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Sunday, Mar 05, 2017 - 20:51 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert
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Civ VIsited
Okay, so I gave in, and booted Civilization VI up; was feeling slightly exhausted anyhow, so what better than to return to my all-time favourite series, and catch up on some reading besides?
Verdict first, after dipping my feet in with Empy Qin (Build The Wall!) - I don't know if it's the game or if it's just me, but Civ VI isn't quite as addictive as previous instalments (gasp); which, I hasten to add, isn't necessarily a bad thing.
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First impressions: unexplored territory is obscured by a papyrus texture (as opposed to white clouds for Civ V, and RTS-standard black for Civ IV and before). Not only this, the fog of war (previously explored areas not in line of sight) is represented by the terrain being rendered in sepia (very similar tone to the papyrus), instead of being greyed out (RTS standard)
I'm kinda torn on this. On one hand, the papyrus-sepia scheme is artistically gorgeous in a way, and one supposes the designers put quite a bit of work into it. On the other hand, as a means of conveying strategic information, I have to confess to preferring the old, boring visual style. Black/white and grey provide that much more contrast, compared to the latest, which appears as a hard-to-parse expanse of sandy green (it doesn't help that much of the terrain, i.e. grass, forest, desert, etc, is in the same hue). On the bright side, this shouldn't be hard to mod out.
Wah lau eh, how to see like that?
(Source: game-cheats.co.uk)
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On to the gameplay. Civ VI keeps the hex tiles from Civ V, which has no downsides compared to the old square tile, I feel. Movement has however become slightly more unintuitive, with difficult terrain requiring the unit to pay the full movement cost (or, alternatively, its full movement capacity). This contributes to the game seeming somewhat slower-paced, early exploration-wise.
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While we're on mobility - one of the classic foundations of a Civ empire, the road network concept, has been overhauled. Before, one used Worker units to construct roads (over some turns). Now, the only way to lay roads in the early game, is to direct a Trader to make a trip between two cities.
Firstly, since a civilization frequently has only one trade route available to assign (if they're not focusing on that aspect), it can take some time to connect one's empire, especially if redundant routes are desired. Secondly, this removes a lot of the subtleties behind road placement, since Trader movement is automated. Want to pre-build a road to a new city site, chokepoint, or resource? No can do, sorry.
Then again, it seems that the importance of being connected to the empire's road network has become somewhat reduced, so this could be a fair simplifying mechanism...
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And, the Workers. Previously, a lot of early play, particularly in competitive scenarios, had centered around utilizing - and stealing - them. Indeed, nicking a rival's first Worker unit had been a low-risk method of jumpstarting one's economy, while crippling theirs.
Civ VI instead has replaced the Worker role with Builders - instead of toiling over many turns like Workers (e.g. chopping down rainforests, before building a plantation, can take over a dozen turns), Builders perform their tasks immediately - but have a limited number of charges, before they disappear (usually three).
Not only does the window of opportunity for poaching them reduce, this also means that there isn't really a good reason to keep an army of labourers around, since they have a fixed output, as it were, which further reduces unit micromanagement clutter. Perhaps not a bad thing on balance, though the game does lose some of that "busy" feel...
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As for the cities, they're no longer confined to a single tile. Large cities naturally sprawl out into independent Districts, each taking up a tile, and specialized in some way (e.g. the Campus district generates Science, the Industrial Zone district production, etc). And since a District can be situated anywhere within a city's boundary (four tiles), it can get a little confusing as to which District belongs to which city, especially as it's recommended for Districts to be clustered together for bonuses.
Given that Wonders also occupy their own tile now, it seems that supercities containing the bulk of the world's Wonders, are now a thing of the past (lack of sufficient tiles aside, the loss of potential tile yields is a hefty handicap), which is a bit of a downer. Oh, and given that most Wonders now have specific requirements (e.g. Pyramids on desert), Wonder-hoarding seems far harder than before (plus, there is no longer any consolation gold refund for losing a Wonder construction race)
If the developers had intended that cities develop their own characters, instead of simply maxing out everything, they have to pick and choose what specialties to cultivate... subject to available terrain. I'd say that urban organization has become the focus of Civ VI, with this mechanic.
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The technology tree has further been split into two: one for "hard sciences" and advanced through Science, and a Civics tree, traversed by Culture. Almost all techs/civics have a related Eureka/Inspiration condition, which if fulfilled, halves the cost of discovering it.
Probably a smart move, given that Culture was probably a little weak in Civ V. Social policies could be seens as Civics-lite, but simply weren't all that essential. Now, they actually unlock real stuff. The Policy Card workover is also nice, allowing as it does more customization with respect to one's available tech and civics.
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Great People now have unique abilities, which brings a lot of personality (alas, no more Great Engineer Wonder spam, though). There seem to be slightly too few of them around, but this is, again, nothing an expansion - or a good mod - can't fix easily.
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Religion and Tourism (with archaeology) make an immediate return in the base game. Still waiting for Corporations (from Civ IV) to make a comeback...
Overall, however, it hasn't quite grown on me yet. Maybe it's the strain to read the map, or the slower pace, or the somehow less epic feel? Then again, it's not as if the last two versions were that great out of the box either, let's see what the expansions are gonna add.
Next: No Can Haz ETF
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