Civilization 6

Just had something ridiculously annoying happen:

2nd game, playing Barbarossa on Prince and aiming for a non-Dom victory. Empire is focused on religious expansion and I have about 10 cities converted to my side (6 of my own, 2 city states and 2 of Sumeria's). About 70% through the medieval era albeit I've beelined to gunpowder.

Gandhi is constantly spamming me with his religious units, and after what seems like an age I'm finally able to tell him to sling his hook. He agrees and pulls his units out of my territory. I send an apostle to go reclaim the city he'd most recently converted, but just as he's about to reconvert, 3 of Gandhi's apostles move in and attack him. He kills two but the third finishes him off. Immediately I lose a 250 religious influence from the six surrounding cities.

Apparently this doesn't count as any sort of offensive action on his part as I am neither at war, nor do I have cassus belli to go to war, nor can I remonstrate him over. I know I can use religious war later as a justification but this felt really bloody cheap that Gandhi is able to attack my units in my own territory, actively negatively affect my territory and I can't do anything in response but get called a warmonger if I declare war. :mad:

I bit the bullet and took the warmonger penalty, amazingly cathartic to gun down his apostles with my musketmen.

InReality wrote: »

anyone know what keys zoom in and out ?

I had the same issue with camera locking in super-zoomed-in after building a wonder. Save, quite to main menu, load and you will be back to normal zoom levels. Seems like a bug. My mouse wheel doesn't seem to be working atm

Zillah wrote: »

The entire point is that it's not "attacking" in the sense that you're thinking. The apostles represent a religious conflict. They're trying to win hearts and minds, and that's something that happens across borders. You're welcome to send your own apostles into his territory and convert his cities. He has more of them that you do? Well you're losing the religious war then. If you don't invest in religion then you can't win expect to win a religious war.

I'd agree except for the fact I had a promise from him not to continue to spread his religion in my territory which by intentionally attacking and killing my apostle with his he did. It should at least count as breaking his promise to me.

As I said, it seems musket shot and canon balls are more effective on hearts and minds than the liturgical word given how the game played out.

RoyalMarine wrote: »

Played diety on my second run.
90 or so turns in, Spain had killed all 6 other civ's except me

Sangre para el dios de la sangre.

So, after having spent a few days playing the game I've decided it's basically the same as 5 but with a more annoying UI, less intuitive mechanics, and slightly more bland everything.

The wonders are less interesting, the natural wonders are less interesting, the civ leaders look caricaturish, which is entirely a question of taste but I hate it.

The UI fights you every step of the way in terms of finding information about the game.
- What districts get bonuses from what? Fcked if I know! The description in the build menu doesn't tell me, the civilopedia doesn't tell me; the map doesn't even tell me when I'm placing it, it just gives a +1, 2 or 3 without explanation. I shouldn't have to actively work out basic game mechanics like it was a Sherlock Holmes story.
- I can only build this wonder on a Tuesday, on a hill, beside a silk plot, when the moon is full, and if I didn't get the barracks instead of the stables? Fascinating. It looks like I will need to memorise the extremely complex and arbitrary wonder requirements to be able to plan ahead for anything, because they're so obscure that all I can do is cross my fingers and wait and see which wonders show up as buildable options.
- How can I check the effects of a wonder I've built? Some of their stats will be in the city panel, but that doesn't give a full summary. There's no actual way to check the building itself, it doesn't exist as an in-game object like in 5.
- I had no idea why I should build apostles. Neither their tooltip nor the civilopedia entry mention that they get a free promotion or that they can add beliefs to your religion; it looks like you'll get a slightly better missionary for twice the price.
- What luxuries are we currently making use of and which can be safely traded? No fcking idea! Each one will support four cities...ok, I've got nine. Does that mean I need to go around counting my resources and doing the math myself every time? Oh, there is a resources tab? Correct. It lumps luxury resources and bonus resources together for no reason, and gives teeny tiny icons with no tooltip to say what they are. I've three smushy red thing? Great. And only one of white circle resource? Oh no.
- Want to see which of your cities has the highest production output? Sure, just sort by production. Oh wait you can't do that. The technology that was available to 1992 Excel is beyond current AAA standards. Scroll through the whole list and find what you're looking for every time.
- What's coastal raiding? I dunno, go start a war (maybe?) and find out; maybe save your game and reload to find out, because there is no tooltip to explain it nor does, once again, the civilopedia say anything useful. (Caveat: maybe this was covered in the second-half of the tutorial. I doubt it, but I quit once she told me that it was pretty much over and she would now help me on my way towards a domination victory)

Just, endless examples of a dense UI that doesn't give you any of the info that you need.

And for the changes the gameplay ultimately feels largely identical to 5. The AI is still based on how much they like you with no real politik. They'll make unreasonable demands in trade every time unless you're their BFF; and they'll hate you most of the time for just doing your own thing. This guy hates me for being too big, and this one hates me for being too small; my military is too strong for this guy but my navy is too weak for that one - ultimately everyone just hates you for their own reasons.

The AI still makes foolhardy attacks early in the game and then gets wiped out with an even slightly competent human at the controls. If you forgive them they come again as soon as they think they're ready the next time.

The auto-explore script is as stupid as ever, happily retreading huge explored areas in the name of reaching one tiny patch of the fog of war, all while ignoring the great new ocean beside them.

I like that city states are more diverse now, and I like that trade routes provide a more complex set of benefits. I love the idea of cassus belli - something that was grossly absent from the game before, so it's good that they finally put it in.

The 'slot' and government system is a good idea, but by the mid-game you've so many cards that it's a headache to use. They made no effort to distinguish the cards for intuitive use. Why they thought constantly searching for one yellow card amongst a sea of fifteen identical cards would be fun I don't know.

Finally, small quibble, and maybe I've just been unlucky, but on the 'continents' map type I have, every time, had continents sealed to the ice top and bottom so that there is only one way around the world, which is annoying. Oh, and they've removed most of the map types that were available in 5.

Well, that turned into more of an essay than I was expecting. For a Civ 5 vet this is a 3/5 for me. Same game, same old flaws, slightly worse.

Took me like 10 games to get into the swing of things in Civ 5 tbh. I expect the same experience here.

Agreed Zillah, it's mind-boggling how a UI that bloated yet uninformative made it to release without an overall. I'd say "there's not even a unit pane" but I can't be certain it's not hidden away somewhere. The tech/civics trees are the same, techs/civics which unlock something major like embarking aren't flagged in way despite being generally vital. I'm sure with time it'll become second nature but frankly with time it seems the UI is getting progressively worse rather than better.

Casus Belli is a nice improvement to diplomacy (tho I would like more reasons earlier) but as a whole diplomacy still feels badly underdeveloped/unsubtle, which given this is the 3rd game in the series with the same diplomacy system is disappointing. Enemies/rivals still offer you stupid trade deals/beg for gold/luxuries despite poor relations and then get offended when you say no yet demand overly generous trade deals when they come from you with equal offense.

IMO direct war should be acceptable/normal in the earliest ages and then become much less acceptable you become "civilised", giving way to more indirect politicking. Casus Belli should be reducers to warmonger penalties automatically rather than a separate system, which currently makes Joint War always considered a surprise one with the heaviest penalties. The fact you can no longer bribe rivals to go to war with their enemies (who may or may not be about to attack you) from Civ5 removes any sense of chess mastery, same with being able to delay going to war 10 turns to see the lay of the political landscape.

To turn to mechanics, building units/buildings needs to be sped up in comparison to tech/civics research, it's ridiculous you can still end up out-dating units you specifically unlocked for a war before they've even reached the enemy's doorstep.

I still enjoy Civ6 to a large degree but it's the usual Civ series adage "the new game will be better than the previous vanilla game but worse than the complete edition".

Goodshape wrote: »

Maybe play a game or two on an easier setting and get a feel for things.

I'm not losing though. I've my current game on Prince dominated by the 1500s, not sure I'm bothered finishing it; the writing is on the wall. The things I rant about aren't obstacles to winning, they're obstacles to fun. I don't enjoy having to guess and I don't enjoy having to fight a user interface to discover basic game mechanics.

The tutorial is a bit pointless, too. It spends a long time explaining a bunch of things that don't need explaining (like basic movement, choosing a research, etc), but doesn't take any time to explain any of the things that need explaining (district bonuses, raiding, wonder requirements).

Zillah wrote: »

I'm not losing though. I've my current game on Prince dominated by the 1500s, not sure I'm bothered finishing it

I didn't mean because it would be easier to win, just so you'll have a shorter and quicker game to figure things out.

I didn't do the tutorial but I played my first game on Warlord. Second game on Prince now I and I feel I know where things are. I honestly think the UI/UX is a huge improvement.


Not saying everything is perfect, but I am enjoying it loads.

On the not perfect side, my first game in Warlord I won – expectedly – quite easily. Never any challenge. Now my second game (Prince), it's around 1100 AD and, unless things change unexpectedly, looks like I've got things pretty sewn up. Going for science and last I looked I'm double the science per turn of my closest rival, while also maintaining good relations with my military neighbours, have *plenty* of cash to spare, my own military's not too shabby, and culture is holding it's own. Only thing I've ignored is Religion.

So maybe I'm just really really good, or maybe they've made things a little less challenging (and/or broken and/or crap AI).

Or maybe I'm in for a rude awakening in the 2nd millennium! Those Norwegians have been building a bit of an army at the border, come to think of it :-/

There's no cost to tech or culture and they've removed global happiness.

The only thing they've really changed is to increase the cost of settlers each time you make one.

I think everything gets more expensive by Era as well.

I don't think it's possible to do an ICS style build anymore because it would become prohibitively expensive.

Sounds like you're still trying to play a Civ 5 game tbh.

Lack of build queue in the city does seem like an oversight, but workers aren't the same in Civ 6. For one, they only get three builds each and builds are instantaneous. It's not like you lose track of the guys. For another, roads are built through trade routes (which is great) so that's one less thing to worry about and micromanage.

You build a worker when you have a specific need to improve a few tiles, then get that done over the next three or four turns, then no more worker.

Each to their own but I'm finding that system works really well.

Zillah wrote: »

What districts get bonuses from what? Fcked if I know! The description in the build menu doesn't tell me, the civilopedia doesn't tell me; the map doesn't even tell me when I'm placing it, it just gives a +1, 2 or 3 without explanation. I shouldn't have to actively work out basic game mechanics like it was a Sherlock Holmes story.

The Civilopedia does tell, it's in the details menu on the right hand side. Also when picking a plot, if you hover over the adjacency bonus number it does tell you exactly what is providing the bonus.

ZeitgeistGlee wrote: »

I'd say "there's not even a unit pane" but I can't be certain it's not hidden away somewhere.

There isn't. The closest thing you get, is you can click on a unit's name in the bottom-right pane and get a small scroll menu to go through all of your units.

Pepe LeFrits wrote: »

Dabbled a bit over the weekend and noticed two bugs. When I chose Pericles, I came up against another Pericles. So I started leaving my leader choice to random, and I was given Barbarossa, and came up against Barbarossa.

Also in my most recent game, when I made first contact with Japan I was already at war with them?

1) Not a bug. Actually a feature. Or at least I'm going on that based on the fact there's an achievement for it: Selfie Win a regular game with a Culture victory with your leader in the game as your opponent as well

2) Did someone declare a formal war on you without denouncement in the early game? Then they actually declared a Joint war, and Japan must've been the one they negotiated it with.

Zillah wrote: »

One thing that occurred to me: did they remove the penalty for expansion entirely? Civ 5 had a mechanic whereby expanding had some downsides, which made playing a small or even single city empire a viable option if you went about it the right way. The one-city challenge was one of my favourite things to do in Civ 5.

Now, it seems, there's no reason to not expand as far as physically possible?

The penalty for expansion is 1) districts go up in price as more are built, to the point where new cities can be building even the most basic of districts for 30-40 turns. 2) your amenities from luxuries get spread out further and further, so you need to pad out your cities with Entertainment districts to make up for it. 3) you can in theory be more vulnerable to a focused attack as your military can be spread thinner, combined with the massively-nerfed movement speed from roads, can be a problem.