The play-by-email mode was broken to the point of uselessness in Civ5 and I don’t think they fixed in it in 6 (you had to have an always-on Windows desktop system running the server, and because the game logic was integrated into the graphics engine you couldn’t run it headless, and then on top of that there was basically no working system to coordinate active DLCs between players so most of the time people couldn’t join even if you did get the damn thing running) so my friends and I tried once and gave up. I would love for 7 to have a robust PBEM system so that we can play together without needing to spend hours a week watching paint dry while everybody else plots their turns, but I’m not holding my breath.
(you had to have an always-on Windows desktop system running the server, and because the game logic was integrated into the graphics engine you couldn’t run it headless, and then on top of that there was basically no working system to coordinate active DLCs between players so most of the time people couldn’t join even if you did get the damn thing running)
Jesus fuck. You should be able to run a game of Civ as a series of XML files, with the GUI being practically perfunctory. I am disappointed that the game isn’t backwards compatible, much less that you can’t integrate between DLCs.
What is functionally a feature-rich version of Diplomacy shouldn’t be this hard to integrate in Play-by-Post.
They should have it so if one player has DLC, everyone gets to use it in multiplayer. It Takes Two works for players that haven’t even bought the game, and that’s published by EA ffs.
They should have it so if one player has DLC, everyone gets to use it in multiplayer.
Or just gray-out DLC based options. I don’t even think that’s a big deal at the end of the day. The Total War series manages this just fine, and they’re a much heavier lift in terms of game structure.
2K really are the greediest mfs out there.
Blizzard is greedy, the way they shove “buy me! buy me! buy me!” links into every corner of their interface. But 2k is just sloppy, phoning it in on their catalog of accrued titles with marginal graphics improvements as stand-in for any kind of game play polish.
Ha, those friggin normies and their friendships. Whats up with that? Almost like spending time with people you trust and care about causes neuroendocrinal response of dopamine and endorphins resulting in feelings of happiness and fulfillment.
It’s not a constant 100% result, but yeah it’s kind of a well established natural phenomenon. Couldn’t stop it if you wanted to. Some people can get the same benefit solely from having their comments upvoted, we process it the same as regular human interaction. Bonus points exist for huggers.
I consider myself to have a pretty small social battery, but gaming online on discord isn’t nearly as draining as being physically with people at someone’s house or something, maybe I’m just weird.
Even then, had some great times on Civ5 with everyone over at my place playing on our laptops and chillin/watching TV or just talking at the same time
Being around people I know and like is incredibly pleasant and relaxing, particularly when we’re all engaged in an activity together - volleyball or board game night or watching a movie together.
The trick I’ve found is to do something everyone vibes with and that has incredibly low stakes. So, like, carving pumpkins during Halloween or splitting a bottle of wine and complaining about work together or visiting a museum.
Its nice to have people saying and doing things that you wouldn’t normally say or do. And its nice to have other people responding to your own thoughts and feelings.
Doscord friends! You can make quite a few friend groups to play games with that way. I’ve got a group where we are either playing DnD, or were finding the next coolest game for us all to enjoy.
…It occurs to me that I am interpreting “rush” in the RTS sense of attacking early before your opponent is ready, not in the sense of pressuring people to take their turns faster.
I’ve been playing couch co-op with my husband on both of our Switches. It’s not too bad if you don’t force a turn timer. The game will give you a ding when you’re the last one to play, but we both have ‘side games’ or play with our cats in the meantime if the other needs more time. I wouldn’t do it online or with a turn timer, though.
I’m sorry, I’m that friend that gets really into Civ and spends way too long coming up with optimal strategies. I know it’s a problem and I won’t stop.
Have you tried Googling everything and spending tens of hours making optimal progress flowcharts that require hours to read over instead of playing the game?
Or, you know, just pour everything into science and forget don’t dare about getting distracted by other game mechanics.
Occasionally they just give games updated graphics and audio. I’d be fine if that was how they remade it. They did that with Grim Fandango and it was just as fun as the original.
I can agree with that. In fact, I just played the System Shock remake and found it quite enjoyable. It kept the same vibe and feel while just updating the cosmetic aspects and having a few QoL changes for some of the mechanics. The maps and story felt the same, and I enjoyed the nostalgic feel of playing it again.
Maybe I wouldn’t mind an alpha centauri remake. They’d only have to update the cosmetics and the UI, after all.
Back in the day I used to check out civfanatics.com for mods. There were tons for Civ4:BTS that made it so much cooler. After playing that and then playing Civ5, I was incredibly disappointed. Civ6 is better, but not by much. I still go back to Civ4 when I need my “one more turn” fix.
Fall from Heaven 2? Rise of Mankind? Caveman to Cosmos? Rhyes and Falls of Civilization? Dawn of Mankind? Planetfall? Mars Now? How about all of them at once?
Civ 4 was a goddamn library of 4X games. I still reinstall it after every few years.
I hated the stacks. Idk why, but it was always confusing how big they should be. When they can’t stack it makes more sense to me. How many troops do I need? As many as I can fit.
Just enough to encircle the thing I want to eliminate/capture. It actually works with a stack, too. Like 8 dudes is enough for the default difficulty most of the time.
I played all of civ 6 there is an I loved it. The add-ons were great and districts were definitely a cool idea. Civ 5 however had the better art style.
Well considering this ideas were taken from Endless Legend, you should give that a try. Or if you want something more Civ like, they also have Humankind, which is like Civ but better and the AI is really good (they made it even better now than before, and it was already way ahead of Civ’s NPC AIs). They also have a unique win condition with Fame.
Everyone shits on 6 but never actually gives a reason other than “5 iS bEtTeR!”. The mechanics in 6 are a massive improvement on 5; civics tree > social policies, city loyalty > happiness etc. It has a bigger and better roster of civs/leaders. Combat and religion are more fleshed out. I love both games but I can’t think of anything that 5 does better
6 has many mechanics dumbed down, trade is just completely bugged, and it came wrapped in a very cartoonish style including several world leaders who were straight up mythological figures.
Comparing the Civs steals the joy they bring for their various reasons.
Civ 1 was unlike anything else and so legendary it created the 4X genre.
Civ 2 had the best espionage until an expansion for 4. Civ2 also defined the scope for all future Civs.
Civ 3 was fine. Resources were a good addition and tile quirks, like Floodplains on top of another base tile like desert, helped bring tons strategy and gave the ability to grow Tall.
Civ 4 was probably peak Civ for many people, especially including DLCs.
Civ 5 removed unit stacking and made happiness a resource.
Civ 6 emphasized the city development aspect and brought back the climate stuff from 2, 3, and 4.
They are all good but they are not collectively suitable for every person. Civ6 is amazing but it took me literally 30 hours to finally have it click. I also have 550 hours in Civ 6 and over 1200 in Civ 5. CiV is also a high water mark but it overshadows the real value and fun in 6.
It’s a shame most folks will ignore us and say 6 was bad for being too game like.
Yeah I prefer 6 over 5 any day, but there are a few small things that 5 does do better imo. I do prefer the more serious art style of 5, and I noticed that there is a lot less actual dialogue in a civs respective language compared to 5. While I do like automatic road creation, I do also miss being able to build it manually to have more control over where units can go. Finally, I think the happiness system in Civ 6 is a bit too easy, as it can be mostly ignored and very easily fixed compared to 5. Keeping your citizens happy was much more of a challenge there.
Civ 6 was made much more to be a digital board game. The combination of little to no multiplicative bonuses and generally small adjacency bonuses means you have to micro manage city planning all the time. It bombards the player with so many individual decisions that each make little impact.
Civ 5 felt much more like an empire simulator. The biggest bonuses come from making “big” decisions, like which policy tree, who/when to war, which ideology. As the game progressed, there was typically no need to micromanage.
The combat in civ 6 is atrocious after they removed the ability to build roads offensively for war until you unlock military engies (way too late in the game). Civ 5’s road system took ages to get up and running, but the payoff was immense.
The civics tree system is better, but the policy card system is broken. It gives players too much flexibility, so everyone ends up running the same/similar set of cards every time. Tradition + Rationalism is a meme in Civ 5, but it did offer more esoteric strategies with different trees.
It’s the micromanagement. When earlier games became tedious, I could just pick a quicker game speed, and I would suddenly feel like I was playing with more momentum. But in VI, it actually kills momentum, as if driving the slightly faster route to work at the cost of particularly frustrating traffic, since the most tedious micro isn’t turn-based, but city-based. You only have to plan districts/improvements once per city, so I find I can still have fun with VI if I play suboptimally (i.e., tall) on tiny maps and with mods that let me cram more civilizations into the game. I’ve probably put in a few hundred hours this way.
I like playing tall and I’m not a huge fan of the micromanagement that comes with the sprawling empires. Civ 5 limits this through happiness. Civ 6 doesnt. Throw in an artstyle that i dont like and i just dont want to play it as much
lemmy.today
Newest