Hi y’all! as you may know one of our members is moving oversea and another has been tied down, so as a fond farewell and for old times sake, we were thinking of having a Sid Meier’s Civilization game to commemorate.
Questions are:
- When would we be playing?
- What would we be playing?
- What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
- How many will play on the day?
- Ruleset?
1. When would we be playing?
The date floated is Saturday/Sunday 28th/29th January.
I would personally vote we try to get started on Friday evening (say ~8pm), that leaves Saturday evening for continuing (impossible), or a restart, or other games if people get bored.
2. What would we be playing?
IMO This is a very key question: Civ V or Civ VI (or Beyond earth ahaha or Humankind ahahahaah)
Civ V
Pros:
- Ultimate Nostalgia: Getting home from school, going on to play Civ V, Venice and Elephants, being recorded without knowing, ah good times (that I was totally apart of yep)
- Most people have it
- Simpler, easier to learn and people are probably familiar (although probably more hidden stuff to master).
- Raging barbs and complete kills
Cons:
- NETCODE SCAVANGED FROM A DIRTY BIFFA BIN BEHIND POOLE TESCOS: prepare your butts for desyncs galore and you better hope someone has a server.
- Less viable alternative playstyles: Science is king, Culture is 2nd and IMO weak, Domination (military) and Diplo victories aren’t really viable in MP. Civs are in no way balanced. Only 2 early game policy paths (Traditionalism and Liberty, 4 tall cities vs 7 wide cities) and Rationalism is a must pick, the others are just flavour.
- Slower game speed
The Lekmod fixes alot of the balance issue, but would require everyone to get it (and it removes Venice).
Civ VI
Pros:
- Stable(r) Netcode: Firaxis remembered some Civ players have friends.
- More viable playstyles: Religious victory is possible and quickest, Culture victory flips cities so actually does something IMO 2nd strongest, Science is still strong but actually takes a while, Diplo is both easier to gain points and lose them, Dom is even less viable.
- Different government types and policy changes on the fly, are viable.
- Wonder system is more selective and prevents 1 player spamming them all.
- Combat built around, fewer more powerful units, rather than mass hordes
- Map labels on Mountain ranges, rivers and deserts
- Runs better on potatoes
Cons:
- Less people have it
- More complex: District system can take planning to optimise, policies changing every 5 secs can be alot of options, Governors add more depth, Amenities and Loyalty can be weird to manage and War weariness isn’t very clear.
- Civs locked behind dlc
3. What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
50 – 65 km/h.
4. How many will play on the day?
It would be great if people could express their keeness to play and their preference for how in the comments below 
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5. Ruleset
What ruleset/map we will play on.
I advocate:
No score victory. And probably no domination victory cos I imagine that’s just a game ruining experience for the losers
Civ V: NQ balance map (for MP balance), Pangea, Classical era (to allow access to all ancient era wonders and units, but just gives the game a boost to shave off about an hour on victory time), strategic balance resources, raging barbarians ( ), complete kills (allows people to stay in the game even if all their cities get taken, can control units)
Civ VI: Vanilla, Strategic balanced resources, Classical era (same reasons), Terra map (All players start on 1 big continent, but there is a ‘New world’ with only city states that allows mid game colonisation/expansion), Disaster intensity level 3 ( )
In Conclusion
My personal preference would be on Friday 27th ~8pm playing Civ VI on online speed, Terra map, classical era, with a whole bunch of you.
If we decide something different I’ll still show up anyway and hopefully we’ll have a good and non-salty time