It’s 2024… Please fix the AI…
Biggest weakness in every civ game is the shitty AI that requires massive cheating, and terrible diplomacy (constantly making ridiculous demands, then getting mad and denouncing you if you dont hand over the goods)
Seriously. I remember first getting into Deity and realizing it’s basically just exploiting intimate knowledge of how the AI works. The actual max difficulty is Prince, where the AI doesn’t get bonuses, and it’s so terrible at actually pursuing an agenda it’s not very challenging.
I am a bit hopeful that VII’s decoupling leaders and civs will force the AI to be a bit more generally good. At least make it so you don’t know exactly what sort of tactics to use from the first turn you meet it.
Honestly, I wouldn’t mind if they made a version that just stays in one age indefinitely and lets you explore it in an open world sort of way?
Like take Minecraft. I played that for years without even knowing there is an end game, and it came as something of a shock when someone told me. You can finish Minecraft?!?
But then I was like meh, leave me alone. I’m trying to build Noah’s Ark with a functioning village on top and a crystal waterfall down to the animal sanctuary below. And I still haven’t completed the Mars colony. Wonder how the pandas are doing over there?
IDK what it was, but Civ 6 just didn’t do it for me. Going back to 5 I’ll still easily get through a 20 hour game, but something about 6 I can’t get past even mid game.
I have nearly 1500 hours played in Civ V. Never completed a single Civ VI game. Hoping they rediscover whatever it was that made 5 so great!
So it’s not just me. I had all Civs since Civ II and spent probably more hours in each than in any other game. Somehow I played a bit of Civ VI and gave up.
I did wonder if I just got tired of civ games.
I’m also a Civ V truther. VI never hooked me at all but I still regularly go back to V as a comfort game.
I vastly prefer the visual style of Civ 5 and find Civ 6 painful to look at
I never play Civ with the intention of finishing, that’s a rare delight when all the stars and RNGs align… I play to see what a beautiful mess my imaginary world becomes before I run out of free time.
They shouldn’t take it personally
Yeah and there comes a point where you know you can win, but don’t want to go through all the turns to get there.
I think most chess games don’t end with a checkmate, many games end when a player concedes because everyone knows the outcome and it’s pointless to play it out.
I mostly played 2. It was simpler and had a lot of action. Later games became more tedious, I didn’t think the advancements in diplomacy and other stuff were good enough to displace that.
On the other hand I never really wanted the games to end. Whenever I would get close to the end I would start playing in a way to delay the end.
There were pretty fantastic mods for 2. There was a Star Wars-themed one and that was the first time I realized a large empire could have a civil war.
However, my favorite one was an imagined continuation of the game in a different planet.
Firaxis’ big swing: End of Civilization
“No more turns”
CIV
Finish
Choose one. You fucked up Firaxis, you missed what made CIV great.
My introduction was the old Call to Power game. Still waiting for a Civ-like game that has a near-future age of gameplay. That was always the coolest part to me.
Feels like most of the similar games today are either historical/current or purely scifi. I like the transition point. To play out possible ways of advancing forward. How do we get from today to entering the stars? Those were fun scenarios to play out.
There’s a couple of mods for civ that covers this I know, but they’re all abandoned and somewhat buggy these days. Plus this sort of thing works best if the game is balanced around it to begin with.
There are reasons RTS is superior to turn-based. These get old.
