1586

Luckily, I’d just finished archery and was able to upgrade the slingers I had to archers which helped a lot.

1587

That’s just silly.

Anyway, I wrapped up my second game (the first being a loss on Prince). This time I went King since I felt like I knew what I was doing a little better, and I managed a Religious victory with Rome. It was a really challenging game as Scythia was trying for the same victory, so we had nonstop Faith battles on her home continent as I tried to convert America, Scythia, Egypt, Kondo, and India. It took awhile, 340+ turns, and I went Faith hard (Ares, God of War - converted cities gave my troops +10 combat bonus around them - my initial goal was to take over my continent with Legions but it was really hard to get a foot hold in the early game on King).

I was pleased to see that for a good chunk of the game the Scores of all the Civs stayed about the same.

blob.jpg1027×530 120 KB

In fact you can see me (Purple) rises at the same time yellow (Arabia) drops - they attacked me early and I fought them off (thanks to Rome’s powerful trading, I had money and didn’t need iron to build a bunch of Legions, and I had an encampent with a barracks so I was pumping them out ever 2 or 3 turns in my capitol). After I fought them off, I pushed into their territory and took 3 of their cities, and then they sued for peace and I agreed… but kept their cities.

Terrific game, second positive experience - though I still hate the random auto-unit cycle, fucks me at least twice a game so far, even knowing it’s coming.

Off to start game 3!

1588

I share that opinion. Everything that’s changed since 5 seems like a great improvement in theory. I really appreciate how much more “reactive” the game feels with land resources directing towards certain techs, wonders only being available to certain city setups, and techs getting boosts to give a sort of random suggestions for how to go up the tree.

Yet I still feel like the decisions I’m making turn after turn aren’t engaging for some reason. And I feel like I spend a lot of time waiting for something interesting to happen.

The biggest culprit for me so far is the policy system. There’s just a ton of cards with different boosts, but I’m not finding any of them particularly exciting. Every time I get a new civic tech discovered I feel a little dread at trying to optimize those bonuses for what I’m doing right now. Not because it’s really difficult, just because I’m not finding it to be a fun decision.

With all that negative out of the way, I really dig districts. They do a great job encouraging specializing your cities. They also give great bonuses for layout. I find myself wanting to have the same district everywhere and also completely different ones, which is a great tension. They seem like just an all around great contribution to the series. Sadly, like you, I’m worried I just don’t enjoy these kind of games anymore.

1589

The biggest single change is that cities are now built across the game map, not in one tile. Personally, I think that changes a lot, as we can no longer build every improvement or Wonder in any one city. It makes it a lot harder to decide what to build. If that doesn’t strike you as an interesting change, then you might want to pass. Personally, I think it’s a fantastic change.

Other differences include governments & social policies that are mix-and-match cards that you can swap out rather than a fixed set of trees; two tech trees, one for civics; “inspirations” that reward you progress toward a tech for doing an in-game thing; a more robust city-state system; a religious victory option (that may not appeal to me in the long run, not sure yet); neat music; a more stylized graphical look; some new multiplayer options; and, I think, a somewhat better AI.

1590

Just expectations I guess. 6 years and 1 intervening civ-ish game later, I’d hoped for more radical changes to the civ formula. Like … maybe with regards to how info is presented to you, or perhaps with the game’s pacing, or the perennially brain dead AI. Though I guess if civ 6’s King ai is floating your boat, more power to you.

Played 3 multiplayer matches (that did not, of course, end). I love the idea, but even with 30 second turns, it just isn’t practical. It’s certainly improved since Beyond Earth’s mp.

1591

I think pillaging districts gives you science/faith/etc, but pillaging builder improvements give you gold/heal as usual.

1592

Just finished my first game and I feel the same as I did when Civ V was released. I did enjoy Civ V after the two expansions, but on release, the game wasn’t compelling enough. The changes to the Civ formula are nice. It feels like Civ without being a direct copy of the prior iterations.

I played as Germany/Barbarossa and won by culture on a standard continents maps at Prince level. I was impressed by the fact that my two neighbours (Sumeria and Arabia) both declared war on me early, completely unprovoked. Sadly, they didn’t manage to make any real gains, their units only served as hurdles and experience fodder for my units. Much of my game otherwise went by peacefully. There was another war with Arabia, again, his units were fodder for me to kill and not much more. I had little to no interest in taking his cities.

In terms of power, I reigned supreme. I wanted to aim for a space race win, and was strengthening my position as an economic and production powerhouse that is modern day Germany. In the end though, the game became a race of whether I’d get space race or culture first. I didn’t intend to get culture, it just happened thanks to frequently popping out great people. For space, I had about 10 turns to go to finish the final Mars module.

By end game, I’d run out of things to research, still a few small culture things to research. My treasury was full and turns were simply actioning whatever needed to be done, then pressing end turn. There was complete disengagement by the end, all I cared was I finished the game. Upping the difficulty may make a difference, but I’m going to wait a few days or weeks before I try this again I think.

1593

This is correct.

1594

I find it odd the game both doesn’t list my current wonders nor, in hover text or the build videos, list the wonders’ gameplay effects. You can see them described before you begin building the wonder and in the Civopedia only. :-(

1595

Where is this switch? I cannot find it - but I am sure it is probably staring me in the face.

1596

Anyone know how Difficulty settings work in Multiplayer? In SP, you just set your difficulty and go. In the MP lobby, each player has a difficulty level. If I want to play the same as Emperor, what do I do? Do I set my difficulty to Emperor, or the AI’s difficulty to Emperor?

1597

I think it’s called Quick Movement in the options menu.

1598

Ah, thanks @KevinC! I think I had tunnel vision looking for animated and not the word quick.

One other quick question:
Do Districts wipe out the improvements that are located on a tile?

I am just starting to play tonight and hopefully will get a bit more time tomorrow morning.

1599

Yes, districts replace whatever was there before. Same with wonders.

1600

If you build a district on a tile with forest or rainforest (thus removing them), do you still get the production bonus for chopping or do you have to chop separately with a builder to get the boost?

1601

Nope, you’ve got to chop it separately.

1602

Anyone else try and build a spaceport? In my capital, I get the message that I need 19 population, while in another city with less population I get no such warning.

1603

It’s not a pop limit to build your spaceport, it’s the city already being at its limit of how many ‘specialized districts’ it can have based on its pop and your civ. If you click the city info button to bring up the left-side detailed city info, I think it’s listed out what that is and what’s using it on the second tab.

1604

Ah, OK - thanks for the explanation. Either the message wasn’t clear or I was just being a dope.

1605

I think I got my victory the same way someone above got theirs. I was going for a science victory and I ended up getting the cultural victory. I was France and they got a tourism bonus so i guess it makes sense.

I didn’t realize how the luxuries worked. Each luxury gets a number of uses, like 4 or 6. That many of your cities can get the amenities benefit from those luxuries. I thought all cities could get the benefit, so I was trading away all of my duplicates and finally realized what was going on when my cities were getting unhappy.

I didn’t have a single civ attack me, just Cleopatra making fun of me for how weak I was, until I took 2/3s of her cities. So far I like this quite a bit. Time to try a different leader!