What do you miss the most from previous versions of Civ?

[Weraptor]

Ideologies.

 

[Patine]

The extreme ease and simplicity - relatively speaking - of making custom mods and scenarios that Civ2 has over every other iteration.

 

[Morningcalm]

Oh, the challenge of the AI in Civ IV is what I miss most. They were actually scary in combat, so diplomacy mattered more. It also helped Civ IV that the diplomacy system was better implemented there than in Civ VI, to boot, instead of having all-or-nothing Civ VI AI agendas that taken to their extremes can be ridiculous. The plentiful mockery of Harald Hardrada talking about your lack of a navy when he has no boats himself is but one example. And don't even get me started on his citing Norse gods when he was a Christian.

 

[Scaramanga]

Explicit slavery is missing but I think things like gold from defeated units and production from capturing enemy cities is implied slavery.

 

[Patine]

Explicit slavery is missing but I think things like gold from defeated units and production from capturing enemy cities is implied slavery.

Explicit slavery also causes marketing and PR headaches nowadays.

 

[BrotherInJah]

I've never played a Civ game that didn't have 1UPT so I can't say whether I'd prefer it, but either way, I still dislike how in Civ 6 you need to have a certain number of movement points remaining to move onto a tile, as opposed to in Civ 5 where a unit can move to any adjacent tile as long as it has 1 movement point remaining. I don't recall ever hearing anyone else actually complain about this, but it sure bothers me!

To clarify, let's say you're moving a unit (one with 2 Movement, say) through an area that has an even mix of flat land and rough terrain. Even though it's not all hilly, it's likely that this unit will only be able to move 1 tile at a time. So, you move onto a hill? It takes up 2 movement points, and you can't move again - that part is fine. But then, next turn, you move onto flat land and have 1/2 movement remaining, but you can't go further because the hill in front of you requires 2 movement to traverse. In Civ 5, it would still cost 2 Movement, but you could traverse it even if you only had 1 movement point left. So now in 6, your units are much slower, cannot easily move to strategic positions, AND on top of that, you keep having to tell your units to do nothing until the next turn because the game says a unit needs orders when it still has movement remaining but they can't make any useful movements anyway, so you're clicking way more buttons and spending more time managing your units even after you've already given them orders.

Does it make more 'sense' to REQUIRE extra movement points to traverse rough terrain? I suppose. But it harms gameplay IMO. It just makes the 1UPT feel even more cumbersome in 6 compared to 5, as it just increases the amount of 'traffic jams' when your units can't move further despite not being out of moves, and requires extra micromanagement.

I didn't liked it at first, and new system felt very slow.. transition was horrible, i ened up doing strange moves..but in the end, when i finally got it, it was better solution than what we see in 5..

New system was more about defense, for example, your archer stand on flat terrain next to a forest on hill, you see swordsman popping out of the fog of war, ending his move next to you. Natural move is to retreat to forest, and attack from there. In 5 moving to forest will end up your turn and swordsman will be able to reach you in his very next move.. basically your archer is doomed. In 6 same swordsman will only be able to reach the tile next to forest, allowing you to take first shot turn after. That makes more sense. Also it increases survivability of scouts early in the game.

 

[PhilBowles]

UI features: the better reports of older games (including the relationship web and military reports that allow you to locate specific units).

Maps: Random map size option (also I think some older entries had a random map type option rather than just shuffle/fractal - which in Civ VI seem coded to produce pangeas too frequently for my liking)

AI personalities. The last couple of patches have improved in this regard, but there's still too little differentiation between AIs in their behaviour.

Civil war.

Not all that much mechanically - there are plenty of things I think other Civ entries did better than Civ VI, but they don't feel like missing features as such.

 

[iammaxhailme]

I played Civ 5 a bunch this month. It's made me realize one thing that Civ 6 really lacks is those kind of modern, ideology based world wars. In most of my Civ 5 games, we end up with a large world war with sides mostly decided by ideology. Ideology in civ 5 cements meaningful alliances. Yeah, sometimes in civ 6, leaders don't like you if you have a different government, but that almost never adds to anything substantial because of how often governments change. Plus civ 5 ideologies often encourage pushing other people to your ideology, for example if you follow freedom, trading with other freedom civs gets you more money, etc.

It's especially interesting since there are an odd number of ideologies... if you end up in a battle of commies vs democrats, there's a scramble to ally with the fascists, etc. (real-life history aside, this can make some interesting situations)

 

[Patine]

I played Civ 5 a bunch this month. It's made me realize one thing that Civ 6 really lacks is those kind of modern, ideology based world wars. In most of my Civ 5 games, we end up with a large world war with sides mostly decided by ideology. Ideology in civ 5 cements meaningful alliances. Yeah, sometimes in civ 6, leaders don't like you if you have a different government, but that almost never adds to anything substantial because of how often governments change. Plus civ 5 ideologies often encourage pushing other people to your ideology, for example if you follow freedom, trading with other freedom civs gets you more money, etc.

It's especially interesting since there are an odd number of ideologies... if you end up in a battle of commies vs democrats, there's a scramble to ally with the fascists, etc. (real-life history aside, this can make some interesting situations)

But you also miss out on the "strange bedfellows" alliances that are so common in modern times too. Like Saudi Arabia allied with various Western Powers (which I, personally, REALLY wish would end - but I digress), or the Soviets with Iran and Libya, or Somalia's Socialist Government under Said Haraawe being backed by the U.S. against the Soviet-backed, but also Socialist Derg in Ethiopia. Many strange types of alliances and siding in wars don't tend to happen if ideology is the dominant bonding cement strongly.

Moderator Action: Please keep comments focused on the game. Comments concerning current events, politics or leaders are not welcome in the game threads. leif
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[iammaxhailme]

But you also miss out on the "strange bedfellows" alliances that are so common in modern times too. Like Saudi Arabia allied with various Western Powers (which I, personally, REALLY wish would end - but I digress), or the Soviets with Iran and Libya, or Somalia's Socialist Government under Said Haraawe being backed by the U.S. against the Soviet-backed, but also Socialist Derg in Ethiopia. Many strange types of alliances and siding in wars don't tend to happen if ideology is the dominant bonding cement strongly.

Moderator Action: Please keep comments focused on the game. Comments concerning current events, politics or leaders are not welcome in the game threads. leif
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

Well, I guess the most powerful alliance-building tool is money, in the US/Saudi case, despite the vastly different government styles. So you have a point. But I don't think we'll ever get civ to include ALL of reality's complexities... but maybe they could incorporate something like this in, idk.

I kind of get the feeling there will be at least one more major RF/GS style expansion for Civ 6, hopefully it includes ideologies

 

[PhilBowles]

I played Civ 5 a bunch this month. It's made me realize one thing that Civ 6 really lacks is those kind of modern, ideology based world wars. In most of my Civ 5 games, we end up with a large world war with sides mostly decided by ideology. Ideology in civ 5 cements meaningful alliances. Yeah, sometimes in civ 6, leaders don't like you if you have a different government, but that almost never adds to anything substantial because of how often governments change. Plus civ 5 ideologies often encourage pushing other people to your ideology, for example if you follow freedom, trading with other freedom civs gets you more money, etc.

It's especially interesting since there are an odd number of ideologies... if you end up in a battle of commies vs democrats, there's a scramble to ally with the fascists, etc. (real-life history aside, this can make some interesting situations)

I strongly disliked the ideology system. Game-long relationships that made sense in the context of the way a game had developed were thrown aside because an ally's civ's randomly chosen ideology (and there didn't seem to be much order to it) differed from yours - alliances weren't impossible to maintain but were difficult. It also owed too much to post-WWII revisionism than actual historical development. Just in the short period between WWI and the Cold War, fascists and democratic Britain implicitly allied to defeat Spanish communists, as the UK deliberately turned a blind eye to Hitler and Mussolini's support for Franco; Russian communists allied first with fascists against a democrat-led alliance, and then with those allies against fascist Germany, while fascist Spain remained neutral rather than support Franco's ideological allies and former sponsors

 

[Horizons]

The corporations in Civ4 were very promising and I'm sorry they didn't develop the idea further.

Civ could really benefit from the detailed resource system of Colonization. In Civ you can build a modern empire without oil (the only drawback being that you can't build many types of units), and railroads are completely optional and marginal. In 'real life', the joint stock corporation, railroads and the car completely transformed the modern world. In Civ6 this is abstracted to a niche policy card that gives you 100 gold for building a neighbourhood over a farm.

 

[Kmart_Elvis]

I like how in Civ 2 and/or 3, traveling across railroads cost no movement point, so it was essentially teleportation. Now, can't say I would want something so broken to return, but it was damn fun back in the day.

I like how in Civ 4 culture worked, and how there were individual citizens based on nationality. Culture bombs, border expansion, and city flipping were so much better in that game.

And I don't care what anyone says, but I miss Civ 5's Venice. Why can't I just have my one city and a ton of trade routes? Also would love to see Austria's ability to buy city states return. Oh and air combat was actually relevant and something to strive for.

 

[footslogger]

Without doubt an AI which could be a real threat and scary in combat (much diminished since civ4). As others have said, a strategy game without that key ingredient hardly deserves the name.

 

[kb27787]

Good and evil AIs...

In civ VI they are all evil...
BNW had a much richer cast from Shaka to Theodora with starkly different personalities (and frankly speaking in BNW the good AIs tend to do better than the evil ones... Such was the system of research agreements and world Congress... Evil AI always get mass denounced and embargoed)

Here, in VI, not a single honest AI, even your so called allies.

 

[ce61agg]

notifications when capturing a wonder:

 

[Gedemon]

The extreme ease and simplicity - relatively speaking - of making custom mods and scenarios that Civ2 has over every other iteration.

What were the steps back in the days?

I don't remember, I mean I've played since civ1, but I really started modding with civ4

 

[Patine]

Good and evil AIs...

In civ VI they are all evil...
BNW had a much richer cast from Shaka to Theodora with starkly different personalities (and frankly speaking in BNW the good AIs tend to do better than the evil ones... Such was the system of research agreements and world Congress... Evil AI always get mass denounced and embargoed)

Here, in VI, not a single honest AI, even your so called allies.

Good and evil AI's? Was that one of the features of CivIV or CivV (the two iterations I have never tried)? It sounds like a dubious, cliched, and even cheesy mechanic, and open to RL debate (and worse) based on which civ's are chosen as which.

 

[Krajzen]

Good and evil AI's? Was that one of the features of CivIV or CivV (the two iterations I have never tried)? It sounds like a dubious, cliched, and even cheesy mechanic, and open to RL debate (and worse) based on which civ's are chosen as which.

There wasn't such thing as evil or good AIs per se. However all AI leaders had vastly different personalities in civ5, far beyond binary agenda of civ6.

https://civdata.com/

Here you see all AI bias depending on leader. I Ieally miss this system, it resulted in a healthy balance of expected and unexpected AI behavior and the more you played the more visible were quirks of each leader do you got attached to them.

What he means by "evil" AIs are those few AIs that would consistently wage total war (Attila, Shaka, Montezuma etc - although each did it in a different way!). Meanwhile by "good" AIs he means those exceptionally friendly and reliable.

As I said, I really miss this system, it is superior to agendas in every way other than immediate visibility, but should diplomatic behavior in a serious gamę really be that simplified?

 

[kb27787]

There wasn't such thing as evil or good AIs per se. However all AI leaders had vastly different personalities in civ5, far beyond binary agenda of civ6.

https://civdata.com/

Here you see all AI bias depending on leader. I Ieally miss this system, it resulted in a healthy balance of expected and unexpected AI behavior and the more you played the more visible were quirks of each leader do you got attached to them.

What he means by "evil" AIs are those few AIs that would consistently wage total war (Attila, Shaka, Montezuma etc - although each did it in a different way!). Meanwhile by "good" AIs he means those exceptionally friendly and reliable.

As I said, I really miss this system, it is superior to agendas in every way other than immediate visibility, but should diplomatic behavior in a serious gamę really be that simplified?

There were other things too (not just war... although war is the final result of diplomatic actions). There were parameters such as "meanness", "diplobalance" and "loyalty" in the different AI's behaviors. Some AIs will never betray a friend--others, you cannot trust. Some AIs are mean from the beginning (not just war, but asking tribute from CS, causing CS to send out a quest to denounce target for influence, etc.) and other AIs will appear friendly and then stab you in the back.

And then there's "neediness" in which they will ask you to denounce someone as a show of support, or ask for a free gift from time to time, etc. you have to decide which friends are worth the trouble because a refusal could result in them denouncing you, etc.

Back then denouncing someone can inflict a huge diplomatic hit to the target from all civs that like you better than them.

Of course, the whole thing that ties these together (without it, it is meaningless) are WC votes (embargo and ban their main luxury very punishing! Luxuries were very much spawn-spot specific such that only 1 or 2 AIs will have a particular luxury... usually only 1) as well as AI deciding to declare war or not based pretty much solely on relationship.