Spock
3576
Some more random impressions:
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I like the new map features, especially the named rivers and volcanoes and such. When I was looking for my first city site, I came across the River Klara, and I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t know which civ that hinted at. Answer: Sweden. Pro tip: mountain and desert names are off by default, so turn them on! They add so much flavor. In my game, Mali is bordered by the Sahara Desert, which is BIG. Mali’s capital is intersected by the Niger River, the Senegal River, and the Sankarani River. The Atlas Mountains loom to the northwest. All this adds a ton of flavor.
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Beyond names, the map is generally more interesting (and pretty). Mountain ranges can be longer now, enough really to impede travel and to create a clearer contintental divide. There are new features, like geysers and volcanos and stuff. Also, there’s now an option to maximize the minimap, so you get a fullscreen view of the whole world – I use this all the time.
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At max event level (4), I’ve had 12 major weather events (floods, tornadoes, storms, volcano eruptions) in about 50 turns. I settled my capital dangerously close to a flood plain and may regret it. No change in global climate yet.
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I’ve almost circumnavigated the globe, at around 1700 BC, thanks to the Maori’s ocean-going prowess. That’s helped earn me a Golden Age. I should have done it faster but I’ve dawdled.
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Strategic resources are now stockpiled up to a limit, and they seem more important now. I like that. But the AI keeps asking me to trade away my horses, which will be annoying until I reach my horse cap, at which point I’ll be quite happy to trade them.
Too soon for me to report on this one way or the other. The new diplomatic favor system supposedly makes diplomacy more transparent and rational, but I’ve only just started to dabble in it. So far my diplomatic relations have been stable.
I have read reports that if you don’t send a delegation, you may get denounced early, but that you can buy off the denouncer cheaply with diplomatic favor. Hasn’t been an issue for me yet, even when I haven’t sent a delegation.
Hmm, was this with the new expansion? I’m not sure the patch alone includes the new diplomatic favor system.
You have my attention, sir, please update the thread as you get more time with the latest version of the game and experience with diplomacy (and other mechanics you want to discuss) under your belt.
I honestly had never heard of this, but I’m not following the expansion much. I’d love to know more, is there a video you can point me to, or if you prefer to sum it up yourself?
KevinC
3578
No sir, this is from yesterday, before the patch/expansion hit. I’ll look into the favor system you mention, is it along the lines of EU4’s?
That sounds fantastic. I’m waiting until the Steam winter sale at the earliest (I’ve yet to get the previous expansion), but I hope this becomes a standard feature for the series moving forward.
I like how the Maori sound, but I’m skeptical as to how well they ultimately fit in with Civ’s city-centric, permanent-settler view of human society. For instance, playing the Mongols in Civ never felt right to me. Some asymmetry in that regard would be cool to see, but I don’t have much faith in Firaxis’ ability to implement it.
LordGek
3580
Sorry, I guess this is just something weird that has happened to me with most of the DLC and expansions as I have yet to find anybody else with my issues. To be honest it would make no sense that what I ecperienced was the intentional way Firaxis intended and can only assume this is a result of my vast collection of mods. Perhaps I did something funky to a key .ini file or something.
jpinard
3581
Thanks for your insights. Is it possible to see if there’s answers to my question?
I have not played, but I suspect your question is a bit too granular. Can you adjust how much ice is in the game? I’m unsure, but I don’t know if the game uses the volume of ice in the game world to define how much flooding will happen. Instead, there is a Distaster Intensity setting you may be looking for.
Watching a video of someone start a game, I don’t see any specific “ice” settings.
As for your question about creating a dessert planet in the late game, I see you can define temperature but I’m not sure how that translates into the “desertification” you are asking about.
jpinard
3583
I don’t remember what game it was, but there was a game years ago where global warming would change tiles. The desert would expand, coasts would flood, but basically you could drown most of the world while frying the interior.
I don’t remember if it was a Civ game, or something else. Have any idea what title it may have been?
Spock
3585
@jpinard Sorry I didn’t reply to your questions earlier, but I wasn’t sure of the answer, and I’m still not sure. I don’t recall seeing any ice-level options at game-creation, and I haven’t heard anything about desertification – although disasters do sometimes change tile yields (usually for the better, though, not the worse).
@Scotch_Lufkin I’m still learning how the favor system works, but essentially it’s a currency you can trade for money, diplomatic benefits, resources, or pretty much anything else. I’m now at about turn 100, and I still haven’t seen enough to know whether the irrational lurches in diplomacy have been mitigated. (I don’t think they’ve disappeared altogether.) I’ve seen only one diplomatic surprise far – Sweden just declared a surprise war on me, but I saw it coming. I had to stop playing at that point, but when I resume, I’ll see if I can spend my limited diplomatic favor to get other countries to help me in the war somehow.
My Maori have made something of a comeback, but we’re in a very odd position: my capital was founded in an area with no room to spread out, so my second and third cities are island states offshore, in one case half a world away. About to found a fourth coastal city near a city-state subject. By far the most dispersed civ I’ve ever played, but it’s probably not optimal to do this, as loyalty is a thing.
That sounds great, keep me posted! Thanks for the updates.
Spock
3587
Sure will! One more thought on diplomatic favor: it’s the currency that ultimately can win you the Diplomatic Victory. So there’s incentive not to spend it willy-nilly, and doing naughty diplomatic things can cost you favor, at least indirectly. (I think.) Still not sure how it all works; will keep you posted.
Dammit, Spock. You got me to buy this. Well, you and @robc04 when he pointed out it was just a bit more than $30 on GMG, which put it within range of my wanting to try it since they did make at least some potential effort with the diplomacy mechanics.
I downloaded it remotely and when I got home I tried to launch it and … this can’t be right?
I verified the files and it found 3 were bad and needed replacing. It still looks like this though. Is anyone else seeing that?
I’m re-downloading it completely now though, after removing it. See if that works. I didn’t even click the green button, it may be working fine…
Fenris99
3589
Aaaand I’m still getting missionary spam. Does my neighbor really need to send 10 units at once to convert my cities?! It’s super annoying and still not fixable via diplomacy. I can tell my neighbor not to settle near me but I can’t tell him to stop converting my cities? Wars have been started over that but somehow it isn’t an option here.
Where do I find this setting? I must be blind! :(
robc04
3591
That only makes it easier for me to break down and get it Scott.
Look, a volcano went active right next to my capitol! Darn it all!
I’m actually really digging this so far, I forgot I liked a lot of the “board game” like mechanics of Civ VI, and so far my only AI neighbor has been perfectly friendly, helpful even, so we’ll see how that aspect goes. Right now I’m just trying to survive barbarian hordes.
I found it!
For anyone else curious, and I don’t know why in the world this isn’t on by default, you click on this Map Options icon above your mini-map to find this. I’d have never known it existed if @Spock hadn’t mentioned it was possible.
It really does make the gameplay map looks just a little more elegant.
Also, is it me or does this game just look a lot prettier than I remember? Everything from the map to the units themselves seem to carry more weight, somehow. And the colors! Oh, my. Anyway, here is a mountain range and a river with labels on, I can’t recommend the feature enough.
In their February 13 stream, the devs said they tasked the game engine team with pushing it to its limits, and they succeeded, according to them.
Got a brief opportunity to take the Inca for a spin. My only regret so far is that mods won’t be working again for a while. I forgot just how much I was taking some of them for granted. Particularly a couple of them that made city states more difficult to overrun.
It may have been just the luck of the draw (or my starting a difficulty level lower) but I had a little more room between me and my nearest neighbor.
