Your favorite Civ 6 alternatives

[KayAU]

[shameless plug] You might also like our game, The Age of Decadence. We have a demo on Steam which has quite a bit of the game. Try different characters with different factions, they all have their unique storyline but they are parallel with each other, so you see things from different sides, and of course, lots of choices and consequences (and backstabbing) to change the outcomes.

Regarding Civ alternatives, I bought in the last Steam sale "Aggressors: Ancient Rome". It has a lot of VERY interesting ideas, give it a try.

Oh, Age of Decadence, I remember reading about that on RPGWatch years ago, being really intrigued and then...I forgot about it, sorry. In my defence, I have built a house and had a couple of babies in the mean time, which might go some way towards explaining my forgetfulness. It looks great, and I am excited to try it out next.

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

it's an old game, but I've played a lot of Rise of Nations before I started with the Civ series. Every building and unit had a fairly logical progression to them, to keep the rock-paper-scissors feel intact. So you always felt like everything you made always needed your attention, and everything needed upgrading. Of course there were a few hokey unit progressions like "javelins"..."advanced javelins" ..."ELITE javelins"...um ok. But I did love that a lot of the more ancient civilizations still kept their "flair" from ancient times as time went on, like modern Aztec units would still have quetzal bird feathers on their infantry and such. Or some had more Soviet-looking built armored units or NATO tanks instead of all tanks looking the same.

 

[Patine]

Alpha Centauri
Colonization
Beyond Earth

I also tried Dragon Commander, but it's a far call from Civ. It's really fun, though.

I've played Alpha Centauri and Colonization (at least the old DOS release of Colonization, not the Civ4 remake - then again, I've never played Civ4). Beyond Earth looked like, from all the previews, a poor cousin to Alpha Centauri, and had never actually bought it.

 

[Arent11]

I've played Alpha Centauri and Colonization (at least the old DOS release of Colonization, not the Civ4 remake - then again, I've never played Civ4). Beyond Earth looked like, from all the previews, a poor cousin to Alpha Centauri, and had never actually bought it.

Oh, I liked it. We played it in lan and it was a lot of fun.

If it were on gog i would surely have bought it. I already petitioned them to get it on their plattform.

 

[Quintillus]

These days, the strategy games I play the most are probably Europa Universalis IV (although I'm currently on hiatus from it; playing a bit of CKII and HOI4 in recent months), and Rome II: Total War. Total War is different than Civ, of course, but Rome II struck a really good balance of empire management and expansion elements for me, and the recent Politics updates have made it more interesting on the domestic front. I just need to find the right difficulty setting for me; I always wind up abandoning games as they become too easy before I win unless I create giant alliance chains, which seems a bit phony.

I've tried a few of the others mentioned in the thread as well. I tried a game of Stellaris, but didn't get into it. It's been a few years, so I'll likely give it another go and see if I like it more with the updates since then. Northgard, I played through the campaign in September, and while I like the idea of a non-frenetic RTS, in the end I found it a bit dull. Maybe it's the low population limits? Maybe the ability to retreat across your border and the AI quite rarely follows up and attacks you? Maybe just the pacing? But I don't see myself as likely to go back to it. Offworld Trading Company is another one where I played through a campaign, and it was fun, but I haven't found myself chomping at the bit to go back to it. I've been wondering if Surviving Mars might be more to my liking; building up a civ over time (versus the less-than-an-hour, RTS-style OTC games) is more likely to be my cup of tea these days.

Age of Decadence is on my wishlist. I will likely pick it up at some point as it sounds like an interesting mix.

Other games that I haven't seen mentioned, but I've tried: Jon Shafer's At the Gates. I played a partial game of 1.0, and it was rather interesting, and a fairly different take on a strategy game. I'd like to revisit it. Dominions III: Fun for the first opponent or so, but could use UI improvements to reduce manual unit management. Probably will continue my game of it, but not sure how much I'll play it going forward. It's also from 2006, so the newer ones probably have addressed some of the UI improvement opportunities.

And of course, there's always the older Civ games. I started up a Civ IV game last week.

 

[Leucarum]

I've been wondering if Surviving Mars might be more to my liking; building up a civ over time (versus the less-than-an-hour, RTS-style OTC games) is more likely to be my cup of tea these days.

I'm a fan of Surviving Mars. The Green Planet expansion in particular has put it in a really good place with plenty of stuff to do through the game. Some systems still feel under developed though (like renegade colonists) which is a shame as I doubt there will be more work done on it.

 

[blackcatatonic]

My partner and I are knee-deep in a Total War: Warhammer II co-op campaign at the moment, both playing Lizardmen factions.

Really enjoying it so far, in no small part because proper big-scale real-time battles BUT NOW WITH DINOSAURS

 

[Arent11]

My partner and I are knee-deep in a Total War: Warhammer II co-op campaign at the moment, both playing Lizardmen factions.

Really enjoying it so far, in no small part because proper big-scale real-time battles BUT NOW WITH DINOSAURS

Yep, coop with friends is fun. I never got into MMORPGs because those are strangers you don't really care about.

 

[blackcatatonic]

Yep, coop with friends is fun. I never got into MMORPGs because those are strangers you don't really care about.

I did play MMOs for a while, though again, only because my partner started playing them first and got me into them, and I did make a few online friends through them. We gave up on them a couple of years back, though. An even bigger time-suck than Civ, if you can believe it.

 

[Arent11]

I did play MMOs for a while, though again, only because my partner started playing them first and got me into them, and I did make a few online friends through them. We gave up on them a couple of years back, though. An even bigger time-suck than Civ, if you can believe it.

It's just more fun to have your brother sitting next to you, hit him with an RPG & he curses Or to hold off the Zerg rush of the AI together. It's simply a entirely different story from talking to people online you have never seen.

 

[enKage]

There is no alternative for Civ6, because Civ6 with its underdeveloped AI is in fact alernative to others. Just to mention I have 1,5k the most hours in both Civ5 and 6, while 5k in EuropaUniverslis4

So I manly play
- EU4
- Civ4 BtS / Master of Mana mod / any RaF mod

Main alternatives
- Civ6
- Europa Barbarorum 1/2 (Romr/Medieval Total War mod)
- Civ5

Other alternatives
- modded Colonization
- oldschool adventure games
- retro: EU2
- more retro: Sensible Soccer / SWOS / Mortal Kombat3
- extreme retro Master of Magic <3 !!!!!



PS
SMAC has absolutely great civic system, why not used later?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Sometimes EU 4, lately quite a bit of Dominions 5, and then a ton of games that aren't TBS or Pdox and only count as "Civ 6 alternatives" insofar as they're alternative games.

For example, unless you're a really good player a game of Ultimate Chicken Horse would be pretty one-sided . I've gone on 20+ win streaks joining random games for fun. The occasional lobby with all good players is amazing.

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is probably my most played game over the last year, but I'm not happy with recent design direction there, since "incoherent" isn't a direction that generally results in good outcomes. Still one of the best roguelikes I've experienced, however.

A few other games have a minor footprint for me lately too, but still more than Civ 6. Stuff like Rocket League/Hearts of Iron 4. I have yet to try TW: Atilla or Stellaris but I do have these in my library now and will get to them sooner or later.

Dominions 5 has quite the learning curve but it's a very deep game. I knew I had to try it after seeing some of the world's best players in Civ, EU 4, and other games independently recommend it.

One of the best games ever made. I recommend anyone to give it a try.

Some of the 1.0 changes really bothered me, but it's still a great game. I mostly stopped playing after hundreds of hours, but that's still a lot.

Quite a few broken things you can do, like molotovs through walls, ignoring thermodynamics and creating permanent heat/cold source w/o electricity, and punching enemies through walls 1-way for example. Also quite a few bizarre optimizations like "bedrooms shouldn't have floors" per the math. Good stuff. After getting multiple colonies off the ground with 1 man naked tribal merciless starts with Randy or Cas (Cas harder IMO) and the obligatory "launch ship from sea ice on merciless" runs I've done all I wanted with the game I guess. But my play certainly could have been optimized much more.

 

[Abaxial]

I've actually been hit with the Cities: Skylines bug over Christmas. I bought it on sale a long while ago, played it once, was baffled, and put it away again. Then I thought I should try and get to grips with it, watched a few videos explaining the essentials, and now I am quite hooked.

 

[KayAU]

PS
SMAC has absolutely great civic system, why not used later?

The SMAC system is absolutely wonderful, and easily the best I've seen in any civ game. It is made even better by how well it fits in with leader personalities and diplomacy.

 

[_Mooc_]

CK 2, Endless Legend, Endless Space 2, Distant Worlds Universe (just got it....massive isnt even close to describing it, galaxies with 1400 stars), Football Manager, HoMM 3 Remake, Starcraft 1 & 2, Medieval TW 2, Warhammer TW 1&2, Started playing the Witcher series, still havent finished 1 yet.

A bit of Cities Skyline, Anno 1404 and Age of Wonders too.

 

[tiamats4esgares]

I couldn't really get into Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes. Idk why. It sounds like it would be good but...meh.

I like Battle Brothers, but the fact there is no real overarching goal kinda bugs me. I guess beat all 3 crises? But if you beat the first, the 2nd and 3rd will be easy anyway. And "beating" is relative, anyway... but hey, BB is getting new DLC soon it sounds like so we'll see.

I saw nobody mention my favorites on page 1 so I'll mention it here: Thea and Thea 2. You can't really expand (in Thea 1 you start with a village and can't build more; in Thea 2 you start with none but can build 1 or 2 if you want). But the rest of the 4x experience is there, and really fun. Brutal game on harder difficulties and lots of RNG ready to give you a hard time. I highly recommend Thea 2 if you want a Civ like game. (The main difference between the two is battle system and what stats do. Thea 1's stats and different battle types are unnecessarily confusing so this I recommend Thea 2.)

 

[tiamats4esgares]

I also love King's Bounty. Legend and Crossworlds....after that goes downhill, but Crossworlds is the best for sure. Watching videos of HoMM just doesn't seem as good. I played the CCG Might & Magic: Duel of Champions and liked it OK until I got to the point where every game was like watching your opponent play solitaire.

 

[Disgustipated]

SMAC has absolutely great civic system, why not used later?

One of my favorite features of the game. Isn't Civ 4's system similar though? Seems like they did use it later.

 

[KayAU]

One of my favorite features of the game. Isn't Civ 4's system similar though? Seems like they did use it later.

You are right, it was similar, but not quite the same. It was similar in that you selected between some optional unlockable policies within a set of categories. It was different in how the effects your choices were implemented. Each policy in SMAC had a set of "stats", which added to or subtracted from your total stat in a certain category (such as Industry, Economy, Planet, Morale, and so on). The sum of those stats then had an effect on how your faction performed in each area. Each faction also had a set of base stats, and stats could be further affected by certain wonders.

EDIT: This really opens the door for further interaction with other systems. You could have stats influenced by a number of things. For example, consider using the World Congress to implement sanctions against a player to pressure them to make certain choices, thereby lowering their "Wealth" stat until they comply. That could be really impactful.

 

[Stringer1313]

speaking of civ like games, Has anyone tried the new board game Tapestry? Is it complex? I can handle complexity but im asking for my husband-- Spirit Island is about his max level of complexity but Pandemic is the most comfortable level of complexity