Civilization VI - Rise and Fall Expansion Coming February 8

[RandV]

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

It's just the sheer number of them that they keep up for years... but what's really lacking in my opinion is for when they decide they've reached the end game is a complete edition - game + all dlc + all expansions in a single reasonably priced bundle that also goes on sale. Civilization V and VI has this.

 

[NyQuil]

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

I guess I usually think about how much I pay to see a movie in the theater which is what, $15-30 bucks nowadays and it lasts about 2-3 hours.

 

[NyQuil]

So I bought GS on the Steam Sale and fired up Canada only to have Ottawa get battered 4 times in 20 turns by storms.

Yikes!

 

[Mount Suribachi]

So I bought GS on the Steam Sale and fired up Canada only to have Ottawa get battered 4 times in 20 turns by storms.

Yikes!

Well, you can turn down the frequency of events, but that and how OP the global warming mechanic is, combined with the high price have put me off getting GS so far.

 

[tacogeoff]

So I have this on my Ipad and have been playing it the last month and a bit mostly on chieftain or prince. I cant keep up with other Civs expansions and cant figure out what the AI is doing. Even if I primarily focus on creating settlements as my primary goal at the beginning I will be out settled 4-1 by my neighbor by the second era and they will have a huge army and myself nothing. I dont understand how they can turn out so many settlers in so few turns in the first era and generate troops. I get around this by focusing on other strengths to try and win the game but its just mind boggling how the AI can turn out so many settlers in comparison to myself.

 

[RandV]

So I have this on my Ipad and have been playing it the last month and a bit mostly on chieftain or prince. I cant keep up with other Civs expansions and cant figure out what the AI is doing. Even if I primarily focus on creating settlements as my primary goal at the beginning I will be out settled 4-1 by my neighbor by the second era and they will have a huge army and myself nothing. I dont understand how they can turn out so many settlers in so few turns in the first era and generate troops. I get around this by focusing on other strengths to try and win the game but its just mind boggling how the AI can turn out so many settlers in comparison to myself.

Not sure what you're doing that you're getting out settled so badly on chieftain/prince difficulty, but here's a few simple tips:

1. Be mindful of your first city start location. What's the base food/prod/gold/etc value of the city title where you settle? What are the values of the tiles immediately surrounding the city? If you're just on a basic flatland with 2-3 value tiles around you you're going to have a slow start and fall way behind. Ideally you want to be next to a river on a plains hill tile for the extra production, or on a luxury resource for their bonuses, with a number of tiles that have 4-5 yields in the immediate vicinity. There's a map option you can turn on to see these.

2. At the start you want to get population up so you can work more tiles, but creating a settler reduces the population total. So if you're just getting to 2-3 citizens then making a settlers your expansion is going to be slow. Get a worker out in your first city first to improve the tiles and build it up to 4 or 5 pop before making a settler.

3. It's often a good idea to save up or trade for gold to use to buy your first worker or settler.

4. Obviously use the policy cards to build workers/settlers faster when it's necessary

5. Unless you have a specific goal Magnus is the best opening governor. His default ability doubles the value of consuming a resource, and not just trees or marsh often it's better to chop down stone/cow/wheat/etc than it is to build an improvement on it. Then when you can get a promotion one of his level 1 abilities lets you build a settler without losing a pop. I usually get my first settler without it but after that use Magnus to not lose a population.

6. If you run across an unguarded AI civ unit early in the game don't be shy about declaring war and stealing it.

7. If you are producing faith and can hit a golden age at the end of the first era, easy to do if you go after barbarian camps, one of the options lets you build workers and settlers for cheap.

 

[kingsholygrail]

I had a major flood save me in a war. Felt great. Also, canals are silly.

 

[RandV]

So my most recent run of playing Civilization starting December I mixed it up a bit playing games in IV, V, and VI, (going unmodded and with the final expansion of each) to try and see objectively how they stack up against each other. I generally played huge maps on normal or marathon on emperor difficulty. It will be a big post so I'm just going to do one game review at a time.

Civ IV
The last of the original style Civilization. I played this last in my run, it was hard going back to unit stacks and had to drop back from Emperor to Monarch difficulty. From a performance perspective being a 15 year old game it runs just amazing today, playing the highest map size and having maps generated and loaded in seconds and time between turns barely noticeable.

The positive of stacks is the AI handles them much better, the negative is it's much less compelling gameplay and every border is a disaster waiting to happen. Overall I loved all the different improvements, the diversity in yields, culture border expansion and city flipping, and the in game map editor. Also it's technically 'cheating' but for limited use having the ingame map editor always onhand was great. A subtle difference I liked was that early game scouting was more limited, as your scouts could beat roaming animals but when human barbarians come out they get killed, which keeps the map darker in the early game. Also thought the tech tree was much better, being more 'tall' than 'wide' giving you more options to choose from at any given time and more interaction between techs.

On the negative side, again harder to go back to stacks as they're much more annoying and less compelling gameplay wise. Unit combat being battledome where two enter one leaves and it's all up to the RNG can be frustrating, as you're going to lose key units when they have a 90% chance of success because over the course of a game those 10% chances will come up. Diplomacy is just horrible, with it being hard to get any positive modifier and the AI constantly making demands give me this or stop trading (even just open borders counts here) with them, where agreeing or disagreeing mostly overally just adds more negative modifiers. The civics and religion system was pretty good compared to Civ I-III, but overall much less compelling than V/V^ and meant you were almost always going to follow the same style as you progress. Similarly the old style 'each leader gets two traits from a list of 8' isn't nearly as compelling as Civ V/VI unique abilities and means the games feel more the same regardless of leader.

Final judgment: if you haven't played Civ and have an older machine/slower laptop still a very solid game, but while it's more complex in a number of ways the overall gameplay is a good bit more rigid or less compelling and you're probably better off with V or VI.

 

[Osprey]

RandV, since you're going in reverse order, anyways, you should do Civ I-III, as well . That would be interesting. I actually played those a lot more than I have IV-VI. When I think of my own Civ obsession and great memories, it's those first three that I think of (not that there's anything wrong with the last three, but growing up and having less time to play + more other games to play has meant not playing each Civ hundreds of hours like I used to).

 

[RandV]

RandV, since you're going in reverse order, anyways, you should do Civ I-III, as well . That would be interesting. I actually played those a lot more than I have IV-VI. When I think of my own Civ obsession and great memories, it's those first three that I think of (not that there's anything wrong with the last three, but growing up and having less time to play + more other games to play has meant not playing each Civ hundreds of hours like I used to).

I could do Civ III as that was my first experience back in college during a summer break, but can't really speak much for the first 2. I did play around with FreeCiv at one point in the last few years which I think is based off II, but not too much.

One thing I do recall though really liking from III is how it had a rather rigid alliance/defensive pact system introduced in later industrial era techs where around 1900 one Civ would declare a war all the pacts and alliances kick in then next thing you know you have a legitimate world war on your hands. It would last until Civ's started suffering from too much war weariness causing everyone to start peacing out, you'd get a couple 'decades' of recovery, but those alliances were still in place so someone declares another war and now you have WWII. After that ends you move into the modern era and I don't remember specifically why but while things are more dangerous now that you have nukes it's also more peaceful.

So however they managed it I remember in nearly every game of Civ III mechanics were in place to mimic Earth history with two world wars in the 1900-1950's stage. That was lost in Civ IV, and bungled even worse in Civ V (my biggest pet peeve with the game), and I always wished they could put some effort into systems that bring that back.

Another interesting mechanic that you get bringing III into the picture is how III-VI handle limiting expansion differently
III - production, managed through a corruption parameter that ate your hammers and was greater the further away from the capital, but otherwise no penalty so spam away with the settlers.
IV - gold mantenance, every new city cost gold so you had to manage your economy and balance the science/culture/gold sliders to expand
V - global happiness, no more penalties to gold or production if you go to far into the negative population growth in your entire empire slows to a crawl and too far into the negative causes rebels to spawn around your capital.
VI - Amenities, like the global happiness except localized to your cities rather than your entire empire.

All things considered I think V was probably the worst and VI the best here.

 

[Osprey]

I could do Civ III as that was my first experience back in college during a summer break, but can't really speak much for the first 2. I did play around with FreeCiv at one point in the last few years which I think is based off II, but not too much.

Well, I wasn't just proposing that you review them from memory but also play them. That could be interesting and fun for you to play I & II for the first time. Of course, don't feel that you need to spend many hours doing that just to give us 5 minutes of interesting reading. It's just a suggestion in case the thought appeals to you.

One thing I do recall though really liking from III is how it had a rather rigid alliance/defensive pact system introduced in later industrial era techs where around 1900 one Civ would declare a war all the pacts and alliances kick in then next thing you know you have a legitimate world war on your hands. It would last until Civ's started suffering from too much war weariness causing everyone to start peacing out, you'd get a couple 'decades' of recovery, but those alliances were still in place so someone declares another war and now you have WWII. After that ends you move into the modern era and I don't remember specifically why but while things are more dangerous now that you have nukes it's also more peaceful.

So however they managed it I remember in nearly every game of Civ III mechanics were in place to mimic Earth history with two world wars in the 1900-1950's stage. That was lost in Civ IV, and bungled even worse in Civ V (my biggest pet peeve with the game), and I always wished they could put some effort into systems that bring that back.

Maybe that's another of the reasons why I remember having so much fun with the earlier iterations.

Another interesting mechanic that you get bringing III into the picture is how III-VI handle limiting expansion differently
III - production, managed through a corruption parameter that ate your hammers and was greater the further away from the capital, but otherwise no penalty so spam away with the settlers.
IV - gold mantenance, every new city cost gold so you had to manage your economy and balance the science/culture/gold sliders to expand
V - global happiness, no more penalties to gold or production if you go to far into the negative population growth in your entire empire slows to a crawl and too far into the negative causes rebels to spawn around your capital.
VI - Amenities, like the global happiness except localized to your cities rather than your entire empire.

All things considered I think V was probably the worst and VI the best here.

Yeah, I was not a fan of V's system. Late in the game, I was having to devote all of my city production to buildings that provided happiness instead of putting them into military units. I want to make war, not love, darn it!

My memory is foggy, but I don't remember I & II limiting expansion much. Maybe that's partly because the maps were smaller and didn't need them.

 

[NyQuil]

Yeah, I was not a fan of V's system. Late in the game, I was having to devote all of my city production to buildings that provided happiness instead of putting them into military units. I want to make war, not love, darn it!

My memory is foggy, but I don't remember I & II limiting expansion much. Maybe that's partly because the maps were smaller and didn't need them.

There are a lot of ways around the happiness mechanic.

The easiest way is to just accumulate a ton of luxury resources (which provide 2 happiness per unique resource) via alliances with city states.

 

[Osprey]

There are a lot of ways around the happiness mechanic.

The easiest way is to just accumulate a ton of luxury resources (which provide 2 happiness per unique resource) via alliances with city states.

What city states? They were often the first to fall on my path to global domination. Maybe that was part of my problem .

Seriously, that, too, was a time investment because you had to go around and initiate trade with each city state, and then do it again 30 turns later. It's still a bit of a hassle.

I'm pretty sure that I figured out how to work the happiness system and other systems in that and other recent iterations. My problem is that, with the last few Civ iterations, I'll play a few games--the first will be a disaster, the second an improvement, the third will see me getting the hang of it--and then not play again for a year, at which point I've forgotten the tips that I learned and it takes me several games to learn them all over again... before I quit for another year. I just don't have the will (and have too great of a backlog) to play Civ for months on end like I used to.

 

[NyQuil]

I got into CivFanatics, the website, and my game improved a lot.

 

[x Tame Impala]

Bought this game a few days ago on Xbox because my buddies are all playing it. It was on sale for $40. I played a little bit of Civ Revolution a few years ago and like it a lot but that's the only Civ game i've played. Any tips for a new player? 6 seems to be WAY more in-depth than what i'm used to.

 

[RandV]

Bought this game a few days ago on Xbox because my buddies are all playing it. It was on sale for $40. I played a little bit of Civ Revolution a few years ago and like it a lot but that's the only Civ game i've played. Any tips for a new player? 6 seems to be WAY more in-depth than what i'm used to.

First thing is to pay attention to your starting city location, in particular what unit yields your city gives and the yields immediately around it. If you can't get off to a good start your going to struggle, so you can always use the 'restart' option to generate a new map if what you get isn't very good.

Watching at least the first 5 minutes of this video explains it pretty well:



I never played it but Civ Revolutions was a toned down 'consolized' version of Civilization, all the PC games are far more complex.

 

[tacogeoff]

getting decent at the game now. finding that I can beat prince and king difficulties at a higher rate now. I am really enjoying the game so far. my question is : is the gathering storm expansion worth the buy?

 

[RandV]

getting decent at the game now. finding that I can beat prince and king difficulties at a higher rate now. I am really enjoying the game so far. my question is : is the gathering storm expansion worth the buy?

With the Civ series you can skip the DLC but the expansions are always worth the buy. But if you're learning the game and having a good time as is there's no real rush, you can look at the features and just save it till you feel like you want that in your game... like playing as Canada! Typically with the final expansion along with a handful of interesting new civ's to play and a few other small niceties the big feature adds are to the late game. Also if you want to add mods to the game their will be a selection of mods made for the previous versions but anything new will typically require you be up to date with expansions.

 

[RandV]

edit: finally got caught with a double post

 

[tacogeoff]

With the Civ series you can skip the DLC but the expansions are always worth the buy. But if you're learning the game and having a good time as is there's no real rush, you can look at the features and just save it till you feel like you want that in your game... like playing as Canada! Typically with the final expansion along with a handful of interesting new civ's to play and a few other small niceties the big feature adds are to the late game. Also if you want to add mods to the game their will be a selection of mods made for the previous versions but anything new will typically require you be up to date with expansions.

Sold! lol. Work is fairly slow atm so I have been playing it more frequently.

 

[S E P H]

Any sites out there selling the entire game (base+DLC) on sale? I see on Amazon is that the Collector's Edition (which comes with everything) fluctuates between 119 bucks and not being available.

 

[Salvage21]

Any sites out there selling the entire game (base+DLC) on sale? I see on Amazon is that the Collector's Edition (which comes with everything) fluctuates between 119 bucks and not being available.

Steam is selling a Civ 6 "platinum" bundle. Base game and all DLC for like $50 until APRIL 20th.

 

[RandV]

Looks like there's still more Civ VI coming and they're doing it in a season pass format. Nothing to actually show so far, but these are the news release details:

Through six premium add-on packs over the next year, the Civilization VI - New Frontier Pass offers eight new civilizations, nine new leaders and a variety of new gameplay content, including six new game modes. These add-on packs will release on a bimonthly basis from May 2020 to March 2021. Here’s a rundown on the add-on packs:

• Pack #1: Maya & Gran Colombia Pack. Adds two new civilizations and leaders, one new game mode*, new City-States, Resources, and Natural Wonders. Available May 2020.
  
  
• Pack #2: Ethiopia Pack. Adds one new civilization and leader, one new game mode**, one new District and two new Buildings. Available July 2020.
  
  
• Pack #3: Adds two new civilizations and leaders, one new game mode**, new World Wonders, and one new map. Available September 2020.
  
  
• Pack #4: Adds one new civilization and leader, one new game mode, new City-States, and numerous new Great People. Available November 2020.
  
  
• Pack #5: Adds one new civilization and two new leaders***, one new game mode, a new District, and two new Buildings. Available January 2021.
  
  
• Pack #6: Adds one new civilization and leader, one new game mode, new World Wonders, and one new map. Available March 2021.

*New game mode requires the Gathering Storm expansion to play.

**New game mode requires either the Rise and Fall or Gathering Storm expansions to play.

***New leader requires Rise and Fall expansion to play.

Game modes can include additional content such as new units, buildings, or improvements and can be turned on or off during game setup to apply significant and dramatic changes to the rules of the game.

In addition to these six DLC drops, we’ll also be deploying six additional free updates for all Civilization VI players. These updates will include balance changes and free content, among other surprises, so look out for those in-between DLC releases.

Supposed to be $40 US for the 'season pass'. Personally I'd rather just they released it as an expansion, as that's pretty much the cost between binging on Civ then going cold turkey for a few months, so don't really care for a piecemeal release. Kind of interested in Gran Columbia though as I've been going through Mike Duncan's Revolutions podcast for the last while and got through the Simon Bolivar section a little while ago. So that's more of a 'what if' Civilization which is kind of interesting.