thoughts on civ vi from old-timers

[TehJumpingJawa]

AI and UI can be patched. The underlying mechanics are sound, which is good news. I'm very hopeful

Underlying mechanics are sound?!? You having a laugh?!

• Terrain is extremely imbalanced (hills=king).
• Military balance is out of whack (melee is junk-tier)
• At least 3 of the economic inputs (food, hammers, and beakers) are out of whack (hammers god-tier, science worthless, food mostly worthless).
• Civics range from completely worthless, to insanely OP.
• Same goes for the Civilizations/leaders; we've got some with obviously broken combos, and others that have so little synergy with the mechanics of the game that it makes you wonder what they were thinking.
• Religions is just buffs. The combat aspect is mono-dimensional, and thus tedious & boring.
• Culture/Tourism is an enigma to all.
• Many of the wonders aren't even worth sacrificing a city tile for, let alone spending hammers on them!!

The mechanics as they are right now favour one thing; Domination. Make an insurmountable army->go on the war path->upgrade as you go->win the game.
There is absolutely no mechanic to inhibit expansion through conquest (and/or stealing workers/settlers). In my book that's a MAJOR flaw.

However much I hated civ5's global happiness (give me back civ4's city maintenance any day!), civ6's amenities system is not a suitable substitute.
Its fundamental flaw being that your conquests will by-and-large be self-sustaining, either because of their own districts, or thanks to the new luxuries their land gives you access to.

There are other factors that result in unimpeded military expansion too:

• cultural borders are static & immediately inherited by any captor
• captured cities have no unrest, and besides damaged structures and paused growth, instantly become 100% productive members of your civ.

More begets more.

 

[idjit]

To me, another old fart, it feels broken, nebulous and untested. Jarring interactions with the AI notwithstanding.

 

[Camikaze]

The complaint that the game is 'incomplete' is a curious one; I would've thought that incompleteness is one of the things the game cannot be fairly accused of (and many reviewers seem to agree). A frequent comment about the positives of Civ6 has been that it includes a lot of the features that have previously only been included in expansions, making it the most 'complete' vanilla civ game yet.

 

[TapewormLondon24]

I seriously can't understand how anyone can suggest this is worse than 5!

This version is a great Base game. Few niggles, but nothing that can't be fixed.

Civ 5 was total rubbish at release. Total utter rubbish. And it only got decent right at the end of its life span, after they added what they cut out of Civ 4!! The game was toilet.

Civ 5 is easily the worst game of the series. Heck, I think 6 is better than 5 right now!

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

When you copy/paste features and stick them together without a cohesive design, you end up with things like this:

 

[dwarfling]

Is the AI completely lackluster and the UI a mess? Well yes, but I wouldn't say the game lacks features. I mean, so far the only feature it seems to be lacking is Diplomatic Victory, but we got Religion Victory instead.

 

[WankIT]

been playing since early teenager on my x386. civ original. only non sports game i play. must wait for tbe hate but i miss the call to power 1 and 2. guess i like the stacks of doom. but there was a big bump from civ2 i think it was to call to power.

but i do feel its incomplete only cause there is no world builder. i dont like playing uncustomized games. i am the consumer. where the hell is it. the could have had it on time. i feel like i am just practicing until they release it.

but thats my two cents. i am not a gamer and quite frankly its embarrasing being 40 and buying a laptop just for civ. dont care what wife thinks since whatever she thinks i am she is the fool that married me. though its pron a surprise fir her since i reaaly didnt play civ5 cause the mods kept on crashing so i got fed up.

 

[TwiceTheJava]

I like vanilla V over vanilla VI so far, but to be fair I've got over 1,000 hours in V. I like VI's customizable civics. That and the main theme are the only things about VI that I like better than V. I've been playing since II.

 

[Larsenex]

Agreed with those saying it seems more complete than the most recent entries. I've played each iteration including most offshoots from II through VI, and this one easily feels the most complete at launch since Civ II/Alpha Centauri. Civ III I just didn't like. Civ IV was actually pretty bare-bones at launch; it got most of where it needed to go with Warlords (although peace vassals and some other things were broken) to the point where with Beyond the Sword it's my favorite of the franchise. Civ V was an utterly laughable trainwreck at launch. Beyond Earth was possibly even worse.

In contrast, VI actually feels like a good, complete game at 40 hours in. Where it's lacking is on AI, polish, AI, user interface, AI, AI, etc. And AI. But that's not what I think of when I hear "incomplete" game.

^^^^ This is pretty much how I feel as well. (In response to OP)

 

[Skulbow]

I'm going to add my thoughts as well. Played 150 hrs in CivIV, 800hrs in CivV and so far already 50 hours in CivVI so I think I am fairly experienced and while VI has flaws at present, it is an enjoyable game to play and the flaws on the whole can be fixed with a few patches. I would like the Ai tweaked, UI gone over and some balancing done. I can also see some wonderful things that could be added with DLCs and mods. I would like to see diplomatic and economic victories added sometime in the future. The government features can be improved upon with mods.
So at launch a very good game (not perfect) but still with a lot of potential to come in the next few months.

 

[Photi]

My first game was in 93 or 94 on a mac, so many countless and enjoyable hours playing Civ original back in my college days. Loved 2, I like 3, 4BTS is probably my favorite, didn't play 5, and now probably 30-40 hours playing 6 this past week i anticipate it becoming my all time favorite. Military to me seems usually something to build after i get attacked or am clearly about to be attacked, so all the fuss about the AI must not really matter much to my style of play. I can say without a doubt military domination is not the only way to play 6, in my current game (Epic, King, Rome, legendary start, standard size, random map (i ended up w/continents)), none of the other civs have a chance of catching me. It's like the 1400s maybe, haven't researched flight yet but it's available, i have 20 cities, only 4 of which were acquired from other civs, two of which are size 18 and growing rapidly with housing to 28, by the end of tonight's session i predict i'll have 4-5 cities over 20 pop, and several more in the mid to upper teens. I don't know which victory path i'll end up heading in, don't really matter. Next game i'll have to up the difficulty level. I think 6 has some great new dynamics just barely explored, if the year-or-two-down-the-line-expansion is anything like 4 vanilla to BTS, an already incredible new game will be legendary, again. So many finer touches in this minting, from the day/night cycle, the functioning lighthouses, Petra for that one powerhouse desert city, coastal tiles that may or may not be embarkable or disembarkable (making possibility of canal cities to be truly fortress-like), the districts, the builders, civics and policies, and all the rest of the stuff that is new and interesting...Civilization VI is already legendary in my book.

 

[Menzies]

I have been playing this game since Civ I (which I played on an Artari ST computer....google it kids) and I must say that I have never witnessed such an incomplete game as Civ VI seems to be on initial release. Am I alone in that feeling? Not trying to start a hate fest or troll war, I'm just curious as to what some of the old-timers thoughts are on this.

It is easily the most functional and complete release we've had since an era where such quirks in games were just "a part of it". It's shipped in a better state than Civ IV or V, arguably a better state that Civ IV after Beyond the Sword first dropped even.

 

[Photi]

correction from above, i just loaded the game, and the year is actually 1625 and Rome has a population of 21. Arpinum is the desert city, and you can see Aachen is 19 and soon to be 20:

 

[Aetrius]

I've been playing since Civ 1 (Tandy 486 with a whopping 4 megs of RAM), and I was pretty excited for this game. After starting a couple and playing one game all the way through, I gotta say I'm not as excited anymore. Early game isn't bad, actually Barbarians are way more of a threat than they've been in ages, but each era of the game seems to be less fun than the one before. The split science and culture trees make tech come way too soon, I had planes in the 1500s. But my biggest complaint is that I feel like I have way too little information about what's going on in the game, even though I have to manage a ton of cities. There doesn't seem to be any reason not to go big, but if you do, expect each turn to last about a month as you make 2000 decisions in cities you'd have just given over to the governor in the old days. Also, the AI is painfully bad, not only in diplomacy, but my god they're stupid at war. I conquered 3 civilizations with 6 units that I just upgraded all the way through the game in my last playthrough, and I wasn't even going conquest, I just got tired of the idiots denouncing me, or *****ing about something every 5 minutes. When 5 came out, I bought it, played through once or twice and then went back to 4 until gods & kings came out. I think 6 might force me back to 4 for a while again too. I really want to like this game, but for the first time I can ever remember while playing Civ, I was actually bored. By the end of my first play through, I was just waiting to finish my Mars mission so I could quit win. There wasn't any fun by that point.

 

[Callonia]

I've played civilization games since I was a little kid. From Civ3 to Civ BE. Including Civ Revolutions and the Beyond Earth into space board game on steam. Forgot name.

I play on biggest maps possible for my PC. I refused to purchase CIV6 because Firaxis was behaving so very suspiciously when asked about map sizes. They said, yeah, maps is bigger than usual, but refused to disclosed which map size got increased. After abit that Civ6 came out, I learned that Huge map got it's size shrunk.

Then I referred to my previous gameplay experience on Beyond Earth and it's expansion pack. I had so much trouble because the maps in Beyond Earth was so unacceptably small on "Huge" to the point where the game just wasn't that fun at all. And then concluded that I would suffer through same pains if I purchased and play Civ6. Therefore, I decided to not get Civ6.

:/

I cannot say anything and I am speculating that Civ6 is likely far more complete and interesting than Civ5 was on release. However Firaxis' choice in "Huge" map size reduction is very regrettable and I would've preferred that it increased in size. Best wishes to all that can enjoy Civ6. I'll be sitting this one out as it turns out.

At least I now know that Map Size is most important feature for me when it comes to civilization games otherwise I'd have bought it already. lol Alright, I said my piece. I'm moving on now.

 

[Photi]

lol Alright, I said my piece. I'm moving on now.

Oh man, I had a good 3-4 minute laugh off this post, literally. That's funny shet!

 

[Qin Shi Hung]

Civ VI is a beautiful game with interesting systems, but no challenge because the AI is poor, predictable, and passive.

I'd love to get my hands on the source code to improve the AI.

 

[Plus Ultra]

Compared to other vanilla releases?

-Many more features.
-More or less the same balance / UI / AI issues.

Therefore, a contender for best in the series even in its current state.

 

[Roald Amundsen]

i feel the game wasn't playtested at all

older games had technical bugs (especially as they got 3d and more complicated), but this one has ridiculous design problems to a degree which i haven't seen before

it's the first civ game where i get the feeling that the devs completely missed the point of why i play civ. from the UI to the AI to the balance - everything is just wrong

Actually this game reminds me of the release of HOMM IV.

 

[Roald Amundsen]

Underlying mechanics are sound?!? You having a laugh?!

• Terrain is extremely imbalanced (hills=king).
• Military balance is out of whack (melee is junk-tier)
• At least 3 of the economic inputs (food, hammers, and beakers) are out of whack (hammers god-tier, science worthless, food mostly worthless).
• Civics range from completely worthless, to insanely OP.
• Same goes for the Civilizations/leaders; we've got some with obviously broken combos, and others that have so little synergy with the mechanics of the game that it makes you wonder what they were thinking.
• Religions is just buffs. The combat aspect is mono-dimensional, and thus tedious & boring.
• Culture/Tourism is an enigma to all.
• Many of the wonders aren't even worth sacrificing a city tile for, let alone spending hammers on them!!

The mechanics as they are right now favour one thing; Domination. Make an insurmountable army->go on the war path->upgrade as you go->win the game.
There is absolutely no mechanic to inhibit expansion through conquest (and/or stealing workers/settlers). In my book that's a MAJOR flaw.

However much I hated civ5's global happiness (give me back civ4's city maintenance any day!), civ6's amenities system is not a suitable substitute.
Its fundamental flaw being that your conquests will by-and-large be self-sustaining, either because of their own districts, or thanks to the new luxuries their land gives you access to.

There are other factors that result in unimpeded military expansion too:

• cultural borders are static & immediately inherited by any captor
• captured cities have no unrest, and besides damaged structures and paused growth, instantly become 100% productive members of your civ.

More begets more.

Think you Are nailing the coffin here. I'll refer to this post in the future!