Civilization VI

The last (and only) Civ game I've ever played was Civ IV. This was at least five years ago now. At the time I was pretty heavy into PC gaming. And I remember getting a copy of Civ IV really cheap, and fumbling my way through a campaign. I don't remember a lot about it now, but I remember thinking it was an enjoyable experience.

I am a fan of strategy games in general. So I was excited when Civ VI was announced for Switch. And as the reviews rolled out, I was looking even more forward to it. It sounded like Switch owners would get the full PC game experience on their handhelds.

Back when I played Civ IV it was a very different time. Namely, we didn't have toddler in the house to completely exhaust us. Back then I could sit and toil away at a monitor and take all the time in the world to figure out how a complex game works. But now?

I mean don't get me wrong, I still find a good chunk of time for gaming throughout the week. It's my biggest hobby. I'd rather play games than watch a movie or TV or read a book for pleasure or browse the internet. I'm also one of those people who have completely avoided social media, so I've got all that free time that I'm not spending scrolling news feeds and updates.

But still - my gaming time is VALUABLE. We never know when the little one might have a time night of sleep. Meaning, we never know when WE will have a tough night sleep.

And so I fired up Civ VI last night and told it to treat me like an idiot who had never played a Civ game before. I wanted the hand-holding to guide me through my campaign. I fumbled my way through about ninety minutes (50-something moves) and I'll be honest - I have no idea what happened in that time.

The menus are really deep and really complex. They're also almost entirely made up of icons, most of which confuse me. To get it to tell you what the icons mean you need to long-press on them, which sometimes causes me to PUSH them and do something I didn't mean to do. Right from the start this was an issue, as I let my settlers settle in a really stupid spot.

I'm just struggling to understand what most everything does. Or what I should be doing. In a game where each move feels IMPORTANT, I feel like I'm often doing nothing. Or the wrong thing. To the point where it's almost stressful.

I don't know. Civ VI is really impressive looking. I'm amazed that this runs - and well - on the Switch. But I get this nagging feeling that in the right place/right time, I would have loved Civ VI. But right now, I'm not sure I have the time nor patience to devote to actually digging in and understanding this game. We'll see.