Things that still irk me

[Abaxial]

Sure but then that feels like it gives me an unfair advantage. If I have to skew the world temperature to hot to have fun with Mali, at the expense of every other civ who doesn’t benefit from desert, then to me the problem is Mali’s design.

The key thing is "have fun with Mali". If I am not having fun I might as well play something else.

 

[AntSou]

I only ever have issues with terrain when I attempt to pack more Civs than the recommended amount for a given map size. Smaller maps also generate less options regardless of amount of Civs (e.g. enough Deserts for Mali, or enough Mountains for Inca).

Zegangani's Real Start Locations also seems to help.

 

[Zaarin]

The key thing is "have fun with Mali". If I am not having fun I might as well play something else.

Agreed. I can see why players who play MP would care about balance, but as a player who is SP only...I have absolutely no qualms about disadvantaging the AI if it increases my fun. The AI isn't a person, and it doesn't have feelings or a sense of sportsmanship. If I play as Mali or Nubia on a map set to Hot, Dry, and Old against humans playing as Russia, Canada, Inca, Vietnam, and Ethiopia, that would indeed be mean-spirited...but if it's against the AI, who cares?

 

[Tuvok694]

Does this happen to you, too?
I settle my capital, do some scouting, then place map tacks with the next 4 decent or good settling spots. Nearest neighbor approaches with a settler and founds a city in exactly that one tile that makes ALL my four planned cities unavailable. I always assumed that the AI does not "see" my map tacks, but this kind of forward settling happens to me quite often.

 

[fy00sh]

Does this happen to you, too?
I settle my capital, do some scouting, then place map tacks with the next 4 decent or good settling spots. Nearest neighbor approaches with a settler and founds a city in exactly that one tile that makes ALL my four planned cities unavailable. I always assumed that the AI does not "see" my map tacks, but this kind of forward settling happens to me quite often.

thered definitely be a selection bias with what you'd really wanna settle a bunch of cities around and what the AI would also wanna settle a city near, and the AI doesnt plan nearly as much, if at all, for stuff like "if i put this city in a slightly worse spot i can make another city near it in another pretty good spot, and two pretty good cities are better than one great one"
the AI seems to always settle each city as if its their last, which is why i honestly dont mind in a single player game going back a turn and deleting an AI settler from existence, since theyre just gonna do the citybuilding wrong

 

[AntSou]

Does this happen to you, too?
I settle my capital, do some scouting, then place map tacks with the next 4 decent or good settling spots. Nearest neighbor approaches with a settler and founds a city in exactly that one tile that makes ALL my four planned cities unavailable. I always assumed that the AI does not "see" my map tacks, but this kind of forward settling happens to me quite often.

The AI is not purposely settling on your map tacks.

 

[Linklite]

...I have absolutely no qualms about disadvantaging the AI if it increases my fun...

The key point is that it increases your fun. If that's all there is to it, then great. Crack on. I've heard enough complaints on here about how easy the game is though that difficulty (or the lack thereof) is an issue, which restarts only magnify. You also have the "honour" guys who like the feeling of winning a fair fight. Simply restarting isn't the ideal panacea, is the point I think.

 

[Zaarin]

The key point is that it increases your fun. If that's all there is to it, then great. Crack on. I've heard enough complaints on here about how easy the game is though that difficulty (or the lack thereof) is an issue, which restarts only magnify. You also have the "honour" guys who like the feeling of winning a fair fight. Simply restarting isn't the ideal panacea, is the point I think.

No disagreement there. Actually, the frequency with which I had to restart just to find a map that looked fun to play is reason No. 1 why I stopped playing from late '21 until the drop of LP. I don't think there's anything wrong with restarting, but if I have to restart 10, 15, 20 times just to find a map that matches my civ's terrain bias, that's a problem. The map generation seems to be doing better now...but, then again, I haven't played any civ strongly reliant on a particular terrain since I started playing again.

 

[Widdershins]

Does this happen to you, too?
I settle my capital, do some scouting, then place map tacks with the next 4 decent or good settling spots. Nearest neighbor approaches with a settler and founds a city in exactly that one tile that makes ALL my four planned cities unavailable. I always assumed that the AI does not "see" my map tacks, but this kind of forward settling happens to me quite often.

I don't have any good sense what the AI sees. Can I see how "happy" the cities of neutral, unfriendly, or enemy AI civs are in a standard game? AI leaders with a "fun-loving agenda" seemingly have a running ticker of the the status of my cities, even if they're on the other side of the world and neutral toward me. Another example: Harald can hate my guts from 60 tiles away, but the moment I put my first galley in the water in a place that should be completely in the fog of war from his point of view, he nonetheless always seems to know I've built a "beautiful navy."*

*But he still hates my guts.

 

[reddishrecue]

No disagreement there. Actually, the frequency with which I had to restart just to find a map that looked fun to play is reason No. 1 why I stopped playing from late '21 until the drop of LP. I don't think there's anything wrong with restarting, but if I have to restart 10, 15, 20 times just to find a map that matches my civ's terrain bias, that's a problem. The map generation seems to be doing better now...but, then again, I haven't played any civ strongly reliant on a particular terrain since I started playing again.

I've noticed this issue with Maya or Korea where Maya would have little plantable resources around or Korea would have no mountains around. It wastes away a whole bunch of unique traits designed for that given civilization when the map doesn't match up with the civilization's beginning attributes. Another example could be having a bunch of plantable resources with Lincoln at the beginning and not having a lot of strategics instead.

 

[Linklite]

I'm wondering if a solution to the map generation problem would be to have an option where they match the civ to the location. There's a spot with tons of mountains? Inca gets put there. A spot with loads of coastline? Then Portugal gets added to the game.

That's a fairly crude way of doing it, perhaps a more probability based calculation would be better, but idea being that rather than picking civs, then generating a map and then deciding who gets what spot, you generate map, then go through each starting position and pick civs that would do well there.

 

[pokiehl]

I'm wondering if a solution to the map generation problem would be to have an option where they match the civ to the location. There's a spot with tons of mountains? Inca gets put there. A spot with loads of coastline? Then Portugal gets added to the game.

That's a fairly crude way of doing it, perhaps a more probability based calculation would be better, but idea being that rather than picking civs, then generating a map and then deciding who gets what spot, you generate map, then go through each starting position and pick civs that would do well there.

I can’t see this being a good solution. It’s just the current start bias system but you’d end up seeing the same civs every time since proportionally few civs have terrain dependencies.

 

[Linklite]

There'll be some terrains that don't favour particular civs, you could just do as I said and put probabilities in so civs are more likely to be picked for certain terrains but not guaranteed, could put in biases to make certain civs more or less favoured...I think that would be better than having Harold raging at your lack of a navy...while trying to build a civ in the desert himself.

 

[pokiehl]

I’m just having a hard time seeing how this approach is anything but “start biases but in the reverse direction.' It still doesn't solve the problem of terrain bonuses being too niche. Even if I get a great START as Mali, if I run out of desert within 2 cities, then I'm still bummed.

As far as Harald's agenda, that's an entirely different topic altogether. Not sure how that relates to this. Even if Harald is placed in a map with enough sea, your civ can easily start inland and not have ships for a while...If you're suggesting civs like Harald shouldn't be spawned in anything but a specialized map for their playstyle, then I disagree with that entirely because it'd make the single player experience quite stale.

 

[Abaxial]

I always use a mod called Expanded Initial Vision which shows you a bit more territory around your starting location. So you can see if you are in an area almost entirely snow or desert. Good for weeding out starts that are not going to be enjoyable.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Start Bias and Grossly Unsuitable Start Positions are the bane of the game. I literally quit playing any Civ with a naval UU or UA (Norway, England, Netherlands, etc) because it was CERTAIN that I would start as far from the coast as possible.
Partial solution is to use the Expanded Initial Vision and Faster Starting Settlers Mods that allow me to spot a better site and frequently get to it for a half-decent starting position, but, starting as England, I have gotten start positions in which even the expanded vision showed no sign of coast anywhere. And I have gotten three starting positions in a row for the Aztecs all in the middle of a seemingly-endless desert. Not exactly anti-starting bias, but definitely not expected. It's diabolical.

 

[Widdershins]

Here's another irritating thing: alliances cannot be maintained in continuous fashion, like in the real world, without a half-turn hiccup every 30 turns that closes borders and knocks any units one has in an ally's territory out into the ocean. There can even be grievances incurred for keeping units on the "ally's" border when this happens. Just inept, really.

 

[Futumch]

I've benched Kupe as an AI player from my games. He just completely sucks at picking a starting city site, and basically hamstrings himself for the entire game, while hassling me because I haven't cleared away flood damage in one turn. The frequency that he chooses some crappy single hex lone tundra island is astonishing.
Maybe in the future I'll use the FireTuner and place his first city down manually, or add him to inland seas maps.

I also agree with @Widdershins up above - I don't like the way that establishing diplomatic relations with the AI players seems to lift the fog of war for them, but not for you. They can see if I have lots of districts, the structure of my military (as per the Harald example). I remember you used to be able to trade maps in the older iterations of civ, that was pretty good. I think that this is more a case of triggering a leader's agenda, so playing against an AI personality rather than a civilisation. I'm probably not explaining myself very well, I'm pretty tired.

 

[jbavon]

Primary annoyances:
- AI not developing their land. Really ruins my immersion when I invade the tech and industrial leader to find three farms and absolutely nothing else.
- AI still not grasping planes. After thousands of hours of Civ6 and only a handful of dogfights.
- AI who dismantle (or never build) their armies during the end game.

Secondary annoyances:
- NF add-ons that the AI doesn't understand and just breaks the game so there's no reason to play with them
- Uninspiring naval combat
- AI not competing in the events which give victory points so they just go to you by default.


I still love the game though.

 

[Benevolent Dictator]

Primary annoyances:
- AI not developing their land. Really ruins my immersion when I invade the tech and industrial leader to find three farms and absolutely nothing else.
- AI still not grasping planes. After thousands of hours of Civ6 and only a handful of dogfights.
- AI who dismantle (or never build) their armies during the end game.

Secondary annoyances:
- NF add-ons that the AI doesn't understand and just breaks the game so there's no reason to play with them
- Uninspiring naval combat
- AI not competing in the events which give victory points so they just go to you by default.


I still love the game though.

I had a Tiny 6-player Deity game recently where Canada contributed over 6k gold to a Disaster competition while I was trying to win a Diplo victory.

It was a pleasant but shocking discovery.