Civilization VI

[Urban Cartographer 601]

Firaxis will be releasing Civilization VI on October 21.

Civilization VI brings back some features from Civ IV and combined it with Civ V.

Civilization VI's map looks like those classic maps from the Age of Exploration, aka the Golden Age of Cartography.

[LexusInfernus 908]

This is the first game I've ever requested a refund for on Steam. I'm not sure if it will get approved, but still. 

Damn this is one massive disappointment. 

[Whte_rbt 1,431]

@LexusInfernus: What caused you to request a refund?

[Ocram's Razr 963]

It has been languishing in my Wish List and will continue to do so until it has been patched and is available for less.

[OwiHH 240]

The first time i heard about civ VI is coming Nov21 i thought:

omg thats quick. Usually Sids deploymenttime was way longer and this also meant he put alot good work into it. Do he needs some money?

But since i like civilisations since title 1. well yes i was happy to see a new one even civ V had alot expansions and is still a uptodate stratagy game.

Im happy i wasnt buying it off steam on release - i usually do on certain titles i trust into but after reviewing a few reviews on steam im glad i didnt.

Here are first 2 negative coments on it even civ VI has more positive rating previews.

Positiv (17,293) Negativ (3,411)

I think ill wait until steam puts it up on disount you can expect early in the future probably after xmas.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/289070/

Spoiler

 

Civ 6 had me hooked and playing late into the night for 80+ hours on "King" Difficulty for the past few weeks. So its doing something right at least. However even with all its greatness I have to not recommend it at this time. Civ 6 has a few issues that are infuriating to the point I did not want to play the game anymore even when I felt the "One more turn" urge to keep playing.

First the changes that made me love Civ 6;

-Art style: I actually like the style, especially the map fog which I assume everyone likes.
-Barbarians: Holy jebus they can actually be a challange to deal with. Even late game when you least expect it.
-Districts/Wonder Placement: Actually make city placement and specialization more thought provoking and fun.
-Tech/Culture Eureka/Inspiration: Another good feature that can effect your gameplay style of a game.
-Great Persons: if you want em you gotta go after them vigorously. And they range from "Oh neat" to "HOLY ♥♥♥♥ THATS AWESOME"
-Various other things but here comes the long rant...

Now the things that made me wonder what I was doing with my life playing Civ 6 (Mostly AI related);

-UI/Infromation: So much detailed information is just GONE from Civ 5. You gotta memorize your luxurious resource trade deals because the game will not tell you how many you had in total or who you traded it to/from. You have no clue how well religion is spreading. You cannot look at Units special abilities. Combat Numbers do not accurately indicate the amount of damage your unit will deal. You have no way to look at deal historys with other civs. the "Gossips" tell you everything you don't need to know, from england building a granary to your civ trading with another civ the turn you setup a trade deal.

-AI Agendas/Diplomacy: First off, the Agenda system is not a bad "Idea" its just the AI does not execute it correctly in relation to diplomacy and AI Insanity. Bottom line, if you are doing well, they will hate you, leading to all the AI denouncing eachother as well. If you manage to find ONE AI that tolerates you enough to become an Ally, they will do everything in their power to not be your friend/ally behind the scenes. Like declaring war on you for no reason.

-Ai Combat Tactics/Peace terms: Speaking of declaring war, the AI are so bad at tactical combat that the Barbarians can wipe them out given the minor opportunity. They tend to fall behind in higher Tech Units because they don't upgrade their units usually. Also I think they were either programed to be complete panzies or their military command give out their orders in different languages to each unit. Because 90% of the time they will not attack anything in melee unless they can one shot it. If their HP drops to 60% that unit will run away. This leads them to just shuffle outside completly outmatched cities with a single archer able to fend off 10-15 units by himself without them even attacking the city. then the AI goes pants on head ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and decides all hope is lost and will give you EVERYTHING they own for peace.

-AI General AI Batshit insanity: The AI in Civ 6 are more akin to an Alien then a human player because they act insanely random. I would say they act like Civ 5 Ghandi but at least he was predictable with his madness. "We have been best friends for thousands of years sharing trade and tech-DECLARES WAR ON YOU" "Wanna do a joint war against this Warmongering prick burning down my cities? YOU ARE A WARMONGERER!" They are such massive hypocrites like the Joint War example. EVERYTHING they ask you to stop doing, They are currently doing to you but x10, Units near borders in particular even if its a single unit 2 tiles away in your own ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ territory while they have a massive army IN your borders.

-War, War Never Changes, (Except it does for the worse): War in Civ 6 is now a huge pain in the ♥♥♥ because unless you declare war on people within 20 turns of the game, WARMONGERING. even the casus belli's do nothing to change this (Except Liberation wars which never happen because nobody likes you), the "Severity" of Warmongering penalties translate to "How long they will hate my guts" not "How much they will hate my guts" so no matter how justified your war is, everyone will denounce you for declaring war on anyone, even the people who joined the war with you. Because you are a heartless ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ marching your forces to go punch that genocidal civililization in the face, who kick puppies for fun. Next on the agenda of war is "War Weariness" this as a good mechanic that falls off the mark due to its execution. Because yes it makes it so you cannot just be at war forever and kill everyone. But it screws over the AI while it forces the player in the late game to keep wars in short increments or have all your cities get pissy. This screws over the defender/AI because War Weariness skyrockets in cities being fought around. probably why the AI caves and throws everything they have at you, I've sieged a city and within 2-3 turns barbarians spawned around it and it turned into a 3-way fight.

-Last but not least, PACING: The games pace is so wrong, without rushing science you will have nukes by the Napoleonic Era. Epic game speed is the old standard speed. You will never stay long enough in one era to enjoy it. Finally once you hit the Atomic Era the game speed kicks into high gear rushing the game into a suddon stop. You will get the coolest tech and units 5 turns before you achieve a Science victory, possible to not even get them with a Culture victory.

I've stopped playing my current game because of these problems which I desperately hope get patched or something as there is a game in here that I love. but I can't play it without feeling like I'm a cat chasing blind deaf and stupid mice to a finish line on the counter. sure there are many ways to get onto the counter and the mice "could" reach it. but one jumped off the counter, another ♥♥♥♥♥♥ in my cat-bowl, the final one thought we were buddies then had a brain aneurysm and tried to bite me but had no teeth and just gnawed on me

And before you say "Raise the Difficulty." thats just tying rope to the mice to pull them towards the goal faster. They are still Blind Deaf and Dumb.

 

 

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Verfasst: 3. November

**11/24/16 Updated Review - Fall 2016 update** New Rating (6/10)
Some improvements have been made to the AI, but it is still ineffective at fielding a modern military and attacking effectively. Also, the warmongering penalties for taking cities still apply irrespective of the war initiator. The "freeze when exiting to desktop" bug is unfixed.

**Original 11/03/16 Review** (Rating: 4/10)
I love history, and I love computer games. Thus, every release of a Civilization game leads me down a path of addiction and lost sleep.

This pattern has held true to a certain extent for Civilization 6, but I have to give the newest Civ game some tough love and admit that it is not yet up to par.

Let me start out this review by saying I have enjoyed a significant amount of my playtime so far with Civilization 6. I will start with the positives:

1. I like the new districts feature, where you must pick a tile for a campus, market, temple, etc., before you build it. This prevents you from having one or two "supercities" containing all of your wonders and other important buildings, which never quite felt realistic to me in previous Civ games.

2. Some will disagree, but I think the way workers/builders are incorporated in Civ 6 is an improvement. Workers cannot build an infinite number of improvements, as they could in previous Civ games. Now, by default, they can build 3 improvements - but, the improvements are completed instantly. I will accept the trade-off of having to build/buy new workers when I don't have to wait 5 turns for them to complete their work.

3. On a related note, in past Civ games (except for Civilization Revolution), you would have to micromanage your workers in order to build roads between your cities (or cities to other nations). In Civ 6, when you build a Trader unit and initiate a trade route, roads are built automatically. I absolutely LOVE this.

4. I like the new "Eureka" moments that speed up your research when you complete a specific task in the game - these consistent shots of dopamine are quite addictive and encourage you to mix-up your playstyle.

5. Diplomacy is a mess (more on this later in the review), but I do appreciate how the interface now gives you a scale of how much a leader likes/dislikes you and the reasons for their attitude towards you.

6. The espionage component of the game is greatly enhanced over Civ 5. Now, when you send spies to a given city, you are offered various missions (steal a technology advance, steal gold, sabotage production, etc.).

Now, the negatives:

1. **BUGS** Some of the bugs/glitches I have encountered have been fairly minor - for example, I had the game crash when I was choosing a diplomatic card/option after researching a specific civic policy (closing out of the pop-up menus and then proceeding was the workaround). Some bugs are just plain weird - I was playing as Teddy Roosevelt (America), met Germany, Germany later declared a joint war on me along with ... Teddy Roosevelt? No, it was actually Arabia (who I had not yet met in the game). One bug, however, is quite aggravating - when I try to exit to the desktop, the game will just sit there. The computer itself is not frozen - I can Ctrl-Alt-Del and sign out of Windows 10 - but it is an irritating inconvenience. Oddly enough, this particular bug did not present itself during my first week of play; it first started happening several days ago when I would play for long periods of time (2+ hours), and now it happens virtually every time I exit (regardless of how long I played).

2. **User Interface ** The actual layout of the interface is not terrible, but there are many items of information that are completely missing (or I simply have not found them yet). In Civ 5, you could click the Diplomacy window and be able to instantly see what luxury resources other Civs had to offer, what resources City States had, what trade agreements were currently active, and what wars were currently taking place. ALL of that is gone! So, if I need to trade for some luxuries, I have to click each leader portrait, open the trade screen, and see if they have a surplus luxury they might want to trade. Click-click-click-click-click-click. Do you want to see if a nation is at war with one of your prized City States? Too bad. Want to know when your trade agreement with England will be expiring - or, if you even have a trade agreement with England at all - tough luck. I can't even see what resources I have from trading. If I forget I traded for diamonds 10 turns ago, I might very well trade for it again.

3. **Diplomacy is a mess** There's no sugarcoating it. I like the ability to send a delegation/embassy, which will provide you with information about the other nation (sometimes too much information - thanks, but I don't really need to know about each trivial thing a nation does, like building a Settler). Nations have specific agendas - which is neat, except that the agendas almost always conflict with how you have to play the game. For example, one leader does not like nations that interact with City States. If I wanted to cooperate with him, I would have to completely ignore one facet of the game itself.

Nations will denounce you all the time. And when they denounce you once, they generally keep doing it indefinitely.

To reduce warmongering penalties, you are now given justifications for going to war (casus belli), which is really cool except that sometimes they don't trigger. I once caught an enemy spy, which should have opened a casus belli against that nation, but it didn't.

Finally, one of the many things I loved about Civ 5 was when a leader would propose a joint war to you, you could reply in effect "Sounds good, but can you give me 10 turns to get ready?" This option is gone in Civ 6, which is very disappointing. Look, I generally don't have an army that is mobilized and ready to go to war on a moment's notice, okay?

Want to pledge protection to your favorite City States (as you could in Civ 5)? Can't do it.

4. **Amenities** I might be in the minority on this, but I actually liked the overall Happiness meter in Civ 5. It was a straightforward indicator of the happiness/unhappiness level of my nation, and I always enjoyed going into a Golden Age after an extended period of happiness. Now, happiness is determined on a city-by-city basis and is remedied by "amenities", which is okay I guess, except that how amenities are calculated is unclear at best. The quickest way to get amenities is by luxury resources, but trading for them is a mess due to the diplomacy interface (see above).

5.**AI (lack thereof)**It has been well documented by other reviewers that the AI of other nations in the game is suspect - whether it is waging war, engaging in diplomacy, building cities, etc. I thought the AI in Civ 5 : Brave New World wasn't bad at all - by the modern era, I had developed friendships with other nations that shared my ideology, and nations of opposing ideologies had formed alliances amongst themselves. Couldn't Firaxis have built on this, instead of going back to Square One?

6. **No Diplomatic Victory Condition and No World Congress / United Nations** Civ 4 and Civ 5 had Diplomatic Victory Conditions out of the box, and dealing with nations at the World Congress and proposing various resolutions was great fun in Civ 5 : Brave New World. Oh well - I guess certain things had to be saved for the expansions, right?

So, at this point, Civ 6 is really a mixed bag. Hopefully patches will clean up the bugs and UI issues, but there is a lot of work that needs to be done in many areas - specifically the AI needs a major upgrade. I hope we don't have to wait for an expansion to get logical, competent play from the CPU.

If you're looking for a complete and polished Civ experience, I would recommend sticking with Civ 5 and the Brave New World expansion for now.

 

 

[Ocram's Razr 963]

23 hours ago, OwiHH said:

The first time i heard about civ VI is coming Nov21 i thought:

omg thats quick. Usually Sids deploymenttime was way longer and this also meant he put alot good work into it. Do he needs some money?

6

It has been 6 years since Civ 5 was released, 3 since its last EP, 2 years since its spinoff (which is on the long side if you look at CivCity or Alpha Centauri). It wasn't advertised extensively until its release date. Seeing as Civ 4 was released in 2005 (5 years before Civ 5), this is actually longer than Sid's usual development time. Everyone was getting anxious and impatient on CivFanatics. Keep in mind that most major studios release sequels every other year.

[OwiHH 240]

23 hours ago, OcramsRzr said:

It has been 6 years since Civ 5 was released, 3 since its last EP, 2 years since its spinoff (which is on the long side if you look at CivCity or Alpha Centauri). It wasn't advertised extensively until its release date. Seeing as Civ 4 was released in 2005 (5 years before Civ 5), this is actually longer than Sid's usual development time. Everyone was getting anxious and impatient on CivFanatics. Keep in mind that most major studios release sequels every other year.

hmm felt it shorter ;-) probably because i enjoy/ed civ V so much.

[jmsepe 2,038]

Gameplay wise, this is better than Civ 5. 

[Ocram's Razr 963]

It was offered at a 40% discount during the Steam Summer Sale but I couldn't afford to buy it after getting Endless Legend, Urban Empire, and various DLC.

[LexusInfernus 908]

Endless Legend is a far superior game so its not like you missed out  

[jmsepe 2,038]

I'm just bringing this thread back to life since there has been two expansion packs for Civ 6 now, Rise and Fall, and Gathering Storm. I think the upcoming dlc Gathering Storm is an exciting addition to the base game but I kinda think that Civ 6 is becoming more and more realistic.

[Toby66 155]

Nothing to see here.

I´m nobody´s property and my words i have to stand by, whatever they will be.

But i´m FOR SURE not any persons toyboy on this forum or the subject for any moderators joke of moderation in here, there anywhere.

You don´t qualify for it.

I reserve the RIGHT to edit this post now since people here are not up to standard overall.

  Edited October 30, 2019 by Toby66  
What? Bite me gently and get a brain. None. No reason.