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Microplastics
Jul 6, 2007

:discourse:
It's what's for dinner.


1. FAQ for people just starting out
2. Quality of Life top tips
3. Mods
4. Is this game any good?
5. What is Civilization?
6. Features
7. Expansion: Rise and Fall
8. Extras
9. Civ 5 corner


Steam store page



1. FAQ

:hist101: Why can't my city bombard? Build walls.
:hist101: How do I add to the production queue? There isn't one (yet).
:hist101: District adjency bonuses: what the gently caress am I doing? Here's a diagram.

2. Quality of Life
:hist101: To skip the logo screens on startup, replace \Sid Meiers Civilization VI\Base\Platforms\Windows\Movies\logos.bk2 with the blank bik file here.
:hist101: For camera-panning hotkeys, yield icon hotkey, faster scrolling, top-edge scrolling fix, and faster tool-tip display click here.
:hist101: To disable autocycle, open My Documents\My Games\Civ VI\UserOptions.txt and set AutoUnitCycle to 0.
:hist101: To make the minimap larger, open C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization VI\Base\Assets\UI\MinimapPanel.xml and increase the first "256" in "Sampler="Linear" Size="256,256">"
:hist101: To add the Civilopedia to the main menu, follow these instructions.

3. Mods
UI mods: Improved city panel | CQUI (many changes) | More Lenses
AI: AI+
Conversions: Quo's Combined Tweaks

4. Is this game any good?

Thread consensus holds that:

The single player experience as a strategy game is garbage. The AI is abysmally incompetent at both diplomacy and war. The UI leaves much to be desired, with lessons from Civ 5 not having been learned. There are numerous balance issues which leave wide open exploits to gain a significant advantage on the AI. Bugs, even ones introduced in the latest patches, remain unaddressed or even acknowledged by the developer.

The single player experience as a role-playing game is garbage. The AI is psychotically unstable, throwing around baseless insults (and equally baseless compliments) and switching between friendly and hostile for no apparent reason. Also the AI goes to war for no good reason at times when it wouldn't benefit them in the slightest, even if they were somewhat competent at combat (they aren't).

The single player experience as an empire-building game is okay. The game is pretty and the districts allow cities to be somewhat customised.

The multi-player experience as strategy game is good. The network code is generally well-built, allowing long stable games without lag, drop-outs or interruption, and there are no game-breaking bugs or serious balance issues. The main issue at the moment is the delay between Windows and Mac patches, causing hotseat games to come to a standstill while Mac users await their version of the patch.

5. What is Civilization?

Civilization is a series of turn-based strategy games of the 4X genre (explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate) in which you control a real-world (but not historically accurate) civilization through a 6000 year history, starting in the stone age and ending up in the present era and slightly beyond. The series has developed through five iterations with various spin-offs, with Civilization VI now in development. But you knew all this already because only someone who has played a Civilization game qualifies as a normal human being.

If you haven’t yet played Civilization but wish to obtain that coveted qualification, most people would recommend the vanilla version of Civilization V as a good starting point. General consensus is that Civilization V plus all expansions is the best iteration, but many still have a soft spot for Civilization IV. The games are available on Steam, and be on the look out for %75 off deals which are relatively common for Civilization content, and will become more and more common as we approach release date for Civ 6!

Here’s some representative screenshots of the first five games of the series:



And now... Civilization VI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvBf6WBatk0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KdE0p2joJw










Here is a handy side-by-side that someone made for comparing the art-style between Civ 5 and Civ 6:




6. Features

:hist101: Districts: Perhaps the most significant change in Civ 6 is the introduction of a new concept: Districts. A district acts as a part of a city, and contains some of its buildings – but it takes up a tile by itself, separate to the city. There are 12 kinds of districts and they tend to lump together buildings that do the same thing. For example, the Campus will contain the science buildings: Library, University, and Research lab. The Theatre Square will contain the culture buildings: Amphitheatre, Museum, and Broadcast centre. There are similar districts for each of the other familiar products of city buildings: Faith, Gold, Amenities (formerly Happiness), Production, and unit experience. There are also some special districts like the Aerodrome which can hold planes, and the Spaceport which is necessary for the science victory. Most districts come with potential adjacency bonuses, so careful placement is paramount.

:hist101: Wonders on the map: Another big departure from previous games in the series, wonders now take up a specific tile on the map! This means placement now becomes a factor when choosing to go after a wonder – not just because it will take up a tile and affect adjacency bonuses, but because some wonders also have placement restrictions. The wonders are now beautifully animated, with a frame for every stage of the construction process – meaning you can now see at a glance how close a competitor is to completing one. When completed, you are treated to an on-the-map start-to-finish time-lapse construction animation.

:hist101: New civics system: In Civ 5, civics (or social policies, as they were called) occupied a variety of separate trees, and confer bonuses immediately when unlocked. In Civ 6, they now occupy a single tree, similar to the technology tree. Researching a civic unlocks one or more “Policy cards” which can then be used to form your government, and which confer bonuses. A government can comprise a variety of policies, but each type of government restricts the number and type of policies you can use at any one time. For example, the Classical Republic government provides slots only for 2 economic policy cards, 1 diplomatic, and 1 wildcard. If you want to use a military card, you would need to switch to another government type, like Monarchy. Civics also unlock buildings and diplomatic actions.

:hist101: Research boosts: A bit like miniature Steam achievements, there is a vast number of actions you can perform which will each unlock a boost to a given technology or civic. For example, establishing a trade route will unlock a boost for Currency, allowing you to research it in half the time. Boosts for technologies are known as Eurekas and for civics they are called Inspirations.

:hist101: Partial unit-stacking (sort of): Some units can now be combined! This can take the form of a support unit being combined with a unit of another type to provide a bonus or ability of some kind, or two units of the same type being combined to form a Corps (three to make an Army). For example, an Observation Balloon, when combined with an Artillery, grants that Artillery +1 range. Or two Infantry can be combined to form an Infantry Corps. Corps and armies act as stronger versions of the separate units.

:hist101: Casus Belli: Diplomatic penalties from war-mongering can now be mitigated using a variety of Casus Belli. For example, you can launch a Holy War on a target that has converted one of your cities, or a Liberation War on a target that has captured one of your allies’ cities.

:hist101: AI Agendas: AI players now have agendas, which confers a diplomatic penalty (or advantage) to another civ based on that civ’s actions. Each AI has a unique historical agenda. For example, Cleopatra’s historical agenda, “Queen of the Nile”, causes her to have a positive diplomatic modifier with civs that have a strong military, but a negative modifier for civs that are weak. These agendas can interact between AIs in elaborate ways. In addition to the historical agenda, AIs also have a second agenda randomly chosen from a pool, which remains hidden until you discover it through espionage or deduction.

:hist101: Religious victory: The diplomatic victory has been removed. In its place is the Religious victory, which can be achieved by spreading your religion to become the dominant religion in the majority of the cities in the world.

:hist101: Music: It's awesome, very awesome.

7. Expansion: Rise and Fall

There's a new expansion coming out. I'll type up more poo poo about it later.



8. Extras

You might also enjoy this podcast episode of Three Moves Ahead from May 2016, in which Jon Shafer (Civ 4 expansions, Civ 5) and Soren Johnson (Civ 3, Civ 4) talk about the series, how they approached developing the games and what they learned from their experiences. Long but well worth the listen. This episode from July 2013 is also a good listen, featuring Ed Beach and Dennis Shirk talking about Brave New World, which had just been released.
This episode is about Civ IV, shortly after release.

Also:



9. Civ 5 corner

If you're jonesing for some Civ, you might be interested in:

The Civ 5 thread
The goon steam group - comatose
Enhanced User Interface - UI overhaul mod (does not change gameplay).
Vox Populi (formerly Community Balance Patch) - A project to rebalance the game. Many gameplay changes, including entire new concepts and mechanics.
Anno Domini - Total conversion mod which focuses on the classical era. Feature-packed.


(PM me or post in the thread if you have any extra content for this OP)

Microplastics fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Feb 8, 2018

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berryjon
May 30, 2011

I have an invasion to go to.
So, will the Space victory involve Alpha Centauri as is traditional, or will it be a Seedship? That's about the only question I have right now.

Jump King
Aug 10, 2011

I like to use Arioch's Well Of Souls for collections of known info and speculation about civ releases. So far we such exciting tidbits as "there are swordsmen and warriors in the game" or "Egypt is a playable civ" but they've got a pretty good eye for details that are sure to be revealed soon.

Scalding Coffee
Jun 26, 2006

You're already dead
What is wrong with the other one?
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3775722

Node
May 20, 2001

KICKED IN THE COOTER
:dings:
Taco Defender

Scalding Coffee posted:

What is wrong with the other one?

They're both about Civ 6.

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe

OP is super salty about the graphics, and also didn't notify the Civ5 thread (or participate in it at all AFAICT). :shrug:

Phobophilia
Apr 26, 2008

by Hand Knit
I endorse this particular Civ6 thread

Peas and Rice
Jul 14, 2004

Honor and profit.
I hearby denounce the OP of that other Civ 6 thread. [Note: we are not at war.]

Punkin Spunkin
Jan 1, 2010
I'm not sure the people posting in the other Civ 6 thread are even people

Toady
Jan 12, 2009

Let the other thread be the repository for "fixed" screenshots.

drunken officeparty
Aug 23, 2006

I've already predicted this game will be a lovely watered down iphone game

but I'm still going to buy it

Phobophilia
Apr 26, 2008

by Hand Knit
people were making "dumbed down" snipes at Civ5 for its gameplay mechanics back ago, and now people are looking at only the graphics to make such a snap judgement?

Punkin Spunkin
Jan 1, 2010
I don't really see a problem with people complaining about the aesthetic, the people complaining about kneejerk responses or throwing :goonsay: under complainer's posts feel just as lame. It's totally fine to look at an art style and not like it, or associate it with something, that's a major aspect of a game.
I'll be fine with it but just the title "Civilization VI" is enough for me to get excited so I don't really care about the art style

Jump King
Aug 10, 2011

Yes, but without those people there'd be no balance.

E: More genuinely, my problem is more with people jumping to conclusions about the gameplay based on the art style in three screenshots. Especially since the art isn't even that much simpler really, it's just got a different style.

Jump King fucked around with this message at 02:53 on May 14, 2016

Barnaby Barnacle
May 25, 2010
Already there is a thread on CivFanatics asking "Is Civilization forever dead?"

Jump King
Aug 10, 2011

Barnaby Barnacle posted:

Already there is a thread on CivFanatics asking "Is Civilization forever dead?"

Yep.

E: looked it up and that person actually didn't even seem to care about the graphics and was more concerned with it being similar to Civ V

Eric the Mauve
May 8, 2012

Making you happy for a buck since 199X
Personally I would probably be happy with "dumbing down" type changes that make grognards cry hot tears of impotent rage.

skooma512
Feb 8, 2012

You couldn't grok my race car, but you dug the roadside blur.
Real grognards are too hardcore for any kind of Civ anyway.

RagnarokAngel
Oct 5, 2006

Black Magic Extraordinaire
Already preordered the deluxe edition. Take me Ed Beach.

Arrrthritis
May 31, 2007

I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from

RagnarokAngel posted:

Already preordered the deluxe edition. Take me Ed Beach.

Ed Beach is about to make you his bitch

Node
May 20, 2001

KICKED IN THE COOTER
:dings:
Taco Defender

Eric the Mauve posted:

Personally I would probably be happy with "dumbing down" type changes that make grognards cry hot tears of impotent rage.

People that like good games instead of bad ones are grognards.

Oh Games, you never let me down.

Jump King
Aug 10, 2011

I mean in a game like civ there's a very subjective line in what's removing tedium and what's simplifying too much.

The Human Crouton
Sep 20, 2002

Phobophilia posted:

people were making "dumbed down" snipes at Civ5 for its gameplay mechanics back ago, and now people are looking at only the graphics to make such a snap judgement?

Those were just regular 9-year-olds or retarded 14-year-olds who refused to realize that the base sequel to their game can't have all of the features their 5 year strong game had (which also was watered down in the first iteration).

I was never one of those people, but I worry about these graphics. I'm hoping they chose them because there is no efficient way to improve on V graphics without current players getting hefty machines: so they went the fanciful route instead.

Fister Roboto
Feb 21, 2008

The Human Crouton posted:

the base sequel to their game can't have all of the features their 5 year strong game had

Why not?

Phobophilia
Apr 26, 2008

by Hand Knit
Civ6 graphics look fine, I just hope that the gameplay isn't as weak as Civ5. I have made my peace: stacks aren't coming back, waves of AI units are going to waddle around and get shot to pieces making bad players feel like badasses. If they can make empire building and MP work then I'll be happy.

The Human Crouton
Sep 20, 2002

I remember tons of complaints about religion not being in V despite it being in Civ for like ever, when religion was only introduced in IV unless you count fanaticism government in former versions.

Grinning Goblin
Oct 11, 2004


Mega Man syndrome.

Sarmhan
Nov 1, 2011

Civ 4 religion wasn't very interesting either. It was a rather convulted way of maybe getting a bunch of gold. Civ V's religion has way more going on, although as with everything I'll be interested to see how they tweaked it for VI.

Also VI is bringing back every system from V and rebuilding them, so I don't really think people can complain unless they really disliked V.

Aerdan
Apr 14, 2012

Not Dennis NEDry

The Human Crouton posted:

I was never one of those people, but I worry about these graphics. I'm hoping they chose them because there is no efficient way to improve on V graphics without current players getting hefty machines: so they went the fanciful route instead.

Or, um, perhaps they simply wanted to go for a particular effect and had a hard time getting that effect with realistic graphics. Y'know. Like they outright stated when they were talking about their choices in art direction.

Scalding Coffee
Jun 26, 2006

You're already dead
I would be happy with Winged Hussars.

Phobophilia
Apr 26, 2008

by Hand Knit
Civ4 religion was a diplomatic tool in SP. It was a cool way to form blocs and alliances. Civ5 religion was just a big perk tree and just a pile of gold, if you were lucky and the AI Boudicas didn't roll their belief pick on tithe.

The Human Crouton
Sep 20, 2002

Aerdan posted:

Or, um, perhaps they simply wanted to go for a particular effect and had a hard time getting that effect with realistic graphics. Y'know. Like they outright stated when they were talking about their choices in art direction.

Um totally. Fer sure.

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe

Node posted:

People that like good games instead of bad ones are grognards.

Civ4 is grognardy as gently caress (EDIT: considering the scope of the game, I mean), I don't think that's a controversial statement. Civ5 is much simpler, and thus the people who liked Civ4 for being grognardy have been bitching about it for half a decade now.

sarmhan posted:

Civ 4 religion wasn't very interesting either. It was a rather convulted way of maybe getting a bunch of gold. Civ V's religion has way more going on, although as with everything I'll be interested to see how they tweaked it for VI.

Civ4's religion was a hammer the game used to keep things from becoming diplomatic lovefests, and it worked very well in that regard. It was usually not possible for the player to be friends with everyone.

Civ5's religion had interesting mechanical ideas but was completely ruined by a) the AI being willing and able to spam missionaries all day every day, and b) missionaries invading your territory not being considered a casus belli.

Scalding Coffee
Jun 26, 2006

You're already dead
Civ4 also managed to make religion a counter to how soon a civ may war dec. A neighbor having -10 relations for having a different religion unless you switch, then you are truly BFF.

The Lord Bude
May 23, 2007

ASK ME ABOUT MY SHITTY, BOUGIE INTERIOR DECORATING ADVICE
I don't mind the stacking of support units with military units, but I hate the idea of the corps. It's going to be just like the stupid doom stacks of old civ games except you need a separate one for each unit type - it completely undermines the tactical aspect of the game when you're only moving two or three units around. The single unit system in civ5 revolutionised the game and made conquest fun for the first time in the series.

Fister Roboto
Feb 21, 2008

Node posted:

People that like good games instead of bad ones are grognards.

Oh Games, you never let me down.

I'll never get tired of the goon attitude of hoping that something will suck so that those dumb crazy other people will get upset.

Node
May 20, 2001

KICKED IN THE COOTER
:dings:
Taco Defender

The Lord Bude posted:

I don't mind the stacking of support units with military units, but I hate the idea of the corps. It's going to be just like the stupid doom stacks of old civ games except you need a separate one for each unit type - it completely undermines the tactical aspect of the game when you're only moving two or three units around. The single unit system in civ5 revolutionised the game and made conquest fun for the first time in the series.

1UPT is a great idea on paper. However, it's much easier to make an AI that understands how to use a doomstack. With a complicated game like Civ, 1upt is a recipe for disaster. I hope the AI is improved, but AI in general just has not been a priority in games lately, so my hopes aren't up.

Fister Roboto
Feb 21, 2008

Civ 5 just traded doom stacks for doom carpets. Which one is more "fun" is up to personal preference, but the former was at least less tedious.

Disgusting Coward
Feb 17, 2014
Game will be a buggy, content-free mess on release.

3 years later it might maybe be worth buying the complete edition in a Steam sale.

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CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK
Sep 11, 2001



Disgusting Coward posted:

Game will be a buggy, content-free mess on release.

3 years later it might maybe be worth buying the complete edition in a Steam sale.

This man gets it.

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