Pre-Release CIV VI Discussion

[Bacchus]

I have to say the two Quill18 videos leave a mixed impression:

Three good things

1. Visual style. I hated the screenshots they showed on announcement, but actually this looks nice when zoomed out, and kinda Civ4-ish

2. Policy customisation — Civ4 civic system on steroids, seems you also get five branches, but way, way more options (which improve over time), and the ability to run multiple options in a single branch for different types of government (at the cost of restricting access in others).

3. Insta-built improvements. Takes away a really dull optimization task.

Three questionable things

1. Two tech trees, reliant on two different outputs, was this really necessary? Seems like a really crude way to increase decision space.

2. Workers are limited use, with 4 "charges" by default

3. Tech "quests" which can railroad all your gameplay to the technological beeline you chose to pursue

Three bad things

1. Road building mechanism which seemingly doesn't allow any discretion on where the roads go and maybe relies on diplomacy to build roads outwards.

2. Massive lottery in terms of terrain due to adjacency bonuses. Seems you can get as much as 50% of your science output from having a lucky set of nicely curving mountains in your starting area.

3. Faith. I thought this whole system was overblown in Civ5, taking up too much space, time and importance, and it looks like they ported it wholesale. Which makes sense, as this was Ed Beach's main baby, if I understand correctly.

Also, I think the massive adjacency bonuses to districts do ensure that horizontal expansion will be really pushed.

[Windsor]

2. Massive lottery in terms of terrain due to adjacency bonuses. Seems you can get as much as 50% of your science output from having a lucky set of nicely curving mountains in your starting area.

The normal singleplayer-focused maps in Civ4 are also a gigantic lottery. You can start with 3xGems and 2xCorn and lots of riverside or you could get a plains-cow start with no commerce in sight. I don't think the adjacency bonuses will rival that.

One small detail about the graphics, am I the only one who doesn't like that "light from the skies" when you select units? I really don't think it looks good in Civ5 and it doesn't seem to be much better in Civ6.

[HansLemurson]

Power flows directly from land area and the population to use it. If multiple smaller cities grow faster than one large city, then it will be in your interest (at least in the short term) to found as many cities as possible.

Then again, if each city is going to require a number of districts be used for its "maintenance", then building lots of cities will not be land efficient.

Classically what has made Big cities better than multiple smaller ones is production multipliers, allowing you to efficiently concentrate your development for maximum benefit. You don't want to have to build countless dozens of banks and universities in a myriad of tiny towns. Is very expensive. To limit the power of big-city efficiency (and allow technology to confer more benefits), cities were given growth limitations from happiness and rising costs for the next population.

If the districts don't give synergy to large cities, then I can see the land being carpeted. The density of the carpet will just depend on how the cost of a settler compares to the rate a city expands on its own.

[SevenSpirits]

I'm really impressed so far, the high-level changes line up almost perfectly with what I would have changed. The biggest thing I expect to be disappointed by is that I'm guessing they'll stick with a more civ-5 style tech tree with mostly 1-2 things per tech, rather than civ 4s which tends to have more than that. Still, they might have hit on the only possible way to get me to buy it. (I still haven't even looked at BNW.)

[Hail]

2. Policy customisation — Civ4 civic system on steroids, seems you also get five branches, but way, way more options (which improve over time), and the ability to run multiple options in a single branch for different types of government (at the cost of restricting access in others).

where did you get the info?
what quill18 was saying about governments(afaik, civic cards are inserted into slots that a government provides) is that Ed adopted the gene tonic and gene tonic slots (by type) mechanic from Bioshock for governments.

I actually suggested that two years ago.
Ed was reading realmsbeyond?

government & civics

the model that is in Bioshock with gene slots and such can be directly "borrowed".
a government is something vague like "autocracy" (rule of one), "aristocracy" (rule of a select "elite" group), "democracy" (rule of the people).

civics shall be grouped by categories as in civ4, but the difference is that the each *cracy shall have a different number of civic category slots.

for example, autocracy may have more military slots. democracy may have more finance slots.

most civics also differ by class: domestic civics affect your nation's pop in your cities (e.g. nationality = allegiance). foreign civics affect your nation's pop in cities belonging to other nations (e.g. nationality != allegiance). some civics may be universal.

3. Insta-built improvements. Takes away a really dull optimization task.

good change.

Three questionable things

1. Two tech trees, reliant on two different outputs, was this really necessary? Seems like a really crude way to increase decision space.

2. Workers are limited use, with 4 "charges" by default

3. Tech "quests" which can railroad all your gameplay to the technological beeline you chose to pursue

1. civ5 has two trees (tech & social policies). splitting one tree into several leads to those all trees becoming bland.
2. just lol. what is the point?
3. I see little player choice. just more take advantage of the map and maximize free stuff: more gameplay-on-rails. the casual gamer will love this!

Three bad things

1. Road building mechanism which seemingly doesn't allow any discretion on where the roads go and maybe relies on diplomacy to build roads outwards.

2. Massive lottery in terms of terrain due to adjacency bonuses. Seems you can get as much as 50% of your science output from having a lucky set of nicely curving mountains in your starting area.

3. Faith. I thought this whole system was overblown in Civ5, taking up too much space, time and importance, and it looks like they ported it wholesale. Which makes sense, as this was Ed Beach's main baby, if I understand correctly.

Also, I think the massive adjacency bonuses to districts do ensure that horizontal expansion will be really pushed.

1. wat? roads will be autobuild on tiles that will be traveled on by merchants. obviously that's bs.
2. wat? if (and it will) civ6 will have the same magnitude of building yields, the science district (Campus) will give like 1 bulb (in quill18's video, the Campus adds no bulb by itself) + 1 bulb for each adjacent mountain. that is up to 300% base yield bonus.
now add the multiplicative +50% library (build in the Campus) bonus on top.

If the districts don't give synergy to large cities, then I can see the land being carpeted. The density of the carpet will just depend on how the cost of a settler compares to the rate a city expands on its own.

large cities must constantly build stuff (a farm increases the pop housing by only 0.5) to house the evergrowing pop. better yet, civ6 adopted the Caesar mechanic that pop needs/wants more stuff as the house "upgrades". something along the lines that the 7th pop point and beyond will long for entertainment (build a colosseum!).

[Bacchus]

large cities must constantly build stuff (a farm increases the pop housing by only 0.5) to house the evergrowing pop.

Specifically, now that workers have limited charges, to get a city to grow, you must be constantly building workers. Given that marginal returns to tiles fall off massively, especially given the districts and their adjacency bonuses, making vertical growth lucrative will be a challenge. Very interested in seeing what the number-of-cities cost/malus is.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Heyo RB, haven't been here for a while, ground floor of the Civ6 thread. Here are some thoughts watching Quill18's video, all thoughts are preliminary and book covery:

• Not sure I workers having consumable charges: this turns a long-term strategic decision into a short term decision, and removes a source of conflict (worker kidnapping).
  
• Considering tile improvements compete with districts and wonders for tiles, they had better have big bonuses to yield, not the pissant +1 food or +1 hammer of Civ5 improvements, which makes them worth the time and hammer investment. there was a reason you almost always went worker first in Civ4
  
• Really dislike trade units being responsible for building roads, fuck you if i need to send trade units to the enemy just to get some freaking roads, and i cant even preemptively wire up the front with roads. at least roads seem to look nicer
  
• Decimal units for your empire-wide science/culture just looks weird
  
• Crossing rivers no longer consumes all actions, what a shame, i liked that from civ5
  
• Forest and hill tiles cost 2 moves to enter, but you need to have 2 moves available at the time you enter. This is going to feel really weird. I wonder how this is going to interact with war: will you be unable to attack if you don't have 2 full movepoints? Or can you still attack, but be unable to occupy the tile if the enemy is fully killed? That could work quite nicely, sometimes you don't want to occupy a tile and overextend your unit. And what will be the defensive bonus on hill/forest tiles? They might need to be higher than Civ5's, but not as high as Civ4's.
  
• Quite like the new tile graphics, everything pops Civ4 style, instead of muddy Civ5 style, from hills, to farms, to forests. Minimal "bleeding" between tiles, so you know where a hill ends and a flatland begins.
  
• Like unrevealed tiles having a paper theme, dislike the revealed but fogged tiles reverting to the paper theme instead of simply being darker "normal" tiles
  
• Tile overlays and naming is back, thank god
  
• Quite like techs getting boosts from performing behaviours on the field
  
• The civic/social policy system sounds pretty cool how you can mix and match, like an expanded version of civ4's. Unfortunately, it's going to be hell to balance, unless they go for strong bonuses in general, limited slots to play with, and easy reconfiguration
  
• Thank god buildings no longer cost upkeep, their hammer cost is already an opportunity cost
  
• I hope you can still raze badly placed cities and city states, but considering the district system, im not sure that would even be possible
  
• The "great wall" as described by quill sounds janky as hell, is it really going to stop building if your border suddenly extends? And will the wall occupy valuable productive land? What happens if there are mountain tiles you can't move workers onto?
  

[Hail]

large cities must constantly build stuff (a farm increases the pop housing by only 0.5) to house the evergrowing pop.

Specifically, now that workers have limited charges, to get a city to grow, you must be constantly building workers. Given that marginal returns to tiles fall off massively, especially given the districts and their adjacency bonuses, making vertical growth lucrative will be a challenge. Very interested in seeing what the number-of-cities cost/malus is.

yeah, I bet you Ed Beach will have one those EUREKA moments when civ6 releases and fans pick it apart.

most civ5 tiles receive marginal additions to yields when improved. probably that will persist in civ6, but now builders (workers) have 4 charges.

[Bacchus]

yeah, I bet you Ed Beach will have one those EUREKA moments when civ6 releases and fans pick it apart.

I've actually been thinking along the same lines that T-Hawk outlines above, in terms of games having a "natural path" and nowadays developers taking full advantage of it, so that the release is really only the first step in the life cycle of the game. Granted, I've been mostly thinking about this because of Stellaris, but I think especially with titles like Civ, which retain popularity over decades, this also works. It's probably fine for the balance to be absent somewhat lacking at release, the key factors are fun and robustness. Balance can be patched in as the community matures, and even having enthusiasts posting various videos of how this or that mechanic can be exploited in amusing ways actually serves to increase interest in the game.

At release novelty trumps strategic interest, albeit the latter still has to be present to a minimum level. As time goes on, getting the balance right is increasingly important, but actually it becomes easier to do with all the post-release feedback.

[T-hawk]

[*]Crossing rivers no longer consumes all actions, what a shame, i liked that from civ5

I hate hate hate this in Civ 5. This is the one biggest thing that throws me off when switching between 4 and 5. This rule does nothing whatsoever to improve the game. It only creates headache. It doesn't even add to war tactical strategy, there's no emergent concept of crossing a river to beachhead the far bank. It just exacerbates traffic jams. This rule is responsible for more of my reloads and wasted time than any other. Burn burn burn this atrocity.