Why Can't People in MP Play anything but Dom?

[AmtrakQuebec]

Out of the hundreds of players I've squared off against, I can count on one hand the number that actually know how to play the other aspects of the game. Considering domination is just one small part of Civ, why on earth is it that 99% of the players in MP don't have a clue about the rest of the game? It's really weird when I ask them about things like The Great Zimbabwe and they haven't the foggiest what it does.

meh, end rant

 

[x2Madda]

Takes too long. This is the same issue with Civ5 MP. If you play for the long haul like a science victory then you become a runaway train and in civ, only 1 player can win.
This leads too the issue single player has. You build an army to defend yourself but the sheer virtue of building an army means you now need to either use that army (because you spent hammers on it) or you wasted time and are at a disadvantage. So you use your army, what else would you do? This in turn leads to the fact that human players NEVER GIVE UP and NEVER SURRENDER and before you know it, either everyone else is dead/gave up or you are dead/given up.

The civ 5 community balance patch came close to resolving the issue with one of the policies granting free military units when cities reached certain population thresholds but in general building military is an opportunity cost but it pays off the biggest dividends.

Building a spearman can protect me, building a science district may pay off later but isn't going to stop the invasion right now.

 

[AmtrakQuebec]

That's circular logic though. If people weren't always playing JUST Dom, you wouldn't have to build that huge army protect yourself.

 

[x2Madda]

That's circular logic though. If people weren't always playing JUST Dom, you wouldn't have to build that huge army protect yourself.

someone is beating you at science, what do you do?
someone is beating you at religion, what do you do?
someone is beating you at culture, what do you do?

You either try to beat them at their own game which depending on how far behind you are might be impossible, or you wipe them out.
Now, someone is beating you at domination, what do you do?

see how domination is the superior victory condition? Everything else takes too long to come to fruition and can be usurped by war.

 

[CanuckSoldier]

In MP the only time that other victory conditions win the game is when its a bunch of top MP players on a fairly even map. and everyone sees that a military victory is not a clear path to victory, then everyone might have a few border wars. but generally it goes for nukes in the end, or possibly a religious or cultural victory, but X2 is generally correct, in a 4-6 hour game if you put a bunch of resources into an Army you have to use it, if a player is heading for another victory condition only option is to kill them....its human nature.

CS

 

[AmtrakQuebec]

Well, I don't agree with the statements above and neither explain why the vast majority in MP are completely clueless about anything else. Just because you need to know how to battle, does not preclude everything else... unless you're a moron.

 

[jollywonk]

Actually, the above statements are correct. Domination trumps each of the other victory conditions, so it is the first victory condition. You only get to have your tourism or space win if you can defend yourself and stop someone else's domination win. It's just the name of the game and basic strategy.

The other victory types become preferable and optimal when you are in a game with players of comparable skill and domination turns into a hopeless 3500 year slug-fest of flushing production down the drain. Imagine being in a 6-player FFA and no players are an easy mark (as in easy to conquer) - if the other 5 players are going for domination and you can defend yourself, a tourism victory is suddenly optimal and probably a relative cakewalk.

The problem is how often does that actually happen (where players are at similar skill levels)? There isn't some ranked matchmaking on offer in Civ, with bronze league players playing other bronze players. So even if there 4 equally good players in a game, whoever conquers the 2 weaker players now has a big advantage over the remaining 3 opponents. Unless people are familiar with who they are playing with, chances are they have no idea who's good and who's not. I think almost every random public FFA with significant skill imbalances should or could end in a domination win.

It sounds to me like you might just be tired of fighting war after war every game and are looking to build stuff in peace. If that's the case I'd suggest focusing more on the subject of the best ways to defend, dissuading people from attacking you, defending with a minimum viable force while continuing to econ, etc. You won't ever be able to control what other people do and how they play, but you can still beat them with a non-domination strategy.

 

[AmtrakQuebec]

Still no answer to my original query.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

The reason is because they're playing to win. The vast majority of mp games can most easily be won through DVs. Even the players that are good enough to start planning their SV or CV early on will win most games via DV, which means that the mediocre players won't bother with that at all.

 

[JaqenHahaghar]

Still no answer to my original query.

Because it is the only Nash Equilibrium of the game.

If everyone plays for Dom victory, you cannot deviate and try another path, because this will make you an easy target for the closest aggressor.

If everyone plays for some other type of victory, then you find it profitable to deviate and conquer everyone else before they reach their culture/science/religion goal.

For a few games I've been trying to break this equilibrium. I tried to play for culture victory WHILE building up a strong army, but only for defensive purposes. This, however, still doesn't work even if my army is the largest, because currently EVERY victory condition (except for religion) takes too long to achieve. The tourism accumulates too slowly even if I rushed culture district ASAP. and you have to wait into end game to launch the space projects.

What we need, is an alternative victory that is not about the relative advantage you have. Science is not, as you have to wait until the end even if you are miles ahead of everyone else by mid game. Culture is close, but the (# of civ/150) coefficient for forieng tourism effectively makes it only viable until the end game.

 

[tommynt]

i think this thread is kinda nonsense.

the skill and beauty of civ is balancing things out - its allways have been and hopefully ever will be.
If one could get away with no army and just builds up culture or whatever civ d be boring and every1 d be doing it.
Same time u wont win a 4+ player game with building military one - if other ones are kind of decent at least.

if u r going for science win and ARE THE BETTER PLAYER while others fight u should have some tech advantage which lets u fight with superior units and win fights easy.
If u get conquered all time maybe u r just the worse player and a easy target to be killed?

 

[malitano]

I always make a massive military force and encampments to protect myself if I see my neighbor is building holy sites and theaters they probably do not have as many units or great generals as I do and if the game goes far enough then I will try to win the game by naval doctrine. If someone also has a comparable military i will be hesitant to attack them because defense always wins.

 

[teks]

All of the other victory conditions are crap. They are fun to do in single player, but in an honest match where players are actually trying to win no one is going to sit there building resorts at the expense of a military force. Its bad game design, though its the same bad game design we've seen for years. Every victory condition has a 'tacked on' kind of feel, where you can tell that they were designed separately. They work fine in a bubble, if you ignore all other mechanics, but they do not work well as a system.

As an example, consider Master of Orion. The game was made by a handful of people under the design of one single person. Espionage wasn't an option. It was a vital component to any strategy, and it was of equal strength to fielding a powerful military force. Research was powerful on its own, but a more militaristic player could blitz a single planet and capture several techs in the process. A sneaky player could straight up steal all of those techs and focus their resources elsewhere, and of course the research-heavy player can produce less ships that are more powerful.

The point is, in older games, when fewer people worked on design, everything was a vital component towards winning. In modern games, everything is created by different teams and tacked on in the end. The consequences of this are clear as day. Focusing on tourism is a victory condition. It doesn't, in any way, help you achieve anything besides winning tourism. What player would ever try to commit to tourism in order to win the game given what we know about it.

 

[Salmuth]

Interesting last post.

I agree a that the balance is quite complicated to find in newer games also because the gameplay has too many features that interact together.
The way they are developped (seperately) doesn't help for sure.

Problem with the balance : makes all other victory condition worse than Dom. Makes peaceful games way too long.

As it has been said above, the reward for military is too strong. The return rate of the hammers you put in your army shall be smaller. To do so, you can imagine making cities harder to take and getting large amenity issues faster to prevent long wars (and potentially larger annihilation), or even increase the military cost (hammers or gpt cost ...). Something that would limit wars to borders conflicts and give pillaging a purpose (why would you pillage a district if you plan on conquering?). Maybe make district repairing longer to make these war still have some consequences.

That could be a made through mods.

Then you would get people playing their eco game. It will be long games (that's a big issue... usually these games, you play with your friends) where people that are late compared to the others in the victory condition they target will only be able to see them snowball and win.


Well I guess without a bunch of people that don't want to war all game long, MP makes civ become a simple war game. It's a shame imo.
It may be why MP players won't bother to understand the other mechanics of the game. When war is the best option and you play online : "forget about the rest" is the internet mojo..


My 2 cents on the issue.

 

[Regul]

Because it is the only Nash Equilibrium of the game.

If everyone plays for Dom victory, you cannot deviate and try another path, because this will make you an easy target for the closest aggressor.

If everyone plays for some other type of victory, then you find it profitable to deviate and conquer everyone else before they reach their culture/science/religion goal.

Sure I can agree with that, anyhow I'm in with @AmtracQuebec that this shrinks alternative goals too much.

Problem in my eyes is the competetive 'only one can win' all MP players are aimed on. If we try to get this a bit more fleshed out with real-life arguments, it would probably lead into other direction.
No one would ever go for decission between winning or elemination. All ppl are just aimed for surviving and having a good life. This is the basic reason for forming tribes, nations, empires aso.


So, if I do not count it wrong, it is needed to have some kind of better balanced end-game results, so not only one could be the winner...or at least not be the only winner.

How about some alternation:

- Let's say the domination victor get's less points the more he extincted other empires.
- Let's say the 2nd and 3rd 'survivor' do not get much less victory points then the actual real winner (according to the line before).
- Let's say count all points together into a Civ6 ladder system. Probably official or semi official...like those winning points I earn in SP...so you could compare on a long run.
- Let's say the other offered winning styles do earn way more victory points than simple domination.

(- There are quite more options thinkable, like accepting minor status instead of fighting till extinction will grant you huge ammount of victory points your domination victor earns at the end. Plus 'rebellion' against your master will grant you extra points aso. Just some thoughts, how such system could show up in the end. My goal in here is to keep once defended players inside a game and give them an opportunity to still earn victory points, no matter how destructive they have gotten conquered. At least a junior-partner might change the balance for it's master on the end game battles, so they still earn victory points for ladder system.)

Then you might get the kind of MP you (and probably me and others) would like to play.
This could be done by external ladder, DLC or mod...

 

[x2Madda]

-snip-

Terrible idea. I apprechiate you had good intentions but the blame lies soley with Firaxis. If the other victory conditions could compete with domination then they would be on equal footing. They can't at present and they probably never will while Firaxis continue to make civ games.

If I build an army and kill everyone and then the game says i lose anyway, that just feels bad and in MP, I would win even if the game said I lost because I killed everyone else and therefore am the winner, just ask any extinct real life tribesman.

There is no fix outside of taking away army control from the player and Civ5 mods that did that felt and played terrible.

 

[MadMage86]

Not entirely sure that domination IS the best/easiest victory type - it's simply the most expedient. As others have noted, defense in Civ is considerably easier than offense; this means you have to have either a strong position over someone to begin with or the person you're conquering is wildly negligent with their military; should you actually end up in a war with someone on equal footing as you it's actually a massive detriment on both of you to wage said war.

The problem here isn't so much a matter of the game being deficient, it's a matter of player skill being wildly variable and the game not curving the difficulty to make up for poor player skill. While I COULD ignore a weaker player who is going to lose the game anyway, by not absorbing them I both extend the game time and leave resources on the table which could in theory be used against me if all the other players organized to prevent my win. Of course, this in and of itself points to the larger issue: a focus on winning over enjoying the game. Try playing without victory conditions.

 

[View619]

Still no answer to my original query.

It's because domination is the fastest and easiest win condition, especially when playing with random players who may or may not be able to defend themselves.
It's not about "players being too stupid to go for other win conditions", it's called playing to win. If you don't like it, either:

1. Find a group of players who agree to avoid domination victories.
2. Learn to defend yourself and aim for a win with another victory condition.

Also, you can try playing with people of a similar skill level so military runaways are less likely. But in the early eras, warfare and domination will always be aspects to consider.

 

[komodowaran]

Well the problem is if a player on the other side of the world kills 2 players he is going to out tech u afther if u don't take as mouch land to
There is no longer a tech cost increase per city like in civ 5

 

[MadMage86]

There is no longer a tech cost increase per city like in civ 5

This is actually one of the odd things I've noticed - both Civ 6 and Beyond Earth lack any real balancing to the whole 'keep expanding' strategy that Civ 5 had. They also backpedaled from having river and ocean tiles generate gold in Civ 5, which was one of the major inhibitors in early conquest, which made having people to trade with more important than stabbing them (which is true of actual history, the exchange of goods and currency effects a LOT of decisions on a global level).