AAJoe

My review is now live! ... but more important - here's an image. http://www.modmic.com/blogs/news/civilization-6-review

I'm getting pretty excited based on the videos I've seen from Quill and other early players. I finally get the district vs. improvement decision making that will go on. While for the most part it seems there's a "best" play (which means no decision), I've seen at least a few points where you really get to decide from multiple possible angles on how you want a city to grow. That's a huge boon over the old system of "Build everything, everywhere." Russia... has a weird play style by the sound of it. Extra tiles is basically money and maybe a minor boost to resources (if you get 1-2 tiles that you'd normally not be able to use immediately). Odds of it radically impacting your decision making or spending is fairly low... so those bonuses kinda suck. On the flip side they'll have massive territory by mid-game, which means there's likely going to be times you go to war and have an extra turn of the enemy in your territory but not able to pillage your stuff. That's where the real benefit appears to be. The real bonus appears to entirely be their Tundra bonus. That bonus makes Tundra the same as Plains, but with +1 faith. If you value faith the same as food or production, that puts Tundra on par with the two best tiles out there: Marsh and Floodplains. More important, strategically, it means your cities in Tundra areas are worth WAY less when conquered. I doubt the AI will take that into account, but against a human player given the choice between assaulting Russia and getting a bunch of frozen cities and somewhere else, you'd take the latter. There is a catch though, from what I can tell you can't build farms on flat tundra. So this means your frozen cities will want to be hills + forest heavy, ideally with a river. A hill or forest will mean a starting value of 1 food, 2 production (3 with a river for forests), 1 faith. That's pretty massive. That will leave the flat tundra land to become districts, most likely... and probably manufacturing districts since you'll have so many mines. Short version is everything about Russia appears to be pushing it massively towards huge production values and low population, but massive territorial areas. In the end I bet it will be a surprisingly flexible strategy.

Pretty neat and fun project. Did you ever consider just using something like tekflex wraps (or the generic equivalent)?

Rome. Boring as ever by the sound of it. Money. Military. Early expansion bonuses. Strong, but likely just going to be a warmongering nation in every play, which is my least favorite way to play Civ.

Greece sounds like a downright early game powerhouse based on the civic bonuses I've seen. If I recall correctly the first government forms only get 2-4 civic slots, so an extra "Wildcard" slot is pretty huge. It's kinda unclear what culture does though, still, so its hard to say if a lot of bonus culture is going to matter with early expansion. In Civ 5 culture really came snowballing in at the end game, making the early game culture run inconsequential other than for expanding your borders (which was admittedly enough to have SOME culture). So far all known wildcards are +2 great person points per turn... So I don't know how that translates into value yet, but if its on par with Civ 5's GPP speed that's pretty damn huge for the early game.

Kongo finally sounds like an actual interesting set. Mixing the inability to found religions with the incredible opportunity their unique tile gives (early explosive growth is the best kind of growth) means not only a dominant early game but likely early allies with your nearest neighbors as you'll want to adopt their religion quickly.

Has there been any real info on what "Housing" does?

Fun - Scythia on paper appears to be massively powerful compared to the ones we've seen so far. Unless I am missing something... they literally get double production when producing horseman units and can make a ranged cavalry (which means it will rip the AI apart no doubt and can probably capture cities relatively quickly)? That's HUGE... Plus their combat ability is always going to be handy (bonus dmg is always welcome and healing is always op). Its unclear how big an advantage building their unique tile is, but it sounds like its pretty easy to use as farmland is probably still the most common tile improvement option. Compare that to Brazil where its like "we generate some great people points and if you're lucky enough to have a lot of rainforest tiles you may get to decide to keep some of them for bonuses"...

Ah there we go, a civ with a reliance on getting a lucky spawn near Jungl... I mean Rainforest. Never been a huge fan of that mechanic. "Picks Celts. Spawns in a desert with 1 forest tile." *sigh*

I'm starting to sense a theme that most (all?) civs get an advantage on building some or all wonders. Bonus for mid-game wonders? From the Civ 5 perspective that would be pretty weak. The AI almost unilaterally rushes those and they are some of the hardest (and less useful) wonders to get. Alhambra and Chichen Itza specifically are near impossible at high difficulty to snipe away from the AI, and few of those classic/industrial era wonders are anywhere near as important as snagging the Hanging Gardens, Petra, and so on (Sadly Alhambra is among the more powerful ones, but short of rushing it and getting lucky good luck building it on Immortal+, which is all I play on). Again, until we see a tech tree and a list of what wonders do I am only basing it on Civ 5 and historic Civ effects. For all I know mid game wonders will be game changers

Wait... so both China and Aztec now can burn worker use for production, but the Aztec can do it on "most" tiles and the Chinese only on Wonders? I wonder if its going to be limited or, by mid game, can you amass a horde of workers and just insta-build wonders like a step back to the old civ and supply wagons... as if that was ever a good idea. I am unimpressed with China in this, fun as a wonder civ is, if their power entirely revolves around getting Wonders and going tall, it is unlikely to work on the harder difficulty modes again (Same as Civ 5). Aztec on the otherhand seem freaking incredible, since it implies that your combat bonus is not just for your crappy starter warrior units, but rather for all military... and early extra builders is always super powerful in Civ, to the extent that its basically required to cheese capturing city-state workers in Deity in Civ 5 to have a good shot at winning.

And its no surprise they didnt change Japan's Samurai much... though frankly no reduced damage when injured is one of the least useful abilities, unless they radically changed how much damage an injured unit does. The bonus was like less than 10% SOMETIMES vs. most units which had more than 10% always, or better yet bonuses that simply were more useful like movement, ranged attacks, etc.

All I think about now is Shore Leave saying "Sphinx!" from Venture Bros every time I see Egypt's tile improvement.

So... builders got the Beyond Earth treatment. I kind of like this change on the grounds that we all ended up with a small horde of builders doing nothing by mid game in Civ 5.

I can see I'll be turning off unit animations even faster this time around. So much work into something that is so annoying to watch