The game was crashing for me when the DX12 mode was enabled. When I started it with Vulcan, it was fine. The same issue had Path of Exile 2 just after its release.
- UI is pretty bad.
- Leader options are very limited, and there are no descriptions at all.
- Building options are weird. I couldn't get why only my main city could produce anything in turn; all others had only the option to buy it for money. I wasn't playing long, so maybe I missed something.
- Commanders are a good idea until you start the fight, then it's annoying.
- Everything feels sluggish. I was bored before I even checked anything.
- Custom map options are very limited.
- The graphics of maps is fine. The graphics of UI and leaders are pathetic. The last versions had cartoonish leaders, but their emotions were clear. Now all look like lifeless dummies.
- Is it me, or is there no auto-explore option for units?
- The basic game lacks things that should be included. How do they make anyone pay for two leaders or something that barely matters and should be in a standard game?
The list is longer, but I don't remember everything right now ...
UI is definitely all over the place, I follow the /r/civ subreddit. Some UI/UX designers had a field day going over the amount of misaligned objects/lines and poor kerning. It really looks like they had 5 different groups working on different aspects of the UI and no one talked with each other and/or "we'll fix it after launch/modders will fix it"
The building options works that you don't plop down cities everywhere, you have your main city then you're dropping down settlements. Those settlements are single-purpose (I believe) and then you can spend resources to turn them into cities. But know that the more cities you have (and the further out they are, they will have lower happiness, I believe that rings back to either Civ4 or 5, it's been a long time since I played either of those).
The graphics/UI comes back again with very poor color representation to know what is happening in front of you in terms of what types of buildings are in a city, which are age-less and which will be removed between ages, etc.
There isn't an auto-explore for units
But yeah, I'm glad I held off and didn't buy it. I'll gladly wait for the $20 version that has every DLC and years of patches/updates to it that hopefully resolve a lot of complaints (and/or modders had time to fix it too).
There's massive problems with the map generation and some of the overall design choices (Continents+ is basically 2 squares with a vertical line of islands separating them, apparently).
Reading the comments to the latest patch notes people on console were crashing between ages, between turns, looking at wonders, building wonders, etc. That's entirely unacceptable, although I understand the console version of 6 (especially on switch) was mediocre anyway, so I couldn't imagine dropping launch-day money on one that never got fixed.
