Civilization VI

Games
3181

[quote=“Scott_Lufkin, post:3180, topic:78555”]
I always have so much fun in the first 2-3 hours of a new game
[/quote] I agree. I don’t think it would be hyperbole to say that the early stages of this game, with the Rise and Fall expansion, provides the best gaming experience I have every had.

And luckily for me, I have an extremely low drive to completion. If I like a movie or a book or a sporting match, and then I lose interest, I feel zero compunction about walking away. And that’s how it is for me with this game. I’ve had several incredibly good games, but I finished only the first one, and that was to check out the theory that the late game is much better now. Once I get to the point where it doesn’t matter what I build in this city, where I send my trader… I hit escape, go to the main menu, and decide which civ to play as next. On these terms, I am finding the game more addictive than crack cocaine.

[quote=“Scott_Lufkin, post:3175, topic:78555”]
Just look at these numbers, there is no good reason being presented to me the player to explain why civs I have been friends and allies with in the past would suddenly just declare war.
[/quote] I know what you mean, and I have certainly scratched my head at some AI decisions. But anyone who knows history knows that real life is loaded with crazy decisions.

In real life, a lot of stuff happens because of religion or political system or internal politics or alliance blocs or “we are strong enough to do it” – and so often, one of those, for whatever reason, trumps everything else including the rest of the list. “You did us a huge favor a hundred years ago” counts a lot, except when it doesn’t.

I think that one of Civ’s big mistakes is presenting that diplomacy screen with all the factors quantified, because quantification encourages the notion that it can all be toted up in some exact way. This probably goes too far in other aspects of the game as well, but at least in those areas it isn’t false advertising, next turn’s technological progress really will be the sum total of those beakers. But with diplomacy, not so much. I suspect that “allied with enemy” counts a ton more than -3… which has some claims to realism.

Actually, my biggest complaint with Civ diplomacy is not that it leads to irrational AI civs, but rather that it continues a gaming fiction that diplomacy is mostly about horse trading, when, in truth, it is mostly about communication. You want me to promise not to settle near you, but you aren’t saying what “near you” means? You want me to commit to addressing an emergency by taking “certain cities” from the Aztecs, but you aren’t going to tell me until after I have committed which cities those are? Although my neighbor can tell me that it matters to him that I get units away from his border, but I cannot tell him that it matters that he get his units away from mine?

Real life diplomacy is first and foremost about communication, such that each nation knows the others’ core interests, and thus avoid inadvertent disaster. Civ makes sure that such communication cannot happen, and I believe that is because, behind the curtain, the goal is to prevent real life diplomacy, because in truth they are instigating trouble, because that is what is entertaining.

Of course, the other thing, the elephant in the room, is that a game where “you” and these other leaders remain in place for thousands of years, through entirely different government types and philosophical eras… this makes realistic international relations impossible. Not to mention that some big international events are remembered for centuries while others are forgotten in a decade.

3182

I can totally understand this, and agree with it, but for the fact that I really like the idea of Spys, and stuff like having carriers, and tanks and jets and rangers and the cool late game stuff. It sucks I never really see that because of how boring/nonsensical the game gets after the Classic Era.

3183

Your larger point about diplomacy is probably true. But I also want Civ to be like a board game, but played with people. I think of them more like players that also selected a “leader” and as such I expect them to have the same “voice” the entire game, same as I do. I don’t really want a history simulator, I suppose if I did I could play EU4. Which, I’ve tried, and it’s neat but not what I would call “fun”.

3184

I expect this is because the overall game is designed to “engage” the player. If nothing much is happening for a couple of turns in a row and the system registers that you haven’t been forced to make any major decisions, it might well decide to start a random war. A stated design principle of recent Civ games is to require players to make significant decisions every turn if possible. But of course forcing the player to deal with a vapid, meaningless war is worse than no decision at all.

3185

I disagree strongly with this viewpoint, because I want Civ to be a strategy game rather than a historical simulation. Accurate information is critical to formulating a good strategy.

And we’ve already seen what happens when you don’t provide the diplomatic numbers with an AI of this quality - in the original release of Civ V. The diplomacy there came across as essentially random.

Instead we have a system where the AI makes poor decisions and weighs certain past actions massively too heavily in its relationships. It does have a fair degree of randomness in its decision-making process too. But at least you know why it likes or dislikes you, and what you can do to improve your relationship.

You could start the game in a later era. No idea how well that works.

3186

It’s a decent idea, but I really don’t like starting in the middle of a game in-progress, that’s always bugged me for some reason. I love starting from scratch and building my own empire.

3187

That’s exactly how I approach it. I’ve finished one game since R&F released, and I’m in various stages of completion in many others. I’m having an absolute blast.

I find it interesting far past the Classical Era. I have a Deity game right now in which I’m far behind heading into the Medieval Era. I can’t beat Deity as early as the Classical Era, even if I warmonger, and as long as I’m behind, I’m interested. My one finished R&F game, as Scotland, was interesting and competitive well into the Modern Era. My biggest war was my infantry and tanks vs their infantry and tanks. After that I pulled ahead in every category except religion, and it became much less interesting.

If the concern is that Deity is too much of a bum-rush at game start, one can download Smoother Difficulty to give the AI fewer bonuses at game start and more bonuses as the game goes along. Or just build tons 'o archers at game start, ride out the initial rush, and go from there; that’s what I’ve been doing.

I hear you on this. In the real world, diplomatic relations aren’t on a 2D numberline from -20 to +20; they’re 3D chess. Civ tries to add that third dimension by giving the leaders personalities and agendas, but you still sometimes get seemingly random declarations of war, particularly “formal joint war.” I’m guessing they’re going to patch the overly-frequent “formal joint wars” soon, as that’s one of the most common complaints about R&F.

That said, apart from that, I find the diplomacy much improved in R&F – once you get to the Medieval Era and beyond. You can’t get Alliances until all parties have the Civil Service civic, a medieval-era civic. I find Alliances really make diplomacy more enjoyable and reliable. For the most part, once I’m allies with someone, I’m allies with them the whole game if I want. Of course, I’m free to backstab that ally once our current 30-turn alliance treaty expires, but players seem to get furious if AIs do the same thing against us. :)

3188

In that case, yeah, the game would be very frustrating for you. I’ve had hundreds of hours of intense fun with this game, but very, very little of it involved any of the late game stuff.

3189

I don’t really consider military/domination victory as a switch that is as simple as turning on and pursuing when I start a game. It is more a conditioning that has happened over many games of Civ, beginning at Civ II. In fact, Civ II ingrained in me a number of bad habits that I had to overcome thanks to the bonuses I relied on from playing on the easieist difficulties. Civ IV is when I started to truly challenge myself. Like many I believe, I started off as a builder, rarely declaring war and just shooting for space race. Then I moved onto the higher difficulty levels of Civ IV where a warmonger on the border wouldn’t waste any time declaring war when they saw weakness in military strength. Over time, that need to develop a military for defence adapts and changes to developing a balanced military for a nation. Not much point defending if the AI will go ahead and raze those valuable cottage improvements that take time to grow and develop. If an expansionist AI hems me in early and chokes my capacity to progress scientifically, then suddenly those standing units have a reason to mobilise in order to maintain my competitiveness. Get on a good enough roll, (eg: aggressive leaders in Civ IV) and domination is a pathway that has presented itself as a natural progression with the game. City raiding swordsmen become city raiding macemen -> muskets and rifles, and by that stage, those promotions are no longer available to gunpowder units, so upgrading is the only way. And they become awfully good at conquering cities.

My current Civ VI game as France, I hadn’t even thought about domination victory, yet I’d conquered a relatively large American nation by the dawn of the Renaissance era. I started the game thinking I wanted to be small and tall and make good use of France’s culture plus get busy with spies, an often overlooked part of my games.

My first war came within the first 20 turns. An Aztec settler hacking his way through the dense jungles came face to face with my wandering warrior. Pleasantries were exchanged, then I declared war to capture the settler. Better in my hands than his. The settler wasn’t completely unescorted! There was an eagle warrior one tile behind. All I had to do was defend the initial attack then I’d be fine and I had a second city up quickly. We peaced out amicably and life went on. Even allies now oddly enough.

My second war was when Teddy chose to attack and capture a neighbouring city state (Toronto). That presented me with an emergency - valuable gold. It was easily within reach so I figured why not. I already had a number of archers built and so I started my attempts to reclaim Toronto. Here begins the sad tale of a sad AI. Teddy had me concerned when he rolled in catapults. I was going to lose one of my cities! A catapult, an archer and a warrior all met outside the city of Lyon to change its allegiance while my troops to the south slowly whittled down the city defences of Toronto. I was able to defeat the warrior thanks to a small contingent I had to the north that was initially travelling south (an archer and a warrior) before I called them back.

In the time it took for the rest of my army to return and push back the paltry American army my archer stood at full health in a city that had for consecutive turns been reduced to zero health. There wasn’t a unit that could actually take the city. The archer killed the opposing archer and was steadily damaging the catapult. My army returned in time to defeat a chariot and another catapult, and from there, I believe the American army was spent.

I returned to Toronto, liberated it for ~3000 gold and used that money to upgrade to crossbowmen. My army of 3 catapults, 6 crossbows, 1 spearman and 2 swordsmen then went through and removed America from the map. I scored myself a couple of free wonders, 6 cities and following my extended peace, shifted to the tech leader and culture leader in the game. I lost zero units.

I could easily continue my conquest but it takes too long to move and fight. Plus I’d rather keep my warmonger penalty low so I don’t get the diplomacy screen every few turns from a leader denouncing me. Back to my original point. My belief is that warmongering just happens. As another example, my game as Alex in Civ VI, it encouraged me to build an army thanks to their unique encampment building and I had a greedy Montezuma forward settling, so why not push out and capture some cities. Except it was all too easy in that instance and I chose to keep going.

3190

I agree that warmongering is sometimes an opportunity to present itself, but I think it takes an concerted effort to get the domination victory (at least on a standard sized map or larger). On smaller maps it is easier for a more organic path to domination to occur.

In my last game, as the Mongols, I started off thinking maybe I’d try for domination. Who better to spread a wave of death across the landscape! So I did go out looking to start wars with my neighbors, who I took over.

Once I realized I’d have to fight from the coast and work inland for 2 of the other civs my desire to get domination drained away. I probably could have done it, razing cities on my way so I wouldn’t need to hold them - but the path of least resistance at that point was to go for the science win. I was ahead in that area so there was little risk in getting beat. I just kept an eye on the religion and culture leaders to make sure they didn’t get close, which they didn’t.

3191

The individual war declarations make sense, it’s the joint ones that are kinda weird. It’s more like a real game where people gang up to steal your clay, either because you’re in the lead or because you make an easy target.

Also, I started using Shuffle map option and it gave back a lot of fun.

3192

Me too. Probably 3/4 of the games I played ended up being on that.

See I liked the spaciousness of Civ IV. The obsession of something happening on every tile takes away from the feeling of vast expanses. That’s another reason I still prefer the way Age of Wonders 1 was presented vs. all the others.

3193

So after trying a bunch more games, I feel like all this expansion does is further widen the gap between AI and human since it’s a bunch of new exploitable mechanics that the AI has no clue how to use.

Loyalty was a nice idea to encourage more gradual expansion. The downside is it applies to newly conquered cities that will rebel instantly so your only option is to raze. The AI also has no clue that loyalty even exists and will constantly overreach with settlements and have its cities rebel then flip to you. Thanks for the gift?

Governors are insanely imbalanced. Most are crap. The science one is okay. Magnus is beyond broken and is always the only choice. His starting +100% harvest yield applies to forest chops, which should cause any veteran civ player’s jaw to drop (it is ALWAYS the correct choice to chop; you do not sacrifice long term growth because more resources early IS more long term growth). His later promotions of industrial zone production and unlimited factory bonus overlapping (just like release version) is just icing on the cake.

Emergencies just don’t work. It won’t tell you what the goal is before you accept them or not (oh, THAT city state I can’t possibly reach and conquer in that time limit?), and it has no way of fairly dividing the reward. You and Civ A accept the emergency mission to take cities from Civ B. You do 100% of the work attacking and taking the cities, Civ A who never once attacked gets 50% of the gold reward. It’s like high school group projects all over again.

This isn’t even getting into smaller stuff like how research boost nerfs are a nerf to the AI (free boosts is how they tried to keep pace economically), or how the AI has no clue how to maximize dedication bonuses.

3194

I just finished my 4th game with Rise and Fall. Korea was like easy mode (still playing on Prince until I get through the new Civs). I got out so far ahead with science that I could have won with just about any victory condition except religion. I decided to go for domination since I haven’t done that in a long time. I had 1 city building the space race stuff as a backup.

I ended up taking 2 civs on my content fairly early, with an army of a couple catapults, a couple swordsmen and an archer. The next civ I waited until I upgraded my catapults and went to infantry.

The other 4 civs were all on one big continent. The first I softened up with missile cruisers and a pair of aircraft carriers and took their capitol. Then I went on a rampage where I started to burn it all down. Got peace with the first one and moved to the second. Since my aircraft couldn’t reach I pulled in some rocket artillery instead.

I just swept through, taking capitols and burning down the rest. I had a couple rebellions and had to retake the capitol, but after getting some governors there and burning down the neighbors I was able to hold on. My warmonger score must have been through the roof.

3195

> Oooopss

<Row Item="YEILD_PRODUCTION" ListType="DefaultYieldBias" Value="25"/>
<Row Item="YEILD_SCIENCE" ListType="DefaultYieldBias" Value="10"/>
<Row Item="YEILD_CULTURE" ListType="DefaultYieldBias" Value="10"/>
<Row Item="YEILD_GOLD" ListType="DefaultYieldBias" Value="20"/>
<Row Item="YEILD_FAITH" ListType="DefaultYieldBias" Value="-25"/>

In each line, ‘YEILD’ is a misspelling of ‘YIELD.’ That wouldn’t matter if it were misspelled everywhere, but ‘yield’ is written with the correct spelling in every other instance across all of Civ 6’s data files.

3196

How much you want to make a bet this micro patch won’t show up officially for months?

3197

So the religious unit spam in this game might come down to developers not knowing “i before e except after c”.

3198

“We’re aware of a community-reported bug that has a minor impact on AI behavior. We’ve also made sure that everyone knows that I goes before E except after C… or other weird exceptions. Thanks to all who helped bring this to our attention and there will be a fix included in our next update.”

3199

Sure, but when can we expect that update, 3 months from now?

3200

Probably! Doubt they’ll hotfix.

But it’s easy enough to edit the files yourself, or use the mod that apparently fixes it.