Sid Meier's Civilization thread

[MinnesotaNationalist]

Pachacuti returns to lead the Inca in Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm



Is there really much more to say about them? They get so much extra food. I have little doubt that Pachacuti will succeed in making one of the most populous empires in the game, so long as he finds a place with lots of hills. The extra production to terrace farms next to rivers and aqueducts, as well as being able to work mountains for 2 production and possibly an additional food, will counter what mines you'll lose.

The Waraq Aq (return of the Incan Slingers) seems pretty good, as a ranged unit with two attacks, and especially good if they can rush to the Ambush ability.

Qhapac Nan also seems cool as well. I wonder if enemy units will be able to use it or not. If yes, I guess it just makes the map more convenient for the Incas. If not, this could be potentially really good to surprise and flank your opponents while they're in your territory.

[MinnesotaNationalist]

Mansa Musa leads Mali in Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm



So much money is flowing into your empire, it's absolutely insane. Unfortunately, there's one major drawback to this, in that you get production penalties. They mentioned that you lose 1 production from mines, in favor of an extra 4 gold (which can be pretty nice), but they didn't mention that Mali also gets a -30% production penalty when construing buildings or trade units, so it's better to just buy those when possible.

edit: All units get this production penalty. If this includes Civilian units, this may instantly take Mali straight from good or good-ish civ to bottom tier. Honestly, just having military units getting this penalty is really bad.

Also, similar thought to Canada and to some degree Maori, but they seem designed for one terrain type, but they may still be overall better off in the more traditionally better terrain types, ie, not deserts. Inca I feel successfully broke away from this mold, but mountains and hills weren't exactly the "avoid at all cost" terrain that Desert (without Petra) or Tundra/Snow (without their respective wonders) are. Overall, I'd say that Mali should settle near, but not in, deserts.

Also, it's pretty weird that Mali would get so many Desert bonuses to begin with. The Sahel that Mali occupied would probably be better classified as Plains than deserts

[MinnesotaNationalist]

Christina leads Sweden in Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Stormaktstiden

Yes, I am proud of the joke in the first line.

Sweden seems to have be overall more powerful this time around compared to their Civ V counterpart (where they were riding a lot off the power of the Carolean. Kind of like actual history ). Overall very pro-diplomacy, culture, and expansion to far corners of the world (although not necessarily conquest). The Carolean will help in conquest but especially in defense.

I also enjoy that I feel that they caught Christina's personality very well, especially in the first couple seconds of the video where she's just staring at you as she flips the page.

That being said, as much as I love Christina, I think of her as being better as an ex-monarch than as being one. Gustavus Adolphus or Charles XII or even Sten Sture, Axel Oxenstierna, Charles XI, Charles XIV John, or Oscar II I think would have fit better as leader. Gustavus Adolphus, Charles XII, and Charles XI for Military, Oscar II for Culture, and Charles XIV John, Axel Oxenstierna, and Sten Sture for a mix. Although, in the end, I don't mind too much, because I do enjoy her.

[MinnesotaNationalist]

By my Beard and Belly! Suleiman the Magnificent returns to lead the Turks in Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm

Yes, I refuse to call this civ "the Ottomans." The people at Firaxis are stupidly constraining Turkish civilization to one dynasty when there's a wide variety stretching at least a thousand years to choose from, from the Seljuks and Rum, to the Turkish Republic, and some other Turkic tribes, depending on how much you want to stretch the definition of "Turk." I'll continue down this rabbit hole at the bottom of this post.

Anyways, Suleiman's Turks seem like a pretty good domination civ (I'm hesitant to call them a great one, much less the best, given the line-up so far in this game). Jannisaries seem really powerful, but their penalty seems oddly backwards. Shouldn't it be that conquered cities lose a pop when building one, rather your own personal cities? Especially since cities don't lose population when you conquer them? The Barbary Corsair is pretty nice too, as well as the Turkish Bombardment.

Grand Vizier seems like a fascinating bonus, and will definitely aid Suleiman in conquest (and make sure the world doesn't just completely hate him for all of his conquering).

Bazaar seems alright, nothing really flashy about it.

Just make sure Poland isn't in your game.

I promised I'd go down the rest of that rabbit hole here at the bottom. Seriously, we saw Kupe of the Maori have an ability that encouraged him to take time settling, perhaps Alp Arlsan or Seljuk, founder of the house of Seljuk, could have similar abilities, say, start out with no settler but with like 5 horsemen/ Horse Archers and are sent off as nomads to conquer their first city.

[Krall]

It's Phoenicia time!


Called "Carthage" in previous games - I guess "Phoenicia" makes more sense as a name for the civilisation as a whole.

Looks like a reasonably flexible naval-focused Civ. Heavy emphasis on settling the coasts, with their faster Settler movement on water, faster settler production when they have a Cothon district, and guaranteed loyalty for all coastal cities on their capital continent. The ability to move their capital to any city with a Cothon also gives you a lot of flexibility, if it turns out your starting city location isn't optimal for whatever reason, e.g. it's on a small continent when you have more cities on another, larger continent; or it's not centrally located to your empire. The Government Plaza giving bonus production to any district built in that city means you can move it around to more quickly develop different cities in your empire, and it giving extra trade route capacity is just a nice bonus.

Also I like Dido's animations - some of the animations for the original leaders weren't so great, but the ones for this expansion seem really expressive and smooth.

[MinnesotaNationalist]

Is it just me, or did they get the same voice actress for Civ VI as the one from Civ V?

I also find it interesting that, because you can move the capital, and all cities on the capital's continent are fully loyalty, you can found a city on a foreign continent, move capital there, and build up a secure colonial empire there before moving on.

Also, Krall, I don't think the Government Plaza ability moves around, just the capital and the capital bonuses. I could be wrong there, but it isn't explained very well in either the video or in the actual ability text.

Edit: Unmentioned bonus that Phoenicia also gets: They start out with the Writing Eureka already activated, so you can rush straight to Writing without meeting any other civ.

[Krall]

Jan 29, 2019 17:08:29 GMT MinnesotaNationalist said:

Is it just me, or did they get the same voice actress for Civ VI as the one from Civ V?

I also find it interesting that, because you can move the capital, and all cities on the capital's continent are fully loyalty, you can found a city on a foreign continent, move capital there, and build up a secure colonial empire there before moving on.

Also, Krall, I don't think the Government Plaza ability moves around, just the capital and the capital bonuses. I could be wrong there, but it isn't explained very well in either the video or in the actual ability text.

Edit: Unmentioned bonus that Phoenicia also gets: They start out with the Writing Eureka already activated, so you can rush straight to Writing without meeting any other civ.

Ah, you're right about the Government Plaza - I didn't know that was a new district, I thought that was what the "this is the capital" building is called. My mistake. However, I noticed that Phoenicia gets 1 trade route for having the district, and an extra trade route for each building in the district, which adds up to 4 extra trade routes by the late game, which is more powerful than I initially thought!

The Writing tech bonus means that the Phoenicians are more able to rush early districts since that's the one that gives you the Campus, and it leads into Currency, which gives you the Commercial Hub. Given that the Phoenicians also want to build the Government Plaza as soon as possible, and build Cothons in every city, it seems like district construction bonuses would be quite powerful for them.

[MinnesotaNationalist]

Jan 29, 2019 17:08:29 GMT MinnesotaNationalist said:

Is it just me, or did they get the same voice actress for Civ VI as the one from Civ V?

As it turns out, as confirmed by the Live stream, it is in fact the same voice actress.

[MinnesotaNationalist]

Eleanor of Aquitaine leads France AND England in Sid Meier's Civilization VI Gathering Storm

Honestly, I don't have a clever joke this time around.

She seems like an interesting leader to play, especially if you want to play a more passive game. I do wonder, can Eleanor's France and Eleanor's England exist in the same game? (you know, under normal game rules)

I'm more excited about the fact that, with this, we can start introducing leaders who would belong to two different civs without either having to choose a side or making a new civ just for them. We can have Charlemagne leader of France and Germany; Justinian or any of the Byzantines leader of Rome and Greece; Kublai Khan as leader of China and Mongolia; Perhaps change Victoria to leader of England and Scotland; A Habsburg Emperor as leader of Germany and Hungary. This is just thinking of civs that are already in game, as they introduce more civs I'm sure the list will only expand.

[MinnesotaNationalist]

And, it's out! As of right now, ~10 hours after launch, it's sitting at about 80% score, many saying that it does finally fix many of the problems. I know I for one will be waiting at least a couple more days until I get it, see how the score finally settles out. I'll probably get it, but if the scores end up turning really sour, I might pass on it altogether. Hopefully though, it does fix the many problems of Civ VI

[lordroel]

Feb 14, 2019 16:27:32 GMT MinnesotaNationalist said:

And, it's out! As of right now, ~10 hours after launch, it's sitting at about 80% score, many saying that it does finally fix many of the problems. I know I for one will be waiting at least a couple more days until I get it, see how the score finally settles out. I'll probably get it, but if the scores end up turning really sour, I might pass on it altogether. Hopefully though, it does fix the many problems of Civ VI

Well if you do, tell us about it here, a better review i will not get and maybe i will buy it as well.

[MinnesotaNationalist]

A new update is coming here soon to Civ VI

I am very excited to hear that, among other things, that Civ VI World Builder is getting an official release. You could enable it before by going through the files and changing a single no to a yes, but the version they had was TRASH. Absolutely horribly awful. But, now I do have hope that the official release can resemble Civ V's much more elegant world builder. I have quite a few custom maps I'd like to import over to Civ VI.

Now, I did get Gathering Storm, and I intend to post my thought on it here eventually. I will say that some of my concerns are being met in the incoming update, but there's more to talk about. Right now, I'll summarize it as: Helps the game a lot, might not be worth the $40 bucks though.

[MinnesotaNationalist]

I'm here to quickly tell you my thoughts on the map editor (my life is a bit clustered to organize and post my full thoughts yet).

Map editor is still bad, and still unsupported. It's not as bad as before, but still. I understand it'll be pretty difficult to outdo the sleek perfection of the Civ V map editor, but would is it really that hard to make a good one?

Okay, here's the main problem right now:
1: You can't just start out with a blank ocean map (at least not what I've seen), and that leads to the other problems.
2: Paint with Ocean should act as essentially an erase tool, with some exceptions, but it doesn't "erase" everything.
3: When using the Ocean Paint, it leaves behind Goody Huts and, much more annoyingly, Cliffs. Cliffs themselves are next to impossible to remove as it is, and straight up impossible when you ocean paint over them (so that both sides of the cliffs are water), meaning you have to go back and add land just to remove these cliffs.

I honestly haven't even truly made a map in the map editor yet just because of how frustrating it is to get a blank map set up. At least it was better than it was before, where you had to go through every single tile individually to remove some stuff.

[MinnesotaNationalist]

So, uhh, that complaint I had about the map editor and not starting out with a blank map... Apparently that was just me being dumb

Still could be better.

Also, live stream (which I haven't finished). Starts at about 8:30

[MinnesotaNationalist]

Another update is coming here soon.

So, first there's a production buff, which is nice. Although, I think the best way to buff production is to limit "production inflation," where constructing the same building costs more than last time, and this tends to spiral out of control. I understand production inflation is to limit wide play (since wide play is already so powerful), but it's just not fun in my experience. Also, make the oceans be more production friendly.

Next is the changes to diplomatic gameplay, especially to diplomatic victory. As far as I've seen, it's rather long and difficult journey to get the Diplomatic Victory, wherein other victories take so much less time or are more fun. Seeing the changes here, hopefully that can change that.

They're also finally officially releasing the world builder. Hopefully that means it's finally good.

Also, the two new mapmodes might honestly be fun.

~~~---~~~

So, I've been promising to post my review of Gathering Storm for a while now, and I figured I'd finally get around to it. So here's my thoughts on it (pre Antarctic-Summer update, since I don't think I've had the opportunity to play it since. Damn you CKII 3.0 and being just about perfect!!!)

1. The Weather and Disaster system: I have mixed feelings on this one. On the one hand, they're annoying and arbitrary, taking all the hard work you did and just sweeping it away. On the other hand, they're not nearly punishing enough. Like, I had my games consistently at 4/4 (aka, the most punishing level) and over all I still felt like I wasn't really being punished by the disasters (and was often being aided by them). Hopefully the Antarctic-Summer patch aided in this somewhat.
Related: Global Warming wasn't really something to fear, in my experience. I've been told by a friend that on Island Plates map mode that Global Warming is absolutely something to fear, but on continents map mode it barely dents the land, and on the largest Continents map it maybe only floods maybe 1-5% of the landmass. If Global Warming comes, I want to feel it, and pre Antarctic-Summer, I wasn't feeling it, really. Even as the Maori

2. World Congress: It's different from Civ V, but I'm not sure if it's better or not. Like, there's so many more available proposals and so many ways those proposals can go, but at the same time you, the players in the game, don't get any choice on what proposals are up for vote. Kind of makes me wish there was some kind of leader at the World Congress (perhaps based on how much Diplomatic Favor you earn per turn). At the same time, it's an interesting play style that if there's resolutions you don't care about, you don't have to spend your favor on them (although with the new update, you may want to vote with the rest of the pack to get that free Diplomatic Victory point), and instead save it up for something you really want later.

3. Future Techs and Civics: This is one that really annoyed me. Going into the game, it sounded like that the techs and civics were mixed around, in completely different orders and stages, with prerequisites changing from game to game, but no. They may look randomized, but in all reality it's the same path over and over again, just tricking you into thinking that it's different (at least for the civic tree, that is. Can't speak for the tech tree, but I assume it's the same).

4. The Civs: As I expected, they're my favorite part of the expansion. I always love seeing new civs and leaders, so of course it would be. That said, Maori weren't nearly as fun as I expected them to be. The novelty of them starting off in the middle of the ocean got old fairly quickly and where ever you settle is disadvantageous because you'll just about always be in close proximity to other civs. That being said, they're still great fun, as is everyone else. Honestly, Phoenicia might be my favorite, just for the encouragement of going out and colonizing the world. I can't remember if I ever changed my capital, but I know I was at least planning on doing it (I think the project for doing it was egregiously expensive, so I had more important things to do in that city).

5. Pretty much everything else: eh. When it came to the engineering projects, like the canals and stuff, I always had more important stuff to do which got in the way. In that aforementioned Phoenicia game, I had myself set up to create a great canal that would shorten the northern trip around the continent by several tile, but the two spots where the canal could go I ended up putting wonders and districts. With that tangent, I think canals and districts should be able to stack with one another (not necessarily with wonders, though). The power system is a thing, but I don't think it's necessarily a really important thing. The fuel system is interesting, but there's not really much more to say on it.