Great thread !! I've gotten a bit tired of the old flight sims,WWII number crunching strategy games and not into shooters right now.. I started looking for a turn based strategy game and narrowed it down to Civ V or Civ VI..The last Civ game I played a lot was Civ IV.So I figure it's good to just goo with Civ V.So checked here and saw this great thread by gamers who actually play the games.Lot of good information in this thread,,Thanks

Can't go wrong with either game. I think 6 is better, it has a broader scope mechanically, more features and things to consider and do. But I prefer the Civ 5 AI, I think it gives a better account of itself in that game.

So you can't go wrong with either. I know 6 is deeply discounted right now in the summer sale, and probably 5 as well, though I didn't see it. I bought the Platinum Edition, which has the two expansions, but it did not have some of the faction DLC, which I then picked up too, like the New Frontier Pass. So I bought it all and no regrets. Good game.

Hi DB I have both Civ V at the Brave New Wold level and Civ VI at the Gathering storm level.Jest decided to start asking things her you and P.M.post things I understand and respect your thoughts.figured the best way to make a choice was to spend a few hours last night and today with Civ V,Got a bit of a feel for it and test driving Civ VI later.Then pick one to focus on.Thank you for the advice

Anytime.

I'd be interested in which game wins the competition for your time.

DB spent a few hours with each and Going with Civ V.It looks better in my opinion.I know there's a mod at steam for VI but V just feels better to me.As all gamers the look and feel of a game either attracts us or turns us off.So I'll use Civ V as an introduction and down the road probably will go to Civ VI..It's been a few years since I've played Civ IV so I figure to take a small step up to Civ V.Like I posted earlier I need a break from flight sims and wargames.I'll keep a Total War game on the side for variety.Still like Shogun 2 and going to be hard to leave Panzer Corps behind .Tried PC2 but it needs some more meat on it's bones I have the gold edition og PC and there's a lot there.Thank you for the advice

Above in this thread I talked about my impressions of Civ 6. My main gripe was warfare, how I felt that the AI was too passive, and even when at war, didn't do much to build strong armies, feeding units piecemeal in to battle alone as they rolled off the training grounds, where they are ground up by my forces.

A couple days ago I decided to revisit the game. There have been some updates since I last played, including one major update that overhauled a number of things, and rebalanced many Civs. I chose Egypt for this run. Things were going along quite swimmingly, when that smug b!tch Alexander (Macedon) launched a surprise attack from the northeast.

In my other runs, which were enough to cover 300+ hours, I don't think I had ever had war declared on me. If I had it was exceedingly rare. But here Alexander did so, and even better, brought a real army! About eight units in the initial wave, all arriving in close order, with a few follow-on units trailing in their wake.

That's more like it. I talked earlier about how Civ 5 handles this much better. There's no doubt that the game needs competent AI wars and strong armies. I think Civ 6 is better than 5 in just about every way imaginable, but the lame warfare side even made me return to Civ 5 to compare, and it was glaring how much different, and better, it was in Civ 5.

This is just one sample, and one does not a study make. But it is a good sign.

Turns out those declarations of war from Macedon must have something to do with either that faction, or the specifics of our relationship. Because it's back to no wars.

I started two different runs which I stopped, before landing on Indonesia. I had started with them a couple years ago, but gave it up. Tried again and it went much better. In order to get a few achievements I did a domination run on a huge Island Plates map at epic game speed with Monopolies and Corporations mode on King difficulty. This dovetails beautifully with Indonesia's unique traits and bonuses. The UB is the Kampung, a water tile improvement that grants food, production and gold, and must be built adjacent to a sea resource. This is great because we need all of those three things, and they can be built on sea tiles that would otherwise have nothing.

+2 faith if city is built on coast or lake. Minor, but still useful, if you are going for a religion. And with Indonesia it's important, because ships can be purchased with faith. On this map setup a strong navy was required, and just buying the ships with faith is sweet. the UU is the Jong, a frigate replacement. These ships grant their movement to any unit they are in escort formation with, greatly speeding up embarked land unit speed when traveling over water.

You wouldn't want to play Indonesia on a Pangea map, you need plenty of water to shine. So I obviously titled the map in my favor. And huge maps are indeed. So these unique bonuses had great synergy to conquer so much territory on such a sprawling map.

If I could only get the AI to build armies and go to war more often.

Had a look through my library and clicked on Civ 6 to see what's up. I was very pleasantly surprised to see they have released a number of new leaders, through the Leader Pass. As fate would have it, these all came for free (depends on which DLC you own). There are eight new leaders, and four new personas for existing leaders (like they've done for Teddy Roosevelt and Eleanor for example) all released since late last year. Has anyone given these a go? Any opinions?

Two more packs are slated for release in the future.

Civ 6 Leader Pass Wiki

Might have to fire up a new run with all of these new options. Good work Firaxis.

I haven’t even thought about Civ in a long time. Never really got into VI, between the cartoon aesthetic and the district concept it just never grabbed me.
Looks like Civ 7 is finally being announced.
https://www.pcgamesn.com/civilization-vii/in-development-firaxis

Hey JC. I started a run as Sulemain and kicking it down the road in small bites. It's good to have new leaders to try out.

Yeah, Civ 7 in the pipe. I'll buy it almost certainly, but as always I'll wait to see what the word on the street is. But Firaxis know how to do this.

Hope its a good run!
I'll wait (but probably pick up) Civ 7. Civ VI was released in 2016, and according to what I've read, this has been the longest stretch between releases in the franchise history. I'm wondering if they've just kept it under wraps until it was close to release-ready
instead of dragging the release out forever (I'm looking at you, Star Citizen!)

Hard to say when this will be released, but many are speculating it will come out this year. others say a few years. Who knows?

I'm sure I'll buy it. Each game in the series has gotten better for me, so I'd expect Civ 7 will too. But you never know, sometimes the developers go past the close and get a little too clever.

True. I remember when Civ V came out and used hexes for the first time in the series and eliminated doomstacks and everyone got the vapors. I found those to both to be great changes personally. You really had to think through your composition and travel routes to get a good sized army anywhere. I found that appealing.

Yes, I agree with everything you said. Those were my reactions too. Hex was so much better, and as you said the move from doom-stacks made combat feel more tactical, as you could now have a 'front' and reinforcements, backed by artillery, flanking and so on and so forth. Both changes were revolutionary and clearly better, but there are still some who do not agree. There will always be stuff in the newer game that I wish Firaxis had left alone, like combat, and the World Congress in Civ 6, but in general I find every game a big step forward from a broad point of view.

Didn't want to start a new thread, and maybe it won't be answered here, but is anyone playing Age of Wonders 4? This caught my eye (released a couple weeks ago). It looks like TW:Warhammer and Civ 6 had a fling. I will probably pick this up. Comments are good, gameplay looks good too. I love me an addictive 4X game.

Started a new run in Civ 6. The leader pass has introduced a bunch of new ones, but this time I'm playing Phillip II (Spain) on an archipelago map on King with a Medieval era start. Spain get bonuses to trade routes, can form armies and armadas earlier and have the Conquistadors, who convert a city they capture to your religion immediately. That was quite nifty indeed in the early going, but since they are medieval era unit and I started then, they were phased out pretty quickly.

I still wish Civ 6 handled warfare better, but in all other respects its my top Civ game in the series. Good stuff.

I finished that Spain run with a domination victory. A really good civ. I always like trade route bonuses, and they have a very strong religious game. Conquest is smoothed by their bonuses, including free religion in occupied cites (with Conquistador) and free workers too. In addition they have several bonuses for cities not on original continent to make expansion even better.

Got achievements for having one army and two armadas, winning a medieval start, winning on a archipelago map and for winning as Philip. Greece had a decent army and navy, but all the other civs failed really to put up much of a fight. The leader pass has been a really nice addition to the game, but I wish the devs would spend a little time making the AI civs better at defending their territory and for building standing armies and navies. The rest of Civ 6 is in a good place, all the non-combat stuff, but it would be much better with some robust competition on the field of battle.

Good stuff as always, DB!
Personally, I have had no interest in gaming for the last couple of months, but I do enjoy reading your exploits!

Thanks JC, I don't know what I'd do without you. Thanks for taking the time to comment. Otherwise it would be just me shouting in to the void

I picked up Age of Wonders 4 as you know, as sort of a Civ surrogate. It has a lot going for it. But Civ is just a better campaign experience for me. The pacing is right. Age of Wonders feels a bit too immediate. For example in my most recent run I had plopped down my second city within a few turns and my neighbor put down his own city two hexes away the next turn. No, this won't do. Too crowded, too early. Civ has that nice early exploration and expansion phase that I enjoy. Once everyone has established a nice base, then the conflict kicks in. I prefer this. Matter of fact I wish AoW4 had the latitude to recreate the same feel, but at this point it does not.

The appreciation is definitely two way! Many times after reading one of your posts I've gotten the urge to at least try something I haven't tried before, or pick up something I haven't touched in a while. It doesn't always stick, but it definitely gets me moving!

As far as AoW4, does it seem like something a bigger map would take care of, or is it something more intrinsic to the game design? Maybe there's a mod that would open things up a bit more.