Things that still irk me

[Disgustipated]

Though I've never been able to get a GDR to take a city for some reason. It just shoots at them. Maybe it needs a particular promotion, but what do I know?

I use the A key. Provided you are playing the game on a device that has a keyboard. I use A then left click over the city center.

 

[Widdershins]

I use the A key. Provided you are playing the game on a device that has a keyboard. I use A then left click over the city center.

Yes, I play on a laptop. And last night I decided to take a chance and try to get a robot into a city. Had to try, because the Ottomans had just used a GDR to take one of my city-states. And this time it worked! But now I'm even more baffled why it didn't work before, because the circumstances were identical. Well, identical in every way except this time the robot had all four promotions. Should that really make a difference? Reading what documentation I can find, there seems to be nothing that says robots must have a certain promotion in order to take a city.

When it comes to gaming I'm always receptive to the thesis that I'm just a dunce, but this mystery is...irksome.

 

[Linklite]

Yes, I play on a laptop. And last night I decided to take a chance and try to get a robot into a city. Had to try, because the Ottomans had just used a GDR to take one of my city-states. And this time it worked! But now I'm even more baffled why it didn't work before, because the circumstances were identical. Well, identical in every way except this time the robot had all four promotions. Should that really make a difference? Reading what documentation I can find, there seems to be nothing that says robots must have a certain promotion in order to take a city.

When it comes to gaming I'm always receptive to the thesis that I'm just a dunce, but this mystery is...irksome.

No, it shouldn't make a difference. This mirrors my problem where it should be using the siege cannon, and I'm doing it correctly (ok, the first few times I wasn't paying much attention, so there was room for human error, but then I was being careful and shouldn't have made mistakes with such a simple command), but it still sometimes moves and tries to melee the city instead.

Perhaps the patch introduced a bug somehow. I don't see how, since to my understanding (which is quite limited in this case) there shouldn't have been any code altered that could do that. Alternatively, it may always have been there since NFP but it's not on the Switch so I never came across it (I've started playing on the PC).

 

[Widdershins]

No, it shouldn't make a difference. This mirrors my problem where it should be using the siege cannon, and I'm doing it correctly (ok, the first few times I wasn't paying much attention, so there was room for human error, but then I was being careful and shouldn't have made mistakes with such a simple command), but it still sometimes moves and tries to melee the city instead.

Perhaps the patch introduced a bug somehow. I don't see how, since to my understanding (which is quite limited in this case) there shouldn't have been any code altered that could do that. Alternatively, it may always have been there since NFP but it's not on the Switch so I never came across it (I've started playing on the PC).

Yeah, in one battle two nights ago I could swear I commanded the robot to use the siege cannon against a city, but instead it walked up to the city and seemingly did a melee assault. Now, I think I first directed Darth Cybertron to walk to a place that was three tiles from the city, and then directed it to use the siege cannon. If somehow the robot was still stuck on "move" -- and I've seen crazier things happen -- then I guess it would instead charge at the city.

On the lighter side I note that robots now cost only 2400 gold instead of 6000. That must have happened in some recent PC update. It makes sense. The real cost of robots is the uranium.

 

[Disgustipated]

On the lighter side I note that robots now cost only 2400 gold instead of 6000

9000 gold on Marathon speed. I could have swore it was more expensive. I don't build them every game. They must have updated the cost, maybe with this most recent patch. They almost seem too cheap atm. Considering how OP they are.

 

[Widdershins]

9000 gold on Marathon speed. I could have swore it was more expensive. I don't build them every game. They must have updated the cost, maybe with this most recent patch. They almost seem too cheap atm. Considering how OP they are.

Yes, I don't think they should be cheaper than jet bombers. I feel like the right price (on standard speed) would be...um...say 4800 gold. And they should consume just 2 uranium per turn instead of 3. Or leave it at 3 but make uranium less damned scarce. In my last game there were 12 civs but only 10 uranium tiles, and 2 of them were on adjacent tiles.

 

[Widdershins]

This irks me: In my recent emperor-level game on a huge map, I was allies with Lincoln. My ally was doing fairly well up until modern times, but then things started going off the rails, and it didn't involve Ford's Theatre:

1) Ol' Abe started making robots. Lots of them. Eight of them by my count, though I may have missed one or two. But he had no source of uranium.

2) To the north (and my south) were the Gauls, with whom Abe was at war. He had punched two tunnels in adjacent mountain tiles that went nowhere, and a dozen other tunnels throughout his realm. But the one mountain tile in the heart of his realm that desperately needed a tunnel never got one, and for ages Abe sent his units out to sea and back on land to get 'round the mountain range and drive on toward Gaul. *face palm*

3) Abe swarmed Gaul with at least 8 GDRs for turn after turn, the latter having only machine gun units and some infantry. He took not a single city, and would not coordinate this GDRs in any way to decisively kill Gaul units. He'd often plant GDRs in the daftest places where they were in range of upwards of three encampments, two cities, and several machine gun units. Of course they couldn't heal, because no uranium. *double face palm*

4) In the Future Era Abe finally developed his oil resources. All but one GDR had been wiped out, and it was low on health. In 14 of his 15 cities Abe set to work making nothing but modern armor units or missile cruisers. One city only was working on a settler, but there were really no worthwhile tiles left to settle. Could someone lend a hand for a triple face palm?

So I guess what I'm saying is the AI needs some work. Others have said it already, but it bears repeating.

 

[Infixo]

None in game that I know of off the top of my head, but I did a search on the Civ wiki and they seem to have what you're looking for.

Well. Better Civilopedia mod contains such a list (single page). Also, Real Era Tracker gives you the list plus many other features.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

You should be able to communicate the way the AI can communicate with you. They go with all these do's and dont's and all you can say pretty much is to not settle nearby

The C-Evo guy thought the same. Design requirement for them was that the game system cannot tell, basically, if a player is Human or A.I. And, therefore, every A.I. had to be prepared for every kind of message that the A.I. could send to the Human - and had to respond the same way, blind to which player was the one whose whims determined if they loaded the save file again.

This is at odds not with crafting a single player experience necessarily, but it is at odds with the vision of Civ series to the extent that it leans into the "charming time in a recreation of history with known figures" game. There's these two directions, and it's been touched on before, and it's hard to mix both and Civ games usually do it and it's arguable if it's worth it, but there's the "This is a decent strategy game" criteria, and then there's the "This is an immersive experience" criteria.

There is absolutely a tradeoff because to emulate history would actually be a textbook. Or kinetic novel at any rate. Something is gamified for there to be a game. Then you gotta ask: Did [that gamification] make a good game? Well, good according to it being a fair and skill-testing strategy game without balance issues? or, good in how it transports you to an atmosphere in which you can see familiar social historical dynamics play out in systems that are interactable? Or maybe there's a third criteria and it's the only important one and game design is luck or something.

This thought occurred to me when I looked at the idea of CivVI's feature bloat. And, as a cohesive "game", that is a form of failure. But another way around, it is meeting an objective even despite the non-cohesiveness, which is, here's a religion system and a technology system and a settling system and a military system and a terrain exploitation system and so on and so on, and a player can care about any one of them. You can look at whatever you want, and it may provide a sense of rightness however isolated, and then the notion that you can master the interaction of the systems to beat a braindead cheatyface is something on top which you might aspire to, even if that dimension itself is not made with the peak of the Craft. A game that made its sacrifices to reach goals of balance, fairness, playability per se (e.g., something Caveman2Cosmos is not), and cohesion, may have had to sacrifice the "satisfyingness" of any of its elements, and what the representations conjure in the emotions of the players.

 

[reddishrecue]

While looking at the sailing forum post, I found out something that really irked me.. and that is:

Triremes that get stuck in other neutral borders in the sea after borders spread and not having cartography to sail the ocean and get out without the promotion.

 

[Abaxial]

I seem to recall an experiment made by Marbozir in which he gave one civ a GDR (plus uranium) on turn one to see what would happen. The AI had no idea and used it chiefly to escort settlers.

 

[Horizons]

There are many annoying things about Civ6 that I can live with, but the biggest downer of all is the fact that so much success depends on a good starting location.

 

[Abaxial]

There are many annoying things about Civ6 that I can live with, but the biggest downer of all is the fact that so much success depends on a good starting location.

Well, if you get a poor starting location that looks unfun to play, restart.

 

[pokiehl]

There are many annoying things about Civ6 that I can live with, but the biggest downer of all is the fact that so much success depends on a good starting location.

I don't agree that "success" or "winning" depends on a good start so much, but I 100% agree that a fun game often depends on your start. This is true for any civ game, but I think it's moreso true for Civ 6 than any other one, because so many civs have terrain-dependent abilities, which just wasn't the norm in previous iterations.

I think designing civs excessively around terrain is a mistake for this very reason.

 

[Linklite]

Well, if you get a poor starting location that looks unfun to play, restart.

Doesn't really work for multiplayer, and even in single player that has it's own issue - it stacks the deck against the AI. They can't restart, so end up much more likely with a disadvantageous start, compound the number one complaint that the game is too easy.

 

[InsidiousMage]

it stacks the deck against the AI. They can't restart, so end up much more likely with a disadvantageous start,

There is a "balanced" starting position option in the rules but I have no idea if it actually does what it says. Personally though, I doubt the starting location really impacts the AI that much as I would image their inability to really play the game well matters a lot more.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I think designing civs excessively around terrain is a mistake for this very reason.

The mistake is in not setting the Map Generator up correctly to give terrain based Civs what they need.

 

[pokiehl]

The mistake is in not setting the Map Generator up correctly to give terrain based Civs what they need.

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.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

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.

Sorry I wasn't clear - I meant the Map Generation engine should give Mali a Desert area and Canada tundra etc etc regardless of the user settings. I agree making it Hot or Cold pre game feels cheap.

 

[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.