On January 02 2017 01:21 WindWolf wrote: I don't know what's going on with me. Despite me really liking this game I quit my campaigns early because of no particular reason. Maybe I need to step away from the game for a while before coming back,
A lot of the problem I have in Civ and similar games, is the compound effect early advantages have. There's really no good mechanic to alleviate early advantage once you get into the game. For me, then, the early game is the game - the rest is just housekeeping, a formality to get to the victory screen. The game's already been won since round 50-100.
Like you said, that's been the issue with every vanilla Civ since 1991, and I don't see how that can possibly be avoided. It's always been early to mid game, and then the rest is just exploring wonders and nuking people for fun. Actually haven't finished a single Civ VI game yet since early game is way more fun than clicking though round after round in late game. That's where all the mods and scenarios come in. Can't wait for the first good Civ VI mods.
My gf gave me VI for Christmas and I have been playing a lot the past few days. Early barb horsemen are indeed my bane, had to restart 2 games after being overrun. Generally I like the barb game though if horsemen spawn later.
I have never played Civ V, but compared to IV diplomacy seems to be a huge step back By now I simply ignore all AI diplomacy request, might as well be not in the game and everyone hating you from the start of the game.
Early to mid game is tons of fun though. The city unstacking and the policy system was soooooo needed in Civ and I love how it plays out.
Oh, and got to love that Easter Egg, after using a nuke the first time: + Show Spoiler +
There's no sufficient mechanics in the game to counterwork early advantages, no, but that doesn't mean there couldn't be. Don't get me wrong - I'm loving CIV6, and've got around 200 hours in it so far, but if the game's realistically ended after an hour, yet keeps urging you to play 5-6 hours more to get the bacon, then this pointless time-dredge is a result of poor design decisions.
Take, instead, another game which I've played a lot last year - TW: Warhammer. You can easilly amass a great advantage, but having your army misplaced and losing a few key provinces or losing a silly battle will quickly turn the tides against you, no mater your original power standing. In CIV6, however, towns are too defended and armies too upkeep-heavy to be able to amass any considerable ammount, so this sort of power shift isn't a reality in the game.
CIV, obviously, is a different game, but that doesnt mean a similar shift of power couldn't be a thing if the design was aiming for it. Keeping the exitement of the first hour untill completion should have been a goal, but it seems it's been ignored.
Here's a few comeback mechanics on the top of my head -
Science - give old age tech a boost for all players when the first player reaches a new era. Culture - discount cost on all previoulsy developed civics, the ammount scaling with how many has developed it. Districts - discount based on how many of this district in other civs (more districts, higher discount).
These three with the logic of small-scale hostility resulting in opportunistic gain for the agressor against complacent, bloated civs with tons of science, culture, faith and or growth - Remove border closure, allow all units to cross borders with diplomatic penalties. Allow pillaging / fighting / capturing units without triggering war, with diplomatic penalties. Allow more casus belli with smaller timeframe and lower diplomatic penalties.
Also, DRASTICALLY reduce warmonger-penalty, and instead use that penalty against the nation warred against. Gobbling up your dickish neighbour in the late medieval age shouldn't block you from ever doing diplomatic interaction with the rest of the globe until the end of the game.
Also buff Norway by give stave churches +Culture in additon to faith on adjacent forests, as well as adding a +10 gold bonus to oil platforms. Also, enemies burning stave churches should get points towards Great Musicians.
I've always thought there should be strong tech "stealing" bonuses that get stronger later in the game, maybe tied to specific techs like printing press or mass media. Stronger than the existing mechanic, such that while you might conceivably be fighting 19th century armies against medieval troops, by the modern era everyone has guns and gets tanks and planes quickly. Maybe even just have it so military tech is stolen at a faster rate than other tech, so that lagging civs will have a chance to win by going full fascist in the lategame.
I don't like the way you upgrade units with gold. Being able to retain units for the whole game adds to the snowball effect. Right now, I can build a warrior in the early game and keep upgrading it until it becomes infantry using nothing but gold. In the meantime, my cities are focused on producing city improvements instead of building replacement units, which again adds to the snowball effect. Having fewer units that require more hammers is a side effect of the one unit per tile thing.
I think you should have to return a unit to a city and upgrade it using production instead of using gold. I try to wage wars in such a way that I rarely if ever lose a unit. If there were mechanics like in Civ 4, where you pretty much had to sacrifice some siege units to soften up big army stacks, you could reduce the snowball effect.
Also I think war would be more exciting with more randomness in the combat mechanics. Right now it's really predictable who will win a fight. I feel like older versions of civ had more potential for upsets, which meant you had spend time to replace lost units more often.
Another option would be to introduce population into units, like a musketman could have 3,000 soldiers or something. Instead of losing health, I would have 412 men killed in action. Those men would then need to be replaced using one resource or another. Corps and fleet units would have more men/ships.
Overall having a lot of fun with civ 6 though. I can't think of another series of games that has had no real disappointing entries in their lineup.
Just finished playing a game as Brazil, started in a jungle portion of the world. Holy shit is Brazil powerful on tropical titles with some +6 Science and +5 faith. Jeez.
On January 31 2017 14:30 tofucake wrote: 5 with the expansions is the best
Is there any specific reason why? Im not questioning your opinion, Id just like a little explanation as to why V is better than VI. I do way prefer the graphic style of V over VI. But mechanics and "noob friendly" are important too. Ive also heard a ton of complaints about the AI. I play a lot of TW, is it as bad as that franchise?
6 is a good place to start. Games in this series with no expansions are generally rougher around the edges but the finished product with all the expansions have way too many features for series newbies, imo.
I would say the AI is not as bad as TW AI. It's not good, but TW AI is just another level of bad. The AI gets bigger bonuses in higher difficulty levels but I believe the game is fairer in that it doesn't have as many rubberband mechanics as the TW games.
Civ has a history of being pretty meh before a bunch of patches and expansions. 5 was pretty bad before G&K, and only became really amazing after BNW. 6 is in that early state where it's not very good. I expect the expansions will fix a lot of what's wrong with the game.
I agree that currently, V is better but will be harder to learn then VI.
Also, VI in it's current state is not that bad, specially if you just start in it and you play with lower AI. The biggest problem for me is mostly what is mention in the video just above about the diplomacy but it doesn't appear that much in lower difficulty.
If you've lost count we still don't have the Persians, Ottomans, Dutch, Portuguese, Mongols, or any Native American civ.
But we have Australia...
Clearly they're doing something different. I don't really care. Australia is at best a footnote in history (except sports history, where they are remarkably strong), and even in modern day history, but if Firaxis can invent some interesting mechanics around them that fit the flavour, then that seems fine to me. It's not as if the actual civs in the game are particularly important, as long as they have distinctive, fun, gameplay. Plus, I don't think Australia has been featured before, so the novelty is good too.
And if we go by landmass rather than population size or historic achievements, Australia is pretty big!
If you've lost count we still don't have the Persians, Ottomans, Dutch, Portuguese, Mongols, or any Native American civ.
But we have Australia...
Clearly they're doing something different. I don't really care. Australia is at best a footnote in history (except sports history, where they are remarkably strong), and even in modern day history, but if Firaxis can invent some interesting mechanics around them that fit the flavour, then that seems fine to me. It's not as if the actual civs in the game are particularly important, as long as they have distinctive, fun, gameplay. Plus, I don't think Australia has been featured before, so the novelty is good too.
And if we go by landmass rather than population size or historic achievements, Australia is pretty big!
While I do not agree with ever leader choice that Firaxis have done, I really like that they dare to do something different instead of taking the lazy route and just reuse the Civ5 leaders and Civs
On February 22 2017 02:15 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: If you've lost count we still don't have the Persians, Ottomans, Dutch, Portuguese, Mongols, or any Native American civ.
But we have Australia...
Agree 100%. (Well, except that we do have one Native American civ...)
But yeah. Strange to omit the actual heavyweights. I can take or leave Dutch, but leaving out the Persians, Ottomans, Mongols, and Babylonians just seems strange. I also miss Mali.