Civilization VI - Rise and Fall Expansion Coming February 8

[Saturated Fats]

I'm fine with the more obscure leaders, you know that they're going to do some DLCs with multiple leaders for similar factions. It's a simple throw in a different leader graphic, get a new voice over, add in a different attribute or two and bam, done. I just don't like having to wait like I did for every other Civ game and the expansions. The empires feel a bit more thin to me, but it's ok.

Building on the thread from above... Catherine de Medici is a pretty weird leader choice for France, considering, you know - she's Italian. She did have a pretty important role in their history, but still... you could go Louis XIV, de Gaulle, even Henry IV. But other than that, I think they went pretty classic - Alexander the Great was getting pretty old for the Greeks, and it's not like any of the other big-Civ leaders are all that obscure. I like the diversity having a militaristic leader like Gorgo and a culture leader like Pericles brings to Greek playstyles... like Chimaera said above, they'll probably do that for a handful of Civs. Cheap and easy way to print money for Firaxis.

Was thinking about who they should roll out for Civs over the next few DLC's... classics like Ottoman, Mongolian, Persian and a Native American tribe like Iroquois seem likely. If they wanted to add in some new flavour, maybe a central-European power like Hungary or Lithuania, the return of an African power like Mali, or a fun city-state like Genoa, Basel or Hong Kong. I really liked the dynamic Venice brought to V, and would love to see playable city-state Civs brought back.

Anyway, to the actual game... I'm loving it! I'll admit to being immensely skeptical of the art style going in, but it doesn't really detract from anything for me... and even adds to the visual quality of things like wonders and luxury resources. The district additions are fantastic, as are the government changes/card system, which is a game-breaker to me and should suck me in well past the usual 1000 hour mark. Getting to model the specifics of how your society is functioning in an even closer way is exactly what this game was missing. The Eureka! boosts are fun little side-quests, too.

I haven't had any odd or unrealistic diplomatic trysts... Norway coming along and setting up Oslo directly between my first two cities was weird, but I declared war on them, conquered it, and didn't seem to get much in the way of a warmonger penalty? I'm sure I'll stumble upon some of the frustrating AI I've read about on here, soon.

Any HF'ers up for some multiplayer? Should we share some Steam info in here and maybe get an in-house game(s) going?

 

[Osprey]

Regarding leaders, it would've been a really nice addition to Civ to actually have multiple potential leaders for each civilization, each with their own interests and tendencies. For example, America might have Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and FDR. Washington would be into the military and be quick to use it, Jefferson would pursue rapid expansion and science, Lincoln would be "isolationist" and pursue social policies and FDR would be into public works and be slow to war. You might know that America is in the game, but you wouldn't know what "kind" of America it is until you learn who the leader is. This would also personalize each leader and increase liking or hating of certain ones (ex. "I absolutely hate Washington and Jefferson, but Lincoln and FDR are chill and always my allies"), as well as largely address the issue of leaders sometimes acting unlike how they did in real life.

That would be a lot of extra work, but it wouldn't just be cosmetic (since, as I said, each could have a different personality). They could also cut some corners, like using a single background for each civilization and even a single male and single female voice. Also, not every civilization would need to have three or four potential leaders. For some (especially civilizations that were shorter-lived or don't have many widely recognizable names), you could have just two leaders (and if you can't think of at least two, maybe you should re-think whether they even deserve being in the game). Anyways, I can understand not going to the trouble for the base release, but it'd be nice if they were to implement this in the first expansion, IMO.

I'd love to try this game out but I just don't think my poor old laptop could handle it efficiently. If I put some of specs below could someone tell me if I'd be good to run it? Honestly even if I could the biggest problem I'd envision is just how hot my laptop will get. Probbaly the most extensive game I've played in the recent past has been Smite, and it's run decently well but my laptop basically turns into a jet engine about haf an hour into playing.

Consider a laptop cooler. I don't mean the ones that you place your laptop on, but the newer, better kind that attach to your vent and suck air out of the laptop. I have one and it's been a lifesaver for my old laptop. It no longer gets hot or shuts itself off when playing demanding games. The cooler is not quiet, but a cool laptop and a noisy fan is better than a hot laptop and a noisy fan, and you can set the cooler to a manual setting to greatly lower the noise if you don't mind trading it for a little heat. I have this one, which is the best and most expensive, but you can find lots of others on Amazon that are less than half of the price, if you're OK with taking a risk on lesser quality and fewer features.

 

[SeidoN]

found this pretty useful for basic city management and planning. for alot of people here it may be no use but just in case

 

[Mount Suribachi]

The other thing you can do is clean out the inside of your laptop of all the fluff and crap that blocks your cooling vents and fans. I'm no IT geek, but I watched a couple of how-to vids on YouTube, and it took me maybe 30 mins to do. Laptop ran MUCH quieter and cooler after that. No wonder really, since my cooling exhaust was effectively blocked.

 

[Novacane]

For Civ experts, are amenities/happiness in a good place right now on standard luxury resource availability? It seems like I'm constantly in a struggle to keep them happy, or even in the positives, and any war time brings every city way into the negatives. I would trade for them but it's obviously a temporary fix.

 

[Jasper]

For Civ experts, are amenities/happiness in a good place right now on standard luxury resource availability? It seems like I'm constantly in a struggle to keep them happy, or even in the positives, and any war time brings every city way into the negatives. I would trade for them but it's obviously a temporary fix.

They've been fine for me but I didn't go to war until later in the game. Entertainment districts work.

 

[RandV]

For Civ experts, are amenities/happiness in a good place right now on standard luxury resource availability? It seems like I'm constantly in a struggle to keep them happy, or even in the positives, and any war time brings every city way into the negatives. I would trade for them but it's obviously a temporary fix.

I'd say it's pretty standard. Any luxury resource, even if you have multiple copies, only provides an amenity to 4 cities. So once your cities get to big or you start expanding beyond that your happiness is likely to take a hit. You need to counter this by building happiness buildings (Entertainment districts in VI), trading with other leaders, taking the right social/government policies, build the right wonders, or allying with the right city states (look at their luxuries).

Things may shift around a little but these have always been staple part in every Civ game. As your empire gets bigger you need to put in the effort to keep them happy. With Civ VI keep in mind that the game automatically allocates luxury resources for you. So if you have more than four cities, if you build an entertainment district and it's buildings in one city it will reallocate any luxury resources it uses to another.

 

[Novacane]

They've been fine for me but I didn't go to war until later in the game. Entertainment districts work.

I'd say it's pretty standard. Any luxury resource, even if you have multiple copies, only provides an amenity to 4 cities. So once your cities get to big or you start expanding beyond that your happiness is likely to take a hit. You need to counter this by building happiness buildings (Entertainment districts in VI), trading with other leaders, taking the right social/government policies, build the right wonders, or allying with the right city states (look at their luxuries).

Things may shift around a little but these have always been staple part in every Civ game. As your empire gets bigger you need to put in the effort to keep them happy. With Civ VI keep in mind that the game automatically allocates luxury resources for you. So if you have more than four cities, if you build an entertainment district and it's buildings in one city it will reallocate any luxury resources it uses to another.

The thing is, I think I'm doing that. I have the New Deal policy which adds 2 amenity to cities with 3 special districts and I have entertainment districts in the cities that are struggling. I currently have 8 cities (due to conquering another Civ) and 8 luxury resources. Is that a bad ratio? The recommendation at this point is to "Add luxury resources"

So about duplicates, what do you mean? I'm doubled up on 4 resources so does that mean I'm only getting benefit from 4 rather than 8?

 

[Bjorn Le]

I'm finding it's easier to manage happiness in VI than V. In V, no matter what I was going to run into happiness issues if I expanded too quickly. In VI, I've had one game so far where amenities were an issue and it was because I spawned close to only three types of luxuries, and conquered half of Arabia's cities giving me two highly populated places to deal with. Solved it by mid-game with creation of entertainment districts in production-happy cities and expansion to other areas.

As far as leaders go, I'm happy with who they've chosen so far. Obscure leaders are kind of cool, and Catherine di Medici is really the only one that bothers me. If they weren't going the De Gaulle route, which I'd like to see as a separate leader, an ancient leader like Charles the Bold from West Francia would have been cool.

Because I love to speculate, I'd like to see them go to 30 Civ's (so 11 more), then add second leaders for most Civ's:

Add: Ottomans (Roxelana), Poland (Jadwiga, this was datamined already), Iroquois (Joseph Brant), South Africa (Mandela), Argentina (Eva Peron), Mongols (Kublai Khan), Celts (Boudicca), Carthage (Hannibal), Byzantium (Theodora), Ayutthaya/Siam (Narai), Persia/Iran (Ardashir)

9/11 of those should be self-explanatory, but probably need justification for Argentina and South Africa. For Argentina, in Civ. 5, Civ's in NA focused on native's which for the most part weren't even Civ's. Rather than repeat and put the Inca in (who most definitely do not have an applicable female leader), I chose Argentina instead. Gives South America another Civ, though I'd like to see Gran Colombia with Bolivar be a Civ too. For SA, I think it would be an interesting addition for an African civ. and Mandela has passed away now so no reason to preclude him there.

As for additional leaders...America (FDR, another Roosevelt to match), Arabia (Harun Al-Rashid), Aztec (none), Brazil (none), China (Song Meiling, Chiang-Kai Shek's wife), Egypt (Akhenaten), England (Richard the Lionheart), France (De Gaulle), India (Indira Ghandi), Japan (Meiji), Kongo (none), Norway (Carolus Rex, change to Sweden), Rome (Cicero), Russia (Catherine the Great), Scythia (none), Spain (Isabella)...and for my additional Civ's: Ottomans (Mehmet II), Poland (Casimir IV Jaigellon), Iroquois (Molly Brant or Hiawatha), South Africa (Jan Smuts), Argentina (none, or Juan Peron), Mongols (Genghis Khan), Celts (Eamon de Valera), Carthage (Dido), Byzantium (Justinian), Ayutthaya/Siam (none), Persia/Iran (Cyrus).

Because four of those don't have additional leaders, I'd add Hungary (John Hunyadi), Israel (Golda Meir), Songhai (Askia), and Indonesia (no clue who since all their modern leaders would be too controversial).

 

[misterchainsaw]

The thing is, I think I'm doing that. I have the New Deal policy which adds 2 amenity to cities with 3 special districts and I have entertainment districts in the cities that are struggling. I currently have 8 cities (due to conquering another Civ) and 8 luxury resources. Is that a bad ratio? The recommendation at this point is to "Add luxury resources"

So about duplicates, what do you mean? I'm doubled up on 4 resources so does that mean I'm only getting benefit from 4 rather than 8?

Correct. Ideally you'd trade your duplicates for amenities you don't have that other civilizations have duplicates of.

 

[AfroThunder396]

Did a pure science run, got to the Industrial Era by 1300 AD, somehow won in 1640 AD via Cultural victory.

Not sure I like the "tourist" system in this version, I think BNW had a much better cultural victory system.

 

[Belamorte]

This game, as much as I like it and will keep playing, is the same as Civ V and Civ IV, in the sense that it will need the 2 expansions and whatever DLC (other civs) to make it great. Civ IV was so long ago I barely remember the release but I do know most everyone loved it at the start and then the problems after about a week or so really started to show up. Civ V was exactly the same and now Civ VI is playing out in the typical Civ cycle. Not saying the game is bad, but there are massive overhauls that are needed - from the UI to AI - that cannot or will not be simple patch content but rather payed content like the civs before.



I am not crapping on Firaxis, a game so complex can never be tested enough until it is available to the general public, but it really should be expected. 2 or 3 years (after the inevitable 2 expansions) and it will be great/nearly perfect, at which point they will announce Civ VII and the cycle will start again.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

I really wish I wasn't having such a blast with this game, because I have to abandon another save 3/5 the way through the game as it keeps crashing to the desktop without so much as an error code during the AI turns, no matter which save I use.

It's impossible for a game of this size and scale to be tested enough to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen at launch and I'm sure Firaxis is working hard to fix all of these bugs...but I really wish I was better at that whole 'waiting until it is fixed' thing.

 

[Chez Weber]

For Civ experts, are amenities/happiness in a good place right now on standard luxury resource availability? It seems like I'm constantly in a struggle to keep them happy, or even in the positives, and any war time brings every city way into the negatives. I would trade for them but it's obviously a temporary fix.

I try to start wars early in the ancient era so I don't have to deal with the negative amenities in my cities and I don't have to deal with neighbours stealing adjacent lands. I know it can be a pain but try to wait until the casus bellis civic to start war, it will greatly reduce the warmonger penalty. Otherwise you can always build an entertainment district.

That's not that much at all

Keep in mind I go to uni, I barely got any sleep last weekend

 

[Chez Weber]

When you've been working on a wonder for X turns and another civ finishes the wonder before you, do you get any compensation like in V (where you got it in coins)?

 

[The Head Crusher]

So apparently I have put in over 100 hour onto Civ 6 so far, but that is because when I exit the game it continues to run in the background. I tried going to the task manager to close it but it won't let me no matter how many times I have told it to end process. I can't open the game again because it is already running or any other game on steam. The only way I could get it to stop is by restarting or logging off the computer.

 

[Belamorte]

So apparently I have put in over 100 hour onto Civ 6 so far, but that is because when I exit the game it continues to run in the background. I tried going to the task manager to close it but it won't let me no matter how many times I have told it to end process. I can't open the game again because it is already running or any other game on steam. The only way I could get it to stop is by restarting or logging off the computer.

Same thing happens with me. I just end up rebooting after every session.

 

[Osprey]

Even though I've played every Civ since the first one, in 1991, I felt really weirdly lost at the start of my first (and only so far) game. That was an interesting experience that I don't recall having with any previous iteration. It didn't take long for me to start to get comfortable, though, thankfully. I think that I just needed to get used to the look, play around with the UI and find out where everything was and how to work with it.

Edit: Oh, there's a tutorial, which I just discovered and played through. That introduces you to most of the major things. I didn't really need it since I discovered them on my own in my regular game, but that's a nice feature to have for everyone to start off with, instead. I don't recall any previous Civs having tutorials, though I could be mistaken.

So apparently I have put in over 100 hour onto Civ 6 so far, but that is because when I exit the game it continues to run in the background. I tried going to the task manager to close it but it won't let me no matter how many times I have told it to end process. I can't open the game again because it is already running or any other game on steam. The only way I could get it to stop is by restarting or logging off the computer.

Same thing happens with me. I just end up rebooting after every session.

Try running the following at a command prompt:

taskkill /F /T /IM CivilizationVI.exe

If that does the job, paste that into a .bat file and run it whenever you exit the game. Alternately, you could add a command to start Civ VI, as well, like so...

start /wait "C:\<path>\CivilizationVI.exe"
taskkill /F /T /IM CivilizationVI.exe

You would then run the .bat file to start the game. Wait, on a second thought, since CivilizationVI.exe isn't closing automatically for you, the start command may wait forever and never get to the taskkill command. I guess that you could try, anyways, but fall back on the original .bat file if it doesn't work. Edit: You might also try adding a /B flag to the start command to see if that changes things.

 

[RandV]

I try to start wars early in the ancient era so I don't have to deal with the negative amenities in my cities and I don't have to deal with neighbours stealing adjacent lands. I know it can be a pain but try to wait until the casus bellis civic to start war, it will greatly reduce the warmonger penalty. Otherwise you can always build an entertainment district.

Or try and make as many friends as you can early (send delegations, give gifts, match governments, have open borders, trade, declare friendship), so when you later have to take the hit there's enough positives to match them.

 

[Bjorn Le]

Always exit the game from the main menu and it doesn't do that.

 

[Mount Suribachi]

As far as leaders go, I'm happy with who they've chosen so far. Obscure leaders are kind of cool, and Catherine di Medici is really the only one that bothers me. If they weren't going the De Gaulle route, which I'd like to see as a separate leader, an ancient leader like Charles the Bold from West Francia would have been cool.

Because I love to speculate, I'd like to see them go to 30 Civ's (so 11 more), then add second leaders for most Civ's:

Add: Ottomans (Roxelana), Poland (Jadwiga, this was datamined already), Iroquois (Joseph Brant), South Africa (Mandela), Argentina (Eva Peron), Mongols (Kublai Khan), Celts (Boudicca), Carthage (Hannibal), Byzantium (Theodora), Ayutthaya/Siam (Narai), Persia/Iran (Ardashir)

9/11 of those should be self-explanatory, but probably need justification for Argentina and South Africa. For Argentina, in Civ. 5, Civ's in NA focused on native's which for the most part weren't even Civ's. Rather than repeat and put the Inca in (who most definitely do not have an applicable female leader), I chose Argentina instead. Gives South America another Civ, though I'd like to see Gran Colombia with Bolivar be a Civ too. For SA, I think it would be an interesting addition for an African civ. and Mandela has passed away now so no reason to preclude him there.

As for additional leaders...America (FDR, another Roosevelt to match), Arabia (Harun Al-Rashid), Aztec (none), Brazil (none), China (Song Meiling, Chiang-Kai Shek's wife), Egypt (Akhenaten), England (Richard the Lionheart), France (De Gaulle), India (Indira Ghandi), Japan (Meiji), Kongo (none), Norway (Carolus Rex, change to Sweden), Rome (Cicero), Russia (Catherine the Great), Scythia (none), Spain (Isabella)...and for my additional Civ's: Ottomans (Mehmet II), Poland (Casimir IV Jaigellon), Iroquois (Molly Brant or Hiawatha), South Africa (Jan Smuts), Argentina (none, or Juan Peron), Mongols (Genghis Khan), Celts (Eamon de Valera), Carthage (Dido), Byzantium (Justinian), Ayutthaya/Siam (none), Persia/Iran (Cyrus).

Because four of those don't have additional leaders, I'd add Hungary (John Hunyadi), Israel (Golda Meir), Songhai (Askia), and Indonesia (no clue who since all their modern leaders would be too controversial).

You've got some interesting ideas there, not going to go through them all one by one, but a lot of them I can't get excited about. For me, Rome are the prototypical "Civilisation" that the game is all about - building wonders, conquering empires, spreading culture and religion. Civ5 was the one that really started introducing Civs that weren't "civilisations" at all really, which has continued into 6

South Africa? Argentina? Iroquois? Sorry, they just don't do it for me, but that's just IMO, and I know others think differently. I'd much prefer your suggestion of multiple leaders per Civ, especially if they have their own UU's and UB's. So Catherine and Stalin for Russia, Napoleon and De Gaulle for France....kinda like they did in Civ4

 

[Chimaera]

I would think some of who they're going to add will be related to the expansion packs they're going to put out.

If you have a Conquest style expansion, you'll see some leaders and empires with that style of play.

I also think you have to have some of the big time classic leaders. This game isn't Civ without Napoleon, Alexander or Caesar. I know micro transactions are kinda the devil, but I would happily pay a couple of bucks for a few more leader options every few months.

 

[RandV]

I would think some of who they're going to add will be related to the expansion packs they're going to put out.

If you have a Conquest style expansion, you'll see some leaders and empires with that style of play.

I also think you have to have some of the big time classic leaders. This game isn't Civ without Napoleon, Alexander or Caesar. I know micro transactions are kinda the devil, but I would happily pay a couple of bucks for a few more leader options every few months.

I think those are horrible ideas. He talks about increased exposure among continents, then throws in more US Presidents for North America. Where's Canada and Mexico!?

 

[RandV]

I would think some of who they're going to add will be related to the expansion packs they're going to put out.

If you have a Conquest style expansion, you'll see some leaders and empires with that style of play.

I also think you have to have some of the big time classic leaders. This game isn't Civ without Napoleon, Alexander or Caesar. I know micro transactions are kinda the devil, but I would happily pay a couple of bucks for a few more leader options every few months.

There will certainly be a few DLC leaders. Not a big fan but I'd put my money down if they ever made a practice of giving more home team options to unrepresented modern countries. I know it's not really in the spirit of the game, but still as a Canadian I'd rather play Canada than the US. I'm sure the same could be said for people in Mexico, Scotland, Australia, Switzerland, etc.

Regardless though, eventually mods will flood these options with more than we can choose from, and they'll be perfectly free. Only thing that's missing is an animated leader screen, you'll have to settle for a still shot, and a distinct unique unit model. Hell there's no real support yet and I'm already using mods.

 

[Osprey]

There will certainly be a few DLC leaders. Not a big fan but I'd put my money down if they ever made a practice of giving more home team options to unrepresented modern countries. I know it's not really in the spirit of the game, but still as a Canadian I'd rather play Canada than the US. I'm sure the same could be said for people in Mexico, Scotland, Australia, Switzerland, etc.

They really should give the option of creating your own civilization, at least in single player. It wouldn't be that hard. You would give your civilization a name and then get to pick a list of bonuses and special units made for other civilizations. For example, you might create "Canada" and pick the English bonuses and the French special unit. It wouldn't feel as true as if a real Canada (with bonuses for maple syrup production and mountie special units) were in the game, but you'd be playing as the "Canadians" and that's good enough. Imagination is sufficient. I know that, if America weren't in the game, I'd be fine with other civilizations bonuses and special units (both of which I hardly pay much attention to), just long as I could name the civilization America and name my cities after American cities. That would be sufficient for me. There wouldn't need to be a leader screen because I wouldn't ever see it. The portrait in the upper-right corner could simply be a flag.

I'm not exactly sure what I'm remembering, but I recall a game that could've been Civ II or III or a similar empire game from that era that allowed you to name your civilization (and even yourself, for other leaders to address you as). It's a little surprising that it's 2016 and such a 20-year-old feature is missing. Well, "surprising" isn't the right word, because I can compile a long list of great features of games in 90s that have gone missing since. In the name of making everything fancier in modern games, everything gets simpler (less customization, less variety, etc.).