Civilization VI

[Solmyr]

I watched some of Marbozir's Civ 5 LPs mainly to learn how to play better. Quill18 tends to be more fun to watch overall.

[Martinus]

I can't stand Marbozir's accent. He should at least learn how to pronounce "bonus".

Is it some sort of local thing? I know only one other Pole who had a habit of talking "through the nose" like Marbozir.

Is he Polish? He sounded Turkish/Middle Eastern to me.

But yeah Poles can be pretty bad with the accent - essentially they read the words as if they would sound if written in Polish. Not as bad as heavy French accent though.

[Martinus]

My preferred lp guy is quill18, the fact that he cocks things up and gets baffled now and then is a plus.

Yeah sometimes I am virtually shouting at the screen.

[Syt]

One thing I notice when looking at the features and previews is that there seem to be as many features as in Civ 5 with expansions - e.g. religion is in (and religion play has been expanded - the religious combat reminds me a bit of Call to Power where non-military units could fight each other, e.g. televangelists, inquisitors, missionaires, corporate lawyers, marketing execs, ...), as is archaeology, tourism, and museums with exhibits.

I really like the concept of districts, and the potential trade off between tile improvements and city expansion. I liked the on map city expansion from Fallen Enchantress and Endless Legend and I'm happy to see the concept developed further.

Not sure why they went with Gilgamesh as leader for Sumeria, though. That's like picking King Arthur for England.

Armies/Fleets also seem to make a comeback where you can combine several units into a more powerful force. Reportedly there's also a combined arms bonus at some point. (I'd still prefer a move to CTP's combat model where stacks would fight each other, and a combination of ranged, flanking, and assault units would give the best outcome.)

[Martinus]

Yup, they said vanilla Civ6 will have essentially the features of Civ5 with the expansions (they want to avoid people disliking vanilla for being too simplistic, as it happened with Civ5). The only feature that is not present is the World Congress/Ideologies. They said they want to see how the game is played by people before introducing something like that.

[Syt]

Due to my being in Rome in the week of the release I will not be able to play before Sunday evening on the 23rd. It's quite possible I take off the two days after (the following Wednesday is a public holiday).

[Martinus]

So Russia is up, led by Peter the Great:



They got a very interesting set of abilities - people are split on them very deeply (some consider them great, some shit - I fall in the first camp).

- Unique Ability: Mother Russia. Russian cities get 8 extra tiles when first founded, and get extra production and faith from Tundra tiles.

- Leader Unique Ability: Great Embassy. Russian trade routes to civilisations who have Techs and/or Civic (the "Culture techs") Russia does not have generate extra Science and Culture.

- Unique District: Lavra. Replaces Holy Site, adds tiles to the city every time you move a Great Person to Lavra and use him/her. The real bonus comes from this being a unique district, though, which means that it costs half the normal district's production and does not count against the limit of districts in a city (which is based on population) so Russia can plop it in every city they have. What's more, it is the earliest unique district in game and possibly one of the most versatile one (only four other civs get unique districts and all of them come later in game and/or are more specialized - Rome gets Baths to replace Aqueduct, England gets Royal Harbour to replace the Harbour; Germany gets Hansa to replace the Industrial district, and Kongo gets a Neighbourhood replacement).

- Unique Unit: Cossack. Stronger than Cavalry it replaces and can move after attacking.

I think this is awesome and very thematic/historic. You really can go very wide early and amass a lot of territory (including Tundra which is going to be unattractive to most other civs) while saving a lot of money on tile purchases (from the Lets Plays, it seems players buy a lot of tiles with gold in Civ6); then use extra faith from Lavra and gold saved on tiles to rush Great People. Then use Great Embassy to catch up culturally and scientifically by Renaissance with the rest of the civs, and use Cossacks for a Domination win or build your cities up for Science or Tourism win in late game. OR instead just use massive Faith production to found and spread a religion, winning a religious victory mid-game.

They seem even more expansionistic than Rome.

[Solmyr]

I think a big complaint was that tundra is still not that great with only 1 food production, and it cannot be farmed.

Peter's agenda: Hates everyone with a beard.

[Martinus]

I think a big complaint was that tundra is still not that great with only 1 food production, and it cannot be farmed.

I see it more as an expansionistic trait, not a "tundra focus" trait.

In other words, Russia is not supposed to only or mainly settle tundra, but it has more flexibility (e.g. by settling cities near tundra) while other civs would be seriously crippled by such choice.

Plus if they also get the Dance of Aurora pantheon (Lavra generates +1 Faith for each Tundra tile it is adjecent to), they can become a faith powerhouse.

[Solmyr]

Yeah, well, in any case Russia is likely going to be my first played civ, as is my tradition.

[Martinus]

Yeah I think I will be willing to give this Russia a go myself - it certainly sounds more interesting than the Civ5 version. But my first game is likely to be Egypt followed by Greece - these two and Rome to me are the iconic civilzations.

[Martinus]

Anyways, to me Russia seems like a very strong "expert level" civ (i.e. a civ that can be very powerful in hands of an expert player, as opposed to strong entry level civs, such as Greece). Another such expert level civ which looks very cool and I look forward to playing them, is Arabia under Saladin:

UA: "The last prophet": When the second-to-last Great Prophet is taken by another civ, Arabia automatically receive a great prophet, if they haven't already founded a religion. In Civ6, unlike Civ5, a Great Prophet is only used to found a religion (you get Apostles to enhance religions etc.) and the number of them in game is equal to the number of religions that can be founded. This means Arabia is guaranteed to found a religion no matter what (and even when it wants to play a Religion-heavy game, it can devote its early years to other pursuits).

UU: Mamluk: Knight replacement. Heals automatically at the end of each turn, even if it has attacked.

UB: Madrassa: University replacement that gives extra science AND extra faith based on the campus adjacency bonus.

LUA: Righteousnes of the faith: Religious building (Pagoda, Synagogue, etc.) costs very little faith and provides bonus science, faith AND culture.

So yeah, spend your early years peacefully minding your own business and ignoring the whole religion thing other civs are talking about - then found yours as the latecomer to the party and go on a jihad.

[FunkMonk]

So yeah, spend your early years peacefully minding your own business and ignoring the whole religion thing other civs are talking about - then found yours as the latecomer to the party and go on a jihad.

Considering the political climate in gaming nowadays, I'm kinda in shock there hasn't yet been a "ZOMG CIV 6 IS RACIST" movement started. 

[Solmyr]

So yeah, spend your early years peacefully minding your own business and ignoring the whole religion thing other civs are talking about - then found yours as the latecomer to the party and go on a jihad.

Considering the political climate in gaming nowadays, I'm kinda in shock there hasn't yet been a "ZOMG CIV 6 IS RACIST" movement started. 

There's nothing racist about Civ 6, Arabia simply gets a guaranteed last religion like they did historically. If someone equates this to jihad, that's their own projection.

[Martinus]

There is plenty of lily white snowflakes complaining about Eurocentrism and how "Greece and Rome were equally important as Zululand."