Whatever Happened to Modern Warfare?

[LFRANK]

Okay, been a bit slow on playing full games. Did several short ones to learn the ropes a bit before wading into the deep end. And yet, now that I have I find the endgame less satisfying than I could have imagined.

Does anyone else think that the modern, atomic, and information ages pass way too fast? All those years of building archers and horsemen and cannon and wham, suddenly you're into bi-planes and satellites and nukes. Where's the incremental build up to modern techs?

I'm playing Roosevelt in my current game and I've already researched modern armor while my neighbors are barely into infantry. I just invaded Greece to get rid of that annoying little civ and everyone has DoWed me. Not that it seems to matter much since I'm so far ahead in tech they can barely touch me. But still, it seems most of the game deals with ancient times and then swiftly skips into the modern eras, and poof, then the games over!

I'm used to playing L O N G games of 28 to 36 hours in Civ III (still the best Civ release ever IMHO). Now, after only a few hours the current game is closing down before I really get to feel successful. I may not win as India is ahead in a religious victory, but I lead in all other win categories. Even if I am declared the winner, it'll still feel like a letdown and not a victory over all my AI opponents.

The end game in Civ VI feels neutered, with fewer decisions to make, and seems to offer less compelling gameplay then ever.

 

[iamliberal]

Just curious what difficulty level is your game?

 

[LFRANK]

Playing Prince on a standard sized map and at standard speed. Again, just getting into full games while I learn the rules. I did find an option to slow-down the passing of time but am not sure if that is the correct solution. Will try it on the next game I create.

Am not displeased with the game so far. It has some issues to correct, but it just feels to me that we spend 3/4 of the game in pre-modern times and then we rocket through the last three eras in record time. Just as each civ gets more complex the tech choices narrow and take less time to complete while the benefits associated with each feels wonky.

OTOH, I detest the simplified UI and its less than useful design of hiding important information layers deep or not revealing it at all. It's like they hired designers for the game that never played Civ before and said "make it work like the last one." This overly simplified UI points to them moving to being able to release the same game on PCs, consoles, and mobile devices where simple one-point interaction is all that's possible.

On the PC version its just too dumbed down to make it fun. On a mobile device it makes more sense, but not on a PC.

Thx for responding.

 

[iamliberal]

I'm just in my first game, prince on standard map, and my first impressions of the UI mirror yours. Also my first impressions of the graphics were negative, didn't have that immersive real feel that each Civ game deepened for me. This felt like a step back and making it cartoonish. In fact, my first thought was that it looked like a simple iPad game I played Battle Nations.

The graphics are growing on me as the map has expanded. But the UI has not. My impression has been that this is Civilization Revolution's sequel instead of Civilization V's. I hate hat I can't press "w" to skip past units as they auto scroll and have to use mouse for everything instead of keyboard shortcuts.

I'm a big fan of detailed charts and graphs and in-depth reports and illustrated portrayals of game info. My criticism of previous games has been that there aren't enoug of those, not too many. I liked some mods back in Civ 3 and Civ 4 that people made to better display diplomacy info for example. But in Civ 5 mods disables achievements so I never used any mods. Anyway, I like a lot of Civ 6 and it's growing on me, but I hate the oversimplified UI so far.

 

[narmox]

I'm just in my first game, prince on standard map, and my first impressions of the UI mirror yours. Also my first impressions of the graphics were negative, didn't have that immersive real feel that each Civ game deepened for me. This felt like a step back and making it cartoonish. In fact, my first thought was that it looked like a simple iPad game I played Battle Nations.

The art style is there to match the times, so I can't fault them for that. It does grow on you as you said, there is a LOT of details in the graphics, which is awesome.

The graphics are growing on me as the map has expanded. But the UI has not. My impression has been that this is Civilization Revolution's sequel instead of Civilization V's. I hate hat I can't press "w" to skip past units as they auto scroll and have to use mouse for everything instead of keyboard shortcuts.

"Enter" (or clicking on the exclamation mark icon in the lower right corner) is the new "w". Except "enter" (or just blindly clicking the big icon, not noticing the smaller ones that are also present sometimes) also cycles you to the tech/civic selections, envoys screen, city production, and ends the turn if you're not careful. You can also disable autocycle by editing "User options.txt" in the ~/Library/Application Support/Sid Meier's Civilization VI/ folder.

I'm a big fan of detailed charts and graphs and in-depth reports and illustrated portrayals of game info. My criticism of previous games has been that there aren't enoug of those, not too many. I liked some mods back in Civ 3 and Civ 4 that people made to better display diplomacy info for example. But in Civ 5 mods disables achievements so I never used any mods. Anyway, I like a lot of Civ 6 and it's growing on me, but I hate the oversimplified UI so far.

I wouldn't call it an over-simplified UI, more like an.. incomplete UI. Or a very incomplete UI. Things are missing, information is missing, how to do things is sometimes unintuitive. Less-than-helpful notifications are displayed as prominently and as ephemerally as important ones, while other events that should show up as notifications only happen as sounds (barbarian camps spawning for example). It'll need a lot of work, I agree!

 

[iamliberal]

Narmox yes I figured out the big circle and !s to cycle through units, I just don't know why they decided to require mouse. There's even keybinding in the menu but they don't give options for much. Anyway, I agree with your conclusion about the UI not being oversimplified, just incomplete. Well said.