4077

I’ve played it on the IPad and it’s much better than I would have expected (quite good and very easy to use interface). Not sure about the Switch directly though.

4078

I’ve been playing the latest DLC (Vietnam, etc.)

The maps are as segmented as ever, maybe more so. Pure hatred for that.

Vietnam looks very interesting, and others at CivFanatics have been liking it, but in practice I found it boring, all three games I started.

The economic mode (monopolies, etc.) – I like the idea a lot, but honestly, it is so overpowered as to ruin a lot of playthroughs. All of a sudden, fairly early on, you are so awash in gold that you can do anything. And where I see the AI getting benefits from heroes, I have yet to see them swimming in gold.

4079

Something happened to Civ VI’s development over the last couple years to take it in a direction of something that i’ve never seen a Civ game go. To put it in a weird way, it’s kind of like Goat Simulator for 4X games now. The Let’s Plays by the hardcore players just dismiss it because it’s so imbalanced in multiplayer, but there’s a whole community of Civ VI players now min-maxing their way to happiness… but often, very explicitly, without building any military at all, to the point where listening to one character talking said something like “When do I build military? Only when i absolutely have to”.

So in this “hilarious” Civ 6 world of just piling on features and improvements and this and that, i guess (?) the audience just likes taking a random challenge and running with it. Beating the game seems more or less taken as an assumption.

4080

I’ve only played one game with Vietnam and it was ridiculous. The movement and combat bonus for marsh, woods, and rainforest meant I just went to war early and obliterated my neighbours. As an added bonus, the Matterhorn was nearby so most of my troops had attack bonuses for any land except open flatland. My biggest impediment to world domination was the amount of time spent moving around all the mountains that were in the way.

4081

Got links? I’d like to watch these.

4082

It seems to me that this is a trend that goes way beyind Civ. I figured this mindset came from Steam achievements, which I hardly notice, but I gather they are a very big deal to a lot of players.

I mean, I am happy for the players who get fun out of this style of play, but not so happy if it kind of lets gamemakers off the hook as far as making games that are basically good games.

Oh yeah? I hadn’t noticed. /sarcasm

4083

I continue to have a good time playing Civ VI, even if it can be fairly stupid at times. My most recent game, I decided to mix it up and play a standard map (I typically play on Large), and chose the new gameplay that mixes the tech and civic trees up so you don’t know what’s coming next. That alone was a pretty refreshing take on the early game so far. I didn’t think these weird alternate ways to play would interest me, and I’ll probably not try the others, but this one is a nice break from the norm.

4084

Yes, that was a great addition. I play with that game mode on all the time now. The other game modes are a little less good.

Dramatic ages mode was something I doubted I’d like. I’m not really a fan of the ages thing to being with. I tried it. I hate it.

Apocalypse mode was entertaining for a few turns for the sacrifices to the volcano but that grew old pretty fast and the soothsayer, which I suppose is the centrepiece of this game mode, just isn’t interesting.

Heroes and Legends mode is fun, but be prepared for getting overpowered. Any time I’ve recruited Sinbad early, I am rolling in gold and just buy myself a big leg up on the other civs.

Secret Societies are nice addition to the game. Again, depending on how you take advantage, it can make quick work of your neighbours.

4085

I’m super late to the party (as usual) but I picked up Civ VI recently on a $15 steam sale. Tried to play it today and I do not understand this game. I figured I would because I’d played all the previous CIV titles and generally like 4x and builder genres. But in this game I can’t build anything in my starting city except military units? I researched the techs to build like granaries and stuff but it doesn’t seem to be an option. Also the map seems to be packed with barbarians? My scouts are constantly running from danger while my sole starting warrior has to stay pegged to my only city so I can avoid being caught defenseless.

Obviously the early game is much different than previous Civ titles. Anyone have some pointers for the first twenty turns? Should I only be cranking out warriors to secure the region around my capitol? Should I be beelining settlers and working on cranking them out ASAP?

4086

Quill18 has a good set of learning videos.

4087

The hardcore fellows basically are racing to make settlers and workers and so (they say) the typical build order is scout-scout-settler. They care most about racing the AI for the good city spots.

I mean you can play however but the min-max way is to try and get as many “eurekas” as you can. I also think you should run your units ASAP to find as many city states first as possible. The early boost to finding cities states first is (imo) basically broken, but Civ VI seems be operating on a BrEaK iT MoaR design now.

4088

Your city is likely safe without keeping your one warrior around. The barbarian scouts are no threat to a city and you can bring him back if there is real trouble. Slingers suck as a ranged unit but if they kill a unit they make researching archery faster. Once you have archers dealing with barbarians is easier.

4089

Slingers killing a unit gives you a Eureka, so you want to build one slinger. Taking a barb camp gives a Eureka.

Basically Civ VI is kind of annoying / awesome in that it wants you to have tons and tons of “micro” goals. Whether you like doing that depends on how you could think 4X games should play.

4090

Yeah, when I played a long time back, I would tend to start Slinger - Builder.

4091

You have links to these guys, Endi?

4092

Oh yea sorry I keep forgetting!

FilthyRobot. He gave up in Civ VI a while ago but the videos he made are still mostly relevant.

PotatoMcwhisky. He’s the current Civ VI go-to channel with new content all the time. He tends to focus on non- military games.

4093

Thanks! Added.

4094

I wonder if you ran into a UI interface issue on the city building screen. There are buttons to “advance the list” to scroll to … buildings, wonders, units and projects. I suspect you hit the button for units and the buildings aren’t there till you scroll up? I’m just guessing.

About the barbs…yeah. It’s a different world. Scouts won’t threaten your cities but other units might.

Potato McWhiskey is better than netflix.

4095

I’ve now learned to be hesitant with any Switch ports, especially with a game still being actively developed on another platform, as Switch games seem rarely updated. No clue if Nintendo makes this difficult for the devs or if this is just a skewed view from the few PC ports I’ve tried on Switch.

4096

I’ve just checked back in to try out the new content and particularly the new modes. My experience so far is similar to a few posters above. The new modes are (briefly) fun, but the main effect seems to be ridiculous and capricious advantages for the player. (As someone said earlier – find Sinbad in a coastal city early --insta-win). And the devs seem to be piling on even more game mechanics that the AI doesn’t seem to know how to use. I’m curious, has anyone observed the AI creating industries or monopolies? (I still haven’t over repeated playthroughs). Or has anyone seen the AI using heroes as anything but throwaway combatants (i.e. an AI Sinbad zipping around making money or AI Hercules completing districts)? Or going back a ways, has anyone seen the AI flip a city using cultists or create a vampire castle?

Even the less clearly advantageous modes – shuffled techs and civics, dramatic ages, apocalypse – all seem to confound the AI much more than they do the player. (I just played a shuffle game where Astrology and Theology were delayed, and as result I kept seeing great prophets sitting in AI capitals unused). With most of the new modes engaged, game difficulty levels are pretty much obsolete, and I’ve actually had to switch off culture victories entirely so I don’t accidentally win one (it’s happened three times) on my way to a different victory. (This last happened, in a Gaul playthrough, in about 1740 without me building a single theater square. Just bonkers.)

Even if this is a concession, as some people were speculating earlier, to the “break the game,” memes and exploits crowd, I don’t get the sense of that. Sure it’s fun to watch Potato McWhiskey or Spiffing Brit pull off some crazy min-max challenge on Youtube then attempt it yourself. But then what? There’s no replayability, no incentive to break the game a second time once you’ve broken it once, no “just one more turn” feeling. I guess the one solution is just to switch these new modes off, but then I wonder what’s even the point.

Just very confused by this new direction. I’m probably being a crabby old guy here, but I don’t know if it bodes well for the game’s future development or for Civ 7.