I know it's a thing generally these days because of how shit multiplayer especially has gotten but if I see something that's 'online' now I don't want anything to do with it. Every new release it's the same story, they can barely be called games anymore they're more like a live service with some minor gameplay elements tacked on in the most half-arsed way imaginable. That goes for a lot of supposedly singleplayer releases as well depending on the company.
I think I'd much rather pour my free hours into something like Microsoft Flight Simulator because then I'd at least gain a valuable skill from it and I've also found myself delving back into the good stuff that was the early 2000's releases. Even if you see something that looks vaguely promising it inevitably gets annihilated by the DEI contractors that plague this industry now.
It's extremely ironic that the games industry is trying to cater to anybody who isn't a gamer and they seem to be all mentally ill weirdos to one degree or another who have an addiction problem and fleece them for all their money before moving onto the next cringey fad. I'm sorry for coming across too black pilled, but if a game does well it seems like that developers will go out of their way to ruin it because yet again, they've shown that gamers do not matter and we're nothing more than a vehicle for hype to get their product into the normie sphere who just want to college digital items all day instead of play the fucking game.
I've been out for several years now.
I occasionally play games with friends, but 95% of the time even that is online play just within our group (coop and the like). I also only play with people I know in person, or their friends, most of which I've at least met once or twice anyway. I haven't talked to an internet random in a video game since WoW Cataclysm in 2011, and I typically turn off any chat features entirely when I am online. I have no energy to waste on the scum that permeates online gaming now.
My favourite thing to hate on are the Turks that plague EU servers these days. It's so bad that I've been looking at breaking out games like Civilization 5 for my relax session and I kind of regard that game as the last true Civilization game anyway, they changed far too much for my tastes in Civ 6.
What's interesting is a lot of people seem to be going that route, so for example I never really got into Forza Horizon but it makes sense that even quite a few of the casual gamer types are going to old versions of modern games that are being heavily advertised these days. Forza Horizon 4 is what people play over Forza Horizon 5 and then the Sims 3 is what people play over The Sims 4.
It makes a lot of sense, because the shitty monetisation engine in the games industry will be done with the previous titles and that means you can at least buy it knowing that you've got a full complete game rather than them trying to milk you for all your worth through DLC or microtransactions. Or microtransactions that they try to disguise as DLC which is definitely also a thing these days.
Civ 6 is a microcosm of modern game design.
It's a classic strategy game where the AI poses no threat and can't play by the game's own rules.
Every DLC release added a new layer of half-baked game mechanic complexity , introducing another new system that the AI can't command & forcing the player to adopt their own house rules.
I'm convinced the reason for that is because they initially had a half-decent, workable AI coded in by somebody else, then the new 'DLC team' comes along and they are massive scrubs. You see the exact same issue with Paradox games, Stellaris in particular, every change they make to the game borks the AI further.
By the way, fun little thing I experimented with when studying the Stellaris AI which is basic bitch AI at it's finest. I deliberately left one gap in my defences when fortifying all of my systems and low and behold it turns out their 'pathfinding' simply selected the one open gap there after immediately declaring war if it was doing a fleet power check on me. That simply made me rage quit afterwards because it's almost as insultingly frustrating as the Total War Warhammer AI. I'm also convinced that no one at these dev teams know how to make changes which is why they're so focused on pumping out DLC.
My theory is, somebody named Tom who is a major autist and understands all of the code got contracted for about a year to whip them up something basic and workable. They paid Tom a fortune on top of getting a bonus for the sales of the initial release and now they're stuck with a skeleton crew of DEI hires who have no idea what they're doing while he's fucked off to the Caribbean for an early retirement with his money.
I'm convinced by the way that's how most AAA studios operate now and then they hit DEI scores as a way of keeping their profitability going rather than making anything gamers actually want. Yes they're scummy fucks who look down on gamers, but I think they really are also massive retards who couldn't create anything new even if they wanted to.
I do agree that the base game is likely the most "challenging" AI-wise, but even calling it half-decent is being way too charitable.
The problem since launch with Civ 6 is that the AI poses no military threat whatsoever beyond the opening era of the game on higher levels when they start with Turn 1 extra units.
Which is simply unforgivable for a franchise whose entire meta is all out war.
Enemy pathfinding is the worst nowadays in so many games. It's to the point where I'm pleasantly surprised when I can't just trick their AI into the most obvious killzone ever.