Civilization VI
(Trigger warning, mild depression talk)
On one hand, I have a lot of issues with both the gameplay and the overall messages and tone that come out of Sid Meier’s Civilization games. On the other hand:
Civs 4 and 5 are both games I’ve gotten lost in, in very unhealthy ways. Throughout college I had a really bad habit of starting up a game after classes and playing it until 4am for most of a week, destroying my sleep schedule and making me feel absolutely awful. I missed meals and assignments in school because of these games. People joke about “One More Turn” but it always makes me feel kind of uncomfortable, because if I allow it I will quite literally hurt myself playing this game.
Civs are games about juggling a ton of balls all at once, throwing ones up that you won’t see again for half an hour, but needing to remember that as soon as that one comes down you have to throw up another one. I love how vast and complex they are, and how they lend themselves to creating stories, but these strengths are also the same things that allow me to focus on the games instead of social obligations, instead of school assignments, instead of self care.
Even worse, the way I played Civ 4 and 5 was always so disorganized, and it kind of made it really stressful. Even after 550 hours I’m not really sure if I’d call myself “good” at Civ games. I’d try keeping notes but I’d always forget, I’d get bored and start on some ill-advised project in a poorly planned city, and in general as the game went on I’d start to lose interest in the big picture and end up in a really frustrating mid-to-late game where I was just barely keeping up with the AI and it felt like I had just wasted all the hours I put into it in the first place. Even when I had made good decisions in the early game or won a war with an aggressive enemy, those little victories would get washed away in the hours and hours that seemed completely empty.
But despite all that, there’s something magical about exploring a big, random map for the first time, saying “ooh, that’s a good city spot” and “fucking hell, Montezuma again?” When you finally have a game where you really get rolling it’s so satisfying to be out-teching the AI and have super-productive cities super early. I know it sounds like I kind of hate these games but I really do look back on them fondly. The total conversion mods for Civ 4 like Fall from Heaven 2 (and mods of that mod, even) turned the game into this wildly unbalanced mishmash of mechanics that turns each individual game into exploration of completely new mechanics you’d never seen before, with wild scenarios like unleashing a horde of hell’s demons that destroy your civ, taking over the demons, and overrunning Erebus with all powerful hell units. I don’t know that I’ve ever explored a modding community like I did with Civ 4, and it was an incredible experience.
So fast forward to 2016. Civ 6 was coming out and I was sort of a weird mix of interested and apprehensive. It looked like it improved on so many of the things that were un-fun in 5, and that there would be a lot of depth to explore right from the get-go. But I have a job now, and a lot less time in general to get completely sucked into an epic 12 hour game where I just get more and more annoyed and sad that building a better army is always the answer. It’s hard for me to look back at my experiences with the series and say “yes, this time I will manage to have the self-control to go to bed because I have work tomorrow.”
The tipping factor in getting me to try it was that my job wanted to host a multiplayer stream for Extra Life. I’ve always felt like multiplayer is one of the most engaging aspects of the game, because at least then you’re being social and anything you experience becomes a story you have together with those people. I decided the game was worth trying out and just letting myself explore even if all it meant was playing a game with some friends on stream. If I see myself developing those same depressive tendencies again I’ll make myself stop, and that’ll be a little victory in itself.
And well, so far so good. I’ve only played for 28 hours (only), and I’m finding it really engaging but have still managed to pull myself back from the brink to eat and sleep. The eureka and district systems give me shorter term goals to stay engaged while also being deep enough to force me to start leaving pins in the map and notes to myself about what I’m doing, and it’s so satisfying to finally see a plan come together.
City planning has gone from something of a rote checklist to a more freeform activity dictated by the land surrounding your city and your eventual district planning. In one game I planned out my entire capital in the ancient era, with an industrial district I wouldn’t build for over 100 turns. When I finally plopped it down and my city became ridiculously more productive it felt like, maybe for the first time, I finally understood how to play a Civilization game.
While combat is still a chore, I finally feel like I can play around it and still have a fulfilling experience. The late-game may still be dominated by nukes and mega-wars but the most fun parts of the game when I’m still in a dead heat with the other great powers feel so much more engaging when I’m half-researching techs because I know in 4 turns my city will finish building the last bank that triggers a Eureka, and then my great scientist will push me through a few techs I’ve been neglecting, and suddenly I’m way ahead in tech and in a much better position than before. It somehow feels more freeform but still very skill-intense, as prioritizing which bonuses to go for and which you’d rather just research without bothering is very difficult.
All this is to say, I haven’t had a Civ 6 game that I’ve come away from feeling like I completely wasted my time yet. My relationship with this game is still young, but it seems like this might finally be the Civ that I can play without enabling my anhedonia. I’m proud of myself for that. Sometimes you need those little victories, and games are, if nothing else, fantastic for little victories.
