Civ 6 Release and Update Discussion Thread

[Brian Shanahan]

I'm hearing a lot in this thread that makes me think the game is not worth buying just like five. First of all is Sullla's nemesis, "potential", lots of people are saying things like "if they beef up the meaningful choices at x in the tech/culture tree; improve game mechanic y; fix holes in the AI at z, then this game could be good". That's something that I'd expect the designers to get largely right from out of the box (why is it that games are one of the few areas in consumer culture where half arsed and defective products don't cause the makers trouble?)

Second, it looks like too many of the issues with base five have crept back into the game. AI still doesn't know the mechanics, still doesn't expand, diplomacy is still a crap shoot &c. for a long ways.

And finally, I still cannot see 1UPT doing anything but break the empire building part of the game. It is still attempting to make a mechanic which is fundamentally incompatible with the series philosophy the central focus of the game. For example, the city districts the thought just struck me "what if they weren't included to give strategic depth to cities (frankly I can't see how they do), but to disguise the lack of differentiation in tile yields and inutility in improving tiles?

I honestly cannot see the game lasting in the community, except as a very niche game for varianting.

[Staltran]

Well, someone has a theory why districts get to be so damned expensive:

https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/58...h=4de1863d

Short version: He thinks it's a bug

I've heard that districts go up in cost with every tech and civic you discover. The specialty districts all have CostProgressionModel="COST_PROGRESSION_NUM_UNDER_AVG_PLUS_TECH" CostProgressionParam1="25", and the non-specialty ones like neighborhoods have  CostProgressionModel="COST_PROGRESSION_GAME_PROGRESS" CostProgressionParam1="1000". Those names do sound like tech/civics would increase costs, but the CostProgressionModels seem to be hardcoded so I can't say for sure.

District projects (the ones that give you gpp) have CostProgressionModel="COST_PROGRESSION_GAME_PROGRESS" CostProgressionParam1="1500" and 
Points="10" PointProgressionModel="COST_PROGRESSION_GAME_PROGRESS" PointProgressionParam1="800"

[Dp101]

The difference with the potential comment though that while in civ V it felt like most of the mechanics were 50% of the way to good, civ VI has most mechanics at 90% to good. Districts just need scaling yields when worked, and they will become an excellent mechanic rather than a merely good one. GP need to have slight buffs to the weaker choices, and they will be excellent too. The weaker civics need a small numerical boost to be able to compete with the better ones, and governments need to gain legacy bonuses faster. The thing is, other that 1UPT the game has a good base, the district adjacency bonuses and wonder location requirements require a large amount of planning, the Civ bonuses are flavourful and impactful (although some need a nerf like Rome/England), the trading post system limits your trading in a way that makes sense, and the game is almost bug-free. No one was expecting a competent AI, but AI isn't why we play these games. Overall, I feel you are being overly harsh on the game, although I will eat my words if the patches change things for the worse.

[AdrienIer]

I'm hearing a lot in this thread that makes me think the game is not worth buying just like five. First of all is Sullla's nemesis, "potential", lots of people are saying things like "if they beef up the meaningful choices at x in the tech/culture tree; improve game mechanic y; fix holes in the AI at z, then this game could be good". That's something that I'd expect the designers to get largely right from out of the box (why is it that games are one of the few areas in consumer culture where half arsed and defective products don't cause the makers trouble?)

Second, it looks like too many of the issues with base five have crept back into the game. AI still doesn't know the mechanics, still doesn't expand, diplomacy is still a crap shoot &c. for a long ways.

And finally, I still cannot see 1UPT doing anything but break the empire building part of the game. It is still attempting to make a mechanic which is fundamentally incompatible with the series philosophy the central focus of the game. For example, the city districts the thought just struck me "what if they weren't included to give strategic depth to cities (frankly I can't see how they do), but to disguise the lack of differentiation in tile yields and inutility in improving tiles?

I honestly cannot see the game lasting in the community, except as a very niche game for varianting.

I disagree. The potential of civ 6 is right there in front of us. If you tweak a few variables (doable through a mod even) it will be a good game. In civ 5 the potential was more "if you work on it for 3 years full time it could be a good game, maybe". I hear that it's the prince AI that is terrible, and that it's acceptable in higher difficulties (even just at king or emperor)
Also if we're going to start playing this game in MP the AI isn't super important.

An area where 6 is far superior to 5 is that you have a ton of actually good tiles (8 food tiles in the late game, mines start at 2/2/0 on a grassland hill but end up 2/4/0 later, some resources are 4/1/2 etc...)

[Brian Shanahan]

The difference with the potential comment though that while in civ V it felt like most of the mechanics were 50% of the way to good, civ VI has most mechanics at 90% to good. Districts just need scaling yields when worked, and they will become an excellent mechanic rather than a merely good one. GP need to have slight buffs to the weaker choices, and they will be excellent too. The weaker civics need a small numerical boost to be able to compete with the better ones, and governments need to gain legacy bonuses faster. The thing is, other that 1UPT the game has a good base, the district adjacency bonuses and wonder location requirements require a large amount of planning, the Civ bonuses are flavourful and impactful (although some need a nerf like Rome/England), the trading post system limits your trading in a way that makes sense, and the game is almost bug-free. No one was expecting a competent AI, but AI isn't why we play these games. Overall, I feel you are being overly harsh on the game, although I will eat my words if the patches change things for the worse.

Lots of people were saying the same thing about five as well (hell,even today we've got people that are willing to argue that 1UPT is a good fit for civ style games even now). And frankly, the idea that mechanics will be fixed in patches is very much contrary to past experience. If the AI is broken now, firaxis won't fix it to make the game harder, they'll nerf the strongest player strategies.

Oh and most of the problems being discussed are problems abundantly evident in civ 5. If over the cours of six years you can't figure out how to fix a mechanic, you drop it, not ignore the problem.

My prediction: the people who are talking about potential today will either quietly drop the game or still be talking about the same things having the same potential six months from now.

[yuris125]

The difference between 5 and 6 is, 5 had potential to progress from unplayable garbage to an ok game. Which it realised and exceeded - I do enjoy playing BNW despite all its flaws. 6 has potential to progress from good game to excellent one, not hitting the level of 4 mostly because of 1upt. 6 on release is a better game than 5 in its final form

[Jkaen]

Everybody is moaning here about the minor things because thats what we do.

1- we are currently missing things in the UI, we will learn where they are
2- we can't build everything we want to in cities - good that means we have decisions to make
3- Prince AI isnt very good - who cares when you play MP games

Compare this with the holy grail which is civ 4 on this board (at release) and it holds up just fine

[Gazglum]

Hello all!

I agree with a lot of what is being said, but thought I’d add my 2 cents after spending the weekend with this.

First of all, I was shocked that I could play it at all. Judging by the specs, I expected the game not to run on my 4 year old laptop, but on small maps and low graphics it runs just fine. So good news for anybody who was unsure about their hardware capacity.

Second, the game is obviously doing some things right, because I’ve already gone through two games and discarded two more early, and I can feel the pull to go back to it. I’m having a lot of fun working out the intricacies of the system. I remember trying Civ V at launch and feeling like the system was so broken that I wasn’t having fun. There is a lot still wrong in Civ VI, but mostly it feels like problems that could be tweaked in patches or mods, rather than a game with a fundamentally broken structure.

Good points:
-          City states were my favourite change in Civ V, and they are improved here. The AI will compete properly for them.
-          Trade routes making roads is brilliant
-          Splitting science and culture is clever, and I like the possibilities for tech heavy/low cultures empires and vice versa.
-          Limited use builders a big improvement on previous systems
-          Something interesting to do every turn

I’ve been playing on Emperor, and the AI is better in some ways than I expected. I think it handles the Ancient Era really well, I like the early attacks, and twice I had Warrior Carpets of Doom take early cities from me (Philip II both times).

But in my two full games, I never had an AI attack me once after the ancient era. This may be a random quirk, but it has made the games feel like boring Solitaire. I am regularly denounced, but no invasions, so I just have a few archers in my border cities and otherwise ignore the AI. I have never felt the need to build a barracks, and it makes the tech tree boring because all the unit upgrades feel irrelevant. The AI does seem to be able to keep up ok in tech, and does fight among itself a bit, which is promising. I’m sure this can be improved by mods.

A key fix is needed to make AI prioritise strategic resources. Or cheat and give them free upgrades. Otherwise they cannot possibly be a threat late game.

A lot of people say that it takes too long to build anything. I think production is ok, but you just have to focus on it above all else. Beeline to industrial districts, and then use them in every city to construct the other districts. It’s not unbalanced that way, but it is kind of boring.
 
Bad points
- Splitting the tech trees seems better in theory than practice. My science and culture advance at almost the same rate, so I’m not feeling the difference.
- The UI is bad, and the map is hard to read.
- Assigning citizens is a nightmare, so I have just given up and left it to the Mayor, who seems to make pretty good choices.
- Techs are boring, and too samey. Example: in Civ IV you have the Market/Grocer choice. Both improve money, but one improves health and one happiness. In Civ VI the buildings have only one order of construction, and each one is just ‘the same but better’.


For me, my biggest problem is a kind of abstract one. I play Civ to roleplay history, and to see the story of my civilisation unfold. The new district system is an interesting intellectual puzzle, but it feels like a board game, not a history simulator. Trying to find a magic science mountain for my campus, or calculating tile adjaciences for cheesing factories does not make me feel like a Emperor, it makes me feel like I’m playing Sudoku. And I think this problem will be magnified when they finally have an Earth Map, where I want to really focus on the sweep of nations. I want to watch the Aztecs spread their rule across the whole of South America, not have all the hexes turn into city buildings, and spend my time on city planning.

The focus has become the cities, not the Empire. And because my focus then stays on the heartland rather than the borders, I feel like I am not properly interacting with the AIs either.

Anyway, I give it 7.5/10 so far. I think it has the foundations to be a pretty interesting multiplayer game too, and I would be very keen to see some multiplayer reports.

[Old Harry]

Oh, if it didn't happen on the first run but has on all subsequent runs, it's probably worth deleting any settings files it has created, in case it's having trouble loading those.

Bingo - I renamed my C:\Users\Windows\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization VI\ folder and it works just fine... Although actually its possible that my screwing around with the adventure save game file in a text editor to try to let me play it without the Aztec DLC caused the problem.

I'll probably get a new graphics card anyway, its running a bit slow generally and I've had a couple of crashes.

[Soren Johnson]

AI was never going to be competitive on prince against an experienced player

The AI did cheat on Prince even in Civ4. I'm sure someone will find at least one thing.

MJW on "breaking growth"

Didn't matter in Civ1&2 because the AI was so bad.
Civ3's corruption was okay. It stopped the game from ending just because you killed one guy. Crap cities could also give you extra gold and stuff too which felt good because you could cheat the system.
Civ4's maintenance was the worst because the game lies to you. As T-Hawk says you're getting scammed anyway.
Civ5's happiness didn't matter in the end because they inflated so hard and tacked on the research penalty. This makes new cities useless after a certain point and you just cannot take some more because the AIs will hate you forever even if you just kill one. Civ3 is the best by default so far.  
Don't know how I feel about Civ6 but it won't be the worst because it doesn't lie to you.  

Off to the game! I won't read anything more until I'm done. I should mention that LP is probably the best guy in my bracket.

Genuine question because I've forgotten - how did Civ4's maintenance model lie to you?