Is the beginning the best?

mappleby285

Chieftain
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Sep 12, 2012
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Does anybody else find the first 150-200 turns to be the most fun? I really enjoy starting the civ, exploring the world and there are a lot more science/building options and strategies to choose from. When you get later in the game the tech's are a lot more linear and the turns start to take forever. This might be in part due to me not being a great player so at higher difficulty levels I get into a kind of stalemate late in the game with tons of units or lots of wars going on at once. Either way I still find the start of the game to be the most fun. Am I the only one?
 
Same here, once rifles show up I lose the urge to finish for some reason.
 
I agree partially I just don't like renasiacce era and the first part of the industrial era after that I just love.
 
Does anybody else find the first 150-200 turns to be the most fun? I really enjoy starting the civ, exploring the world and there are a lot more science/building options and strategies to choose from. When you get later in the game the tech's are a lot more linear and the turns start to take forever. This might be in part due to me not being a great player so at higher difficulty levels I get into a kind of stalemate late in the game with tons of units or lots of wars going on at once. Either way I still find the start of the game to be the most fun. Am I the only one?

I don't think it has anything to do with difficulty levels - whether I'm dominating, struggling greatly to keep up, or somewhere in between I get the most satisfaction out of civ from the early era. There is something more romantic about adventuring the ancient through medieval eras. I like the prospect of the unknown - who are you going to settle next to? Where are your resources? There is still a lot of unknown once the map is clear and the alliances take form (or lose form) but it's just not the same for me.

tl;dr I agree with you wholeheartedly - early part of civ is the best
 
Also - completely separated from a strategic standpoint and purely based off of personal taste - I enjoy the unique units/regular units in the earlier eras. I think some of it has something to do with newer units being too close to home, too similar to modern units. That's why I never play games like Call of Duty, etc. It's fun to fight with elephants, swords, ancient warriors, horses and dromons and so son. When the guns and planes arrive my interest is lost
 
the opening gambits are always the most exciting, having a plan, putting it into action, adapting it to conform to the new knowledge you gain of the world around you. i just had a great game as spain, had mount kailash near me, got the 500 gold, bought a settler to get it in my border, worked the tile and had a pantheon and then religion super early. ultimately i ended up being invased on both sides simultaneously and even with defender of the faith i couldnt hold it off.. but it was a fun game anyhow.. in retrospect, showing my lack of experience in religion i should have chosen goddess of protection or faith healers perhaps, instead of the pantheon for faith from natural wonders (which bumped mount kailash's faith output from 16 - 20 but was a bit overkill too). was a difficult map, jammed tight between austria and theodora and a ton of city states, didnt have much room to expand.
 
I don't care much for the early game and find much more enjoyment in the late game.

Early, navy is too limited, there aren't enough different units, and its all about growth.

Late, you get a number of different units that hold each other in balance, the seas are open, diplomacy becomes, at times, intense, and you are always racing for a new milestone.

Early always feels rushed to me. I'm running around with knights when I feel like I've barely learned how to write and the first wars that are anything more than a few units marching to a likely death are generally fought, if not with muskets, with them in mind.

Late, things slow down a lot. A unit upgrade isn't always make or break, and it's not even uncommon to have two generations of unit fighting side by side. Land, sea, and air (too bad the AI is bad at naval and TERRIBLE at air combat) all contribute, and there is a huge variety of units, all with different roles.

I feel like most things early are just setting up for late, when the real game begins.

I'd love to see the early game slowed down, more techs, more turns, etc. to make it more interesting, but as it stands, it's just what I go though to get to the meat of the game.
 
I'm in agreement. One thing that I think would make the game a bit more interesting for me in the later eras would be to keep the map a bit more simple. For example, unless you actually scout an area without FoW, you don't see where new cities pop up. That way, the next time you go to an area it's like discovering it all over again since someone put a city up there. That would also make military campaigns a bit more interesting as well.

I always thought it was odd to have new cities show up on the mini map without having scouted the area again. Doesn't seem super realistic, but I suppose there are two very biased sides to this opinion.
 
Once I reach atomic era, I seem to lose interest in the game. Not enough late-game stuff to do apart from making war. We need a BtS-style expansion.
 
Also agree - the beginning tends to be more fun
 
For one thing, the AI seems to play better in the beginning. As things go on, their ability seems to tetter off a little. Or maybe Conquest is just that much easier with Artillery. Also, there's more uncertainty in the beginning. You can have games where you start on a coast with 5-6 resources and blow through towards Optics, Great Lighthouse, grab God of the Sea for a pantheon, or go another route. By the time the late-game starts to appear, there's more time to prep. Trying to make the best decisions with limited tactical information, though my intuition tends to be pretty good.
 
Agree completely.

I want the next Civ game to be 'Ancient Civilizations' and to stop at maybe 600 CE.
 
I also love the beginning. The constant thought of "Ooooooo, that's a sweet city location!" And I love the discovery of new civs and the early wars with archers.
 
I agree because the end of the game drags. 200+ turns on

You don't bother building new cities unless you absolutely MUST have an oil or uranium resource. Those cities will be woefully lacking in infastructure and will never become useful for production.

Turns take 15 minutes to complete (I always play on a huge map with 13 civs and 27 CS) Not literally 15 minutes but a long time. Yaknowwhaddimean.

At this point in the game the winner has already been mostly decided. Some AI probably has an insane runaway going on another continent. He's got 20 cities and already captured 4 capitals and he just finished the Apollo Program. If greece or austria are still alive your chance at a Diplomatic Victory is virtually nil.

The next 100 turns are either a slow steady progression of you failing, or inexorably snowballing your way to victory with relatively few surprises.
 
The early game is one of my favourite part of all Civs because it`s really the point of discovery. What kind of world is it? What`s available? Who are the Civs? etc.

But mid game gets interesting for the ongoing diplomatic situations and wars that may occur. For instance, I`m in mid game -Japan and I have become strong Allies after a shaky start while the US, Polynesia and Byzantium have teamed up into a treacherous enemy block.
 
Yeah, basically I don't want to play after Rifles are introduced. Once you pass the Napoleonic Era I'm pretty much just mopping up or moving on. I'd rather the tech tree progressed at about 2/3s to 1/2 of the pace it currently does.

- Marty Lund
 
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