They released a preview copy to the media and there are several full previews posted.

I have some concerns regarding the AI. It seems like it has an issue with upgrading units and defending during war. A month before release is not much time to fix this.

Though they have made some improvements, I'm still not a fan of the graphical style. The map is just too colourful for my liking.

I expect a Civ5 type release again, with AI issues that take months to fix.

I've been enjoying Lewis and Duncan's series with the preview build (the aesthetic, I've decided, pleases me well, and the new engine looks relatively solid).
They remind me of the hours my brother and I have played together (with a few previous titles), with me in the backseat. Good times.


There are a number of quality of life shortcomings in the UI, likely more than will be adequately addressed before release.

And I reckon that Zanteogo's prediction of a long road of AI iterations ahead in order to achieve something generally satisfactory is a safe bet.

Releases this Friday for anyone who is interested.

If you want to get the Aztecs you need to pre-order before then. (Else you wait until January and get it for free)

I am not pre-ordering, and will be waiting for a sale plus letting some time pass so they can work out the issues.

Zanteogo wrote:I am not pre-ordering, and will be waiting for a sale plus letting some time pass so they can work out the issues.

ditto.

Richard Bartle reviews Civ 6.

"Bag of unconnected irritants" might be the over-simplified summary....

The more of see of Civ 6 the more underwhelmed I am.

They tried to make it a "complete package" on release. As in not to need a bunch of DLC to make it a full game.

However, despite the new style graphics it's mostly just more of the old with a twist and a few changes.

One common issue I have seen across the board is the AI, it doesn't seem like it "understands" the game it's playing yet.

They could have checked out the more popular mods from Civ 5 and perhaps borrowed some ideas. Little things, like not removing range from the machine gun and allowing civilian units to enter friendly military units spaces.

My original plan was to wait until 2017 and grab this one during it's first sale. I think I may wait longer however.

I feel like Civ 6 plays much slower than Civ 5. Things take longer to build and the added terrain penalties are just a bore. Also, the Huge maps in Civ 6 are 30% smaller than those in Civ 5, having 3000 fewer tiles, which is sad for me because I like playing huge maps. The huge maps in Civ 6 are fairly similar in size to the large map size in Civ 5. It also seems that the AI doesn't fully understand how to allocate districts. The other day I won a game on prince difficulty with the science victory incredibly easily. In total, there are just over 60 techs in the tech tree, and I had completed the tree while the 2nd place civ had only completed 30 techs.

The religion system in this game is not very well developed even though there is a religious victory in Civ 6. It doesn't seem to complement with other facets of the game at all and it would have been better if they would have held off on including it and developed it more.

Overall, the professional reviews of this game are pretty ridiculous. There's no way it should be getting a 90 on Metacritic. I would give it a 6 or 7 right now.

masseffect7 wrote: Overall, the professional reviews of this game are pretty ridiculous. There's no way it should be getting a 90 on Metacritic. I would give it a 6 or 7 right now.

"Professional" reviews are generally a joke.

@Zanteogo
Yeah, I was a huge Civ 5 fan, at least when it got all of its expansions, and I feel like if you really liked Civ V, you are less likely to like Civ 6. I just find Civ V to be a more enjoyable experience. I find Civ 6 to be somewhat tedious. I think a lot of these game publications assign people who really aren't familiar with Civ or strategy gaming because strategy gaming doesn't get a lot of attention, so they don't really have much of a reference as to what a good strategy game is or what a good Civ game is. On Metacritic the lowest "professional" review is a 70 and the vast majority are above a 90. It's funny that Civ V got a 90 at release too, and that game was pretty bad at release as well. I hope Civ 6 gets better over time, but I really don't know what they are going to add that's going to make me like it more. Everything about the game that I don't like are things that they took from Civ V but significantly changed or things that are completely new. Getting rid of the extra terrain penalties and giving builders more uses before they expire would be a good start. But, I really can't think of a single way that I think this game improves over Civ V: Complete. Maybe the one thing that is good are the science bonuses you complete certain tasks, but that's about it.

I guess one cool thing I forgot is that Sean Bean dies at the end of the Classical era and they have someone else narrate the rest of the game.