Tom Chick's take on Civ 6

[Horizons]

Civ6 as it currently stands is not better than the finished version of Civ5 (with expansions) by any stretch of the imagination ...

 

[chazzycat]

Civ6 as it currently stands is not better than the finished version of Civ5 (with expansions) by any stretch of the imagination ...

no one is claiming that here, nice attempt to move the goalposts though

it is far better than civ5 at launch, which is the fairer comparison.

 

[Horizons]

no one is claiming that here, nice attempt to move the goalposts though

it is far better than civ5 at launch, which is the fairer comparison.

I agree but it's obvious they took Civ5 as the base (whereas Civ5 felt like a clean break from Civ4, and Civ4 from Civ3 to an extent), and jumbled up a lot of the existing concepts and tacked new bits and pieces on to it and presented it as a new game. Yet it's still a horrible mess.

 

[AriochIV]

Chick essentially staked his reputation on the premise that 1UPT is the work of Satan. There's no way he will ever admit to liking a Civilization game if it uses 1UPT.

The only serious problem I find with 1UPT in Civ VI is the religious unit spam, and this is really a problem with the way the religious system works (and in particular how the AI uses it), and not particularly a problem with 1UPT. "Unmitigated disaster?" Talk about hyperbole.

 

[Morningcalm]

As several other posters have said, I think he was overly harsh, but most of his points ring true. The main problem with 1UPT is that the AI has absolutely no idea how to properly use it or pose a threat to the human player. Espionage is thin, and that there is no city-state rigging is a bit questionable.

Diplomacy is, as many people pointed out well before Tom Chick's review, quite nonsensical in Civ VI, and most AI either are there to be conquered by you or to conquer you. There is no meaningful trading/diplomacy/intrigue going on at all, and others have pointed out elsewhere in these forums that AI call you warmongers the turn after you join them in a joint war against someone else (at their behest).

It is also worth noting areas of the game Tom Chick praised. He really likes the city-building aspect of VI. To quote:

[P]laying Civilization VI for the second time is a gratifying exercise in reading the language of its maps. It’s the strategy game equivalent of poetry. Geography matters because it is literally the foundation for your civilization. This concept informs nearly every resource, and nearly every resource has been smartly reorganized to adapt to it. Whereas Civilization V imagined a bunch of tech trees with their mouths open like a cacophony of baby birds waiting to be fed, Civilization VI imagines an elegant but complex clockwork economy. Resources like science, culture, great people points, housing, influence, tourism, amenities, and faith drive the economy, and each is distinct for how you earn it, how you spend it, and what you can buy with it. It reworks familiar concepts like happiness, roads, wonders of the world, builders, the tech tree, and growth. It introduces new concepts like districts, fresh water, inspiration, great works, and government as a deck-building card game. The AI, of course, is as helpless with these systems as it is with combat. It’s awfully dismaying to advance to the later ages and see how poorly the other civilizations have handled what Firaxis has created. But if you ignore the inability of the AI to play the game, Civilization VI shines as a cities builder.

His last line in his review is:
I admire a lot of what Firaxis is doing to move on from the mess of Civilization V. They’re headed in the right direction, even if they are dragging a lot of baggage.

 

[Roxlimn]

That's pretty much what we were saying? His last line is a good summary. "I think Civ VI is doing a lot of great things, but I still hate 1UPT because reasons."

It'll appeal to anyone who agrees with his premise, and those of us who do not will find his opinion fairly nonsensical. His points do not ring true when you don't think 1UPT is hellspawn.

 

[cazaderonus]

What's the point of espionage on an AI that doesn't need to bother with science or gold or really anything?
It's just another means for the player to grow their numbers but it doesn't hinder the AI in the slightest.

And that design philosophy permeates the entire game. It's not about interactions between various civilizations, it's about the player alone. The AIs are just the necessary window dressing to create the illusion of playing against something.

Probably the most on point statement here

 

[jekke]

no one is claiming that here, nice attempt to move the goalposts though

it is far better than civ5 at launch, which is the fairer comparison.

it's you who is moving the posts. It makes absolutely no sense to compare civ vi to vanilla civ v. A lot of good stuff invented during the civ v development could have been implemented in civ vi since the two are quite similar.
I wonder actually who was the first to come up with this comparison, and whether it all comes from firaxis (a-la "the game is not so bad, remember our vanilla civ v").

 

[Victoria]

Civ6 is not 1UPT, it is a hybrid.
Civ6 clearly was released early like most games nowadays and many of the things he complains about are just that.

If he was a good reviewer he would be more thoughtful about the above and be more balanced.
I naturally respect his view, because it is his. I would rather take the review of a player than a reviewer. You then know the agenda's are more in line with what you want. I never read reviews.

I personally give Civ6 in its current state no more than a 3 and so he is not that for from my overall rating but its how he goth there I feel is a little skewed.

 

[Ravellion]

I've never read Tom Chick's reviews before, but I read this review and thought: "Oh, so 3 or 4 stars then? No? Two stars? Well, that's random."

 

[alpaca]

It's really strange that his rating does not at all match the tone of his review. According to what he says about the game, it should be at least 3 stars, probably 4.

I am further perplexed how anyone can think that Civ6 has a great UI. It's really terrible for the most part: Oh, that little ripple is a hill? Damn. Oh, I already scouted here? Crap, couldn't tell FOW from TI. Oh, there's a huge bug in production for ancient era units? Too bad, you can't see what's causing it. Oh, you want to buy a unit in multiple cities? Too bad, you gotta click each of them on the map, then click the buy button, then scroll down all the way and click on the unit. Oh, you want to see how much food it takes for your cities too grow? Too bad, check the forums and make a table. Oh, you accidentally placed your district on the wrong tile or changed your mind about which one you want? Too bad, it's locked in forever. Oh, you want to move units in your front army together? Too bad, we'll auto-select the right one for half a second, then zoom to another one a whole continent away. I could go on.

As for 1UPT, enough has been said on the topic. I mostly agree with him that it doesn't work on the tile scale of Civ6. It would probably be fine with significant automation of unit movement and much smaller tiles, but even then only if they made a half-competent AI. Battle for Wesnoth is a good example of a tactical game that is fun to play, but I feel as if gameplay like that would distract too much from actually playing the strategy game, which is always the problem of too much tactical combat in grand strategy games (you either have to go easy on the strategy like in Total War or on the tactics like in Europa Universalis, making both deep just makes the game take too long).

The Eurekas I agree with. They're too much Skinner Box gameplay where you always repeat the same series of tasks in order to obtain your goodies, rather than making interesting strategic decisions about which techs to research. Even worse, getting too far ahead in tech can be actively detrimental to your long term success if you don't play militarily because it makes districts more expensive. Random Eurekas would be worse, though. Anything that is purely random like this adds nothing to gameplay because you can't plan for it, so it affects your gameplay in no way whatsoever (well, to be fair, it might change things somewhat depending on how big a chance you have to get it, etc.). Perhaps if they had the form of mini missions, for example you get a pool of three possible mini missions, one of which you can choose and it gives you Eurekas for two specific techs if you finish it.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

That's pretty much what we were saying? His last line is a good summary. "I think Civ VI is doing a lot of great things, but I still hate 1UPT because reasons."

It'll appeal to anyone who agrees with his premise, and those of us who do not will find his opinion fairly nonsensical. His points do not ring true when you don't think 1UPT is hellspawn.

He gives a lot of good, specific reasons for why one might hate 1UPT. He doesn't say "because reasons." He says he hates 1UPT because the AI is horrendous at it and because it leads to frustrating traffic jams.

And 1UPT is absolutely a big enough deal to sink an otherwise successful civilization game. If there's no challenge in combat any more, that's going to ruin the game for some people.

 

[Haggbart]

I've never read Tom Chick's reviews before, but I read this review and thought: "Oh, so 3 or 4 stars then? No? Two stars? Well, that's random."

Especially since his review of Civ:BE was a lot more negative and still 2 stars. But he's just made up his mind that Civ is not for him anymore. It's a bit like people who would hate any sequal to an originally isometric RPG series if it was made as a first person game (except if Obsidian makes it that is).

 

[fishlore]

Civ 6 is an impressive collection of strategy systems and subsystems; none of which the AI can effectively use. You could put a perfect set of systems in place, but if the AI can't use them to create a fun and dynamic challenge, then what's the point? I think the refinements and additions to this version of Civ are fantastic. There is a phenomenal core here. However, since the AI can't really use them, they're wasted. I don't think a 2/5 is unfair at all given the state of the AI and all of the things it simply can't do well. Isn't a competent AI a starting point for a strategy game? Shouldn't it be?

 

[mitsho]

IRandom Eurekas would be worse, though. Anything that is purely random like this adds nothing to gameplay because you can't plan for it, so it affects your gameplay in no way whatsoever (well, to be fair, it might change things somewhat depending on how big a chance you have to get it, etc.). Perhaps if they had the form of mini missions, for example you get a pool of three possible mini missions, one of which you can choose and it gives you Eurekas for two specific techs if you finish it.

That could maybe get too complicated to code and also understand for the players. Calculating the optimal path (which you know certain micromanaging players would do...) would give headaches - and you take away the benefit of the heurekas for the casual player (learning from game to game).

But why not introduce a range* within the missions, could even be a larger one at higher levels. So that each game, your map may draw you into one playstyle while the Random Generator of the Tech tree pulls you somewhere else (as there would be easier and more difficult heurekas compared to the 'standard value'). But I guess there lies the problem of my proposal, developers shy away from too much randomness (with cause!). Maybe this is something for a mod

*i.e. create 3 improvements could become 2 or 4. Here the easier option may not have that much an impact, but it can have with other examples, i.e. the "have a government with x slots" one. And even others would need different manual efects (i.e. researching astronomy --> easy: trigger heureka, normal: research the tech, hard: both - or be the first to research it).

 

[Roxlimn]

He gives a lot of good, specific reasons for why one might hate 1UPT. He doesn't say "because reasons." He says he hates 1UPT because the AI is horrendous at it and because it leads to frustrating traffic jams.

And 1UPT is absolutely a big enough deal to sink an otherwise successful civilization game. If there's no challenge in combat any more, that's going to ruin the game for some people.

There wasn't any challenge to begin with. Civ IV "solved" that by giving the AI insane production advantages and even that wasn't enough. Since Civ VI is tile-limited, the way to do that with this system is to give the AI flat combat bonuses per unit, which the game already does. Arguably, it's not enough. Perhaps a +10 combat bonus to all its melee units would be sufficient for the AI to be a threat.

The AI was always horrendous at the war game. ALWAYS. To single out Civ V for that "because of 1UPT" is exactly "because reasons." It's an unreasonable position that only makes sense if you already liked what he had to say.

As for his traffic jams, logistics IS part of 1UPT play. His missionary complaint was ignorant, as I mentioned. There are multiple ways to deal with it. Unit spam from the AI isn't system-specific. You could just code the AI to make less units and to invade allied Civ territory a little less. They'd need less units with more hefty bonuses. And you can always spread religion yourself in your own cities to make the AI invade someone else, or you can put your units more judiciously, or you can kill them all. The traffic jams frustrate him because he doesn't like playing 1UPT, not because it's bad in itself.

 

[ThERat]

As for his traffic jams, logistics IS part of 1UPT play.

I am sorry, but those traffic jams are downright irritating. If you want to supply your front with military from your core, it becomes a nightmare to move all that stuff. 1upt is bad enough, but the new movement rules (and the fact that you can't really build more roads now) are a killer. To me, most of the time, the game feels like 1upt and 1 tile movement per turn (there is always a hill or a river in the way).

I am sure on flat terrain it wouldn't be as bad. Games are supposed to be fun not frustrating. Humans can still handle those movements, the AI can't at all. 2/5 is harsh, but it offers a good contrast to all those 'mainstream media' folks that gave it 90-100%.

 

[Roxlimn]

They're irritating because you're not playing the logistics game and feel like it should just happen without your doing anything. Basically, you want your units to teleport to the front line without effort, or otherwise just perform that way automatically. No logistics required. 1UPT can be like that, but the current implementation asks you to think about logistics, and that's reasonable in a strategy game. More reasonable than tactics, even.

You CAN build roads. You use Trader units to do it. Sometimes you have to use less profitable routes to get the roads you want. This is called a trade off. The value of a route can be the road it builds to the location you want. That's a thing. And later on, you can just build Military Engineers to make roads, but that's more expensive, usually.

The AI seems to be able to field its armies just fine. The main problem appears not to be whether it'll show up when you have contiguous borders, but whether it can use the terrain and range effectively. That's more complicated - tactics, not logistics. I don't really care about his score. I'm pointing out that his opinion appears to mainly be because of a game mechanic he doesn't enjoy, and then he uses his dislike of that one thing to create complaints all over the place. You can like his opinion, and you probably will if you don't like 1UPT either.

 

[footslogger]

I'm pointing out that his opinion appears to mainly be because of a game mechanic he doesn't enjoy, and then he uses his dislike of that one thing to create complaints all over the place.

Have you read his review or are you doing what you accuse him of - using his opposition to 1upt to create complaints against him all over the place? His review is much more than an anti-1upt tirade. He gives valid reasons for all the aspects of the game he objects to. And regarding your comment that 1upt requires us to 'play the logistics game', would that there was that much potential to it. When attacking a city with a large number of units, any plans to do so in some kind of systematic way are soon shattered by the sheer lack of space to manoeuvre and it becomes a tedious matter of stuttering forward opportunistically with most of the forces merely clogging up the rear with no way to get forward. Not my idea of a satisfying or realistic combat experience.

 

[Roxlimn]

Yes. I have read his review. Most of his complaints stem from his dislike of the 1UPT mechanic. Seriously, I read it BEFORE this forum decided that it was something Civ 4 grognards should celebrate.

Space around a city is EXACTLY the kind of logistics problem that 1UPT presents. Sometimes, a city simply doesn't present enough of a face that you can use your entire force well. You can try to deal with it, or you can rant that that's a weakness of the system, though that strikes me as saying that chess has a problem because you have to actually think to be able to win.