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Civilization 6 announced, out October 21st
- Thread starter Moz La Punk
- Start date
Look, Im sure lots of people have a ton of fun with Civ5, which is fine. But when it comes to complexity and importance of choices, there is really no discussion at allIm actually hoping that Civ6 sparks a new discussion - but a discussion where Civ5 is not present at all. A discussion about which is the better game, Civ2, Civ4 or Civ6!
Edit: And Civ3, while having good intentions, was always flawed unfortunately.
I'm not sure if this is deliberate irony at all. But there absolutely *is* room for discussion about complexity and important of choices between the two games, and there is *not* objective fact about which is better or more complex or whatever.
You don't like Civ 5, we get it. That's great, you are entitled to your opinion. Just stop passing it off as fact. It's not. It's silly and distracts from the real point of this thread - complaining about how awful the new graphics are.
I thought the same about Planet Coaster regarding art style, but after playing the Alpha for few hours, you grow to love it as you are normally more zoomed out than screenshots, How many people zoom in when playing Sterlaris for example,apart from battles. But how many younger gamer's play these style of games unless they were brought up PC gamers.
The price is a bit steep, but will get it nearer release as I know I will get a large number of hours out of it, I regret uninstalling CivV for Civ:BE but ready for CivVI in a few months.
The price is a bit steep, but will get it nearer release as I know I will get a large number of hours out of it, I regret uninstalling CivV for Civ:BE but ready for CivVI in a few months.
Octavianus
Banned
Yeeh... That art style huh.
MarkMclovin
Member
PC games don't normally start @ £50 do they?
StrategyFan
Member
I knowCivilization (and other strategy-games) have always been about controlling territory, and it has worked like this: More territory=stronger civ. In Civ5 they wanted to dumb the game down for casual players (who, for some strange reason, never build enough settlers and workers), so they wanted to make the "tall" playstyle better. But think about this, this might be n00b-friendly, but since territory is no longer a scarce resource that needs to be fought over, it also completely removes conflict from the game. Now of course, on very crowded maps with a ton of civs, were even getting two citites can be a challenge (always my preferred way of playing Civ4, 50civ alexmod), conflict still remains, however, they at the same time wanted to create tactical combat that desperately screams for a way bigger scale on the game to work. Basically, this paradox between wanting bigger maps for the warfare, and needing smaller for conflict to even take place, was never adressed in Civ5. Thus they had to program the crazy trigger-happy AI that just declared on you at random, not because he wanted your land. I actually think this intention of trying to make "tall" empires viable against "wide" was the single, biggest mistake in Civ-history, despite my earlier claim that this was 1upt. Together though, they were dynamite, and completely ruined a once great franchise.
Edit: What the fuck is up with all the complains about graphics, that means nothing if the gameplay is not up to the task.
i don't like calling it dumbed down, and I say this as one of those freaks who played thousands of hours of civ4 multiplayer
civ5 had a lot going for it primarily because the social policy system finally gave a real reason to stay small instead of just relying on the other players to militarily punish the players who expand too rapidly.
it just needed some time to get good in a balanced way because the happiness system was a mess. instead, the devs chose to just go in a completely different direction with patches/expansions and nobody outside of the ~500 people who played competitive multiplayer in 2010 actually understood what the point of civ5 was
it's not that small empires needed to compete symmetrically with large ones, but it basically gave a real attainable victory condition to people who did not get the best starting land and the best neighbors and the best early luck. and then a few months later that victory condition was replaced with some culture warfare crap
1st Course
Member
gfx are kinda disappointing.
Still Civ though. def will be buying this.
Still Civ though. def will be buying this.
Have you seen Stellaris and Cities Skylines? I expected that level of detail, not a game that looks like a minor improvement over Civ V.
Lol. This thread is about the fact that a new game in a beloved series is announced. Sure, you guys can talk about the graphics (which I have no interest in discussing), but there should also be room to talk about the gameplay elements that, after all, compromise the core of the game. As a huge fan of the series that thinks Civ5 was dumbed down and ultimately a less than mediocre game compared to its predecessors, and for me, the biggest anticipation regarding this Civ6 is if they will follow the formula from Civ5, go back to a more strategic game like Civ4, or land somewhere in between.
When it comes to your first point about there being room for discussion about which is the more complex game and that there is no objective facts, I tend to disagree. About which game is "better", "more fun" etc, sure, there is no objective facts. But when it comes to complexity and strategical choices, at least I have never seen anybody propose a convincing argument for Civ5. But you (or anybody else) can feel free to state that argument if they wish.
Well, I am pretty certain Jon Shafer have written about wanting to reach out to more people with the game - which is fine of course. And while "dumbed down" of course is a derogatory term so it should probably be avoided (sorry), the end result was that the game certainly became easier to play, more appealing to a broader audience, and, unfortunately, less appealing to veterans. But yeah, I agree their intentions were the best, so that "dumbed down" should probably be avoided. I also find it ironic that by wanting to balance out that early luck - they ended up making a game where luck became more important than ever
AnathemicOne
Banned
Out of fucking nowhere holy shit
Well from the RPS preview it sounds like the tech tree is still in place - but you need geographical features to realistically unlock techs. I.e. If you don't have a city next to water, sailing will take forever to research. Same with stone working if you don't have quarries. Apparently all techs have some form of "requirement" that relates to the map in some way - I could easily see population techs requiring cities of a certain development level etc.
The big thing about Civ 6 seems to be the map - they have unstaffed the cities and are putting a huge emphasis on the single map. Hopefully it looks better than it currently does, but it makes georgraphy much more important. You won't be able to follow the same tech path you always do because you might not have the right geography and environment to do it. That's how they are dealing with the tech tree and introducing randomness.
The big thing about Civ 6 seems to be the map - they have unstaffed the cities and are putting a huge emphasis on the single map. Hopefully it looks better than it currently does, but it makes georgraphy much more important. You won't be able to follow the same tech path you always do because you might not have the right geography and environment to do it. That's how they are dealing with the tech tree and introducing randomness.
They already talked about this. The tech three is still here, but stuff you do/your environments will give you bonuses on certain parts, thus making those more attractive for you. This can be done in a good or bad way of course. It can be even more "the game plays you", or it can be fun objectives to strive for to get that edge in one particular direction.
One of the great things about Civ has always been that you have to consider your starting position and your environments when choosing techs. There never was a perfect way of going through the tech three, because it changed from game to game. And the skillful players would always be better to adopt. If they now want to make your environments push you more in one direction, it can possibly lead to one less interesting decision to make. But yeah, we will have to wait and see I guess.
Whilst it changed game to game, you cannot deny there has always been an "optimal" path through the tree. Yes, you make minor changes depending upon your surrounding terrain and strategic / luxury resources, but the overall path through ther tree and the prioritisation is normally the same. Civ 4 and Civ 5 shook that up a bit with cultural victories, because they pushed you in a different direction than other victory conditions, but even then the early game generally stayed the same - you bee lined for certain techs because they let you get the cultural techs you needed faster.
Personally I really like the idea of the map having a big impact on your tech options. Whilst there is the danger it will push you down a certain route, I hope that the impact is to make you consider your new cities and exploration more. If it means you now have to choose between a good location with resources, versus a worse location than offers you more tech options, then that's a good addition to the strategic decision making.
Personally I really like the idea of the map having a big impact on your tech options. Whilst there is the danger it will push you down a certain route, I hope that the impact is to make you consider your new cities and exploration more. If it means you now have to choose between a good location with resources, versus a worse location than offers you more tech options, then that's a good addition to the strategic decision making.
StrategyFan
Member
Well, I am pretty certain Jon Shafer have written about wanting to reach out to more people with the game - which is fine of course. And while "dumbed down" of course is a derogatory term so it should probably be avoided (sorry), the end result was that the game certainly became easier to play, more appealing to a broader audience, and, unfortunately, less appealing to veterans. But yeah, I agree their intentions were the best, so that "dumbed down" should probably be avoided. I also find it ironic that by wanting to balance out that early luck - they ended up making a game where luck became more important than ever
sure, but they could have made the game more accessible and more strategic at the same time. most people think that civ4 had already accomplished that in comparison to civ3.
other than 1UPT, nothing was making it impossible for civ5 to at least have the potential to accomplish that
the tech path for expansion and military and science and culture and religion are pretty different
in most single player games it's easier to just do the peaceful stuff and play the same way every game, but if you play against a tougher AI or good human opponents there is no optimal path and it varies based on the game situation
you can't get a wonder if you opt to find metal early.
you can't get an early religion if you opt to go for resources instead
you'll lag behind your rivals on land if you go for the navy stuff
Orthogonal
Member
A lot of people are saying "graphics" when they really mean the art direction. The tech may not be bleeding edge, but most people aren't complaining about that. The art direction moves in a very cartoony direction reminiscent of freemium mobile games. I just pulled a random Civ V image off of google for comparison.
Civ VI
Civ V
Fantastapotamus
Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
I played all the Civ Games since Civ II, Civ V BNW is the best out of them for me.
Eh, it's at least better than that Beyond Earth-shit, but I agree that this feels less interesting than in previous iterations.
Heh, I think both the art direction and the graphics are dreadful. You are spot on in that the art is bad - but I also think the graphics used to implement are very poor. The ground is a featureless green abyss, the trees are basically identical as are the rocks on the coast behind. Games have done stylised, cartoony graphics before and much better than this (e.g. Overwatch is a good example). It;s a combination of a poor art choice for the series as a whole, and then a bad implementation on top of that.
Yeah, I think we are in agreement here, a game like FTL did this brilliantly, for instance.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
if Sean Bean is narrating does this mean the narrator eventually dies in the game?
pls no
pls no
I never played Beyon Earth thanks to all the complains so i dont know, but yeah, I am sceptical of this, but still hopefull at least.
Let me prephase this by saying that it depends on what kind of game you play. However, if you play on highly competitive maps, you would always have to change it up, especially early on. In Civ4, you would often either go for an early religion - or not take a single religious tech at all before way later. You would go for mathematics early if you had lots of forests around, you had to go more militarily if you were at a frontier with lots of barbarians and so on. I agree with you that the map should have a big impact - as it always had. Im just not sure I agree that it should give you bonuses in certain directions, because that might take away interesting strategical choices from the player. However, I still dont know enough about this, and I am looking forward to learn more. I think we agree that any mechanism that will push you into expanding and give more strategical choice like in your example, is good news.
Or just said better by Strategyfan:
In these pics it's clear to me why they went with the new art style. Civ 5 looks busy and takes a while to read on first glance, Civ 6 looks much cleaner and is readable immediately even as thumbnail.
It looks like a mobile games because mobile games emphasis ease-of-use and readability over any other aspect of the graphics, these are also the aspect Civ should emphasis IMO. At the end of the day it's Civ, gameplay is going to reign supreme over any beautiful scenery.
The visual equivalent of giving up on life and wearing sweatpants.
More like realizing you need to clean things up because otherwise you won't know what is going on before going into a couple of menus.
Mr. Pointy
Member
Who's narrating the tech upgrades?
Seems to be Sean Bean from the trailer.
Have to say as an Englishman it sounds really bad - I like Sean Bean, but you can't get away from his Yorkshire accent and it really doesn't convey what you want from a tech speech. Probably sounds fine to non-English people though! ;-)
Orthogonal
Member
If readability is more important, you can always play in strategic view.
hooijdonk17
Member
The art direction really reminded me of the earlier Settlers games somehow.. Is the project lead somehow affiliated?
it's good, but it's true that CivV is a flawed game, these aren't mutually exclusive or anything.
Hopefully Civ 6 will be better.
hooijdonk17
Member
There is no perfect Civ game. A lot of people hail Civ IV as perfect but without its expansions it was mediocre. And with its expansions it was quite great but even then it had its flaws (especially wrt handling happiness and the incredible meat grinder wars with the AI).
The Civ game closest to perfect for me is probably Civ 1. It's also the one I played the most, for years and years on the Amiga and PC. All the sequels offer better experiences in some way or another but the complete package never feels as satisfying.
I can't agree with you here, almost perfect are Civ 2 and Alpha Centauri
As for Civ4 being not perfect, it's really close to being perfect, much closer than Civ5 anyway.
Then again opinions and all that
maniac-kun
Member
They should actualy bring global warming into the game. And the rising sea levels / other effects on the environment that come with it if to many poluting civs exist. Maybe this could be modded in. The new engine is apparently very mod friendly.
captjohnboyd
Member
This may be the game to finally get me back into PC gaming. Its been about 15 years since I had a half way decent PC (macbook pro now which does the job but I cant even play cities skylines on it really). I've been on the fence about it forever but no way am I going to miss out on a new Civ
Not sure how this applies to 4, but science is key to any victory in civ 5. Yes you might branch out a bit here or there, but generally you are beelining all the science buildings. This might be firsts attempt to change that by making some tech research so fast it behooves the player to research even if it's a weaker one. I think this is all useless unless they improve the ai, so that the challenge in higher difficulties isn't just cause the ai starts with 2 settlers and you are trying to catch up.
These games can run ok at low graphics settings on integrated graphics. The issue is often the weak mobile cpus that has to process every turn which gets progressively worse as more and more units are added as a game continues.
AstuteClass
Banned
This is complete wishful thinking, but any chance of them listening to negative fan backlash and changing this garbage art direction?
1. It's not garbage
2. They are not doing such a drastic change for a game that comes out in 5 months.
AstuteClass
Banned
Bony Manifesto
Member
If people still don't like it after launch, it wouldn't surprise me if they add an option in the inevitable expansion for a more realistic theme.
Camp Freddie
Member
The art style reminds me too much of Settlers and pretty much every mobile game.
I think 'clean' art will be essential with the 'unpacking' of cities, but I don't like the generic 'cute' style. Civ should be leading the field, not aping the most generic and overused style on the market. The art-deco style of Civ5 was brilliant and distinctive, which makes this look even more dissaponting in comparison.
A lot of the changes sound good. Focusing on geography sounds great, especially for tech trees. I'm a casual Civ player and don't have a super-optimised path - but I usually find myself taking a very similar route in most games.
And most of my cities tend to become generic all-rounders, with just a few exceptions (a super-production city for army-building and a few shitty desert/tundra towns for securing a necessary strategic resource).
Civ:BE was the absolute worst at this, with everything feeling utterly samey. It's good to see the AI is being given some character. I really want each empire to seem different.
Support units sound like they'll remove the clutter and fix a lot of the problems with 1upt. I'm not sure about corps though. They had that in Civ Revolutions and it just meant that a corp became the default unit since any singleton units would be pathetically weak in comparison and useful only for barbarian-chasing and scouting.. It just adds some tedious micromanagement to get groups of three organised.
After the abysmal BE and the general unbalanced mess of release-day Civ 5 there's no way I'm buying this on day one.
I'll keep an eye out for a good deal and probably jump in after a patch or two.
I think 'clean' art will be essential with the 'unpacking' of cities, but I don't like the generic 'cute' style. Civ should be leading the field, not aping the most generic and overused style on the market. The art-deco style of Civ5 was brilliant and distinctive, which makes this look even more dissaponting in comparison.
A lot of the changes sound good. Focusing on geography sounds great, especially for tech trees. I'm a casual Civ player and don't have a super-optimised path - but I usually find myself taking a very similar route in most games.
And most of my cities tend to become generic all-rounders, with just a few exceptions (a super-production city for army-building and a few shitty desert/tundra towns for securing a necessary strategic resource).
Civ:BE was the absolute worst at this, with everything feeling utterly samey. It's good to see the AI is being given some character. I really want each empire to seem different.
Support units sound like they'll remove the clutter and fix a lot of the problems with 1upt. I'm not sure about corps though. They had that in Civ Revolutions and it just meant that a corp became the default unit since any singleton units would be pathetically weak in comparison and useful only for barbarian-chasing and scouting.. It just adds some tedious micromanagement to get groups of three organised.
After the abysmal BE and the general unbalanced mess of release-day Civ 5 there's no way I'm buying this on day one.
I'll keep an eye out for a good deal and probably jump in after a patch or two.
dragonfart28
Banned
The new art direction looks so much better.
More colour and less clutter.
It also makes sense to have this art style when you consider the design advancements they are making with units and the map.
It's obviously made like this to be ready for a mobile version. But don't worry, mods will take care of it on PC. I too think it looks way worse than V.
hooijdonk17
Member
This backlash will be forgotten like a month after release IMO.