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

[cvv]

The solution against stacks were nukes, not 1UPT.

The real solution against retarded stacks from Civ1-Civ4 was intelligent stacks ála Endless Legend.

Agreed with Mr. Pink, 1UPT is theoretically ideal if only the AI could handle it. Interestingly the tactical AI from Warlock/Warlock 2 is surprisingly good (surprisingly, because the strategic AI is completely braindead). Warlock is a proof playing against AI in a 1UPT game can be quite enjoyable.

 

[Agame]

Stacks were more about who had the best economy, and who has the best army composition. This is something the AI can actually handle.

Exactly with this scale of game war should be about economics primarily, very few wars have been won by Thermopylae style victories, most have been won by economics and industry eg. WW2

 

[Renegen]

Played the game for about 10 hours, I just hate it. I got so bored with it I barely want to even say everyhing that's wrong with it, except it feels like micromanagement hell/ autism simulator, you spend your entire time thinking of where to put districts, of expanding, of trying to queue buildings in a better order. It's obviously inspired by that aborted Alpha Centauri "remake". It's just not fun like Civ5 that felt more streamlined and communicated clearly what you were doing. Everything in this game is meant to confuse you, even pillaging gives different results! Civ6 feels like just any other mediocre experimental 4x, it's just meh.

 

[Mr. Pink]

The solution against stacks were nukes, not 1UPT.

The real solution against retarded stacks from Civ1-Civ4 was intelligent stacks ála Endless Legend.

Agreed with Mr. Pink, 1UPT is theoretically ideal if only the AI could handle it. Interestingly the tactical AI from Warlock/Warlock 2 is surprisingly good (surprisingly, because the strategic AI is completely braindead). Warlock is a proof playing against AI in a 1UPT game can be quite enjoyable.

Nukes, as in attacks that do damage to the entire stack is actually a decent solution to doomstacks in civ4. Catapults are pretty much mandatory in any stack because of how much raw damage they do. It would be interesting if stack based combat came back, but ranged units could hit all units in a stack

 

[cvv]

C'mon you get nukes for the very endgame only, of course this is not a solution to idiotic doom stacks in any way, shape or form.

 

[vonAchdorf]

C'mon you get nukes for the very endgame only, of course this is not a solution to a stack combat in any way, shape or form.

Artillery (including catapults) damaged all stack units, and this is something which I think would have been a better foundation to build on than 1UPT, given the constraints of their AI and the map (tile size, impassable terrain).
Endless legends "unpacking" and separate battle screens are a solution, but maybe too involved for a Civ game.

 

[baturinsky]

What's the anti-infinity-city-sprawl thing now? In civ4 it was city upkeep (AFAIK), in Civ5 it was empire-wide happiness. I could not figure what it is now. Too many number types, too little info in pedia.

 

[cvv]

C'mon you get nukes for the very endgame only, of course this is not a solution to a stack combat in any way, shape or form.

Endless legends "unpacking" and separate battle screens are a solution, but maybe too involved for a Civ game.

I didn't mean the separatle battles part of it, I also think a 4X game doesn't really need this, afaik most people in EL play most battles on autocombat anyways. I meant the fact that you CAN have stacks in EL but the size of them is determined by the amount of command points you have and you can get those with research and some other actions.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Civ 6 has this in a reduced form, you can have "stacks" of two and three units if you have advanced far enough, but it's still to see if this makes any difference.

 

[ArchAngel]

I spent 6+ hours playing my 1st game with Romans on 2nd highest difficulty. AI cheats like crazy and was better in culture and tech from turn 1. But for whatever reason keeps spamming lower tech units and I beat them by spamming better tech units and destroying them. They buy all their units for way too long (cheating AI as I said) but still lose. So I tell myself if I want to win a non domination victory I will need to lower the difficulty for my next attempt.
I continue, at turn 200+ turns take way too long (they did before as well but now the fatigue of it all just collected). I quit my first game of Civ 6... first civ I did this. Even terrible Civ 5 release with little features I finished twice to try multiple victories. Even that terribad Beyond Earth I was able to finish once.... compared to Civ 6, Endless Legend is still miles beyond.

 

[MilesBeyond]

True to Civ fashion, the game is still relatively simple compared to some of the 4Xs out therem.

2. AI may be a massive step up but better/=good. Par for the course with Civ unfortunately (and really TBS games in general) but still a bit of a drag.

I guess we're living in different worlds, Civ has always been one of the most complex strategy games out there.

up to civ4.

i'd like to know what all the "disagree" below are about. do you mean that civ5 is the pinnacle of complexity in civ games?

I think the disagrees are because people thought you meant "up to civ4" as saying "Civ 4 is when the series became simple," not "Civ 5 is when the series became simple." Considering Civ 4 is objectively the most complex Civ game, I could see that raising a few eyebrows. Though I did meet a guy once who swore up and down that Civ 3 was more complex than Civ 4 because it had more options for micromanaging the tiles that you work? But it doesn't.

And crying about the AI got old in 1996, the AI is always bad, there isn't a single strategy game with a truly great AI and there never will be unless someone comes up with Skynet and then we'll have bigger problems to worry about than videogames. Agreed with the rest of your post.

See, I get what you're saying, but there's also a threshold. Civ V on Deity was about as challenging as Civ 4 on Emperor; Civ BE on Apollo (or whatever the highest difficulty was) was about as challenging as Civ 5 on Emperor. There's accepting that your average strategy player is going to outsmart the AI once they get the hang of a few basic concepts, that's fine. I mean, GalCiv 2 has probably got the best AI of any TBS ever and it's... seriously not great. I'm sure many of us could list a whole bunch of idiotic things it does. But there's "tolerably poor AI" and "intolerably poor AI," and with every installment the Civ series has been dipping more and more into the latter. Until now.

As for 1UPT, I really don't like the way the Civ series has handled it. I love the idea of tactical combat, but I think if you were to do it, you ought to do it in the MoO/MoM/AoW/HoMM/etc etc way where you've got (limited) stacks you can move about the map, and then move into 1UPT combat when those stacks clash. The real advantage of this style, IMHO, is that if you have a decent auto-combat system, it can actually end up speeding the game up.

 

[Drax]

Irenaeus was the first "great person" I got, so I had no choice but to take my romans and make an entire "crusade against the filthy french" playthrough.
Was ok.

 

[Irenaeus]

This post inspired me to start a Civ4 playthrough.

 

[Agame]

As for 1UPT, I really don't like the way the Civ series has handled it. I love the idea of tactical combat, but I think if you were to do it, you ought to do it in the MoO/MoM/AoW/HoMM/etc etc way where you've got (limited) stacks you can move about the map, and then move into 1UPT combat when those stacks clash. The real advantage of this style, IMHO, is that if you have a decent auto-combat system, it can actually end up speeding the game up.

The HoMM method would be great, there are so many examples of systems that would be better than the current shitty 1UPT they have. They even stole the district concept from EL why the fuck didnt they take the combat to?

This guy just beat civ6 on Diety, fighting off multiple other civs who attacked him at the start of the game, it just should not be that easy to cheese the AI for wins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eip_r2eph_M

I have the "demo" version of this game but Im struggling to be motivated to even start it up...

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

The most tragic thing about them copying EL is that they didn't "borrow" the right click working like a backspace thing. That little change alone would improve their incompetent shithouse of an interface by good couple hundred percent. Also perhaps I'm seeing things, but the UI generally reminds me of AoW3 aesthetic-wise for some reason.

And I know I'm repeating myself, but my god this game looks horrible. Some assets, like unit icons and technology pop-ups or the combat animations reek of really, really not trying. This trend of serious strategy titles using kiddy-like 3d really needs to die.

I know the graphics and UI might be weird things to comment on first regarding a 4X game, but I've only played a few turns so far. I have to say I like barbarians being aggressive and a threat from the very beginning. Although I'm pretty sure it will be one of the things they patch out first, what will all the decliners complaining left and right.

 

[baturinsky]

Icons you at least can tell apart. I can barely understand what's what in that mess of districts and improvements.

 

[J_C]

This trend of serious strategy titles using kiddy-like 3d really needs to die.

I don't even understand this. Where did this trend come from? It's like they make these games for 8 year olds, but 4X is not the genre which they play.

They could be so much more creative with this. For example I think it would be good if the HUD style changed as you advance through the ages. First it would be some stone textured and styled, and it would later became wood, then some futuristic stuff later.

 

[ArchAngel]

They borrowed district idea from EL but made it needlessly complicated. Also even with leader's agenda, playing factions and leaders still feels the same. In EL many of the factions felt very different.
Not to mention that the roaming monsters and their camps are 4x more interesting than barbarians.

 

[cvv]

I know the graphics and UI might be weird things to comment on first regarding a 4X game.

It isn't weird at all. I really fucking hate gamers flapping their gums about "duuude it's a strategy game, you don't need good UI or art, you need only good numbers". Fucking no. The UI is extremelly important, it's the interface connecting you with the game after all.

And art /writing is important too unless you're an autist. One of the best features of EL is the writing and the quests that keep you involved. Suddenly you're not playing the game just so the red dot on the map replaces the blue dot, you are a Drakken envoy trying to make contact with the outsiders and figuring out what's happening with the world.

I was really horrified when I saw what Firaxis did to the art style of Civ6. And the usual idiots on the Steam forum saying "duuuude art is not important, you should only care about the gameplay" pissed me off even more. It's like saying "I wouldn't mind if Nino Rota's Godfather soundtrack was replaced by the soundtrack from Scooby Doo, what's important are the dialogues." This gay Earth mang.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Scooby Doo had a pretty sweet soundtrack though.

They could be so much more creative with this. For example I think it would be good if the HUD style changed as you advance through the ages. First it would be some stone textured and styled, and it would later became wood, then some futuristic stuff later.

As much as I like(d) Civilization, I always thought it did a pretty poor job at making the player feel like he was advancing through ages, playing different nations at different periods of their development and so on. And it's not only about visuals, but gameplay too. Beyond Earth took it to the extreme, with sf 4X with supposedly an alien, eerie theme playing and feeling exactly like some poor Civ V mod with less features than the base game.

That's why I prefer MoM, MoO and AC. They just have much more flavor.

 

[kris]

I have to say that it is easier than ever. Mostly because unlike CiV you dont have any problems getting up a big early army. Money is no longer a problem and with the right civics you can quickly build one. and when you can beat the AI with a few archers, then you sure can do that with many archers. In my first game I held up the enemy army with one archer while shifting over more to face it. all you really need to do is damage the one closest to you and you might hold them up forever.

I spent 6+ hours playing my 1st game with Romans on 2nd highest difficulty. AI cheats like crazy and was better in culture and tech from turn 1. But for whatever reason keeps spamming lower tech units and I beat them by spamming better tech units and destroying them.

they spam those because the AI dont upgrade units. They get the better ones after you defeated those first.

 

[kris]

I haven't listened to all music pieces carefully, but two themes have whats sounds like samplings of other songs. Egypt have a bit that sound just like "el condor pasa" by simon and garfunkel. Yet it is stranger still with Germany as the intro to their song is an exact copy of a famous older Swedish song called "jag kan ro utan åror" by Ted Gerdestad. I just kept on singing that song when playing Germany. Considering that someone else said the main theme seemed to have parts from other songs, you might wonder.

 

[Mr. Pink]

it's so deep. theres so many layers (of UI)

 

[rezaf]

Warlock is a proof playing against AI in a 1UPT game can be quite enjoyable.

A very, very important difference between Civ and the Warlock games is that the latter truly embraced their "hybrid nature" - Civ is at heart still a global strategy game and tries to limit itself when it comes to how far units can move in a given turn and stuff like that.
In Warlock, having a unit that moved 8 or 10 tiles a turn was not that rare - and under those circumstances, traffic jams are much less likely to occur.
On the other hand, in Civ, for the vast majority of the game, you're going to move around formations of units being able to only move one or two tiles per turn. 1UPT is always going to cause problems in such conditions.

The first 1UPT game I remember playing was the original Panzer General. At some point, I played a WW1 mod somebody had tried to make for it.
It also had many slow moving units, and this caused exactly the same problems Civ5/Civ6 face.

 

[Renegen]

The UI is truly terrible because half the time it offers no information. Can anyone tell me how spreading religion works? It's even more opaque than in Civ5. But it's more than just the interface, the whole game is a clusterfuck of "choices" which all prove meaningless because they carry little consequence in light of the time spent deliberating.