Pre-Release CIV VI Discussion

[Bobchillingworth]

I mean, you have to have a valid Casus Belli to declare war with a minimum warmongering penalty. Straight up copy, but I think it's a good step.

Hmm. I wonder if that will matter. If the AI operates at all like it has for most of the history of the franchise, it'll be reluctant to declare on a player who has a powerful military. If the player is using said military to wage "unjust" wars or whatever, will the AI be willing to respond in kind?

[Magil]

I'm not a fan of the whole warmonger thing--though I think it'd be tolerable if the values were slashed considerably. Still... it's not as bad as Civ V's vanilla diplomacy, as some are suggesting. Remember, vanilla V actually hid the values (they are clearly shown here, and you are given warnings when you're going to incur a warmonger penalty), had things like the "pact of secrecy" which I never really understood what it did.

That's not a high bar to clear, admittedly. It's probably going to end up closer to post-expansion V in terms of "warmonger" hatred, but at least it'll be much more measurable and clear what you're doing, which I think is a rather important distinction. And the agendas also are things you can control and predict in terms of "am I about to piss off this Civ or that Civ".

RPS's article sounds more like the reviewer felt that they were receiving a lot of diplomatic information but didn't really feel like they could do anything with it. That may be the case, or it may be that using those reports takes a little more knowledge of the game and/or strategic savvy than the reviewer had at the time of writing. Some of the things you can learn via rumors and espionage are things that you would piece together from demographics and scores in previous titles--"this Civ has settled a new city" or "this Civ is building/has built X in Y city" or "this Civ has had X diplomatic action with Y Civ". I think many advanced players would find such information useful, particularly in multiplayer.

[LKendter]

I've got a 2-day old baby girl at home now (and a toddler, too). I simply won't have the time.

I'll check in on it, make a dumb joke or three. Maybe I can play in another one down the road a bit.


- Sirian

Congrats

[Sirian]

I'm not a fan of the whole warmonger thing--though I think it'd be tolerable if the values were slashed considerably.

That may be easily doable through a mod?

Day one would be too soon for that, even if there is lots of second-hand info. Anyone doing the numbers changes should first understand the starting numbers from the inside. (Anyone who has been testing the game pre-release, day one for them would have come a while ago, so if such a person is in our midst, perhaps they would be qualified soonest.)

- Sirian

[Magil]

I'm not a fan of the whole warmonger thing--though I think it'd be tolerable if the values were slashed considerably.

That may be easily doable through a mod?

Day one would be too soon for that, even if there is lots of second-hand info. Anyone doing the numbers changes should first understand the starting numbers from the inside. (Anyone who has been testing the game pre-release, day one for them would have come a while ago, so if such a person is in our midst, perhaps they would be qualified soonest.)

- Sirian

Yeah, and that's one reason why I wouldn't get too up in arms over it. Heck, modders for V even managed to fix the terrible tactical AI (which isn't to say it will beat skilled humans, but it at least doesn't make so many dumb moves and is capable of move+shoot) after a while. Simply adjusting the values for warmongering shouldn't be too much effort. I mean, it's somewhat bothersome that this kind of thing is what the devs are shooting for, but they seem very heavy-handed in punishing conquest diplomatically for whatever reason.

[Sirian]

Yeah, and that's one reason why I wouldn't get too up in arms over it. Heck, modders for V even managed to fix the terrible tactical AI (which isn't to say it will beat skilled humans, but it at least doesn't make so many dumb moves and is capable of move+shoot) after a while. Simply adjusting the values for warmongering shouldn't be too much effort. I mean, it's somewhat bothersome that this kind of thing is what the devs are shooting for, but they seem very heavy-handed in punishing conquest diplomatically for whatever reason.

From my perspective, the real problem with it is not how it curbs the human player, but how it curbs the AIs. (There can be no such thing as a Runaway AI civ if all the other crabs pull any successful militant back down in to the boiling pot with them.)

Civ3 has a plethora of flaws from today's perspective, but in its era it was highly innovative and put the franchise on track to survive another two decades, starting with the shift away from using local production from a city to maintain a unit, shifting instead to global maintenance using gold. Literally a franchise-saving design upgrade, there.

And one of Civ3's best components was the rise of the occasional Runaway AI, that swallowed others, grew huge and powerful, and was a beast to contend with, from huge tech leads to overwhelming stacks of doom.

Civ5 aimed to eliminate that sort of outcome altogether, from players or AIs, and Civ6 may do the same. But if there is enough room in the back door, perhaps an enterprising individual could tweak things around to bring back the occasional Runaway AI.


- Sirian

[Krill]

When is the release day? Three weeks today?

[picklepikkl]

Yes.

[Krill]

Right in time for half term!

I'm still not seeing an amazing MP game here, but I don't think that's too bad. Diplomacy seems weird though. KAI are important in SP but in MP? It's all economics and balanced units.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Due to the fact that you get access to the city right away like AoW3 you need the penalties to stop it from becoming a tactical wargame. You might as well just make it domination and space (so the game ends at the end of the tech tree). If they pair this with something like the city-maintenance system then it might be overkill.

Humans also tend not to waste time unlike AI. For this reason the game doesn't go to the end of the tech tree and the only way to win before that is domination. I get the sense that they will try and fix this by making the game as short as possible and making the ai not waste time (the ai seems to be very willing to go to war). This also helps mp and sp the same game.

Has anyone recorded how the foodbox size progresses over time?