Civilization VI comparison request

[Kish]

Could someone who has played both Civilization VI and earlier Civilization games do a comparison between Civilization VI and Civlization I, II, III, or IV? All I can find online is comparisons to Civilization V--which is the only one I never tried, and thus the only one not useful to me.

[Drasius]

Could someone who has played both Civilization VI and earlier Civilization games do a comparison between Civilization VI and Civlization I, II, III, or IV? All I can find online is comparisons to Civilization V--which is the only one I never tried, and thus the only one not useful to me.

Civ is Civ. If you liked III or IV, you'll probably like VI, though it may take a bit of getting used to no unit stacking and hexes instead of squares. The differences between them are far too large to list, but the basic Civ feel is still there.

Edit: Maybe tell us what you want to know? The AI is probably worse than previous offerings and the difficulty appears to be lower in general too, so if you were a diety (or possibly Emperor) player, you might find things a bit too easy.

[PopeLinus1]

I love Civ 6, But I’ve never played one of the older games. So this thread intrigues me.

[Hunter Noventa]

The biggest differences are the hex-based gameplay, and the removal of unit stacking. No longer will a 50-unit Stack of Doom (TM) show up on your doorstep the turn the AI declares war.

Governments are not monolithic systems now, but collections of policies. There are 3 types of policy, military, industry/commerce, and diplomatic/great people. Each form of government has a unique bonus of it's own, and a collection of different slots for policies, including 'Wild Card' slots. For example, there is an early game military policy that reduces the maintenance cost of your units, and an early game industry policy that gives a bonus to production on building ancient era wonders.

There are two separate tech trees, effectively. One is your usual science one that unlocks buildings, units and the like. And there's a 'cultural' one that will unlock new policies and sometimes other benefits like access to wonders and new forms of government.

One of the biggest things in Civ Vi is the district system. Instead of all your improvements going in the city center and then surrounding a city with farms nad mines, you build say, an Education District on a tile and can build buildings within it to boost the science output from assigning citizens to work there.

There are also quasi-neutral 'City-States' that you can build relations with by sending envoys or doing missions for like 'Send a Trade Route' or 'Destroy a barbarian Encampment'.

The earlier comments about the game's AI being a bit weird are accurate of course. But overall Civ VI is a pretty solid game, though the default UI leaves a bit to be desired.

And it's a bit awkward, but you could probably find a comparison between IV and V, and then extrapolate from V to VI. I'd also suggest checking out the Civfanatics forum for even more details.

[Winthur]

The game's AI is absolutely useless.

Since Civ5, Firaxis has not figured out how to make the AI actually work with the hex-system, 1UPT, and all the little refinements to the game. As a result, the AI can't compete. As a result, many otherwise valid complaints (such as about the simplicity of stack of doom warfare in the pre-Civ5 games) kind of fade because, well, Civ4's AI was an okay warfare opponent, especially at tech parity (which could very well happen on Immortal and Deity, even to seasoned players), and the Civ4 warfare system had cool stuff like promotions and they worked well with Great Generals.

Civ6 AI simply crumbles and its units form clogged highways. The added complexity to the civic and Great People system is also completely mishandled by the AI.

I also generally dislike Civ6's shift towards extreme cartoon style, as it was never this egregious, not even in Civ3, which I thought had the worst leader faces. Some characters look cool in the new style (Genghis, Trajan), some make you question whether you want to even roleplay as them (Australian man in tacky clothes or Hyacinth Bucket as the leader of the Dutch). The other thing that I wish they changed would be to allow the player to actually view more info and graphs; I know the franchise is trying to be more accessible, but it would be nice to have the option to have more stats about what's going on in the game.

I think that, in general, the Civ5 family of Civilization iterations is generally not good for "gamist" sensibilities; I think Civ4, with its overflow mechanics, hit the sweet spot for the players who wanted to min/max every turn, and those who wanted to let the automation commence as they just hit end turn and had fairly fast-paced games. Civ5/6 shifts the balance on to the latter, as I find myself generally often skipping ahead, as there's somewhat less to do between turns.

That said, I think Civ6 has a lot of potential because of the revamped Civic system, removal of global happiness penalties, and it could very well be an overall iterative improvement over 5 -- but I have my reservations as usual, because the recent trend for Firaxis games is to be average until they get their DLCs.

Gone is the excellent multiplayer support of Civilization 4, so a game that has a lot of fun parts to it and is distinguished with nice, cool, complex features is harder to play in a mode that really maximizes its features.

Haven't followed on the release of Rise and Fall, but IMHO, if the AI didn't get any blatant cheats on its higher difficulty levels, as befits a Civ AI, the game is still pretty easy and ultimately kind of unsatisfying as a result.

[Narkis]

The game's AI is absolutely useless.

Since Civ5, Firaxis has not figured out how to make the AI actually work with the hex-system, 1UPT, and all the little refinements to the game. As a result, the AI can't compete. As a result, many otherwise valid complaints (such as about the simplicity of stack of doom warfare in the pre-Civ5 games) kind of fade because, well, Civ4's AI was an okay warfare opponent, especially at tech parity (which could very well happen on Immortal and Deity, even to seasoned players), and the Civ4 warfare system had cool stuff like promotions and they worked well with Great Generals.

Civ6 AI simply crumbles and its units form clogged highways. The added complexity to the civic and Great People system is also completely mishandled by the AI.

I also generally dislike Civ6's shift towards extreme cartoon style, as it was never this egregious, not even in Civ3, which I thought had the worst leader faces. Some characters look cool in the new style (Genghis, Trajan), some make you question whether you want to even roleplay as them (Australian man in tacky clothes or Hyacinth Bucket as the leader of the Dutch). The other thing that I wish they changed would be to allow the player to actually view more info and graphs; I know the franchise is trying to be more accessible, but it would be nice to have the option to have more stats about what's going on in the game.

I think that, in general, the Civ5 family of Civilization iterations is generally not good for "gamist" sensibilities; I think Civ4, with its overflow mechanics, hit the sweet spot for the players who wanted to min/max every turn, and those who wanted to let the automation commence as they just hit end turn and had fairly fast-paced games. Civ5/6 shifts the balance on to the latter, as I find myself generally often skipping ahead, as there's somewhat less to do between turns.

That said, I think Civ6 has a lot of potential because of the revamped Civic system, removal of global happiness penalties, and it could very well be an overall iterative improvement over 5 -- but I have my reservations as usual, because the recent trend for Firaxis games is to be average until they get their DLCs.

Gone is the excellent multiplayer support of Civilization 4, so a game that has a lot of fun parts to it and is distinguished with nice, cool, complex features is harder to play in a mode that really maximizes its features.

Haven't followed on the release of Rise and Fall, but IMHO, if the AI didn't get any blatant cheats on its higher difficulty levels, as befits a Civ AI, the game is still pretty easy and ultimately kind of unsatisfying as a result.

I've played Rise and Fall, and the AI remains as useless as ever. They just added some new gimmicks that the AI fails to take account. Namely, a loyalty system that works kinda like 4's culture pressure for flipping cities, only with no interaction with the actual culture mechanics or anything other than raw population, governors that give bonuses but don't really affect strategy, and points that you gather for doing well that give you a golden age, or a dark age if you don't have enough.

And I kinda like the artstyle, but +1 on pretty much everything else. It looks like Civ4 will remain unsurpassed for gameplay.

[Kish]

Thanks.

As I said, Civilization V comparisons are completely lost on me, but I'm gathering it's more like Civilization V than it is like any of the earlier ones, so I'll stick with Civilization IV.

[neriana]

I'm gonna piggyback on this thread. I absolutely hated Civ 5, but loved Civs 1 through 4. It's been a long time since I loaded up 5, and that was only for a few hours, so unfortunately I can't recall the specifics of why I hated it. It's sounding like Civ 6 is more like 5 than any of the previous ones -- is that correct? I could only find reviews elsewhere by people who enjoyed 5, which is obviously of no use to someone who hated 5.

I don't particularly care about the graphics so long as it runs smoothly. AI at high levels is also a non-issue to me, but if the AI acts like chieftain on prince or monarch modes, that's a problem. I like different winning states and usually go for a science, diplomatic, or cultural victory. The district thing sounds pretty neat. Though it doesn't sound like that makes up for the negatives.

It's sad; Civilization was one franchise I could buy on release day, know I'd love it, and feel it was money well-spent. Then Civ 5 came along and that ended abruptly.

[Drasius]

Thanks.

As I said, Civilization V comparisons are completely lost on me, but I'm gathering it's more like Civilization V than it is like any of the earlier ones, so I'll stick with Civilization IV.

CiV was a very stark departure from IV. VI is really just a (rather thorough) refinement of V.

Quick suggestion though - Watch a Let's Play and get an idea if it's your bag from there?


I'm gonna piggyback on this thread. I absolutely hated Civ 5, but loved Civs 1 through 4. It's been a long time since I loaded up 5, and that was only for a few hours, so unfortunately I can't recall the specifics of why I hated it. It's sounding like Civ 6 is more like 5 than any of the previous ones -- is that correct? I could only find reviews elsewhere by people who enjoyed 5, which is obviously of no use to someone who hated 5.

I don't particularly care about the graphics so long as it runs smoothly. AI at high levels is also a non-issue to me, but if the AI acts like chieftain on prince or monarch modes, that's a problem. I like different winning states and usually go for a science, diplomatic, or cultural victory. The district thing sounds pretty neat. Though it doesn't sound like that makes up for the negatives.

It's sad; Civilization was one franchise I could buy on release day, know I'd love it, and feel it was money well-spent. Then Civ 5 came along and that ended abruptly.

As above. If you hated V, odds are strong that you won't like VI since it's built on the same basic structure, but with a bunch of tweaks to take the multitude of rough edges off.

The policy card system is ... passable, but the religion system is pretty good. I'm not sure I like the way they handle government changes/advances, but it's not the worst thing ever. The tech tree is alright, but feels like it's lacking something.

As for running smooth, I recall it being a bit of a resource hog, even more than V, which was pretty damn bad on release.

I think the general rule of thumb was whatever difficulty you played on in III or IV, bump it up by 2 and it'll be about the same.

[Thrantar]

I'd actually recommend looking up Sullla's website. He was active in the Civ IV community, stayed away for the duration of V, and has returned to the community with Civ VI. While there are many particulars on which I don't necessarily agree, I find that he is generally reasonably articulate, and he has written at length on both games.

[Kato]

Huh... As someone who enjoyed the early civilization games (I think I never really played the original though) I really liked V. I'm not saying everything was better after IV, but I basically liked the general change of directions. (I think unit stacking was stupid. There, I said it)
Then again, I never was someone who was entirely dedicated, so I guess by Civ standards the few hundred hours I invested are nothing since I regularly still lost mid difficulty games (I'm too much of a pacifist, I guess)

Though, I haven't played VI yet, so I can't really contribute..

[Sian]

I'd actually recommend looking up Sullla's website. He was active in the Civ IV community, stayed away for the duration of V, and has returned to the community with Civ VI. While there are many particulars on which I don't necessarily agree, I find that he is generally reasonably articulate, and he has written at length on both games.

To elaborate, he recently (as in, last fall) posted a One Year Review (http://www.sullla.com/Civ6/exceedsexpectations.html), and came out with the conclusion that outside of the fact that the AI sucked (... which objectively it have always done in a Civilization game ... nowadays its just able to do it on a more level playing field than it was in IV), and that the game is contesting for worst UI/information accessibility, it's a surprisingly good game that is much closer to what made Civ4 a good game, than it initially appear, and significantly stronger as a Multiplayer game than as a singleplayer game.

1UPT have also been made a lot more manageable since there's a couple of independent 'layers' that disregard each other in terms of if a unit can move to a tile or not, so its possible to have a trader, a builder/settler, a missionary AND a combat unit on the same tile, since they're moving about on different layers. Also, for all that it might be valid to dislike 1upt for the fact that civilization maps are too small for sensible tactical combat, they probably pull it off as well as it could be done, and the combat itself is fairly sensible.

That said, the game is dragged down a lot by an AI that don't understand/appriciate half the mechanics, for all that the mechanics, when used between human players is very strong.

[Cazero]

(I think unit stacking was stupid. There, I said it)
Funny story : in Civ I, stacking units was actively detrimental (unless in a city). Beating the top unit would kill the whole stack.
(Funnier story : any unit could 'beat' a nuke in the fight phase. Still getting nuked.)

[Cespenar]

If you're looking for a remastered Civ 4, 5-6 aren't that.

But I think removing the unit stacking was one of the best decisions they could have done. Even though I come from the older Civ times, changing unit stacking made it a lot better from a tactical sense.

The other parts (religion, culture, etc.) always change with every iteration, so I don't think that's too big of an issue.

But yeah, I agree with 6's AI having totally sucked. I hope they changed it with the latest patches?

I'm fairly of the opinion that if the AI is fixed, anyone should give 5-6 a chance if they don't 100% hate the non-unit-stacking thing (for some reason).

[Winthur]

changing unit stacking made it a lot better from a tactical sense.
Eh, multiplayer games still involved a great amount of skill in waging warfare, and even in single player there were nuances that made the game enjoyable for warmongers. You no longer had a static, binary "Nonveteran/Veteran" upgrade system and the Generals had more interesting functions than forming units into Armies. You could have made specialist units, such as Medics or adept Woodsmen who would move really fast through jungle and forest. There was even some additional micromanagement because applying a promotion healed your unit, so it was sometimes worth risking to fight with an unupgraded unit so that it could later regain momentum by being healed. It was generally fun to conquer stuff.

Personally, I always considered Civ to be about dealing with all sorts of empire stuff in a "macro" way and the abstraction of warfare was honestly not ever a problem for me. Even if you had more stuff, you could have still lost it if you ended your turn in the open or if you simply miscalculated your ancient rush and suicided a lot of production against walls.

Stacks of Doom in Civ4 would be alleviated if the AI was good at doing the same thing that the human player does when combatting AI stacks of doom - which is sieging your stack to do collateral and then crushing it with your own force. The AI isn't quite there, but at all levels it's at least capable of making a stack of units, choosing priority targets, and invading your territory.

Again, I don't think that the tactical layer of the Civ5 era of design can be ever utilized if the AI is going to be so bad.

[Cespenar]

I'll not argue that the doomstacks of Civ 4 have evolved to a balance in multiplayer and that it had its own tactical depth. But as a bare-bones design point of view, I like the non-stacks a lot more.

What I also loved was the fact that they made a fresh change like that. The legacy of Civ meant that they could just pump up the same game over and over again with only minor changes in some arbitrary side-systems, but they chose to make a big change, and I find that laudable on principle.

Also, honestly Civ 5's AI didn't have much trouble with the new system, as far as I've experienced. I think it's specifically 6 that they botched something with the AI.

[Winthur]

Also, honestly Civ 5's AI didn't have much trouble with the new system, as far as I've experienced. I think it's specifically 6 that they botched something with the AI.

I remember crushing Civ5 AI on Immortal within a few days of trying Civ5 out and it really didn't do well in warfare. Civ5's main distinguishing feature in combat seemed to be that the 1UPT causes massive unit blockage on hexes. It was quite bloated that way.

I'm not sure how I feel about "trying fresh ideas in games with a solid formula and just producing iterative sequels", mostly because I remember what happened to Heroes of Might & Magic IV and, well, I'm not a big fan of Civ5. :smalltongue:

[Drasius]

Also, honestly Civ 5's AI didn't have much trouble with the new system, as far as I've experienced. I think it's specifically 6 that they botched something with the AI.

May I politely suggest going back and reading through the various dedicated forums at the time of release for CiV? I strongly suspect you'll find many, many complaints that the AI was neutered even more than it already was. I certainly remember stepping up a couple of difficulties because I was in a position to call a game won as soon as I got out of the ancient era in early CiV days.

While VI certainly hasn't made any real improvements, it's also not really any worse (bar some strange ideas about moving settlers through warzones).

[Cespenar]

I'm not sure how I feel about "trying fresh ideas in games with a solid formula and just producing iterative sequels", mostly because I remember what happened to Heroes of Might & Magic IV and, well, I'm not a big fan of Civ5. :smalltongue:

Are you talking about the best Heroes since 3? *braces for impact*


May I politely suggest going back and reading through the various dedicated forums at the time of release for CiV? I strongly suspect you'll find many, many complaints that the AI was neutered even more than it already was. I certainly remember stepping up a couple of difficulties because I was in a position to call a game won as soon as I got out of the ancient era in early CiV days.

While VI certainly hasn't made any real improvements, it's also not really any worse (bar some strange ideas about moving settlers through warzones).

I'm certain you can look at any dedicated forum and see nothing but pages and pages of issues about barely existing "problems".

Still, in my experience, in Civ 5 on higher difficulties, the AI could actually hold up to you. In 6, I had many battles where the AI outnumbered me 3 to 1 and did nothing but rearrange troops turn after turn while I spammed ranged attacks.

Then again, I don't have more than a handful runs with each of those under my belt, so I'll ultimately not push this point further.

[Drasius]

I'm certain you can look at any dedicated forum and see nothing but pages and pages of issues about barely existing "problems".

Still, in my experience, in Civ 5 on higher difficulties, the AI could actually hold up to you. In 6, I had many battles where the AI outnumbered me 3 to 1 and did nothing but rearrange troops turn after turn while I spammed ranged attacks.

Then again, I don't have more than a handful runs with each of those under my belt, so I'll ultimately not push this point further.

Were you playing the same difficulty in V as IV though? I wasn't saying that you couldn't find a difficult fight against the AI at higher levels (unless you were already a Diety player), just that it was easier.

[Winthur]

Are you talking about the best Heroes since 3? *braces for impact*
I liked HoMM4. Not a lot of people did. It had problems. It was still not bad. It had a pretty damn good campaign though. I'd play it over 5 in some respects mostly because HoMM5 is so slow. Still, a lot of backlash went from the drastic changes from the last iteration that did not go well.

[The_Snark]

Eh, multiplayer games still involved a great amount of skill in waging warfare, and even in single player there were nuances that made the game enjoyable for warmongers.

That was true of Civ V too, though. The AI is pretty awful at warfare, that's definitely a downside to the transition from stacking to one-unit-per-hex, but in a multiplayer game against other human players I feel it's a lot more interesting.

(Tangentially, I suspect that peoples' preferences have a lot to do with which iteration they were exposed to first; Civ V was the first one I played, and when I got around to trying Civ IV I found it decidedly unsatisfactory. For people who played the earlier version first, the opposite is often true.)

[Winthur]

That was true of Civ V too, though.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying: Civ5 has all the tools to shine in MP. Problem is, Firaxis also didn't support MP very well for their newest releases. AFAIR, Civ5 killed the Civ4Players League, and they were receptive to the new game.



(Tangentially, I suspect that peoples' preferences have a lot to do with which iteration they were exposed to first; Civ V was the first one I played, and when I got around to trying Civ IV I found it decidedly unsatisfactory. For people who played the earlier version first, the opposite is often true.)
Oh, that happens too. My first Civ was 2 and I liked it quite a bit, but ended up conceding that 4 is a better iteration. You still find a lot of people who are die-hard about Civ1-3, although I was never quite sure what those games do strictly better than 4. (I still generally would rather play 3 over 5, but that's just me)

[Kato]

I liked HoMM4. Not a lot of people did. It had problems. It was still not bad. It had a pretty damn good campaign though. I'd play it over 5 in some respects mostly because HoMM5 is so slow. Still, a lot of backlash went from the drastic changes from the last iteration that did not go well.

Yeah, heroes IV had a great campaign. And I liked having a level 60 barbarian hero that could slaughter armies of critters on his own. Sadly a few other things had gotten worse but overall it's still a great game (in my memory, anyway)

[Cespenar]

Were you playing the same difficulty in V as IV though? I wasn't saying that you couldn't find a difficult fight against the AI at higher levels (unless you were already a Diety player), just that it was easier.

I was comparing more like 5 to 6, but about 4, you're correct: 5-6 are much easier than 3-4 on similar difficulties.


I liked HoMM4. Not a lot of people did. It had problems. It was still not bad. It had a pretty damn good campaign though. I'd play it over 5 in some respects mostly because HoMM5 is so slow. Still, a lot of backlash went from the drastic changes from the last iteration that did not go well.

Eh, I remember some backlash in magazines and whatnot, but from personal experience, everyone I knew who liked 3 seemed to also like 4. Which isn't much of a dataset, but still.

If all gear changes between games were to be made in that vein, I'd be a very happy gamer.


(Tangentially, I suspect that peoples' preferences have a lot to do with which iteration they were exposed to first; Civ V was the first one I played, and when I got around to trying Civ IV I found it decidedly unsatisfactory. For people who played the earlier version first, the opposite is often true.)

As a theory I can definitely get behind that. Personally, though, it was the opposite for me. Master of Magic into Civ 3 into SMAC into Col into Civ 4 into Civ 5-6, and honestly I prefer the non-stacks. Or, at least I prefer the change to non-stacks in the new games.