Civ 6 Release and Update Discussion Thread

[Ranamar]

Another definitely-a-bug that I've confirmed after seeing it a couple times: if any of your siege units gets the Expert Crew promotion, they can all fire after moving.

This may be a matter of poorly-updated text than bugginess. The Spring 2017 patch changed things so that siege units can always attack after moving but require more than one remaining MP to do so (and Expert Crew lets them attack even with 1MP or less left). Are your tests being done in the presence of roads, generals, or the Logistics policy card?

Huh; I missed that change.  I'll dig up a save and experiment, because I was using those cards, but I could have sworn I managed to move and shoot with only 2 movement once.

[Krill]

Any news on pitboss?

[Bacchus]

My guess is that it's not going to happen. Civ 5's core wasn't amenable to it (all they could do is offer to run a full game with one player as observer), and I really doubt they spent any resources reworking it.

[yuris125]

Isn't Pitboss available in Civ5? Pretty sure I saw in the menu...

[Bacchus]

It's available, but only in the sense of a full game running on a GPU-endowed machine, with the host booked into a regular LAN game as an observer. That's the best they could do with the engine, and I can't say I'm too surprised. So it's called Pitboss in Civ5, but doesn't actually share the advantages of an actual pitboss. If Civ6 gets anything on this front, it would be the same, I reckon.

[Singaboy]

Going forward, I think we would need some 'house rules' for PBEM to remain interesting. There are too many factors that take the balance of the game. Of course, without Modding capabilities that is something pretty hard to do.

However, some things really need more balance (I am only listing some here):
- OP nations (not sure which ones are completely out of whack)
- OP buildings such as the Venetian Arsenal
- There really needs to be a proper counter to cavalry type units with a policy card to support the production (why are spearmen/pikes not getting any bonuses). At the moment, the first person to get a GG with horsemen is ruling the world.
- Stacking of Great Generals and Great Admirals (having stacked movement and strength is ridiculous with the way combat strength is calculated)

I do have a feeling though, that interest in Civ6 is waning. Am I correct with such assessment?

[Woden]

I 100% agree that anti-cavalry is lacking in the game right now. Spearman and Pikeman should be stronger than Horseman and Knights, not just equal. And there seems to be a hole between Pikes and AT Crew. Hopefully they get a buff in the next patch.

[Ichabod]

I don't think there's enough evidence to reach all these conclusions. We played 4 PBEMs (only 2 finished), hardly a decent sample size. While I agree that Venetian Arsenal is busted in a first glance (do I read it correctly that it applies the bonus for all cities, not only the one who built it?), I think a lot of these are cases where counter-play is possible, but players still don't know how to react.

I voiced my concerns about GG stacking in PBEM 2, but there was a fair counter-argument that getting those is a very steep investment. And the player that got them didn't win the game, after all. 

About horsemen, Oledavy defended a GG-led horsemen offensive in PBEM 2 and he was still in a very solid position to win that game afterwards.

Remember that if you make anti-cavalry stronger, you can end up making horses useless. And that anti-cavalry units get bonuses against 2 unit types (heavy and light cavalry), which is a nice bonus.

My opinion is that players right now are a bit too caught up on getting card discounts, which leads to a general lack of military units (as you only build them when you have the card, and you only have the card when you are planning an attack) and avoidance of units like spears. An army of horseman fighting an army of stray archers and warriors doesn't make the unit OP, it shows that the attacked player was outplayed.

[Singaboy]

GG stacking must go. Yes, it is not as easy to get a Great General as you got to either use up a policy card or build encampments and you don't really get those for half price.

However, England gets its docks for half the price and can easily build lots of them (remember the city doesn't even need to be coastal for it). Hence, it can build Great Admirals as a by product of harbors. Harbors have a lot of positive side effects such as trade routes. There is no reason not to build them as England. This is exactly what happened in PBEM4.

To fight against one Great Admiral is difficult enough, but still fine as Japan enjoys +5 strength on coastal tiles too. However, to have stacking is just madness.

Horseman would still have a strong advantage over other units due to the 4 tile movement. Melee units crawl around the land with 2 tile movements. Even a GG will help only so much as a 3 tile movement doesn't enable you to cross rivers and attack, to move through thick terrain and attack. Horsemen can easily do all that. Look at the way, I encircled the Norwegian capital in PBEM4 with my horsemen. There needs to be a viable counter.

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Remember that if you make anti-cavalry stronger, you can end up making horses useless. And that anti-cavalry units get bonuses against 2 unit types (heavy and light cavalry), which is a nice bonus.

It seems to me like a simple way to counter that is to make anti-cav extremely vulnerable to melee. Sure, the other guy can cram out a bunch of spears and make all those horses you have useless, but what if you've built horses backed by swordsmen? Well, then he needs swordsmen or archers of his own to counter, and so on. Ideally we'd want see players bringing a few horsemen in support of armies to go after archers and targets of opportunity, while the bulk of their troops are mixed. I think making mixed armies the strongest possible option is the way to go (it would also make the policy cards more interesting than the present "get the card for the One True Unit, cram out as many as possible, profit" strategy).  

Here's what I think needs to be done in a hypothetical RB Balance Mod to address Singaboy's concerns:

1)Something to fix the movement rules. The movement rules are responsible both for the strength of horsemen and the strength of navies, since these units can race around and bypass defenses easily.

2)Remove GG/GA stacking. "If an army led by Lee is great, and an army led by Grant is great, then an army led by Grant AND Lee must be twice as great!" Pure silliness. 

3)Something to boost spears/pikes/.../anti-tank against the units they're meant to counter. Something along the lines of even greater boosted strength against their counter, coupled with a vulnerability to some other units, in the interests of forcing players to build balanced armies to be competitive. 

I'm not sure about the VA - I'd like to see it in action first. Hell, in PBEM4, even if Dave does land it and it leads to an invincible fleet sweeping his opponents off the seas, I wouldn't be sure until I saw that One True Strategy happen twice. I certainly don't want naval maps to come down to "who can land the VA first," but I'm not convinced that's what will happen. I admit I could be biased here since I am dedlurking Dave in that game. 

For what it's worth, Singa, the PBEMs here have significantly boosted my interest in Civ 6. I thought I was largely done with the game before that, now I'm fascinated. I love the wild swings in fortune we've seen in the even-numbered PBEMs so far, and the tactical complexities that have arisen in the odds. I'm a sample size of one, though.