Am i the only person who thinks this

C

Cissnei

Warlord
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Feb 27, 2013
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Starting position seems to be 50% of the game and the game is decided in the first (below) 200 turns. I never saw anyone who is weak in the first ~150~ turns catch up to the civilizations who are strong. You can tell after 200 turns who will be first to achieve science, territory and culture victory (unless u do it before them).
I think they should fix the "snowball effect". In history there were many civilizations who were strongest back in their days and now they don't exist anymore or are small. In the game once you are ahead you must really let others catch up on purpose to ever fall behind. I hate it
 
You're right in that a head start lets you keep pulling further ahead. I think this effect is most noticeable on smaller maps (Tiny, Small, Standard) and less so on Large and above.
Think about it, if you're on a small map with 6 civs and your tech lets you conquer one of your neighbours, you now own 1/3 of the world. whereas in a game with 12 divs, taking out one neighbour doesnt' catapult you that far ahead, and later wars between other players could allow one of them to grow and catch you up.
 
Your correct in that the game is decided before turn 200; it appears to be around turn 120 to me.
 
Snowball effect is present in most strategy games, just more obvious in a game like Civ since they tend to be longer than many other games.

Sometimes I will see a Civ get ganged up on by several others and brought down from a higher position, but mostly if a Civ is weak in the first 150 turns, it will be weak for the rest of the game. If strong, will remain strong.
 
It happened to me too, one civilization expanding alot and getting defeated by others. But it only happens in very early stage of the game. Once it's past that stage that civilization will only grow bigger. It's pretty stupid. I wish the civilizations were more even. I play on large map with 22 civilizations and it's really not fun

And i talk about myself snowballing too. It's kinda boring when you just build new buildings and click next turn or just conquer whatever you want because you are ahead and just wait to fight against that other huge civilization or go for culture victory

And location should matter much much less too
 
I'd like to see the smaller nations ally and work together against the runaways (even the human player), but typically when a weaker nation is brought down to or kept at like two cities, it just kind of sits passively on the sidelines occasionally denouncing everyone.
 
Matthew. said:
I'd like to see the smaller nations ally and work together against the runaways (even the human player), but typically when a weaker nation is brought down to or kept at like two cities, it just kind of sits passively on the sidelines occasionally denouncing everyone.
Click to expand...
That's my experience. The first couple AIs that I beat down to a city or two, I kept some troops nearby expecting some sort of revenge attacks. Now I just move all my troops to the front except garrisons, and sometimes not even.
 
This snowball effect will be remedied somewhat with the next expansion. Choosing an unpopular Industrial-era path will alienate you from your neighbors, causing internal strife and even popular uprisings. This will keep the large powers from running away... unless they chose a popular ideology.
 
Matthew. said:
I'd like to see the smaller nations ally and work together against the runaways (even the human player), but typically when a weaker nation is brought down to or kept at like two cities, it just kind of sits passively on the sidelines occasionally denouncing everyone.
Click to expand...

What usually happens when a weaker nation gets brought down, is that then every crappy third-rate civ in the game that is any bigger (but too small and gutless to stand up to the big dogs) will denounce the beaten sucker and ask you to help them finish wiping them out. Pretty pathetic, really. All the smaller cowards just wait around like drooling jackals to finish off the weak wounded victims of the runaways.
 
Meanwhile, Iroquois are settling their 30th city two eras ahead of everyone else :)
 
They should really change the AI so that smaller civs gang up to bring down the runaways. Usually the only civ who gets gang-banged is the human player, not that Washington/Hiawatha/random-runaway entering the Modern while the rest of the field is in Renaissance.

They can hate me if they have to on higher diffuclties, but they should have enough brains to realize they will loose if they don't band together against a runaway. Humans will always outsmart the AI (at least for a few years to come), but loosing whilst aiding the strongest AI player is just plain dumb (and lazy programming imo).
 
Try Epic speed. Why? Because losing a major battle will make a serious blow on your progress, even if you had the best starting position and were the game leader at the point. I suppose the same will happen with the AIs to some degree. They have much more gold (and they will use it to re-buy units fast), but a serious defeat in battle may cripple their progress. You will not notice this in Standard speed. It's too easy to replenish troops there.

But, yea. Starting positions are critical, especially on Emperor and above. However, Epic speed (and Marathon even more) should allow for major empire falls.
 
Green_Power said:
Try Epic speed. Why? Because losing a major battle will make a serious blow on your progress, even if you had the best starting position and were the game leader at the point. I suppose the same will happen with the AIs to some degree. They have much more gold (and they will use it to re-buy units fast), but a serious defeat in battle may cripple their progress. You will not notice this in Standard speed. It's too easy to replenish troops there.

But, yea. Starting positions are critical, especially on Emperor and above. However, Epic speed (and Marathon even more) should allow for major empire falls.
Click to expand...

Not so sure about that on standard speed you have less time to recover and repair any damage.

even if you won a war and captured cities if you don't built enough happiness buildings and science buildings you will fall behind fast...

you need to built the national college after 100 turns or else you're screwed.

however on epic you can delay that a lot longer and missing a timing can still be repaired because the AI olso techs slower
 
apocalypse105 said:
Not so sure about that on standard speed you have less time to recover and repair any damage.

even if you won a war and captured cities if you don't built enough happiness buildings and science buildings you will fall behind fast...

you need to built the national college after 100 turns or else you're screwed.

however on epic you can delay that a lot longer and missing a timing can still be repaired because the AI olso techs slower
Click to expand...

This is my experience as well. If I want an easier game with less chance of getting whupped, I go from standard to epic or marathon. Like you say, you have more time to build up, and more time to recover if something goes wrong. On standard or faster, you gotta be on your toes from the get go, and if something goes wrong, the AI is crossing the finish line before you know which way is up.
 
This is indeed how it generally works, though if you are good enough, you can somewhat overcome a bad start in SP.

In MP, this is magnified in a huge way to the point where i can generally tell if i'm going to do well or not within the first 5-10 turns.
 
ense7en said:
In MP, this is magnified in a huge way to the point where i can generally tell if i'm going to do well or not within the first 5-10 turns.
Click to expand...

That's so unfair. They really need to nerf the opposing AI...
 
Smokeybear said:
If I want an easier game with less chance of getting whupped, I go from standard to epic or marathon. Like you say, you have more time to build up, and more time to recover if something goes wrong.
Click to expand...
I don't know what difficulty levels you play on, but on my experience (Emperor and mostly Immortal) Epic is tougher than Standard because when you're faced in a two-front or three-front war, you will not have time to recover from a first war and you'll have a tough time dealing with a massive invasion coming from a second enemy.

You see, all the battle game mechanics remain the same. The army HP is the same; the movement is the same; the army strength is the same. But, the building time is much more time consuming. So, if you lose most of your army in a first war, you need a lot more time to recover than on Standard. The same applies to the AI to some degree. So, playing on Epic or Marathon is more unpredictable than on Standard (and mitigates the starting position effect in my opinion), because army wipes may turn the tide from one leading Civ to another.

In Standard, is much easier to rush a couple army units to defend a city, which is all you need actually.
 
To be honest I think difficulty doesn't matter at all. It's just as hard to catch up to runaway civilization, and just as easy to be ahead if your starting position is great
 
Green_Power said:
I don't know what difficulty levels you play on, but on my experience (Emperor and mostly Immortal) Epic is tougher than Standard because when you're faced in a two-front or three-front war, you will not have time to recover from a first war and you'll have a tough time dealing with a massive invasion coming from a second enemy.

You see, all the battle game mechanics remain the same. The army HP is the same; the movement is the same; the army strength is the same. But, the building time is much more time consuming. So, if you lose most of your army in a first war, you need a lot more time to recover than on Standard. The same applies to the AI to some degree. So, playing on Epic or Marathon is more unpredictable than on Standard (and mitigates the starting position effect in my opinion), because army wipes may turn the tide from one leading Civ to another.

In Standard, is much easier to rush a couple army units to defend a city, which is all you need actually.
Click to expand...

I play on King, and I play well enough not to get most of my forces wiped out to where I am desperate to build more to defend myself against someone else. If I do get that beat up, in any speed, I'm doing something stupid, or playing way over my head on a difficulty I shouldn't even be on. Since that is not an issue in my games, I stand by my previous evaluation.
 
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