MisterBenn wrote on Feb 15, 2019, 13:33:

As someone who is not as fast to pick things up as they used to be

You and me, both. I have little interest in learning something instead of playing something. Which isn't to say that I hate learning depth (again, like 600 hours in FTL, could rant for months on the strategies), I hate having to learn mechanics as a whole, as time spent learning mechanics is time not spent enjoying or playing. Crusader Kings II is loved by many, but the UI is so obtuse to me. I've only put 22 minutes in, total across two play sessions, but since I couldn't immediately figure out how to do what I wanted to do I just moved to something more immediately fun.

Civ always manages to be immediately fun. Depth, but you can jump right in and play without having waste time learning how to do basic things.

(I should mention that I've had only Civ 6 for a month and I am not a pro by any means.)

In general I like what they've done with the design of individual mechanics to make them fun and interesting. For example with city building - in previous games you stack up all your buildings on the city centre tile and their benefits stack up there. In Civ 6, your buildings sprawl over the hexes within your city borders. You build industrial/culture/science/military/harbour districts, each on a hex near your city, and build your campus/barracks/market/temple inside those districts. There are all sorts of adjacency bonuses... some districts get boosts from adjacent mountains, industrial get a boost from resources with mines or quarries, some districts get a boost from being in a triangle with 2 other districts and so on. When you arrange things well, the tile and building yields go up and it's pretty satisfying. Wonders are built into specific tiles as well, and they also all play into the adjacency bonuses in various ways. It's a whole layer of new thinking on top of just stacking up buildings, and it's a puzzle to solve to get the most out of your cities that affects how you appraise city locations. I haven't cracked it yet but I really enjoy this part.

I really didn't like City States in 5. Civ has a wonderful system for building on resources, teching up and investing in military units... why on earth would you make an additional system where cities can't engage in regular diplomacy, where they monitor what tech level the world is at and spawn units on a timer? It was feature bloat to me; a new set of mechanics that replicated existing mechanics in a more basic and less organic way, and I never liked it. In Civ 6, that isn't completely solved (city states expand their borders but don't colonise) but they are better at letting the main civs put pressure on each other indirectly. You get a slow income of envoys and you spend them on City states. You can complete objectives for city states to get free envoys. You get bonuses for investing in city states and a special bonus for having more envoys with a city state than anyone else, including the ability to levy troops when needed. So if you have frosty relations with someone, you can attack and pay off a nearby city state to instantly get 5-10 more units to attack with. You are competing with all players for all city states so it throws up interesting situations and hotspots quite often. Again they refined a feature into something more fun than before.

The combat is pretty similar to 5, it's the same 1 unit per time system, except now you can merge units which helps avoid overcrowding. I'd say stacks of death were probably the feature I liked least in 4 and I think this makes fighting more fun.

Across the board there are improvements like that that I find myself liking the design of. AI leaders get agendas that change from game to game, that you can comply with or defy which affects diplomacy. Diplomacy and spying gets you an information access level with other civs, and you get gossip messages about what those players can see, to keep tabs on who is building a wonder, declaring war and so on. Your great people and archaeologists get great works and relics, which you install in your culture buildings for culture and tourism, with bonuses for collecting matching sets. You get the idea.

As someone who is not as fast to pick things up as they used to be, I have found that there is lots to do in this game but it's pretty easy to understand, at least to get playing. Maximising is another matter and I am not there yet. The interface and general presentation really help, 6 is extremely polished in that regard and very good looking. I guess in terms of advice I would just say to watch a Quill18 Civ 6 stream since he knows what he's doing and plays at a good pace.

Beamer wrote on Feb 15, 2019, 09:50:

MisterBenn wrote on Feb 14, 2019, 14:06:
As someone who loved 4, and was put off by some of the design choices and gaminess of 5, I've really enjoyed Civ 6. The worst decisions in 5 seem to have been walked back, or at least refined into something more fun. I like the tone and the presentation as well, it's interesting that people complained about the visuals when it first came out.

I will say though, for a signature feature I think the environment mechanics are pretty underwhelming. The disasters are just random events on a theme and barely change the decisions you'll be making. The mechanism changes like grievances and world congress are far more interesting to me. Combined with more of everything and it was an easy purchase. Via 2game the steam key was £25 down from £34 on launch night, I don't understand how a game gets reduced like that at launch but I'm not complaining.

What do you like about 6?

I was a huge, huge fan of the original. I felt 2 was a step backwards, 3 seemed over complicated, and I didn't really play either. 4, though, was near perfect for me. I haven't played it in 3 or 4 years (actually, since FTL came out, which took nearly all my strategy focus, and is easily one of the top 3 games I've played, time-wise), but I feel like if I need Civ, I'll go 4. The mechanics are comfortable and well worn, the music is perfect, and it has Leonard Nemoy!

As someone that also loved 4 and now loves 6, what advice do you have for people who aren't really interested in moving from 4?

That's interesting, I was addicted to 2, skipped 3, loved 4, but also loved all the changes they made with 5. Of course I agree with everything you say about FTL, too. So, so good. Digital crack.

Numinar wrote on Feb 15, 2019, 07:46:

jdreyer wrote on Feb 15, 2019, 02:00:

Flatline wrote on Feb 14, 2019, 11:46:
My main problem with Civ expansions is that so many of them add late game stuff, and like, that's maybe 10% of a normal game.

Also, I think I'm finally done with Civ. Civ 6 was pretty boring to me.

My main problem with Civ expansions is that so many of them add core mechanics that should have been in the initial release.

I'm not saying you are wrong to feel that way, but given that despite being very profitable there are very few decent clones of CIV, I'm guessing what you feel entitled to is actually very difficult to do in a core release and put off for that reason as opposed to greedy developer decisions. Keeping the scope tight probably helps get them out the door more than once a decade. Also trade and espionage are almost always garbage when they finally do add them.

CIV is complex. And very easy to do wrong. Numbered entries cannot be justified with new graphics alone, they change stuff to see if it helps freshen up the formula or solve longstanding issues with the design.

That said Alpha Centauri seemed to have every system including a deformabale world with climate change, a unit designer, narrative and all sorts of other shit even before the expansion. Maybe they really just don't make them like they used to.

But you know who is really fucked? Paradox. How the fuck do they make a Crusader Kings 3 without spending 15 years refactoring all the CK2 content into it before release?

I don't dispute anything you said about Civ. It is incredibly complex, and I don't feel that the devs hold anything back for DLC. Rather, they set their scope, execute and refine it, and deliver a fairly polished product (unlike some people *cough* Chris Roberts *cough*). That said, Civ 5 felt much more "complete" after Gods and Kings than before it.

As for Alpha Cent, I'm still waiting for a modern version of that. I've heard bad things about Beyond Earth, but am still tempted to pick it up now that it has been out for a few years.

As for Paradox, well, they made their bed, they'll have to sleep in it. I don't mind their model, they've figured out how to get a fairly consistent revenue stream without resorting to MTs or lootboxes. Good for them.

MisterBenn wrote on Feb 14, 2019, 14:06:
As someone who loved 4, and was put off by some of the design choices and gaminess of 5, I've really enjoyed Civ 6. The worst decisions in 5 seem to have been walked back, or at least refined into something more fun. I like the tone and the presentation as well, it's interesting that people complained about the visuals when it first came out.

I will say though, for a signature feature I think the environment mechanics are pretty underwhelming. The disasters are just random events on a theme and barely change the decisions you'll be making. The mechanism changes like grievances and world congress are far more interesting to me. Combined with more of everything and it was an easy purchase. Via 2game the steam key was £25 down from £34 on launch night, I don't understand how a game gets reduced like that at launch but I'm not complaining.

What do you like about 6?

I was a huge, huge fan of the original. I felt 2 was a step backwards, 3 seemed over complicated, and I didn't really play either. 4, though, was near perfect for me. I haven't played it in 3 or 4 years (actually, since FTL came out, which took nearly all my strategy focus, and is easily one of the top 3 games I've played, time-wise), but I feel like if I need Civ, I'll go 4. The mechanics are comfortable and well worn, the music is perfect, and it has Leonard Nemoy!

As someone that also loved 4 and now loves 6, what advice do you have for people who aren't really interested in moving from 4?

jdreyer wrote on Feb 15, 2019, 02:00:

Flatline wrote on Feb 14, 2019, 11:46:
My main problem with Civ expansions is that so many of them add late game stuff, and like, that's maybe 10% of a normal game.

Also, I think I'm finally done with Civ. Civ 6 was pretty boring to me.

My main problem with Civ expansions is that so many of them add core mechanics that should have been in the initial release.

I'm not saying you are wrong to feel that way, but given that despite being very profitable there are very few decent clones of CIV, I'm guessing what you feel entitled to is actually very difficult to do in a core release and put off for that reason as opposed to greedy developer decisions. Keeping the scope tight probably helps get them out the door more than once a decade. Also trade and espionage are almost always garbage when they finally do add them.

CIV is complex. And very easy to do wrong. Numbered entries cannot be justified with new graphics alone, they change stuff to see if it helps freshen up the formula or solve longstanding issues with the design.

That said Alpha Centauri seemed to have every system including a deformabale world with climate change, a unit designer, narrative and all sorts of other shit even before the expansion. Maybe they really just don't make them like they used to.

But you know who is really fucked? Paradox. How the fuck do they make a Crusader Kings 3 without spending 15 years refactoring all the CK2 content into it before release?

MisterBenn wrote on Feb 14, 2019, 14:06:
As someone who loved 4, and was put off by some of the design choices and gaminess of 5, I've really enjoyed Civ 6.

While I actually came to really enjoy 5, I still agree with this. Five ended up being an awful lot of culture shock. Things seemed changed for the sake of change as often as the things that had needed changing (which to be fair they also addressed). Again, had a lot of fun there ultimately, but 6 (which I am also greatly enjoying) has been much more of a natural transition.

Now, would that transition have felt as natural if I had skipped 5...?

Flatline wrote on Feb 14, 2019, 11:46:
My main problem with Civ expansions is that so many of them add late game stuff, and like, that's maybe 10% of a normal game.

Also, I think I'm finally done with Civ. Civ 6 was pretty boring to me.

My main problem with Civ expansions is that so many of them add core mechanics that should have been in the initial release.

As someone who loved 4, and was put off by some of the design choices and gaminess of 5, I've really enjoyed Civ 6. The worst decisions in 5 seem to have been walked back, or at least refined into something more fun. I like the tone and the presentation as well, it's interesting that people complained about the visuals when it first came out.

I will say though, for a signature feature I think the environment mechanics are pretty underwhelming. The disasters are just random events on a theme and barely change the decisions you'll be making. The mechanism changes like grievances and world congress are far more interesting to me. Combined with more of everything and it was an easy purchase. Via 2game the steam key was £25 down from £34 on launch night, I don't understand how a game gets reduced like that at launch but I'm not complaining.

I played 7 hours after release loved it kinda felt like there was always something happening. just be nice if the Civs didnt spam me to get that 1 favor point i got early on each and every turn.

My main problem with Civ expansions is that so many of them add late game stuff, and like, that's maybe 10% of a normal game.

Also, I think I'm finally done with Civ. Civ 6 was pretty boring to me.