Civilization VI

That’s the god-game approach. The problem is that it works only to a very limited degree: see Populous, Black & White, Dungeon Keeper, Majesty etc. If designing a well-balanced, good strategic system is very hard, designing an indirect strategic system is that much harder.

The next installment of the frontier pass is coming. I will be very disappointed if they didn’t add a new wonder that allows me to build a stately pleasure dome.

Anyone play Civ 6 on the Switch? I see that the base game is only $19.99 (CDN) and the DLC pack is currently at its lowest price ever on the eShop at 60% off. I assume that everything is touch screen compatible.

I’ve played it on the IPad and it’s much better than I would have expected (quite good and very easy to use interface). Not sure about the Switch directly though.

I’ve been playing the latest DLC (Vietnam, etc.)

The maps are as segmented as ever, maybe more so. Pure hatred for that.

Vietnam looks very interesting, and others at CivFanatics have been liking it, but in practice I found it boring, all three games I started.

The economic mode (monopolies, etc.) – I like the idea a lot, but honestly, it is so overpowered as to ruin a lot of playthroughs. All of a sudden, fairly early on, you are so awash in gold that you can do anything. And where I see the AI getting benefits from heroes, I have yet to see them swimming in gold.

Something happened to Civ VI’s development over the last couple years to take it in a direction of something that i’ve never seen a Civ game go. To put it in a weird way, it’s kind of like Goat Simulator for 4X games now. The Let’s Plays by the hardcore players just dismiss it because it’s so imbalanced in multiplayer, but there’s a whole community of Civ VI players now min-maxing their way to happiness… but often, very explicitly, without building any military at all, to the point where listening to one character talking said something like “When do I build military? Only when i absolutely have to”.

So in this “hilarious” Civ 6 world of just piling on features and improvements and this and that, i guess (?) the audience just likes taking a random challenge and running with it. Beating the game seems more or less taken as an assumption.

I’ve only played one game with Vietnam and it was ridiculous. The movement and combat bonus for marsh, woods, and rainforest meant I just went to war early and obliterated my neighbours. As an added bonus, the Matterhorn was nearby so most of my troops had attack bonuses for any land except open flatland. My biggest impediment to world domination was the amount of time spent moving around all the mountains that were in the way.

Got links? I’d like to watch these.

It seems to me that this is a trend that goes way beyind Civ. I figured this mindset came from Steam achievements, which I hardly notice, but I gather they are a very big deal to a lot of players.

I mean, I am happy for the players who get fun out of this style of play, but not so happy if it kind of lets gamemakers off the hook as far as making games that are basically good games.

Oh yeah? I hadn’t noticed. /sarcasm

I continue to have a good time playing Civ VI, even if it can be fairly stupid at times. My most recent game, I decided to mix it up and play a standard map (I typically play on Large), and chose the new gameplay that mixes the tech and civic trees up so you don’t know what’s coming next. That alone was a pretty refreshing take on the early game so far. I didn’t think these weird alternate ways to play would interest me, and I’ll probably not try the others, but this one is a nice break from the norm.

Yes, that was a great addition. I play with that game mode on all the time now. The other game modes are a little less good.

Dramatic ages mode was something I doubted I’d like. I’m not really a fan of the ages thing to being with. I tried it. I hate it.

Apocalypse mode was entertaining for a few turns for the sacrifices to the volcano but that grew old pretty fast and the soothsayer, which I suppose is the centrepiece of this game mode, just isn’t interesting.

Heroes and Legends mode is fun, but be prepared for getting overpowered. Any time I’ve recruited Sinbad early, I am rolling in gold and just buy myself a big leg up on the other civs.

Secret Societies are nice addition to the game. Again, depending on how you take advantage, it can make quick work of your neighbours.

I’m super late to the party (as usual) but I picked up Civ VI recently on a $15 steam sale. Tried to play it today and I do not understand this game. I figured I would because I’d played all the previous CIV titles and generally like 4x and builder genres. But in this game I can’t build anything in my starting city except military units? I researched the techs to build like granaries and stuff but it doesn’t seem to be an option. Also the map seems to be packed with barbarians? My scouts are constantly running from danger while my sole starting warrior has to stay pegged to my only city so I can avoid being caught defenseless.

Obviously the early game is much different than previous Civ titles. Anyone have some pointers for the first twenty turns? Should I only be cranking out warriors to secure the region around my capitol? Should I be beelining settlers and working on cranking them out ASAP?

Quill18 has a good set of learning videos.

The hardcore fellows basically are racing to make settlers and workers and so (they say) the typical build order is scout-scout-settler. They care most about racing the AI for the good city spots.

I mean you can play however but the min-max way is to try and get as many “eurekas” as you can. I also think you should run your units ASAP to find as many city states first as possible. The early boost to finding cities states first is (imo) basically broken, but Civ VI seems be operating on a BrEaK iT MoaR design now.

Your city is likely safe without keeping your one warrior around. The barbarian scouts are no threat to a city and you can bring him back if there is real trouble. Slingers suck as a ranged unit but if they kill a unit they make researching archery faster. Once you have archers dealing with barbarians is easier.

Slingers killing a unit gives you a Eureka, so you want to build one slinger. Taking a barb camp gives a Eureka.

Basically Civ VI is kind of annoying / awesome in that it wants you to have tons and tons of “micro” goals. Whether you like doing that depends on how you could think 4X games should play.

Yeah, when I played a long time back, I would tend to start Slinger - Builder.

You have links to these guys, Endi?

Oh yea sorry I keep forgetting!

FilthyRobot. He gave up in Civ VI a while ago but the videos he made are still mostly relevant.

PotatoMcwhisky. He’s the current Civ VI go-to channel with new content all the time. He tends to focus on non- military games.

Thanks! Added.