What Are Your Biggest Criticisms of Civ VI Maps?

[AmazonQueen]

I do have trouble understanding why they haven't produced a map pack dlc. Maybe the Civ 5 one didn't sell well, I don't know.
I'm sure most of us got it but if like me we got it on sale maybe it doesn't give Firaxis much incentive to produce one.

 

[Socrates99]

This doesn't apply to all the the map scripts but I sometimes (often?) find a lack of interesting oceanic geography (bays, straights, channels, inland "seas" etc.)

I like these features because it adds a neat strategic favor to the game. A few well placed frigates can dominate a whole region. For historical comparisons, check out the straight of Gibraltar, the Mediterranean Sea, the Mallaca Strait, The Caribean Sea and a host of others.

This was going to be my complaint. Too often the Oceans are just two big blobs with little in the way of interesting geography or access points that would put navy to good use. Usually there's two big oceans and the channels that connect them are paths near the ice caps where there are generally no important strategic cities. Would love to get straits like Gibraltar or the Dardanelles where that one city can really control access and a strong navy is important.

 

[isau]

The maps are a little too random without a few thrown in scripted elements to really make things interesting. More forested grottos surrounded by mountains, more generally exciting ocean terrain, would make things a lot more entertaining.

 

[God of Kings]

R&F was a missed opportunity to add deciduous woods that could be chopped and re-planted.

 

[Stomper66]

I'm not sure if this a problem about the Civ 6 maps, but what annoys me is that in every game the AI seems to eventually chop down every single wood and rainforest tile in their territory, except from the tiles with resources on them. I was playing a Giant Earth map recently and the Kongo, who were located in their true start location, eventually cut down every rainforest tile in Africa even though Rainforests are needed for their powerful Mbanza. In Civ6 the woodland and rainforests can look appealing but I wish that they'd prevent every civ for chopping down everything in the game. The end result is that you get a very dull boring world in the last half of the game full of generic districts and farmland.

 

[PlayAsPericles]

I've just about had it with the Civ VI maps. Almost none of them besides the ones that are large land mass type maps produce anywhere close to what they describe themselves as. archipelago and island maps etc are a total joke and invariably always produce one huge land mass that spans the globe. This is BY FAR the worst map scripts the franchise has ever produced.

 

[Rosty K]

Minimap, does that count?

Definitely counts. Now we can make it larger, but, please, make barb camps red or something Impossible to find them on a huge map...

 

[Leyrann]

I'm not sure if this a problem about the Civ 6 maps, but what annoys me is that in every game the AI seems to eventually chop down every single wood and rainforest tile in their territory, except from the tiles with resources on them.

To be fair, I do that as well... A forest tile (even with lumbermill) is always inferior or equal a farm or mine unless it's next to a river, in which case a lumbermill makes the tile slightly better. Equal also means cut down the forest, as it gives a 1-time production boost. The only case in which keeping forests not adjacent to rivers is the better option is if you don't have hills (which should be the last place you settle for precisely that reason; production is king).

 

[Archon_Wing]

Oh yea, City States seem to be all clustered together rather often.

 

[Stomper66]

To be fair, I do that as well... A forest tile (even with lumbermill) is always inferior or equal a farm or mine unless it's next to a river, in which case a lumbermill makes the tile slightly better. Equal also means cut down the forest, as it gives a 1-time production boost. The only case in which keeping forests not adjacent to rivers is the better option is if you don't have hills (which should be the last place you settle for precisely that reason; production is king).

I see what you mean and I understand why you would want all the production you could get. The terrain art style has grown on me though (I really like the Civ5 art style) and it's just a shame that all the forests and jungles eventually disappear and all we are left with are farms, mines and districts. Maybe unworked forest tiles could be given some kind of boost. 2 gold or 2 culture maybe which would discourage chopping.

 

[OmegaDestroyer]

To be fair, I do that as well... A forest tile (even with lumbermill) is always inferior or equal a farm or mine unless it's next to a river, in which case a lumbermill makes the tile slightly better. Equal also means cut down the forest, as it gives a 1-time production boost. The only case in which keeping forests not adjacent to rivers is the better option is if you don't have hills (which should be the last place you settle for precisely that reason; production is king).

Even more perplexing is that the AI will chop and then never build on the lands. I've conquered many cities where the AI hasn't even built a farm.

As to the topic at hand, I'm still annoyed to be stuck 8-10 hexes or so away from a neighbor when firing up a huge map. I always equate to the following scenario: "Yeah, let's found the great country of Spain! It's a huge, unexplored world! Let's go out a-oh hi, France. Didn't see you there...."

Another major complaint is how biases don't always work. I have started up many game as Russia and haven't started anywhere near tundra.

 

[Laurana Kanan]

Another major complaint is how biases don't always work. I have started up many game as Russia and haven't started anywhere near tundra.

@ChimpanG helped illuminate for me how the mechanics of starting biases work over in the CS Expanded mod thread.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Even more perplexing is that the AI will chop and then never build on the lands. I've conquered many cities where the AI hasn't even built a farm.

I'd argue that chopping for chopping's sake is correct behavior for the AI to remain competitive, and that one of the problems with the difficulty level of the AI (on higher levels) is that it doesn't chop enough. That allows the human player to take the AI's city, chop out the resources the AI didn't chop, and move on to conquer the next city. Ideally, the value of intact resources would be rebalanced to make chop/not chop a more interesting decision, but top players have pretty much conclusively shown that the current game mechanics favor chop now, chop often. Not that you have to play the game that way, but at the high ends the AI probably needs to start doing more of this, to bring its victory times down consistently below T300.

Conversely, its rare that spending a Builder charge to get more food from a farm pays off. My observations is that the AI builds far too many farms, and when left alone grows large and inefficient cities that slow it down compared to the streamlined cities that drive victory. Again, I say this as someone who would like to see the AI on Immortal/Deity be able to win the game within a time frame that poses a challenge to experienced players.

As to the topic at hand, I'm still annoyed to be stuck 8-10 hexes or so away from a neighbor when firing up a huge map. I always equate to the following scenario: "Yeah, let's found the great country of Spain! It's a huge, unexplored world! Let's go out a-oh hi, France. Didn't see you there...."

I've been tracking starting positions and available space pretty closely when recording my test games, and I can say with great confidence (speaking about standard map sizes, standard number of civs):​

1. You will always start with another major civ within 10 tiles of you (on higher levels, with their extra Settlers, you'll often get an AI city settled as close as 5 to 6 tiles from your capital within the first 10 turns).​
2. Despite that, you will always (caveat: based on my observations, "always" in this can't preclude a weird map roll but definitely covering the vast majority of map rolls) have room to peacefully place at least 8 and often as many as 12 cities despite having one or more nearby neighbours. ​

Basically, what seems to happen is that the map script identifies space for every civ to have room for approximately 8 to 12 cities (again, speaking standard map size, standard number of civs), but it doesn't start their initial Settlers in the middle of that space. Instead, it tends to start their Settlers on the edge of their space. This may be to allow for early interaction, i.e. to make the start of the game more interesting than would otherwise be the case).

​

 

[Leathaface]

I was watching The Game Mechanic play Civ VI yesterday on twitch. He was playing on a small map, Fractal. 5 of the 6 Civilizations started on the same continent, only 1 Civilization started on a separate continent.

Map scripted need to be improved IMO, that type of map isn't good enough.

 

[Funababbitt]

I have been content with Realistic World maps. Before subscribing, I'd get bored after restarting up to 20 times and finding almost no rivers. I still have a hangover from previous Civ games and I don't like settling away from rivers unless there is a strategic purpose - but when there are no rivers?

 

[SephiBBZ]

I love fractal, unpredictable stuff, everything is possible. You need to adapt.

 

[AFallenApple]

Spawn locations are too close to each other.

Totally agree with this one. My friend and I are always struggling to get a good gaming going because the spawn locations are so close at times.

I also find the locations themselves to be annoying at times. Just last weekend, I was put literally on the edge of the map--we did Inland Sea.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The game lags into a muddy pile if you increase the size of them. Even at "recommended" specs.

 

[Mesix]

I’d like a map with big continents and small continents and islands. I’d also then like the ability to choose to start on an island. I don’t always want to start on an island, but when I do, it’s a pain that I can’t choose that.

I’d also like some way to have an old world new world set up. But that’s more than just a map - it would require the new world to be populated by new world civs - either more advanced “barbarians” or normal civs with a later start.

I would also like to be able to select starting on an island. Even better would be to have maps which generate chains of several small islands for when you want to play an island hopping game. Some of the civs (i.e. Indonesia) are tuned to island maps which are not generated by the game. My recent Indonesia game had me start of a continent big enough for about 12 cities with three other players on the same landmass despite having selected an island type map (either island plates or archipelago, I can't remember).

 

[RagnorIronpants]

My biggest issue with maps is just that they're so empty. Partly it's because the AI doesn't expand that much. But it's also because there isn't really anyone but AI to fill the map in the first place - City States only occupy one city and barbs and goody huts. The maps are so empty, it sometimes feels like you're playing some post-apocalypse board game rather than a "civilisation" game.

There should be tribes of people, villages, towns, all over the map and as cities expand they get subsumed (maybe they turn into farms). There's been discussions before about making barbs more interesting or expanding into new Civs and things ... but even if FXS didn't do something like that, just visually having pre-existing people on the map and having them get swallowed up by your expanding borders would be cool even without any game mechanics tied to it.

The empty map and uncluttered cities really bug me. IRL our world is packed with people. We don't really leave space spare.

I agree with this, and it's felt off since IV. Partly this can be fixed with better border expansion (VI is better than V at this but still not perfect). But IV also made the map more interesting by having barbarian cities, which I really miss. They were always in good locations so it introduced competitions with the AI to conquer them, and then after astronomy they were dotted on the separate islands and continents and so added a conquest aspect to colonisation. They should return this by implementing a new barbarian class of city state with unique mechanics.

Perhaps also a benign form of barbarian, e.g. wandering nomad civilian units who can be induced to join a civ (or captured) with some sort of benefit, like a unique tile improvement.