A discussion about game pacing

[stealth_nsk]

There's a common narrative that modern age is too short, but I paid attention in my last game on Immortal and I think the overall pacing is a bit off. My turns numbers were:

• Antiquity. 128 turns. 2 Legacy paths full, 2 legacy paths at first stage, no future techs/civics
• Exploration. 63 turns. 4 full legacy paths, no future techs/civics
• Modern. 82 turns. Economic victory without full focus, no future techs/civics

As I understand, some things from other civs could also speed up the game, otherwise I don't understand how Exploration ended that fast, but there's clearly some question about pacing of the game.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

The problem with Exploration is the goals are actually VERY easy to achieve.

- Cultural one is incredibly easy to pull off within the first few turns if you spam missionaries and get the belief that grants 2 Relics PER capital (which can also be exploited with conquering).
- Scientific one is also rather easy once you understand, takes a slightly more time but made easier either by Golden Ages from Antiquity (because they already provide yields that enhance specialists) but also ANY specialist-oriented bonuses.
- Militaristic is also very easy, you either need 6 cities on Distant Lands OR just 3 conquered ones, which isn't a lot. Not to mention this goes hand in hand with the Religious one (because you need a Religion).
- Economic one is the hardest to do because it takes a lot of turns, but the other three are usually done within the first 50 or so turns if you play your cards right.

Compare this to the other ones, where Science one in Modern takes much more time because you have to set up your Science (and those techs do get pricey), Economic, which requires A LOT of resources in order to achieve it early, Militaristic, which is often RNG (well at least on lower difficulties) because of need for Ideologies. And to some extent the Cultural one because there usually is a point where it stalls until you get Hegemony, and is harder on smaller maps because less artefacts are available, (though on bigger maps there is also a higher competition for them).

In Antiquity, it's similiar. Science Legacy requires you to complete the tech tree, Military requires you to conquer a good handful of settlements to get it, Economic requires you to have good Trade Routes or good lands (with Economic and Expansionist going hand in hand), and Cultural one is incredibly difficult even on lower difficulties due to the competivness of good spots for Wonders.

So yeah, not at all surprised that Exploration is the quickest age, and defenitately needs to be adjusted so itlasts longer (Especially in regards to the 3 vs Economy ones because Economy one is incredibly difficult to pull of once you get the basic strategy down of the other 3)

 

[uppi]

I don't understand how Exploration ended that fast, but there's clearly some question about pacing of the game.

In Exploration, every completed legacy path adds 35 age progress. If you manage to complete all 4 before the age countdown kicks in, the age will last 60 turns on standard speed, standard age length.

But how are you spending 82 turns in Modern? When I am having a good game, I will usually get a victory in the thirties, and by turn 45 or so, all legacy paths are done and there is nothing left to do. I could not imagine spending another 40 turns in that age.

My experience with pacing is that Antiquity could maybe last a tiny bit longer. Exploration would be a bit too long, if it wasn't for me trying to get the last treasure fleets home (while my cities are not doing anything productive any more). And Modern is short on turns, but by the time of victory, it is mostly over anyway. Also turns in Modern take much longer for me, so in real time spent it is at least on par, if not longer than the earlier ages.

 

[Xandinho]

I always play with long eras, so for me they last something like this:

Antiquity: ~160 turns
Exploration: ~130 turns
Modern: ~70 turns

Antiquity feels fine. Exploration could last a bit longer, but as mentioned above, I believe the real issue here lies in the legacy paths, which are far too easy to achieve—except for the economic one. A fix to the legacy paths in this era could help. The Modern era goes by so quickly because its only real objective is to achieve a victory, so all you need to do is focus heavily on that and ignore everything else. What needs to be done in the Modern era is a major overhaul of all victory conditions, making them demand more things than they currently do, along with the addition of new technologies and civics, and a reworking so that victory conditions are more tightly connected with other mechanics. For example, the economic victory could interact more with culture rather than simply requiring you to reach Mass Production and pile up gold.

 

[stealth_nsk]

In Exploration, every completed legacy path adds 35 age progress. If you manage to complete all 4 before the age countdown kicks in, the age will last 60 turns on standard speed, standard age length.

But how are you spending 82 turns in Modern? When I am having a good game, I will usually get a victory in the thirties, and by turn 45 or so, all legacy paths are done and there is nothing left to do. I could not imagine spending another 40 turns in that age.

My experience with pacing is that Antiquity could maybe last a tiny bit longer. Exploration would be a bit too long, if it wasn't for me trying to get the last treasure fleets home (while my cities are not doing anything productive any more). And Modern is short on turns, but by the time of victory, it is mostly over anyway. Also turns in Modern take much longer for me, so in real time spent it is at least on par, if not longer than the earlier ages.

I don't focus my game that much, I usually spend time to build wonders in modern, spend money on explorers which I would be able to spend on economic path buildings and so on. All this on Immortal difficulty, thus the results.

Probably that's one of the reasons why the game doesn't look as problematic to me as to many others on this forum. I'd really want more interesting scoring, though, so the game would acknowledge the wonders I build, for example. It would be better for more relaxed players like me, but it would also make the game more diverse for hardcore optimizers.

 

[Krikkit1]

A few issues
Antiquity... Legacy milestones give 5-5-10 so if all are achieved by someone the standard game goes from 200 turns to 120
Exploration... Legacy milestones give 5-10-20 so if all are achieved by someone the standard game goes from 200 turns to 60
Antiquity... Legacy milestones give 5-10-0 so if all are achieved by someone the standard game goes from 200 turns to 140... but if someone achieves one the game is over in ~10 turns because of the Victory

Antiquity pacing Good

Exploration WAY TOO FAST
1. The Legacy paths need to give less progress (maybe 5-10-10) so finishing them all gets the game to 100 turns

2. The Legacy paths need to take longer to achieve
Cultural... will probably have to wait for a religion overhaul, but they have said that is something they are hoping to do
Economic... a Longer game means distances aren't quite as critical so they could probably just put the number up, (and maybe provide some diplomatic ways to get them)
Scientific...increase the Threshold from 40 to 50 (40 needs 3 specialists in a quarter with adj 2, or 2 with adj 3.... 50 would need 3 specialists with adj 3 or 2 with adj 4+.. a little harder)
Military...bump the number up a bit (16), have religion count +1, cities count for +1, and Conquered still doubles... so 4 conquered converted towns or 2 cities+1 town.... or 8 converted founded towns or 3 cities and 3 towns.

Modern.. while the Legacy pathways could be improved to take a little longer, that won't be quite enough. they also need to improve the Victories/
Legacy paths should "Open up" the Victories, but the Victories should still be a competitive mechanic themselves, more involved than just take 2 turns for each civ.
For Example:
Have the World Banker act like a Missionary... he has to get an office in every Factory settlement.... but there can only be one office in each settlement. So it becomes a matter of who has the bigger stockpile of gold and (or good relations to mean they can open offices cheaply)

Ideally you could have a Modern game where the Legacy path is achieved by turn ~80 or so.... but it takes another 40 turns of play to turn that into a Victory (50 and 20 for minmaxers)

 

[SemiLazyGamer]

Another thing to mention is just how many people reach specific parts of the legacy paths.

In the Antiquity, depending on number of players, it can be downright impossible for more than 1 player to finish the culture path, I have never seen the AI finish the military path, and you can easily not get the science path finished depending on your choices.

Whereas in Exploration, both the culture and science paths can be done without ever leaving your home continent and easily be done by everyone.

This leads to longer Antiquity and shorter Exploration.

 

[uppi]

Another thing to mention is just how many people reach specific parts of the legacy paths.

In the Antiquity, depending on number of players, it can be downright impossible for more than 1 player to finish the culture path, I have never seen the AI finish the military path, and you can easily not get the science path finished depending on your choices.

Whereas in Exploration, both the culture and science paths can be done without ever leaving your home continent and easily be done by everyone.

This leads to longer Antiquity and shorter Exploration.

The number of people reaching legacy paths is irrelevant for the age progress. As soon as one player has unlocked a milestone, no other player will add age progress for that milestone.

The can achieve all legacy paths in Antiquity. I even had a game in which an AI Pachacuti made all 4. And usually, the player is behind for most of the age, so age progress is mostly driven by AIs. This is different in Exploration: I have not seen an AI go far in the economic legacy path and it is not so hot on the military legacy path either. Yes, the scientific and cultural legacy paths are usually achieved early by an AI, but then the rest is all in the hands of the humans.

 

[j51]

Another thing is that they need to make the exploration and modern civs more fun, so it’s worth it to play those ages longer. Right now I’m kinda relieved when exploration ends quickly in particular and then I can just wrap up a victory in modern.

 

[A_Most_Foolish_Fool]

Hmm, I think where my head is at is that the Antiquity Age is perfect as is and while it has the longest turn count, that is also offset by having less that you need to do in each turn. Still, it is crazy that a 150 turn Antiquity Age (I realize that is somewhat hyperbolic, but eh) doesn't feel anywhere near as long as an 80 turn Exploration age.

The Exploration Age in my opinion is really bogged down by its legacy path side missions that really just don't feel worthwhile to engage with in many cases. The AI is incredibly bad at completing Economic and Military paths, which means that whether or not a player pursues those will make a big difference in how long the age goes. Given that completing those paths is often irrelevant strategically (distant lands are imo the least important objectives to complete in the game and I find myself deprioritizing them around 70% of the time), it adds to the Exploration Age feeling longer than it should be. Going beyond that though is that Religion is so micromanagement focused without any strategic depth to it, but carries such significant bonuses to the yield of your choice (that you can carry over into Modern) to where it feels critical to pursue and it adds to the feeling of each turn dragging. Reworking Religion and improving the AI's ability to compete on the Economic and Military paths would go a long way towards making the Exploration age feel a lot better (alternatively, having more alternate paths for the Economic and Military legacy paths would go a long way towards making those paths engaging and easier for the AI to handle). The Exploration Age's pacing issues are less about the number of turns, but are more about what you are doing with those turns.

I kind of think that the Modern Age design itself is fantastic, but is really held back by how quickly it ends due to its victory conditions. As Xandinho said above, a rework of those victory conditions is much needed to lengthen the age and allow players to engage with more of the Modern Age mechanics. I also think that there needs to be some consideration of adjusting how idealogies function as they seem to drive a lot of the AIs military decisions and it is easy as a player to simply go unnoticed by the other civs early in the age when it matters the most. Perhaps requiring that the players select an idealogy at the start of turn 1 to begin setting up battle lines could lead to more friction and disruption of the player's game plan, to set up both longer, better paced Modern Ages and more tense/exciting conclusions. Alternatively providing incentives for the first players to pick an idealogy like Civ V could be interesting, but would seem to invite balance issues given that bonuses from idealogies are already so strong. Regardless of what approach the devs take for the Modern age, it seems fairly clear that it needs to be longer in order to better allow players to engage with a lot of the interesting and fun new mechanics that are added.