I’m not sure what to make of that comment. Are you talking about Civ VI in particular, or the Civ series generally? Believe me, the game systems don’t distract me from underperforming elements of other game systems. Thankfully in Civ IV for example I could disable espionage and vassal states because those two systems were shocking. Corporations at least were ok (Sids Sushi for life). I don’t know how Firaxis developed Civ, but if I were told that they did so in some space station in the deep recesses of a distant galaxy with no input from the previous games, no inspiration from how other games do things… I wouldn’t be surprised. :)
This! Trying to work out my most productive city is horrible.
Also, I completely agree with your sentiments regarding AI. It is behaving better. I’m quietly hopeful once I move up difficulties the sheer force of numbers will force me into a tighter game where I really need to be on my toes.
With respect to Korea, I see them as a nation like any of the warmongers from previous Civ titles. Korea will have a massive target over them, and the game hinges on taking them out sooner rather than later. Much like with Civ IV where either Alexander or Montezuma were key targets for me to destroy if I ended up neighboring them.
I’m actually looking forward to my second R&F game as Catherine (France). I don’t love it as much as Spock, but there is still some magic in the game. I had the same thing with Civ V. Once the second expansion released, I was actually really happy with the game. I just have to vent my frustrations at the game in some vain hope that at some point maybe a bored Firaxis dev will google their game to seek input and see my comments. Unlikely of course. Believe me, I really want Civ VI to be good because some of the game’s improvements I can not imagine playing without now.
You are definitely NOT the only person here who loves this expansion. I have played three games so far, and two of them were among the best I have ever played. In the most recent game, Genghis Khan went berserk across the continent rolling up everybody except my Korea, and actually led me in science as well. I had to rely on mountain passes to save myself. And even then, it was tough because civs on the other continent seemed intimidated by the Mongols and did not want to ally with me, leaving me without a good tool for developing culture and economics.
Not all the new ideas in the expansion are great, and no, tactical AI is not and never will be competent. Watching two AIs fight makes for some very dark comedy. But the only thing that dents my playing experience at all is the UI, and when the CQUI mod is updated, that will be put to rest.
(The game I did not enjoy was as the Netherlands. Not sure whether it was the Netherlands or the luck of the map. My only neighbor was Cyrus and he was inexplicably weak and offered zero competition. Meanwhile, Wilhelma’s polders were a disappointment, and her real strength – the river adjacency bonus – totally unnecessary in this case.)
I’m talking about Civ V and Civ VI which explicitly make it a design goal to interrupt you with “decisions” every turn. But while they occasionally mean something, for the most part these are mechanical, stupid decisions. Like moving your units around, which takes way longer if they can’t stack. Or choosing the best trade route yet again or placing your stupid spies through the worst ever UI for it yet again or responding to the inane diplomatic screen yet again which means you can’t even step away after clicking “next turn” because it will probably pause while the AI asks you for 2 luxury goods for its munificent offer of 1 gold per turn.
All these game systems basically suck, and they are all constantly clamoring for your attention because of the decision-every-turn design philosophy.
No, I couldn’t justify it. I actually enjoy the first 4500 years or so of Civ V/Civ VI because I like optimizing my little nation and the AI opponents mostly don’t get in my way until around that point. It’s just the grinding tedium of all these interruptions by babbling idiot opponents that makes it impossible for me to play much beyond that. “You have offended against god and man and therefore I declare war on you by attacking your musketmen with my chariots and by throwing my unescorted settlers at your mighty cities”. Sigh.
I don’t remember why I didn’t play much Civ VI after it came out, I remember really being excited for the gameplay mechanics and watching the streams leading up to the game. I remember thinking it looked like a board game in all the best ways, and I remember being bummed the AI was still pretty terrible, but since I don’t min/max (I am terrible at that in this kind of game anyway) I enjoyed the illusion of challenge even if I was never going to lose. That’s okay for a fun weekend strategy game also.
I do remember finding the religion spam at launch annoying as hell. It’s how I won my first game, but the grind in the end game to over come the AI (all of whom iirc decided to win via religion) drove me mad and I didn’t get much into any future games I’d rolled up.
But, having not touched it since before the first of the DLC from my season pass even came out, I picked up the expansion on a whim and I have to say, I’m really having a blast so far with it. For $25 it seems to have gotten me back in, so I can maybe get some time out of this initial investment.
I really like the new mechanics so far. Governors are really neat and fun to use, Loyalty as a mechanic is clear and easy to follow, and the idea of a revolted Free City is a cool one. I still like all the original mechanics and some of the stuff that I didn’t really enjoy has actually been addressed (like Eureka and Inspirations are 33% instead of 50% boost).
And I am really enjoying the game’s look and feel, moreso than the first time I played. It’s really a striking looking game.
I really, really like the Timeline feature, and how it ties into the Era stuff. I didn’t think I’d like the Era stuff, but damned if I’m not pumped every time I earn an era score point or two. I just earned my first golden age, but have to wait until I’m out of Classical age to see those effects. In the meantime, there was a state of emergency declared on Genghis Khan because he seized control of a city state, and I’m off to give him a bloody nose for it.
I’m playing the Cree now, on King. Neat civ! You start from day 1 with all your unique stuff. You get your unique unit, the Okihtcitaw, a Scout with a free promotion. You almost immediately get a unique improvement, the Mekewap, which has nice benefits (and a nice model). And you get an early trade route that acquires you tiles as it moves. It may not be the strongest civ, but it sure is fun to play.
I finished my game as Scotland a couple days ago, on Prince difficulty. I trailed Korea in Science into the Modern Age, and a late-game Dark Age kept me behind until I emerged in the Atomic Age with a Heroic Age. Same situation with Tourism: behind China until the Atomic Age. The Heroic Age catapulted me ahead in both categories, and I took the lead in both categories. At which point, admittedly, the game became much less interesting, but things did spice up a bit when Rockingham revolted against Australia and I seized it – and Australia retaliated by culture-bombing the southwest edge of my empire. I still won easily. For much of the game the outcome was in doubt, and I was really working to get good Era outcomes. I had fun with it.
Scotland can be very powerful, if you keep the people happy. The golf course was fun to build but just okay as an improvement. I didn’t use the Highlanders much. The music was great in the ancient eras, but I got tired of the modern themes.
One thing I really like about Rise & Fall is that Loyalty tends to make civs look like coherent countries, not cities scattered about here and there. Here’s my endgame minimap:
I’ve played 3 or 4 games since the expansion came out and enjoyed them. It’s always fun to play with new mechanics and Civs. My heart will always have a place for Civ IV, but I now accept each Civ for what it is and it’s still good for 100s of hours of fun. St
I seem to always got for the science victory though because domination and religion are a bit too tedious with all of the unit movement. I just never seem to get the culture victory anymore since I rarely focus on raising it,
I’m finding borders are much more nicer too @Spock in the games I’ve played. More importantly, I haven’t seen much in the way of city flipping, so I’m guessing the AI will factor in loyalty when it chooses where to place a city.
While I get frustrated with the deficiencies in the game, I still continue to play it. I’m about a third of my way through a new game at the moment as France (Catherine DeMedici). I’ll have to write some more about the events in that game later.
