Why Civilization 6 'Sucks'

[@xionkuriyama5697]

The main things about Civ6 to me that put me off: *Lots of ideas without much synergy *Massive increase in tedium from Civ5

[@JumboPixel]

Two fair points. I wonder if it’s tied to the fact that Civ 6 incentivises a wider play style for you? (Eg lots of cities)

[@xionkuriyama5697]

@@JumboPixel Yeah, exactly. I'd be good playing wide if I didn't have to then micromanage every district of every single city.

[@thintick6504]

Yeah I feel like I did not care much for the tech/civic tree in civ 6 either, because they split it into two trees I felt like I did not care about most techs

[@xionkuriyama5697]

@@thintick6504 That feeling is increased by the multiple techs they just grabbed quotes from random blogs for (seriously, look it up, it's wild, really putting Sean Bean to good use). And a lot of them don't feel as gamechanging as Civ5's techs, either--in Civ5 tech order is a big part of strategy for me because every tech covers some important base.

[@nathanielpitts8667]

(Addendum to your second point) *And Civ4, and Civ3, and Civ 2, and Civ 1. Maybe I just never got the hang of it, but there didn't seem to be any fun factor in playing this one. I liked some concepts, but it just seems like a game that was made conceptually, but nobody bothered to play it to see if it was actually fun. Still don't like the visual style, but to be fair, it's not w/o precedent--Civ 3 went cartoony, but it was fine because Civ 3 was basically just an incremental upgrade of Civ 2.

[@katherinec4360]

AI: “don’t settle near me bro” Me: “ok sorry bro” AI: “Is ok 😌” Me: *settles near them again* AI: “don’t settle near me bro” Me: “ok sorry bro” AI: “is ok 😌”

[@Scitch-et4vk]

Dlc fixed this

[@RvBy88]

"DENOUNCED!!" - ..but why? "ThEy JuSt PlAiN dOn'T LiKe YoU"

[@ronaldp7573]

Honestly that is darkly realistic 😏

[@Supernova4297]

Or they settle near your capital and then ask why you settled near them.

[@parthaprotimbarua603]

Honestly for me, the artstyle of civ 6 always felt odd. I never got used to it. That's the reason civ 5 looks better to me even though civ 6 has lot more features now.

[@captainbroady]

I guess the Civ 5 graphics seem a lot more realistic while Civ 6 is more cartoonish

[@homopoluza]

@@captainbroady It's not about the graphic, but the style himself. And UX/UI in Civ V is so much better and easy to navigate. So elegant. It's ageless.

[@gickygackers]

@@homopoluza the music.

[@NerevarineKing]

Yeah I wish I didn't bother me so much, but I find it pretty off-putting

[@gtas321]

No it is much MUCH better than CIV V's. Civ V's graphics have not aged well.

[@Joe-nh8eq]

As much as I enjoy Civ 6, I think you missed some of its major flaws: 1) The End game slog, where the games really already over and you just sit there and hit enter 100 turns in a row. 2) The over abundance of mechanics. There's far too much stuff to pick up and learn. 3) Connected to #2. Then when you really figure out the game, you realize all the mechanics are really magicians tricks. In general, all that matters is yield numbers. And the best way to increase your yields is by having more cities. So if the mechanic isn't exploitable through a specific strategy, its completely useless in the grand scheme of things.

[@JumboPixel]

You’re right - I chose not to cover the end game slog because I consider that to be a much wider issue within the franchise and even other parts of the genre. I tried to pick specific things to Civ 6 - it’s launch, districts and so on. I touched on your second point slightly throughout the video (tech tree and cultural policies, district micro) but I agree more broadly that it is ultimately a yield-based game and more cities = more yields.

[@Joe-nh8eq]

@@JumboPixel idk why but the other versions never felt as much of a slog. Even when Civ 6 first came out the Slog wasn’t as bad. But then they added the repetitive diplomacy and elongated the length of the VCs IIRC.

[@jakobdueck7491]

totally agree with your points.

[@heinzriemann3213]

@@JumboPixel civ5 has no end game slog. In has the best photo finishes.

[@Phlebas]

@@heinzriemann3213 What Civ 5 - at least the BNW expansion - did well with the end game was introduce political ideologies in a way that felt kind of meaningful. I liked how in the late game, you ended up developing real factions based on your ideology; it brought back a certain role pay element that had initially been missing from the game. I liked that you could apply pressure to other civs to switch ideologies, and that doing so would be a bit of a setback for those civs since you have to invest points to develop your government. World Congress felt somewhat impactful too.

[@TannerWilliam07]

I miss being able to automate cities (puppet) and workers

[@JumboPixel]

I really miss puppeting cities too!

[@ClavisRa]

Civ 6 is the first version of Civ I've just given up on and stopped playing entirely. It's a slog to play, but not challenging to beat. It has far too many systems to manage/navigate but they don't make the game more strategically complex, just more tedious. Every game plays out very similarly, because you need the same overarching strategy to attack the culture and tech trees for any given victory condition.

[@dairedonohoe4641]

I’d recommend playing on faster game speed and going for win types that weren’t designed for the civ you are playing.

[@joaquinbanuelos6046]

Disagree. Economic management and diplomacy were always big parts of the game but there was only so much they could do it Civ II. I’ve been playing since Civ II came out when I was a kid, and Civ 6 to me feels what I always dreamed the sequels would be-more realistic resource and economic management, more realistic governance with policies and governments etc.

[@skyfall7110]

Every game plays out the same. Are you describing civ v? Like tradition into rationalism? Always same thing, always 3-4-5 cities. CIV VI has its faults but you have no business inventing new ones..

[@ClavisRa]

@@skyfall7110 Civ 6 VI is worse. If you want Science victory, for example, you need two massively productive cities, lots of small cities you buy out science buildings, keep peace with all civs, which is trivial. Once you get past the start of the game the map almost doesn't matter. It's a lot of calculation about timing out having enough science, production and culture at the same time. Basically all calculating game mechanics, and no strategy, diplomacy, map awareness, etc. Tedious.

[@skyfall7110]

@@ClavisRa same fora for Civ v, automate workers queue city buildings every new tech, end Turn. 200 Times later you won lol... Both games are easy if you spend enough hours and learn to manipulate the AI. People here just to pat themselves in the back saying "I play the coolest game".

[@NerevarineKing]

I remember Civ 6 getting hyped up quite a bit and then when I actually played a few games I realized it was worse than 4/5 and haven't touched it in years. It doesn't help that the art direction doesn't really do it for me.

[@AJays734]

Art direction caught me right away. After that i found the gameplay brutally boring like doing chores for 5 minutes just to press next turn and do it all over again. Then all the woke nonesense and global warming. I got all the notifications about climate in the fiest 10 mima of gameplay ans it made me feel like i was watching cnn, bbc, cbc news lie to me. Civ 6's budlight moment. Maybe greta thunberg will be the leader of germany in civ 7. No thank you im moving on to other franchises

[@kingstonrichard4999]

I would watch a 52-minute guide

[@JumboPixel]

You’re the real mvp!

[@alexthegrape1000]

I feel like the most annoying thing about civ 6 is how similar most games are for me. For example having a culture tree separate from the science tree means you have to not only focus on science, but also culture if you want to keep up. It leads to me not generally having a proper focus on what my civilisation aims to be, then all these districts require money for upkeep so then you invest in financial districts and improvements and before you know it, this civilization becomes very similar to the last one you played. This combined with the fact that each system requires a substantial amount of micromanagement just turns games into slogs where you lose focus of the micromanagement aspects and I just end up going through the motions I'm all for new systems and I appreciate the systems they brought into the game, but IMO they're far too micromanage-y and there is little actual depth to them, apart from doing things that increase your yields so you can research other things to grant you more things. I hope civ 7 engages the player more in its systems, with more depth to them, without it turning into a micromanagement game. IMO there should be a greater focus on diplomacy, general interactions with other civs (and yours on a macro scale, rather than a micro scale) and more depth/detail of wars, as this is one of the biggest things in the real world, not how 'cultured' a country is. These sort of things would go a long way to make it so every game you play feels a lot more unique, with different politics and alliances between groups of civs creating its own storyline in a way.

[@lullul6813]

You are so spot on the problems with civ 6. Unless you play on low difficulty, every game you have to build at least a few campuses just for science and monuments in almost every city for culture. Thats why every game feels the same no matter the civ you play.

[@gamesmaster1060]

@@lullul6813 But it makes sense youd have to keep up with science right? Like if you had a civ that didnt keep up with tech youd be pretty useless lol

[@appropriate-channelname3049]

You don't make any sense man. You demand greater depth but when it's given you hate it. You want historical realism but you don't want the development of culture to be a important aspect in the development of your civilization. Like seriously you think some scientists figured out how to make military propaganda or did artists and marketers do that. You think great scientists figured out how to organize the army in better ways. You think scientists figured out how to form a national identity and justify wars and poltical programs. You think scientists figured out how to organize the draft?

[@M.O.M.I]

@@lullul6813 maybe you're just playing every game the same.

[@yoyomama99]

@@appropriate-channelname3049 spot on my guy. These people never read history books

[@chocolatemilk679]

I think the art style has really soured my enthusiasm for ever really wanting to truly understand the game and its mechanics, therefor preventing me from enjoying it. Its cartoony which is fine but then the brown covering for the fog of war is more off putting than anything. Its like two different styles clashing. It also doesnt help that you have detailed and stylized backgrounds in the tech focus tree for example. I just feel like they tried to be more lively and fun but tried to maintain realism/sophistication to an extent and they just do not work well with each other. Its kind of a shame bc you can see talent and skill from the design team. Its not like their designs in a vacuum are bad its more like a bad creative decision. That said the more times i give it a go the more i enjoy the mechanics with exception of districts. Social Policies were a lot more fun to me even if it is more simple

[@andrewundershaft1162]

The worst thing about Civ 6 is the AI. It's not just bad - it's so incompetent that you are basically playing without competition, even on higher difficulties (at least after asserting yourself against the units the AI gains as a starting bonus and builds at the very beginning - after that, the AI is practically helpless). If you wage war against another civ and they don't even build units to defend themselves, merely sitting there and letting themselves be conquered despite being technologically superior to you, the game is basically disfunctional.

[@JumboPixel]

Yup I reflected on this in a video a week or so ago and I agree. It’s a shame the only easy way to balance the AI is just to give them a better start. Although bumping their yields is good too, I’d like to see that scale by era so their growth better reflects a human player’s.

[@andrewundershaft1162]

@@JumboPixel But what good do better yields do if the algorithms that make use of them are idiotic? If the AI is too stupid to build units in wartime, even when being invaded, no amount of ressources will make it better. The AI will just die richer.

[@samuelbaumgartner1651]

@@JumboPixel Yeah the AI can't be as good as the best humans, but its decision-making and intelligence can definitely still get better. Heck, take a look at Age of Empires II: DE, the AI is good enough on Extreme difficulty WITH NO CHEATS that it can beat a slightly above-average ranked human player. Now is CIV6 a more complex game? Yeah, maybe. But it's still just about programming basic build orders and responses to stimuli.

[@TugaThings]

Civ 5 AI is just as bad.

[@vinitpatidar2082]

A big disappointment in civ 6 is that We have to play wide to win, just make a new settler and make new cities and cities. Biggest disappointment is Builder. You cannot improve tiles even after 200 turns of games. Your Empire look weird even at the end of game as your tiles look just like at 1 turn unimproved full of jungle and forest. In real world also small nation like England france, korea also dominant the world which game does not justify

[@andrewtataj497]

the civ series has always been about sid meier's philosophy of making the player 'make interesting choices'. I've felt that civ 6 is more restrictive of that concept than other titles. The idea of eurekas, for example, means the optimal way of playing is to follow a predetermined tech path and doing your best not to deviate. So, instead of choosing the best tech for the larger strategic plan, you're choosing the best tech for immediate use vs the tech which will allow for fastest progress. Similarly, city districts. You choose the buildings in your city based on the available land rather than civilizational need. Yes, city specialization has always been an optimal choice in civ games and largely dependent on geography, but the means of implementing them is more flexible in other games. Do you: 1. base your economy/science around hammers or commerce or specialists? Or do you bully your neighbours into giving you free techs via military? Or is there a wonder you can build to offset geographical deficiencies? In civ 6, it feels more like 'see a bunch of mountains'? -> universities. There's lots of examples like this where new mechanics end up restricting those 'interesting choices' players have to make in previous versions of civ, and the game feels a little more like 'chase the multipliers' rather than 'make the interesting choice'. AI has always been an issue with civ games, no matter which version you play. Traditionally, the means to offset this is to let the AI 'cheat' by giving them bonuses on science/production/techs/units/diplomacy. But the more complex the game becomes with mechanics, the more the AI lags behind in it's ability to play competently. I'm all for mechanics, but interesting new mechanics can't come at the expense of an uncompetitive AI. It hurts replayability. And Civ has always been a game that's had long legs with massive replayability. All that being said, as a civ player who's been playing since 1991, the franchise has never been afraid to innovate, and that's a very good thing. And despite the criticisms, civ 6 isn't a bad game, I've known lots of new fans from civ 5 & 6 who are now equally passionate about the franchise, and that too is an important factor in pressuring the developers to come through. A better AI can go a long way into unlocking a more complex strategic experience if the developers can find a way to put it together for the next iteration. But most importantly, I'm still very thankful for the long, long legs of civ4 beyond the sword. That shit continues to scratch my itch nearly 20 years after the fact.

[@kaptenlemper]

I've grown to love Civ 6 after playing for two years, but two things keeps dragging me back to 4 and 5: the load times (up to 5 minutes to set up a map on my system) and performance issues in the late game when there are too many moving pieces on the board.

[@antonioussykas4140]

There is a lot more to the AI problems then you discussed. You mentioned very minor gripes. What about this: The AI can't wage war. At all. On Deity difficulty they are functionally incapable of taking cities beyond the early game. They simply do not know how to do this. This problem extends to Religious wars, where again, the AI is completely incapable outside the early game. Really, the AI can't do anything outside the early game. I love the districts and everything, but as we add bloat, the AI keeps falling behind, more and more. It's a common problem in all strategy titles. We don't make systems with the AI in mind, and we tack things on as DLC even if the AI can't handle it (stellaris and EU4 are big offenders here too). For single player, unfortunately, I actually have to hand the winning titles to some of the oldest strategy games around, like master of orion, cxom, and the early civ series. They possess seemless systems that were designed to work together (not tacked on as DLC), no bloat (Also DLC) and most importantly, the AI could play the game.

[@JumboPixel]

As I say, I covered AI fully in a seperate video and didn’t want to become repetitive. But you are absolutely right, the issues can reach across many elements of the game.

[@MegaBearsFan]

07:00 RE population caps for districts and city specialization. Maybe a better system would have been to allow cities to build as many districts as you want, but you have to assign population to work them. And maybe like the cottages of Civ IV, those citizens become more specialized at working that particular district the longer they work at it, so that they become much less productive if you re-assign them to another district. That way, the productivity of the city is still capped by population and you're still encouraged to specialize, but you can still build whatever infrastructure you want. It's just wasteful to build infrastructure that you're not going to use.

[@JumboPixel]

I really like that idea! Let the player decide, and deal with the consequences! Great call.

[@scrooge-mcduck]

You framed it correctly, the AI is moronic. The "Artificial Stupidity" AI in civ6 has very little to no grasp of diplomacy, direction or character and the decisions it makes are incomprehensible/random. It does not even try to string a coherent diplomatic narrative as it should in a game like this, where warfare should be an extension of diplo. There are no 'adapt and adjust' situations in this game, just crank outputs and convert these to armies then retaliate and grind. Almost every game plays out the same. A-and the cartoon presentation kills it for me.

[@dairedonohoe4641]

I think you had too lofty expectations wanting a game not at all based on historical events to be realistic. I think the devs did the best they could when the player base is so diverse.

[@scrooge-mcduck]

@@dairedonohoe4641 I just want some logic and plausibility. Civ5 has that to a much greater degree. The devs have some of the most involved community ever, years of feedback and ideas on civfanatics, all they had to do was to listen and improve.

[@garyd8664]

I waited several years to buy or try Civ6 so while I'm sure you're right to draw the comparisons you do to the launch version, the fact in my case is those improvements had already happened when I started playing Civ6. And I still think it sucks. The comments below about tedium are spot on; there's a lot to do, but it leads to a 'grind away' mentality vs. a 'this is fun' mentality. Game design is like car design, computer design, refrigerator design.. at some point you have to think of new features - often gimmicks - to keep customers. Civ6 goes a bridge too far. And the graphics... ugh. Before Civ6 I was playing a simulation. Now I'm playing a game. Or rather, I was until I went back to Civ5.

[@kevnar]

My biggest complaint about Civ 6 is how horribly they nuked the power fantasy. You used to be able to absolutely dominate the AIs, and it was very satisfying. Now the game mechanics block you at every turn with "balancing" rules, micromanagement, and just general blocks to whatever fun you're trying to have. I want to have fun ruling the world. I don't want everybody bitching and complaining about every little thing, because I made a mistake a thousand years ago. Just let me rule the damn world! Isn't that the point of Civ? I've played Civ 4 and 5 more than 6 since 6 came out. They're just more fun.

[@tvorbz1627]

I love civ6 but you have really good points here. One thing I'd add to the list of things that suck is the horrible way of presenting statistics. Those report screens are hurting my eyes everytime I go check something there and basically I avoid ever opening those - which is really a shame in a game like this. Also I really miss the map-thingy that shows expansion of your empire at end of the game. Winning a game just doesn't give same satisfaction without it and it's really hard for me to understand why they didn't include it.

[@idnyftw]

my only real gripe with 6 is that having all the neat cool systems managed with such a lame interface that I had to mod to play effectively is a big letdown... sure it's okay at the start when you have 3 cities, a couple trade routes, a handful of units, and a starter government with an okay number of policies but once you reach turn 100 with a large empire, it really starts to feel like a chore especially since even moreso than 5, this game REALLY encourages minmaxing for full effect

[@cristiansantiz5773]

For new players the experience is overwhelming and can easiely lead to frustration.. I have friends that have played 2 games and dont continue playing because its too much to learn in exchange of the fun you get.

[@nihlus9589]

I would argue that having played Civ 5 beforehand makes the experience even worse. You will notice all needless changes plus the new and confusing UI.

[@JumboPixel]

Hmmm both interesting points. My personal experience was the latter, but I think you could overcome it either way (if you wish to!) 🙂

[@charlesgrove9894]

@@nihlus9589 Yep. This just happened to me. I'm 7 hours into VI and I don't understand what I'm doing. There's so much stuff being thrown at you it doesn't feel like I'm going for any specific victory. I'm just pressing buttons that are recommended to me.

[@austincompton7662]

@@nihlus9589 This. This to a T.

[@gamesmaster1060]

Really? I wasnt just new to civ 6 but new to stratergy games and I picked it up fairly easily. If you think this is overwhelming dont play a paradox game lol

[@kaneconqueror6560]

I've been playing since civ 2 and have been watching the evolution with great interest. Civ 3 brought purpose to resources with strategic resources being required. Civ 4 cleaned up alot of stuff, and added new graphics, added a sickness mechanic, and i think added religions though i may be wrong about that one. Civ 5 added the hexes which earned some outcry, and trashed the sickness mechanic, but it's biggest changes in my opinion were that it added range to the ranged units and removed unit stacking, which fixed one of the worst problems with civ 4. Civ 6 has added policy cards to expand on governments, and fixed late game unit spam by reworking resources somewhat, but it's biggest focus was on making the land itself relevant. Between adding disasters, districts, and making wonders take up tiles and require certain geography, the land you settle in now determines much of how your empire develops. I look forward to how civ 7 improves further. What will it leave out and what will it change?

[@FryChicken]

Civ VI is just way too damn complicated. That's been my experience with it

[@kaneconqueror6560]

@@FryChicken I kinda agree. For me, it's not the base rule set that is complicated, but many of the civilizations are made distinct by giving them complicated and major restrictions. Thus there are civs that you can play normally, and there are "challenge" civs that restrict how you play to a specific build that you have to understand.

[@FryChicken]

@@kaneconqueror6560 It's almost impossible to get an overview. Restricting buildings to districts means you don't even know what you can potentially build unless you're acutely familiar with the game. Then there's the civics tree and the policies. I could spend hours deciding on a strategic move to coincide with certain politics and civics, because it's constantly changing. I would *much* prefer way slower government and policies. There's still no diplomacy overview page as sleek and elegant as Civ III.

[@kaneconqueror6560]

@@FryChicken fair enough. A few UI mods fixes most of the diplomatic issues for me. And really the only thing that was unexpected to me in the buildings was the shipyard giving ridiculous amounts of production. Honestly, choosing civics and tech based on what is needed in the moment, and seeing where that leads, is more fun to me and lets an organic narrative develope. That said, I play very casually, and don't try to be competitive or do special challenges, so being perfectly optimal and planning my growth perfectly isn't important to me.

[@Hammahlovesyou]

Oh I definitely do remember not enjoying it at launch, but I just figured it was like comparing a fine aged wine (civ 5) to a brand new one (6) I honestly forgot about civ for a long time until I came upon your channel, may have to try out a game of 5 and 6 sequentially to organize my own thoughts about them! I definitely was bummed by beyond earth, but alpha centauri was SOO good, and playing that one has made up for it 😅 Tl:Dr seems like the series has had some hits and misses, but it's still fun as a whole franchise! (I think!)

[@JumboPixel]

That’s so interesting that you hadn’t really put a lot into Civ recently until your found the channel. KZbin works in mysterious, and generally pretty helpful, ways! I’m ashamed to say I can’t speak to AC… :( But otherwise I think you’re bang on. 😎

[@Hammahlovesyou]

@@JumboPixel indeed!!

[@JumboPixel]

@Hannah K. I will NEVER understand why you’d do that! 😂😂 it’s wicked to have you around though, I’m not complaining

[@Hammahlovesyou]

@@JumboPixel dawh haha gotta give yourself more credit, you're quite entertaining! Especially enjoy the tidbits about 🇳🇿 culture and history! 🤓🤓🤓

[@alexvalin9085]

I antipate when Civ vii comes out there will be a fairly large base that will correctly think that Civ vii is the 'better game' in the same sense that civ v was still a better game compared to civ vi vanilla because of everything that was added in BNW/etc

[@hotdogfingerz9674]

My biggest gripes with the game whittles down to two things, the first being how production scales into the late game. Try settling a new city in the industrial era and have fun building a commercial hub or a industrial complex in 40 turns. It makes the mid to late game a chore. I think Civ 7 should take notes from Humankind in that after a certain point in the tech tree, new cities automatically gain some buildings and a bit of production to start it off. The second thing I find issue with is the AI, or rather, how incomprehensibly awful it is. In Civ 5, I am able to have a fair game on Prince difficulty, the normal difficulty. Not too easy, not too hard. I often find myself lagging behind certain techs. But in Civ 6, Prince difficulty is so easy that I don't think I have ever been toe to toe with a rival, it has always been me way ahead of the rest of the world. Also worth mentioning that the AI barely knows how to play the game and that the only way to make the game a bit more challenging is by blatantly giving the AI cheats. It sucks. I love the game, or most of the game rather, but I'll always say Civ 5 is the better game.

[@auroratranceaudio7465]

production scaling is annoying but there are so many ways to counter this. a good player will never struggle to develop cities in the late game. ancestral hall for builder -can chop out resources for production, farm triangles for quick growth, governers buy districts with faith or gold. the problem is that the game gives no guide on doing this stuff

[@hotdogfingerz9674]

@@auroratranceaudio7465 I would prefer that scaling only affects cities that already have districts, so building a district in a new city is quick but if you want to build it in a larger city with a lot of districts it will take longer. The way it is currently just makes me not want to settle because I know that setting all the new cities up will be very unfun.

[@danielgammo]

tbh skill issue

[@An_Economist_Plays]

The biggest mental hurdle that I had to clear was thinking of Civ6 as a historical simulation. It is not. Europa Universalis, Victoria, Hearts of Iron - for better or worse, those are games that purport to be simulations. Civ6 is a *game* first and foremost, with some fun historical/cultural flavoring added. It's like Settlers of Catan with LOTS of add-on packs, one could say. But the heart of the game is that it is a series of cool math puzzles one has to solve. There are limits on what one can do and, as mentioned, not every city will have every building, so the choices to be made matter much more than in previous versions of Civ. Compare to Civ 1: In Civ 1, you could build pretty much every building in every city. The only differences would be from surrounding terrain, but every city had a building queue to follow that was optimal for the game. Same in Civ 2-4. I haven't played Civ 5 - crappy computers plagued me at that time in my life - but it also didn't have district choices like in Civ6. Civ6 introduced the districts and now it wasn't just a matter of choosing districts for a city, but where they went, and where they went in relation to yet-unbuilt future districts. Once my eyes were opened up to adjacency bonuses, I saw how to take my enjoyment of the game to the next level. No more cookie-cutter building queues. Now I choose city sites based on what kind of district yields I can get with them. And that's only one of the new cool math puzzles introduced with Civ6.

[@JumboPixel]

Nice reflections! I like your point about Civ being distinct from those Paradox titles. I’d still call all of them games though. In my mind, those Paradox titles are Grand Strategy games, Civ is more of a casual 4X strategy game. But word play is just that. Yes, you’re so right. Learning about adjacency bonuses really unlocks the power and potential of the districts system doesn’t it. It feels more satisfying, and adds a nice layer of strategy. I do still wish the devs supported removing (or perhaps ‘renovating’) existing districts though - even at a very high cost.

[@An_Economist_Plays]

@@JumboPixel true, games are games - but coming from the historical simulation gaming community, there was always an argument about which should be prioritized - realism or gaming enjoyment? Thanks to computers, large amounts of realism can be included without sacrificing gameplay (not always the case in pencil 'n' paper days), but we still have the tradeoff. There's much more of a beer 'n' pretzels dice-roller element about Civ6 than what we see in the Paradox titles and that's OK. The real contest in Civ6 is in navigating the complexity to find an operating path that is superior to that of the other players. The reward is in how our minds make connections and grow as a result. Our minds experience pleasure when we make new connections - that's why we laugh when we hear a good joke or arrive at a difficult solution.

[@WarIsNoMoreCold]

The only complaint I've got with the series as a whole, but most in Civ 6, as a whole is the fact that the AI cheats blatantly on higher difficulties. It really annoys me and takes me out of immersion when I have 1 city and a couple of military units while the AI has an entire army and lots of cities while threatening you. It feels really unfair.

[@ctvtmo]

Thanks been a problem since the first game.

[@HouseMusicFan919]

The AI being more formidable is kind of the point of playing on higher difficulties, no? I’ve found Emperor to be the most fun while still challenging

[@FlishonyanKing]

Honestly the main thing that brings me back to civ 5 is always that the AIs are unique. Each civ in civ 6 has the exact same AI, they just have one or two things they hate/like more than other civs. You don't get civs who want to stay small, or go wide, or are more likely to warmonger or less, they all are just absolute bastards who will try to take all the land they can and will try to fight you no matter what. It just makes AI diplomacy feel pointless and makes them feel like they're all enemies rather than potential allies.

[@bluemachine1025]

I feel that the Civ 5 soundtrack was better, Civ 6 has a great soundtrack, but it becomes repetitive.

[@user-sk1bq8qf1p]

And it is SO LOUD and annoying sometimes

[@Christian_Bagger]

I absolutely loved civ5 and once civ6 was about to hit, I felt I was pretty much done with civ5. Once civ6 was released, there are many things that I actually really like about the game, but the AI was absolutely atrocious and that ruined the game for me.. keeping an eye on the sidelines and I see all the dlc’s I’m like “it looks like more of a cash grab than anything else”. It comes across ‘get as much money first, gameplay second or third’. Looking forward to something new in the genre! And hope that the civ series is gonna be better because of it.

[@Brent-jj6qi]

This game is still 50 dollars with 50 dollar dlc but there’s NO FUCKING CONTENT

[@UltraBearsFan]

Civ 6 literally killed my interest in the franchise, no exaggeration. I have thousands of hours in Civ 4 and Civ 5 respectively, but only 40 hours in Civ 6. One of my worst purchases in years.

[@HolyRamanRajya]

The game sucks because of two and two reasons only. The districts promote runaway wide gameplay early and then on late game its hell to micromanage and giga throttles the performance. Wide aint bad but having to control 20 cities just to compete with a warmonger with 30cities is just atrocious balance and design. How many of you really played to the end? Two, the dev/PMs have been absolutely lazy compared to CivV, just expanding on positives ignoring the negatives. Zombie mode was pure scummy advertising, never was playable. So many bugs in main game never got fixed, no automation anywhere, never got true macro global diplomacy, ideology wars, lump on districts but never make strategic resources removable. Great promotion of wide play but then no UI to manage 20 cities. The moment the pass ended, COMPLETE SILENCE from the dev team. Straight abandoned. My wallet will not be for civ7 when it comes.

[@SlavicUnionGaming]

what sucks about civ 6 for me is workers are no longer able to automatically build stuff for you, you now have to do it manually. basically having to manage them while doing everything else, not to mention now they can expire.

[@meluckycharms321]

Most civilization games are barebones at the beginning. No one plays Civ 5 anymore but they play Civ 5 Brave New World.

[@JumboPixel]

That’s correct - I’d challenge whether that’s ok though.

[@thorinbane]

The first 4X games came complete. Master of Orion, Civ, Master of Magic...they made a good product and did playtesting. Now you play test for them and they still make garbage.

[@freestalker8762]

I like how whenever someone says they dont like Civ 6 there's always an immediate response of "You just suck and blaming the game"

[@MrTheoptimiser]

Districts lend themselves to considering more tradeoffs when playing. And that's what civ is all about frankly.

[@JumboPixel]

Yeah I made a point of mentioning that in the video. More importantly though - that’s what life and real world cities and empires are all about. Constant trade offs weighing up the opportunity cost.

[@DaShikuXI]

They really don't IMO. Like if I'm going for a science victory, every single one of my cities is going to have a campus. It doesn't matter what tile I have to 'sacrifice' for that, or what kind of other units and infrastructure I have to delay. The campus is going to happen no matter what, because it is simply the correct thing to build every single science game. It's not a tradeoff when the options aren't balanced. The district always wins. Districts are really just a mandatory bit of infrastructure corresponding to your victory condition. The fact that many people start out a game by placing pins where their districts will go shows this. It's not an option or tradeoff, it's mandatory. This is also why many people will just restart when they see they dont have good terrain for their districts, since those are a necessity to win (bar maybe one or two weird strats).

[@skyfall7110]

@@DaShikuXI sometimes a city may have terrible campus but great harbour..

[@LaneCheney]

I'm going to add my thoughts, as someone who played a sh*t-ton of Civ 5 and Civ 6 - Civ 6 at launch was not good. You're super correct about that. The problem had the expectation of playing Civ 5 with it's 4ish expansions for years, and then going back to a purely vanilla game. I would challenge everyone here who hated Vanilla Civ6 to try Vanilla Civ5... you will find that it also sucks lmao. This isn't a Civ6 problem, it's a Sid Meyer problem. They release games that are more like concepts, and then build on that concept with DLC. - Civ 6, while potentially a bit more bloated with mechanics, has more player choice and imaginative gameplay than any other game in the series. Even though it can be overwhelming, Civ 6 is a canvas. You can truly create whatever kind of empire you want to. It has lots of nuance, and decision making, that previous games didn't have. You can't just build every building in every city now, you have to choose what each city is going to do. The district system is the perfect microcosm of this. You have to really think where to place them, and they make *huge* impacts on a city's identity. - My final point is that the balance on Civ 6 is sooooo much better than in Civ 5. I think people are really glorifying Civ 5 in here, which makes me think you never played multi-player lol. That game is so ridiculously unbalanced. Any civ that was science focused was a nightmare, and to win the game sometimes all you had to do was just spam out building wonders. There is no choice, or thought going on there. In conclusion: civ 6 base game

[@TugaThings]

Completely agree Civ 5 pales in comparison with the full experience of Civ 6. After playing Civ 6 for this long, I cannot go back to Civ 5 it just seems bland, empty, ugly and broken

[@mikicerise6250]

Yeah Civ5 base also sucked, but I got burned with it and held off on Civ6 until it was "done". Now it's done and Anthology has come along but... guess what? Humankind is about launch for the same price and it's looking mighty fine to me.

[@MegaRugster]

It is true that Civ5 release was really bad, the mp side esp, wasn't fixed for months, even when it was, it barely worked. Eventually most of the game worked fine after the expansions etc. Civ6 release wasn't that bad, mp was possible but limited, you had tons of easy options, the ai was actually quite fun to play with, esp on harder diffs, yeh it couldn't use ships or air units.. but it was still fun. Then the expansions came and with them wall to wall nerfs..it was all downhill from there.

[@sauluxville]

First and foremost, Civ 6 sucks atm because it is the most sloppily coded entry in the franchize, nothing else. The presentation art and music-wise are top notch, a candy for the eyes and the ears, but the quality of actual coding of the gameplay - just terrible. Riddled with millions of bugs throughout the entire lifecycle, the patching of Civ 6 was excruciatingly slow. After GS it was finally brought to a somewhat palatable state, but the NFP happened and smashed everything to pieces again and left the game crippled. Almost everything is bugged: Climate Change mechanics - Deforestation level jumps from 0 to 50% in one turn, all the carbon footprint is increased retroactively, next climate change phases happen one after another in few turns, and the AI is left with building astronomically expensive flood barriers which they will take dozens of turns to complete. Corporations and Monopolies - bugged, AI won't improve resources. Dramatic Ages - a few cards bugged and can cause negative production. AI is blind to Free Cities, a city lost to Free Cities is lost forever unles it somehow flips back through loyalty. AI has no idea how to make use of any of the modes mechanics. It even hasn't been taught about resource consumption for units, so AI constantly overbuilds them and then routinely runs low on resources. And AI does not know what to do with those units anyway. User interface never left Early Access, it is unfinished, uninformative, misleading and enormously time wasting. And what the devs did in some recent patch? They turned the science yield preference for ALL civs up to 11 since the Classical Era, and they made Campus and Theater Districts favourite types of districts for ALL the civs, no exception. So now they all tend to play the same way and favour science. The state of the game is so broken atm, that it can't even provide a credible background for a roleplay, for story building. The neglect or inability on the part of FXS to fix their flagship entry is just heartbreaking.

[@BeanOfBean]

Ikr. Thats why i havent played civ 6 in awhile, maybe they can do better with civ 7, but civ 6 just makes too much money for them so i dont see civ 6 going anywhere anytime soon

[@dairedonohoe4641]

I’d recommend trying different game speeds and multiplayer to try to avoid those problems.

[@jarigustafsson7620]

multiplay crashes so often i've given up.

[@hydraph4843]

I play vanilla civ 6 at the moment (just to get that out of the way, although I might try some of the expansions in the future, just to see natural disasters and zombies more than anything else). I completely agree with the point about AI. The game can be quite tedious but that doesn't compare with how bizarre the AI works. I really hate the new obsessions they added to each civ. Like, why would Norway tell me off for not having a good navy. If my coasts are unprotected, just raid them! With England, what is the point in hating me because I am on another continent when your army would not be able to reach me anyways. And do not get me started on the civs that want you to declare war on other civs otherwise they denounce you for the rest of the game but do not declare war themselves on you because they are pathetic. Compare that to civ 5, none of the leaders had these crazy obsessions. They felt much more realistic and interesting because they hid their ambitions. If they wanted to take your land, they would wait until you were weak or you thought they were your friend before stabbing you in the back. They were much more unpredictable, but they didn't seem overbearing (most of the time) and you could still have great, long lasting alliances that mutually benefitted everyone. Especially China, I still have no idea what China will be like every game in Civ 5. Compare that to Civ 6 and I know that if I build even a single wonder there is a good chance they will hate me for the entire game, otherwise they will probably be my friend. I don't want to seem like someone who clings onto what they are familiar with or things that are 'original' (since Civ 5 is the first game I played in the series, and the only other one I played has been Civ 6). That is why I am considering getting expansions in the future, especially since I really liked the world congress in Civ 5.

[@noldo3837]

What i dislike the most on Civ 6, together with the cartoonish design, is that it has become much more gamist and far less simulationist.

[@timezone7937]

Love the Gathering Strom DLC The massive changes in strategic resource management and improved adjacency bonuses really made me addicted to the game

[@timezone7937]

@@kikifisselstein7322 if you research computers you can build a flood barrier that protects your coastal cities

[@scienceme9794]

@@kikifisselstein7322 I know, right? The single worst mechanic in Civ IV was global warming, but it was extremely easy to go into the code and turn it off (even for someone like me who knows basically nothing about coding). At least in VI it's kind of a joke, since the AI is so bad at the game, that you're most likely the only one doing any polluting till the very end of the game. Even so, the weather mechanics generally are more annoying than interesting, and don't hold a candle to the random events of IV.

[@gregory-of-tours]

For me the big problem (and this had already started in civ5, but the game was so good otherwise it was okay) is that it feels basically just feels like an overly complex board game now. I-IV felt more like an abstract history simulator, where even if sometimes you weren't even sure why things had happened at the micro level, that was okay because it made sense somehow in the grand scale of history. Now it's just a mess of endless mechanics that throw ridiculous amounts of info at you in an extremely cluttered UI, without it actually feeling like a deep network of interconnected systems like a Paradox game that makes that clutter worth it. It's just kind of a mess.

[@yamasaa]

I love love love the districts in Civ 6. Can't play a 4x game without them now.

[@JumboPixel]

I’ve really warmed to them 😊

[@yamasaa]

@@JumboPixel Have you seen the mod that allows you to remove districts? It's a lifesaver, especially useful when conquering enemy cities because the AI excels at building districts in shitty locations 😆

[@JumboPixel]

@Yamasa I haven’t looked into it, but I’ve had a few subs mention it before. I’m on the fence about it - I usually stick to purely UI mods, but man that’s tempting…

[@yamasaa]

@@JumboPixel It's quite well-balanced, considering that removing a district requires you to first have all the buildings in it repaired (so you can't immediately remove the district after pillaging and conquering its city). You can then remove it via a city project that takes half the amount of turns that it took to build that district, so the city can't produce anything else during that period. Come on try it out you know you wanna 😉

[@aaronrogers8108]

I agree dude. I disliked the system back when it first came out, but as soon as I understood the mechanic I fell in love with it.

[@chingizzhylkybayev8575]

I know I'm off topic with this as this is a Civ6 video, but when you started talking about how AIs go to war, it made me remember the funniest AI war experience I had in Civ5. So I was Ottomans, and there was a point in the game where I declared war on my neighbour which annoyed like all the AIs and at some point they started declaring war on me like wholesale. In the same turn, three different civs from the different continent declared war on me. One of these was England. They had no colonies on our continent and we had literally zero interaction for the duration of the "war" between us. Finally, after some time Elizabeth proposes peace and... gives me Nottingham. I have received a huge colonial settlement for no reason at all lol.

[@Alfwin]

As a casual Civ player, I find Civ 6 to be perhaps my favourite civ game. I started playing it with Gathering Storm (coming from Civ 4 and 5) so I can't comment on what Civ 6 was like at launch, but I love most of the systems it introduces. I love the planning and specialization that comes from the Districts system; I love the flexibility of the Government Policies system, and I love the unpredictability of GS's Natural Disasters system. That said, I do agree that all of these systems have plenty of room for improvement, and the game is definitely held back by the limited AI. Oh, and I also much prefer the art style in Civ 6. It's so much more vibrant, and the leader animations especially have so much more character and personality. The music is also one of my all-time favourite video game soundtracks.

[@JumboPixel]

Nice feedback! It's always interesting to hear experiences like yours 🙂

[@fredpittman1972]

In my view, the reason 6 sucks is the stupid policy cards, Religion is annoying, the all in districts, the wonders are bullshit….governments is annoying, the cartoonish aspect of the graphics…. The barbarians kill me off almost immediately or oppress my growth to the point that I’m no better than a city state…. Oh, and the city states interaction is obnoxious … still have no idea how the numbers are achieved. …. Everything just weighs you down with obnoxious, tedious things that make no obvious affect or benefit that outweighs the tediousness. 6 is god awful and I hope 7 fixes some of the things that really suck in 6.

[@Anthony-un4yz]

Too many mechanics, too similar game-play, still too reliant on production with not enough consistent ways to produce. Way too effective or ineffective maps, overdone/underdone barbarians, no interesting decisions, just right then mostly wrong ones. This is why they punted any kind of balance out the window, the underlying mechanics just aren't meant for balance. But the biggest problem of all, it's just not nearly as fun as previous iterations, even 5, which was mostly crap when it first released. I'll be trying Humankind.

[@thorinbane]

Humankind is bad, but try one of amplitudes endless series.. Legend is pretty good.

[@evilemperorzurg9615]

I played a game where the Mapuche declared war on me even though I had never done anything to them and they lived on the other side of the world.

[@logicaldude3611]

Civ 4 is the best. After that, they changed all the mechanics about the game and tried to make it "more accessible" to new players. Nobody cared. It tanked and nobody cared about the franchise any longer. Now, it's kind of a joke. Civ 4 was the peak and it's unfortunate that they didn't find a way to simply build on that game.

[@crafe2305]

Nobody cared? About Civ V? The Civ game that really broke out in the mainstream and amongst the most played games on Steam? Sure Civ IV is great and I personally love it, but we don’t need to lie to ourselves and say the sequels weren’t commercially succesful and that ‘nobody cared’. You might not have cared, but a lot of other people did.

[@matomatic4599]

I personally really like districts as a game mechanic, it opens up different sim playstyles - e.g. "I'm going to focus on industry and science this game so i'm going to spam industrial zones and campuses". it would be nice if you could remove a district within the first 1/5 of it's production, it really really sucks when you misclick and your district end up in the wrong place is a multiplayer game. Equally irritating is when a strategic resource like niter appears where you want to place your carefully thought out industrial complex - making you have to stall techs with strategic resources until you've got all your aqueducts/dams/industrials placed down.

[@JumboPixel]

Yeah the mis clicked districts are annoying! Nothing a reload can’t fix though I guess, if you’re that way inclined 😅

[@rwentfordable]

If you like districts, Civ 6 took the idea from Endless Legend, released 2 years prior, and does it a little better.

[@GanzBestimmt]

The only thing that makes CIV6 really "unique" is that we still didn't get DLL source code to make it possible for modders to fix Firaxis broken products.

[@Jon0387]

I remember when the game first launched the AI was so aggressive. I was attacked by another empire early in the game. I won the resulting war but then everyone denounced me as a warmonger for the rest of the game. I would meet a new Civilization then the next turn they would denounce me as warmonger and declare war on me shortly afterwards - then the cycle would continue. Districts, I still think there are pros and cons, for instance I like that I can put my city center next to a river but still can put a harbor down a few tiles away. The cons however is they have a big upfront cost before you can build anything. Certain districts can be useless - unless I’m going for a religious victory, I only build one holy site, rush to get some good bonuses in a religion and never build another. Other districts seem mandatory, it seems to keep production reasonable I have to build an industrial district in every city.

[@JumboPixel]

Yeah the whole AI warfare and war weariness was so janky at release!

[@OriginalBongoliath]

@@webbowser8834 That only works as a late game strategy. If you are early in the game but have a city in an area with poor production you need to spam industrial zones.

[@stormwolf8770]

it was the Barbarians for me. My word twice ive died from Barbarians before Turn 30

[@fahrettinuysal4589]

Tbh I love the art style, Civ 4 was like 6 too. Bright and kinda cartoony. Game was a little too 'vanilla' at the start, but so was civ 5. and civ 4. All these games got significantly better over their lifetime. Now the so loved civ 5 was hated vigorously when it launched, no religions, new grid system, no unit stacking. No matter what firaxis does people will hate the game just because they want to hate.

[@rumblytumbleson1995]

"Just because they want to hate" Idk bro, you just listed a bunch of good reasons

[@Dell-ol6hb]

Please go back and look at civ 4, it was more cartoonish than civ 5 certainly but it was far far from how cartoonish civ 6 is. Regardless people hate the game for valid reasons mostly, I mean you just listed some good reasons yourself

[@pdxcorgidad]

I know I'm a bit late to the game here, but yeah I'm a new player and *despise* Civ 6. It's seemingly impossible to learn. "Do the science thing with all the bonuses for what sits next to your campus which has to be next to a mountain which then will give you science and make sure you get those wonders which the game will randomly give to AI. Oh and don't forget about housing or amenities because the game won't let you forget with it's 3/4 Law & Order tone every 4 seconds." This is a game I should like. It's right up my alley. Do I need to go back and play all the previous ones just so I understand even part of this? Because I can't even build ships properly. As Norway.

[@gdgd5194]

Building districts is the only bit of strategy in this tedious game. You can ignore rules altogether and win easily (unless your game glitches out or you realize after few hours that half civs are missing from map because of poor game design 😂

[@teammelkerphilippines3620]

I tried VI when it came out, played it maybe 3 times and went back to V and never looked back :(

[@JumboPixel]

Fair enough - I spent years away from Civ 6 for the same reasons

[@teammelkerphilippines3620]

@@ra9-02 Civ V is better

[@gustavomachado3488]

1 UPT killed Civ. That said, considering this is another game (and a much worse one) because of that, the cartoonish style sucks and there's no variety, you always end up playing the same way.

[@gdgd5194]

You buy civ6 to play a grand game of Earth with all civs. Start single player after struggling to make it work with the random leaders list that glitches out after starting the game 😂 Andafter 10 turns you "lose" because of loyalty 😂 Then you spend hours configuring their broken custom game menu to start a multiplayer game, hard testing every civ if it works because game crashes or deletes half of leaders... And when friends join, you see the multiplayer doesn't even have custom game settings 😂 You have to setup entirely different list and get red errors everywhere if you add more than 8 civs 😂

[@R17inator]

One of the common complaints I saw for Civ 6 back when it launched was the wonky movement where i.e. you try to move into a tile that costs 2 move points, you must absolutely have 2 move points, unlike in the previous game where a unit that had 1 move point remaining could still enter a tile that would normally eat 2 or 3 move points.

[@Jammonstrald]

Things that are good in Civ 6: wonder tile requirements, trade routes automatically building roads, the ways cities shape themselves based on the surrounding environment. Things that are bad in Civ 6: pretty much everything else. But the movement system is especially egregious, and the micromanagement is awful. Playing Civ 6 doesn't feel like I'm building and guiding a civilization through the ages; it feels like I am slogging through a very abstracted and cumbersome version of simon says.

[@poiuyt975]

I bought Civ 6 a few years after its release, when it was on sale. My purchase included the base game, the first major expansion, several minor DLCs and a few major patches. So it definitely wasn't the "launch version". The game was INSULTINGLY unfinished! I felt as if the developers had spit into my face. The were no hyperlinks in the Civpedia, there was no building queue (promised to be delivered in the second major expansion), there were no RAILROADS (also promised to be delivered in the second major expansion). Not to mention silly little things like the main menu looking like a placeholder or Pikemen upgrading directly into Anti-tank Infantry. Or that the player couldn't construct roads, but don't worry, they were mostly useless anyway. There is absolutely no way I'm buying Civ VII upon its release. Firaxis had made THREE bad games in a row (Civ V, Beyond Earth and Civ VI), I had lost all faith in them. Which is a shame, because I've been playing the series since Civ I. Edit: this is just the tip of the iceberg. But I don't feel like writing a lengthy rant in the comment section. ;-) Even after all those years I still feel salty when I think about Civ VI, its unfinished state and moronic mechanics.

[@protone2012]

I'm very tired of managing some sh**. Trade routes, slow unit movement, still having to construct railroad 1 by 1. Bot play doesn't feel rewarding as they are cheating, and so much stupid and unprogrammed that they'll construct spaceport in every city, but won't go for a win and game will end by turn 500.

[@JJAB91]

One of the biggest problems with Civ 6 is that it completely eliminates playing tall. That was an entire playstyle for people just gone from the game.

[@djhartford4549]

I wonder if people in the EU feel bothered with the use of the letter ‘z’ instead of ‘s’ in the title.

[@ddwkc]

I don't have the biases from playing the game during launch or even the reaction at the time. I recently got the game will all the trimmings and it is less fun to play than even vanilla Civ V. I can't point exactly why. I just didn't care much about the changes in systems. They are different, but not different enough for me. It is just the same old but done worse. Some stuff seems more complicated, but the end result seems not exactly more complex to compensate for it. The pacing of the game just feels wrong. I think it is because they make all the things you have to manage in game more tedious/less fun. It is a game you have to sit through hours and this can wear down on you. Some may get used to it, but lot of people will not come back if they feel negative feeling during the game sessions. I don't mind the cartoon style, but the rest of the game should have been more consistent in style. I do like the district and the policy card system. I do like the soundtrack and the day and light cycle.

[@pokedude104]

I still think there are way too many mechanics and things to try and focus on at once in civ 6. From anyone coming from the older games, (civ 4 or earlier, like myself) its extremely difficult to get used to because the game is nothing like what it once was.

[@appropriate-channelname3049]

Ehh there's not that much to it. The districts just determine your cities focus. So if your going to have a gold generating city you put a market and shipyard districts. A cultured city you put a theater square and bunch of wonders around it etc... some cities multi task but for the most part that's it. With the policy cards you can get by initially by just picking what you need more of. Needd more amenities pick the amenities card etc... eventually you'll get the just and getting brter with the cards

[@vinitpatidar2082]

A big disappointment in civ 6 is that We have to play wide to win, just make a new settler and make new cities and cities. Biggest disappointment is Builder. You cannot improve tiles even after 200 turns of games. Your Empire look weird even at the end of game as your tiles look just like at 1 turn unimproved full of jungle and forest. In real world also small nation like England france, korea also dominant the world which game does not justify

[@zeriel9148]

"Some nice ideas" is just not enough to justify a game's existence. If my car arrives missing the wheels and won't start, but it includes a nice note about how cars in the future should be built, and I agree with that note... my car still fucking doesn't work. Firaxis deserves all the hate for Civ 6, and I'm not even going to give Civ 7 a chance seeing the direction they're taking things. And yes, art matters. Style matters. If aesthetics didn't matter, why not still do a Civ 2 style game with all basic rudimentary sprites?

[@bombidil3]

Having to change your social cards constantly is a pain.

[@terrywitzu7874]

For starter's, it's Civilization, "Just one more turn then off to bed...6 turns away from building that Coliseum, after that; straight to bed...". Next thing you know, it's been 20 turns since, and you gotta be up in 2 hours. That's the nature of Civilization and it still applies to 6. I like the districts, love how you can go to war (not a strength for Civ) and you suddenly have insurgents popping up in your cities, the scramble to Settle other cities feels weird, but brings a faster pace to the game, etc. Q: I'd like to try the Expansions, but a lot of Steam reviews say they DON'T WORK. Has that been fixed, now? ALSO - Does anybody else emphasize Religion/Faith? I don't. Am I taking this focus for granted, and missing a big part of the larger picture? Does Faith/Religion play a significant role, overall? In reality, every country has a Religion to identify themselves w/ as an overall benefit to National identity. DOES THAT APPLY TO CIV6?

[@JumboPixel]

Oh the One More Turn... honestly it gets me every time.. The Expansion packs are great and I've had no issues getting them to work on Steam - not sure about other platforms. Gathering Storm is the best. Highly recommend it. Re: Religion - I'd argue many countries don't have a dominant religion (these days many have 'no religion' as their primary religion). Anyway - on civ, I think a lot of players overlook religion because it feels like an added extra. I'm guilty of that myself. It's very powerful if you get the right benefits and tenents.

[@wolfshanze5980]

I'm playing Civ V right now, and I have become filthy stinking rich by founding a religion, spreading it everywhere and using it to fund my wars and crush my enemies. I have the bonus gold for every city with my religion, friend or foe, so if my enemy gets my religion, I just make more money... I also get a bonus for attacking cities with my religion (think "liberate the holy lands")... so I convert my enemies to my religion and then steamroll the liberate my religion teain... also my temples feed the poor my cities grow larger. Thanks to religion, my cities grow larger, faster, my coffers overflow with gold to buy military units which free my religious cities from other civs. Ya, religion is useful.

[@evilemperorzurg9615]

I hated it when it launched but now with expansions it is really fun. Civ 5 is still better.

[@IsaacWrightMusic]

A big problem that I find sets the tone for the reason I don't really like Civ 6, that bleeds into every reason, is one of the very things you discussed, Civ 6 is trying to be more of a simulation than a 4x game, which will obviously appeal to some players, but to the people that played Civ games for it's 4x nature, it constantly feels like it's punishing you for trying to play the way you'd actually like to play, especially if you've played a lot of Civ 5. Want to go tall? - too bad, not realistic enough Want to go to war? - too bad, your people wouldn't be happy in real life, so in the game they won't be Want to set up outposts (colonies) far from your own empire? - too bad, they'll rebel People often cite a lot of the new features added in Civ 6 and further expansions as adding depth to the game, but honestly every time I've tried (and I have tried to love this game, with over 200 hours in it) I just feel like everything is more and more convoluted and more and more broken, adding more confusing stuff, does not equal depth. All in all I certainly get the points you're making and why people do enjoy it, but for me it was just never the game I wanted to play for a Civ game, no matter how many extra things they keep bolting on.

[@JumboPixel]

Very well put, friend!

[@IsaacWrightMusic]

@@JumboPixel haha thanks, I know it can be a controversial view point, but I feel like it's at least understandable, I certainly don't hate on anyone who does love it either, it just doesn't quite land for me

[@alex.b755]

A couple of tweaks to balance the game and maybe make it more immersive (realistic) would be nice. But their main priority for civ 7 should be smart AI, especially better war tactics. Now is a better time than ever to make a good AI.

[@at7915]

Literally any time in the future will be a better time than ever to make a good AI. Lol.

[@buurmeisje]

I have a hard time looking at the Civ6 map, everything just blends in with everything else, I usually just play on strategic view, so I actually can see what's going on. In Civ5 everything is clear and destinct.

[@albaniaalban]

My main issue with Civ 6 is that the many many cities makes everything so huge to manage/a chore to finish. Space race has you sit for 50 turns, clicking a builder to a space port and consuming them every turn but nothing really matters, it just speeds things up. Culture and religion both have rockbands/apostles which need to be protected from barbs/war, upgraded with the right promotions, sent to the right sites, consumed over 5-10 turns, and so on. The problem to me is that the scale is just too huge, and there's too much to manage. I still play it a lot and really like it, but I wish some of the problems of micromanaging 20+ units per turn (as well as cities) without any real meaningful decisions could be solved somehow as it is a big detriment to my enjoyment of the game.

[@JumboPixel]

I feel exactly the same. The tedious late game issues have always been challenging for the franchise and genre sadly.

[@fitzlepop8101]

Honestly Eurekas make so much sense! Why would a society with no stone or marble know how to stone cut other than just reading it in a book? If they could work that inti developing improvements too, that would be pretty awesome!

[@drake0074]

Let’s not forget the price of this five year old game. It’s still like $90 for the whole bundle on Steam.

[@JumboPixel]

Full price, yup! Although it regularly is discounted to 75% off, just like Civ 5.

[@benhardacre588]

As a loooooonnnnngggg time console gamer I’ve only ever played 6 & therefore cannot compare it to 5. 6 is the first turn based strategy game I’ve ever played & I love it, absolutely one of my favourite games of all time. I can see why vanilla 6 might have launched poorly against a dlc decked out Civ 5 but Civ 6 more with R&F, GS & Frontier is just a phenomenally deep game. Science & Culture play more generic roles in most civs with some that are super powerful in those roles but I’ve recently played unique and hugely varied alternate victories in Domination (Ottomans), Religion, (Russia) & Diplomacy (Canada). It seems 6 launched with a lot of instant bad vibes (understandably) but I’d urge any open minded person who has not played it with all the DLC’s to try it again.

[@brodiemay8764]

Civ 6 launched with an upgraded purchase that was worded to make you think if you bought it you'd get the expansions top, but then released tiny dlc packs instead. That really upset me.

[@aagguujjaa]

Thank you for a thoughtful comparison, this was actually really useful for me. And you didn’t use profane language every other sentence. Much appreciated.

[@centurionvyg163]

1. Cartoony graphics, I'm just not into it 2. Terrible looking UI and it is not very accessible 3. Too much stuff to track at the same time 4. New diplomacy mechanics are terrible, Civ 5 wasn't all that better, but what leaders did was easy to follow 5. Constantly choosing something, yes it is a Civ game, the game is all about choices but here it is way too much, new policies, etc 6. Overall slower pace, in Civ 5 you could increase the pace according to your wishes, in Civ 6, the game feels slow no matter what, it feels like it takes way too long to build something, capture something, reach your diplomatic or religious goals, and when you do reach them, it doesn't feel very satisfactory it feels like you wasted too many resources for so little gain. 7. World leader choices, I found most leaders boring, and their dialogue is even more boring. In Civ 5, I dreaded when an aggressive leader declared war on me or when I was close to them knowing that they would eventually come for me.

[@Sabersquirl]

They could fix Eurekas by having them be more general. Like if you build a certain amount of military units you get a boost to military tech because your civ is used to it. Or focus on trading with different cities to get trade tech boosts. A more basic and broad approach might have the downside of making choices less strategic, as you will get something useful no matter what, but I would argue that is also the upside of such a system. Players would not have to memorize every single eureka, and you can lean into your playstyle to push ahead into different areas of focus. For the sake of balance, and not having progress be lopsided towards one category you could even mix it by having different bonuses from what you are directly researching. For example scientific study could lead to the discovery of a new military weapon, or an economic system could develop a new art or music style.

[@JumboPixel]

Hi Saber. I really like that - could be very interesting and still fairly historically accurate (or at least semi-believable). It reminds me a little of how Humankind manages the era stars - more general goals like kill x units, or build x districts.

[@dnaseb9214]

I agree, I hate the cartoony style. Its like a mobile game for kids between 10 and 11. I dont like that Franch has a female leader and they didnt use Jean dArk. They used a nobody. This is why I will never try this game.

[@gieaudio8762]

For me civ 6 after few months of playing is too easy even on deity, and I know that there are some limitations with coding the AI, but things like building massive fleet in 6 tile lake, or mentioned unprotected settlers is just ridiculous. Don't get me wrong, it's still great game, actually I like going domination more in civ 6 than in 5. Also what's is making me mad, are those 'balancing' patches which broke the game for me. Implementing new gradation of units years after releasing a game is strange, really. Instead of fixing few of OP civs like Babylon, they broke some well balanced ones. I don't like the idea of messing in the game 4-5 times a year, they should add things, not change everything from the bottom.

[@mikearndt8210]

in my opinion, civ 6 isn’t bad, civ 5 is just better. pretty much every aspect of the games is better in 5: art style, city states, the world congress, playing a tall empire, the tech tree, social policies, the diversity of units, etc. the only thing that i really like about civ 6 that i can honestly say is better is the fact that there is weather and canals.

[@ShadowDogProduction]

I'm just curious, which version of Civ was your first? You don't sound old enough to have started with Civ 1. I ask because I think it colors how we receive new versions. I started with Civ 2 and it had massive, annoying issues that really hampered my enjoyment (foreign civs allowed to clog up your territory with their stupid units, spys being overpowered, etc). So when Civ 3 came along and literally addressed every single problem I had with 2, it felt like the perfect version. But somebody who started with 3 wouldn't feel that way. And so on.

[@JumboPixel]

Civ 4, but really much more heavily into Civ 5 and 6. I didn’t play Civ 2 or 3 back in the day so you’re right, I don’t have the personal experience of them when they were cutting edge. I tend to never really focus on them for that reason.

[@kaneconqueror6560]

I've been playing since civ 2 and have been watching the evolution with great interest. Civ 3 brought purpose to resources with strategic resources being required. Civ 4 cleaned up alot of stuff, and added new graphics, added a sickness mechanic, and i think added religions though i may be wrong about that one. Civ 5 added the hexes which earned some outcry, and trashed the sickness mechanic, but it's biggest changes in my opinion were that it added range to the ranged units and removed unit stacking, which fixed one of the worst problems with civ 4. Civ 6 has added policy cards to expand on governments, and fixed late game unit spam by reworking resources somewhat, but it's biggest focus was on making the land itself relevant. Between adding disasters, districts, and making wonders take up tiles and require certain geography, the land you settle in now determines much of how your empire develops.

[@thorinbane]

Late reply. Started on Civ1. Ultimate time sink. Master of Orion and Master of Magic. Civ 2 was good, had special tin box set for civ 3 and of course had Alpha C...Civ 3 was maybe my favourite. They all hold special points in my memory. But I loved when they added onto your monument in civ 3. I think AC was likely the pinnacle because of the alien mechanics. Sid may have still been actively involved with the games back then instead of just a nameplate. Civ IV is a great version and I have a lot of hours in V but 6 is awful. There is not much to love in this game. It took the district mechanic from endless but didn't really do it right. In fact I wish I could reskin Endless Legend with earth variants. Its a nice change from Civ and is a lot better than the humankind game that amplitude came out with this past summer.

[@wolfshanze5980]

I'm old enough at 54... I played Civ 1... the game where a Spearman could sink a battleship... fun times. I played every version of Civ 1 through Civ IV religiously... Civ IV was when I went all-in on modding the game... I did a massive overhaul mod (the Wolfshanze mod) that was a ton of fun and had a lot of followers... then real life happened, got married, had kids, basically stopped playing Civ for years. Saw Civ V come and go... saw Civ VI come and be constantly compared with Civ V... not until about a week ago did I finally come back to Civ. Had the full versions of both Civ V and Civ VI in my Steam library... debated which to play, decided on Civ V... playing it now.. oh the memories of "just one more turn" and realizing it's 2am. Fun times!

[@hibernian87]

I seriously dislike districts. Its not that I dont like planning ahead but I feel like you need too much foresight. It would be nice if you could zoom in on a city and have different buildings/districts built within them (in one hex). Hell, maybe be able to produce more than two items at once within a city (produce a military unit from your barracks and library in your campus or something).

[@JumboPixel]

That would be a fascinating way to expand on the districts system, allowing each one to do and produce its own thing.

[@alex.b755]

I always thought cities were too sprawled out in civ 6. I understand a military base far from a city but not a campus or entertainment district. I would love a more realistic take on the game.

[@totallynotpopular872]

Civ 6, most of problems can be solved by mods, Mod are free to use and can improve quality of life in a game

[@JumboPixel]

There is a fantastic modding community. Not just for Civ 6 - the Civ 4 & 5 communities are the same!

[@NukaRage]

I spent 6 hours on a game for it to not let me have just one more turn Ever since i gave up on it

[@Nr4747]

I love the Eurika moments, but absolutely despise the district system and that wonders take up valuable district spots. Districts in general are too complex for their own good and make you feel like you need to plan out your entire empire down to the last possible district spot before you even consider settling your second city. I also absolutely despise the overly cartoony faction leaders and units, it looks cheap and like a mobile game and hasn't aged well at all. Overall, I think CiV now looks best out of all of the CiV game because of its timeless aesthetics, which is a really damning thing to say about its successor.

[@chillchinna4164]

You can tell me that the game is good if I get all the dlc, but it’s still like 70 usd on top of the base game. 70 bucks to make something I don’t like slightly better isn’t a massive deal to me.

[@Unbiased321]

I made it to the Civilization selection screen in CIV6 before i logged out. The CORE GAMEPLAY of Civilization is to honor the great leaders and Civilizations of human history and make them playable. So when I saw that France had scrapped Napoleon and Louis the XVII for some unknown bird called Elenor I knew that the people that made CIV 6 think that gender representation, race is more important than historical accuracy. People who think like this, are idiots. So if they make stupid decisions on who the greatest leader of france was they'll no doubt make more throughout the game.

[@jbassguy571]

For me what I hate about civ 6 are three things. First is the graphics. I find it really hard to see details like roads and districts. I often end up mousing over tiles trying to find where my commercial district is or whatever. Second thing I hate is the lack of ocean focus. I don't think civ 6 was the first civ game to allow units to embark on the sea without a ship but it definitely seems to be the first civ game where even having ships seems pointless. Thirdly I hate the endgame. Being unable to move or destroy districts you end up in this endgame where the basic layout of your entire empire is kind of trapped in amber and all you're doing is upgrading buildings to produce more yields. It's just tedious. The early game is by far the most interesting when you're initially scouting out and placing districts and fighting off barbarians etc...

[@qclod]

I didn't even know war weariness was a thing.

[@JumboPixel]

it's improved a bit since launch, and loyalty is a much more obvious and significant system now too. But yup - your population suffers!

[@Thaddeus_Howe]

If Civ VI had the graphic style of Humankind or even just Civ V, I would play it over Civ V any day of the week.

[@user-rq9zm5qf5d]

The AI in Civ 5 VP is better than MOST players. It is also far more balanced. If Firaxis really cared about making the best game possible, they would have hired those modders of VP.

[@OlegLecinsky]

My problem is the one with the "realism" Civ 6 tries to achieve. Even more realism - and the game is going to get really boring and complex at the same time. Realistically the development of civilization is dictated by the geography. You can't start in tundra, jungle or desert and build a civilization - those need rivers fertile soil on their banks, flowing into a large sea or an ocean, you need natural harbors, access to specific resources, a mild climate - a lot of factors. Realistically if you have a bunch of settlers in a middle of a steppe w/o a lot of water and fertile soil nearby - you just end up being a hunters/gatherers tribe living like this for centuries before someone else comes and claims the land as their territory. And no matter how well you "play", this is just the way it's going to be. This is realism. Realism is good for a survival simulator. Strategy IMO needs a clear, understandable, logical but preferably easy mechanics. I'd rather be thinking long before moving every unit or choosing the correct building to construct than studying all the dimensions in which my pawns can be moved as if it was the game by itself - just to forget 80% of it as soon as I don't play for 3 months, thus turning it into a complete waste of time.

[@lennoxhedonist9293]

Still hate the graphics, like the research boosts from certain "quests"

[@JumboPixel]

Mmm very similar to quests!

[@sanktalucia4959]

Most of you in the comments are hating just to be different. Civ 6 is an amazing game and a true successor to Civ 5.

[@SirMrTreflip]

I remember that on release the policy cards rationalism, free market, simultaneum and grand opera all gave just straight up +100% yield bonus to each district respectively. severely limiting your policy card strategy as you would just fall behind everyone if you did not pick any of these.

[@matfax]

Civ 6 sucks because it doesn't open their code to modders like they did with Civ 5. I'm still hoping for the ability to mod the district range because it's not possible to mod it at the moment. Same story with AI modding. The current district system sucks and the AI has the tendency to spam cities. It doesn't reflect a personality/style as much as I'd expect.

[@Theospeak1]

AI city spamming is one of the most frustrating features, even on easy difficulties.

[@EhrenG]

bought the game with the expansions recently on sale for 15 USD and I'm unimpressed. While there are several issues that make this less enjoyable to play than it should be, the biggest problem I had learning the game (and still have) is the dreadful UI, honestly some of the worst I've ever seen in a game. Trying to get feedback about what is going on required tabbing out and searching where to find it because the menus are in unintuitive places and only display fragments of the information I'm looking for. I saw some players in forums excuse this by saying "you get used to it" but that is really no excuse for releasing something so clunky. It still gets in the way as I'm trying to play the game.