Civ VI and wargames: an Ed Beach profile

[Dp101]

Getting back to the original topic of the thread, I have played Here I Stand before, and it sharing a designer with the new civ worries me. The card driven system gives all nations the same strength regardless of the territory owned by the country. This along with the aforementioned special rules combine to make success in that game determined purely by how well you know and take advantage of the history, rather than just looking at the relative size of the nations. This makes me think that the new benefits given by specific actions and terrain will cause the land of a civ to define everything it does for the rest of the game.
Edit: In fact, I fear that we might end up with a situation like Rhye's mod for Civ IV, where scripted events implemented with the intention of simulating specific historical events instead lead to wildly ahistorical outcomes and balances of power.

[Old Harry]

Didn't Bacchus say your hand size varied with country size in Here I Stand?

[Bacchus]

It certainly does in Virgin Queen, but I've never played Here I Stand. I would have thought that system is the same though.

[Dp101]

Ah, after looking at the rules online it seems I was wrong. I must have played an earlier edition.

[chumchu]

I'm a big fan of Here I Stand and played it before I got into civ. However, it is game very unlike civ and I was very surprised when he was announced as a designer for civ V's expansions. It is a fluffy dicefest aiming to recreate the feel of an era, a bit like the paradox games with lots of special rules for everything, rather than a crunchy mechanic driven game like civ. If I could pick a board game designer for civ VI I would rather pick Vlaada Chvatil, Martin Wallace or even Reiner Knizia. A unique thing that HIS does have is a great diplomacy system that handles limited wars very well. A multiplayer setting tend to lead to either stand-offs or total wars but HIS avoids it with its suing for peace mechanic.

Regarding his work on civ V I thought he did a very good job considering the situation he was put in. It was too late to change anything in the core mechanics of the game but more content and more mechanics could be added. He did so in a lavish way that greatly improved a game that was too empty. It was not always a very elegant design though (the three trade systems for instance). That can be forgiven, but the main issue that I have with the expansions to civ 5 is one of balance. Why on earth did they not adress unit and social policy balance when it was obvious that it was out of whack. Did they even have proper playtesting of it before release?

I'm looking forward to him designing civ VI because I think it will mean a greater care for the theme of the game and the diplomatic and multiplayer aspects of it. Anyone dreaming that it will be a successor to civ IV will be disappointed but it will probably be much better than civ V was on release. But as long as there are people to play civ IV with I don't mind it.

I'm worried that it will be insufficiently tested and unbalanced. I'm also slightly worried of it being "in the content for contents sake" philosophy of EU IV, but HIS is a much more elegant game than that.