Civilization 6 - First Update

PCGamesN reports that the first update for Civilization 6 is live:

Civ 6's first update is now live: adds DX12, new map types, and fixes exploits

The Civilization VI Fall 2016 update goes live today. It adds DirectX 12 and Logitech ARX support, plus two new map types, a new multiplayer scenario, balance changes, AI tuning and fixes for a whole host of bugs and exploits. If you didn’t totally ruin a game by playing Tomyris and spamming cavalry to sell, looks like it’s too late.



The update will install itself automatically when you start Steam. Read on for a full breakdown of what's included.

New features

The update adds two new map types, ‘Four-Leaf Clover’ and ‘Six-Armed Snowflake’, which are balanced for four and six players. These will be symmetrical, competitive maps with several starting zones clustered around a resource-rich centre - ideal for incentivising conflict in a multiplayer game, but also playable offline.

The ‘Cavalry and Cannonades’ scenario is added to multiplayer. This is a combat scenario with reduced unit maintenance costs, no strategic resource requirement for units, and which grants a larger starting army and more techs. The goal is to get the most territory after 50 turns.

DirectX 12 and Logitech ARX support have been added, so make sure your drivers are up to date.

Gameplay changes

A number of nice quality-of-life additions, such as new hotkeys and a notification for Barbarian scouts that have seen your city. Some requested features from Civ 5 also return; you'll now be able to see the next tile a city will claim through culture, and can rename cities.

• Added additional notifications.
• Added a “time defeat” for running out of time. This is always disabled if a Score Victory is available.
• Added additional Hotkey support (next unit, next city).
• Added the ability to rename cities.
• Added UI to show the next tile a city will grow to.
• Added a visual cue for Barbarian Scouts that are alerted to your city.
• Changed Dan Quayle rankings.

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Thanks Farflame!

More information.

To the fellow watchmembers playing this game (no, I don't include myself among them… yet):

According to Rock, Paper, Shotgun, "(…) YES, YOU CAN NOW RENAME YOUR CITIES." (the capital letters are from their article )

For those interested in this style of game...

There are still a lot of issues with this game (primarily the poor AI) but it is still a really solid game with some pretty good new mechanics. Overall, not as good as Civ5 with all of its expansions imo, but I suspect with some further patches and expansions this is headed to become the best Civ ever.

Actually, Civ6 wipes the floor with Civ5.
Expansions? Since when we're judging games by DLC?

joxer said:

Actually, Civ6 wipes the floor with Civ5.
Expansions? Since when we're judging games by DLC?

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Well, if you want to crown the "Best Civ game ever", of course expansions have to be included. Civ 5 was okish at release. With Gods and Kings and especially a Brave new world it's my favourite Civ so far.

Haven't gotten around to Civ VI yet though.

joxer said:

Actually, Civ6 wipes the floor with Civ5.
Expansions? Since when we're judging games by DLC?

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You can judge them however you want. I judge them with expansions and for me Civ5 with expansions is still the slightly better game (though i'm still enjoying Civ6 a lot).

"Changed Dan Quayle rankings."

!!! Is this a change we need to discuss over in the politics/religion forum?

Sure, just as Casus Belli.

Some great changes. The AI's stupidness isn't as apparent anymore (escorts settlers now), but well, it's still very stupid and not much of a challenge if you know what you are doing.

Yea but that makes the Viking-longship-settler achievement perhaps impossible now!

I'm liking Civ 6 but damn city-planning has taken on a whole new meaning with districts.

It's just flat-out better, more complex and more engaging than Civ 5; this release really does feel like an "upgrade" in every way. Complexity has been turned up several notches in planning alone. (And I have hundreds of hours played on Civ 5, loved that game as well. Civ is kind of my multiplayer game of choice at home.)

Good patch. They'll continue to sharpen up the AI I expect.

I like the concept of Districts. That you need to specialize and don't just queue up all buildings in every city. But that's the theory.

But the implementation of these has a couple of issues:
1. Some Districts are much, much more powerful than others. I usually never build Religious Districts, Culture Districts, and only very few Entertainment districts. Industrial Districts and Science Districts are the key to victory. So you don't specialize cities. You make all of them to production & science cities.
2. Districts are extremely strong and provide a huge part of production and science. So the pure amount of number of cities (because you cannot have more than 1 district of each type in a city) is crucial. If your cities all have a size of 7-13 that's perfectly fine. No need to make bigger districts. Building tons of cities is the key to victory.
3. Industrial districts are somewhat annoying with their district range (you can give the boost of factories and power plants to cities within a 6 tile radius). This again incentivies to build tons of cities on close space (ideally with not much more than 3 or 4 tiles range). That way you can boost many more cities with a single industrial district.
4. District Bonuses are out of balance with other bonuses of Civilizations. District bonuses are always best. A: Because they don't count into the district limit B: Because they are built within half the time.
Germanys bonus is huge in that regard. You need to build an undustrial district in all your cities anyways, so having it cheaper is a nice bonus. In addition you can always build an industrial district in all cities. If you conquer an AI city which already has a campus and culture district but only a size of 5 because it shrunk - no worries, you can still build 2 more districts as germany because the industrial district doesn't count and with their other bonus they get an additional district spot in all of their cities.

Beside science and industry, I also build merchant districts everywhere. Great merchant amenities are too good to ignore at least on singleplayer maps.