45 year old Civ 1 vet ( Can we stop with this CiV, CIV, CIVI nonsense please, it is absolutely ridiculous).
What made me fall in love with C1 and then hooked me throughout my gaming "career"?
Empire building, tactical and strategic decisions, talking softly with a big stick. Making friends, alliances and enemies. Constant decision making. Next turn syndrome til the birds are singing.
C4 was my favourite because it (eventually) had all of this. You could make long term friends and watch each other backs. Multiple religions in cities. War was a choice not an absolute must.
Since Mr Shafer got his hands on C5 and tried to turn it into Panzer General we have this ridiculous , war is the first, last and only option.
This has sadly carried on into C6.
C6 is a very complex game (too complex? certainly for the AI) and some of the design lessons from the last 25 years have been lost for some reason.
1. UI. Like the dashboard of a car, I look at the UI EVERY second I am in game, it is an absolute mess and I wonder who it has been designed for? Information is power and we have a complete lack of so far.
2. 1UPT, sigh. Great idea, but in a turn based game becomes a nightmare as the game progresses/tech advance/amount and the AI can not deal with the tactics required. Remember C1 where the highest attack in the stack fought against the highest defense in the stack?Why dont units have attack and defense ratings? I have never understood why this simple to understand design has disappeared, even in C4. Modern era wars are quite frankly, stupid and boring as hell in C5 & C6.
SOD where not great at all, but the AI could understand & use them, the human could counter vice versa. Simple = better more competent AI.
3. Religion. Tacked on to C5 because they suddenly remembered C4 had some good mechanics. Now it is a tedious mess that gives OP or unwanted GP, no happiness??? modifiers and magical "combat" pokemon mini game.
4. Cities. Unstacked. Mixed on this one. Seems to be fairly good but once again, completely alien for the AI to even compete with human decision making.
5. Wonders. Placement is an unwanted wall, but tactical decision. Again, the reason you can build wonders far later than available is bad AI decision making because of complexity.
6. Builders. I am sick of making builders. I understand a need for change but why even have them if you're just going to make me build 100 of them every game?Can't we have civil works from CTP?No more units at all cluttering the map.
7. Title screen. Click, click, click, click, click, scroll, click, click, click, scroll click. Sean Bean . . . wait . . . .Noooooo , I forgot to change the difficulty!! Argghhh!
Title screen. Click, click, click, click, click, scroll, click, click, click, scroll click. Sean Bean . . . wait . . . . Tundra start no river, instant reroll, oh wait, I can't anymore. Arggghhhhh.
This is my biggest gripe with the game so far.
8. Diplomacy. Very close to human behavior . . I hate you because your bigger than me, I hate you because you built a wonder I wanted, I hate you because your over there, I hate you because your not over there . . . etc etc
I feel we may need a seperate thread/database for good/bad design in Civ games and discussion around pro's and con's of each.
I think C6 has potential when modders/future patches but 1UPT will never work.
I play because I am a civ addict, but I think the series is going backwards in its original principles.
This is only MY opinion. I do not speak for any body else. Other players views may differ from mine. I may not be right about my views compared to somebody else. I am sorry if you don't agree, maybe we could discuss?