[GS] Your first impression score of this expansion

[Sostratus]

9/10.
I think for the fun factor and how it changes how you play the game, GS meets or beats BNW release.
A few obvious bugfixes and tweaks and it'll be 10/10 territory.

The biggest impact civ6 had on release was how much more fun it became to build your empire with the new district and tile mechanics.
I think GS has delivered a nice extension of that fun where RF didn't. I mean, you get disasters, and late game calamity, and power and industrialization and stuff. I feel like the stage of the game where you are "autopilot this end victory" has been pushed back until you win - At least until t4 gov't/ seasteads, I'm always trying to just get that one more unlock to place or slot or build.
A phenomenal job on the new civs. Worth the extra $10 IMO.

I think they could better highlight what was damaged/destroyed, and what tiles got the gain in case you forgot where they were before.

Or maybe there's a big flood and you're eagerly watching to see where the fertility was added, but then you have 3,471 alerts covering your screen so you can't see anything.
I would be happy if they either added a fertility lens, or they made it so when you click on the sidebar notification for the disaster, it will make the fertility floating +1's pop up again.

 

[NorthernPalmyra]

its made a great game fantastic - very happy with it

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Or maybe there's a big flood and you're eagerly watching to see where the fertility was added, but then you have 3,471 alerts covering your screen so you can't see anything.
I would be happy if they either added a fertility lens, or they made it so when you click on the sidebar notification for the disaster, it will make the fertility floating +1's pop up again.

Yeah it's easy enough to see and remember early game, but not later. I think something like that would be a nice and fairly easy change to make.

 

[lordhaw]

9/10.
I think for the fun factor and how it changes how you play the game, GS meets or beats BNW release.
A few obvious bugfixes and tweaks and it'll be 10/10 territory.

The biggest impact civ6 had on release was how much more fun it became to build your empire with the new district and tile mechanics.
I think GS has delivered a nice extension of that fun where RF didn't. I mean, you get disasters, and late game calamity, and power and industrialization and stuff. I feel like the stage of the game where you are "autopilot this end victory" has been pushed back until you win - At least until t4 gov't/ seasteads, I'm always trying to just get that one more unlock to place or slot or build.
A phenomenal job on the new civs. Worth the extra $10 IMO.

I feel much the same way. It's been the most fun version of Civ VI so far, much more so than vanilla. R&F got me playing it again after a hiatus and I've been playing it constantly since GS dropped. Been having a lot of fun with it. I've added enough hours lately that I will surpass my Civ V total time this weekend I'm sure...probably tonight

 

[gunnergoz]

I awarded 8 for accomplishments and -2 for negatives. I like the new concepts and civs very much. Implementation is mostly bug free. UI is improved but still not up to standards I grew to enjoy with CQUI. Really, Firaxis? So that earns -1. The other -1 is for things that could have been implemented, but were not. I think resource management can be vastly improved, for instance. See the discussion thread about that, with suggestions from the community. AI can always be improved as well. Overall, a very good job with room for improvement & refinement, so an 8 out of 10.

 

[RohirrimElf]

Been playing for 3 hours. My short first impression is that the new civ leaders animations and overal feel is excelent. The map feels much more alive even do the national disasters seem scarce so far. More different landscape tiles, river names etc. It feels great. On emperor the AI has no trouble keeping up with my fast expansion when i started the map on a relatively safe and isolated continents game. And seems to do well on a macro level.
I’ve got some doubt about the world counsel. If it is meaningfull enough and not just extra micromanagement. I was playing on a huge map. Cause the improved turn times made this possible. More then one pop up did not have any effect on my nation.

 

[gunnergoz]

Speaking of World Council, it would be nice if there was more explanation about what the other civs are doing that motivates their vote. Perhaps spy activity could be linked to this. As it is, I have to leave the Council window and go sleuthing through each individual civ's info screen to try to figure out what they back and why.

 

[kaspergm]

I'm holding off from voting for now. If I was pressed to vote now, I'd probably give it a 6, maybe a 7 if I was in a good moot. It has some good things, but a lot of things need ironing out, and frankly some of them should have been caught in the making. That's not unusual, however, so I'll give it a couple of months to get tweaked and to get to know the details before I pass my final judgement.

 

[megabearsfan]

People exaggerate this. I find my improvements aren't just pillaged, but completely removed and require numerous builder charges to fix (even on disaster setting 2), but I agree they can be easily fixed with multiple builders. My biggest problem is sometimes I don't notice my missing improvements, or I forget what improvements I originally had in those tiles.

Yep, I upped the intensity to 3, and now I'm seeing disasters completely destroy my improvements. Still, it's only a temporary effect until you can get builders out to fix/replace them.
YES: I wish the UI were better at showing exactly which tile(s) were pillaged/destroyed. I've had several instances in which I didn't notice the improvements had been destroyed because there's no smoke (from being pillaged) or anything. Maybe some graphic of debris on the tile, or the resource looking all beat up would be really helpful. At the very least, a UI lense for active disasters and disaster damage would be nice.

Oh, and how is there NOT a lense for coastal lowlands?!

 

[Depravo]

I just had my geauxnads cropped by a huge eruption and two massive floods that gutted my entire heartland right as I got involved in a major war.

It keeps you on your toes, I'll give it that.

 

[Uncle_Joe]

Any you know the reason for this, yes?

I blame multi-player!

Civ5 was the first game that tried to seriously cater this game mode. Everything had to bend to this decision.
Powerful wonders? Unfair, because the player building it had a too big advantage.
Exceptional and unevenly distributed tile yields (= city spots with "WOW!" effect)? Unfair, because not all players could settle them equally.
Truely unique UUs? Not possible, because it would shred multi-player balance.

But if everything gives merely mediocre benefits, steps towards victory are tiny and smooth, nobody has an "unfair"/"game breaking" advantage and only player skill decides over the game's outcome.
Yay, perfect!

)

I dunno, my group and I played Civ4 multiplayer to DEATH and never had any 'balance' problems. And Civ4 had a pretty solid online multiplayer presence for a game of it's age.

Civ5 was launched in such a bad state (where MP wasn't even functional until months down the road) that we never tried it much and none of my crowd has shown enough interest in Civ6 at all to even give it a go.

I honestly doubt they spared too much design effort into making sure MP was or wasn't balance. I imagine its a small enough subset of their player base not to cause major changes. I mean if they really worried about MP it would have been playable out of the box that way rather than requiring months and patching to get to a semi-useable experience.

 

[Stringer1313]

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!

I agree with all these points 100%.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Just as an aside, major thumbs down and a big "boo hiss" to those who voted "need more time to evaluate." That's not not what "First Impressions" means lol.

 

[nrh]

Worth every penny. This expansion adds much needed dynamic elements and improves game stability. It's exactly what I expect from the Firaxis team. A solid DLC. I've already changed up my strategies. The canals are something I was looking into just three weeks before this released, then it came out and not only are the canals good but they are fair for all parties involved. Diplomatic favor is cool. The civs get angry about grievances a little easily, which I think should occur less in the ancient era, but AI is a really unimportant feature. The atmosphere and complexity is top notch...

i voted 10 out of 10
It's a world builder simulation game and a perfect blueprint for future civ games and development. Civ VI has a few minor bugs to flesh out but overall leaves very little to the imagination, which is a sign that this game is nearly complete in its furnishings. If anything can be expanded upon in a future release it would be that the modding community should have greater access to the source code so that modders and Firaxis can combine their skills to keep the game comprehensive. I understand the late DLC approach but please plan ahead better so that the majority of features are released early on and future upgrades are minor things like graphics, performance, and cutscenes. Pay modders to incorporate their working ideas into your game to save yourself time and to give back to the community. This symbiotic relationship will skyrocket Civ popularity instead of squandering opportunity amateurishly.

 

[Smity2k1]

I gave it 8/10. Been enjoying so far. Played a few Emperor games, won with diplo for Canada and military with Ottomans. Played a few multiplayer games with friends vs. AI also on Emperor and didn't encounter any bugs and had a good time.

Immortal is still not fun with the early settlers and other bonuses the AI gets and Emperor is basically a cakewalk to win if you make it past the first 20-30 turns.

New mechanics are mostly fun, some (like diplomacy and global warming) need a little polish and balance but I think they are 85% of the way there. The UI still needs serious work and pacing (tech+civics) still feels mostly off with runaway civs.

I think mods fix nearly all my gripes (UI, pacing) save the AI and I'm anticipating they will be available soon.

 

[AmazonQueen]

I dunno, my group and I played Civ4 multiplayer to DEATH and never had any 'balance' problems. And Civ4 had a pretty solid online multiplayer presence for a game of it's age.

Civ5 was launched in such a bad state (where MP wasn't even functional until months down the road) that we never tried it much and none of my crowd has shown enough interest in Civ6 at all to even give it a go.

I honestly doubt they spared too much design effort into making sure MP was or wasn't balance. I imagine its a small enough subset of their player base not to cause major changes. I mean if they really worried about MP it would have been playable out of the box that way rather than requiring months and patching to get to a semi-useable experience.

In terms of balance Civ I or II were the best. Sure wonders were powerful but everyone had a chance to build them. All civs were basically the same so none would've had to be banned. Perhaps Firaxis should add a MP option for everyone to play with blank civs with no abilities, UUs etc.

 

[Disgustipated]

Just as an aside, major thumbs down and a big "boo hiss" to those who voted "need more time to evaluate." That's not not what "First Impressions" means lol.

You can blame me for putting the poll option in. The only reason I did is I know a few players out there have busy family lives and I heard them say they can only get in like 1 game in 2 weeks. I'm just thankful I can play more than that. 2 weeks would drive me crazy. But to each their own. I wanted to be inclusive. But I say if you have at least 2 games under your belt, get off the fence and vote.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

You can blame me for putting the poll option in. The only reason I did is I know a few players out there have busy family lives and I heard them say they can only get in like 1 game in 2 weeks. I'm just thankful I can play more than that. 2 weeks would drive me crazy. But to each their own. I wanted to be inclusive. But I say if you have at least 2 games under your belt, get off the fence and vote.

Ha, no I was just kidding. My first impression was probably better than now when a little of the novelty has worn off--as you play a bit more you will see the issues a little more. But I think that's to be expected and I'm still having fun here.

 

[IvoryPavane]

In terms of balance Civ I or II were the best. Sure wonders were powerful but everyone had a chance to build them. All civs were basically the same so none would've had to be banned. Perhaps Firaxis should add a MP option for everyone to play with blank civs with no abilities, UUs etc.

I think multiplayer can (should?) be balanced by the players who are playing anyways.

As an example, we always have a veto each before we start playing so there are usually 7-8
Civs that are off limits taken out of the equation if people think they are a big issue. It’s been a while since I saw Nubia or Persia haha.

 

[Council 13]

6. Too many bugs, breaking things that have been fixed previously even. New civ's are overpowered compared to the others. Implementation of the World congress is confusing and messy IMO. Little improvement to the AI.. still worse than Civ V and at this point I'm getting concerned it will never get better.