Civilization VI - Now available, so you can sink all your free time into it

[dukeofwhales]

We can technically do a hands-on of this game at Gamescom, but I find it hard to muster the enthusiasm. Have there been any announced features that have made people feel excited about Civ 6?

I would enjoy reading your report if you did a hands on.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Since when did ICS become an "exploit"?

Since when did any sane, non-autistic person actually do ICS? And feel free to actually explain how many cities counts as ICS, cos, amazingly, no-one ever does. On tiny maps you can win conquest victories all the way to Emperor level with just one city. On tiny maps you wouldn't have the space for more than a few cities. If you're playing with the maximum number of opponents on any map size then there simply wont be room for ICS. If you're playing an archipelago you'll be limited by however big your island is, for the most part. Under what circumstances exactly are you achieving ICS? And what do you classify, exactly, as ICS? Are you even able to accurately describe ICS so that anyone could simply and easily even know what the fuck you're talking about, or is it a phrase that only means something to someone who's read stuff about other possible exploits in the game?

 

[Archibald]

Gameplay needs meaningful choices. Meaningful choices need balance.

Thats very simplistic view that quickly leads to PoE's "everything is balanced so who cares what you do" design.

 

[fastjack]

We can technically do a hands-on of this game at Gamescom, but I find it hard to muster the enthusiasm. Have there been any announced features that have made people feel excited about Civ 6?

No, sadly nothing exciting.

 

[rezaf]

We can technically do a hands-on of this game at Gamescom, but I find it hard to muster the enthusiasm. Have there been any announced features that have made people feel excited about Civ 6?

I thought the idea to have your tech behave a bit like the skills in Wizardry - be better at something you do more frequently - at least sounded great on paper. I even failed miserably at making a mod that was like this for Civ4 many years back.

Well, districts are nice.

They are a neat idea, but another that doesn't really belong in a global 4x, like 1UPT.

I find it really discouraging that the game becomes ever more "gamey", i.e. moves further and further from a slightly simulationist angle towards ... toy, I guess would be the right word.
Like the barbarians discover you and then run back to their village thing. Someone ought to make a mod where they have a large exclamation mark over their "head" once they see you...

 

[baturinsky]

Gameplay needs meaningful choices. Meaningful choices need balance.

Thats very simplistic view that quickly leads to PoE's "everything is balanced so who cares what you do" design.

Right. If choice is obvious, there is no choice. If choice does not matter, there is no choice either. Choice should be between non-equivalent variants, but it should need player to do some analysis, or depend on his/her personal preference.

If axeman always better, or always worse, or always same than archers, it's bad. If it depends on player's preference (aggression/defense), or geography and neighbors player get in game, it's good.

 

[kris]

Since when did ICS become an "exploit"?

Since when did any sane, non-autistic person actually do ICS? And feel free to actually explain how many cities counts as ICS, cos, amazingly, no-one ever does. On tiny maps you can win conquest victories all the way to Emperor level with just one city. On tiny maps you wouldn't have the space for more than a few cities. If you're playing with the maximum number of opponents on any map size then there simply wont be room for ICS. If you're playing an archipelago you'll be limited by however big your island is, for the most part. Under what circumstances exactly are you achieving ICS? And what do you classify, exactly, as ICS? Are you even able to accurately describe ICS so that anyone could simply and easily even know what the fuck you're talking about, or is it a phrase that only means something to someone who's read stuff about other possible exploits in the game?

how many cities? As many as to not be negative to overall strategy. I dont remember Civ3, but I guess the answer is "when you are out of land".

Obviously you can win more easily with one city if you play on a map were there hardly is space for any cities, what are you trying to say? that you can limit what basically is a design flaw by choosing unfavourable setting for it? guess what? That is what you could define as "an exploit".

But reading your post it seems you are just on some Don quixote crusade to prove a losing point by rambling. what ICS means is pretty clear, throwing out a dozen questions is pointless. that you can limit the implications of it is also pretty obvious. and that all in response to me pointing out that ICS is not an exploit. So you didn't adress the point I made at all.

 

[Angthoron]

Since when did ICS become an "exploit"?

Since when did any sane, non-autistic person actually do ICS? And feel free to actually explain how many cities counts as ICS, cos, amazingly, no-one ever does. On tiny maps you can win conquest victories all the way to Emperor level with just one city. On tiny maps you wouldn't have the space for more than a few cities. If you're playing with the maximum number of opponents on any map size then there simply wont be room for ICS. If you're playing an archipelago you'll be limited by however big your island is, for the most part. Under what circumstances exactly are you achieving ICS? And what do you classify, exactly, as ICS? Are you even able to accurately describe ICS so that anyone could simply and easily even know what the fuck you're talking about, or is it a phrase that only means something to someone who's read stuff about other possible exploits in the game?

how many cities? As many as to not be negative to overall strategy. I dont remember Civ3, but I guess the answer is "when you are out of land".

That is not ICS.

ICS is spamming cities 3 tiles apart, unless there's a really good reason to not do so.

Here's ICS guide for Civ 5, for example:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=530468

 

[kris]

Since when did ICS become an "exploit"?

Since when did any sane, non-autistic person actually do ICS? And feel free to actually explain how many cities counts as ICS, cos, amazingly, no-one ever does. On tiny maps you can win conquest victories all the way to Emperor level with just one city. On tiny maps you wouldn't have the space for more than a few cities. If you're playing with the maximum number of opponents on any map size then there simply wont be room for ICS. If you're playing an archipelago you'll be limited by however big your island is, for the most part. Under what circumstances exactly are you achieving ICS? And what do you classify, exactly, as ICS? Are you even able to accurately describe ICS so that anyone could simply and easily even know what the fuck you're talking about, or is it a phrase that only means something to someone who's read stuff about other possible exploits in the game?

how many cities? As many as to not be negative to overall strategy. I dont remember Civ3, but I guess the answer is "when you are out of land".

That is not ICS.

ICS is spamming cities 3 tiles apart, unless there's a really good reason to not do so.

Here's ICS guide for Civ 5, for example:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=530468

I nautrally checked this up as you wrote this and you are not entirerly correct. The term has been used for both the tactic of building cities as close togther as possible and for building as many as quickly as possible. they seem to argue about the term in civ forums.

here it mostly is used as "building many cities"

 

[Delterius]

Sounds like people invented a term for 'playing the game' and forgot to pin its exact meaning.

 

[Angthoron]

Since when did ICS become an "exploit"?

Since when did any sane, non-autistic person actually do ICS? And feel free to actually explain how many cities counts as ICS, cos, amazingly, no-one ever does. On tiny maps you can win conquest victories all the way to Emperor level with just one city. On tiny maps you wouldn't have the space for more than a few cities. If you're playing with the maximum number of opponents on any map size then there simply wont be room for ICS. If you're playing an archipelago you'll be limited by however big your island is, for the most part. Under what circumstances exactly are you achieving ICS? And what do you classify, exactly, as ICS? Are you even able to accurately describe ICS so that anyone could simply and easily even know what the fuck you're talking about, or is it a phrase that only means something to someone who's read stuff about other possible exploits in the game?

how many cities? As many as to not be negative to overall strategy. I dont remember Civ3, but I guess the answer is "when you are out of land".

That is not ICS.

ICS is spamming cities 3 tiles apart, unless there's a really good reason to not do so.

Here's ICS guide for Civ 5, for example:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=530468

I nautrally checked this up as you wrote this and you are not entirerly correct. The term has been used for both the tactic of building cities as close togther as possible and for building as many as quickly as possible. they seem to argue about the term in civ forums.

here it mostly is used as "building many cities"

Fair enough, though until now every time I've encountered mention of ICS (in any Civ game) it meant gridspamming cities in an extremely autistic fashion, which is probably indeed the most efficient strat, but I'm sure you can see the drawbacks. IIRC there was a lengthy discussion about this in the SM Alpha Centauri thread, too.

 

[Average Manatee]

The true mark of ICS is when you basically build cities without caring about the land because the game mechanics allow a city placed anywhere to be automatically good. Where a normal player will scout to find a food source and build a city nearby, the ICSer just builds cities in a constantly expanding radius.

Exactly how close they are doesn't really matter, the goal is to drive up population quickly and work shitty tiles (often the central city tile that is automatically worked is alone worth the cost of founding a city, actual population working other tiles is just gravy). This could happen even in Civ 4 by the lategame, where cities placed on complete tunda or desert could still be fed automatically with corporations, generated large trade income, and become specialists. To a lesser extent the Great Lighthouse on its own let you effectively ICS along most coastlines very early in the game (and is considered a somewhat OP wonder in situations where you can take advantage of it).

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

how many cities? As many as to not be negative to overall strategy. I dont remember Civ3, but I guess the answer is "when you are out of land".

If the answer is "when you're out of land" then it's not infinite is it. And the extent of the spam will depend on the extent of land, to which when does simply filling your space become 'spam'? Delterius put it lovely and bluntly:

Sounds like people invented a term for 'playing the game' and forgot to pin its exact meaning.

Except I'd say it sounds like people invented a term for 'playing the game' and leave it at that. That's what Civilisation is, its having fun creating cities and then doing all the other things you can do in civ games. Who suddenly decided building cities was 'spamming' and that the best descriptor for the spamming was 'infinte'? Were they the world's biggest troll by any chance, or just deranged generally? (a lot of my questions, such as that one, are often rhetorical so you don't have to stress too much about answering them):

Obviously you can win more easily with one city if you play on a map were there hardly is space for any cities, what are you trying to say? that you can limit what basically is a design flaw by choosing unfavourable setting for it? guess what? That is what you could define as "an exploit".

But reading your post it seems you are just on some Don quixote crusade to prove a losing point by rambling. what ICS means is pretty clear, throwing out a dozen questions is pointless. that you can limit the implications of it is also pretty obvious. and that all in response to me pointing out that ICS is not an exploit. So you didn't adress the point I made at all.

No, choosing your land mass is not an exploit, it's part of the world creation screen, the screen you're supposed to have fun experimenting with in all the varieties on offer - by intentional design. An exploit is something that wasn't intentionally designed into the game as a means to make the game easier but can be found by players by experimenting with stuff. The whole point of my questions was to ask exactly which specific scenarios ICS is supposed to work on and if it doesn't have any great benefit on all of the designed preferences then it can't be used as a descriptor for the whole game, just for specific parameters, so what are those parameters?

Hmmm... I've seen someone use the Don Quixote jibe quite recently... Hmmm where was that I wonder. You really are off your head if you're comparing this discussion to anything Don Quixote, it's perfectly simple my dear, there's nothing 'infinite' about city building and there's nothing 'spammy' about it unless you're cramming them as Angthoron described, either x.x or x..x in a uniform way, in which case it's still not really 'spamming' because you're doing it with intent and purpose, the whole point of spam is that it's without a guaranteed result in a hit-or-miss fashion, if I fire 200 fireballs one's bound to hit, now that's spamming, building 200 cities because you're autistic is not spamming because you know full well they'll all have a use and hit.

I did address your point, I said how would someone even know what ICS was without looking up other exploits, and within a couple of posts you're looking it up - do you need me to blow a huge horn in your ear or something?

here it mostly is used as "building many cities"

'Playing the Game' then...

The true mark of ICS is when you basically build cities without caring about the land because the game mechanics allow a city placed anywhere to be automatically good. Where a normal player will scout to find a food source and build a city nearby, the ICSer just builds cities in a constantly expanding radius.

No, a normal player will build cities in a constantly expanding radius, because that's common fucking sense. A normal player will build cities not caring about the land because they won't want the AI to have that land and if it doesn't have enough food it can always be used as a military outpost, or a choke point, or a staging ground for a future expansion, or just a way to stop Barbarians spawning, or just because it fucking looks nice what the very fuck are you even blathering about.

 

[sser]

Paring down strats to just "playing the game" is pointlessly pedantic. Terms like rapid expansion, ICS, OCC, etc. mean things to a lot of Civ players, particularly those who are trying challenges or going for high scores. Arguing that you run out of space, and therefore the spam isn't "infinite" is pretty retarded. This isn't scientific casuistry -- the point of terms like ICS is so that players can identify the strategy at hand. That's all. I don't know why people would argue over the minutiae of definitions and words here.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Paring down strats to just "playing the game" is pointlessly pedantic. Terms like rapid expansion, ICS, OCC, etc. mean things to a lot of Civ players, particularly those who are trying challenges or going for high scores. Arguing that you run out of space, and therefore the spam isn't "infinite" is pretty retarded. This isn't scientific casuistry -- the point of terms like ICS is so that players can identify the strategy at hand. That's all. I don't know why people would argue over the minutiae of definitions and words here.

Oh right, now your saying you know exactly what ICS means and it's called ICS so that people can quickly and easily understand what it means... But you don't say what it means... which was the discussion we were having.

And I don't think its pointlessly pedantic at all, I think whoever invented the phrase is a completely deranged idiot, its quite obviously a gigantic over-exaggeration of the thing its describing and unfairly heavily biased in overly-negative connotations.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

I'll never understand people that let playing "in the best possible way" get in their way of just having fun. Aren't we talking about games here? Games are supposed to be fun, no?
If something isn't fun, I tend to refuse playing in said way, even if it's more efficient. If you routinely find yourself playing in ways that are "better", but make playing the game more like a chore rather than something enjoyable, I'd say the joke is on you.

We're talking about strategy games here. On advanced difficulty levels, playing in the best possible way is exactly where the fun lies. The odds are massively stacked against you, the AI produces more, researches faster and generally has the most retarded bonuses imaginable. Extreme minmaxing and finding an efficient way to beat the system is the whole point.

Believe me, I don't give a rats ass about weapon balance when I'm playing a single player RPG for the first time to enjoy the story and lore.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

We can technically do a hands-on of this game at Gamescom, but I find it hard to muster the enthusiasm. Have there been any announced features that have made people feel excited about Civ 6?

Plenty actually. The whole concept of tying your optimal early development to geographical location can potentially change the whole paradigm. Instead of everybody rushing the Great Library or whatever is the current meta, every game might be different. Districts are nice idea, even if it's cloned from Endless Legend. They seem to finally made spies useful again. Workers are a resource now. Armies will have support units that work as some sort of attatchment. I could go on , but you get the idea. They really reworked a lot of systems for this one.

 

[sser]

Paring down strats to just "playing the game" is pointlessly pedantic. Terms like rapid expansion, ICS, OCC, etc. mean things to a lot of Civ players, particularly those who are trying challenges or going for high scores. Arguing that you run out of space, and therefore the spam isn't "infinite" is pretty retarded. This isn't scientific casuistry -- the point of terms like ICS is so that players can identify the strategy at hand. That's all. I don't know why people would argue over the minutiae of definitions and words here.

Oh right, now your saying you know exactly what ICS means and it's called ICS so that people can quickly and easily understand what it means... But you don't say what it means... which was the discussion we were having.

And I don't think its pointlessly pedantic at all, I think whoever invented the phrase is a completely deranged idiot, its quite obviously a gigantic over-exaggeration of the thing its describing and unfairly heavily biased in overly-negative connotations.

If I say, "This boxer's strategy is to throw an infinite amount of punches."

You can A) Understand that the boxer's strategy is to throw in large volume.

or B) Be a total autistic shithead and debate about how no human being could throw an infinite amount of punches.

ICS is clearly defined on the CivFanatics thread, and is in wide enough usage within the civ community that people know what someone is talking about when they say something like "Deity, Ethiopia, ICS", just like they would if they said "Rome, GL Slingshot," or "Egypt, OCC", or "Rome, No Whip", etc. etc. ICS is defined by settling into the happiness cap instead of pop growing into it, and ignoring a great number of city buildings to maximize libraries and putting Coliseums in every city. You maximize growth horizontally instead of vertically and city locations aren't maximized because they don't need to be, so overlapping or mediocre spots are fine. It's not rocket science, has been used in the civ lexicon for I don't know how long, and really is not worth this much energy talking about.

You seem to have taken some personal slight, though. "Unfairly heavily biased in overly-negative connotations." It's not about any of that shit.

Edit: here's a very generic, run-of-the-mill strat discussion on CivFanatics.

Notice how people are just talking in terms that they understand? There's nothing personal about it; it's just strat talk.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

If I say, "This boxer's strategy is to throw an infinite amount of punches."

You can A) Understand that the boxer's strategy is to throw in large volume.

or B) Be a total autistic shithead and debate about how no human being could throw an infinite amount of punches.

I have never heard anyone use that phrase in boxing. In fact, the word infinite is very rarely used as a descriptor of anything that doesn't involve infinity in its processes, such as the Infinite Improbability Drive.

ICS is clearly defined on the CivFanatics thread, and is in wide enough usage within the civ community that people know what someone is talking about when they say something like "Deity, Ethiopia, ICS", just like they would if they said "Rome, GL Slingshot," or "Egypt, OCC", or "Rome, No Whip", etc. etc. ICS is defined by settling into the happiness cap instead of pop growing into it, and ignoring a great number of city buildings to maximize libraries and putting Coliseums in every city. You maximize growth horizontally instead of vertically and city locations aren't maximized because they don't need to be, so overlapping or mediocre spots are fine. It's not rocket science, has been used in the civ lexicon for I don't know how long, and really is not worth this much energy talking about.

You seem to have taken some personal slight, though. "Unfairly heavily biased in overly-negative connotations." It's not about any of that shit.

Don't you just love it when people insinuate you're "this that and the other" when it's quite clear they haven't followed the conversation...

Shall we step-by-step it for you?

I said: The civ games are not all about just ICS, and provided some nice and eye-interesting screenies of civ3 for proof. I did this because retard after retard was spouting that civ was just ICS. Simples. Got it?

I said: the only people who give a shit about ICS are high difficulty obsessives who's primary interest in the game is exploiting exploits, ICS does not form part of the main game's requirements and should not be used as a general descriptor when using general descriptors to describe the games.

The high difficulty obsessives then, obviously, got their back up (cough cough) because, for them, ICS is part of the game. We shared some of the usual philosophical differences that occur when such people collide.

Then someone said: "ICS isn't an exploit though", a person who, it turns out, doesn't even remember the game (civ3) very well and didn't know what ICS meant and had to look it up.

I replied: Of course its an exploit, the only people who even know about it are people who obsessively hunt for exploits and share them on exploit sharing sites.

To which you have just replied: I know what ICS is exactly, because I frequent a site where people obsessively hunt for and share civilisation exploits.

That's called a conversation. When people make a statement and people reply. You're supposed to follow this thread of normality if you want to make a constructive contribution without having to laden your posts with "OMG WHY ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT THIS, ARE YOU FEELING PERSONALLY SLIGHTED ABOUT SOMETHING??????"

When I first joined the conversation, yes, the term ICS was being used in a heavily negative light, if you'd read the fucking posts you'd fucking well know that you dumb dickwad, "Oh, civilisation is shit, it's all just ICS blah blah fucking blah" - so why, out of all these wonderful abbreviations/acronyms and etc, are these people just choosing ICS as their magic word to disparage the civ series? Because it's a fucking overly-negative and overly-demeaning use of words that rolls of a pathetic trolls mouth like half-sucked gumball - Infinite (ooooh, it never ends *groooooooooooan*) city SPAM.

You got it yet?

All caught up?

 

[sser]

Yeah I read the whole thread. I've been posting in it for awhile now

There are actually three different topics the discussion keeps spinning around.


There's the Personal Arena.

Choice quotes where it does in fact seem rather personal:

Who suddenly decided building cities was 'spamming' and that the best descriptor for the spamming was 'infinte'?

there's nothing wrong with having as many cities as you fucking well want to fucking have

I think whoever invented the phrase is a completely deranged idiot, its quite obviously a gigantic over-exaggeration of the thing its describing and unfairly heavily biased in overly-negative connotations.

Bolded the key parts for any psychologists out there.



There is the Ignoring Definitions Arena,

Choice quotes where you question the definition of the term, after being shown the definition of said term:

But you don't say what it means... which was the discussion we were having.

*Side note, it's actually somewhat hard to keep track of which discussion was being had at any point and time. I've always been a dummy, but I find it very confusing that you actually more or less acknowledge the definition of ICS, but only insofar as to then turn around and make it personal.

Are you even able to accurately describe ICS so that anyone could simply and easily even know what the fuck you're talking about, or is it a phrase that only means something to someone who's read stuff about other possible exploits in the game?

After multiple postings of the Civ community clearly defining what ICS means, including people talking about it without even so much as a second thought, the repeated questions of what does it mean has me ranking the Personal Arena top dog of the three discussions. Any rational and reasonable mind would have looked at those threads and said, "Oh, that's what it means" and closed the book on the discussion.



And then there is the Actual Strat Talk Arena,

Basically, the OCC post to try and refute an idea few were even putting forth to begin with.

I mean, interesting, but... what the fuck

It's as if everyone agreed that domination on small maps was the most efficient way to win, but then you showcase a space race victory on a large map...

I thought Average Manatee kinda nailed it the first go around when he pointed this out:

We're not championing ICS here, we're saying it needs to be nerfed so that ICS isn't the best way to play.

Civ is only a game that you play like an RPG on the easy difficulties. On harder difficulties you have to play well to win. Seriously, you're playing on complete scrub difficulties. Your opinion on balance is already invalid.

There is another term used in CivFanatics called the Lonely Hearts Club. It's a pretty difficult challenge to survive (typically on an island/isolated continent) without outside contact for a long stretch of time. I have to imagine, if I take your "it's not infinite, and it's not spam" approach to the definition, your pointless shredding of the English language would culminate in some sort of, "That's a civilization, not a heart" and "It's clearly not a club, because we're all alone." And then when the player finally does make contact, you'd petition to have the word "Lonely" cycled out of the challenge's title...



And finally, I disagree with ICS being an exploit. Although it is perhaps one of the more consistent strategies, the strat can easily dovetail into an unhappiness spiral if you so much as fuck it up once, I think it's fair to say nothing is being exploited, because it still requires sound governance on the part of the player. I believe ICS is a far more challenging strategy than an OCC. They do operate on parallel wavelengths: sprawling is about maximizing city spots, while OCC is about maximizing tiles. If we're talking harder difficulties, it's no question. Civ4 didn't have auto-defended cities, so sprawling was dangerous because you had to specifically prepare your defenses. In Civ5, sprawling across the board had a number of drawbacks so the player had to be much more careful in doing it.

An actual exploit in that it seems counter-intuitive to the design of the game would be like using barbarians to house your settlers, or abusing Civ5's terrible tactical AI through the use of long-range units, or something like stealing city-state workers in the early game because by the time anything they do matters the diplomatic penalties for having done so will be gone.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Yeah I read the whole thread.

*Side note, it's actually somewhat hard to keep track of which discussion was being had at any point and time. I've always been a dummy, but I find it very confusing...

but then you showcase a space race victory on a large map...

Erm... where exactly did I showcase a space race victory on a large map?

Much as I'd love to respond to every aspect of your post, the above sums it all up perfectly...

 

[sser]

That's some hella shit my friend.

I went ahead and put in the entire sentence.

It's as if everyone agreed that domination on small maps was the most efficient way to win, but then you showcase a space race victory on a large map...

Erm... where exactly did I showcase a space race victory on a large map?

Much as I'd love to respond to every aspect of your post, the above sums it all up perfectly...

I tried to highlight a key part of the sentence, but I'm sure it's of no use.

Einstein, what do you have to say about human stupidity?


"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the form---"

"EXCUSE me?

The word infinite is very rarely used as a descriptor of anything that doesn't involve infinity in its processes, such as the Infinite Improbability Drive."

 

[Zarniwoop]

Some idiots would argue about the sky being blue. Edgelords gonna edge.

 

[deuxhero]

The sky is purple, our eyes just see it as blue.

 

[Archibald]

But human stupidity is infinite.