More impression of Civ6

Civ6 is a punishing (fun) game. I’m playing on the easiest level as a learner and the AI has a naggingly consistent propensity to totally wreck my beautiful plans. 

My biggest gripe is how shit the startup screens are. Huge ego stuffing symbols from the creators, then a single mouse click which you always need to do. 

Hey designers – if I don’t have a choice then just move on. Or allow me to click quickly through. IDGAF about your company name. I care about Civ. /grumble. 

I’ll say I’m generally winning or at least making good in roads but cripes – the AI is sometimes illogical. 

For example:

• NPC civ plonked a city between two of my cities because there was just a sliver of space. Who does that! Bastards. 
• Building walls is an almost must do, but they drain so much cash and production early on. Perhaps I need to build in close and not spread so far. 
• The barbarians appear about 10 turns after your units declare war and swing over the other side of the map. Bastards. 
• How do I reduce how many other NPC civs are present. So many contenders. Perhaps I need to start on a huge map. 
• Who in hell knows how to start a religious victory style game? 
• Why are the penalties for killing and razing a city so nasty in the early game? Isn’t this what civs did?

Good game though. 

Confused about pvp

Essential reading for us clueless pvp players.

I need some help understanding pvp. /confused

My questions for the uber-gankers out there:

– Which rewards from the battlegrounds are the must haves for pve toons?

– Is there even a hard rule?

– Why is it even acceptable to have rewards that are good pve options in pvp, which are not also “solo grind-able” in pve?

– Do you think the gear quality will continue in the next expansion, so that pvp for pve continues to be a viable upgrade path?

You see I’m an old grumpy bastard, who used to think he was good at first person shooters when Quake 2 and Unreal Tournament were new. That was pvp in no uncertain terms. For a while I learnt maps, played a lot, and had a machine that made other gamers cry. I pwned before the concept of tea-bagging was popular.

Over time my attention for fast twitch games waned, my reflexes slowed, and I didn’t give much thought to pvp like activities. Then I started playing wow, and the idea of killing others in a somewhat fair competition was again an option. It wasn’t immediately exciting, and being on a pve server I chose not to do PvP. I figured I leave it to the kids, they’ll get excited about it, and stay out of my pugs.

But now I see pvp gear that would be very handy as pve rewards, and I’m told that pvp is not too hard and all you need to do is grind out the time. Battlegrounds especially are highlighted as a domain of severe disparity between the can’s and the can-nots, but if you’re killing to die over and over, you can get the gear. I was also warned that the time sink is huge to get the valuable gear.

To qualify this I started grinding BG Honor to get a Paladin main weapon upgrade. A prot pally with some resilience gear seems darn hard to kill (insert cockroach joke by BRK), but altogether useless at anything but defense. I have literally announced the incoming attack by 3 goons, and survived the time it took my comrades to run from the other side of the EotS map to defend the node. Then the screen cleared I was still standing on our node.

A typical pvp game for my pally is:
/Say “I’ll sit on MageTower, and yell when they’re inc.”
/cast rank 1 Consecrate
..wait..
/cast Perception
..wait..
[repeat till in combat, overwhelmed, or sap’ed]

Arena seems like a hot blooded gank fest. I have no doubt that it takes extreme amounts of skill and effort to get to the top ranks, and that you need to be devoted/organised to get the anywhere close to the top gear. Meh, I’m casual by choice as well as circumstance and a 3 minute death parade holds no value.

Battlegrounds appear to have a tad more story and strategy, but I can’t get a real picture on what roles to do, or what strategies are valid. If these strategies exist, then why are they not followed? That would be like trying to do a pve boss with a totally inappropriate group. Just silly.

Zone pvp seems the most natural expression of pvp, and indeed the most logical. A contested area that can be controlled and defended by the players in the area at the time is a great concept. But the it is very difficult to balance the needs of the pve levelers and the pvp zone players.

For now my plan is to ignore the logic, and sit in BGs till I have enough honor for my upgrade. Ignore the boredom, ignore the fools, and ignore the afk players. It seems a poor way to play, but the rewards are otherwise achievable.