[GS] Your 3 best and 3 worst things about Civ 6

[iammaxhailme]

The only civs I've played a ton are 5 and 6, so I'm mostly just comparing 6 to 5 here. Also not limiting myself to three things.

Best

1. Districts. I love the system and how it makes geography a bigger factor in the game.
2. Loyalty. So annoying AI forward settles don't cause me to be forced into war... it'll take care of itself.
3. General variability in games. I feel that, via eurekas, inspirations, the golden/dark age system, unique city states, the split tech/civic trees, and a lot of other things, games feel more dynamic in 6 compared to 5, where I generally basically do the same thing each game if it's the same victory type.
4. I like that there are very few civs that are dedicated purely to combat/domination. In Civ 5 it seems like half the choices are just fight, fight, fight with almost no other substantial uniques. Not so in 6, only the Zulu and Mongols IIRC.
5. The amenities system. I definitely like it more than Civ 5's happiness system, which I found to be too punishing.
6. The appeal system. It doesn't have a huge effect on the game, but I like the concept. National parks are satisfying to place. I'd like to use more neighborhoods too, but those partisans make me never use neighborhoods at all.
7. I like spies in 6 a lot more than 5, except, of course, the partisans. In 5 they were pretty dull but you have a lot more options for what to do in 6, and it's not TOO much micromanagement.

Worst
1. Civic cards. I like that we have more options, but I hate having to micromanage these all game. I really preferred Civ 5's policy system.
2. Production balance. Everything simply takes TOO LONG to build.
3. Limited use builders. I realize unlimited builders would be broken in this game, but I hate leaving tiles unimproved and I feel like I spend half the game making builders; this is partially a consequence of number two.
4. Recruit partisans spy mission. Get rid of this ASAP, please...
5. The phone style graphics. Civ 5 looked way better.
6. World congress and diplo victory. I love that they added these, but diplo victory is far too hard to get. Every time I try, I end up winning science or tourism first. Also, a lot of the world congress proposals are too insignificant, especially that one "X player makes more grievances but they decay slower" or whatever it is.
7. Snowballing. This happens in 5 too, but I think a bit less. In both games, I often get to the point where I think "I've clearly won, but I still need to go through turns for another 4 hours before I actually finish", but it seems this happens much earlier in the game in Civ 6 comparaed to in Civ 5. Partially this may be becuase I almost always go for passive victories (science, culture, diplo in 5) over active ones (I really hate doing domination/religious victory, it's so tedious)
8. This is a really tiny thing, but I like that farms next to fresh water in civ 5 get more food (with certain techs). They don't do that in civ 6. Again, a small thing, but it always annoyed me how fresh water basically means nothing except to city housing.

edit: one more complaint
9. Chopping. I like to build up my infrastructure and land, not destroy it. Yes, you could chop in Civ 5, but the meta in 6 is definitely balanced to chopping and harvesting everything asap, and I hate doing that. I'll do it if I'm rushing a wonder or putting a district there but apart from that I usually never chop or harvest resources.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Likes:

1.) Civic Tree
2.) Great People
3.) The AI obeys the same rules you do beyond difficulty speciifed bonus and that oh so annoying "troops are passing by". The later should be deleted or the human should be allowed to do the same.
4.) There doesn't seem to be a best opening. Even the first thing to build is heavily debated. I would say every game plays out pretty differently.

Dislike

1.) Clunky UI, especially the trading one
2.) AI competence meaning you don't have to play optimally. (kinda defeats point 4 up there)
3.) Cost balance of various buildings and units especially late game. (some just plain suck)

 

[acluewithout]

3. Shallow unit upgrade paths
I hate how being ahead just a single era is such an overwhelming advantage in Civ VI's combat. Units from one era can often one-shot units from the previous era, turning a slight tech superiority into an overwhelming military advantage. I thought Civ V had a great balance of its combat units, with one unit of each type in almost every era. Having a tech lead was a powerful advantage, but it wasn't overwhelming, and an under-teched military could still overwhelm a smaller, but more advanced force through numbers or superior tactics. Maybe it's just me, but I don't feel that as much in Civ VI.

What I find interesting about civ6 combat balancing is that while each era increase strength by 10 (this is the trend, not all particular units perfectly fit it) which leads to a per era increase of 50% strength, production costs do not go up the same way.
Unit costs follow the other costs in the game which sort of match a step distribution- each era is “1 step” and costs go from 1 to to 10. (Ancient era units cost about 65, info era costs around 650.) this is the same scalar (10x) as district and chop values.
But what this means is that right at the cusp of unlocking new early game units the cost jump is big- swords cost 90 but xbows and pikes cost 180. But then this step starts to fall off in impact- renaissance units only cost 250, industrial 330ish, modern 430ish. The jumps in cost go down while combat strength keeps multiplying by +50%.
It truly becomes oppressive when you consider that you can fight a unit one or two eras behind that is itself the most advanced unit in its class.
I like the +10 strength regime and production costs should ultimately be tied to the economy more than anything but it is a bit ridiculous as you point out.
This nuance was avoided in civ5 which still had a lot of 50%ish jumps (swords to long swords, muskets to rifles to GWI to infantry) but since most units had an upgrade every era, you didn’t get stuck with half your army being useless like you do now.

Overall, I’m with @Sostratus in liking the +10 per Era. His Mod which aligns combat strength more improves the game enormously. And I suspect that another expansion or dlc or whatever FXS is doing will fill in unit gaps and smooth out some of the current issues.

But even then, I do think how units progress is a bit lame and shallow. First, there really aren’t many jumps where combat changes significantly. The only really palpable ones I can think of are Knights and Artillery, which are basically the point that Heavy Cav and Siege start being scary, Frigates which is where Naval combat starts having some relevance, and Aircraft. Maybe the introduced Armies too. Except for these inflection points, combat really just doesn’t change much from era to era, and so there’s not much adapting you need to do tactically.

Second, I think the +10 per Era is a bit blunt. The game doesn’t have anything like, say, Gunpowder units having a significant buff v non-gunpowder units, which would make moving from one type of unit to another more significant.

Third, there’s not a lot of difference between units of different Civ. Generally my Knights are as good as you Knights, except for UUs or UAs. Promotions don’t really provide much differentiation. Maybe there’s not much to be done about that just given the scale and design of the game.

Perhaps nuance is something that has to wait until all the unit gaps are filled etc.

 

[KayAU]

Good:

• Civ diversity - I think they did a great job with the Civ design in this game, with many civs providing significant gameplay differences
• Districts - this is a fun way to build cities
• The idea of eurekas/inspirations - I absolutely love the idea that your situation has an impact on how you develop

Bad:

• Big cities are not good enough - This is probably my biggest gripe, and it ties in with districts, which is a system I mostly really like...however, it is a problem that all districts of the same type are generally equal, meaning the Commercial Hub in your capital is not really any better than the equivalent district in a mid-sized city. It is also a problem that there are so few per population-bonuses. I love building tall, impressive cities, but in Civ 6, it is generally not really worth the effort.
• The actual implementation of eurekas/inspirations - They should have made this a percentage research modifier, not a lump sum of beakers. I hate having to swap out my research to wait for a eureka/inspiration in order to not waste research. It is a bit of annoying micromanagement, and makes no sense.
• Governors - I am somewhat saddened to put this on the "Bad" list, but honestly, Governors quickly became another boring chore I did not care about. Many of the bonuses are bad, and the gameplay of having to move the Governors around is just tedious to me, especially with the 5 turn wait. I would have preferred a static bonus system such as Civ 5's Social Policies or Beyond Earth's Virtues.

 

[AlanH11]

Best: having just acquired a new pc, with a fast Ryzen cpu instead of a sluggish i3, I can put the game on its highest graphic setting. Impressive, especially the day/night cycle. Many eye-catching details. The animations improve the presence of the leaders. Personally, I like the archeologist as he/she chases around collecting artefacts.
City districts, which make you think more about planning.
Worst: predictability, predictability, predictability.

 

[Jkchart]

Likes

1) District system. Even if it's kind of silly with regards to map scale (but so is 1upt combat), it's good gameplay.
2) civics tree. It feels good to me, can't quite explain it.
3) civ design and music. I'm lovin' it.

dislikes

None. Okay I'll try to think of something

1) recruit partisans mission. As discussed in the spy thread, this should be reworked. I'd like to see this only work on cities with negative amenities
2) Lack of late game world wars. While your alliances can drag you and other ai's into wars, the AI never does anything about it. If they don't seem to have a plan to attack you beforehand, they just seem to ignore you. Simulating world wars seems impossible at the moment.
3) Diplomacy and AI in general. Similar to above, but I find a lack of civs who are aggressive and like aggressive play. I find even traditional warmongers denouncing me for me causing grievances. People like Shaka seem to want me to be a peacenik. Similar to #2, I want to see blocks of civs form. Warmongers sticking together, scientific civs sticking together etc. And general AI improvements. Mostly would like to see AI stick to a plan, and not change their mind so much.

I feel seen with this. I hard agree with basically all of this.

There are some more nitpicks I have but I love most about the game.

 

[kb27787]

Best:

1) Creative district adjacency bonuses and unique districts
2) More balanced tile yields than V (back then, if you had no flat grassland with freshwater you were screwed)
3) CS unique bonuses

Worst:

1) Diplomacy (conquest too powerful and no good way to retaliate diplomatically) and WC random resolutions (V's system much better and more impactful due to permanence of resolutions)
2) Weakness of early game cities (4 warriors should not be able to take the capital of a civ early game!) and combat balance in general (needs more defender's advantage)
3) Housing mechanism (and the absolute need for freshwater early) and district number limit based on pop.

 

[Knightfall]

Best 3:

1. Districts. City specialization is more intuitive, and terrain is more relevant to city planning. Also, spread-out cities mean raiding is now a viable military strategy and fast units like light cavalry are much more useful.
2. Separation of Science and Culture Research. Makes Science generation less all-important (this is coming from a guy who mostly goes for Science victories), and forces players to actually invest in Culture.
3. Policy Cards. Provide a good mix of flexibility and order when building governments, with fairly clear benefits and drawbacks.

Worst 3:

1. Diplomatic Agendas. I appreciate the attempt to make each civ and leader feel unique, but a lot of these just end up coming across as weird and arbitrary.
2. Support Units. These feel mostly useless, and I almost never actually build them.
3. Science/Culture Snowball. In the later half of the game, a player who invests heavily into Science and/or Culture often ends up unlocking things so fast that they become obsolete before they can even be used. It's also immersion-breaking (I really shouldn't be able to have computers in 1700 unless I'm a god-level player or cheating).

 

[sugerdady87]

Worsts:

1. Loyalty: Can no longer establish colonies anywhere. Can't conquer coastal cities and establish a sea-based empire.
2. Eurekas and inspiration: It deemphasizes reserach/culture points too much as well as makes you deviate from the normal gameplay to unlock them.
   
3. Diplomatic victory...
4. Religious units: Come on now, missionaries waging "theological combat" against each other?

 

[jozef57]

My 3 best:

1) Districts: I enjoy the unpacking of cities and having to make some difficult decisions early.
2) Music: The music is phenomenal and is often in my rotation.
3) Variety: I appreciate having so many different civilizations to choose from.

My 3 worst:

1) AI: The only challenge it provides is being able to outproduce you at higher levels. If you manage to catch up, it's just as easy at lower levels. It also doesn't ever seem to play to win. I find it baffling to see a message that "X is going for a Domination Victory" and then never see it declare war on anybody.
2) World Congress: It's just awful. There doesn't appear to be any rhyme or reason to how the AI will vote at any given moment but always seems to have just enough votes to really screw you over. Also, can someone explain how banning great people would actually work? It doesn't make a lot of sense.
3) End Game: Most of us know we will win the game at X point. It just feels like your are clicking "next turn" until you win the game.

about the AI. for over 90% of players the Ai is challinging enough i sometimes feel this Ai bashing is done by people who play civ all thge time and are good at it have a talent. but for for the general public i found it is good enough civ would die soon if it was only made for a few fanatics like i am myself lol. the advanced set up has enough possibillity's to chanllenge your self like playing with saladin on a ice map and such things

 

[Dotsworthy]

Best 3:

1.Districts. planning out agencies for massive yields and wonders really scratches the city builder itch.
2. Wonder building. Detaching them from the city center makes a fantastic puzzle to solve and certainly brings the tension our when you are racing another civ to it.
3. Unique buildings. Brings a lot of variety to the city planning aspect.

I think the above really brings out the play the map aspect of civ vi.

Worst 3:
1.Ai build priority. Their build priority is all out of wack, especially when they are flavoured to specific units or districts. Seeing Harald Hadrada build nothing but boats when his city is under siege. The same for wonders like macchu pichu which is rushed by every ai even if they have just a single mountain.
2.Governers. There is seldom any reason to use anyone other than Pingala and Magnus, and most of the later promotions are not particularly useful.
3.Diplomacy. once you are friends with an AI you can basically softlock them into being your friend regardless of how many grievances you commit against them.

 

[Foulweather]

BEST 3:
1: The Music is wonderful. It's unobtrusive, yet pleasant, and I love the way it builds and becomes more complicated are you progress in eras. I also love how you hear the music from the other civs in your game as well. Special honors go out to the musical themes for Gandhi, Khmer, America, Maori, Suleiman, Scotland, Kongo, and Brazil oh Brazil I love your music so.
2: The many ways of earning a Culture Victory. Culture is my favorite style of victory because there are so many ways you can get to it (even though it's admittedly a little hard to understand the actual calculations of it). You can push for wonders early and often. You can focus on spreading religion and gaining religious tourism. You can farm missionaries or apostles for relics and run Reliquaries for tourism. You can push for great works of writing and art. You can focus on National Parks, especially as America and Canada. You can save specific tiles in your land for ski resorts and seaside resorts. Most culture victories contain aspects of all these ways, but you usually end up really pressing one of them hard to get the win. I've enjoyed the many ways to play for the CV, as opposed to a science victory where it seems it's just pushing campus/library/university in every city. I wish all victory styles were as varied as the CV.
3: The Civic Tree. This is, as others have noted, a breath of fresh air. And it almost makes me wish that other branches of society had their own trees. Perhaps a Religion tree to unlock religious benefits and a different style of Religious Victory. Anyway, I'm so glad this is here.
Honorable Mention: Fun and unique civilizations. I love how different Mali is from anything else in the game. I love how the Khmer can play a Relic strategy like no one else can. And Eleanor is just the most fun leader to play ever. I've also had a lot more fun playing civilizations that I wouldn't have thought I would, from the Inca to Hungary to Arabia to Canada. Thanks, Firaxis, for all the diverse playstyles and leaders.

WORST 3:
1: Diplomacy and Diplomatic Victories are boring, and they shouldn't be. Send a delegation the turn you meet an AI. Offer a gift of gold. Trade Open Borders. Declare a Friendship, and now you're friends for good. Diplomacy seems too unrefined, there's still an easy way to play off the AI. The World Congress resolutions seem both too random at times (what luxury will the other players want to ban?) and too predictable at others (put two of your votes toward yourself for Trade Policy and Border Control Policy and you'll get it). I'm a builder and I love to play peacefully, so a Diplo Victory should be one of my favorites, and it just isn't. Half the time I've tried to win Diplo, I've won by Culture accidentally instead. Has anybody won a DV without building Mahabodhi, Potala, and Statue of Liberty? I wish there were ways for me to somehow negotiate a peace deal and stop a war between two warring civs and get Diplo Favor or Diplo Points out of it. Or earn favor by protecting city-states without going to war over them.
2: Religious Victories are Tedious. Spam Holy Sites, then build tons of Apostles and go out fighting across the world. I wish there was a "builder"-type of strategy to winning Religious. Perhaps extra passive religious pressure for every religious wonder I build? Or extra religious pressure by having a religiously homogenous home empire? Or by fully promoting Moksha? Some mechanic to make trade route religious pressure stronger? Man, I hate spamming Apostles. Wow do I hate that.
3: Sprawl still beats Tall. I loved playing as Venice, and miss the tall empires I used to be able to build. I wish there was a way that I could compete with sprawl by having a tall empire, without having to min-max myself to death. Settlers are just so expensive, I spend the Ancient and Classical eras just spamming them when I should be having more fun building other things.
Honorable Mention: The Byzantine Empire. *tapping fingers on desk*

 

[criZp]

best:
great people and city states unique bonuses
loyalty as a way of peaceful conquest
addition of separate civics tree makes good sense
grievance system is superb
leader animations are well done, very natural and expressive
I like that fresh cities start out with very little defense instead of being fortresses from turn 1
spies have some nice mission variety, although the partisan mission seems to serve not much other purpose than to annoy the player


worst:
governors having to be moved around all the time to be most effective
world congress vote system and most of the resolutions are uninspired garbage +100% to this and -50% to that
diplo ai ranging from braindead vegetable to angry child
the future era has very little content and only serve to drag out the science victory
mechanic for generating tourists is not at all transparent
religious combat, which is just a never-ending war with little unit variety, only tacked on because many people asked for it
builder units, they are fine early game but an absolute chore late game, needs to be replaced with some alternative, more effective method for making improvements
production costs increasing with the amount of techs and civics you have, why punish me for advancing?
too many policies are +X% to different stuff, including copies of the same +X% card because some of them expire, also some policies can provide their effect in one turn and then becomes useless for a while (like the army upgrade one), forcing you to swap it out immediately
districts, I would like these to be extensions of the city center instead of being separate villages colored in pink and baby blue
movement system where units are not allowed to use all their move points, would be fine if a spare move point could carry over to the next turn, but that doesn't happen
the chop meta

 

[dagriggstar]

Best

1) City planning. So like, planning out districts and improvements.
2) Appeal. Yes it is a really small component of the game you can mostly ignore, I don't know why I just enjoy planning out national parks, seaside resorts that kind of thing
3) Eureka system. A great way to keep you engaged while also making raw science a little less important (immediately thinks of 5's rush as much science as possible strategies)

Worst
1) Policies. I hate micromanaging them so much. Like, getting the timing so you can have certain one-off cards for as little time as possible. Or like, guys, we are building only infantry for 5 turns. Then we are building only cavalry. Then walls. Then infantry again. Like, why are you making me go into the policy screen every 5 turns, it's not fun. It's just not fun. And then you forget something and it's frustrating.
2) Unit design in general. Mostly having stand alone unique units that can seem like a disadvantage because you can't upgrade into them. Related, upgrading being so good (related related, switching upgrade discount cards in for as little time as possible). But also, like the anti-cav line should just be better generally than the melee line. Your opponent is building lots of cavalry, great I'll build anti-cav. Your opponent is building lots of anti-cav, great I'll build melee units. Your opponent is building lots of melee units great there isn't a unit designed to counter them.....Light cav and Heavy cav having the same role in combat but apparently are two different things.
3) Governors. Again, so much micro. Less bad than policies but still. And like, the balance of their promotions seems out, like the first 2-3 decisions are hard but after that it doesn't really matter. What does matter, is having the right governor in the right city at the right time though.

 

[Sostratus]

2) Unit design in general. Mostly having stand alone unique units that can seem like a disadvantage because you can't upgrade into them. Related, upgrading being so good (related related, switching upgrade discount cards in for as little time as possible). But also, like the anti-cav line should just be better generally than the melee line. Your opponent is building lots of cavalry, great I'll build anti-cav. Your opponent is building lots of anti-cav, great I'll build melee units. Your opponent is building lots of melee units great there isn't a unit designed to counter them.....Light cav and Heavy cav having the same role in combat but apparently are two different things.
h.

There’s a link in my signature to a mod which addresses some of this. Like, you can actually use anti cav. It’s almost a different game.

I really feel similar to you in how the units ended up. It’s like they took a couple complaints from civ 5 that were more down to minor game balance, like pikes being better than swords, or some units having very short windows before they get upgraded; and then cast the entire Civ6 system around those minor things while forgetting stuff like why they gave all mounted units -33% vs cities in the very first civ5 patch. (Hint: if you make some units faster and stronger than the others with no downside, everyone will use them for everything all the time.)

If they ever tell us just what their plans are for this game, I hope to produce a full unit class rework featuring some fleshed out roles for each class, a complete resource + production cost balance pass, promotion tree changes, upgrade costs, and possibly finding work arounds for oddball unique units being able to be upgraded into.

 

[Chefofrats]

Best:

1. Visual and audio design - the game looks and sounds beautiful. I sometimes start a new game simply for the enjoyment of exploring the wonderful world to relaxing music.

2. The Civilizations - there are just so many to choose from, and for the most part they are unique and fun to play. Just let's not mention Canada.

3. Loyalty - it mitigates the ridiculous tendency of the AI to forward-settle, and also allows taking cities without actual combat, giving more options for peaceful play.

Worst:

1. The World Congress and "diplomatic" victory - what a mess! Everything about it is wrong, and most of all how actual diplomacy has no influence on voting whatsoever. Calling a victory "diplomatic" and then having the AI vote against the player they were allied with for thousands of years is beyond ridiculous.

2. The Interface - how could the designers have made it impossible to track some important information, like deal duration, and sort other data, like city yields?

3. Spread of religion and religious victory - no aspect of a game should feel like a tedious chore, and yet everything about spreading your religion to your own cities and exporting it is exactly that.

Honorable mention: moving large armies. Having to manually move all those units, and have move orders cancelled when paths of two units accidentally cross for a single turn makes combat somewhat tedious.

 

[Mahi]

Three Best:
- Districts
- Loyalty
- Civic Tree

Three Worst:
- Great Person system. I much more prefer the individual city management of GP production in Civ IV and V. The new system is uninteresting.
- Policy cards. It's just not my play style. I either need a better overview of the impact of replacing a policy card with another before actaully confirming the - replacement but I would much rather just get rid of the cards and go with something else.
- Late game. The AI is such an uninteresting oppoenent in the late game. I need the opponents to make a first move sometimes if I want an interesting game.

 

[acluewithout]

If they ever tell us just what their plans are for this game, I hope to produce a full unit class rework featuring some fleshed out roles for each class, a complete resource + production cost balance pass, promotion tree changes, upgrade costs, and possibly finding work arounds for oddball unique units being able to be upgraded into.

Looking forward to it.

 

[kryat]

3 best
Maps/Districts - A bit of a cheat, but the quality of the map generation has finally reached a point where the adjacency system has gotten interesting. I love seeing mountain chains, bays, river valleys, etc, and even better, I love seeing the city planning puzzle to work out. Districts made maps matter, so now you can put an encampment in that mountain pass rather than city center, now dams and canals are possible, and now the great water works-driven IZ is possible. These all could have been tile improvements, but I think it works much better to reflect the hard effort of building. City projects are also a wonderful way for a city to specialize.

Loyalty - Borders feel dynamic, an there is genuine concern for your border cities. I would love a revisit to include loyalty penalties for warmongers, but overall, it’s a great mechanic.

Music - I can’t overstate how good the music is. It’s what separates Civ from other similar games. Having the music develop with the eras is genius.

Worst
Infinite city sprawl - This has a lot to do with districts and loyalty’s byproducts, and why they need a second balancing. It’s too easy to conquer with no internal repercussions. Loyalty should work harder against you the more cities you have. Not as bad as Civ 5, but it should force you to take a moment to do cultural integration after you conquer an entire empire. I’d love to see the possibility of revolutionaries break off because they’re tired of their conquering overlords, unless you govern well. Likewise, while an imbalance to loyalty makes ICS possible, an imbalance to districts (flat yields) makes it powerful. Some cities should be much better than others. It’d be great if cities actually followed an exponential distribution in terms of their science/culture/gold output, so that there were many cities that contribute, but some key cities that led.

Eurekas/Inspirations - After 1000 hours, it’s too easy to know all of them. Some randomness would be much appreciated, so they would feel more like a pleasant surprise than a to-do list. I love the idea that you can earn alternate ways to develop science and culture, and of having objectives, but it does more to box in the player. Maybe having a random list of three possibilities, hidden from the player would make these more exciting. And/or, having each campus building you build generate an objective for you to do, as an alternate to granting a flat yield, “we would like to research spearman and their efficacy against horsemen, can you try this out?”

Barbarian spawn rate - This is probably more frustrating than anything else. If I spend 30-50 early game turns just beating back barbarians, I know my game will be lagging. Other games, I see no barbarians, and I rocket ahead. A little randomness is appreciated. A lot of randomness is playing a slot machine.

 

[kaspergm]

Eurekas (...) Maybe having a random list of three possibilities, hidden from the player would make these more exciting.

Just a FYI if you're not aware, there is actually a mod that does this. It had some issues last time I tried it, but it may be worth checking out. I'm not sure if it's called REAL Eurekas or something else, but I'm pretty sure it's findable in the workshop.