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Civilization VI
Topic Started: May 25 2016, 08:36 PM (517 Views)
Ànraich
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L'évolution Spéculative est moi

I know a lot of us like strategy games here, and some of you may or may not have heard the recent announcement of the next installment in Sid Meier's Civilization series, due to be released in about five months. Quill18 just did a prerelease gameplay video showing off the game in more detail than has been released by official sources. For the most part it's similar to Civ 5, but there's a few changes such as cities now expanding beyond their main tile. Buildings you construct "in" your cities will be built on the surrounding tiles you designate as districts and gain benefits from that tile. An example of this would be the observatory, which gives science but will have a boost to that output if built on a mountain tile. Research is also affect by many factors now, such as discoveries made by units as they explore. Support units can now be embedded into main units to give them certain boosts, expanding on the idea of one unit per tile introduced in Civ 5 but improving on it by giving more variety to your military units (which can now be named to differentiate between them). That's about all Firaxis has said about it, but I've seen a few things in Quill's gameplay video that kind of concern me.

First of all, I do not like the new cartoony graphics. They're bright and vibrant and undoubtedly easier on computers than the more detailed graphics of the previous games, but they feel really lackluster. Everything looks like plastic. It has less of a professional, big budget game feel and more of a facebook farmville feel. I can get over that though, I guess. I have to say I do love the new old paper map look of the fog of war. I only hope it has 4K support, unlike Civ 5 which I haven't been able to play since switching to a 4K monitor. Secondly I noticed in the stream that after they built the Oracle wonder that his worker unit disappeared and a notification explaining that it has used up it's "available workforce" had caused it to expire and a new worker would have to be created. I groaned at first until I saw a builder (a new unit replacing the worker) build a farm instantly. Quill explained that the new builder units create improvements instantly, but only have a certain number of charges. I admit I would often just set workers to auto-build improvements, and it made the game have long periods where I was just hitting enter over and over again waiting for something to happen, so it seems like a fair trade off. Cities look to have a lot more depth than they have in previous games with things like amenities and housing capacity to be considered on top of the new district system.

It also looks like civic policies are now "researched" rather than just chose as culture builds up. They have their own civics tree like the tech tree that gives each empire a huge depth of customization. Quill also mentioned that the religion system from Gods and Kings, including the customization, has been included in vanilla Civ 6. He also said that tourism from Brave New World was also included but he didn't get any experience dealing with it so I can't say for sure the mechanics remain the same. The trade system is very different from Civ 5 but is based on the same principles of trade routes. Quill mentioned there was a lot more detail with the trade such as deciding what gets traded and for how much rather than having set values for routes between different cities. He also said that it's the trade units that now build roads, which is interesting. I also think the changes they made to the barbarians are pretty cool and give you a real reason to deal with them. They're more or less the same as in Civ 5, but now they spawn scouts that explore the map. Once the barbarian scouts find a civilization's city they'll rush back to the barbarian encampment. If they make it there the encampment spawns an invasion force to raid the city and they'll continue to harass the civilization until they are dealt with. Apparently the barbarian AI is a little more intelligent in military matters now and they can quickly go from nuisance to serious threat if you don't keep them in check.

Speaking of AI changes civilizations no longer have personalities. In previous games they had personalities that were essentially just different stats: Gandhi had a low warlike score (until he discovers democracy*) while somebody like Bismark had a high one. In Civ 6 AI leaders instead have agendas. Each leader has their own unique agenda and a secret hidden agenda that is randomized. The unique agendas are based on their historical actions. Teddy Roosevelt has the Big Stick Diplomacy agenda and doesn't like warmongers but is happy to trade and ally with peaceful civs. He will actively oppose civs that engage in acts of aggression against small neighbors and city states and might even intervene on their behalf. Hidden agendas are things like desiring to have the largest navy, or wanting to build all the wonders. This system sounds a lot more engaging than the previous system where civs basically either did the same thing every game or ended up randomly being either very pacifist or very aggressive. Apparently the AIs now gossip with each other and the player if they have good relations, which should also add some depth to the diplomacy. There's also going to be a new Paradox-inspired casus belli feature to differentiate between surprise attacks, wars of aggression, and justified wars, which I hope means there's also going to be more in depth diplomacy beyond "give me this city and these resources for X turns, or else!"

There's also been some changes to governments and wonder production and a lot of other things, but I won't talk about everything here.


Also I noticed that one of the strategic resources on the map was tea! It's about damn time they put it in the game. Another small change I saw that I liked was that continents apparently have names now! I don't know if they're randomly generated, pulled from a name list, or if they can be customized but it's a neat little addition.

*It's no secret late game Gandhi was a crazy asshole, and the reason for that is actually really funny. As I said, leaders in Civ up until, well, Civ 6 I suppose, had personalities that were basically spreadsheets of stats. Somebody like Ghengis Khan, for instance, had a very high warlike score making him more aggressive. Gandhi had a warlike score of zero in the original Civilization. The problem arose when AI Gandhi researched democracy. That tech lowers the warlike score by quite a bit, but unfortunately computers don't really do negative numbers (they can, but they have to be told to use negatives since, like random numbers, they can't actually grasp the concept and it has to be "cheated" into their understanding). Unless told otherwise a computer told to subtract any amount from zero will roll the value over from zero to 2,147,483,647, the highest possible positive integer value. So after AI Gandhi researched democracy his warlike score went from zero to 2,147,483,647, making his a crazy aggressive dick. The developers thought it was funny so they left it in all the Civ games to follow.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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Kamidio
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Well I'm willing to bet that the texture thing can be fixed with texture mods.

Here's hoping Ghandi's agenda carries on the trend of him nuking everything in late game.
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Kamineigh
May 25 2016, 09:03 PM
Well I'm willing to bet that the texture thing can be fixed with texture mods.

Here's hoping Ghandi's agenda carries on the trend of him nuking everything in late game.
If they didn't do that, people would riot. It's basically a tradition at this point.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life," John 3:16

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Hey, their right to get freaky ends when it goes up my nose.


I think this describes what dinosaurs are like now

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bloom_boi
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That concept of barbarians already makes me want to cry.
"You shall perish, whatever you do! If you are taken with arms in your hands, death! If you beg for mercy, death! Whichever way you turn, right, left, back, forward, up, down, death! You are not merely outside the law, you are outside humanity. Neither age nor sex shall save you and yours. You shall die, but first you shall taste the agony of your wife, your sister, your sons and daughters, even those in the cradle! Before your eyes the wounded man shall be taken out of the ambulance and hacked with bayonets or knocked down with the butt end of a rifle. He shall be dragged living by his broken leg or bleeding arm and flung like a suffering, groaning bundle of refuse into the gutter. Death! Death! Death!"



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Flisch
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I don't want to be that kind of person, but wow the graphics are really not making me look forward to this game. This is a shame, because all the gameplay changes are things I support and infact had wished for ever since the hex fields were introduced in Civ 5.

But damn, I just can't get over those clash of clans graphics. What the hell.
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Finncredibad
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You expect me to read all of this! I can barely read a paragraph without losing focus. This review is a 4/10. Also I think the graphics look fairly nice.
Edited by Finncredibad, May 26 2016, 03:54 PM.
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Kamidio
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Boy, if you didn't want to read anything you shouldn't have joined a god damned message board.
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Well, I can read, but only if I'm not being distracted like right n- OH A DRAGON FLY!
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Kamidio
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This forum is not the place for 'lolz teh randumz'.


Back on topic: Flisch, you'll probably be able to install texture mods to make the game look better. With this game it'll be inevitable.
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And keep in mind that the game is still five-six months away from release. While the graphics won't be completely overhauled, there will probably be a number of changes to the graphics between now and release.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life," John 3:16

A neat pixel animation of a future cowboy


trex841
 
Hey, their right to get freaky ends when it goes up my nose.


I think this describes what dinosaurs are like now

Click for something good. Click this too.
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Ànraich
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Dragon
May 26 2016, 04:28 PM
And keep in mind that the game is still five-six months away from release. While the graphics won't be completely overhauled, there will probably be a number of changes to the graphics between now and release.
This is an important thing to keep in mind. While the graphics have likely taken a more cartoonish, vibrant tone it's very likely that a lot of these are placeholder textures and objects that will be replaced in coming months. Also Quill said in his video that when he was playing the graphics actually looked quite nice until you were zoomed in on the map. Honestly I didn't like the graphics at first but after seeing some more screenshots they're growing on me. They have a distinctive board game feel to them that really works with the Civ aesthetic.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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