[GS] Your first impression score of this expansion

[Disgustipated]

Most people who've bought it surely have had time to play a game or two. What do you think? Is it good? is it bad?

I'm mostly on the good side. I generally like it over Rise and Fall. But how much of that is because of overpowered civs? It's hard to say, but the civs are one of the reasons I like this expansion so much. And I like all of it, the artwork, the music, the mechanics. World Congress is okay, it is what it is. I don't think any game has ever managed to have a World Congress mechanic that I truly enjoyed. Grievance system is okay, but I haven't had much time to play around with it. I still have a Rise and Fall mindset of maintaining peace and alliances with everyone. Limited war seems pointless to me. If I'm going to war I'm going all out and conquering everything and don't care about grievances. Natural disasters are pretty interesting for the most part. Though I swear they only happen when you have a unit on top that can be damaged from them. Climate change isn't great, but it's okay I guess. I haven't had much time to really play around with it. My games end too early, partly because I'm at too low a difficulty. Some general bugginess, but nothing game breaking. Balance issues as usual, but we've come to expect that in this game.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

8. I like all the stuffs, but in general things can be improved (which could be said of anything).

 

[Legacy of Smiles]

Wow, three votes and we all put 8. Great expansion but a few things (mostly power applications and world congress) let it down for me.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

8. I enjoyed the parts of it that I engaged with, but I still haven't managed to get to the future without winning first. And there's a lot of balance, adjustment, and bug fixing to be done. I expect it to be terrific by the end of its patch cycle.

 

[Wizard-Bob]

9 for me. Minor adjustments / tweaking needed, but overall really good

 

[Starwars]

A bit too early to vote a score for me even though I've played a few games but I'm really enjoying it overall, despite some issues. Just taken as a whole, it has made Civ VI a *lot* more fun to play for me so that is just a huge plus in my book. And then, certain things are really in need of tweaking before I think it will make sense (how you use power plants and the climage change for example).

But I'm very happy with it overall!

 

[BenitoChavez]

The good:
- New Civilizations are always fun to play with
- It's fun to experiment with new wonders, including the natural wonders.
- The new weather effects + volcanoes can be interesting to deal with
- I like the map generation changes they did with mountain ranges, naming of features, etc.

The bad:
- The build queue could be designed better
- The AI spams (useless) trade requests more often now.
- Various minor bugs
- Balance issues including:
- Balance between civs and between units of the same era needs tweaking.
- Culture victory seems to come too quickly. Conversely diplo victory seems to come too late.
- Global warming occurs too fast and it's effects even at max level aren't devastating enough.

Overall I give it a 7. The most fun I had was playing Eleanor and trying a domination victory without taking a city with military units. I failed in that I ended up winning a cultural victory but damned if I didn't try to stop it!

 

[Iberian]

7

My first 4 games I would have rated it an 8 but on my 5th I crushed the AI so fast it wasn't even fun. The problem with each new feature they add is that the human is able to use it better than the AI. The first few games I was learning them but now I am starting to get more familiar with the concepts it is easier than ever to outpace the AI. It may be even more front loaded to the first 100 turns now more than ever which is the opposite of what I was hoping.

I did have one game where Gilgamesh conquered 2 others on his continent and was strong in science that was a welcome challenge, but it still didn't matter once jet bombers came into play. The AI still doesn't understand air power like a human.

 

[Disgustipated]

The AI spams (useless) trade requests more often now.

Most of these I make good money on. I feel like an arms dealer. Or a diplo favor dealer. Though later in the game I don't trade the latter.

Culture victory seems to come too quickly. Conversely diplo victory seems to come too late.

Agreed. I'll have to disable Culture victory when I play Canada. I want to get this victory at least once. I haven't got one yet.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Most of these I make good money on. I feel like an arms dealer. Or a diplo favor dealer. Though later in the game I don't trade the latter.



Agreed. I'll have to disable Culture victory when I play Canada. I want to get this victory at least once. I haven't got one yet.

I've been refusing to trade any diplomatic favor. I'm sure that's not the wise move but it feels bad to lose it.

 

[agonistes]

Much more impressed with GS than I was with RF.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I've been refusing to trade any diplomatic favor. I'm sure that's not the wise move but it feels bad to lose it.

I have been too. I hoard it up to use for a Diplo Victory, then end up winning CV before I can use it.

 

[Icicle]

Looks like I'm in the majority so far with an 8. Overall a good expansion, better than R&F but the game is in need of an overhaul moreso than more civs at this point. The disaster system is great, but climate change and the world congress are lackluster to me.

 

[Architect]

I gave it an 8. I've only played games as the Inca and I'm playing Immortal difficulty which is outside my comfort zone. I've gave up quite a few games where the AI beat me in the first 100 turns or I felt my position was not a winning position. I'm also playing on Pangaea maps and I normally play continents/islands. The game is much harder on Pangaea.

I'm in a game right now in the Renaissance era and after successfully taking a wonder city from Sweden and declaring peace about 10 turns later the entire world is at war with me and my ally Spain. I'm fighting a two front war versus the Mali, Cree, and Sweden. I have no troops on one front and if the AI show up with a decent fighting force I may lose this thing. Sweden is pissed and even after declaring war has 100+ grievances against me. She broke a peace deal 10 turns in on the dot that was giving me 95gpt.

The fact that I have an ally and am at war with three other civs is not something I've seen much in R&F. Usually its everyone loves me or everyone hates me. I'm also normally a builder and only war when tanks become available.

For me the game is fresh and exciting and i'm feeling challenged. I realize that there are still ways to play that make the game trivial but in practice I'm not able to exploit them like other's can.

 

[Jewman]

From a concepts standpoint: 10/10.

• world congress while a bit rough still, is very cool and very welcome.
• global warming, could be improved and expanded upon but it's very existence is welcome.
• disasters, add variability to the game, that you have some control over (tornados not counting). Volcanos are very cool too.
• resource management. this might be my favorite new feature. The bottleneck at niter creates interesting gameplay decisions, do I have to build pike and shot instead of muskets because I need the niter for bombards? can I afford to build a frigate fleet alongside my land army?. Aggressively looking for oil and coal makes strategic wars in the late game more desirable and rewarding.
• City state relations are improved. AIs will bid you for some city-states and holding suzerainties is good even if you don't particularly need the bonuses just because of diplo favor. Liberating city states is very rewarding and fighting protectorate wars where you actually want to defend your city-states instead of using it as a free casus belli are not uncommon.
• The map looks incredible, continent shapes + mountain ranges are much improved and have changed the way the game works. Geography is so important and we have so many more ways to use it to our advantage with canals, tunnels and railroads. This may be the most subtle change to the game that has had the biggest impact on my enjoyment of it.

The bad stuff:

• something is very off about barbarians, hoping a simple bug fix can fix it.
• resource management is very tough for AI. When they do have resources, they seem to do well but when they don't already have them in their borders, they don't seem to have the mindset of expanding to gain strategic resources (at least in the later game with niter and oil especially) or aggressively pursuing resources through war. I will say that playing against a civilization that had a ton of niter in it's borders led to some pretty big renaissance/industrial wars that I had not seen the AI be capable of in the past.
• Diplo vote seems kinda silly and dependent on emergencies (some of which happen in the medieval era where giving a measly 100 gold can earn you a victory point) which are sometimes out of your control to participate in. To me, I don't think there's a particularly interesting way to implement a diplo victory in general so I don't hold this against the game too much.
• Pillaging is too strong. I love pillaging and I'm glad they buffed it, but it's just too strong. needs some tweaking.

 

[blackcatatonic]

As a first impression? Definitely a 9.

I can't remember the last time I got so engrossed in Civ as I have been this past weekend - probably not since Civ IV. A few things aren't well balanced and some improvements are needed to the World Congress, but for me it's easily the best Civ expansion I can recall.

 

[isopaha]

After just 2 games I gave it only a 6 despite it not having any major problems. The main issue is that it did not really add much to the game. It seems 80-90% of effort has been put into developing the global warming / environmental mechanics, but they do not make a big difference in an average game, as global warming/rising sea levels effect only late game (had no effect what so ever in my first 2 games). Another thing is that I do not really care if a river flooded somewhere in AI lands, sometimes not even if it happened in my own lands, but still I get constant notifications about them. Also, I could break an AI dam with a spy or something, but what would I do it for?

Another issue is about the added elements not being new in Civ series, just results of the vanilla Civ6 being incomplete at launch. Even the mechanic involving river flooding etc. does not seem very new, as Civ4 had random events as well. Diplomatic victory has always been there, though maybe this version has more potential than the previous "cash victory" that it used to be. Build queue - seriously a new thing? It's not really needed though, as most things I tend to build take between 10-30 turns anyway, so things tend to change too much before I can start the next thing in build order. Railroads - did not even try them in 2 games that ended in victory. Canals, tunnels etc. I would suspect are quite useless / niche things in 95% of games.

Graphics are a bit nicer, but as others have noted the expansion takes a lot more from your computer and works more slowly. Can't really say much about the level of AI, though at least they make demands from the player now and are maybe a bit more aggressive. The new strategic resource system is from Civ5, but I have to admit it seems better implemented, though it felt that my stockpiles are full 90% of the times. Grievance mechanism is kind of new, but perhaps comprises more of old mechanisms that have previously just been hidden. Some of the new leaders'/civs' traits seem kind of nice, but I am quite sure the majority of them will not be played much if you want anything near an optimized game.

However, if GS makes "conquer everything" even a bit less viable strategy in competitive play, I am happy with the expansion.

 

[SephiBBZ]

IA are still useless, could not lose a game actually VS deity so just gonna talk about Multi.

-Clearly a good idea is the changement of the strategic resources, cannot spam the same unit anymore.

-New civ are great.

-Diplo victory is useless, absolute non sense, never someone gonna win with this in MP, already very long even VS IA. (I won a game with Canada in ... 200 turns, where I got ALL possible points, it was not possible to get it faster, ridiculous. Normally I win VS deity between 140 and 160 turns with science)

-Culture victory is far better now. Culture and religion victories still powerful with 4 players, with 6 it is already hard and not possible with 8 and more.

-Endgame is 100 times better now.

-Some civ still far better than others.


Many things need to be adjusted and IA... Well, maybe we don't talk about IA here.

8/10

 

[Eva-kun]

In between 6/7 since it just feels like additional features and nothing else. AI still just all same overall with no real personality between them. I'm at least glad they made sure Canada doesn't denounce as personality quirk. Though, Alex and Gorgo don't like Civ conquering like anyone else due to switch away from warmongering.

Wish to see war like AI Civ's actually be good at war against each another. It does happen, but not as often since I only recall one game last expansion where an AI kinda got to level of a runaway. Once they stop expanding due to map space, I just start outpacing them in science and culture.

As for world building, still very fun when you're in the mood to make the map look pretty. Just want the AI to do a bit more, so I can roleplay with them a bit more of than all of them being just clones of each another.

 

[Sekou]

My thoughts....

Kupe was an insanely easy tourism victory for me. Like, one of the earliest victories I've ever achieved across my 20+ years with the franchise. King level btw. I built one factory. One!!!!!! I've never, ever did that in Civ and won.

On Emp now playing Mali . More than a few restarts with them .either no real desert around to take advantage of, and thus ruining the fun of playing them, or just getting steamrolled by neighbors cuz Mali seems quite weak early game .You can't build anything, really, and gold output not sufficient yet to buy an army and fend off invaders.

Other than that, resource management implementation is very interesting and has me thinking differently now .

As Kupe/Musa so far I've found the WC to be quite meh. Basically assume I'll be screwed by the other civs as it goes along. Ride out their machinations and resign myself to just hoarding my favor to buy victory points later.

Rock bands are totally hokie and simmy, but whatevs, it IS a game, after all.

Natural disasters are a hoot! Volcanoes seem overpowered .Tiles around that Icelandic natural wonder become the best I've ever seen in a Civ game after explosions. Tornadoes, though, can eff right off :|