Losing the weekend
I started playing the game on a Friday after work, where I played for about an hour, just trying to understand the district mechanic, before getting super confused and slightly annoyed at my war mongering neighbour.
I returned on the Saturday to start again. 1 hour in, once again, the neighbouring civilization declares war on me, for no reason and I get a little pissed off, so put the game down again for a few hours.
That evening, I relaunched Civ. and started a new game. This time I was a little more aggressive with colonization, and after about 50 turns I started to build more units. However, before any of my units finished being produced, the Kongo declares war on me. They surrounded my city with 10+ troops, and at this time my entire nation had 2. Against the odds though, we bare the storm, and hold off the attack until more units are built. I manage to kill off half of their army which is seiging my city, and they sue for peace - even accepting a deal which gave me control over their smallest city.
A few turns pass, and the other nation on the continent, Sumeria, declare war on the Kongo. At this point, their armies were about equal, so I started to amass an army on the Kongolese border, wanting to help Sumeria; who had been friendly with me up until now. I declare war on the Kongo, whilst Sumeria struggles to take a single city from the Kongo, before peacing out after taking it. However, unlike Sumeria I am not mericiful, I continue this bloody war until the Kongo is no more, and England rules supreme.
After taking the Kongo, Sumeria starts to get a little pissy (something about me being a warmongerer, which I though was quite rich coming from them). After a while, they declare war on me. Once again, outnumbering my army... but being quite behind in tech, their troops didn't last long, and it wasn't long before I started marching through their cities, 1 by 1, taking them as my own.
By the end of the Anglo-Sumerian war, England was starting to do the Manhattan Project... in 1840. Getting the itch to leave the continent, I go in search of new lands, and Japan was the unfortunate soul to be the first to be found. Although I declared war on them using Modern Armour, and Artillery, whilst they used Samurais and Horsemen, they took out a few of my small expeditionary force, before I managed to take out the first city of theirs. And after that was taken, taking the next 4, one of whichwas the capital, was pretty easy...
And that's where my game rests right now. Japan holds on with 2 cities left, that I know about, America and Arabia have formed an alliance, and Arabia is on Japan's border... so a world war is on the horizon. But I still have a few more civilizations to find.
Rating the game
The game is definitely good, and if you lost days to the old Civ. games then you will lose more to Civ. 6.
However, I do have a few gripes with Civilzation VI.
Firstly, roads. In previous games you would have a worker build roads between cities, or to random areas if you so wished. But now you use trade routes to do this. Which is slightly annoying as you can only build 1 road every 30(?) turns in the early game, when you only have 1 trade route available. Not only this, but you can only have roads to existing cities; meaning you can't build a road to where you want your new city to be, so that the settlers can get there quicker.
Secondly, builders. Builders now have 4 uses. This is good, because it means you don't have loads of builders running around doing bugger all in the late game. But it means in the early game, you either have to do without them, or waste time building more... especially if you're a colonial bastard, who builds settlers as soon as they can.
Thirdly, amenities. In Civ. 5 you knew when your citizens were unhappy, you knew why they were unhappy, and you knew what you could do to make them happier. In Civ. 6 happiness is now on a per city basis (a good thing in my opinion), and refered to as amenities. However, how do you get these? Well... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ is the simple answer. Resources are mean to give you amenities, but working new luxury resource tiles doesn't seem to appease my majority of moaners... Not a single city is happy, and honestly, I don't care anymore, let them keep moaning, no matter what I do, it doesn't seem to please them! It's just a shame I have to take a hit to productivity because of this.
Finally, the AI's superiority complex. In every game I played so far, and every war I have been in, the AI has started with a bigger army than mine. Which is slightly scary, but then they don't seem to be able to use it properly, or focus on one of my less important units, allowing me to turn the tides easier. Don't get me wrong, I don't want them to only fix the latter without the former, but I also don't want the enemy to make 10 units when they only attack with 4, because the other 6 just get in the way, and make a wall I have to fight through... Either that, or they just go around pillaging everything.
Other than this, the new culture system is great, and the way it ties in with the research system is great. It definitely is a great game, and I know things will get fixed. By the time Civ. 6 reaches the end of its life cycle, there'll probably be some "core" DLC, like Gods and Kings & Brave New Worlds in Civ. 5, that change the game in such a way that my gripes are no longer there.
TL;DR:
- If you liked Civ.5, get Civ. 6.
- If you like grand strategy games, get Civ. 6
- If you think time is precious, avoid Civ. 6
- If you want to feel like you're at a constant disadvantge, but actually stand a chance, get Civ. 6
- If you have a child/dog/other thing which requires love and/or attention, avoid Civ. 6
