Pre-Release CIV VI Discussion

[picklepikkl]

It would be nice if formations "wheeled" gracefully; let's say you have a three-unit formation of a melee and two archers in the obvious triangle. Because units can't share spaces and must move sequentially, rotating is an awkward multi-move endeavor instead of the obvious single move it should be. I really hope that's the sort of thing they're talking about making possible, as opposed to just "you can issue gotos to a group of units instead of just one at a time!"

[LKendter]

Well the passion for the Civ concept is still alive based on how fast people are posting here. It is a question if we can ever get another Civ 3 / 4 type of game.

[Ichabod]

It would be nice if formations "wheeled" gracefully; let's say you have a three-unit formation of a melee and two archers in the obvious triangle. Because units can't share spaces and must move sequentially, rotating is an awkward multi-move endeavor instead of the obvious single move it should be. I really hope that's the sort of thing they're talking about making possible, as opposed to just "you can issue gotos to a group of units instead of just one at a time!"

If they implement a nice feature like you've described, it's likely we'll have an AI that can also move their units intelligently (as I understand of how an AI works, I may be completely off here). That seems like a very worthy effort for the team.

Though something tells me we'll only get the gotos.

[Wyatan]

Well the passion for the Civ concept is still alive based on how fast people are posting here. It is a question if we can ever get another Civ 3 / 4 type of game.

We might.
But that would have to come from the Indie scene. There's zero chance for a AAA game of that kind.

[picklepikkl]

If they implement a nice feature like you've described, it's likely we'll have an AI that can also move their units intelligently (as I understand of how an AI works, I may be completely off here). That seems like a very worthy effort for the team.

Though something tells me we'll only get the gotos.

I mean, maybe. I wasn't expecting "the AI will understand functional groupings and how to use them," though certain basics seem easy enough to build in. Rather, I was imagining selecting a formation, dragging a unit to a hex currently occupied by another member of the formation, and seeing the formation trade hexes in such a way that the relative organization of the formation is preserved. That seems simple enough with the toy example I provided, but the edge cases are a beast for this sort of thing; how do you march the formation through choke points? If the formation is three hexes wide (let's imagine seven units in a filled circle), can I swap the center unit with one of the perimeter units? How many moves does it take to about-face the entire thing?

Hopefully they have interesting ways to address these issues; the only thing worse than an explicitly clunky control scheme is a control scheme that's meant to be smooth but constantly misinterprets your intentions.

[Sian]

Between continuing with the 1UPT and city improvements now occupying map space, the series is increasingly coming to resemble Warlock: Master of the Arcane. Warlock was actually a very solid combat-oriented 4X game, but it was incredibly shallow compared to Civ IV.


Also that RPS article talking about 1UPT as if it was some sort of revolutionary fucking concept is genuinely rage-worthy.

Yeah ... the first thing i thought of was Warlock: Master of the Arcane. Competent but not terribly deep ... If they actually manage to pull that one off, while making the pool deeper, it could be interesting, although I'll question how much Civ it is by that point

[SevenSpirits]

“You can’t just burn through the tech tree the same way in every game because the map is going to force you to think through things.”

That's worrisome, coming from the lead designer. Forcing people in a strategy/decision-based game seems a bit like an oxymoron.

The generous interpretation is "We have put extra effort into making sure that there is not one right strategy; more than ever, you'll have to adapt to the circumstances of your particular game situation, ensuring that the decisions players face are new each time."

The pessimistic interpretation is "We have made the differences in value due to circumstance super obvious so that even bad players will notice it. Experienced players might feel bludgeoned over the head with obvious 'choices', but new players will be challenged to follow their own path each game rather than following a single, prescribed strategy. Or at least it will feel like that - really it will be the path that we have chosen for them."

IMO this is something they could do well or poorly. It sounds poor so far (i.e. the situational bonuses sound too high) but I don't think we know enough yet. It might turn out to be just the kind of thing RB would appreciate.

[SevenSpirits]

City improvements on the map is something I've been favoring for a long time. That's probably the part I'm most curious about how they do.

[Sareln]

I'm curious what their map-tile counts will look like. A lot of the stuff on their feature list describe using tiles for cities, tech, warfare, etc, but we all remember the traffic jams... if they took what was a hex in CIV V and made it 7 hexes in CIV VI, that might give them more space to work with...

[Sareln]

Added links (on the 1st post) to the time article and the pcgamer interview, which I found more thorough reads than the RPS article I initially posted.