Civilization VI - Rise and Fall Expansion Coming February 8

[RandV]

Yeah I shouldn't but I don't think I can help myself... just re-installed and been playing Civ VI the last little bit so I can't hold back on the expansion. Will have to see how it plays out but I like the idea of the new golden age mechanics based on score during an era transition, vs the old iteration of simply collecting enough golden age points. And I really like the idea of late game 'emergencies', if done well should go a long way towards balancing out the late game snowball effect. Not sure how loyalty will work out, though I suppose it's some sort of replacement for culture flipping lost in Civ V?

And I can't comment on the price of the regular game but $30 is pretty routine price for an "expansion", this is a huge annoyance of mine but you see a lot of people confuse it with "dlc" when it's not really the same thing. It annoys me because it's part of a long running 'consolisation' of the PC game market.

Speaking of price though Civ VI + 2 of the DLC's were on the Humble Monthly bundle in January... anyone end up getting that and not need the DLC?

 

[Bjorn Le]

Yeah I shouldn't but I don't think I can help myself... just re-installed and been playing Civ VI the last little bit so I can't hold back on the expansion. Will have to see how it plays out but I like the idea of the new golden age mechanics based on score during an era transition, vs the old iteration of simply collecting enough golden age points. And I really like the idea of late game 'emergencies', if done well should go a long way towards balancing out the late game snowball effect. Not sure how loyalty will work out, though I suppose it's some sort of replacement for culture flipping lost in Civ V?

And I can't comment on the price of the regular game but $30 is pretty routine price for an "expansion", this is a huge annoyance of mine but you see a lot of people confuse it with "dlc" when it's not really the same thing. It annoys me because it's part of a long running 'consolisation' of the PC game market.

Speaking of price though Civ VI + 2 of the DLC's were on the Humble Monthly bundle in January... anyone end up getting that and not need the DLC?

A comparable content wise expansion form Paradox is $20. I’m not usually one to complain about price, but everything Firaxis has done so far makes it even worse.

 

[Commander Clueless]

I just installed the Vikings and...other....pack from the Humble Bundle. I think I'll hold off on Rise and Fall until the price drops, personally.

 

[SpookyTsuki]

Don’t know if been said. But apparently there is a free weekend this weekend.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

I'm absolutely baffled that Paradox is being held up as a paragon of DLC practices compared to basically anyone else. Adding all Europa Universalis IV DLC to my Steam cart costs $234.85 with another expansion on the way. Paradox's DLC practices are some of the worst in the business IMO. Even the games of theirs that I love struggle with DLC sometimes...adding disasters to Cities: Skylines cost half as much as this expansion.

 

[RandV]

A comparable content wise expansion form Paradox is $20. I’m not usually one to complain about price, but everything Firaxis has done so far makes it even worse.

I haven't been able to get into the Paradox games much but call me skeptical that their expansions are comparable content wise.

Regardless though my point is while I'm not sure if you can pull up launch day prices to verify these things through the 90's and early 2000's I believe $30 was the standard cost of an expansion pack. Either way through 20 years this is now the 9th expansion pack for the main Civilization series, and they've all been relatively consistant in price and content. Complain away about the increasing amount of "DLC", but the expansion is one of the good relic's of PC gaming with the Civ series being one of the few remaining hold outs using this practice.

 

[Bjorn Le]

I haven't been able to get into the Paradox games much but call me skeptical that their expansions are comparable content wise.

Regardless though my point is while I'm not sure if you can pull up launch day prices to verify these things through the 90's and early 2000's I believe $30 was the standard cost of an expansion pack. Either way through 20 years this is now the 9th expansion pack for the main Civilization series, and they've all been relatively consistant in price and content. Complain away about the increasing amount of "DLC", but the expansion is one of the good relic's of PC gaming with the Civ series being one of the few remaining hold outs using this practice.

As someone who has almost 2000 hours in Civ 5, 300 hours in Civ 6, and 4000+ hours in Paradox games, I think I can say with authority I'm a good judge. Paradox has different types of DLCs, large packs that cost $20 USD, middle ones that cost $15, and smaller ones (that they're calling 'Immersion Packs' which focus on one particular country). Also, Paradox DLCs (which the big ones could be called expansions) are accompanied by free patches which include significant updates. For example, Stellaris' free 2.0 update coming out in two weeks definitely has more content than Rise and Fall and that's not including the medium tier DLC that is accompanying the patch.

Like I said earlier, I could have stomached the $30 price if Firaxis didn't shaft buyers of the expansion pass. I don't mind having lots of DLC. Paradox does that and I have no problem with it. I didn't have an issue with it for Civ 5 either. My problem is they did little stuff, seemingly on purpose while waiting a year and a half to put out a real expansion. DLC

I'm absolutely baffled that Paradox is being held up as a paragon of DLC practices compared to basically anyone else. Adding all Europa Universalis IV DLC to my Steam cart costs $234.85 with another expansion on the way. Paradox's DLC practices are some of the worst in the business IMO. Even the games of theirs that I love struggle with DLC sometimes...adding disasters to Cities: Skylines cost half as much as this expansion.

All Paradox DLCs are accompanied by a free patch that actually adds content, sometimes a significant amount of it (see Stellaris 2.0 patch). What other company does this, and isn't funding those free patches with lootboxes and microt-ransactions? EUIV will be four years old this year, yet it still has full support from the dev, and has some of the higher played hours per user on Steam. And Paradox dev's will even tell people that if people think it's too expensive, to purchase it during a sale, which you can get that cart for less than $100. Which for a game with as much development time and content as EUIV has, is a bargain.

Nobody who criticizes PDX's DLC strategy can satisfactorily answer this question: what else should Paradox do? Give all the content away for free? Think about doing something at your job, than being forced to work on that project some more (three years more actually) but not get paid for a single second of it. What about just not make the content? That means it's OK for someone who doesn't want to buy the content to tell someone else that they can't make that purchase. Paradox has a high attach rate for it's DLC. People wouldn't buy it if they felt they were cheated, and no other company has adopted the Paradox model of post-release content.

It's fine to not think you're getting enough value personally to warrant purchasing them. But don't try to suggest it's some of the worst in the industry when you have companies that pump out pay-to-win loot boxes and micro-transactions to fund post-release content that they may still sell as DLC. I would have almost certainly bought Rise and Fall on release if they followed a PDS model of continual content updates alongside optional expansions that are released about twice a year.​

 

[Big McLargehuge]

The DLC stuff kinda sucked, which was most definitely a 2K push and not a Firaxis one, but $30 for an expansion pack with this many game-changers costing the same as $30 expansion packs I grew up with is an outright bargain in 2018 IMO.

 

[ArchAngel55]

Did anyone pick this up? It really is like a new game. The loyalty part changes the way you play and the "emergencies" make it better. I kinda think the loyalty is too overpowered.

 

[SniperHF]

Did anyone pick this up? It really is like a new game. The loyalty part changes the way you play and the "emergencies" make it better. I kinda think the loyalty is too overpowered.

Is the AI any less braindead?

 

[Big McLargehuge]

It's definitely better than it was originally, but it's still Civilization AI. The more variables that are introduced, the more that can go wrong. It's been a good while since I've had a game where bad AI soured the experience, though...which was happening numerous times each game when Civ VI first launched, for me at least.

I'm loving what's been added, though I've only had a chance to play through once with Poundmaker so far. I'm loving what loyalty does to the game, it definitely helps with the way I tend to play the game (when I win, it's usually a culture victory), but I agree that it could be balanced to be a bit less powerful. That said, it wasn't entirely a one-way street. I lost 2 cities to it in my first game, both founded on other continents closer to another civilization, the first one in a particularly bad location surrounded by the Dutch...the fact that it wound up rebelling to the Dutch within 20 turns felt about right.

 

[ArchAngel55]

I tried with Cree my first run thru to check it out. Using Korea now. Their Hwacha unit is pretty nice.

 

[RandV]

I finished my first game, took the Cree as well. Wasn't bothered too much by the AI, though there's still two nuisances to it that like broken defense pacts in Civ V they'll probably never fix.

Fist is asking to move your troops the moment an alliance/open borders deal expires, and even if you immidiately re-up it you're still on some ambigious count down which can easily ding you for a diplomatic hit when it runs it.

Second is the single minded determination the AI has to conquer city states. Doesn't matter if you're the suzerian and the AI Civ is you're ally, they'll still go at it. There's a nice casus belli with no war monger hit to protect a city state you're allied with, but you have to denounce the other Civ first and well if they're aleady you're ally...

Otherwise it's pretty good. Loyalty is pretty interesting, bit of a softer culture flip from Civ IV where the main city cluster is pretty safe, as well as any open territory, but you have to be careful placing cities further out in more crowded areas. But it is manageable, especially if you shuffly the policy cards around. In my game I was able to place a city down in a -15 spot and work up towards making it a nice little colony, by placing two other cities down nearby and taking over three other stragglers when they revolted.

Speaking of which... as it is now I think that's currently a big exploit for the human player. When a city revolts it becomes an open state and anyone can conquer it. When you conquer it you have the option of returning it to it's original owner... which gives you a major war monger reduction. And if you give it back it's still dropping loyalty so they're probably just going to lose it again soon.

 

[Jasper]

Is the AI any less braindead?

Not sure about the AI but it's a much better game with the expansion. Pretty much what BNW did for Civ5. I would actually say I like the improvements in this expansion even more than BNW.

 

[NyQuil]

I'm having a good time playing this (just installed it) - have the R and F expansion. I'll probably pick up GS when it goes on sale on Steam.

I've played three games (Russia - religious, Korea - supposed to be science but won culture by accident, and now England as domination.) Moving up the difficulty level each time and I'm back up to Emperor and Immortal.

I played England with an archipelago map (yes it plays right to their strengths) and had an absolute blast.

There's something hilariously fun about using the Seadog unit to steal the navies of other civs and then upgrade them instantly on your own territory. And the Redcoat unit with its bonus to fighting on other continents and no embark delay fits very well with an expanding empire.

It's a lot like Civ 5 which I enjoyed a lot (particularly the City State system) and I think the split between civics and scientific research is a smart one. The districts take a little getting used to, particularly saving space for future Wonders, but I'm starting to get the hang of it, and I like the ability to customize your cities.

 

[Jovavic]

Are the console versions any good?

 

[NyQuil]

Are the console versions any good?

I wonder. It gets a bit laggy on my PC (which I thought was pretty powerful) and the load times can be a chore.

 

[Jasper]

I wonder. It gets a bit laggy on my PC (which I thought was pretty powerful) and the load times can be a chore.

Did you ever look at the specte CPU issue? One of the things it did to my pc was big down Civ 6 badly in the late game and the cpu shouldn't have any issues with it. Deleted the spectre dll file and it ran like new.

 

[NyQuil]

Did you ever look at the specte CPU issue? One of the things it did to my pc was big down Civ 6 badly in the late game and the cpu shouldn't have any issues with it. Deleted the spectre dll file and it ran like new.

Interesting - will have a looksee.

 

[RandV]

Are the console versions any good?

I didn't even know it's on console, but while I doubt it's optimal and you're probably lacking the mods it's still the Civilization series so it can't not be good. Civilization is a highly customizable game, in that you set the map size and number of AI's before starting. Even if a console version may bog down late game in larger maps you still get more than your money's worth sticking to smaller games on small and medium sized maps.

On the topic of the game itself looking at NyQuil's post, concerning the district system last time I played I'd wondered if it wouldn't be better to be able to build the tier 1 buildings in the city center rather than in the district. Just because when you build a district you really need that tier 1 building next to make it effective, and in the early game when you're limited in cities and need units to defend from barbarians and any early aggression. Going off memory which may not be entirely accurate by the point you unlock all the district types I find I could really only commit to building 2 or 3 types of them. If you want to take a balanced approach to building your empire you can't really do that until you hit around the medieval or renaissance era.

 

[NyQuil]

On the topic of the game itself looking at NyQuil's post, concerning the district system last time I played I'd wondered if it wouldn't be better to be able to build the tier 1 buildings in the city center rather than in the district. Just because when you build a district you really need that tier 1 building next to make it effective, and in the early game when you're limited in cities and need units to defend from barbarians and any early aggression. Going off memory which may not be entirely accurate by the point you unlock all the district types I find I could really only commit to building 2 or 3 types of them. If you want to take a balanced approach to building your empire you can't really do that until you hit around the medieval or renaissance era.

Most of my cities will have a Commercial Hub and a Campus. Some will have a Harbour (all Harbours if I'm playing England), and the rest is pretty situational. I'll usually build a Theater district in my wonder whoring capital in the centre of all the wonders.

I find Encampments more of a luxury than a necessity. You can build promotions anyway through battle. Industrial zones seem good but the latest word on them is that they are useless unless you are Germany and use the Hansa equivalent. I have yet to play a game where I've gone heavy into Neighbourhoods, and Entertainment Complexes I tend to throw in late in the game.

Some of the real Civ 6 nerds claim that they can do whatever they want at Deity and Immortal, but I'm skeptical, and I still have more fun at King level because I can roleplay a bit like I have a real country and not just balancing a spreadsheet. I tend to find King laughably easy but still routinely get spanked at Emperor, so there's a huge jump there. Those two settlers they get right off the bat is killer.

In Civ 5, I played Emperor as my go-to and flirted with Immortal and Deity. In Civ 6, it's one lower.

As a relatively new player to this iteration, I think I still need to get a better handle on the mechanics.

So far, I'm really enjoying the espionage component.

Resource Production
Difficulty	Science AI Bonus	Culture AI Bonus	Production AI Bonus	Gold AI Bonus	Faith AI Bonus
Settler	+0%	+0%	+1%	+0%	+0%
Chieftain	+0%	+0%	+2%	+0%	+0%
Warlord	+0%	+0%	+3%	+0%	+0%
Prince	+0%	+0%	+3%	+0%	+0%
King	+8%	+8%	+20%	+20%	+8%
Emperor	+16%	+16%	+40%	+40%	+16%
Immortal	+24%	+24%	+60%	+60%	+24%
Deity	+32%	+32%	+80%	+80%	+32%

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Combat and XP scaling[edit | edit source]

Combat and XP Scaling
Difficulty	Combat AI Bonus	Combat Player Bonus	Unit XP AI Bonus	Unit XP Player Bonus
Settler	-1	+3	+0%	+45%
Chieftain	-1	+2	+0%	+30%
Warlord	-1	+1	+0%	+15%
Prince	0	0	+0%	+0%
King	+1	0	+10%	+0%
Emperor	+2	0	+20%	+0%
Immortal	+3	0	+30%	+0%
Deity	+4	0	+40%	+0%

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Research boosts[edit | edit source]

Research Boosts
Difficulty	Free Tech Boosts AI Bonus	Free Civics Boosts AI Bonus
Settler	0	0
Chieftain	0	0
Warlord	0	0
Prince	0	0
King	1	1
Emperor	2	2
Immortal	3	3
Deity	4	4

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Starting units[edit | edit source]

AI Starting Units
Difficulty	Settlers	Warriors	Builders
Settler	1	1	0
Chieftain	1	1	0
Warlord	1	1	0
Prince	1	1	0
King	1	2	1 (When a district is built)
Emperor	2	3	1
Immortal	2	4	2
Deity	3	5	2

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Note: City States always only get 1 Settler and 2 Warriors

 

[RandV]

Most of my cities will have a Commercial Hub and a Campus. Some will have a Harbour (all Harbours if I'm playing England), and the rest is pretty situational. I'll usually build a Theater district in my wonder ****ing capital in the centre of all the wonders.

I find Encampments more of a luxury than a necessity. You can build promotions anyway through battle. Industrial zones seem good but the latest word on them is that they are useless unless you are Germany and use the Hansa equivalent. I have yet to play a game where I've gone heavy into Neighbourhoods, and Entertainment Complexes I tend to throw in late in the game.

Some of the real Civ 6 nerds claim that they can do whatever they want at Deity and Immortal, but I'm skeptical, and I still have more fun at King level because I can roleplay a bit like I have a real country and not just balancing a spreadsheet. I tend to find King laughably easy but still routinely get spanked at Emperor, so there's a huge jump there. Those two settlers they get right off the bat is killer.

In Civ 5, I played Emperor as my go-to and flirted with Immortal and Deity. In Civ 6, it's one lower.

As a relatively new player to this iteration, I think I still need to get a better handle on the mechanics.

So far, I'm really enjoying the espionage component.<snip>

I guess I'm too used to the Vanilla Civ VI where production was king so would always get some industrial zones up. Early game though I usually favour religious and campus sites, as they tend to get the easiest bonuses. Always try to get one entertainment site up though so I can build the Collosseum, an awesome wonder that the AI doesn't immediately go for so you can get it if you focus on it.

As for the difficulty, one of my pet peeves with the Civ series is that ramping up the difficulty level pushes the handicap against you both ways, you get weaker and the AI gets stronger. But the great thing about the Civ series is it's customization, so I always like tinkering with the settings or using a mod. Mods for example that change nothing but give you the same starting units as the AI, or have them start the same as you. Which you don't necessarily need a mod for as it's easy enough to just tinker with the xml files.

But yeah I like the difficulty to be challenging but not forcing me to follow specific strategies, which I tend to get from a modified Emperor setting.

 

[NyQuil]

Apparently the IZ adjacencies were changed in a recent patch which made them less useful.

Mines and districts went from 1 to 0.5.

Now people are clustering aqueducts together to get those bonuses back.

My last game I had stone circles and 5 early stone quarries and I still didn’t get a religion which kind of blew my mind. You really have to prioritize one.

The fact that you can spend faith on GPs is a pretty cool mechanic though that makes earning faith still useful.

 

[crackdown44]

Forgive me if this is off topic but I’ve downloaded civ6 on my iPhone in addition to my PC in order to be able to play on my commute.

Not sure if anyone else has tried to run it on iOS. The game and the controls are excellent but I can’t seem to make multiplayer work. Account and connection seem to work just fine but every time I try and join a game I get an “Error joining multiplayer session” pop up. I can’t seem to find a solution anywhere, even reddit

 

[kmart]

I'm absolutely baffled that Paradox is being held up as a paragon of DLC practices compared to basically anyone else. Adding all Europa Universalis IV DLC to my Steam cart costs $234.85 with another expansion on the way. Paradox's DLC practices are some of the worst in the business IMO.

I think it's because they don't try to hide their dlc behind in game shops or loot surprises. It's still crazy that they basically cut a full game and want 200 dollars for it though