What single thing annoys you most about Civ VI?

[Trav'ling Canuck]

At least early on, the Eurekas can throw up really interesting choices. Depending on the map, you can be forced to hard tech sometimes, or your delaying while you're trying to get a boost but that's actually holding you back, or settle a city to enable some Eureka to be achieved, or be rushing to get some builder or unit to get another Eureka. It's a good system.

I find some Eurekas also get me to look at the game in new ways - I ended up playing around with Aqueducts and Forts a lot just because I had to build them for certain Eurekas.

The idea behind the Eureka/Inspiration system was, to my understanding, to reward you for the things you were doing on the map, causing each game to unfold a little differently based on what was going on with your civ. That's a laudable goal, but in the execution, I don't find that to be what actually happens.

First, there aren't multiple paths through the research/civics tress. With a few trivial leaf tech exceptions, you'll end up spending science/culture to research all of the early era techs. So all that changes is the order you do them, not whether you do them or not. And because the techs are well balanced, with few exceptions, none of them are game changers. That means there's no particular need to rush one or the other. What's more important is to collect as many boosts as you can, and time your research to max those boosts. It's less about the development of your civ following on map actions, and more your on map actions being dictated by what you need to do to max your boosts.

Second, the game system doesn't really reward you for doing a lot of a particular thing. Building more horse troops than foot troops doesn't improve your cavalry technology. Building more Industrial Zones than Commercial Hubs doesn't improve the efficiency of your factories. Instead, you have a random collection of boosts whose value is as science/culture beakers only.

Third, a lot of the things you can build in Civ have marginal value in and of themselves. Instead, their primary value is to convert production/gold/faith into science/culture through generating a eureka/inspiration. Which is kind of flipping the whole thing on its head.

I love the eureka/inspiration system and I see the above as primarily growing pains, rather than an indictment of the idea. Given the chance to re-work the execution of the idea, I'd favour:

• A tech/civics system where the first to research a technology gets a big bonus. That would be teamed with everyone, after a tech has been known for a certain number of turns, getting the technology for free so long as they have contact with at least two other civs that know the technology. Now you don't have to research everything, and the path you take through the trees really does matter.
  
• Boosts that are primarily tied to relative specialization. If you have more boat units than other types of units, you get a boost. If you have more farms than other types of improvements, you get a boost, etc. I'd make these relative versus absolute so that all civs can only get rewarded for what they're actually specializing in. So, for example the boost to Pikemen could come from having more Spearmen than any other troop type, but you need to have at least 3 Spearmen; the boost to Pike & Shot could be having more Pikemen than any other troop type, but you need to have at least 5 Pikemen, etc.

So now, if you're the first to research Spearmen, your Spearmen get +4 say, so long as you continue to satisfy the condition required for a boost to that tech (i.e. maintaining a primarily pointy-stick based army). If you build more Spearmen than anything else, you'll get a bonus towards researching Pikemen, and if you're the first to research Pikemen, then you get that +4 to the Pikemen you build, etc. If you don't research Spearmen, eventually you'll get it for free, opening up the branch techs that depend on this technology, while you do other things.

Same thing on the economy side of things. Lots of Wheat nearby? Go farms first and get a boost to Irrigation, and if you're the first to get to Irrigation by farming Wheat, you get a bonus to the yields of your Wheat farms - maybe 3 gold each? or 1 culture to reflect your society developing as a Wheat oriented society? - so long as you continue to have more farms than any other type of improvement. Later on, maybe you try to leverage that into the next farming boost (Serfdom currently) or you decide that on your map you're okay with foregoing those boosts and taking a balanced approach with your improvements

This causes two things to happen, I think. First, it encourages you to truly specialize, rather than collecting a random assortment of boosts across all types of technology. Second, it encourages you to play not just the map, but also what other civs are doing. Only one civ can get the boost bonus for each tech, so maybe you direct your science/culture beakers to the area where you can get bonuses, and you get a real feedback loop between what you're doing on the map and your path through the research/civics trees.

 

[Zaarin]

It's not "the single most annoying thing," but another annoyance: why must the camera center on my capital at the beginning of every turn? This is not even vaguely useful.

 

[Icicle]

For me the single thing that annoys me the most is that there is no way to tell an AI civ to stop messing with my city state short of waiting for a war declaration and then starting your own war in retaliation.

I know there's a lot of other problems, but that one thing just makes me the most annoyed over the last few games.

 

[kaltorak]

1. That many small cities are always better than big ones
2. Eurekas sound like fun, but put in practice, too many times do I just chose the tech I have boosted instead one for a specific plan.
3. They want us to go either full war or full peaceful. I hate this. I dont just want to attack or capture cities to win by domintation. I may want to capture some cool cities, or just was declared war, and want some compensation for my losses. But:
3a. Warmongering is crazy for capturing cities. If you just try to get a few, the hate train starts and you start fighting and fighting until you get a domination victory
3b. The new stupid loyal system (while cool in theory like eurekas), means I cant just capture one or a few cool cities. If I get them, I need to capture the rest of the civs cities if I dont want the cities to flip
4. Tourism. Worst system mechanic of all civs. It's like winning through score. Toursim points are worthless, just useful to win the game. I want them to be useful to my empire or I just ignore them completly

 

[Mojo85]

Having natural wonders which give adjacency yields covered up by mountains. I love when Mt Roraima is surrounded by 3 mountains blocking those yield tiles

 

[Hajee]

What single thing annoys you most about Civ VI?

The lack of of Post Release updates. It annoys me that firaxis does not take Paradox approach for their games. There is alot of good systems in CIV6, yet they are not fully flushed out need more care, and down right rework. I dont understand why they have a strong intent to do more Post release patches and updates to fix, change, or add new systems into the game to keep it fresh and exciting. Paradox goes out of their way to update their games on free patches to rework systems and even add new ones into the game years after release. Its annoy with Firaxis you have to sit for months, even a year to get a DLC Exp for anything.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

1. That many small cities are always better than big ones
2. Eurekas sound like fun, but put in practice, too many times do I just chose the tech I have boosted instead one for a specific plan.
3. They want us to go either full war or full peaceful. I hate this. I dont just want to attack or capture cities to win by domintation. I may want to capture some cool cities, or just was declared war, and want some compensation for my losses. But:
3a. Warmongering is crazy for capturing cities. If you just try to get a few, the hate train starts and you start fighting and fighting until you get a domination victory
3b. The new stupid loyal system (while cool in theory like eurekas), means I cant just capture one or a few cool cities. If I get them, I need to capture the rest of the civs cities if I dont want the cities to flip
4. Tourism. Worst system mechanic of all civs. It's like winning through score. Toursim points are worthless, just useful to win the game. I want them to be useful to my empire or I just ignore them completly

Well said! Fully agree on all of these.

 

[Rambo919]

The one single thing.... the development being so dysfunctional that one one seems to bother to make sure changes and AI ability stays in sync... I can understand a multi-player focus but even so this is highly insulting to the game itself as if whoever is in charge has no respect for it. The AI still settling in places they will automatically loose the cities being a prime example.

 

[Rambo919]

What single thing annoys you most about Civ VI?

The lack of of Post Release updates. It annoys me that firaxis does not take Paradox approach for their games. There is alot of good systems in CIV6, yet they are not fully flushed out need more care, and down right rework. I dont understand why they have a strong intent to do more Post release patches and updates to fix, change, or add new systems into the game to keep it fresh and exciting. Paradox goes out of their way to update their games on free patches to rework systems and even add new ones into the game years after release. Its annoy with Firaxis you have to sit for months, even a year to get a DLC Exp for anything.

I have noticed a long standing trend to keep emphasizing that most are "free updates".... I won't really be surprised if someone somewhere starts actually charging per "bugfix pack" the way they did with map and civ packs which were "free updates" in ye olde days.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I won't really be surprised if someone somewhere starts actually charging per "bugfix pack"

It'll be called a monthly subscription fee, and provide a stream of revenue sufficient to support a development team providing continual upgrades.

 

[Aristos]

3b. The new stupid loyal system (while cool in theory like eurekas), means I cant just capture one or a few cool cities. If I get them, I need to capture the rest of the civs cities if I dont want the cities to flip

This is exactly the same as Culture Flip in Four, and we all liked that. What is lacking in the Loyalty system is the "martial" component of suppression, which was present in Four... that is, you needed to temporarily tie up a good portion of your army to hold a newly conquered city until the cultural counter-pressure subsidized... that would be an easy tweak for the Loyalty system; say, you get +1 Loyalty for every land unit that is in the conquered city's tile area. Enforced Loyalty ...

 

[SammyKhalifa]

More of a small annoyance, but I wish when you were setting up a game the dropdown list showed civ name instead of leader name.

 

[Laurana Kanan]

More of a small annoyance, but I wish when you were setting up a game the dropdown list showed civ name instead of leader name.

You should try Sukritact's Civ Selection Screen.

 

[kaltorak]

This is exactly the same as Culture Flip in Four, and we all liked that. What is lacking in the Loyalty system is the "martial" component of suppression, which was present in Four... that is, you needed to temporarily tie up a good portion of your army to hold a newly conquered city until the cultural counter-pressure subsidized... that would be an easy tweak for the Loyalty system; say, you get +1 Loyalty for every land unit that is in the conquered city's tile area. Enforced Loyalty ...

Diasgree on civ4, IMO it's the opposite of civ4 culture preassure. I loved that mechanic, while I don't like loyalty one.
1. in civ4, it was used to capture cities without war. A very awesome system.
2. In civ6 its almost impossible to use it for capturing.
3. It's the opposite, it's for preventing easy captures, since when the effect really shines, is when captured cities flip.
4. They don't flip to an owner, but to a free citiy. So again, it's more an annoyance, it doesnt really "help anybody" (except by annoying your rival)
5. All this wouldnt be that bad, whats bad for me its what it means at the end: that I have to go either 100% war or 100% peaceful. When going non domination, I like to capture a few good cities. but this system wants me to either take all the cities or none, since the preassure of other cities dont allow you to keep one.

I loved culture flips on civ4 and I dont like loyalty flips on civ6.
Agree on the loyalty for troops. That wouldnt only be better, but also make sense. It's just ridiculous how you can have an army surrounding a city and it still flips.

 

[Aristos]

Diasgree on civ4, IMO it's the opposite of civ4 culture preassure. I loved that mechanic, while I don't like loyalty one.
1. in civ4, it was used to capture cities without war. A very awesome system.
2. In civ6 its almost impossible to use it for capturing.
3. It's the opposite, it's for preventing easy captures, since when the effect really shines, is when captured cities flip.
4. They don't flip to an owner, but to a free citiy. So again, it's more an annoyance, it doesnt really "help anybody" (except by annoying your rival)
5. All this wouldnt be that bad, whats bad for me its what it means at the end: that I have to go either 100% war or 100% peaceful. When going non domination, I like to capture a few good cities. but this system wants me to either take all the cities or none, since the preassure of other cities dont allow you to keep one.

I loved culture flips on civ4 and I dont like loyalty flips on civ6.
Agree on the loyalty for troops. That wouldnt only be better, but also make sense. It's just ridiculous how you can have an army surrounding a city and it still flips.

I don't know, hermano de la Madre Patria ... 1 and 2, have you tried using very well promoted spies to "capture" (revolt and then capture the free city) border cities without a direct fight? Bread and circuses? Governors that exert influence? Policies? They do marvels... also, they flip to you, but in two steps, giving the previous owner a chance to do something, which I find better than the direct flip of Four.

About 5, I don't think it's true. I never had that dichotomy, and this is playing Deity. I am always in between the extremes, never had a game where I was 100% war nor 100% peace (obviously, I don't play Domination because I find it the second most boring (the first one being religious Domination, which is the same but with magicians from Fallen Enchantress)... I never had a captured city flip back on me, but I always try to time my conquests so that I can prevent it from happening, and no, I don't capture all surrounding cities to prevent it from happening.

My point is, that we only need one anecdote to make most of your points questionable, and sorry to say, but I happen to have those anecdotes.

 

[kaltorak]

also, they flip to you, but in two steps.

Didn't know that. How? Just keeping loyalty pressure on the free city?

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Didn't know that. How? Just keeping loyalty pressure on the free city?

Yes. Free Cities will typically, over time, go to the neighbouring civ that exerts the most loyalty pressure on them. If they aren't conquered, first.

You can check on their loyalty status the same as with any other city, by clicking on the Free City symbol on the city status bar (its on the left hand side).

 

[kaltorak]

Yes. Free Cities will typically, over time, go to the neighbouring civ that exerts the most loyalty pressure on them. If they aren't conquered, first.

You can check on their loyalty status the same as with any other city, by clicking on the Free City symbol on the city status bar (its on the left hand side).

Thanks, good to know. Guess they always get conquered too fast to have seen that

 

[KayAU]

I have successfully used loyalty pressure to peacefully conquer significant portions of my neighbors' lands without angering them too much. It's usually a matter of getting enough population and governors close to their cities, and waiting for them to go into a dark age. Of course, you can use spies to speed up the process some. Once they flip to free cities, you can choose to wait for the city to flip over to you, or if something is interfering with that (increased pressure from original owner, or owner trying to reconquer), you can conquer the city without getting a warmonger penalty. Getting one city means there is less loyalty support for other cities, so you can get a bit of a chain reaction going.

(the first one being religious Domination, which is the same but with magicians from Fallen Enchantress)

I don't know if you intended to make that sound as awesome as you just did. Fallen Enchantress is one of fairly few civ-likes which is not from the Civilization franchise which I have been able to get into. I quite dislike the visuals, but mechanically, I think it's a gem.

 

[Aramanesh]

i might sound crazy , but there are 2 things that annoy me the most , the lack of the electric power industry in civ games and that they didn't make the world council like it was in civ 5 brave new world .
about the world council , i guess they're planning to bring it back in a DLC like how they added it in the last DLC of civ 5 . i hope they add it to the game because the emergency system for when a city state is captured , isn't enough !
About the electric power industry ... i can't understand how they don't pay attention to it . they should make a new system for how civilizations generate their electric power and the amount of it can be shown on a total amount in the top and that power can effect amenities , production and even the food produced in cities . this power can be generated through building some powerhouses in cities or other places which need coal or uranium or even through builders by making a dam on a river . civilizations can even sell their electrical power to their neighboring countries like how countries do this in reality .
i know there are things like solar plants or factories and ... that use the concept of electrical power and add production to cities in civ games ... but it's not enough . because in real world , the electrical industry in modern ages has an undeniably big impact on the growth of countries and it should have a separate mechanism in the game .
civ 6 has everything ready to make the electrical power system ... for example powerhouse facilities using coal can damage the appeal of tiles where solar plants do no harm to appeal . this can get so big ! i pray everyday that they add such mechanism .
if they actually make it , the Electromagnetic bombs can be added too ! these bombs are real and they are designed to destroy all electrical things only , U.S. first used these bombs in Iraq . there are too many cool things that can be added to the game through the new mechanism of electrical power industry .