2027

One thing I think they really need to address is the AI’s ability to upgrade units, it’s pretty much killing the mid/late game for me. I get that at times the AI doesn’t have the resource to upgrade, but that’s not what’s going on here. I don’t know if it’s bankrupting itself with the huge armies and therefore doesn’t have the cash to upgrade, but in that case it should sell units and start replacing them or something.

I’m also totally fine with AI’s on harder difficulties getting cheap or free upgrades. All I know is that it’s a real bummer to have a closely fought game, only to end in a landslide as you’re rolling over thousands of spearmen and warriors with your tanks.

Has Firaxis mentioned anything at all in terms of post-release plans? I’m just wondering if there will be an update of some sort before the holidays or if it’s going to have to wait for some DLC in the spring. I’m having a lot of fun, but the game as a whole could use a good solid pass (AI, UI, documentation, balance, etc).

2028

In my most recent game Japan asked me to join a joint war and denounced me as a warmonger when I agreed…

2029

That sounds pretty realistic to me.

2030

In the Delnar patch thread above, there’s this line in his patch notes:

  • (Hopefully) altered the gold spending priorities of the default savings list so that splurge spending is rated less important than unit/upgrade spending
2031

Hm. I don’t believe I’ve ever not had the option to denounce a civ. When not in some kind of treaty situation, anyway.

2032

I managed to reach the information age as Germany in my second game. I’m rolling out modern armor and every other civ but England is still using spearmen and swordsmen. England is competitive and i’m using spies to keep tabs on them and sabotage their space program. In the year 2000, I get a message:

“England has researched Lasers”

then a few turns later…

“England has researched Archery”

Is that even possible?

2033

Archery is a dead-end tech, you can easily skip it, but I can’t imagine why they’d choose to pick it up then.

2034

The AI really needs to work on keeping its Army up to date or the very least keeping a “reserve account” for war time.
They’ve made upgrades too cheap in this game. So paying a slinger is 140 and archer is 200, but upgrading is only 30.

It is a huge cost saving to buy archer at 200ish and then upgrade them for 200 to Crossbow, even better to switch to the professional army civic (50%) upgrade at 100 a piece. They should double or even triple the cost of upgrades.

In many ways the AI has taken a step backward from Civ V. Certainly, the diplomacy/ But also in pretty much every game. I’ve seen the AI send out settlers without escorts that was rare in Civ V. I try to resist stealing them, but I just can’t the swing is too huge. What’s even worse is they never seem to steal my unescorted settlers. Even one game they let an escort settler near their units and then declared war a few turns later.

My biggest fear with this game is that most of the new systems, from figuring out the optimal placement of wonders and districts, to the use of corps and army are thing that us human players are going to get better at while the AI will stay the same.

2035

That behavior was seen on the AI stream just a few days before release, and the AI lead commented on it. It sounds like it’s intentional and some AI personalities are more likely to do it, as (paraphrasing) “Trajan is willing to send out unescorted settlers. It’s a gamble but one that can pay off”. Of course, he similarly mentioned that it was intentional that when an AI declares a joint war, they’ll both sit around waiting for the other side to waste their units, thus ending the war with not much of anything happening. So… I’m not really sure if I agree with the intentional AI decisions, let alone the things that are just wonky. :)

2036

Supposedly fixed in today’s update (v7).

2037

Have to say, loved my first game of Civ VI. Randomized, it chose Japan for me, large map, continents, on Warlord. I’m a builder, and was able to avoid any wars aside from some barbarians and won with a Culture victory (also heading to a Science victory). I only built four cities, one very late in the game, and stuck to my little corner of the world aside from naval exploration and my one scout that bought it against some barbarians while auto-exploring. Took 23.5 hours, according to Steam. Eager to try another game, and that’s all I was hoping for from Civ VI.

Few of the things I loved:

  • The new way to manage builders. No more automation or worry over them removing things they shouldn’t.
  • Barbarians seem a bit more aggressive and better able to annoy, especially early on. They surprised me with some advances on my lone warrior in my capital, with horse archers and fighting them off was a bit dicey as I hurried a slinger.
  • Religious wars are a great way to make spreading religion more entertaining.
  • City building is absolutely fantastic. This is what I’ve always wanted, a way to design my civilization while paying attention to the terrain. As a builder, this is a huge deal.
  • Diplomacy was much more engaging than I remember. The leaders seemed to have more depth of personality and it was fun trying to get on their good side.

Some annoyances:

  • Lack of documentation. Couldn’t figure out what Launching an Inquisition did in game, for example. Lost an Apostle doing it, without any obvious effect. Oh well.
  • Unable to get details of great works in the trading screen, so trading great works was a bit of a no-go unless you knew what they were already.
  • Governments/civics/policies seemed to be too static for me. Perhaps because of my focus on culture, but I seemed to blow through civics pretty quick, stuck with a few main governments of which I kept until upgrading to the next level, and policies hardly changed unless forced (and usually only when changing was ‘free’).
  • Espionage. I really disliked the spy leveling limit. I had one spy working counter in my Commercial district of my capital who kept killing spies, getting promoted, but not being able to actually gain anything from the promotion after several upgrades. Perhaps it needs more incremental steps, with more diverse promotions available, or a way to retire a spy for a boost or some other reward after a time. Didn’t try any spying on other civs, so perhaps that’s part of my dislike. With only five spies available in total, I was too busy protecting.

Glitches:

  • Scrolling when the advisor popped up locked the scrolling in so it would continue scrolling in that direction, even after the advisor was cleared. Mashing the arrow keys in various ways could sometimes knock it out, but had to save and exit the game once because of it.
  • Game has locked up on exit to desktop a couple of times. Not sure if it’s related to length of time playing or not.
2038

Equisilus, your impressions pretty much coincide with mine. I’m a builder, so for me, the new districts and builders are a huge step forward. And yes, I’ve had two lockups on exit to desktop. Now I exit to main menu and then exit to desktop; that seems to work for me.

Your post reminded me of a question: do spies gain experience from counter missions? Or do we need to send them on “offensive” missions to make them more effective on “defense”?

2039

Ironically, I find the opposite with my spies. Across 3 games now I’ve only had one gain a promotion on defense, not on successful offense. I do more defense than offense though so I’m sure it skews, but defense will promote them fine.

2040

Ah, OK. Maybe I’m not noticing when my defensive spies are promoted? I’ll watch more carefully.

2041

I’ve had zero desire to play this game after seeing the AI issues- I’ve actually played more Age of Wonders 3 instead, something I haven’t played in several months.

2016 has been the year of underwhelming TBS games.

2042

To be fair, playing more Age of Wonders 3 is rarely the wrong choice.

2043

For all the other indignities, at least they were actual quotes. The source of the inane Chichen Itza quote - “The Great Ball Court is also very impressive. I would like to have seen them play a game, although it sounds like the end was pretty violent. I think it was safer to be a spectator.” - is this random web page: https://isladeb.com/2011/02/06/chichen-itza/.

2044

Yeah, surely they could have found better flavor text for “Scorched Earth” than Roger Ailes. I mean, there’s a ton of human history to draw from. Sherman, maybe? Any random Mongol?

2045

The quotes are fucking terrible across the board imo.

Almost none of them are good choices and over half of them are silly if not outright stupid.

2046

Which is a shame, because I really like Sean Bean’s narration.