I've been playing Civ 6 recently, which came out in 2016 and is still being updated, and I have to say that I'm kind of shocked at the degree to which MoM is still better than this.

MoM has much more variety and depth than Civ 5 or 6. The ability to customize wizards is really huge and you see what a big deal it is when you play a game live Civ that has set types to choose from.

The fact that in MoM you can acquire towns from different races and retain their abilities is also a huge factor, which adds a lot of variety. Again you see how big a deal it is when compared to games that don't have this feature.

I actually like the combat mechanics of MoM better than Civ 5 or 6. I feel like battles in MoM are more challenging than in Civ.

In MoM there is a huge variety in neutral challenges, and neutral towns are much bigger deal and more interesting as well.

In Civ all there is is barbarians and they are basically always about the same, with relatively meager rewards. In MoM some of the biggest challenges are neutral encounters and the encounters range from easy to impossible and they don't get harder over time, you just have to pick and choose what you can do as you progress. It's a much better system IMO.

Heroes. Period.

Global effects - need I say more.

The units in MoM are far more varied than in Civ. So many of the units in Civ are just minor variations on a theme. Pretty much all melee units are interchangeable and it doesn't really matter much which one you use.

And the AI in Civ sucks. Now true the AI in MoM also sucked, but I'd argue that the updated AIs from 1.4 and 1.5 are actually better than the Civ AI.

It's kind of shocking to see how little advancement there has been in the genre since 1994.

I've only played Civ 6 a bit, but yeah, I would agree. MoM is more fun because the features are more fun (pre Insecticide, anyhow).

MoM has huge problems, though. The AI is terrible, the balance is fairly broken, and the strategy that works best at higher levels (no spell research) isn't very fun.

The Civ series has become consumed by the war part of the game, which has made it boring.

civ4 with mods was the peak of that franchise - after that you have *huge* degeneration to appeal to the lowest common denominator. And really that applies to every part of modern culture, whether it's music, dress, games, laws, democratic politics, whatever - people aim at the thick part of the bell curve to be popular. Simplistic music because complex music can cause the brain to engage with it, and brain activity is uncomfortable for the typical western hedonist. Simplistic, cartoon games for the same reason, clothing that's valued purely for comfort not for anything such as dignity, etc

Any newly released game can be assumed to have been made for idiots who don't want to bother thinking, until proven otherwise.

STOP TRYING TO OPPRESS ME BY MAKING ME THINK!1 More seriously. I place a very, very high value on comfort when choosing clothing. I don't see the sense in wearing things that are uncomfortable simply for the image of it. I'm not wearing blister-inducing shoes simply because they are currently in fashion.

There are limited exceptions (a suit for job interviews), but those exceptions have a time limit and a specific purpose.

I am not THAT formal really, I don't habitually wear a tie - though maybe I finally will start doing so, I have some good ones.
I do wish everyone would exchange hoodies for jackets, jeans for proper trousers (and no reason for them not to be a fun colour like mustard or red), and would regard the t-shirt as an undergarment. Also unless you're up to something physical or messy, why not wear polished leather shoes? The bums of the 1950s dress better than the billionaires of today, who are completely happy to go around in these drab outfits of t-shirts and jeans - jeans, which were originally for cowboys and miners - isn't it perverse for fashion to ape one of the lowest social tiers? I can't help but think that the outward symbolism of casual clothing is not just a symptom but also a cause of complacency and low standards.

I am clearly going a bit mad for lack of PBEM games, need to start more of them. Whenever I start some esoteric hateful shitposting online I look at the wrapper and see big numbers in the Age column.

I hate the feeling of something close around my neck. Too many vivid images of strangulation. I avoid ties like the plague they are, unless such is required/expected for a formal occasion.

I don't even like wearing turtle necks, though I understand the appeal in colder weather. Hoodies are useful for keeping ears warm in a cold breeze, jeans maintain warmth better than trousers (and I assume you mean something similar to khacki pants here. I'm not sure if we have different ideas about the specifics of what "trousers" are (beyond "long pants")), and you can have my t-shirts-as-standard-street-clothes when you peel them from my cold, dead body. Much faster to pull on than button ups or polos, and better/more varieties of fabric for cheaper. I don't wear polished shoes because I don't feel like needing to polish my shoes! :)

It is also handy in case you find yourself wanting to take part in something more physical part-way through your outing. Meh at social classes. I'm not a fan of social rules for the sake of social rules ("The salad fork is for eating salad, not for eating anything else"). I do like social rules that perform a useful function ("Don't steal your neighbor's yard toys"). I was debating signing up for one of your 1v1's, but I'm hesitant to overload my free time. I've got a couple of single player games that I want to see through to completion.

You wouldn't have liked the starched Tudor-style ruffs we had to wear the Cathedral choir I was in as a boy :p

You are almost certainly correct.

All this self-congratulation for preferring MoM strikes me as silly. Most of the things I like about MoM are conceptual -- the variety of heroes and monsters, for example. It's a game with flavor -- Mystic X the Unknown, Warrax, etc. But the actual implementation is frustratingly bad at times, and I don't just mean the AI. The whole RNG aspect to the game can make early starts on Mirror a nightmare -- they *usually* aren't, but once in a while impossible stacks will come traipsing through your towns, etc. (That's a design flaw -- at low levels, the RNG can dominate, whereas later in the game it is much less of an issue.)

Lots of people have talked about the annoying direct-damage spells used by the AI (and the massive cheating that allows the AI to use unreasonable amounts of mana). The big problem isn't that the AI cheats, it that it cheats in a way that makes the game absurd -- the enemy Wizards are drooling idiots, but somehow can attack with high cost spells over and over.

The things wrong with Civ VI (or Civ V, for that matter) are very different. It's well implemented, for what it is (if you accept the enormous design mistake of one unit per tile), but they keep putting resources into the war game, and the game itself keeps getting more complex without becoming more fun -- kiss of death, design-wise. I usually quit between 1000 and 1500 AD, when the game starts to drag.

And yet, no one seems to be able to capture what is good about MoM and improve the implementation. :-/

my favourite civ by far is civ 1. i really like it! (played civ6 some months ago.)
and MoM is better than civ 1 for me.

Super late to the party but I'm curious about this comment - what did Insecticide make less fun? As far as I've experienced the userpatches in general and Insecticide in particular are an objective upgrade that don't strip away any features and only takes the features that weren't working and fixes them.