Civilization VI

I saw a talk Sid Meier gave where he freely admitted the AI cheats more the higher difficulty you go, so it's not like it's a secret. It's easy to anthropomorphize AIs, but I suspect it'd be harder to have higher difficulties without some form of AI cheating.

I expect the AI to have advantages, since obviously it can't think like a human. Quicker build times, pop growth, happiness boost, knowledge of what specific technologies you have or troops you've built, etc. The "we'll just wonder snipe once you decide to build it" behavior is not something I consider to be a reasonable AI crutch, without having eyeballs on my city. And Ken, yes, it is not 100% provable, in theory there is some wild confluence of random number generation that would reproduce my results without some code put in to wonder snipe, but it's unlikely in the extreme.

I'm not all bent out of shape about it, but it features heavily into why I don't venture above King difficulty. I view it as an "unfair cheat" rather than a "difficulty adjustment cheat."

AI that is good at world domination cant come soon enough.

I thought this was interesting and worth sharing.

I normally play games with the music off or very low, but I can appreciate the care and effort put in by Firaxis here.

I enjoyed how Civ V's music evolves depending on what's going on in the game. This sounds a lot more sophisticated.

From RPS: Civilization VI Brings The Series Back To Its Best

I've been following Civ VI from a distance, hoping it will draw me back into the series (Civ V was the first one I skipped entirely). This seems promising, but not "pre-order promising".

Been watching Quill18's Civ6 play through here, just in case anyone hasn't already found/watched that

I've mostly avoided any meaty previews, just reading enough short bits out of curiosity. Really getting impatient for this; I've been in for the launch of each game since Civ III and there's just something especially exciting about playing a brand new Civ game that nothing else quite matches!

Well, the reviews from sources I trust have convinced me to pre-order. I was wishing a year or so back that they'd take some inspiration from Endless Legends; looks like they did. I'm hoping that the game feels fresh and new again.

I was planning on picking up Civ VI sometime this year, but with the game launching the same week as Farm Sim 17, I figured I'd be good to hold off just a bit. Then I watched the Giant Bomb Unfinished look at the latest build. It pretty much sold me on a Day One copy as it got me really excited to be part of the launch-window zeitgeist.

So this was Wed. I think, when GMG was selling pre-orders for -22%. I went to their site the next day and the offer was expired! Woof. And that's after having known about the discount for maybe 2 weeks? (I'm on their mailing list.)

Le sigh.

Here's hoping it goes back on pre-order discount sometime in the next couple weeks. Knowing GMG, there typically are a couple windows of opportunity close to launch on big releases.

I'll be picking it up launch week either way. Going back to the start of this thread, I remember being SUPER skeptical of the cartoon'ish presentation during the game's reveal. But I don't know what happened between then and now. Watching it in motion with the latest builds makes the game look crazy-colorful and inviting. Weird, cause the reveal screens looked super flat and sparse if memory serves.

MeatMan wrote:

I thought this was interesting and worth sharing.

I normally play games with the music off or very low, but I can appreciate the care and effort put in by Firaxis here.

But Civ IV had the best title music evvveerrrrrrr.

Edit: Watching / listening to that video really increased my hype level for Civ VI.

Aaron D. wrote:

So this was Wed. I think, when GMG was selling pre-orders for -22%. I went to their site the next day and the offer was expired! Woof. And that's after having known about the discount for maybe 2 weeks? (I'm on their mailing list.)

It shows up as 20% off on GMG when I sign in. Not quite the same as 22%, but that's only £1 of difference here. I'm -really- straining not to click the button and wait it out... October/November is already an incredibly busy gaming time for me...

I think I'm kidding myself though.

omni wrote:

It shows up as 20% off on GMG when I sign in.

Must be just UK. Over here, there currently is no discount, logged in or not.

Hmm, I wonder if that means I should jump on it before that vanishes as well :S

Robear wrote:

Well, the reviews from sources I trust have convinced me to pre-order. I was wishing a year or so back that they'd take some inspiration from Endless Legends; looks like they did. I'm hoping that the game feels fresh and new again.

Yeah, the exact thing happened to me this week. Since the embargo lifted, there's been a lot of positive noise from folks that generally lean the same way I do. So, despite feeling burned by Beyond Earth (sorry, fans, it just didn't do it for me), I went ahead and gave Civ VI a berth in my Steam library.

I can relate. I have 900h logged in Civ5 and. 10h logged in CivBE. Probably going to preorder when they release info on dlc.

Mr Crinkle wrote:

I expect the AI to have advantages, since obviously it can't think like a human. Quicker build times, pop growth, happiness boost, knowledge of what specific technologies you have or troops you've built, etc. The "we'll just wonder snipe once you decide to build it" behavior is not something I consider to be a reasonable AI crutch, without having eyeballs on my city. And Ken, yes, it is not 100% provable, in theory there is some wild confluence of random number generation that would reproduce my results without some code put in to wonder snipe, but it's unlikely in the extreme.

I'm not all bent out of shape about it, but it features heavily into why I don't venture above King difficulty. I view it as an "unfair cheat" rather than a "difficulty adjustment cheat."

I know that with Civ V DLC if you accept embassy they can see what you have because it's like an instant pivot by the AI once they have that embassy. They're suddenly jealous of any building you have that they don't.

jrralls wrote:

What difficulty level do you play your first game on?

I've been playing Civ since before it was even a computer game and I still don't play on anything higher than King.

King's my "win some, lose some" level and Prince is my "Crush your enemies" level.

Thing with Civ is, as much as I love optimising in games, I can't bring myself to do that with Civ. I don't want to peek behind the curtain and tweak the mechanics. It's like gardening for me.

Maq wrote:

Thing with Civ is, as much as I love optimising in games, I can't bring myself to do that with Civ. I don't want to peek behind the curtain and tweak the mechanics. It's like gardening for me.

I think that's a good place to be. Once I discovered the kind of gaming gymnastics required to play on the higher levels, it kind of sucked the fun out of it for me. To win regularly against Emperor and higher AI, you really have to focus on the details of the game's mechanics. To me, that becomes less of a game and more of an exercise in exploiting minutiae.

Some people really enjoy that sort of thing, and that's great for them. That's why those difficulties are there. To me, though, you kind of lose the fantasy of leading a civilization when you are micromanaging every aspect of gameplay to best take advantage of the game's programming.

In earlier Civs I stopped at Prince or King. I ended up liking Immortal in Civ5. It didn't feel like you had to heavily abuse the game removing all fun, which felt required on Deity.
Emperor was fine when you didn't want to micro-managing everything (but some) - yet still be fairly challenged.
Think the reason why I felt the higher difficulties were more appropriate than previous games, was due to the relative ineffectiveness of the AIs warfare - I never really enjoyed warmongering in Civ.

Feeling the hype for Civ6. Caved into preordering yesterday, despite the knowledge that it probably wont be good until the second expansion.

Yup, I've decided that I'm pre-ordering this rather than Battlefield 1. Looking forward to it and trying not to click on all the videos that show me all the stuff.

Decided there was no reason to not pre-order. Now instead of stuck waiting for a sale, I'm stuck waiting for launch day.

So Civ VI is going to be released Friday, October 21st.

Anyone know what time on Friday? Is it a a 12:01 AM type thing? If so, what time zone?

RPS Diary Part 1: Losing My Religion

I forgot this was coming out in the cloud of the billion other games I'm playing. I also forgot I pre-ordered when it was announced. Uh, bring on the game!

Bah, I caved. Now I just have to finish up at least the main story of Mafia 3 before this comes out

I'm inordinately pleased with myself for finally managing to not pre-order something I really want. Now I just need all of you to come in after release and tell me how the AI is terrible and the only way to get a challenge is to play on immortal or deity. Then I think I can hold out until a sale. Maybe.

edit: hah, may have spoken too soon. Ran into some nasty technical issues with the game that's been keeping me busy (Path of Exile) and if tech support can't figure those out before Civ 6 releases I might be in on the pre-order after all. Oh well, it's not like I'd have held out forever, I was just hoping to make it to a small sale. It'll just be another $10-$20.

Maq wrote:

[...] Prince is my "Crush your enemies" level. [...] It's like gardening for me.

Maq the Merciless, an iron-fisted warlord after the Grim Reaper's own heart. Also, winner of 'biggest pumpkin' at the county fair for 10 years running.

As to Civ VI, resolve crumbling. I wasn't expecting to climb back on the Civ wagon for a few more iterations but this looks to be a pleasant surprise. Yooz guys... *shakes head* Ah well, enabled!

Recreational Villain wrote:
Maq wrote:

[...] Prince is my "Crush your enemies" level. [...] It's like gardening for me.

Maq the Merciless, an iron-fisted warlord after the Grim Reaper's own heart. Also, winner of 'biggest pumpkin' at the county fair for 10 years running.

As to Civ VI, resolve crumbling. I wasn't expecting to climb back on the Civ wagon for a few more iterations but this looks to be a pleasant surprise. Yooz guys... *shakes head* Ah well, enabled!

Still trying to hold out here mainly because November will be super busy and I've got to finish at least one game of Endless Legend and Beyond Earth before tackling a new civ game. Will likely be on my holiday Steam sale list though - I'm a total sucker for buying newer games at 10 percent off and convincing myself I'm getting a bargain.

^ I really should hold off too. At this point I could turn my pile into a great wall and bunker down for years and the near horizon is already dotted with (let's do a little wallet-hit calculation) Dishonored 2, Tyranny, the content pack that drops with the Stellaris Heinlein update, Torment: Tides of Numenera and now Civ VI as well as misc other Kickstarter items. Oh, and eventually DoS2 . Cripes, almost forgot that I just dipped in for Wasteland3.

Completely gamedrunk. If I had a lick of sense I'd install the Baldur's Gate refreshes I purchased and not touch anything else till 2020, then pick up the above items for pennies on the dollar.