Firaxis has announced that Civilization VI is being released October 2016: (I always find trailers like this this kind of silly. The Civ games aren't really about humanity's great achievements, they're about screwing over other empires so that you can achieve some arbitrary victory conditions before they do. But I digress.) From the steam page: EXPANSIVE EMPIRES: See the marvels of your empire spread across the map like never before. Each city spans multiple tiles so you can custom build your cities to take full advantage of the local terrain. ACTIVE RESEARCH: Unlock boosts that speed your civilization’s progress through history. To advance more quickly, use your units to actively explore, develop your environment, and discover new cultures. DYNAMIC DIPLOMACY: Interactions with other civilizations change over the course of the game, from primitive first interactions where conflict is a fact of life, to late game alliances and negotiations. COMBINED ARMS: Expanding on the “one unit per tile” design, support units can now be embedded with other units, like anti-tank support with infantry, or a warrior with settlers. Similar units can also be combined to form powerful “Corps” units. ENHANCED MULTIPLAYER: In addition to traditional multiplayer modes, cooperate and compete with your friends in a wide variety of situations all designed to be easily completed in a single session. A CIV FOR ALL PLAYERS: Civilization VI provides veteran players new ways to build and tune their civilization for the greatest chance of success. New tutorial systems introduce new players to the underlying concepts so they can easily get started. Can't say I'm a fan of the aesthetic, it looks too cartoony. I'm also unsure of this new combined arms idea. I loathed the old stacks of doom and I'm reluctant to accept any moves, even minor ones, back in that direction. But it's a Civ game, I've played and enjoyed them all to some extent. Hopefully I'll feel the same way about this one.
Most of those points could be applied to any Civ game, really. Except for the "each city spans multiple tiles" part. That seems interesting and is something that I've been wanting for a while. But I'll probably hold off on picking it up at (or soon after) launch. They'll probably roll out an expansion pack within a year after launch and bundle it together at a discount.
I never even seriously thought about buying CIV 5... Found that one too cartoonish as well. I may end up passing this one by - that'll make two sequels passed up after having bought ALL of the previous versions (and enjoying them). Does that say something about modern game design?
I can't help but see a deliberately cartoony aesthetic as a bad sign. All too often, if it looks like it's meant for small children, it'll play like it's meant for small children. Maybe it'll look better in action.
I don't know why you think Civ 5 looks cartoonish. Civ 4 had a slightly cartoony aesthetic, which is something I didn't like so I downloaded a texture pack to make it look more natural, which is why I was glad that Civ 5 chose to adopt a more realistic look. If that's your honest reason for skipping Civ 5, then you should probably give the game a fair shot some time. The vanilla game was a bit bare, but the two expansions were absolutely fantastic and really fleshed out the game. Civ 5 has now surpassed Civ 2 to become my favourite game of the series. That's why I'm optimistic about Civ 6. The lead designer is Ed Beach, and he was the lead designer on the Civ 5 expansions, so if there's anyone I trust to make a Civ game that suits my tastes, it's him. I just hope that someone releases a texture pack quickly. It reminds me of Civ Revolution, which was a fine game for what it was, but I don't want the main Civ series to be anything like it.
^ And modding CIV4 to clear up a few of it's visual glitches is exactly what I did, almost as soon as I got it...
Me too, I've kind of given up on the franchise since Civ V. The recent releases just do not add any significant new mechanics that changes the gameplay in new and unexpected ways. It just feels like I'm playing a slightly altered version of Civ IV.
I've read many criticisms of Civ5 over the years, but the complaint that it's too similar to Civ4 hasn't been one of them. Civs 1-4 were iterative in that the core mechanics of those games were the same. They were tweaked a little, and some new features were added and some old features were removed between versions, but there's a clear through-line between those four games. Civ 4 was the pinnacle of that lineage, although not my personal favourite, but it was the game that consolidated that traditional Civ gameplay experience about as well as possible. Civ 5 was a reboot in strategy game terms. They kept the very basic stuff, such as tiles, cities, and units, but every other mechanic was either replaced or redesigned. Economy sliders were completely removed. Government types were replaced with social policies. City-based happiness was replaced with a global system. Science was tied to population, not gold. And then there's the biggest change of all, the removal of unit stacking. All of those staples of the first four games are radically different in Civ 5, and that's without even getting into what the expansions added to the series. As for Beyond Earth, it's clearly a game built in the Civ 5 engine, but I find the common criticism that it's a reskin of Civ 5 is unfair. Some of its core mechanics, such as the tech-web and affinities system, are radically different from anything attempted in a Civ game before. It's certainly a bigger departure from 5 than 4 was from 3, or 3 from 2. That's not to say that it's necessarily a good game, but it's certainly its own game, for better or worse.
I'm excited for the new game (and that Ed Beach is designing it). Everything I've heard so far makes me optimistic (especially the focus on the diplomacy system). I like Civ4 and Civ5 fairly equally (although I certainly switched to Civ5 a long time ago) and I'm curious to see where this goes. Glad they get it in before the 25th Anniversary ends. I actually had sort of dropped out of Firaxis games recently. I found that my computer barely supported XCOM (and my laptop died and the new one is even less supportive) so I never bothered with the expansion or Beyond Earth. I think, for this, I'll build a desktop computer rather than hoping my laptop is good enough.
I've played every iteration of Civ games since the days of the old DOS original. I thought the direction they were heading in with Civ V was the right direction, if maybe perhaps the wrong approach. But I grew to love it more than Civ IV. I'm still playing Civ Beyond and loving it right now. I'm not sure I like the screen shots I've seen, but I'm holding judgment until I can see some turns being played on YouTube or something. It really doesn't matter if I think I'll like it or not though, because the second it's available I'll be downloading and playing it.
I should have expanded on what I meant. While the mechanics may have changed, I found that my playstyle and strategies has not changed from game to game. It doesn't even matter if I'm playing Civ 3, 4 or 5. I know I have to send out explorers, take barbarian huts before the other empires do, then the typical strategy is bum-rush cities, wonders and research until my empire is physically and technologically superior and either win a tech race or use the tech to conquer everyone else. If Fraxis wants me to buy another Civ game, incremental change won't do it anymore. I need a fresh take on Civ that completely upend my old strategies, present me with something... different. If not, I will just keep playing my beloved Civ IV.
^^^ Personally, I have hopes for the "tech progress depends on where you are" mechanic that's been mentioned - if the AI uses this right, it should lead to more diverse civs and strategies. I do agree that we could do with a bit more variety though. Civ V tried that with the one-city rule for Venice, and I really liked how that changed things up. Perhaps we need more civ-specific limits? I'm not really sure about the city-on-multiple-tiles thing. Does my game become radically different if say I can't build happiness buildings because I settled in hills? Then again, I hated the one unit per tile rule that Civ V introduced at first, but once I tried it, it liked it and it did really change how I used units, especially ranged ones. So who knows...
I recently started playing Civ II: Test of Time again. I have Civ III and the Alpha Centauri games, but haven't been tempted by any of the newer games.
As far as I can tell, you will always be able to build happiness buildings. Terrain merely gives a bonus to certain districts like hills might give a bonus to your industry district.
I can't say I'm overly interested because as far as I can tell there really is no more sensible diplomacy system than we've seen in the last few editions. At no point in a campaign do I ever feel like my allies will remain such or even that I have much control over that apart from not being actively hostile. I'm always on my own. That war between Caesar and I in the Classical age when I finally got fed up with him and captured his cities will always define me as a warmonger. That city I built to stop Bismark from building one that would split my territory in half has now earned an eternal enemy. The game essentially gives no long-term incentive for peaceful alliances or provides any means of shoring them up. You're at the will of the nonsensical AI. By the time you hit the modern era, you basically have to be prepared and capable of defeating the rest of the world militarily no matter which victory condition you're pursuing.
The diplomacy system in Civ V sucks and seemed to suck worse with every tweak made to it. There should be exponential decay of other nations' opinions of you if you cease repeating your past behaviour -- be it bad or good in their opinion. In addition, nations that are naturally belligerent, not directly threatened, and see you as a potential enemy against one of their foes should not side with the peace camp. I believe game theory could be used to assign cost and benefit values but such calculations seem to be absent.