Alright so this is more of a first impressions kind of thing. I'm not going to talk about any technical issues because whining about the tech issues that the game has currently (such as the audio bug) all have fixes available, and if you take that or take the advice of someone who's PC doesn't match specs who says that this game is bad because they can't read or research then I'm afraid you're easily misled.

Anyway, moving on. I would write a full-blown review but I haven't played it for anywhere near as long as I would like to so I'll hold off on that for now and just briefly describe what I like and dislike.

Pros:
- Building and managing cities is sigificantly more challenging and strategy is more heavily involved. Gone are the days where you can build as much as you wanted with ease, as well as the days where you could have 1 or 2 cities but still have literally every building and unit in the game due to ridiculously high production.

- The soundtrack is astoundingly good. Christopher Tin and Geoff Knorr have done it again, every piece of music is beautifully crafted and thus easily surpasses any other soundtrack released this year. Doom, Mankind Divided, Shadow Warrior 2 - they all had good soundtracks but anything with Christopher Tin's touch is automatically skyrocketed into the realms of god-tier music.

- The aesthetic is pretty. It doesn't look overly cartoony and it's a nice lick of fresh paint for the game. I absolutely adore the fog of war too, the map doesn't go dark and foggy when your units move around; instead the map looks more like.. well, a map. There's some wonderful post-processing and I think that the textures look magnificent. You have to bare in mind that Civ is NOT intended to compete with games like Crysis 3 or Battlefield 1, the game is meant to set new standards for 4X games and those games have never been about visual fidelity or how pretty a polygon looks. But saying that the game is really, really good looking, there's great details that I continue to discover as I play.

- The UI isn't as dire as everyone says it is. To say that it's a chore to use or that it's ugly would imply that it's in the realms of Beyond Earth's UI which truly was awful. The UI in Civ VI is closer to Civ V but it does lack some key information (such as eras). However, most of the information that you'll need is presented to you - the research screen tells you how far you are in comparison to other empires that you have met, as well as what research you need and what it'll allow you to do (as expected).

- Builders are no longer overpowered. They - as well as other great people - are limited use. Great people were always limited use but they act similarly to builders in that some of them have 2 or 3 people within the 'unit'. That will allow you 2 or 3 uses of said unit, builders can build 3 improvements until they're all used up which will prompt you to either build more or focus on districts to try to capitalise on housing and production.

- Culture researching is a welcome addition. Culture isn't as limited as it was in Civ V (it was pretty good, but Civ VI does it better). It allows you to change your government and policies, which will allow you to shape your empire into something different every time - so long as you're the kind of player who enjoys experimenting, rather than going for the policies and tactics which are always going to win.

- There's lots of pros to this game, but the last one I'll point out are envoys. You can no longer just infinitely pay a city state to like you, envoys replace that. The more envoys you have, the more benefits you unlock. Simple! Envoys can also be sent to other great empires in order to improve relations and act as spies, they'll relay important information back to you.

Cons:

- Diplomacy is a bit silly. The system feels REALLY nice, it's much better than it was in Civ V, however the diplomacy AI seems to randomly denounce you without much reason. Not only that, but I feel as though some of their demands (such as Kongo's demand of religion) are quite hard to meet as they have ridiculously short deadlines, especially if you meet them early on in the game. It's very inconsistent, and is kind of annoying. That being said there is multiplayer and mods will be on their way soon (which I am looking forward to).

- As I mentioned, the UI does forget to mention some information which can be key or useful. The notifications are quite fiddly, and the icons for housing and amenities look exactly the same on a quick glance. More of a variation between the two could be useful.

- This is more nitpicky than anything else, but you can't rename cities or units. I'm only putting it in cons so I can try to fill it out a bit more, but I really don't care too much about not being able to re-name Sheffield as something rude that Steam'll block if I write it out here.

----

I'll be waiting until mod support comes out as well as the first few patches before updating the review. I'm sure that Firaxis are aware of the problems with the game, but there are no outright issues which make the game unplayable.

If you're a long-time Civ player and you're very particular about how the game plays then I'd suggest waiting. If you're like me and you love Civ, but don't let the game be ruined by a couple of issues then get it. I'd also suggest getting it if you're new to Civ, but pick up IV and V too as they're both superb games!

Alright so this is more of a first impressions kind of thing. I'm not going to talk about any technical issues because whining about the tech issues that the game has currently (such as the audio bug) all have fixes available, and if you take that or take the advice of someone who's PC doesn't match specs who says that this game is bad because they can't read or research then I'm afraid you're easily misled. Anyway, moving on. I would write a full-blown review but I haven't played it for anywhere near as long as I would like to so I'll hold off on that for now and just briefly describe what I like and dislike. Pros: - Building and managing cities is sigificantly more challenging and strategy is more heavily involved. Gone are the days where you can build as much as you wanted with ease, as well as the days where you could have 1 or 2 cities but still have literally every building and unit in the game due to ridiculously high production. - The soundtrack is astoundingly good. Christopher Tin and Geoff Knorr have done it again, every piece of music is beautifully crafted and thus easily surpasses any other soundtrack released this year. Doom, Mankind Divided, Shadow Warrior 2 - they all had good soundtracks but anything with Christopher Tin's touch is automatically skyrocketed into the realms of god-tier music. - The aesthetic is pretty. It doesn't look overly cartoony and it's a nice lick of fresh paint for the game. I absolutely adore the fog of war too, the map doesn't go dark and foggy when your units move around; instead the map looks more like.. well, a map. There's some wonderful post-processing and I think that the textures look magnificent. You have to bare in mind that Civ is NOT intended to compete with games like Crysis 3 or Battlefield 1, the game is meant to set new standards for 4X games and those games have never been about visual fidelity or how pretty a polygon looks. But saying that the game is really, really good looking, there's great details that I continue to discover as I play. - The UI isn't as dire as everyone says it is. To say that it's a chore to use or that it's ugly would imply that it's in the realms of Beyond Earth's UI which truly was awful. The UI in Civ VI is closer to Civ V but it does lack some key information (such as eras). However, most of the information that you'll need is presented to you - the research screen tells you how far you are in comparison to other empires that you have met, as well as what research you need and what it'll allow you to do (as expected). - Builders are no longer overpowered. They - as well as other great people - are limited use. Great people were always limited use but they act similarly to builders in that some of them have 2 or 3 people within the 'unit'. That will allow you 2 or 3 uses of said unit, builders can build 3 improvements until they're all used up which will prompt you to either build more or focus on districts to try to capitalise on housing and production. - Culture researching is a welcome addition. Culture isn't as limited as it was in Civ V (it was pretty good, but Civ VI does it better). It allows you to change your government and policies, which will allow you to shape your empire into something different every time - so long as you're the kind of player who enjoys experimenting, rather than going for the policies and tactics which are always going to win. - There's lots of pros to this game, but the last one I'll point out are envoys. You can no longer just infinitely pay a city state to like you, envoys replace that. The more envoys you have, the more benefits you unlock. Simple! Envoys can also be sent to other great empires in order to improve relations and act as spies, they'll relay important information back to you. Cons: - Diplomacy is a bit silly. The system feels REALLY nice, it's much better than it was in Civ V, however the diplomacy AI seems to randomly denounce you without much reason. Not only that, but I feel as though some of their demands (such as Kongo's demand of religion) are quite hard to meet as they have ridiculously short deadlines, especially if you meet them early on in the game. It's very inconsistent, and is kind of annoying. That being said there is multiplayer and mods will be on their way soon (which I am looking forward to). - As I mentioned, the UI does forget to mention some information which can be key or useful. The notifications are quite fiddly, and the icons for housing and amenities look exactly the same on a quick glance. More of a variation between the two could be useful. - This is more nitpicky than anything else, but you can't rename cities or units. I'm only putting it in cons so I can try to fill it out a bit more, but I really don't care too much about not being able to re-name Sheffield as something rude that Steam'll block if I write it out here. ---- I'll be waiting until mod support comes out as well as the first few patches before updating the review. I'm sure that Firaxis are aware of the problems with the game, but there are no outright issues which make the game unplayable. If you're a long-time Civ player and you're very particular about how the game plays then I'd suggest waiting. If you're like me and you love Civ, but don't let the game be ruined by a couple of issues then get it. I'd also suggest getting it if you're new to Civ, but pick up IV and V too as they're both superb games!