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

[Great Deceiver]

No build queue. Just another one of the many, many interface blunders with this game.

 

[J1M]

Reports so far indicate that AI is better than expected, more aggressive and can kind of fight... depending on land layout and stuff like that.
I'll play today evening and provide my own feedback

Yeah, I've actually heard that. Significantly more interested in the game now. It appears to be waaay better on launch than Civ V was.

They probably lobotomized the AI in the press preview version to obtain better reviews from the modern journalist.

 

[cvv]

So guise, feedback time. First off, are we back to ICS? I know expansion is supposed to be limited by district costs but what's it like in practice, is it such a hammer on wide play as happinness was in Civ V? Coz I wouldn't mind having a few wide games for change. Running majesitc globe-spanning four-city empires for 5 years in a row kindda got old.

Also, how's diplomacy? I gather other civs are gonna hate your guts much more for starting wars without casus belli but what exactly do they do? Do they declare joint wars on you or embargo you diplomatically? Is there even a global diplomacy platform like the World Council this time around? Don't remember reading about it anywhere.

 

[Jimmious]

Ok guys some feedback after 4 hours of playtime:

Non-gameplay/general
- Game is fucking addictive as hell (but that's kind of expected, no?)
- Runs very smoothly for me
- The music is fantastic
- I like the cartoony style, generally the screen is less cluttered than in Civ V

Gameplay stuff
- District mechanics are really cool, there are a lot of things to consider in any given time.
- Amenities/housing requirements make the management of cities more involved, there is a constant need of improvement
- Diplomacy AI is much much better so far. I was actually surprised of how well they assess situations. Eg while fighting China, I got the first city I attacked and while moving towards the capital they offered a very lucrative deal for peace. I actually considered taking it. Also the agendas give this deterministic approach to AIs which is cool. As an example again China which likes Wonders, immediately got angry with me when I build my first when they had none. Nice stuff
- War AI so far didn't impress me. I didn't see a lot though. Playing in Prince the first game, the AI DOES have units and defends but not very efficiently. It also does seem to prioritize targets, for example going for siege machines first.

In general my first impression is that the game is better than Civ V with all expansions and patches currently.
But I ofcourse will need more time and to try some harder difficulties.
In any case, it's fun. Also I stopped only because my eyes are slowly closing...good sign.

 

[MilesBeyond]

Okay I've thought about it and I can't really justify dropping the cash on this game right now (no school like grad school :/) but I kinda want to try this out. Convince me the game is shit so that I feel like I'm not missing out.

 

[sser]

Can't speak to the gameplay because I haven't played it much, but the interface is truly dogshit on so many levels. I already kinda noticed that in the previews and here it is in full. Tiny fucking icons everywhere, the icons themselves are often confusing if not at times bizarre, Civilopedia is frequently lacking in help, the fog of war is absolutely horrible both on-screen and on the mini-map, mini-map itself is extremely small, virtually no interface options to edit things around, very few command prompts because of it, graphics hurt my eyes and I still hate that cartoon shit where everything looks like its atomic structure must be made up of clown balloons. Lots of little things like cities and ranged units not making their shots obvious (think the big red target in Civ5); that there's no color coordination for who is at war with you on the map; is there even a diplomacy screen? I couldn't find one. Units that are promote-ready make no show of it besides the initial pop. Because you can't move and promote, it's extremely easy to forget a unit even has a promotion available. I know these sound little, but the reason Sid Meier games (not that this is one) are successful and so greatly separate themselves from the competition is because they catch these interface issues.

Features-wise, there is definitely more here than the barebones treatment Civ5 got. It also seems to have brought a little bit of complexity back.

I'm a bit leery of these pop advancements being chained to xyz-events, though. Obviously I just started, but it does not seem like a good idea to me at all. I think experienced players will be slingshotting through the entire tech tree once they get all the events down pat.

 

[oscar]

Yeah the UI feels like a massive step back in many ways what is quite bizarre. New mechanisms are also poorly explained with the Civlopedia a lot less clear than prior games.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clancy_Fernando

This guy as a Great Admiral? Who even the game admits his sole claim to fame was being blown up by Tamil Tigers?

 

[Great Deceiver]

I'm on turn 150ish with Spain in Prince (did a Play Now). While the interface is truly terrible, there's a welcome amount of complexity in the game when you consider the interconnecting tech trees. I like the fact that doing certain actions gives you a head start any given tech (like building a pasture giving a bonus to research horseback riding, for example), researching seems to flow pretty organically and feels less generic now. I guess they have a fancy name for it - eureka boost?

Tactical AI is still dumb as ever, though - at least on this difficulty level. Barbarians will leave their settlements for no reason to attack an archer while another unit takes the settlement from a flank, for example. Doesn't seem to be able to deal with naval aggression, either - it's very easy to whittle down coastal cities with attacks from ships, at least in my experience the AI will just not react to it. It also does very strange moves when you box it in a territory, like move a settler between two cities for no reason, leaving it open to whatever random unit I happen to have.

Naval tech seems pretty powerful overall - you don't waste a turn embarking or disembarking after you research cartography and you get a pretty nice bonus from a great admiral. Surprise attacks are pretty feasible if you find yourself in a situation to rush it.

Anyway, I am surprised that I was instantly hooked for a whole evening. I thought Civ 5 was complete garbage, by the way.

My biggest pet peeve with the game (the interface is full of little annoyances but they're manageable, kind of) is that whenever you load a save, you have to sit through the ENTIRE FUCKING SEAN BEAN NARRATION before you can play. It's not a load time issue, either. There is zero disk activity (or any other activity, for that matter) while this is happening. That is so fucking annoying, honestly.

 

[rezaf]

One such inconsequential pet peeve I have is the way that when receiving a diplomatic message, it plays an animation where the leader says what he wants to say, then the screen fades to black, then the screen fades back in with the leader standing there in a slightly different pose and his message repeated in a text box. Was it beyond their abilities to just make this a single continuous animation where the menu fades in?
It's really silly, I know, but for some reason it bugs me.

Btw., I started 4 games now, and 2 ended with barbarians jumping me basically immediately. Meaning I had just started working on my second unit (usually a warrior or a slinger, after having built a scout) and was jumped by three or four barbarian units. After the initial warrior is lost, the city cannot fight back, so it's instant game over.
Presumably that's why Civ4 limited very early barbarians to animals which would not attack cities.
Another lesson unlearned, I guess.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Okay I've thought about it and I can't really justify dropping the cash on this game right now (no school like grad school :/) but I kinda want to try this out. Convince me the game is shit so that I feel like I'm not missing out.

when you activate side scrolling you can't access most of the icons on the right and top of the screen without moving the map all over the place.
this is the level of care the game has been built with.
graphics are retarded and without consistence, with leaders who look deformed untermensch and trannies and everything else straight from world of warcraft. the map is very hard to navigate. all the new systems in place are separate, with barely or outright no interaction inbetween. the diplomatic ai is as retarded as ever, spouting nonsense every other turn. all the informations you need are given in the form of very hard to understand icons or lots of tooltips: if you want to choose a civ you have to pull down a list and hover on each and every, long lost are the times when "industrious, spiritual" were clear and straight.
contentwise the game is one of the best civs, qualitywise is a mess, feels like every single thing has been made from a different person and none of them has ever talked with another.

 

[spectre]

Killing animals in 2016? You really want to hurt someone's feelings.
Speaking of which, I laughed really hard when I saw they used queen Gorgo for Sparta. Way to stick it to those well chiseled cis-het oppressors.

Having played for 3 hours, I'm still trying to wrap my head around some concepts. The UI is indeed pretty bad. The tutorial annoyed the fuck out of me and the advisors and civilopedia aren't very helpful.
Still, it looks better as an out-of the box experience than civ 5, even though it's not saying much.

 

[cvv]

Greeks were pretty shafted on leaders this time around. Gorgo as a strong femynyst wymyn in 500 BC and Pericles as surely the goofiest looking leader in the entire 25 year old franchise.

 

[you know what time it is]

So how moddable is it, can we expect a total conversion mods in the future or is it limited like a shitty civ5?

 

[Turisas]

How to add WASD (or other keys) to camera binds
(you can do this with any text editor, though I'd recommend Notepad++):

1. Navigate to the game's UI assets directory. For steam installations, this should be located at: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization VI\Base\Assets\UI
   
   
2. Open the WorldInput.lua file in a text editor.
   
   
3. Navigate to the DefaultKeyDownHandler function.
   
   
4. Navigate to the line that has the following text:
   
   if( uiKey == Keys.VK_UP ) then
   

This line is a conditional statement that triggers two conditions, one of which is m_isUPpressed. This condition tells the game that the UP UI option is activated. Another function in this file then activates the appropriate camera panning. In order to trigger this condition with another keyboard key, modify the conditional statement as follows (I've used W for the 21st century standard WASD setup):

if( uiKey == Keys.VK_UP or uiKey == Keys.W ) then

That's all you need to modify on that line. Repeat this step for the next three conditions in the function, using the appropriate key as necessary:

if( uiKey == Keys.VK_RIGHT or uiKey == Keys.D ) then

if( uiKey == Keys.VK_DOWN or uiKey == Keys.S ) then

if( uiKey == Keys.VK_LEFT or uiKey == Keys.A ) then

5. Almost done. We need to repeat these steps in the DefaultKeyUpHandler function. Luckily, the conditional statements are exactly the same. As before:

if( uiKey == Keys.VK_UP or uiKey == Keys.W ) then

if( uiKey == Keys.VK_RIGHT or uiKey == Keys.D ) then

if( uiKey == Keys.VK_DOWN or uiKey == Keys.S ) then

if( uiKey == Keys.VK_LEFT or uiKey == Keys.A ) then

That's all that you need to do for the map panning.

Notes:
If you want to add more than just one key to the camera controls, just include another conditional statement like we did to add the WASD functionality. You can also remove the arrow keys if you don't plan on using them, but it shouldn't hurt anything to leave them in. Just make sure to remove the "or" as well if you only have one keycheck in the conditional block. I'm not entirely sure on whether or not Lua code limits the amount of conditions you can perform in a single statement, as I don't actually know how to program Lua (lol). Experiment if you feel like it.

• Additionally, you'll probably want to rebind the in-game "Attack" (default: A) and "Toggle Great Works Screen" (default: W) to avoid activating these keys when panning.
  
  
• Will add more as people post to the thread...
  

All QoL salt aside, the game is fantastic. I'm loving it so far. If anyone has additional requests (key rebindings or otherwise), feel free to ask in the comments and I'll see if I can modify the code to meet them. Lol I mean me too thanks.

EDIT:
Additional settings:
Faster scrolling, same file:

local PAN_SPEED :number = 2; //default is 1;

local ZOOM_SPEED:number = 0.2;

Edge scrolling on top of the screen:

Different file, worldinput.xml, same directory.

Change the offset to be at the top of the screen instead of below the top bar. I also changed to 3 pixels for less unintended scrolling.

Change to:

<Container ID="TopScreenEdge" Anchor="L,T" Size="Full,3" Offset="0,0" />

<Container ID="BottomScreenEdge" Anchor="L,B" Size="Full,30" Offset="0,0" />

Faster tooltips on worldmap:

\Base\Assets\UI\ToolTips\PlotToolTip.lua

Change:

local TIME_DEFAULT_PAUSE :number = 1.1;

to

local TIME_DEFAULT_PAUSE :number = 0.2;

I think it is in seconds, I set mine to 0.2;

Replace intro logo with an empty bk2 file to remove it:

http://www.radgametools.com/bnkdown.htm to create an empty .bik file, then rename it to logos.bk2 and place it in \Base\Platforms\Windows\Movies

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

you know what time it is you just got your answer.
if you have furthers, try asking The Game Analists .

 

[Sranchammer]

Positive codex reviews at launch? I'll pass.

 

[Jimmious]

I'm actually having a war now that is...a war. The other guy has much more units than me but I'm slightly ahead technologically. I believe I'm slowly winning but with losses.
Didn't expect that. And they actually declared on me a "reconquest war" or sth like that (I took one of their cities earlier).
Still in Prince diff

 

[Mr. Pink]

I borrowed the game from a certain man named Ski Drow. About 9 hours in and...

It's not terrible.

Nice things:

districts are less gimmicky than I thought they would be. Cities feel a bit more unique than before since specialization is usually the best option.

Some nice flavor stuff is back. Music now changes depending on the age and civ, cities look a little more different from each other. Could be better, though.

Combat is... less awful. It's evident that Firaxis simplified a lot of things for the sake of better AI. there are less units on the field for AI to control thanks to corps, and cities no longer have ranged attacks unless they build walls, so the AI is less likely to suicide into them. having siege weapons and support units stack with military units also alleviates the need to shuffle units around constantly when sieging a city.

City states are a lot better now. Being able to levy from city states is great. If only the AI could take advantage of it.

Builder system is so much better. I despise builder micro in civ games. It's unfun busywork and the AI can't even do it properly.

Casus Belli is nice and makes AI decisions seem less random. Denouncing has a actual purpose now.

Things:

The art style is kind of bad but that's a subjective thing. I hate the "advisors from Sim City 3000" look of the leaders.

Spoiler

Having your civic techs be researched with culture is a good idea and better than the civic mechanic in civ 5 that was completely divorced from the game, but I feel like having two separate trees is a mistake. they should have been merged, with some civics being locked until a scientific prerequisite is made (like space race and cold war only being unlocked after rocketry and nuclear tech). An integrated tech/civic tree would be a lot cooler and more relevant than two separate trees. I really like the tech bonus missions though. Things like "kill an enemy with a slinger to get bonus research on archery" is nice because it helps the paradox of having to choose between having a strong military and having military technology.

I hear about performance problems, but It Works On My Machine™.

Bad things:

THE UI SUCKS SO BAD. For some reason, UI upscaling is disabled on my computer. Everything is tiny and it takes 4 clicks to get anywhere. It takes 5 seconds to get to the diplomacy screen because you have to sit there and watch the dumb leader greeting. Clicking the city name no longer brings up a build menu. It doesn't do anything at all. What the fuck? There is no screen that allows you to do all city actions like before. Now you get to play "hunt the button" on the tiny HUD. No text search in the civilopedia.


I really dislike the fog of war effect because it makes it too hard to see anything. I wish there was an option to just render tiles in fog of war like in the last games. Perhaps this has something to do with reducing load times. It doesn't have to be this bad though.

The strategic mode looks like a fucking facebook browser game.

I am extremely triggered by the amount of hollywood history in this game. Cleopatra VII should never be allowed to represent ancient Egypt. Choices in leaders is dumb. Give me back my nappy, elizabeth, alexander, asoka and nobunaga. Trajan and Hojo are pretty cool though.

Fuck Firaxis for making Monty a preorder bonus.

No Turks, Persians, Mongolians or Mayans. I predict these will be sold one by one as DLC.

Diplomacy AI is still dumb. AI should never be allowed to trade cities unless the cities are recently conquered. I don't know what the meaning of having AI send random compliments to you is.

Missionaries. Missionaries everywhere.

AI seems to shit the bed when it comes to economics, making dumb decisions like settlers when the entire map is covered. Some of these behavior problems shouldn't be hard to fix though. I expect patches soon for the most glaring issues.

Another civilization game where most of the civs play pretty much the same way because there are no civ specific penalties. Civ bonuses are bland and often too timing specific to be relevant.

No Leonard Nimoy narration.

-------------------------------


I haven't reached modern age yet so I can't comment on it. It does feel like a lot of the content is front loaded, but there hasn't been a launch civ that wasn't like that. If you take off your nostalgia goggles, you will remember that civ4 had no endgame content until BTS.

My incomplete assessment: It's not a broken design like civ5. Biggest problems are fixable with a few patches and mods. Worth buying after the inevitable goty edition.


tl;dr: "It doesn't make me want to die when I play it. 5 outta 10"

 

[tripedal]

Just finished my first game, went for a science victory with the Arabians. Way too easy on Prince even for someone clueless like me. Gonna go for a cultural win with Perikles next.

Districts are fun.

Combat is boring early on, but when you get modern era units it gets more interesting. Barbs are aggressive, you really have to be careful and eliminate scouts quickly.

Diplomacy seems like a complete crapshoot (and AI behaves very strangely), civs I was friendly with declared surprise wars out of nowhere, when they had absolutely no chance of winning against me.

A bit buggy here and there but nothing gamebreaking.

Are national parks bugged? I couldn't build one in a place where I definitely should be able to.

Overall the relative pace of research/civics/production feels a bit borked, I feel the production cost of everything should be decreased by ~20% or so.

 

[Trash]

Played Civ 1 and 2 religiously. Haven't played the later games that much but do try them out. Started the game up. Looks like Civ alright. Send my warrior away to scout. Spot a barbarian near my city and watch him run away. Then come back with two other units. Nice touch. They then go and stand near my city. Decide to look and see what they'll do. I fondly remember barbarians being something of a menace to an early civ in the older games. Am astonished to see the barbarians just loiter for ten(!) turns instead of taking my city and ending my game as they used to. Fuck that. Quit. Uninstall.

 

[you know what time it is]

10 turns in I die to a barbarians drive-by (2 horsemen, 1 horse archer). Seems legit.

 

[Trash]

Slinger and warrior. They just stood next to the city doing nothing for turn after turn. I'm not looking for something to bitch about. I was simply astonished as usually barbarians and an undefended city meant one less city.

So, Barbarians should still wipe out cities? Then it was hopefully/prolly a bug instead of a lame ass feature.

 

[Mr. Pink]

Slinger and warrior. They just stood next to the city doing nothing for turn after turn. I'm not looking for something to bitch about. I was simply astonished as usually barbarians and an undefended city meant one less city.

So, Barbarians should still wipe out cities? Then it was hopefully/prolly a bug instead of a lame ass feature.

I haven't seen anything like that in my game. Barbs actually managed to take one of the AIs cities in my game. AI probably broke somehow. Either that, or they prioritize pillaging over cities, or your city is too hard to kill so they don't even bother.

A slinger and warrior would probably be unable to take on any city with a pop higher than 3 though. You'd heal faster than they can damage.

 

[Jimmious]

A pic of the war I mentioned earlier:

Spoiler

Just to show the amount of units the AI gathered to attack me.

Its true that there are UI elements severely missing or that are very ambiguous.
For example where can I see the active amenities of my civ at the moment? Not the ones we produce, the current total with trades etc
Just an example,there are improvements to be made in the UI sector for sure.

Also the diplomatic AI is good, but it does propose these weird city swaps because they obviously fit their agendas in some way.
It's very weird but easy to fix I guess.
Also Mr. Pink the compliments you get mean that you do things they like (they fit with their "agendas").
For example playing for a cultural victory I get complimented frequently from the Russians I think who like cultural stuff.

Also Missionaries are everywhere indeed and the Religious game is pretty brutal tbh. Some civs seem to aim for that in a hardcore way, Im being flooded with Roman apostles for example

 

[Mr. Pink]

how to turn off forced unit cycling