I'm totally with you. It's why Civilization 5 and 6 just don't "click" for me, even though I recognize that they're well-designed games - Civ 4 was the last one where I could get immersed in the story of my Civ without constantly getting yanked out by the notion of conforming to a hex grid or whatever.
I mean a grid is a grid, but the way that military units in Civ 5&6 can't stack up, the way that districts take up tiles on the map, etc just seems a lot more artificial and "gamey" than the way the previous games did it.
I sucked hard at it but civ4 felt good to play with all the civic options. They felt like meaningful options rather than the lite version of tech trees in the other ones.
I'm totally with you. It's why Civilization 5 and 6 just don't "click" for me, even though I recognize that they're well-designed games - Civ 4 was the last one where I could get immersed in the story of my Civ without constantly getting yanked out by the notion of conforming to a hex grid or whatever.
I don't see where conforming to a square grid would be much different.
I mean a grid is a grid, but the way that military units in Civ 5&6 can't stack up, the way that districts take up tiles on the map, etc just seems a lot more artificial and "gamey" than the way the previous games did it.
I sucked hard at it but civ4 felt good to play with all the civic options. They felt like meaningful options rather than the lite version of tech trees in the other ones.
Same with Civ 6 especially. Feels like a shitty board game rather than a civilization simulation game.