I forgot to mention. There are a couple of graphics mods that are easy to find and install, one is Civ V in terms of look, others are wetlands, forests, and districts (e.g. districts in forests). They give the game a slightly more grand and mature feel in my mind.
IMO it’s absurd to say Civ VI or Civ anything is a builder. Virtually all the game mechanics are designed for civ vs civ play, from competition over gimme-huts, city-state perks, land for cities, and the early wonders up to the end game. Prior to Civ V, if you neglected your military you would be crushed, not so much by good AI but by overwhelming force wielded by barely adequate AI. In Civ VI if you have even a modest military you can’t lose a war because the AI is so impenetrably stupid. But regardless of AI competence, the game is not a builder first. You can win just as easily with a sprawl of half-assed cities as with a carefully designed perfectly optimized set of size-50 juggernauts.
Well, to me Civ is a game about building. I don’t really care what other civs are doing, so I don’t really care about the AI. I just like to build my empire.
Nice to see I am not alone in this :-)
I don’t think it’s absurd. After you’ve built up your cities, nursed them over the millenia, chosen their upgrades, built roads between them – you get attached to them. I think the majority of players don’t like having the AI come and stomp your cities. The game also provides mini challenges to growing your cities in terms of happiness management, population caps due to tech, terraforming the area etc. The design is quite schizophrenic in that way: most of the time, you have no idea what the AI/other player is up to, and the only time you interact is when you have diplomatic relations; when you accidentally encounter the other player on their continent; or when you do the rare fighting.
The inefficiency of combat also discourages fighting. Even before Civ V, building armies, managing them, and taking them across the world to your enemy was an exercise in frustration, and being at war meant you were spending resources that could be used to advance scientifically, thus making it harder to win later on.
However, having zero military pushback from the AI (in 5 and 6) is a serious problem. Even for builders with a strong aversion to losing what they built, without the need to defend any of it, the resource decisions become empty. The game is (potentially) a builder until it isn’t, and in the best versions of the design, you’re not the one who always gets to decide when it isn’t: a militaristic AI or a random small civilization blocking your way get to make that call.
The “people shouldn’t complain that Civ 6 is a builder when it’s always been a builder” is silly on multiple levels.
Who ever played Civ on an empty map with no AIs?
Factorio and Minecraft are builders, and even their AIs have more pushback than Civ 6’s.
Civ 6 fails at even being a builder. The whole system is built on the “ding!” immediate satisfaction of being awarded bonuses until you eventually realize that all those bonus systems are meaningless, badly designed, or overly fiddly. Factory bonuses, but you realize that requires you to exactly plan city placements thousands of years in advance. Bonuses for cultural artifact sets, but you realize the whole culture system is busted and all the artifacts/works don’t matter because tourism is all about seaside resorts. Bonuses for eurekas, but you realize it makes the whole thing feel overly gamey. The list goes on and on.
And finally, the designers revamped the entire series to make it more of a war game. I do not get how someone could look at the change they made to the 1UP system and say, “Yes this is obviously a builder. It was never meant to be a war strategy game.” They tried to turn it into Empire Deluxe. They sacrificed a LOT of what made Civ a builder or 4x game to achieve this. It failed. It failed as a builder. It failed as a 4x. It certainly failed as a war game.
Regarding it being a successful seller, I’m wondering how much of that is people liking the new direction the series moved in, and how much of that is simply expanded reach with modern online advertising and digital distribution. Not one single person I’ve talked to said it wasn’t a step down from previous Civ games. I can’t imagine new casual players getting into all the overly fiddly (and ultimately pointless) systems. I think it’s mostly the sheer momentum of the brand name, with people buying, but not enjoying, the game and expansions, hoping that it will get fixed and recapture old glory.
Another thing to this point, to my recollection Civ IV is the only game in the series where playing tall (having maybe three cities or fewer) is a viable and efficient strategy. Civ V seems like this might be viable initially, but you really need more cities to pump out culture and/or science. Even with the penalty V gives for having more cities, with a bit of optimization it is still better to play wide. I haven’t played VI enough to know if that’s still the case, but from experience with it, VI reminds me of V in that it seems viable to focus on a few cities, but actually you’re better off having as many cities as possible.
I guess it’s time to revisit Civ VI, although without having bothered with the expansions, I’m not really all that excited about diving back in.
I guess I’m fairly ambivalent about whether Civ VI is better than Civ V or not overall, although I personally appreciate that Civ VI tries to make terrain more relevant when it comes to the city-building aspect.
On the topic of 1UPT, I still think it’s better than the old megastacks of doom. Maybe I’m just less annoyed about the AI upkeep bonuses now that it has to deal with the additional burden of fitting everything on the map.
This really nails it. The whole point of 1UPT was to make civ more tactically interesting. And then the AI can’t handle it, so they keep that change regardless, but double down on the complexity of building tall.
I think it’s both. The graphics, and therefore the immersion, have also improved since the early 3D of IV. But I really think that this weird cycle of ‘increase tactics → break AI → double down on buliding’ has placed VI in a new niche for a completely different audience. It’s not really a strategy game anymore as much as a puzzle game (aka a ‘builder’).
@Alan_Au I’d recommend the Gathering Storm DLC as it improves the game a fair bit. Remember V was not all that special until the two expansions.
I like this take, because it’s not a puzzle game of working out a solution, but assembling a puzzle. When the pieces fall together it’s pretty satisfying, and a lot of the DLC is about adding interesting new puzzle pieces to play with (resources, civs, improvements etc).
It’s not quite that bad. Try it, not having an army, and you’ll get invaded pretty quickly.
The Civ 6 war AI improved over time in the sense that it went from “you’re invincible if you have walls” to “you’re invincible if you have walls and a single defending unit”.
Ethiopia pack available now.
Did anybody here take up the frontier pass?
Sorry, I know I’m coming in way late here but this:
This cracked me up because what was Civ originally but a historical skin on Empire?
(Anyway, Civ VI is trash, wake up sheeple, sorry I’ll bail out on the thread again ;) )
If it gets cheap enough, sub $20 I may buy it. I enjoyed playing around with Civ VI for several games, it just didn’t have staying power. They also need to add a game mode I’d be interested in.
I did. Whether it’s worthwhile or not is debatable, but if it gets me a few dozen more hours into the game, it’ll cover the cost.
Have you gotten anything worthwhile yet?
I also got it, and I get the feeling my money will be well-spent. However, I’d warn it’s not likely to make a Civ VI lover out of someone who isn’t already.
Free weekend and 75% off.
Edit: On Steam
I got it. And I’d say it feels worth it. I’m not crazy about this move toward dribbling out content month by month – I’d rather have big, jam-packed expansions. But there are some welcome additions so far. The Mayans are a great (maybe the great) turtling faction with some well-balanced advantages and disadvantages. Gran Columbia’s fun if you feel like racing about clobbering everyone in sight. I was a little underwhelmed by the newest civ (Ethiopia) on paper until I tried it out this morning. Whew. A real powerhouse if you make smart decisions (and luck out in your map). I’m not sure how excited I am by the leader variations, but I did try out the Bull Moose Teddy R., and it I did like how it requires a very different strategy than normal, fightin’ Teddy.
I’d say the highlight so far is the secret societies mode in this update, which I’m still experimenting with, but which is a lot more interesting and better integrated into the game systems than the dumb apocalypse mode in the last update. I won’t go into detail because a lot of the fun is gradually figuring out the mysteries, but it does add some welcome flavor.