19.12.16

Streamed like 8 hours of Civilization VI today. I promised I'd finish the game, but darn do some of the new features annoy me.

Let's start with the fact that the minimum distance between two cities is still 3 tiles. While I felt that was a tad low, it wasn't too outrageous in the previous installment. Now, however, every single district and wonder consumes a tile, which leaves oh-so-little space for regular tile improvements.

Now, add to that that the districts and wonders nearly always want to be on or next to some specific tiles and other districts and that you can't remove these once built, and you're left with either frustration at misplaced buildings, or having to plan all the buildings you'll ever potentially construct right at the beginning of the game.

Further, the decisions between keeping those great tiles that are producing you lots of resources, or instead putting wonders or districts over them are not pleasant ones to make. Do they add strategical complexity and/or diversity? Maybe. Are they fun? Not at all. And I'd say that's the case with the entire build-your-buildings-on-the-actual-hex-grid system.

Endless Legend (which currently holds the spot of my favorite TBS) does this district stuff much better, although that is due to the restriction of one city per (fairly large) area and because most tiles don't actually have any upgrades to be constructed on them.

Other than that, Civ's UI is still annoying, but that's a problem that can be fixed with relative ease in comparison to the problems mentioned above, which may just plague the entire installment forever.