Has Civ VI become too "complex"?

[sbg137]

I expect to get flamed a bit on this opinion, but truth is Civ VI used to be my favorite game (near 500 hrs alone, considering I don't have much personal time for gaming) yet I haven't really played it in the last couple of years.

As each DLC seemed to add more and more systems to learn and conditions to consider, it started to become so many things to keep track of that affect so many things that affect so many things that affect so many things... ad infinitum. I started to wonder whether keeping a spreadsheet would help... but not my idea of fun.

I know I am probably a 1% minority, and there are Civ players out there who love the game as its become, and the new additions that deepen the gameplay and strategies needed, but to me its gone a bit too far, and I just wondered if I am alone in this thought, or there are others who struggle to enjoy the 2022 DLC-overloaded Civ VI as opposed to the vanilla?

Thanks guys, be kind.

PS. Yes I know I can uninstall all the DLC or play it in vanilla, but I just want to know if my opinion of the behemoth Civ VI has become, was shared....

[Aimee]

Yes Civ.6 does not only add districts and wonders on hex tiles. But also adds many other mechanics to the game with the Rise and Fall and Gathering Storm DLC's.
I think its good for the series to add new things, since most people would not have wanted another Civ.5 with better graphics. But this is indeed quite a lot of content and differences from the previous versions, considering its all in the same game and not a different gamemode. Like for example Civ.5 that had different gamemodes with seperate rulesets.

I think its too much, but i do like that you can choose how much you want to play of it.
Even after you buy DLC like Rise and Fall and Gathering Storm, you can choose what ruleset you play on before you start a game.
Personaly i prefer the Rise and Fall ruleset, since i think Loyalty and Govenors add a lot to the game. But i dont realy play Gathering Storm.
Unfortunaly you cant play with all DLC Civs if you dont play Gathering Storm, so thats a big downside.

I dont think your opinion on this is as unique as you think though.

[RedLabel]

No, I love the complexity opening up distinct pathways to victory. Granted if you're just starting out Civ 6 with all expansions and no experience with 4x games, it will be a steeper learning curve and can be intimidating. However, there's a certain sense of satisfaction you get once a system clicks and you're able to use it to your advantage, then you combine it with another game concept and synergize it. A game that was intimidating to me was Stellaris, but after going through the motions and the learning curve it was deeply rewarding and I'm glad I kept at it till it clicked.

[Aachen]

If the comparison-point is standard ruleset from around launch, I choose 2022 Six.

Frankly, I’ve been hoping for some expansion of the buildings-and-districts interactions for most of its lifetime.

[johnarhoades]

My take on it is similar. It is cluttered. The AI lacks direction, being an AI. They added all the extra hoops to jump through to succeed in ages - even tho it may not serve your victory path directly. Then add the heroes and secret societies and it is definitely cluttered. If you try to analyze it, then you you will say complex. I see it as an assembly line with too many random parts to decide to add or not. Makes us humans play like the AI. Unintelligently.

[Apollo702]

I am not going to flame you. I respectfully disagree though.

The way I see it is the new complexity is wonderful- with the exception of in C7 they need to work on the AI handling some of it better.

The main stumbling block for the AI seems to be city states. The #1 source of crashes, bugs... drumrollllllllllll........: City states.

I play a very modded game on the largest map and they are remarkably stable. Those maps also have fewer city states. I can't- and don't want to- restore them to their previous higher numbers. Yes, I lose out on some bonuses- but I get more stability and some more open land too.

[daenoth]

I have hundreds of hours in this game also and there are still things that I learn from watching videos online. That complexity is what separates players that are 'good enough' from those that are great. The nice part is that you don't really need to know everything to play the game, but it all helps.

The main problem seems to be with the AI, this is the exact same issue that Stellaris has. The complex systems are rewarding for a player to figure out, but the AI can't use them correctly, so to make them competitive they have to be allowed to cheat, even then a player that has learned all these systems will win nearly 100% of the time even on the highest difficulty.

The fact that a player can go from being far behind in the early game to easily winning after the modern era or so only highlights these issues. As the extra systems get added and become more important in later eras the AI can't keep up.

[Kool Kendall]

Humankind is too complex but Civ 6 is just right! And trust me i'm dumber than whale shi@

[Catalytic]

Originally posted by sbg137:

Thanks guys, be kind.

I have played ~1800 hours since the game was first released. It's a tremendous longevity that I have rarely reached with other games. I offer this perspective:

Complexity is a necessary part of this type of game. Complexity is what creates so many possible choices that you can't spreadsheet out a perfect solution. You can't develop a build order meta that you always play and which always works. The game throws too much at you and requires you to think and modify as you go based on imperfect information, a fog of war, and continually changing options. This is why I can keep coming back to a game I've already sunk 1800 hours into and not be bored with it.

In fact, I just played a game with Englanor (as opposed to Freleanor) and had an absolutely ghastly start location. City-state to the west, desert and coast southwest. Tundra north (room for 2 all tundra cities which would only be worth the effort after St. Basils or preserves went in). One decent coastal city to the south, and beyond that, I'm racing Suleiman for rivers/grassland/forests and none of it has great adjacencies for anything I need. I was easily an era behind by medieval, fought through 3 dark ages, and never caught up on science. They all simply snowballed too much while I dealt with terrible land. I eventually won the game with a religious victory using Earth Goddess pantheon and a massive appeal game to get tile yields high enough to support 1400+ faith apostles. Victory snatched from the jaws of defeat!

The point is that you're not supposed to have easy choices or a crystal clear path. You also don't need it. There are ways to achieve victory if you're clever and persistent, and keeping the game challenging is what keeps it fun. Would you rather play a game where every move matters right to the end or one where you're so far ahead you spend the last 80 turns just clicking next turn effectively on autopilot because the game was over long ago? Complexity is a good thing. Embrace the idea that you won't control everything and the AI will be superior to you at one thing or another, and that's ok!

[Maya-Neko]

Depends on which POV you're looking at.

For an AI it's definitely overly complex, since the dependencies make it very hard to simplify the calculations, making the way for tons of bugs and exploits. Though the AI is still as decently at it as it was in previous games. Good enough to not die in many instances, but no match for decent human opponents (even though the NFP-addons doesn't seem to be properly implemented, but we'll see, if they get added properly for the next game).

And for a human the game isn't really that complex, but rather just overwhelming. It appears to have a million features at first glance, but when you take a closer look, then most systems are just multiplied dozens of dozens of times to make the repetitive features be more fun to play with.
If you know how to place one district, then you're able to place most of them. If you know, how one luxury good works, then you know, how all of them work. If you know, how Warriors work, then you know, how every meele unit works. Sometimes something gets changed throughout the tech tree, like how artillery works against walls or how some buildings from the amenity- or industrial district impact multiple cities, but ultimately, you'll pretty much already understand like 90% of the game after seing 10% of the game.

And the rest of the game, which is more complex, like the grievance calculation or agendas are usually not as impactful to most players game. They can obviously cause players to not know, why something happens, but being loved or hated by players, getting more natural desasters or having a few AI cities flip due to loyalty doesn't really affect most casual players, unless they're trying to really push these systems to their limits for whatever reason.

Obviously, min-maxing starts to be a think at the highest difficulty or in PvP, but most somewhat decent players should easily be able to beat difficulty 7 regularly even with suboptimal strategies after a few 100 hours played. Though since difficulty 4 is the baseline difficulty, that's pretty much what the devs expect the majority of the playerbase to play at after learning the games basics and i wouldn't be surprised, if the majority of players could do that if they stick to the game long enough.

[grognardgary]

The question breaks down into two parts. is it more complex than the the current AI design can effectively handle. Emphatically yes. 2nd Is it to much for most players to deal with? Equally emphatically no.

[sbg137]

Ok guys thanks for all the feedback. As one poster mentioned, perhaps I should have used the term "overwhelming" rather than complex.

Anyway, seems I may be in a minority although not completely alone :) Cheers to all.

[Playzr 🐵]

All the new stuff does make it feel a bit like work after a while. It's probably great for a small civ of a handful of cities but when you have tons of cities and units it's a lot of work. But it's not exactly optional since we feel inclined to do everything we can as much as possible.

[Copernicus]

There are different ways to enjoy a game. You can have a game like Chess, where the rules are fairly simple and the interactions between pieces do not vary; playing the game becomes a challenge to how well you can predict the choices of your opponent. You can have a game like a FPS, where the challenge is (usually) to test your reaction time to events that pop up in front of you.

Or, you can have a game where the rules are not obvious, the board is not known ahead of time, your opponents' strengths are not well understood, and your abilities can change over time. The challenge in this case is to learn the rules _as you are playing_, understand your situation, determine exactly what it is you want to accomplish, and discover novel approaches to achieve that goal.

The reason Firaxis concentrates on adding more and more content is exactly this -- to continue to provide the player with more and more novel material, so that they can continue to discover and adapt to new circumstances.