1767

I’ll say this: Civ VI has cemented in my mind that I hate the way religion works. I hate how it’s a weird inevitable ramshackle race for population conversion. I wish I could disable it entirely.

1768

I still prefer Civ IV religion (though Civ IV is old enough that I struggle to go back and play it now).

1769

I finished my first random game last night on Prince playing as Saladin. I won around 2040 I think with a religious victory. Wasn’t going for that at all, I was going for science but it was taking too long to construct all the mars rover bits. I then, with one of my cities still following my religion, built up enough apostles and missionaries to take over the world and nobody tried to stop me.

I think that it is not worth playing on Prince again unless they sort out the AI. If harder difficulty levels just give the opposition better starting units but do not change the AI difficulty then I am with everyone else that we should wait until the AI is improved with patches. I have little intention of starting a new game until this happens.

I like the game but I think I would prefer one that takes less than 15 hours to finish from start to the end. I might try Endless Legend next.

Alex.

1770

Scaled costs is actually pretty smart but overall Civ VI seems a bit “aspie” designed to be honest; the numbers side of things work better than ever but at the cost of things like UI. I also wonder if the tech quotes aren’t “aspie” as well - whoever chose them seem to think they need to be literal. A quote about writing literally says “writing”, a quote about laws literally says “laws”? Quotes by Dave Barry and Garrison Keiler? Is this like a Dilbert reader’s sensibilities?

I also feel like somehow the game feels almost, very subtextual, very Americ-centric and Euro-centric. I mean Cleopatra seems a bit Betty Boop, almost all of the wonders are New World or Anglo-centric, the African Civ gets bonus by… waiting for other people to bring their inventions to them? Why does Greece have two leaders again? Why is Catherine de Medici the leader of France? Why is Saladin the leader of Arabia? It just seems like Civ V, already toeing near stereotypes at least made up for it with style, but Civ VI is a mishmash of strsined inclusivity and old fashioned historical sensibilities.

I still think the emphasis on numbers means that it is a better game than Civ V purely by the books; Civ V seemed a definitive gateway game to a new generation. Civ VI by contrast seems a bit clunkier. But, maybe most of all, VI seems to show the man behind the curtain. We’d think that among the storied franchises Civ looms large over the genre, and should overwhelm the competition by the scope and scale of its production. Instead Civ VI surprises me by the smallness of its development, the creaky ill fitting seams, the clunky UI, the sense that you’re looking at limitations of budget and design staring back at you. That instead of the first among equals, Civ VI is just one among many. That’s maybe the most jarring thing of all.

1771

The backlash has started. Adam, Scott, you are needed! :)

1772

To be clear, it IS a better game than V, as a game.

1773

This has always been the case, surely.

1774

“Why is Catherine de Medici the leader of France?”

…because she reigned as Queen at a pivotal moment in French History? She seems a reasonable choice to me. Real talk: did you know who she was before you wrote this?

edit- also, what does the choice of Catherine have to do with being “Americ or Euro centric?”

1775

I thought the forum would turn by Sunday night, I was off by a day and a morning.

1776

As with Civ V, the game isn’t for everyone. And yeah, it has some UI issues and the Civlopedia needs some serious fleshing out. That just strikes me as a game released a tiny bit too early more than anything else. I love it, but that’s warts and all. Thankfully, there’s time for the “vanishing cream” of patches to help shape it up even more.

1777

If they needed an awesome chick to represent France for a change, Eleanor of Acquitaine was such a better choice - and about as Frecnh as Catherine ;)

1778

No argument there, but I still think Catherine is a fine choice.

1779

No backlash from me! I’m still completely absorbed in Civ VI. I’m really digging districts, the new builders, the split tech trees, Eurekas, the much-improved government and social-policy systems, the new barbarians, the new espionage. I’ve never loved religion in these games, but it’s okay with me, and thankfully I haven’t encountered huge apostle spam yet, Yeah, the AI still needs work, but it’s a lot better than Civ V, at least in the early game. I think the “agendas” have improved the diplomatic game. The diplomacy AIs in my game haven’t done anything inconsistent with their personalities. Maybe I’ve just been fortunate.

For those complaining about AI: have you tried multiplayer? It seems much smoother now. I watched Trump (the Hearthstone guru, not the candidate) play 80 turns with 4 or other 5 players last night, in about two-plus hours. AI obviously is a non-issue in that setting; I thought the game really shined. Now, Trump and his opponents played fast – they have fast-combat and fast-movement on, and Trump makes quick decisions on just about everything. Still, 80 turns in a couple hours is pretty good. That’s about how fast I play single-player!

15 hours? I’ve got 40 hours in Civ VI now, and I’m still on turn 280 of my first game! :)

1780

I think Civilization 6 may be my favorite of the series (I need more time with it still to say so definitively). The AI still has some serious shortcomings and issues, but it’s far and away better than it was in Civilization 5, in my experience thus far. The fact that it can actually maneuver units around in the 1UPT system is a huge improvement alone. I don’t expect miracles from AI especially at 1.0, but it needs to at least have a working base to build upon. I feel like they have that here, despite numerous issues anyone could point to.

I love what they’ve done in terms of making the layout of the map so important. That combined with Districts and Wonders actually being physically placed on a hex makes city and empire planning so much more interesting. I really like splitting Tech and Civics into different trees, although I do wish that both had a little more breadth to them. That’s unfortunately not something likely to change with patches or expansions.

My complaints this time around mostly center on UI and documentation, which is something that they excelled with in Civ5. For instance, I hate how when you go to your city production screen to build a district, and it doesn’t tell you what the adjacency bonuses are! There’s a lot of information missing in one place but available in another, and UI interaction in general is kind of all over the place. This notification you right-click to dismiss, this other one you have to left-click and it’ll go away. Why?! Thankfully, those issues are ones that I see getting fixed with patches.

1781

It just seems odd to have a non-French leader of France. It would be like having - not quite as bad admittedly - Robert Clive as leader of India, or Enrico Dandalo as leader of the Byzantine Empire. Saladin is definitely not Arab. Cleopatra is not really Egyptian either but she gets grandfathered in by tradition.

Funny thing about Eleanor is that she could also be monarch of England.

1782

She was a queen of France and a ruling regent for a time, no? And they’re not the same at all, for that to be the case Catherine would have had to invade and conquer France and establish rule there as an imperialist power.

I get that she wasn’t French-born, but I really don’t see her as an odd choice.

1783

It’s not a hill I want to die on ;). Just noticing things! If everyone is happy with her, hey, it’s not the end of the world.

1784

Despite being a fence sitter before release, I ended up getting it over the weekend. Surprised how well it looks and runs on my aged video card (so I get to procrastinate even longer on upgrading, yay.)

I find the game addicting; maybe because I like maps and exploring/building things, and I don’t really care (like, at all) about the AI posing a challenge. The diplomacy AI is the same insane AI it’s always been (and the tactical AI is a bit better than 5) but I play the game casually and not for some deeply invovling war game so I just mostly ignore it. /shrug

1785

… depends how your domination victory plays out.

1786

The game isn’t trying to be a super realistic diplomacy simulation. It’s a game. The AI knows it’s playing what is basically a board game against you. They might be friendly, but they want to win at the end just like you do. They are aware of the victory conditions. They’re not just going to let you win because you’re buddies. You’d screw over a friendly AI ally to win the game, too.