Civilization 6

Zillah

First impressions:

UI is buggy as hell. I did five minutes of the tutorial until the interface half-froze and I was told to fortify a warrior but the button didn't exist. Had to exit. The ability to zoom in and out randomly dies after trying to see citizens and yields in cities.

GUI is not to my taste at all. Far more minimalistic and less intuitive than V. Really reminds me of Beyond Earth, actually, which is very upsetting. You always have resource icons on the map; there is no option to disable this. You can only scroll with arrow keys; there is no option to change it to wasd. Mouse edge scrolling has to be enabled manually and is buggy as hell (scrolling to the top causes it to twitch up a bit; you have to keep wiggling the mouse to make it move. Worst thing: the view snaps back to your capital at the end of every turn; no ability to change this as far as I can see. Extremely annoying.

I can find no way to see the resource output of tiles not currently in your control: very annoying for trying to see if tiles are good or not for new cities. Like, oh looks, crabs, I wonder what they do for me? Can't see. You get a blue hex with a crab icon on it; that's it. Food? Gold? Your guess is as good as mine. Go build a city there to find out

It also fights you constantly if you try to alt-tab out of it.

I'm sure this is all teething problems but I'm actually feeling quite aggravated to run into this much bullshit within twenty minutes.

EDIT:
Ok, if you hover the cursor on a tile without moving at all for two seconds a tooltip will pop up showing what the yields are.
EDIT2:
Moving military units is a total mess. I had a slinger in a city, which was surrounded by water, mountains, and enemy units. When I built a new warrior, I could not end my turn until I moved the warrior, but there was no where I was able to move it. Eventually I discovered that if I set them to auto-explore that counted as a movement even though they couldn't move, allowing me to end the turn with units stacked in what I think is an illegal way?

Also when I later tried to retreat a damaged warrior into a city it automatically moved a slinger out of the city to make room and put him on the front line for slaughtering.

Game looks like a big mess for me so far.

cherryghost

Having played 3 hours I have had none of the issues above. Didn't do tutorial, straight to a game.

J Mysterio

cherryghost wrote: »

Having played 3 hours I have had none of the issues above. Didn't do tutorial, straight to a game.

Its a remarkably negative rant!

Looking forward to have a first go later today.

thegame983

Right. I played about half an hour last night. Is it my imagination or do you need to click on the 'move' icon to move a unit? As opposed to just selecting the unit and then clicking where you want it to move?

Generic Dreadhead

I had an issue where the game zoomed in really close after a while and I couldn't zoom out.

I don't know if my mouse wheel isn't working, but I couldn't find a hotkey to zoom back out

Think I might drop down from Prince for a bit until I get to grasps with it a little bit more since there was a lot of Barbs and other Civs were really out-teching me

Goodshape

thegame983 wrote: »

Is it my imagination or do you need to click on the 'move' icon to move a unit? As opposed to just selecting the unit and then clicking where you want it to move?

Select the unit and right-click where you want it to go. Works for me!


Played 30 minutes last night. No issues at all! Looks nice, plays smoothly. But 30 minutes is nothing . Much the same as any other Civ game so far. Will see how things go over the weekend!

The_Valeyard

Five hours into the game.

I like it. Looks nice, but seems less serious than it's predecessors.

Five hours is nothing for this game.

All I can say at the moment, is that it is different, fun, but is it better than Civ V, it's too early to tell.

b_mac2

What basic system requirement would you need to run this?

Goodshape

b_mac2 wrote: »

What basic system requirement would you need to run this?

The Steam store page lists min and recommended specs: http://store.steampowered.com/app/289070/

Zillah

J Mysterio wrote: »

Its a remarkably negative rant!

I had a remarkably buggy and frustrating experience. I'll be giving it another go now.

Wetbench4

Ran perfectly for me. One thing though, how do you get your builders to auto improve their own cities? Or is this gone in VI?

Gbear

Some things I haven't found, or aren't in the game..

-No queuing in the city production tab.
-The demographics menu, which has been slowly whittled away over the years, now appears to be gone altogether, which is a pity. It was good for roleplaying.
-Clear marking on the map and in the popups. It was a pain in the arse to figure out where barbs were spawning in Civ 5 even with the giant flashing popup, but now there's just a grunting noise and a nearly invisible change in the fog of war. In general, it's a bit tricky to follow what's going along, and my fledgling empire is still only 4 cities wide.

Mostly I love it though. I love the major changes - the deconstructed cities, the split tech trees, the policy cards.

The movement and combat is feeling a little ungainly at the moment. I'm having a lot of problems just getting around the place. It's a pain in the hole to take two turns to move 2 squares again, probably for the first time since Civ 3.

However, in time I think it might actually add more strategic depth. You have to be far more careful in how you position your units, and you need proper counters to different types of unit, with faster units being impossible to catch unless you have enough speed, range or a flank to get at them. Or they **** up and end their turn next to you.

Lots more still to go. I haven't paid much attention to religion yet, nor any of the victory conditions, but I like what I'm seeing.
It's running a little slow, but to be fair, I have it going at full blast at 1440p with on AA turned off. Might be worth chucking on the overclock to my CPU again...

Zillah

I am very confused about something. I want to build a harbour district in my capital, but it says I had to have 7 pop before I can. However, a brand new 1 pop city can build a harbour straight away. Is there a pop limit for total districts or something? I just went through the tutorial because I was thinking there is so much stuff I am not quite getting yet, but all it does is explain the simple stuff I guessed from playing.

Also call me crazy but I much prefer seeing this:
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Kl_HWLMzPI4/maxresdefault.jpg
...to a tiny 3D little animation of it being built.

ShaneU

Zillah wrote: »

I am very confused about something. I want to build a harbour district in my capital, but it says I had to have 7 pop before I can. However, a brand new 1 pop city can build a harbour straight away. Is there a pop limit for total districts or something? I just went through the tutorial because I was thinking there is so much stuff I am not quite getting yet, but all it does is explain the simple stuff I guessed from playing.

Also call me crazy but I much prefer seeing this:
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Kl_HWLMzPI4/maxresdefault.jpg
...to a tiny 3D little animation of it being built.

Yes there is. You need 7 population for 3 districts

Gbear

One great thing about Civ is how easy it is to tinker with the settings.

Here's how to disable automatic unit cycling (ie, the thing that keeps making you move units to the wrong place).



Really, this should be in the in-game settings, but it's not difficult to sort out.
Might be some other handy things you can fix in there.

Not sure will it disable acheivements but they're only user settings and nothing that affects the core gameplay so I doubt they would.

Sephiroth_dude

So big improvement over BE?

ShaneU

Another Civ sent a bunch of missionaries to my holy city and every Apostle or Inquisitor I create is in his religion now? If I use an Inquisitor on my own city it completely removes my religion. How do I change this?

InReality

anyone know what keys zoom in and out ?

Zillah

ShaneU wrote: »

Another Civ sent a bunch of missionaries to my holy city and every Apostle or Inquisitor I create is in his religion now? If I use an Inquisitor on my own city it completely removes my religion. How do I change this?

This happened in Civ 5 as well. When you make religious units they are of whatever religion is dominant in that city. So you can keep an inquisitor of your own religion sitting on emergency standby in case this happens, or you can make religious units from one of your other cities of the right religion to reconvert the lost city.

In 5, at least, the Holy City would always (as far as I saw) revert to its own religion eventually no matter what because the pressure would overwhelm the foreign religion. I have no idea what the mechanics are like in 6 though.

Goodshape

Played a game yesterday. About 10 hours to a religious victory with Spain on warlord difficulty.

Pretty great tbh! Not overly challenging on that difficulty level, I think we'd just hit Industrial era when I got the victory, but I just wanted to get a feel for things.

The changes work really well I think. Diplomacy is the best it's ever been by a large margin. Districts work well. Barbarian's are more interesting and I actually like having to constantly keep an eye on the fog of war areas, rather than having them pin pointed with a notification. The whole UI and UX feels very well polished. Usually not the case with w new Civ game. And managing city states with delegates is a big improvement.

Didn't encounter any problems really. The "just completed" text after a city builds something seemed to lag at times ("just completed Pickman", when I'd actually just completed something else after that), but didn't really affect much.

Can't really judge the AI having played warlord. I've always been able to breeze warlord, then tend to get my ass kicked on prince most of the time, so looking forward to my next game to see if that holds true.

Thumbs up from me so far!

ZeitgeistGlee

Just had something ridiculously annoying happen:

2nd game, playing Barbarossa on Prince and aiming for a non-Dom victory. Empire is focused on religious expansion and I have about 10 cities converted to my side (6 of my own, 2 city states and 2 of Sumeria's). About 70% through the medieval era albeit I've beelined to gunpowder.

Gandhi is constantly spamming me with his religious units, and after what seems like an age I'm finally able to tell him to sling his hook. He agrees and pulls his units out of my territory. I send an apostle to go reclaim the city he'd most recently converted, but just as he's about to reconvert, 3 of Gandhi's apostles move in and attack him. He kills two but the third finishes him off. Immediately I lose a 250 religious influence from the six surrounding cities.

Apparently this doesn't count as any sort of offensive action on his part as I am neither at war, nor do I have cassus belli to go to war, nor can I remonstrate him over. I know I can use religious war later as a justification but this felt really bloody cheap that Gandhi is able to attack my units in my own territory, actively negatively affect my territory and I can't do anything in response but get called a warmonger if I declare war. :mad:

Goodshape

ZeitgeistGlee wrote: »

Gandhi is able to attack my units in my own territory, actively negatively affect my territory and I can't do anything in response but get called a warmonger if I declare war. :mad:

Religion vs state. That sounds accurate enough :-D

ZeitgeistGlee

I bit the bullet and took the warmonger penalty, amazingly cathartic to gun down his apostles with my musketmen.

Manach

Gandhi never forgets, wait for the nukes to drop

Generic Dreadhead

InReality wrote: »

anyone know what keys zoom in and out ?

I had the same issue with camera locking in super-zoomed-in after building a wonder. Save, quite to main menu, load and you will be back to normal zoom levels. Seems like a bug. My mouse wheel doesn't seem to be working atm

Generic Dreadhead

Goodshape wrote: »

The "just completed" text after a city builds something seemed to lag at times ("just completed Pickman", when I'd actually just completed something else after that),

ATTACK!!!

Shiminay

I lost my second game to Ghandi's super aggressive Religious expansion - there were over a dozen Apostles of his maurading across the map at one stage. It may not be nukes, but there's no denying Ghandi's a really dangerous opponent!

I'm really enjoying this game so far. Still a lot of meta data to learn - things like how much gold per turn a luxury should cost, etc, but that's all stuff that'll come with time and I'm not in any major rush to run straight to a wiki to look it all up.

I won my first game through Culture playing as Gorgo/Sparta. Lost my second to Ghandi as I mentioned above whilst playing as Gilgamesh. I was ahead in everything except religion and cause I hadn't realised the win conditions for religion, I didn't take measures to prevent Ghandi's jihad!

I'm still tempted to develop a flu this week.... :P

Zillah

ZeitgeistGlee wrote: »

Apparently this doesn't count as any sort of offensive action on his part as I am neither at war, nor do I have cassus belli to go to war, nor can I remonstrate him over. I know I can use religious war later as a justification but this felt really bloody cheap that Gandhi is able to attack my units in my own territory, actively negatively affect my territory and I can't do anything in response but get called a warmonger if I declare war. :mad:

The entire point is that it's not "attacking" in the sense that you're thinking. The apostles represent a religious conflict. They're trying to win hearts and minds, and that's something that happens across borders. You're welcome to send your own apostles into his territory and convert his cities. He has more of them that you do? Well you're losing the religious war then. If you don't invest in religion then you can't win expect to win a religious war.

ZeitgeistGlee

Zillah wrote: »

The entire point is that it's not "attacking" in the sense that you're thinking. The apostles represent a religious conflict. They're trying to win hearts and minds, and that's something that happens across borders. You're welcome to send your own apostles into his territory and convert his cities. He has more of them that you do? Well you're losing the religious war then. If you don't invest in religion then you can't win expect to win a religious war.

I'd agree except for the fact I had a promise from him not to continue to spread his religion in my territory which by intentionally attacking and killing my apostle with his he did. It should at least count as breaking his promise to me.

As I said, it seems musket shot and canon balls are more effective on hearts and minds than the liturgical word given how the game played out.

RoyalMarine

Played diety on my second run.
90 or so turns in, Spain had killed all 6 other civ's except me. (I was on a smaller island)

Wtf....

The_Valeyard

RoyalMarine wrote: »

Played diety on my second run.
90 or so turns in, Spain had killed all 6 other civ's except me. (I was on a smaller island)

Wtf....

You dead man.

The_Valeyard

Is there no way to assassinate prophets without going to war? These f*ckers are pissing me off. Fed up of inquisitors having to repair damage.

Zillah

RoyalMarine wrote: »

Played diety on my second run.
90 or so turns in, Spain had killed all 6 other civ's except me

Sangre para el dios de la sangre.

TheChrisD

The_Valeyard wrote: »

Is there no way to assassinate prophets without going to war? These f*ckers are pissing me off. Fed up of inquisitors having to repair damage.

Attack them with your own Apostles or Inquisitors. This theological combat can be done without any formal form of war - in fact it was brought in specifically so that you don't have to formally go to war to kill incoming evangelists.

Apostles are 110 religious strength (vs the 100 of the Missionary), and start with a random promotion (or one of your choice if you've allied Yerevan) one of which (Debater) adds an extra 20 strength in theological combat. You can also switch your government to a Theocracy for +5, and there's a policy card for another +5. With all of that you can have 140 strength Apostles ready to fight back. You could also do it somewhat cheaper with Inquisitors - they may only have 75 strength, but get a +35 bonus in your own territory.

In fact, theological combat might be the best answer - every time a religious unit is killed in theological combat, every city within... 10 tiles or so loses an amount of pressure from that religion equal to a double Apostle spread and the winning religion gains the equivalent amount. So, even a small group of Apostles, if well trained and powerful, can convert an entire empire without actually manually spreading. Just make sure they return to a Holy Site every now and then to heal up.

Alternatively, you can still go to formal war as before - but you don't get the counter-religion push killing a religious unit militarily that you get theologically.

Zillah

So, after having spent a few days playing the game I've decided it's basically the same as 5 but with a more annoying UI, less intuitive mechanics, and slightly more bland everything.

The wonders are less interesting, the natural wonders are less interesting, the civ leaders look caricaturish, which is entirely a question of taste but I hate it.

The UI fights you every step of the way in terms of finding information about the game.
- What districts get bonuses from what? Fcked if I know! The description in the build menu doesn't tell me, the civilopedia doesn't tell me; the map doesn't even tell me when I'm placing it, it just gives a +1, 2 or 3 without explanation. I shouldn't have to actively work out basic game mechanics like it was a Sherlock Holmes story.
- I can only build this wonder on a Tuesday, on a hill, beside a silk plot, when the moon is full, and if I didn't get the barracks instead of the stables? Fascinating. It looks like I will need to memorise the extremely complex and arbitrary wonder requirements to be able to plan ahead for anything, because they're so obscure that all I can do is cross my fingers and wait and see which wonders show up as buildable options.
- How can I check the effects of a wonder I've built? Some of their stats will be in the city panel, but that doesn't give a full summary. There's no actual way to check the building itself, it doesn't exist as an in-game object like in 5.
- I had no idea why I should build apostles. Neither their tooltip nor the civilopedia entry mention that they get a free promotion or that they can add beliefs to your religion; it looks like you'll get a slightly better missionary for twice the price.
- What luxuries are we currently making use of and which can be safely traded? No fcking idea! Each one will support four cities...ok, I've got nine. Does that mean I need to go around counting my resources and doing the math myself every time? Oh, there is a resources tab? Correct. It lumps luxury resources and bonus resources together for no reason, and gives teeny tiny icons with no tooltip to say what they are. I've three smushy red thing? Great. And only one of white circle resource? Oh no.
- Want to see which of your cities has the highest production output? Sure, just sort by production. Oh wait you can't do that. The technology that was available to 1992 Excel is beyond current AAA standards. Scroll through the whole list and find what you're looking for every time.
- What's coastal raiding? I dunno, go start a war (maybe?) and find out; maybe save your game and reload to find out, because there is no tooltip to explain it nor does, once again, the civilopedia say anything useful. (Caveat: maybe this was covered in the second-half of the tutorial. I doubt it, but I quit once she told me that it was pretty much over and she would now help me on my way towards a domination victory)

Just, endless examples of a dense UI that doesn't give you any of the info that you need.

And for the changes the gameplay ultimately feels largely identical to 5. The AI is still based on how much they like you with no real politik. They'll make unreasonable demands in trade every time unless you're their BFF; and they'll hate you most of the time for just doing your own thing. This guy hates me for being too big, and this one hates me for being too small; my military is too strong for this guy but my navy is too weak for that one - ultimately everyone just hates you for their own reasons.

The AI still makes foolhardy attacks early in the game and then gets wiped out with an even slightly competent human at the controls. If you forgive them they come again as soon as they think they're ready the next time.

The auto-explore script is as stupid as ever, happily retreading huge explored areas in the name of reaching one tiny patch of the fog of war, all while ignoring the great new ocean beside them.

I like that city states are more diverse now, and I like that trade routes provide a more complex set of benefits. I love the idea of cassus belli - something that was grossly absent from the game before, so it's good that they finally put it in.

The 'slot' and government system is a good idea, but by the mid-game you've so many cards that it's a headache to use. They made no effort to distinguish the cards for intuitive use. Why they thought constantly searching for one yellow card amongst a sea of fifteen identical cards would be fun I don't know.

Finally, small quibble, and maybe I've just been unlucky, but on the 'continents' map type I have, every time, had continents sealed to the ice top and bottom so that there is only one way around the world, which is annoying. Oh, and they've removed most of the map types that were available in 5.

Well, that turned into more of an essay than I was expecting. For a Civ 5 vet this is a 3/5 for me. Same game, same old flaws, slightly worse.

Goodshape

Wow. Maybe it's fortunate that I never really warmed to 5 all that much, but I'm having a much better time with 6 than you seem to be, Zillah.

I'm discovering what districts get bonuses from what tiles as I go, and when and where I can build certain wonders, and I'm enjoying that! I've got a campus district surrounded by mountains in my current game and boy does that help! Scientists are all sorts of inspired. I've not felt like this stuff is hidden away behind the UI at all.. and when I do discover it, it tends to make sense. Scientists and artists are inspired by beautiful views, and can learn a lot from jungles. Have a barracks in one city, a stables in another – makes enough sense.

Apostles I figured out pretty quickly too, and to good effect.

I mean yeah, there's some new stuff to learn here but it's hardly rocket science. Maybe play a game or two on an easier setting and get a feel for things.

Generic Dreadhead

Took me like 10 games to get into the swing of things in Civ 5 tbh. I expect the same experience here.

J Mysterio

I think Zillah's gripes are fair points for the most part but dont impart any actual enjoyment of thr game.

ZeitgeistGlee

Agreed Zillah, it's mind-boggling how a UI that bloated yet uninformative made it to release without an overall. I'd say "there's not even a unit pane" but I can't be certain it's not hidden away somewhere. The tech/civics trees are the same, techs/civics which unlock something major like embarking aren't flagged in way despite being generally vital. I'm sure with time it'll become second nature but frankly with time it seems the UI is getting progressively worse rather than better.

Casus Belli is a nice improvement to diplomacy (tho I would like more reasons earlier) but as a whole diplomacy still feels badly underdeveloped/unsubtle, which given this is the 3rd game in the series with the same diplomacy system is disappointing. Enemies/rivals still offer you stupid trade deals/beg for gold/luxuries despite poor relations and then get offended when you say no yet demand overly generous trade deals when they come from you with equal offense.

IMO direct war should be acceptable/normal in the earliest ages and then become much less acceptable you become "civilised", giving way to more indirect politicking. Casus Belli should be reducers to warmonger penalties automatically rather than a separate system, which currently makes Joint War always considered a surprise one with the heaviest penalties. The fact you can no longer bribe rivals to go to war with their enemies (who may or may not be about to attack you) from Civ5 removes any sense of chess mastery, same with being able to delay going to war 10 turns to see the lay of the political landscape.

To turn to mechanics, building units/buildings needs to be sped up in comparison to tech/civics research, it's ridiculous you can still end up out-dating units you specifically unlocked for a war before they've even reached the enemy's doorstep.

I still enjoy Civ6 to a large degree but it's the usual Civ series adage "the new game will be better than the previous vanilla game but worse than the complete edition".

Pepe LeFrits

Dabbled a bit over the weekend and noticed two bugs. When I chose Pericles, I came up against another Pericles. So I started leaving my leader choice to random, and I was given Barbarossa, and came up against Barbarossa.

Also in my most recent game, when I made first contact with Japan I was already at war with them?

Zillah

Goodshape wrote: »

Maybe play a game or two on an easier setting and get a feel for things.

I'm not losing though. I've my current game on Prince dominated by the 1500s, not sure I'm bothered finishing it; the writing is on the wall. The things I rant about aren't obstacles to winning, they're obstacles to fun. I don't enjoy having to guess and I don't enjoy having to fight a user interface to discover basic game mechanics.

The tutorial is a bit pointless, too. It spends a long time explaining a bunch of things that don't need explaining (like basic movement, choosing a research, etc), but doesn't take any time to explain any of the things that need explaining (district bonuses, raiding, wonder requirements).

Zulu

I'm with Zillah so far.
One thing that bugs me is that the map is too crowded. The units are too big and "cartoonish" for my liking. Reminds me of the change from C&C Red Alert 2 to Red Alert 3. I'll look forward to the mod that shrinks them down.

That said, it's not half as bad as BeyondEarth, and I'm quietly confident it'll be awesome in a year when the mods start rolling in.

Goodshape

Zillah wrote: »

I'm not losing though. I've my current game on Prince dominated by the 1500s, not sure I'm bothered finishing it

I didn't mean because it would be easier to win, just so you'll have a shorter and quicker game to figure things out.

I didn't do the tutorial but I played my first game on Warlord. Second game on Prince now I and I feel I know where things are. I honestly think the UI/UX is a huge improvement.


Not saying everything is perfect, but I am enjoying it loads.

On the not perfect side, my first game in Warlord I won – expectedly – quite easily. Never any challenge. Now my second game (Prince), it's around 1100 AD and, unless things change unexpectedly, looks like I've got things pretty sewn up. Going for science and last I looked I'm double the science per turn of my closest rival, while also maintaining good relations with my military neighbours, have *plenty* of cash to spare, my own military's not too shabby, and culture is holding it's own. Only thing I've ignored is Religion.

So maybe I'm just really really good, or maybe they've made things a little less challenging (and/or broken and/or crap AI).

Or maybe I'm in for a rude awakening in the 2nd millennium! Those Norwegians have been building a bit of an army at the border, come to think of it :-/

Zillah

One thing that occurred to me: did they remove the penalty for expansion entirely? Civ 5 had a mechanic whereby expanding had some downsides, which made playing a small or even single city empire a viable option if you went about it the right way. The one-city challenge was one of my favourite things to do in Civ 5.

Now, it seems, there's no reason to not expand as far as physically possible?

Gbear

There's no cost to tech or culture and they've removed global happiness.

The only thing they've really changed is to increase the cost of settlers each time you make one.

I think everything gets more expensive by Era as well.

I don't think it's possible to do an ICS style build anymore because it would become prohibitively expensive.

Lone Stone

I have had a few games now, but kept restarting. My current one i have a fairly big amount of cities and have taken over another civ, and my god the micro management is killing me no production queue ?? and having to manually work every tile with workers is really just killing any enjoyment for me. Also the map's feel small even on the largest map type everything feels cramped maybe it's down to the scale of thing's i dont know on paper its everything i wanted in a new civ but the crappy ui lack of info micro managing every single city/worker, district's are not explained well at all, they only seem to be there to slow you down you cant even buy them if your over flowing with cash and the ai is terrible.

Goodshape

Sounds like you're still trying to play a Civ 5 game tbh.

Lack of build queue in the city does seem like an oversight, but workers aren't the same in Civ 6. For one, they only get three builds each and builds are instantaneous. It's not like you lose track of the guys. For another, roads are built through trade routes (which is great) so that's one less thing to worry about and micromanage.

You build a worker when you have a specific need to improve a few tiles, then get that done over the next three or four turns, then no more worker.

Each to their own but I'm finding that system works really well.

Gbear

I've started setting sea level to low and find that helps a lot with the space issue. Much more enjoyable and expansive games off the back of that.

I liked the idea of Russia. I like taking twists on weak set ups that can be unexpectedly powerful. Tundra start bias is a big problem though, and I'm not interested in a religion victory yet. There's some promise there but I can't figure out whether to stick it twist.

Most fun so far has been the Romans. Id recommend them to anyone as their first game - straightforward mechanics, streamlining the micro management, good at defence with the instant roads and a very strong unit in the Legion. You can expand like crazy and hold for a strong economy or you could just bumrush the whole map with legions and archers.

TheChrisD

Zillah wrote: »

What districts get bonuses from what? Fcked if I know! The description in the build menu doesn't tell me, the civilopedia doesn't tell me; the map doesn't even tell me when I'm placing it, it just gives a +1, 2 or 3 without explanation. I shouldn't have to actively work out basic game mechanics like it was a Sherlock Holmes story.

The Civilopedia does tell, it's in the details menu on the right hand side. Also when picking a plot, if you hover over the adjacency bonus number it does tell you exactly what is providing the bonus.

ZeitgeistGlee wrote: »

I'd say "there's not even a unit pane" but I can't be certain it's not hidden away somewhere.

There isn't. The closest thing you get, is you can click on a unit's name in the bottom-right pane and get a small scroll menu to go through all of your units.

Pepe LeFrits wrote: »

Dabbled a bit over the weekend and noticed two bugs. When I chose Pericles, I came up against another Pericles. So I started leaving my leader choice to random, and I was given Barbarossa, and came up against Barbarossa.

Also in my most recent game, when I made first contact with Japan I was already at war with them?

1) Not a bug. Actually a feature. Or at least I'm going on that based on the fact there's an achievement for it: Selfie Win a regular game with a Culture victory with your leader in the game as your opponent as well

2) Did someone declare a formal war on you without denouncement in the early game? Then they actually declared a Joint war, and Japan must've been the one they negotiated it with.

Zillah wrote: »

One thing that occurred to me: did they remove the penalty for expansion entirely? Civ 5 had a mechanic whereby expanding had some downsides, which made playing a small or even single city empire a viable option if you went about it the right way. The one-city challenge was one of my favourite things to do in Civ 5.

Now, it seems, there's no reason to not expand as far as physically possible?

The penalty for expansion is 1) districts go up in price as more are built, to the point where new cities can be building even the most basic of districts for 30-40 turns. 2) your amenities from luxuries get spread out further and further, so you need to pad out your cities with Entertainment districts to make up for it. 3) you can in theory be more vulnerable to a focused attack as your military can be spread thinner, combined with the massively-nerfed movement speed from roads, can be a problem.

Shiminay

Well whatever about the rest of ye, I'm loving this game