Sorry. I’m going to ramble a bit. More than usual.
So, I’d been thinking I’d like to start a “state of the game” thread at some point, but wanted to hold off until the patch actually comes out.
My feeling is that a lot of criticisms of the game are maybe getting outdated. There was a great thread ages ago about how “tall v wide” is not actually a thing anymore. I think a lot of things are like that now. eg there are lots of posts about the AI, and I’ve been saying for ages that the AI isn’t really the problem, rather it’s the overall challenge or difficulty. I think this is born out by the June patch, which has a tonne of changes that look like they’re actually directed at
difficulty not just the AI. I think this is a big deal because it really addressed underlying design questions about the game.
The game is also doing a better job of visualising its mechanics, which makes them more playable and makes the game deeper. Diplomacy is a great example - the old diplomacy system was fine, and was misunderstood by a lot of people, but the new system is much more intelligible and intuitive to many and that’s really great. Add in that Diplomatic Relationship Visualisation mod, and Diplomacy is way, way more interesting. I really think a lot of complaints about diplomacy are more about people not getting their head around it - but that’s why having diplomacy better visualised is actually the way to improve diplomacy.
I think the game still has gaps, but they’re pretty small in a way or at least not completely critical to the joy of the game. To me, the main gaps are: something a bit like Civ V social policies so you can actually tailor your empire’s world view and culture more, ie personalise your empire (Gov Plaza etc and Governors do this a little, but it’s not quite there; pantheons and religion do it better, but pantheons are a one time thing and not everyone founds a religion); a little more empire management particularly around gold; a slightly more fleshed out Info and Future Era (if we’re going to have a GDR, we should probably have a few other things to give that some context); and ideologies (which I think would be a good hook for the other things I just mentioned and also allow for more global conflicts and diplomatic blocks).
Yeah, there’s other stuff that still needs some balancing. I’ve repeated banged on about Coastals and Colonial Cities.
@Victoria is right to call out RNG too, which is a bit off when it comes to disasters given how hard it can be to recover. I think some stuff around goody huts is also too RNG (eg free relics), although getting rid of Goddess of the Harvest and reworking Pantheons may help. But this list of stuff needing balancing is getting smaller and smaller, and the mods out there to address some of these issues are getting much better (precisely because the balance issues themselves are getting smaller).
Instead. What I think is becoming the real central question about the game is this:
The game is complex and probably becoming more so. If the elegance of simplicity is what you are after it is not the game. There is little point talking about the challenge of winning and losing, they have set the level of difficulty in general to low ...A game is what you make of it and while it is not hard to win, some of the challenge people have adapted to how fast you can win. Playing with this attitude you realise the game has a lot of balanced nuances and there is much more choice in VI and making the right choice will shave a turn or two off victory. ...
Two points. First, the game is getting much more complex. I do think there are still some really great big game loops built into the design of the game - but increasingly there are a lot of nuanced systems built on top of each other. Is that okay? Well, I think those layers have generally been really positive (although some editing wouldn’t hurt), but it does make the learning curve steeper.
Second, the way the game is designed, it is fundamentally easy to win if you’re willing to grind out victory. But it’s also getting much harder to win well, to play elegantly. (Fast victories and playing elegantly or efficiently aren’t quite the same thing, but are closely related.) In that sense, the game is actually getting harder. The AI does have some gaps - it needs to get better at pursuing its own victories, and there needs to be more real conflict late game - but if you are trying to play well, not just win, then the game is much more challenging.
So “easy to win, hard to play well”. Is that acceptable? I think it may be - indeed, I think this may be just the quid pro quo for having more nuanced mechanics - players can always ignore the nuances and brute force victory. Maybe that’s not really a problem. There are plenty of games that are “easy” to beat, but seriously hard to play well. That makes the game both accessible to knew players and rewarding to more dedicated players. But then again, maybe FXS could make the game hard to win and hard to play well - eg nerfing Rams and Knights is going to make the game much harder, because it potentially eliminates an easy strategy for victory. As it is, the old archer and swordsmen rushes have already got very hard to pull off.
I’m curious to see the full patch notes. I think there will be even more in those. I suspect there will also be lots of undocumented changes too. My feeling is that this patch will move the needle, although where it moves it to may be somewhere some people won’t like. I just don’t have time for people claiming the game is fundamentally flawed now - it’s increasingly obvious to me it’s actually very well thought out, but I think people sometimes aren’t getting what’s going on and some people maybe want something different (which is okay of course).
I’m also curious about how much more development the game will get. It is or is very close to being a “satisfying” game - is enough mechanics with enough polish to be a game you want to drop hundreds of hours into without feeling like things are limited or missing. But I also think the current design maps out some territory that Civ should explore and would make the game even better still.
God. So much ramble. I think it’s just I feel this year and this last patch have been a real watershed for the game. It’s finally at the point where it’s a game I really want to play, and that is just really exciting. (And, also, it’s Saturday and I’m bored / avoiding work, and chatting with Civ Fanatics is always a ball.)
) and the possibilities of shaping your empire to your liking. That is if you don't only want to win the easiest, fastest, most secure way. Because if you want to it indeed is easy fast and unevitably safe that you will, most of the time even on deity! But let's be honest, it was like that in all iterations... 
