Pre-Release CIV VI Discussion

[HansLemurson]

I think that the new Civ6 looks interesting and should probably at least be better than 5.
I do think though that for good or ill it will represent the beginning of the end for the city-centric model that has been a staple of the franchise. I hope there will be less bucket-filling and more spatial strategy.

But one thing is certain: we will never get a Civ4 sequel from Firaxis.

[Hail]

I think that the new Civ6 looks interesting and should probably at least be better than 5.
I do think though that for good or ill it will represent the beginning of the end for the city-centric model that has been a staple of the franchise. I hope there will be less bucket-filling and more spatial strategy.

But one thing is certain: we will never get a Civ4 sequel from Firaxis.

Ed Beach clearly wants to simplify the decision tree. less is more where the casual gamer is concerned. it's great design from that PoV: build harbors on the coast, faith district near forests. the casual cannot go wrong here. civ6's design guides the player to victory. I applaud Ed for that. like combat? all combat experience goes toward research for a new shiny toy (unit type) to play with. awesome!

[Bacchus]

God bless reddit: https://m.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/4ivi..._articles/

Not sure how current this will stay, but at the moment appears to list all the mechanics/features that have been mentioned to date.

[Dantski]

One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet is that the screenshots show cliffs on some coastlines, does this mean you won't be able to disembark onto some tiles? Or is this just for looks and won't have any impact on gameplay?

[Bacchus]

I just looked on Steam stats, and Civ V has 27 million hours logged in the last 30 days, with peak number of players at 88 thousand. That's more players than anything save Dota and Counter-Strike. And 10 million more hours than Fallout 4.

This has me wondering, if something like Civ 4 was released during the Steam era, would the stats be similarly impressive? Or is expanded Civ V really uniquely good at what it does?

[Gaspar]

I just looked on Steam stats, and Civ V has 27 million hours logged in the last 30 days, with peak number of players at 88 thousand. That's more players than anything save Dota and Counter-Strike. And 10 million more hours than Fallout 4.

This has me wondering, if something like Civ 4 was released during the Steam era, would the stats be similarly impressive? Or is expanded Civ V really uniquely good at what it does?

I would guess any of the Civs would have those kind of stats on Steam in their heyday. The one more turn meme dates back to the first game - the concept is incredibly addictive.

That's not to knock 5, of course. But the star has always been the concept.

[Hail]

I just looked on Steam stats, and Civ V has 27 million hours logged in the last 30 days, with peak number of players at 88 thousand. That's more players than anything save Dota and Counter-Strike. And 10 million more hours than Fallout 4.

This has me wondering, if something like Civ 4 was released during the Steam era, would the stats be similarly impressive?

civ4 would have had a much bigger player base.

Or is expanded Civ V really uniquely good at what it does?

civ5 is a much better casual game: the gap between good and bad play is much less, streamlined combat, terrible AI, core mechanics are more up-front (maintenance vs happiness), more free stuff, culture made relevant (social policies).

[HansLemurson]

I think that despite my misgivings about it, Civ5 would still do better than a modern release of Civ4 (assuming released side by side with comparable marketing). Most players of games are noobs, and most noobs prefer passive builder strategies to those that are more actively combative and competitive. Civ5 facilitates this much better than Civ4 does, and so would seem "more fun" to a lot of people. Civ4's combat was also a little on the bland side, and in Civ5 you will almost never lose a unit in a favorable fight to a bad roll (another frequent complaint: "how could my 90% chance of victory fail?").

[Borsche]

I'm happy with not. The real world has plenty of land that isn't settled. Civ 4 can get rather degenerate in allowing everything to be profitable with enough per-city trade routes and corporations and specialists.

Good god. Do people actually play on map sizes that big? Talk about a late-game slog! Standard is the largest I ever go nowadays...also because my computer would probably crash with anything larger.

I agree, though, about Civ4 getting a little silly in the late game with size-20 tundra cities being fed by corps and farms. In my own personal mod, I've changed tundra to yield no base food, and to require fresh water to build anything other than forts or windmills. It still allows you to build in the tundra near rivers and lakes in the lategame, but there is less incentive to plop down random cities in the middle of nowhere.

The screenshot posted is a little disingenuous because that's a specific variant T-Hawk played in order to maximize ingame score through the largest map setting + big/small mapscript and sid's sushi. Generally, late game (against the AI at least) isn't going to look like that because, while each new city does turn an immediate profit, that profit becomes a smaller and smaller fraction of the whole empire to the point where it isn't necessary (from a game winning perspective at least. T-Hawk could've won that game far earlier if he wasn't farming).

That said, having a 'limit' on the number of cities you're forced to manage is preferable (though this already exists somewhat in terms of what map size you prefer to play on). No one wants to micro 50+ cities. I do think Civ5's larger city radius is beneficial for this; Civ4 discouraged ICS to a very healthy degree but having overlapping cities is generally so good in the early game that you do see a skew towards it anyway.

[Sirian]

No one wants to micro 50+ cities.

There is a dimension to huge maps that just isn't there on regular and small maps. And it is indeed an ambrosia worth the burden of managing a high number of cities -- when you are in the mood for it. You don't get any special rules or consideration vs smaller maps, so your settlers aren't cheaper, have farther to walk, and don't grow the cities any faster. You don't get relief from military pressures, research pressures, wonder-building issues, and there is more open space in which to spawn barbarians, which you have to contend with. Extra time spent building more settlers means slower progression in your core cities than occurs on smaller maps. You catch a glimpse of the tradeoffs in Civ4 when you are expanding to 6 or 7 cities, but they are a lot more intricate when you are expanding to 20+ cities just to grab your fair share of the land. The ambrosia is sweeter when the game provides more pressures, to where you risk collapse if expanding too fast, neglecting other things in the process.

Civ3 was the last civ title to support this flavor, and I miss it significantly. Not that I played it every game, but some of my most memorable games were on Huge maps, because I remember triumphs and tragedies involving that 17th or 18th city on the border, where the risks were high and the gains were low and fortune favored the bold. When you are rewarded not penalized for reaching for small gains, they can be some of the sweetest, because they can't be found on the roads most traveled.

Civ4 and Civ5 both took a pass on supporting huge-map play. It's an outcome of lead designers who themselves did not play and appreciate -- or even understand the subtleties of -- the huge maps: that there is more to them than just bigger numbers.

The big maps have their down sides, too, and only crazy people play *only* huge maps. But to lose the option to play that occasional huge map and dive in deeper-- The franchise is poorer off for not supporting huge maps any more.

If Civ6 has made room for supporting huge maps once again, I'd buy it on that basis alone (even pre-buy it!), just to see how the unstacked city concept plays out on a grand scale.


- Sirian