Civ 6 Release and Update Discussion Thread

[Sirian]

(Civ5 city state quests have been poked many times by now, but they're a prime piece of evidence for how bad random eurekas would be)

Having four Eurekas per node would improve the feature. One "Easy", two "Medium", and one "Hard" -- then balance out how many Hard and Easy are distributed per game, differ them for each civ playing, prevent the player from knowing what Eurekas the AI might be chasing and might or might not have obtained, and let the mix of Eurekas be different and interesting from one game to the next. Nothing crazy or stupid, and players can expect not to get every Eureka at will all the time.

The Civ5 CS quest thing is a straw man. Sure, if done wrong, Eurekas could look like that. But that's not a reason to leave them shallow and have them become tiresome quickly.


- Sirian

[T-hawk]

too random I think ... you may not have a natural wonder nearby

It sounds here like one person's "too random" is another person's "play the map".

[rho21]

Right now (not owning the game), many of the boosts I've seen seem to be along the lines of rewarding specialisation. e.g. Apprenticeship boost requires 3 mines (i.e. an investment into production) and opens up industrial districts to produce more production.

One of the best design ideas I've heard is to try to have the boosts require things the tech/civic they make cheaper in turn provides a bonus towards. For example, suppose there was a civic that opened up a card providing +production to city walls. The inspiration for that civic would be building a city wall. That gives you a (potentially) interesting choice: should you spend valuable production on a city wall to boost the tech, or are you better served paying the full science cost so that you can make use of the production boost when building that wall? Your choice will change from game to game depending on how much relative production and science you have, and how urgently you need walls.

[Borsche]

Right now (not owning the game), many of the boosts I've seen seem to be along the lines of rewarding specialisation. e.g. Apprenticeship boost requires 3 mines (i.e. an investment into production) and opens up industrial districts to produce more production.

One of the best design ideas I've heard is to try to have the boosts require things the tech/civic they make cheaper in turn provides a bonus towards. For example, suppose there was a civic that opened up a card providing +production to city walls. The inspiration for that civic would be building a city wall. That gives you a (potentially) interesting choice: should you spend valuable production on a city wall to boost the tech, or are you better served paying the full science cost so that you can make use of the production boost when building that wall? Your choice will change from game to game depending on how much relative production and science you have, and how urgently you need walls.

One of the problems with them is that they move back and forth a little bit too much between Civ5-esque mindless city state requests (get a boost for building a mine on iron. well of course i'm gonna do that) and actual interesting strategies (one that i'm upset they didn't do would be a civic and a tech that give bonuses to each other: ie Researching Tech A gives a bonus to Civic B, and researching Civic B gives a bonus to Tech A, so you can't get both bonuses in the same game and you have to decide which bonus makes more sense for your economy). 

Another is definitely that some of them are a little too map reliant. People call this "playing the map" as T-Hawk said, but you're already playing the map. If you start by the coast, you're going to research seafaring techs anyway, you don't need a bonus to incentivize that. And having certain games where certain wonders are cut off specifically because of the map veers a little to far off into Conquests Statue of Zeus territory for me (although that's more of a balance thing)

Lastly the biggest problem is that the bonus is way too big. 50% of the tech makes science feel so weak and makes the campus such a low priority.

[Borsche]

On a much more fundamental level, I think my problem with the eureka bonuses is the same as my problem with the civics tree, where I can't really see the point of it. A lot of what they're trying to encourage with stuff like eureka the civics tree could've been solved by having a single balanced tech tree that had interesting techs and paths that would cause the player to make meaningful decisions.

The designers wanted eureka bonuses in the game because too many people were beelining certain techs in previous games, and thought that eureka bonuses would allow for players to research based on what the map gave them. Not realizing, of course, that the player always researched techs based on their situation anyway, and if there were certain techs being beelined, it was because those techs were too powerful, and other techs on the tree weren't useful enough.

Most of the current complaints I've seen about the tree complain that there aren't enough interesting techs later in the tree, and this is especially true in the civics tree where most civics unlock just a couple of cards (that are, themselves, generally pretty boring or passive). Just take a look at this part of the tech tree:



If you combined the civics and tech trees, then you would have more interesting stuff that you could unlock, making for more interesting decisions. Being able to research the techs and civics simultaneously means that you need TWO separate trees that are full of interesting decisions, which is such a herculean task that I'm not sure why they put themselves through it. I suppose the idea is that the player generally has to focus on either science or culture, but this isn't really the case (especially as eurekas wipe out 50% of the cost). It's very easy to maintain basically the same rate of research.

[HansLemurson]

But if everything is researchable with just Blue-Science, then what will Purple-Science be for? You gotta do SOMETHING with it, right? What's the point of an income if it can't fill a bucket? You have to make a bucket for it to fill, even if it doesn't work with the rest of the game.

What if Culture were the currency you had to spend to switch Governments and Policies?

[Gaspar]

Trade routes, per route, can add production to the city? (Food too?) That could be a deal breaker for me as a player.

Soren started the trend (in Civ4) of offering up non-commerce currencies from non-map sources. It started with the specialists and great people. (I know the specialists have been in from the beginning, but they were commerce-only options and nearly always a more poor option as a scientist or financier than working a tile. Using some as Elvis was a flexibility that allowed any given city to not have to conform 100% to what the best luxury tax rate might be for the empire on the whole. The original specialists were a grand mechanic!)

Jon expanded it in Civ5, with maritime city states, with granaries, and more.

Moving on to incorporating it in to trade routes, which become a focus of upward expansion, does not sound to me like what I am looking for from an empire game.


The districts might be a feature I would enjoy. But so far, what I'm hearing is "factory district" "trade district" and the rest are for niche victory pursuits. If there's a gem in there, it is far, far from polished.

Can managing the districts create enough interaction with the map to make every map experience its own unique flavor? If the trade routes are just a multiplier on the yields coming from the land, then perhaps. But specialists are still in. Great people are still in. AND we have these other sources of yields that are not coming from the tiles.

I will eventually experience Civ6 for myself -- but I was over three years late on Civ2.

I miss having 4X games that let you play the map, rather than having all these contrivances cooked up by designers to create shiny objects that play the same from one game to the next. (Eurekas? WOW. Talk about a replay killer. That one feels like it was catered to the Earth Map crowd, who want to perfect a single experience rather than explore and adapt to the unknown.)


- Sirian

First let me say I enjoyed reading Sullla's report and it echoed a lot of my thinking generically on the game, particularly that you don't have to squint nearly as hard to see the good game in here as you did in Civ5.

More specifically, on Sirian's point - I think the way the map works is one of my biggest frustrations in Civ6. The trade routes are map dependent to a certain extent, and while they are the be all and end all of any Science victory, or really anything other than fastest finish type stuff, to get them to be super strong you really do need at least a good couple of cities, with the right improved tiles and so on. That said, after that, the routes become very reminiscent of corportations in Civ4 single player, where magical food/production made even the most marginal site not only productive, but amazing. If you really expand hard, build the appropriate districts everywhere, its pretty trivial to have 20-30 trade routes steroiding up even the crummiest locations. Gold is also so easy to come by that lack of inital production doesn't matter - you build the districts, probably via overpowered chopping + the production from routes and simply buy every relevant building - no reason to construct anything in the new cities the hard way. While it may mirror modernity to some extent, with high powered economies driving all forms of growth and actual terrain being less relevant, it seems out of place in a 4X game.

My other point, which maybe I'm alone in, is that I think the maps themselves are pretty mediocre. It shipped with almost no map-types and there isn't a lot of variety from game to game. The adventure is actually one of the more interesting maps I've seen actually, as the utter lack of rivers in the start locations meant that you had to be a lot more creative settling than in most games, where it usually is a matter of squeezing as many sites as possible along rivers, settling for next to lakes if that's not an option and plunking on the coast only when either a needed resource is handy or you have nowhere else to expand. The distribution of strategic resources is awful, leading to the problem Sullla discussed in his report - specifically that the AI basically never get to upgrade their melee and cavalry units. (This is also partly an issue of not enough units in each line in the game - there really should be at least one in each class per era and the warrior > sword > musket > infantry > mech inf path is particularly bad because of the strategic resource scenario.) There are other issues as well, but the maps don't feel as well constructed as 4 or 5.

Sirian's description of the Earth map crowd is apt, even if the game didn't ship with one. A lot of the game is catered to them, as in 5. The nice thing this time though is that the game probably has enough going that those of us who want a unique experience each game probably will have fun eventually. It might take patches or mods, but there's definitely a lot more meat here than in the last game. I think it needs a lot of fleshing out though, and I wouldn't recommend it to someone who was a strategy player and didn't want to wait for those to occur.

[Gaspar]

On a much more fundamental level, I think my problem with the eureka bonuses is the same as my problem with the civics tree, where I can't really see the point of it. A lot of what they're trying to encourage with stuff like eureka the civics tree could've been solved by having a single balanced tech tree that had interesting techs and paths that would cause the player to make meaningful decisions.

The designers wanted eureka bonuses in the game because too many people were beelining certain techs in previous games, and thought that eureka bonuses would allow for players to research based on what the map gave them. Not realizing, of course, that the player always researched techs based on their situation anyway, and if there were certain techs being beelined, it was because those techs were too powerful, and other techs on the tree weren't useful enough.

Most of the current complaints I've seen about the tree complain that there aren't enough interesting techs later in the tree, and this is especially true in the civics tree where most civics unlock just a couple of cards (that are, themselves, generally pretty boring or passive). Just take a look at this part of the tech tree:



If you combined the civics and tech trees, then you would have more interesting stuff that you could unlock, making for more interesting decisions. Being able to research the techs and civics simultaneously means that you need TWO separate trees that are full of interesting decisions, which is such a herculean task that I'm not sure why they put themselves through it. I suppose the idea is that the player generally has to focus on either science or culture, but this isn't really the case (especially as eurekas wipe out 50% of the cost). It's very easy to maintain basically the same rate of research.

What's interesting there is that most of that snippet of the tree is about war but the game strongly penalizes war in that era, to the point that I hear AIs pretty much refuse to declare war in it. And a player would only declare war in that era in SP in extreme circumstances, since it would destroy all the diplomacy. (This is the 1000000th time someone suggests the warmonger and war weariness penalties by era are too severe.)

[Borsche]

On a much more fundamental level, I think my problem with the eureka bonuses is the same as my problem with the civics tree, where I can't really see the point of it. A lot of what they're trying to encourage with stuff like eureka the civics tree could've been solved by having a single balanced tech tree that had interesting techs and paths that would cause the player to make meaningful decisions.

The designers wanted eureka bonuses in the game because too many people were beelining certain techs in previous games, and thought that eureka bonuses would allow for players to research based on what the map gave them. Not realizing, of course, that the player always researched techs based on their situation anyway, and if there were certain techs being beelined, it was because those techs were too powerful, and other techs on the tree weren't useful enough.

Most of the current complaints I've seen about the tree complain that there aren't enough interesting techs later in the tree, and this is especially true in the civics tree where most civics unlock just a couple of cards (that are, themselves, generally pretty boring or passive). Just take a look at this part of the tech tree:



If you combined the civics and tech trees, then you would have more interesting stuff that you could unlock, making for more interesting decisions. Being able to research the techs and civics simultaneously means that you need TWO separate trees that are full of interesting decisions, which is such a herculean task that I'm not sure why they put themselves through it. I suppose the idea is that the player generally has to focus on either science or culture, but this isn't really the case (especially as eurekas wipe out 50% of the cost). It's very easy to maintain basically the same rate of research.

What's interesting there is that most of that snippet of the tree is about war but the game strongly penalizes war in that era, to the point that I hear AIs pretty much refuse to declare war in it.  And a player would only declare war in that era in SP in extreme circumstances, since it would destroy all the diplomacy.  (This is the 1000000th time someone suggests the warmonger and war weariness penalties by era are too severe.)

All diplo is destroyed from the get go and all the AIs will denounce you for pretty much anything and everything so, as long as you don't have an insanely undefended border, feel free to go nuts and declare war all you want because the AI still doesn't know how to field units (or upgrade them)

[Borsche]

Trade routes, per route, can add production to the city? (Food too?) That could be a deal breaker for me as a player.

Soren started the trend (in Civ4) of offering up non-commerce currencies from non-map sources. It started with the specialists and great people. (I know the specialists have been in from the beginning, but they were commerce-only options and nearly always a more poor option as a scientist or financier than working a tile. Using some as Elvis was a flexibility that allowed any given city to not have to conform 100% to what the best luxury tax rate might be for the empire on the whole. The original specialists were a grand mechanic!)

Jon expanded it in Civ5, with maritime city states, with granaries, and more.

Moving on to incorporating it in to trade routes, which become a focus of upward expansion, does not sound to me like what I am looking for from an empire game.


The districts might be a feature I would enjoy. But so far, what I'm hearing is "factory district" "trade district" and the rest are for niche victory pursuits. If there's a gem in there, it is far, far from polished.

Can managing the districts create enough interaction with the map to make every map experience its own unique flavor? If the trade routes are just a multiplier on the yields coming from the land, then perhaps. But specialists are still in. Great people are still in. AND we have these other sources of yields that are not coming from the tiles.

I will eventually experience Civ6 for myself -- but I was over three years late on Civ2.

I miss having 4X games that let you play the map, rather than having all these contrivances cooked up by designers to create shiny objects that play the same from one game to the next. (Eurekas? WOW. Talk about a replay killer. That one feels like it was catered to the Earth Map crowd, who want to perfect a single experience rather than explore and adapt to the unknown.)


- Sirian

First let me say I enjoyed reading Sullla's report and it echoed a lot of my thinking generically on the game, particularly that you don't have to squint nearly as hard to see the good game in here as you did in Civ5.

For everything Civ6 gets wrong, the one and biggest thing that I appreciate is that the game no longer penalizes expansion. The AI may not be very good at it, and city #15 may not provide much of a return, but Civ6 is still a game that is about expansion. Civ5 isn't anywhere close to the worst game ever made, but it's inherently unplayable for me because I just don't see the fun in building 4 cities and stopping, refusing to build another settler or declare war on the AI. Here you can actually build new cities and claim new cities from your opponents. 

Its almost insane that I have to praise it for this point, since that's basically one of the tenets of a 4X game, but when compared to Civ5 (which was basically a 2X) it becomes an incredible achievement.