bene_legionary
Searching for the daguerrotype of God
Hopefully I'm not beating a dead horse here.
The more I look back on it, the more I see the shortfalls of Gathering Storm. The biggest is obviously the world congress, it's simply not fun for a randomised, listy and arbitrary mechanic to pop up every 30 turns. I want it out of the way almost all of the time. Resource stockpiling was just a bunch of missed opportunities to me, it was either not impactful if you had tonnes of them, or pretty annoying if you didn't. In both of these mechanics, Civ 5's implementation seemed to be much more well thought out. The last is global warming, which wasn't terrible, but not amazing. I think negative events like floods, tornadoes and famines are good, but famines aren't impactful, and the rest are just temporary blockers and give you too many yields, especially forest fires and floods.
Other features like power were okay, but even though power is so important in real life in Civ 6 it just seems to be a few more yields for a few strategic resources, and not really all that important if you have those bases covered or even if you don't. I'm sure society would ground to a halt in real life with sustained power shortages, but my people don't seem to care all that much in Civ. In any case even if you don't have power you'd be too far ahead of AI to care. Grievances were an improvement, but sometimes it's same-old when you've done something marginally wrong like take an opponent's city in a defensive war and the whole world hates you. I can't say if the science victory update meant anything much, or the new techs and civics and era, but they're not bad either. But I don't think there should have been a new era when half the game is set past the Renaissance. The new infrastructures are ok, but I don't like district bloat or the AI's mountain tunnel spam. If anything, it doesn't help AI choices, because they can be a waste of AI production. I don't pay attention to Rock Bands, Skirmishers or Giant Death Robots, but they exist.
The new civs and leaders are unique to play for humans, but not so great for AI. Kupe often settles on a tiny 1-tile island, which isn't wrong and definitely realistic for polynesians, but I feel like it's a waste of a civ slot with Kupe in weak positions because he'll just sit at the bottom of the leaderboard with a 20 population city on one tiny island in the tundra, surrounded by fish, and with no science or culture because there's no places to put districts. Kristina and Wilfred have to deal with the world congress to win and get bonuses to useless diplomatic currency, and don't have amazing bonuses for other victories, maybe except Open Air Museums. Suleiman, Musa and Eleanor are interesting but weak for AI, and Suleiman's weakness is probably because the AI is terrible with anything to do with war after the Classical Era. Dido, Pachacuti and Matthias are alright, but Dido and Pachacuti aren't particularly unique leaders, and Matthias has decent bonuses but the AI obviously will still struggle with conquering. Rise and Fall civs like Cree and the Netherlands play well with AI but are pretty generic.
The world wonders are weird... Golden Gate Bridge and Panama Canal aren't useful, the scale is all off but that's not a problem. I've never built the Great Bath because the AI gets it first, it might one of the reasons why they're doing so badly, because they're spending their production on a wonder so early. I've also never built the Meenakshi Temple, but I don't see how it could be useful even for a Religious Victory. The University of Sankore is ok, but I don't think about desert cities that much and if I have one I'll just build it for fun. The Orszaghaz is a diplomatic wonder and not really worth my production, but it looks cool. The natural wonders are just natural wonders, I'm not bothered by them.
I would play a Rise and Fall game, but a few mods that I really like are Gathering Storm only, and I think that the lighting in Rise and Fall is too garish and bright now that I'm used to the dull and more grounded Gathering Storm lighting. I could use Customisation VI and get rid of some mechanics, and disable some leaders that depend on things like World Congress from appearing so they aren't at a disadvantage, which I might have to do. And I just don't like strategic resources being a lucky dip, which isn't unrealistic, but the diplomacy and trading system means that resource trading isn't in your favour at all. Even then, the player produces so much gold that it's not worth your time to sell resources.
When New Frontiers was announced, I thought the patches in New Frontiers might fix some of the problems I saw, especially because it seemed to promise so much for me. While we got a half-baked product, I think covid and the short time span between patches, and maybe some corporate involvement, led to the problems we have with Civ 6 today. In fact I don't use any of the modes in my games, because the AI suffers with them, and I don't feel like it's worth my time to click 'end turn' until I win – these game modes tend to give you massive bonuses and hinder AI. I can't think of any reason why Firaxis hasn't done a final bug patch just to fix the glaring problems like the constant crashing, the annoying launcher, the broken modes and the AI mess, as well as multiplayer stability, except a decision from 2K. Meanwhile, the bloody launcher has had at least 4 updates by now.
Lastly, I did enjoy Gathering Storm while the shine was still there and I was getting to learn it, and back then, Civ 6 actually worked. I think that New Frontiers had plenty of effort put into it and Firaxis developers definitely were well meaning when they released the updates, even if they had game-breaking bugs. It did put life back into Civ 6 after a year of radio silence from Firaxis, which is happening again. But I think the game was better before New Frontiers, or at least more coherent and stable if it wasn't great, and if it were possible I'd go back to the patch before all this crashing happened.
The more I look back on it, the more I see the shortfalls of Gathering Storm. The biggest is obviously the world congress, it's simply not fun for a randomised, listy and arbitrary mechanic to pop up every 30 turns. I want it out of the way almost all of the time. Resource stockpiling was just a bunch of missed opportunities to me, it was either not impactful if you had tonnes of them, or pretty annoying if you didn't. In both of these mechanics, Civ 5's implementation seemed to be much more well thought out. The last is global warming, which wasn't terrible, but not amazing. I think negative events like floods, tornadoes and famines are good, but famines aren't impactful, and the rest are just temporary blockers and give you too many yields, especially forest fires and floods.
Other features like power were okay, but even though power is so important in real life in Civ 6 it just seems to be a few more yields for a few strategic resources, and not really all that important if you have those bases covered or even if you don't. I'm sure society would ground to a halt in real life with sustained power shortages, but my people don't seem to care all that much in Civ. In any case even if you don't have power you'd be too far ahead of AI to care. Grievances were an improvement, but sometimes it's same-old when you've done something marginally wrong like take an opponent's city in a defensive war and the whole world hates you. I can't say if the science victory update meant anything much, or the new techs and civics and era, but they're not bad either. But I don't think there should have been a new era when half the game is set past the Renaissance. The new infrastructures are ok, but I don't like district bloat or the AI's mountain tunnel spam. If anything, it doesn't help AI choices, because they can be a waste of AI production. I don't pay attention to Rock Bands, Skirmishers or Giant Death Robots, but they exist.
The new civs and leaders are unique to play for humans, but not so great for AI. Kupe often settles on a tiny 1-tile island, which isn't wrong and definitely realistic for polynesians, but I feel like it's a waste of a civ slot with Kupe in weak positions because he'll just sit at the bottom of the leaderboard with a 20 population city on one tiny island in the tundra, surrounded by fish, and with no science or culture because there's no places to put districts. Kristina and Wilfred have to deal with the world congress to win and get bonuses to useless diplomatic currency, and don't have amazing bonuses for other victories, maybe except Open Air Museums. Suleiman, Musa and Eleanor are interesting but weak for AI, and Suleiman's weakness is probably because the AI is terrible with anything to do with war after the Classical Era. Dido, Pachacuti and Matthias are alright, but Dido and Pachacuti aren't particularly unique leaders, and Matthias has decent bonuses but the AI obviously will still struggle with conquering. Rise and Fall civs like Cree and the Netherlands play well with AI but are pretty generic.
The world wonders are weird... Golden Gate Bridge and Panama Canal aren't useful, the scale is all off but that's not a problem. I've never built the Great Bath because the AI gets it first, it might one of the reasons why they're doing so badly, because they're spending their production on a wonder so early. I've also never built the Meenakshi Temple, but I don't see how it could be useful even for a Religious Victory. The University of Sankore is ok, but I don't think about desert cities that much and if I have one I'll just build it for fun. The Orszaghaz is a diplomatic wonder and not really worth my production, but it looks cool. The natural wonders are just natural wonders, I'm not bothered by them.
I would play a Rise and Fall game, but a few mods that I really like are Gathering Storm only, and I think that the lighting in Rise and Fall is too garish and bright now that I'm used to the dull and more grounded Gathering Storm lighting. I could use Customisation VI and get rid of some mechanics, and disable some leaders that depend on things like World Congress from appearing so they aren't at a disadvantage, which I might have to do. And I just don't like strategic resources being a lucky dip, which isn't unrealistic, but the diplomacy and trading system means that resource trading isn't in your favour at all. Even then, the player produces so much gold that it's not worth your time to sell resources.
When New Frontiers was announced, I thought the patches in New Frontiers might fix some of the problems I saw, especially because it seemed to promise so much for me. While we got a half-baked product, I think covid and the short time span between patches, and maybe some corporate involvement, led to the problems we have with Civ 6 today. In fact I don't use any of the modes in my games, because the AI suffers with them, and I don't feel like it's worth my time to click 'end turn' until I win – these game modes tend to give you massive bonuses and hinder AI. I can't think of any reason why Firaxis hasn't done a final bug patch just to fix the glaring problems like the constant crashing, the annoying launcher, the broken modes and the AI mess, as well as multiplayer stability, except a decision from 2K. Meanwhile, the bloody launcher has had at least 4 updates by now.
Lastly, I did enjoy Gathering Storm while the shine was still there and I was getting to learn it, and back then, Civ 6 actually worked. I think that New Frontiers had plenty of effort put into it and Firaxis developers definitely were well meaning when they released the updates, even if they had game-breaking bugs. It did put life back into Civ 6 after a year of radio silence from Firaxis, which is happening again. But I think the game was better before New Frontiers, or at least more coherent and stable if it wasn't great, and if it were possible I'd go back to the patch before all this crashing happened.
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