acluewithout
Deity
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2017
- Messages
- 3,496
Civ VI has a bunch of mechanics that really are just ... Boring. Yeah, they mostly work. But they are so dull. Dull, dull, dull.
Dull because they lack flavour. Dull because they don't create interesting decisions.
Just dull.
Do people think some of the mechanics are dull? If so, which ones?
This is my list of the worst offenders:
Government Plaza and Buildings
So, I've grown to like the Government Plaza since RnF. There are some interesting decisions. When do I build it? Do I build it in my Cap or another City? Do I just put it down next to my City (usually guaranteeing at least +3 for another key district like a Campus) or further out a maximise yields (but spend gold buying tiles and delay)? Do I rush tier 1 building or not?
But dear God the buildings are boring. Tier 1 are the worst - they completely lack flavour, and your choices are just "the wide one" or "the tall one". Hardly epic empire stuff.
The other tiers are better mechanically. But they're still very narrow. It's weird you can build a Foreign Ministry and War Department, but not a Department of Education, Trade, Agriculture... etc.
And other than the Casa do Contration there's not much competition to build things in or around the GP. I'm really amazed the game doesn't have National Wonders that are basically districts you need to mainly build next to your GP.
Tier 3 Buildings and Neighborhoods
There's plenty of chat about how Tier 3 Buidings are underpowered. But you know what is the biggest problem? They don't really do anything interesting.
All they give you is more yield. The same yield. You build a campus with a library and uni all giving science and then you build a lab and it ... just gives you more science. It doesn't interact with City States or Alliances. No really new interaction with Policy Cards or Governors or Goverments. No +% yields. Just more cake when you already have too much cake to eat.
And yeah. Neighborhoods. Come late. Do little. I want to be throwing down districts and infrastructure and having my cities grow and be a battle of competing tiles and grow some more. Instead I just build one Neighborhood for a Eureka.
And don't start me on how boring Sewers are. Completely critical to modern cities IRL. Hardly worth building in Civ.
Governors and Alliances
Post GS, Governors and Alliance work really well mechanically. But God Damn they're dull.
The same Governor faces every game. For every Civ. It's just so flavourless.
And the fact you can only have one of each Governor means you really can't specialise Cities in a meaningful way. Sure, you have this awesome Pingala city. But so does everyone else.
Alliances are a bit the same. Being limited to only one Alliance of each type means you really can't specialise. Want to play a sort of Nato style leader, blocking the expansion of fascist ... er, Sumer... through multiple military alliances? Well, tough. You only ever get one military alliance. Want to be some economic juggernaut Japan, entering into trade deals and research agreements with every nation on Earth? Tough. One economic alliance and one science alliance per customer thanks.
I get that if you could get multiple copies of Governors or Alliances that would create balance issues - and that FXS probably used this "one of each" model to keep things simple and balanced - but I'm sure the mechanics could be balanced to make it work, and the current implementation is just a yawn fest.
Dedications and Ages
Same four dedications. Every Era. Every game. So tedious. And Dark Ages ... Well. I'm not someone that thinks they have to be crushing. But unless you slot a Dark Age card, they really don't do anything good or bad. And just overall, there's not much actually going on with these mechanics.
It really wouldn't take much to make Ages etc more exciting. Just do this: both Dark Age and Golden Age dedications grant abilities, and both grant negatives (now both ages have trade offs); let players choose between 5 dedications, not 4, with the fifth option determined by your current Government or something; and have both Dark Age and Golden Age cards (DA cards probably don't need negatives if the Dedication already creates a negative).
World Congress
It's just not... Exciting. It's not, is it?
It works "okay". The random resolutions, something always happens voting and outcomes, favour from City States, Alliances etc are cool. These mechanics work well. And WC has finally made Emergencies fun. That's good.
But. There are still three big problems.
Resolutions are boring. You basically only have two resolutions: Help / hurt this guy or Help / hurt everyone doing x. The problem with this is that, for every resolution, there's really nothing to weigh up. You never want to help anyone. If you hurt someone, you know exactly who it is and there's no trade off because it doesn't effect anyone else. If you buff or nerf people doing x, then you either agree or disagree depending on whether you're one of those people. That's it. That's all the decision making there is.
Resolutions should be more asymetrical. eg you shouldn't ban Furs. You should ban animal products, and then you'd need to figure out how that impacts the world given it'll cover furs, whales, elephants etc. You shoudnt just buff trade - you should buff trade but that also increases amenity demands or makes building armies harder.
The other problem is that it's just dull that the WC just "starts" in the medieval era. Nothing triggers it. No one has to build it. And it's dull that for the next 1000 years it never changes. It never becomes a UN etc.
Unique units
This is a funny one. I like most of the unique units. Overall, UUs aren't boring and work well. But there are a few mis-steps.
First, there are a bunch of Civs that really could use a second unique. China and Korea in particular. I like their current uniques but they're too passive, and ignore so much of these countries' unique miliary history. China needs a land unit (maybe light Cav), Korea needs a turtle boat. Also. Rome needs another unit - they are just way, way too much about the Legion. Just feels one dimensional. England shouldn't have a Sea Dog (makes more sense for Elizabeth), they should instead have a Dreadnaught, or Ship of the Line or English Bowman etc. Spain really needs more units - where are my Tericos? Canada need another UU - I get they had to have the Mounties, but they'd feel less like a punch line if Canada had say a unique Industrial recon unit.
Second, I'm surprised there is no way to get unique units beyond your starting one - other than Warrior Monks. Like, why don't City States have UUs you can levy?
Third, Samurai. FXS, please, less The Last Samurai and more Ran. Samurai ride horses and have Lances and Bows. Swords are just for show or when you fall off your horse. Or for movies. Give Japan a Medieval Light or Heavy Cav Samurai and then we'd have a fun game...
Anyway. Maybe I'm being Greedy or Unrealistic. But instead of one UU per Civ (with maybe some getting two), the base should have been two UU (with - dear God - some getting three).
It just feels like a lot of Civs are really missing really important uniques - not necessarily in terms of gameplay / balance - and I'm not saying they'd all need really distinct abilities (that would be a lot) - but there's just a bunch of Civs where in terms of flavour it feels like key historical units are missing.
[Edit: change title; ask question rather than just express my view; added UUs]
Dull because they lack flavour. Dull because they don't create interesting decisions.
Just dull.
Do people think some of the mechanics are dull? If so, which ones?
This is my list of the worst offenders:
Government Plaza and Buildings
So, I've grown to like the Government Plaza since RnF. There are some interesting decisions. When do I build it? Do I build it in my Cap or another City? Do I just put it down next to my City (usually guaranteeing at least +3 for another key district like a Campus) or further out a maximise yields (but spend gold buying tiles and delay)? Do I rush tier 1 building or not?
But dear God the buildings are boring. Tier 1 are the worst - they completely lack flavour, and your choices are just "the wide one" or "the tall one". Hardly epic empire stuff.
The other tiers are better mechanically. But they're still very narrow. It's weird you can build a Foreign Ministry and War Department, but not a Department of Education, Trade, Agriculture... etc.
And other than the Casa do Contration there's not much competition to build things in or around the GP. I'm really amazed the game doesn't have National Wonders that are basically districts you need to mainly build next to your GP.
Tier 3 Buildings and Neighborhoods
There's plenty of chat about how Tier 3 Buidings are underpowered. But you know what is the biggest problem? They don't really do anything interesting.
All they give you is more yield. The same yield. You build a campus with a library and uni all giving science and then you build a lab and it ... just gives you more science. It doesn't interact with City States or Alliances. No really new interaction with Policy Cards or Governors or Goverments. No +% yields. Just more cake when you already have too much cake to eat.
And yeah. Neighborhoods. Come late. Do little. I want to be throwing down districts and infrastructure and having my cities grow and be a battle of competing tiles and grow some more. Instead I just build one Neighborhood for a Eureka.
And don't start me on how boring Sewers are. Completely critical to modern cities IRL. Hardly worth building in Civ.
Governors and Alliances
Post GS, Governors and Alliance work really well mechanically. But God Damn they're dull.
The same Governor faces every game. For every Civ. It's just so flavourless.
And the fact you can only have one of each Governor means you really can't specialise Cities in a meaningful way. Sure, you have this awesome Pingala city. But so does everyone else.
Alliances are a bit the same. Being limited to only one Alliance of each type means you really can't specialise. Want to play a sort of Nato style leader, blocking the expansion of fascist ... er, Sumer... through multiple military alliances? Well, tough. You only ever get one military alliance. Want to be some economic juggernaut Japan, entering into trade deals and research agreements with every nation on Earth? Tough. One economic alliance and one science alliance per customer thanks.
I get that if you could get multiple copies of Governors or Alliances that would create balance issues - and that FXS probably used this "one of each" model to keep things simple and balanced - but I'm sure the mechanics could be balanced to make it work, and the current implementation is just a yawn fest.
Dedications and Ages
Same four dedications. Every Era. Every game. So tedious. And Dark Ages ... Well. I'm not someone that thinks they have to be crushing. But unless you slot a Dark Age card, they really don't do anything good or bad. And just overall, there's not much actually going on with these mechanics.
It really wouldn't take much to make Ages etc more exciting. Just do this: both Dark Age and Golden Age dedications grant abilities, and both grant negatives (now both ages have trade offs); let players choose between 5 dedications, not 4, with the fifth option determined by your current Government or something; and have both Dark Age and Golden Age cards (DA cards probably don't need negatives if the Dedication already creates a negative).
World Congress
It's just not... Exciting. It's not, is it?
It works "okay". The random resolutions, something always happens voting and outcomes, favour from City States, Alliances etc are cool. These mechanics work well. And WC has finally made Emergencies fun. That's good.
But. There are still three big problems.
Resolutions are boring. You basically only have two resolutions: Help / hurt this guy or Help / hurt everyone doing x. The problem with this is that, for every resolution, there's really nothing to weigh up. You never want to help anyone. If you hurt someone, you know exactly who it is and there's no trade off because it doesn't effect anyone else. If you buff or nerf people doing x, then you either agree or disagree depending on whether you're one of those people. That's it. That's all the decision making there is.
Resolutions should be more asymetrical. eg you shouldn't ban Furs. You should ban animal products, and then you'd need to figure out how that impacts the world given it'll cover furs, whales, elephants etc. You shoudnt just buff trade - you should buff trade but that also increases amenity demands or makes building armies harder.
The other problem is that it's just dull that the WC just "starts" in the medieval era. Nothing triggers it. No one has to build it. And it's dull that for the next 1000 years it never changes. It never becomes a UN etc.
Unique units
This is a funny one. I like most of the unique units. Overall, UUs aren't boring and work well. But there are a few mis-steps.
First, there are a bunch of Civs that really could use a second unique. China and Korea in particular. I like their current uniques but they're too passive, and ignore so much of these countries' unique miliary history. China needs a land unit (maybe light Cav), Korea needs a turtle boat. Also. Rome needs another unit - they are just way, way too much about the Legion. Just feels one dimensional. England shouldn't have a Sea Dog (makes more sense for Elizabeth), they should instead have a Dreadnaught, or Ship of the Line or English Bowman etc. Spain really needs more units - where are my Tericos? Canada need another UU - I get they had to have the Mounties, but they'd feel less like a punch line if Canada had say a unique Industrial recon unit.
Second, I'm surprised there is no way to get unique units beyond your starting one - other than Warrior Monks. Like, why don't City States have UUs you can levy?
Third, Samurai. FXS, please, less The Last Samurai and more Ran. Samurai ride horses and have Lances and Bows. Swords are just for show or when you fall off your horse. Or for movies. Give Japan a Medieval Light or Heavy Cav Samurai and then we'd have a fun game...
Anyway. Maybe I'm being Greedy or Unrealistic. But instead of one UU per Civ (with maybe some getting two), the base should have been two UU (with - dear God - some getting three).
It just feels like a lot of Civs are really missing really important uniques - not necessarily in terms of gameplay / balance - and I'm not saying they'd all need really distinct abilities (that would be a lot) - but there's just a bunch of Civs where in terms of flavour it feels like key historical units are missing.
[Edit: change title; ask question rather than just express my view; added UUs]
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