When comparing Sid Meier's Civilization VI vs Dark Souls III, the Slant community recommends Dark Souls III for most people. In the question“What are the best online multiplayer games on PC?” Dark Souls III is ranked 11th while Sid Meier's Civilization VI is ranked 31st. The most important reason people chose Dark Souls III is:
There's tons of lore everywhere for you to discover, but it isn't necessarily told through a conventional story. Weapons, armor, spells, and items you acquire have descriptions on them that tell you where in the game world they came from, any prominent characters they're associated with, and a bunch of other relevant and interesting information. So when you find examples of the lore scattered around the game, like bosses wearing a style of armor you read about, or an obscure NPC mentioned in a sword's description, you know the history behind the design and their purpose without that boss or character needing to explain anything to you. Even though the actual story in Dark Souls III is very thin, there's a lot to find under the surface if you're willing to look for it.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Great turn-based, strategic combat
Civilization VI utilizes a hexagonal grid for movement and combat. Each tile has six sides that connect to another tile, and units have a certain movement speed that is always depicted in tiles, which can be utilized in different ways. You can create stronger, slower units like catapults and pikemen, or decide to overwhelm and surround your enemies with faster units like cavalry. This adds a level of depth to the game that other turn-based strategies simply fall short of.
There's a limit of one unit per tile, which really makes you take the strategic aspects into mind. Ranged units can often shoot over melee units, but not always. You'll have to figure out a few interactions like that in order to be the best commander you can be, but the good news is that it's very intuitive and easy to learn.
Each leader has their own turn. Generally, the player goes first, then the computer players. This makes it much easier to plan your strategy, and you can take all the time you need.
Pro Endless scenarios and replayability
Sid Meier's Civilization VI has a large assortment of nation leaders to choose from that have an even bigger assortment of scenarios that are able to play out for said leaders. Each game can be quite unique in this way as each leader allows for a different nation to be controlled.
Pro The gameplay stays true to the Civilization series
Civilization VI is a turn-based game where players will vie over resources and land. In order to do this, each player starts with a settler to create their capitol city with, and the game progresses from that point on. While it can be a little daunting because there's so much to do and learn, a few minutes of reading through the suggestions of your in-game advisers (which are AIs) and experimenting with the user interface will cut that feeling of dread out and replace it with fun.
There are several different types of resources on the map, and they usually yield food, gold, or production. Players can devote turns to training a worker from their city in order to "work" these tiles, letting you reap whatever benefits they may bestow. Getting yourself more food allows you to grow your city faster because you are able to work more tiles, and it just keeps getting bigger from there. Gold allows you to buy various units (like workers and settlers) or even buildings (which will provide even more food, gold, and production). Production allows you to produce units and buildings faster, which can be another way to instigate your city's growth.
There are also strategic and luxury resources. Strategic resources like horses, iron, or oil, allow you to create different units and buildings that would otherwise be unavailable to you. Luxury resources provide "amenities" to your cities, which also helps to make them grow. Amenities represent how happy your citizens are with your rule.
While you're building your cities, you are also simultaneously researching different technologies which allow you to build new buildings or improve different resources.
The point of the game is taking as many resources as you can get your hands on, and then building your cities to amplify those gains so that you can achieve victory, which can be done in one of 5 ways. Culture, Domination, Religious, Science, and Time/Score victories are all possible win conditions.
To attain a Culture victory, players have to attract tourists by generating high amounts of culture and tourism. A Domination victory happens when you capture the capital of every other civilization. A religious victory comes when more than 50% of the world follows your religion. A Science victory is done by achieving 3 things: you must first launch a satellite, then land a human on the Moon, then establish a Martian colony. Last is the Time/Score victory: you can set a number of turns for the game to run, and at the end of that turn the game is over. If you desire that type of victory, you will want to control many wonders (unique buildings that only one player can build) and research high levels of technology.
Pro A ton of fun because it's so fast-paced
The computer opponents in this game are much more aggressive than they have been in the past iterations of Civilization (and in fact, more aggressive than in most turn-based games), which makes the game more fun all around. Because the AI is so bloodthirsty, you've got to make moves to solidify your position (or take theirs!), which leads to you amassing an army and numerous cities rather quickly.
Pro Beautiful graphics
From the players cities and armies to the lush landscape, Civilization is an astonishingly gorgeous game for those with systems powerful enough to push the graphics to the limit. However, even when on lower graphical settings the game still looks great and is well animated.
Unlike the previous games, Civilization VI has more of a cartoon-like feel to the environment, and that adds a more fun, less serious attribute to the game. It makes great use of colors and different landscapes in order to draw you into the game. It's also added background animations, for example, if you have a worker build an iron mine, then you'll actually see the mine being worked for the rest of the game. It certainly adds flavor to the game, and makes it feel more alive.
Pro Extensive lore that's presented in unconventional ways
There's tons of lore everywhere for you to discover, but it isn't necessarily told through a conventional story.
Weapons, armor, spells, and items you acquire have descriptions on them that tell you where in the game world they came from, any prominent characters they're associated with, and a bunch of other relevant and interesting information. So when you find examples of the lore scattered around the game, like bosses wearing a style of armor you read about, or an obscure NPC mentioned in a sword's description, you know the history behind the design and their purpose without that boss or character needing to explain anything to you.
Even though the actual story in Dark Souls III is very thin, there's a lot to find under the surface if you're willing to look for it.
Pro Stunning environments
The world of Dark Souls 3 looks amazing, so you may often feel the need to stop and take in the beautiful sights. This can be the sheer size of structures, mountains, or caves. It can also be the decorations, inscriptions, or details in a room. There's always so much to look at, allowing you to truly immerse yourself in its world.
Pro Can give a great feeling of accomplishment
The Dark Souls series is known for its difficulty and Dark Souls 3 is no exception. It's filled with difficult enemies and tough boss battles, able to cause you grief on more than one occasion. However, every time you progress to the next safe spot or defeat a boss you'll often be filled with a mix of joy and relief. Beating this game will almost certainly feel like an achievement.
Pro Unpredictable boss battles
The boss battles in Dark Souls 3 consist of several phases, changing up how the bosses fight over the course of the battle. They will gain new abilities, become more aggressive, or reveal various nasty surprises. This creates an enjoyable experience that is different from most modern games where bosses are just glorified pincushions.
Pro A great variety of equipment for almost any playstyle
You'll be finding new pieces of equipment quite often, giving you many options to choose from. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses, allowing you to pick the equipment that best suits your playstyle.
For example, heavy armor will make you move slower, but you'll be better protected. Greatswords have a wide reach, but you swing them really slow. Conversely a dagger is very fast but it has a horrible reach.
Pro Solid controls
This game feels and plays really well. Your character responds to button inputs immediately and it almost never feels like you're losing control over it. The control scheme can also be customized, giving you the option of a more personalized experience.
Pro Great combat system
Dark Souls 3 is a very fast-paced game but it's not just about having quick reflexes. A lot of the combat comes down to exploiting your enemies. To do that, you have to learn their patterns and attack the moment they pause or perform a telegraphed attack. This creates a combat system, which rewards awareness and patience, and is satisfying to master, even if you don't have extraordinary reflexes.
Cons
Con Most victories won by timed or military victory
It can be pretty difficult to win by diplomacy, culture, or religion, which does add some challenge to the game but it can get tiresome if one keeps winning by only military or timed victories.
Con Poor support for mouse+keyboard control
The default DS3 key/button bindings actually prevent full use of certain weapons by requiring the shift key to be pressed and not-pressed simultaneously. Rebinding is possible, but limited by issues like the left mouse button overriding all others and certain bindings not actually working in game (e.g. Shift+MiddleClick).
Con It's hard
You should try avoiding the trap of great review scores since most of them fail to mention the difficulty. It's simply put - hard. A lot of the combat requires quick reflexes, good mechanics, and the mental fortitude to carry on after failing for hours. If you're new to the Souls-like genre or simply want to enjoy a relaxing evening playing a video game, you most likely won't enjoy Dark Souls III.
Con Poorly tuned dynamic visiblity
You may notice some texture pop in while sharply turning the camera. It can be somewhat distracting if you notice it, but most of the time you won't because it happens in the distance.
Con Occasional performance issues
There are portions of the game that will have noticeable framerate drops, which can negatively affect the gameplay. Most of the fault lies with the game engine, so getting better hardware won't help that much.