of tune. For example, just a slightly wider beta test for a month would've uncovered many of the problems... and if they were already aware of the problems and didn't need a wide beta test to show it, then that makes it even worse.

In the end, they'll keep making them like this, and we'll keep buying because there are no better 4x games, but that still doesn't make it right. When someone does make a better one one day, the exodus will be that much faster (see SimCity and Cities Skylines).

 

[Disgustipated]

Civ 4.

This was to be my response as well. Seriously Civ4 was Firaxis' peak. You can't top Leonard Nimoy anyways, sorry Sean Bean fans. That said, I am enjoying Civ6 much more than Civ5 despite the lack of challenge. At least it isn't as restrictive as Civ5, and I have freedom to do what I want for the most part. The freedom is liberating. But Civ4 was the best civ game, and still is, they really got the balance right.

 

[greygamer]

This was to be my response as well. Seriously Civ4 was Firaxis' peak. You can't top Leonard Nimoy anyways, sorry Sean Bean fans. That said, I am enjoying Civ6 much more than Civ5 despite the lack of challenge. At least it isn't as restrictive as Civ5, and I have freedom to do what I want for the most part. The freedom is liberating. But Civ4 was the best civ game, and still is, they really got the balance right.

So no more new versions of Civ should be released then?
Personally I didn't like Civ IV (unlimited stacking is such a broken mechanic these days) but I appreciate that a lot of people think it is the best Civ. That said if they went back to unlimited stacking I would pass on that game without feeling the need to go to the forums and bang on about it every time a new version was released

 

[stiiknafuulia]

It has never existed (although Civ IV came close), but it might some day if we rectified our errors and would force the devs to rectify theirs (i.e. not preorder any game, and not buy badly reviewed games until they're adequately patched). Next question?

Disclaimer: I did preorder (shame on me!), but I won't make that mistake again...

 

[Larsenex]

Thank you for the responses. Really we all love the Civ franchise. I do, I simply posted as I was frustrated with the arguments on its foibles. Civ IV launched with nearly the same complaints we see today (there is a nostalgia thread here somewhere). Anyway I think we are on the right path to having another milestone in the franchise, game on!

 

[greygamer]

Thank you for the responses. Really we all love the Civ franchise. I do, I simply posted as I was frustrated with the arguments on its foibles. Civ IV launched with nearly the same complaints we see today (there is a nostalgia thread here somewhere). Anyway I think we are on the right path to having another milestone in the franchise, game on!

iirc Beyond the Sword was the expansion that elevated Civ IV to cult status

 

[Disgustipated]

So no more new versions of Civ should be released then?

Of course not. It's not like I'm playing Civ 4 right now, I'm playing Civ6. I really love the district system and other improvements. The thing about balance, is it can easily be fixed, and I'm sure it will be fixed. This game isn't broken in the least bit. Even the AI not upgrading units can easily be fixed. My idea is to add more generic units that aren't as good as the one you need resources to build. Upgrades should be cheaper as well. And if that doesn't work, put in code to automatically disband warriors.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The "better/amazing" game will probably be released in ~2 years once tge last round of patching on the last expansion of Civ6 is done. People want that game (or something even better)

That is what people should save their money for.

 

[KmDubya]

Maybe the AI is not good but I'm still having a lot of fun with civ 6. The districts are a great addition and like the changes to great people and religion. Diplomacy needs a lot of work, right now it is you and several perpetually offended AI.

In cIV I remember the stacks of doom, forcing a stack onto a low defensive tile and then obliterating it with collateral damage suicide siege, basically the answer to all combat was more collateral damage. I don't miss it, it was fun but I much prefer one unit per hex.

 

[Francis Xavier]

I'm just trying to figure out where all these bugs are that people are complaining about. There are a few mechanics I'd like adjusted, but I haven't come across any game-breaking bugs in almost a dozen play throughs. I played the first few games on Emperor, won Immortal a couple times and the rest have been on Deity.

The things that come to mind for me that people are talking about 'bugs,' are:
1. Fortified units don't auto-wake up when hostile units enter their vision (which if I recall right, I don't think was the default fortification setting for Civ III / IV either, but I can't remember when that change was made from "fortify" to "alert" whether it was Civ IV or V). In other words the units are classically "fortified" not on "alert" status.
2. Diplomacy - but I've found when you actually play to agenda's and geography, it's just as sophisticated as almost any other Civ franchise. I've even built military alliances and DoF's etc on Deity. Most of the games where the opposing civ's all hate me I waged a lot of war and was running away with the game.
3. Someone mentioned no road building, but in the end, the traders make the same road I would've made in Civ 5, and I remember in Civ 4 and before just spamming as many roads on tiles as humanly possible, mostly because a worker would eventually run out of things to do and you'd just be like "f it, build more roads."
4. The AI is not very good at waging war. It is kind of annoying that either the AI is way behind you in unit upgrades / technology sophistication and you roll over them or they're insanely ahead. But, as I recall this is pretty much standard-operating Civ.
5. Auto-cycling is annoying, I'll definitely admit, and I've made a few mistakes trying to click too fast.

Sure I wish the AI was a bit more intuitive, and I feel they'll get there. And unless you've got deity on auto-pilot, then I mean, getting a harder AI is kinda what increasing difficulty is for (for some reason, a lot of the complaints I've read have been from people playing like 1-2 games and getting in an uproar, or people who've been playing on lower difficulties.

The only obviously broken mechanics that I've found is the obvious unit selling non-stop, which I kind of feel like to find out about that you'd have to be told directly or you're so experienced with Civ-like games that you consciously know what to look for to break something.

But none of those things are really "bugs" they're things that will be adjusted over time as with pretty much any modern game on release, but it's not like I've gotten a situation where there was some massive game-destroying bug.

 

[MyOtherName]

The only obviously broken mechanics that I've found is the obvious unit selling non-stop, which I kind of feel like to find out about that you'd have to be told directly or you're so experienced with Civ-like games that you consciously know what to look for to break something.

The only reason this exploit wasn't published several times over on day 1 is because there's nothing to indicate that deleting a unit would give you gold. Once you have that knowledge and think to look at the actual buying and selling rates, the exploit follows almost immediately.

 

[Francis Xavier]

Yeah, it doesn't even so much as give you an indication of how much a unit will sell for. It is kind of funny how hilariously broken it makes Tomyris and Gilgamesh though in the early game. Although I think this would have the most impact on multiplayer where there's player vs. player. It's not like the AI sells units (or at least in a broken way), and you can just.. not use the exploit.

Then again, I never understood things like starting a deity map with 1 turn limit and playing Peter to auto-win, or doing a deity dual map vs. Kongo and religious win just for the achievement. It's like, what's the point?

 

[johnnybaseball]

We all came into the release knowing the game wasn't "finished," in the sense that, we know there are going to be DLC and we know there are most likely going to be two expansions to the game. So this is the foundation. And I think the foundation is very strong. When it reaches its final form, this will be an amazing game.

For me, I don't have any problem with the release, even knowing that the first version will have issues and will be patched. I like this game. I can spend many, many hours playing it. I have been waiting for it to come out for years. Since I was going to buy it, I'd rather be able to just get it now, and play along as the game develops.