The major problem of civ 6 is that it has too many redundant features. Really, I'm literally ignoring half of the game:

(1) I ignore most of the civs and never play as them

(2) I ignore trade routes because it's too much work to always reassign them

(3) I ignore theming bonuses/puzzles in museums

(4) I partly ignore adjacency bonuses/puzzles in district placement, as far as I am able to ignore them

(5) I ignore religion entirely

(6) I ignore most districts, buildings

(7) I would like to ignore the governors, but they are too important

Additionally, some game mechanics are simply weird:

(1) Settlers, builders become more expensive with each one you build. That's just counterintuitive and blatant game mechanic.

(2) Districts become more expensive the more techs/civis you get. That's weird as hell.

(3) Split tech/culture tree: Of course you can have different fields of science. But why the hell do theatres "develop" new governments? Culture is culture, it's about entertaining people, impressing and convincing them - hence borders spread with accumulated culture. Science is science, it's about coming up with ideas.

At the same time, they removed features I liked:

(1) Giving builders limited charges was maybe done to reduce the time you had to invest to constantly manage your workers. However, improving the terrain is one of the main parts of a 4x, namely the "building" part. I like to manage my builders.

(2) Removing transports and granting every unit the embarkation ability might at a first glance reduce the work for loading/unloading troops. But it also removed the fun of landing operations at an enemy shore. You have to keep your units protected when at see, land at a spot with limited troops (because you have limited transports) etc. Now you can just embark your whole army and just land somewhere.

Frogsquadron wrote:

Out of curiosity, if they removed many features you liked and added a bunch of features you just ignore, and some features you feel are counterintuitive or oddly implemented... what are the features that make you still play it?

Let me put it this way: if civilization 6 did not have cultural victory type as good as it is, i would quit long time ago. All other victory types are boring and one-dimensional. Religion=spam holy sites & prophets. Science = spam campuses. Domination = spam units. Diplomacy = spam emergencies ....

Cultural/tourism victory synergizes with so many game mechanics, that it really feels like a nice and well deserved achievement.

You have:

- great artists, writers, and archeologists. Theming is actually important and I disagree with the previous poster who finds no use in that. Carefully placing your great works increases the yeald x2. What more do you want? Increase your difficulty if you find this unnecessary part of a gameplay.

- Theatre districts and adjacency bonuses with wonders

- Important wonders either for storage of great works (apadana, great library....) or just generally buffing your cultural victory (eiffel tower, cristo redentor)

- NATURAL PARKS. You need to actually own lands that have appeal to generate tourism

- Rock bands. i dislike this one, but there is no denying that they are very important which means you have to also consider generating faith, not just culture in your game to reliably win against culture-focused civs

- Buildings like city walls, water parks, stadiums are all necessary

- Improvements like seaside resorts and ski resorts should also always be considered because the stacking of bonuses you receive with cards and wonders really makes them very powerful

- Policy cards. You have to sacrifice slots for policy cards that increase your touriss

- Trading and open borders with opponents. You have to have good relations with them. Going to war might sometimes actually hurt your chances rather than benefit you.

There are so many factors that make this gameplay so ENGAGING that i really don't think Amplitude will able to top it upon launch of their game. I'm just being realistic here.

Fame is a good concept for HUMANKIND and i can only hope quests will be as engaging as cultural victory is in civilization 6. I'm definitely giving this new game a try, but i'm not sure if it will be as good as culture in civilization games. 

We will see.

(1) Exploration. I like exploring worlds in Skyrim, I like to find new shores in colonization. Honestly, I'm right now playing colonization, because the exploration aspect is done there very well.

Just to ping and build off of this, I totally agree. For me it is great to explore around my starting spot and pick out the next city placement, the district advantages, and strategtic placement. Then finally through playing the game seeing the development of the land itself. It may have started as a small river valley, but it may have become a huge trading hub with farms and a dam to provide power/security. Or, maybe due to the city's placement it would become a military hub with mines for production just tearing the land apart to protect the nation.

Thats why when I see the trailer and screenshots of Humankind, I am immensely excited as I see the sprawling cities and the mishmash of cultures coming together. I love to see the changes and development over time. That is what gets me by the simplistic military play, repetitive religion play, and late game monotony.

Well Exploration is always the most fun part of any 4x game whether land based or space based. 

I agree that the change to 1UPT negatively impacted the domination victory by making it a tedious slog and the AI is not up to the challenge in most cases.

But it also makes combat more tactical. So I do more of my conquest in the early game when I don't need to position a ton of units or move them long distances. 

I like what Amplitude is bringing to the table with armies traveling as a  stack then deploying to 1UPT for battle.

I am a fan of both the current culture and diplomatic diplomatic victories. 

Trade Routes are my most disliked feature because it is too menu-based. Although the sorting tools make it more tolerable. 

Frogsquadron wrote:

Out of curiosity, if they removed many features you liked and added a bunch of features you just ignore, and some features you feel are counterintuitive or oddly implemented... what are the features that make you still play it?

I do not by the dlcs yet, bit a system wich  is underrated and could be way more inproved  - in my opinion( in civ v as ),well is the spy system.

Gamling wrote:

I played the Civ series since the beginning. The two last games has been a mixed bag for me. The 1 unit per tile changes and strong city defens wihout troops made conquest too bothersome to me. Its to easy to block the AI and shoot it down with ranged troops. Defence is to easy and conquest is to cumbersome. I find myself almost never starting a war and almost always setteling with taking one or two cities from the AI who dared attacking. Usualy they are wasting their big invading army on my cities  letting me counter attack for an easy kill.

So usualy I end up in a peacefull Civ VI game of "Endless building que" (If you wanted to make a Civ clone that could have been your name.) and happen to win culture without trying. A few games I won sience but never ever bothered with conquest. I tried religion a couple of times but that just comes down to who produces the most faith and if I can be bothred by moving around all those apostles. Not fun to do over and over again. I did like the last expansion of Civ VI. Natural disasters and plauges has plaid a big role in history too and the right amount of disasters and set backs makes things more intresting.  

The reason why I still happen to play Civ VI is the early game of Exploration. The feeling of discovering a new world and see how history plays out is an amazing concept. But after reaching midle ages and the exploration slows down and the repetetive things of all the other systems kicks in I usualy quit.

What I would like is better combat with tactical battles where army unit composistion, the map  and perhaps  generals with some sort of strategy cards desides the outcome. I realy do enyoy games like the Age of Wonders series. But for a civ game I geuss you need slithly faster system. The Test of times games was ok but I think I prefer something less automated. 

I would also like a more advanced map. Where things like climate, geografy,  ground water, animals and vegetation plays a bigger role for the fertility of the map tiles. That was one of the better mechanics of Alpha Centauri. I find it very intresting how most of the big cultures of history of the world destroyed the nature and used up most resources around it. The fertile moon of the midle east is now to most part a desert. The medeterian countries are now also largely made deserts where in ancient times you could grow crops for millions.

Funny how different people are. I played the entire series at release as well and Civ 5 was a godsend by moving to one unit per tile. Every civ game before that just had these endless stacks of units and wars were so one dimensional and boring with almost zero tactics involved. I agree that it was a move that needed better AI, but CIv has always had brain dead AI. I agree with you on the religious system. It's so awful I wish I could just turn the whole thing off and I always play with the victory condition off. It's crazy you mention Age of Wonders though. I loved the way battles worked in the first Age of Wonders game and always thought that would make a great fit in Civ 5 or 6. You avoid the endless stacks of earlier games, but aren't quite limited to 1 unit per tile. Maybe 4 units per tile and you get different strengths and weaknesses depending on the makeup of those units.

Speaking of exploration, I liked how the Endless series handled this. Whether through the ancient ruins in Legend or the anomolies in Space, you always had a reason to have your units travel around the map to find new things. I kinda wonder if HK will have anything similar and if so, how will it work?

Dinode wrote:

Speaking of exploration, I liked how the Endless series handled this. Whether through the ancient ruins in Legend or the anomolies in Space, you always had a reason to have your units travel around the map to find new things. I kinda wonder if HK will have anything similar and if so, how will it work?

There should be some quests by tribal villages, that you would do for them for rewards, which would involve exploring and fighting the barbarians.

Catodion wrote:

Dinode wrote:

Speaking of exploration, I liked how the Endless series handled this. Whether through the ancient ruins in Legend or the anomolies in Space, you always had a reason to have your units travel around the map to find new things. I kinda wonder if HK will have anything similar and if so, how will it work?

There should be some quests by tribal villages, that you would do for them for rewards, which would involve exploring and fighting the barbarians.

Would the villages stick around for you to get more quests from later? That was the point I was trying to make, some form of exploration that can stay relevant late game.

yes that could be a nice thing actually. The villages don't have to disappear unless you specifically make it so.

I must admit i'm a complete ignorant and definitely please correct me if i'm wrong but doesn't endless legend have a system like that in the game?

Catodion wrote:

yes that could be a nice thing actually. The villages don't have to disappear unless you specifically make it so.

I must admit i'm a complete ignorant and definitely please correct me if i'm wrong but doesn't endless legend have a system like that in the game?

Yup, that was what I was referring to.

An interesting thing could be to use the cultural score as a modifier for morale. There were many battles in history that was won not because of numbers or technology, but because one country has a cultural reason to defend and the other has no actual reason to attack - pure conquest of more lands.

THANK YOU!!! Finally a civilization strategy game that, hopefully, makes sense to me.

I've played the Civilization series from Civilization 2 onwards. Lately felt it incomplete and just not right.

A civilization strategy game should allow the player, to define the kind of civilization it wants it to become and not start the game with a pre-selected Civilization with perks/attributes along with a notable leader.

I believe, it would enrich the gameplay if events of various nature (e.g. society, belief, government, architecture, traditions, etc) would pop-up as the game timeline progress with options/decisions, allowing the player to create it's own civilization.

Once again, THANK YOU!!

PS: I apologize if this post isn't on the proper thread, just wanted to share my view as strategy passionate gamer.