Civilization VI Announced - Out October 21st

Spoilers: It plays exactly the same as every other Civ game.

Just logged into Steam and saw this in my recommended games and was like wuuuuuuuuuut

@fredchuckdave: inject it in my veins plz

YES!

YES!!!

YES!!!!!

I'm not ready. I don't have the time. Ohgosh. This is bad.

They sure dropped Beyond Earth in a hurry. Not going to complain.

why does it look like a mobile game?

Mmm, after Beyond Earth I don't really know that I want another by-the-numbers Civ game. I'll probably buy it anyways though.

After Beyond Earth I'm going to hold off for a while on this one.

Those screenshots on steam are....um....hmmm.

And the base game is £50 D:

I'll wait till there's an expansion or two.

(That's how it goes right?)

That is a real by-the-numbers trailer...

I can't be the only one that actually wants a Beyond Earth 2, right?

I feel like I still have a lot of time I could still put into Civ 5 and Endless Legend, so highly doubt I'll get this at launch.

It looks like a Civ game with the grid and UI turned off.

@beachthunder: I don't think there's very many of ye :) They dropped the ball quite badly on Civ:BE. There were some things in it that should never have gotten past user testing.

It definitely has Civ Rev's color palette which is kinda worrying? You might want to ask: if they took inspiration from Civ Rev in the art style, did they take anything else?

Regarding the low graphical fidelity I would say that is normal/welcomed. They probably looked at the average PC running Civ 5 and opted to not focus on visual quality to avoid shrinking their user base by a lot. Bottom line: you can't make money on an demanding exclusive AAA PC game nowadays.

Well we all know that simply isn't the case, just look to the recent XCOM 2 as an example.

Art looks fine but I feel it lacks any distinguishing style. Also Stellaris just came out and it really took a lot of the wind out of Civ VI sails. Their "research boost" is pretty much the same system as what Stellaris does with studying debris.

Definetly will need to see more but I'm pretty cold on Civ right now.

Art looks like a new direction for the series but it doesn't look bad. Just different, perhaps bigger. Could have something to do with this new districting system, we'll have to wait and see. Judging a game off of three screenshots seems premature.

Also, my current iMac/MacBook can't play Civ IV or Civ V past a certain point without huge black chunks of land every time I start up and sometimes all the terrain just going black forever until I reload, so it would be cool if the art were easier to process. On the other hand, I'm close to being in the market for a Mac Air or Macbook Pro (it's been half a decade since I went computer shopping, it's odd that Pros are now cheaper than Macbook propers) so that may not factor in to my decision to purchase Civ VI by the time it releases.

Does this mean Sean Bean is the narrator? I hope so.

@theuprightman: Every technology description ends with him dying somehow.

@limond: Every time a new weapon tech is discovered, he just sighs and says 'not again'

1-XCOM 2 doesn't look that great

2-How much did it actually sell? Under 800 000 if steam spy is to be believed. I wouldn't call that a breakout success.

Civ 5 sold over 8 million units. You can see undemanding games consistently selling way better than demanding AAA games on PC. It seems like either not that many people own gaming rigs or not many gaming rig owners buy AAA games.

I was excited to see how much better Dawn of war and Civ look after 6-7 years and both somehow look worse.

Potentially really good changes. It looks like it potentially shakes up critical pathing the tech tree. That's a change that's needed to happen ever since Civ 1 and ties it to geography in a way that makes a lot of historical and economic sense. I can see the sense especially for the early game but can't tell if that flows through the mid and late game.

I don't think XCOM 2 is a AAA game, it's a turn based strategy game that is known for being punishingly difficult.

I'm excited about this but a little concerned about how much brain space I'll have for this with stellaris, and total war Warhammer both out this month. By the time October hits I'll likely be done with them though.

@pyrodactyl: You're talking about a game that has been on sale for YEARS and been in any number of bundles and a part of numerous sales. Not a great comparison.

Anyway, the whole concept of a "AAA" game is silly anyway. Everyone has their own definition of what even constitutes such a title.

Cool. Will multiplayer finally have animations? If not, then I don't give a shit. That was the reason I quit playing Civ 5.

Civ 6 is one of those games that i have been daydreaming about for many years, and it certainly did not look like this in my imagination. But i guess that is a unfair standard to compare it to, and at the end of the day gameplay is king in Civ, and I am always willing to give Firaxis the benefit of the doubt.

Districts sounds interesting, hopefully they can help differentiate the cities more than in 5. I always felt that cities in 4 had more personality and uniqueness than those in 5 due to how the national wonders used to work.

I like the new style. I think the style of Civ V is better, but I'm willing to give this a shot. It's pretty cute.

The changes sound promising. All I've wanted for some time is for Civ leaders to have personalities to contend with.

While we're all here, does anyone have a favorite multiplayer game that is like Civ but is not Civ?

It looks like Civ V multiplayer has had animations for a long time. Do you specifically mean will the leaders be animated?

More like... Civilizatoon, am I right?!

Guys?

..

I guess a new Civ game could be okay. Civ V was pretty much perfect for me though. The more casual approach made the game so damn addicting!

@jakob187: fwiw, I'm 99% sure the Civ V multiplayer has animations, but they're turned off by default because it assumes more experienced players would want to skip them to save time. If you go into the advanced options when starting the match, there's an option called something like "quick combat" and if you uncheck it, you should have combat animations.

I had mixed reactions when seeing this. At first I was disappointed because I figured there's no way it'll be as good as Civ V until it releases a couple expansions. Then I saw it has all of the mechanics from the Civ V expansions, so maybe it'll be good and feel intricate enough from the get go? Not sure I like the color pallet. Everything seems to bright and saturated, but it might be cool once I get used to it.

Regardless, I'm definitely pre-ordering this. Civilization is one of those series that I have to buy into no matter what. Even if its not a good release, I like to see it for myself.

WOOHOO!!!

Beyond Earth left me monumentally disappointed, I felt they did the exactly same thing as they did with Civ V, which was, release a game that is nowhere near full fledged or great at launch and try to improve it with expansions. What's worse is that it felt like such a calculated move in that game, it didn't take much of the improvements from expansions to Civ V, and feels almost intentionally held back.

I hope I am wrong, but I fear it will be another underdeveloped game that will be really great in an expansion or two.

Civ V does indeed have multiplayer animations and I believe you are correct that they are turned off by default.

@atwa: they said all the features from civ v and its expansions will be included so it sounds like they learned their lesson in that regard.

I'd be interested if they dialed back some of the Civ 5 changes, or atleast had a good overhaul on how the game works. I really wanted to like Civ V but the pace of the game was really slowed down to a crawl with how much the game penalized making new cities with it's Happiness, Culture, and Science mechanics, and then to take cities over just to have them sit there as 'puppet states' was really annoying too.

The diplomatic AI could also use improvements and I'd take smart AI over 'we're out to get the player' AI any day of the week.

Hmmm, it will be interesting to see what they bring to the table with a new Civ installment. There has been a LOT of 4x games since the last one, some of them quite good and/or interesting that I feel moved the genre forward overall.

Oh my god, what. Why does it look... like that?

@theuprightman said:

That's what I'm wondering, too. I'm guessing the trailer ends up as the opening movie for the game, but not sure if he'll be doing leader/civ intros, science quotes, etc.

(I keep thinking the narrator from Civ V (W. Morgan Sheppard) was in Game of Thrones, but maybe it's just an "older British actor" stereotype at this point.)

http://www.pcgamer.com/civilization-6-everything-you-need-to-know/

I'm hyped. Goddamn it Firaxis.

you act like it's hideous. at "worst" it looks very similar to civ5. i do wish they evolved/changed the aesthetics more but we've barely seen any of the game.

Why is Ned Stark trying to sell me Civ 6?

Oh please make another good 4X game after making Beyond Earth...

EDIT: Ha! They "PG'ed" the breast in La Liberté guidant le peuple.

@mlarrabee: Beyond Earth was a typical Civ game, decent but it needs an expansion to become what they are known for. They never gave it anything after release though and that's why it's not well received.

Also I noticed the edited boobs right away. I had to roll my eyes at it. Surely they could have used some other art piece to symbolize what you were supposed to feel with out having to resort to editing the work.

I feel like this came out of nowhere and I'm actually super excited? I saw a tiny picture with "Civilization" written on it in my steam queue and at first I was like "wonder what small Civ offshoot they're making this time" and then I saw the VI. Hype.

@limond: It's such a strange design decision. Why even use that painting if they're going to censor it? I assume the trailer was already done and then someone else saw it and freaked out just as they were about to announce the game and publish the trailer, and then someone had to blur it out? Or maybe it's a way for them to dodge a higher ESRB or whatever rating?

Whatever the reason, if that's the actual intro to the game though, then we totally need a day one mod to fix this.

I am always ready for an excuse to play more Civilization.

I think it looks alright. I worry that the 'fun layout puzzle' of district placement around a city will be fun exactly once before becoming a hassle.

Are they finally gonna add Australia to the Civ canon? That's probably the only thing that would make get it, since I've already got Civ 4 and Civ 5 (even though I haven't played them at all yet).