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GeekNights Tuesday - Civilization VI Initial Thoughts

Tonight on GeekNights, we bring our initial thoughts on Civilization VI. In the news, Giant Multiplayer Robot is likely to be able to support Civ VI, Really Bad Chess is really great, and Nintendo Switch cometh (to Scott's interest and Rym's ambivalence). We'll be live at GaymerX East, and also at MAGFest! Check out the GeekNights Patreon, Rym's youtube channel, and Scott's youtube channel!

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  • Live stream:
  • I shall be seeing you at GaymerX East as well. Going to do some ACTION CASTLE at the event this year.
  • My blind live stream.

  • So do you think you'll be switching your Rym vs. Scott matches over to this game, or will you just stick with Civ V?
  • Something Really Weird: Heathcliff was never cool. And it was the 80s, so of course all of the cartoon theme songs reference the 50s.
  • Listening to Scott be wrong about video games will never not be funny. And frustrating. But really, all the systems in Civ V were pretty simple. You want a complex system? Try to optimize trade in EU4. Then give up and cry because the math for it is super complicated.
  • I guess it's time for me to try Civ V.
  • okeefe said:

    I guess it's time for me to try Civ V.

  • What does it tell you about me and Civ VI that I'm listening to Geeknights about it.
  • Interesting look at the Civ games and the question of what civilization is, who gets to be a civilization, who gets to play, and who gets to "win."

  • Well, I own Civilization VI now and I'm totally up for multiplayer.
  • If someone has never played a Civ game before in their lives, would people recommend getting Civ VI at this point? Or starting with a previous Civ first?
  • Get this Civ. There is almost no reason to go back to older versions, think of them as incremental updates on a board game.
  • People who've played both (I haven't) have said that for now, Civ V is more "complete" (because of the two expansions, Gods and Kings and Brave New World), but Civ VI has higher potential.
  • Civ VI has everything that was right with Civ V plus some. It needs a little bit of polish and I'm bitter about Teddy Roosevelt but it is definitely the superior game.
  • Andrew said:

    Get this Civ. There is almost no reason to go back to older versions, think of them as incremental updates on a board game.

    This.

    Civilization VI still has some teething troubles to sort out for the moment, but at its core it's simply a better game than its predecessors.
  • You are bitter about Teddy Roosvelt? why?
  • Cremlian said:

    You are bitter about Teddy Roosvelt? why?

    He and McKinley likely sunk the USS Maine to justify our first Imperial war, developed the military industrial complex, and ordered war crimes in the Philippines. I acknowledge that his domestic policy was great, but his foreign policy was so heinous it's like using Lyndon Johnson for the role.
  • Lyndon Johnson is an apt comparison.

    He was one of the most progressive forces in modern American presidential history.

    He also expanded our horror wars overseas and pushed a ridiculously aggressive foreign policy that shakes the world to this day.
  • Greg said:

    Cremlian said:

    You are bitter about Teddy Roosvelt? why?

    He and McKinley likely sunk the USS Maine.
    Thought that said literally, and was about to demand a source. I still believe the jury is out on that one. From what I've read, people who should know, don't.

    So with that I choose to believe he took advantage of a bad situation, rather than caused it. Still dick move but less of one.
  • edited November 2016
    Meh? You are going to have trouble finding US presidents that didn't do something that is now looked upon as well unseemly.

    Also this is Civilization where if you are playing Multiplayer it's probably going to end up with you winning with a military victory of some sort.
    Post edited by Cremlian on
  • edited November 2016
    I'll admit I'm only okay with five of the Presidents as leaders in Civ, but I feel very strongly that we should stick to them. You know how bitter I get about history.
    Post edited by Greg on
  • Just realized you could play Eleanor Roosevelt in Civ 2. Interesting.
  • I'm waiting for Endless Space 2 to come out, to compare it to Civ VI. I ended up enjoying Endless Legends more than Civ 5, so who knows...
  • Civ V was boring until fully expanded. But Civ VI started from the level of complexity that V ended at.
  • edited November 2016
    From listening to the podcast, there's one notable thing you guys got wrong about how unit promotions work. You *can* actually move and promote in the same turn, as long as you have some non-zero amount of movement points left.

    There's a few important things I've worked out, as well as a couple of things I haven't worked out yet but would really like to know. I'll start with the big one I mentioned above, unit control.

    Unit control
    At a basic level, each unit's ability to do stuff is fundamentally controlled by its MP. Basically, a unit that has any amount of MP greater than 0 can do stuff, whereas a unit at zero MP can no longer do anything except be deleted.

    [Core non-movement actions]
    Melee attack
    - Must have enough MP to move to the tile you're attacking.
    - Ends turn (sets MP to 0).

    Ranged attack / Promote / Upgrade
    - Does not use MP (but you need to have more than zero).
    - Ends turn (sets MP to 0).

    Pillage
    - Costs 3 MP [or your unit's max MP if it's less than 3].
    - Does *not* end that unit's turn (you can move after pillaging if you have MP left).

    [Things that look like actions but aren't]
    Fortify
    - As far as I can see, Fortify isn't an action in the same sense as the others; it's more like a special of skipping your turn. A unit can skip its turn normally, or it can skip its turn and, if it hasn't moved at all that turn, also get the bonuses of being fortified. In particular, if you click "Fortify" on a unit you still have the option of doing other stuff instead.

    Heal
    - Healing is actually a side-effect of not moving. Any unit that didn't move at all in a given turn gets to heal, whether it chose to fortify or not; for naval units this only works in friendly territory.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • edited November 2016
    Here's some weird bugs / special cases I've found:
    1. For some reason, [Fortify and Heal] and [Rest and Repair] both actually use up all your MP for that unit even though [Fortify] and [Sleep] do not do this. There doesn't seem to be a sensible reason why this should be the case, as those two orders correspond to [Fortify / Sleep] + [notify me when you reach full HP].

    2. A lot of the time you will run into situations where the Promote option doesn't appear for your unit; that's because you've given it other orders that it intends to carry out when you end the turn. Thus, quite a lot of the time in order to promote a unit you will first have to hit Cancel, which then makes the option to promote available again.

    Also, pertinent to my above differentiation between Fortify and the other actions, you can actually Fortify a unit and Promote or Upgrade it in the same turn. It's possible this is a bug and you're not supposed to do this, but if you have a unit at full MP, you can do this:
    - Click Fortify.
    - Click Cancel.
    - Click Promote.
    and your unit will (at least according to the UI) become fortified and also get its promotion.

    Important question: If you promote a unit without moving it, do you also get the healing effects of not moving in addition to the healing effects of the promotion?

    3. There are a bunch of promotions in the game that effectively seem to remove the "ends turn" effect from attack actions. "Breakthrough" for Heavy Cavalry says "+1 additional attack per turn if Movement allows" whereas several others say "can move after attacking". The "Elite Guard" promotion for melee units lists both of these effects.

    I assume that this means you can have MP left over after attacking, but if those are two separate effects, how does this work? Can Heavy Cavalry with Breakthrough still move after attacking (despite the different wording), or do they have some kind of special MP that they can use to attack but not move!?

    Additionally, as a side effect of this, I think it probably means that you can upgrade or promote units after attacking in that same turn, which is a pretty big deal when the promotion also heals your unit.

    I haven't really had sufficiently high-level melee units to test this, but I did have a couple of ranged units with the Tier 4 promotion "Expert Marksman", which says "+1 additional attack per turn if unit has not moved". My observations:
    - It seems that this is currently bugged, because I found that those units could move and still get two attacks anyway.
    - After attacking, the ranged units would have their MP set to 0 making them unable to move, but they would retain the power to do other actions (e.g. attack again or promote). In particular, a ranged unit with that promotion appears to be able to Ranged Attack, then (as long as it didn't move) Fortify for the defense bonus, and then Promote; all in a single turn.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • edited November 2016
    Incidentally, that last piece of information suggests that my simplistic description of MP as the only relevant state variable is insufficient, since a T4 ranged unit can have 0MP and still perform actions.

    My guess is that the most basic level of unit control in Civ VI can be described by these three state variables:
    (1) MP total
    Melee attacks, movement, and pillaging all have specific MP costs that limit your ability to do these things.

    (2) Active / Inactive
    Normally, attacking or using up a unit's last remaining MP causes it to become "inactive", thus making it unable to perform any other actions. However, ranged units with "Expert Marksman" can be in a state where they have 0MP left but remain active, so clearly additional state variables are needed.

    (3) Number of attacks made this turn.
    Usually a unit can only attack once, but some units can attack twice with a special promotion. Thus one presumably needs an extra state variable to prevent units from attacking infinitely many times.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • I think it's clear that at this point there is no entirely consistent set of rules for unit control because the interface is fucked the fuck up.
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