[GS] Another Era added? But I lost interest three era's ago in industrial.

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I think part of the reason why some of the features may seem "bleh" in design and execution (like the VI version of great works) is that they spread themselves a bit thin in trying to include so many features in the initial release, but I'm not sure that's the problem with the AI.

There's definitely been an effort to carry forward all of the features from Civ 5 into the new game. I hope they drop that mindset for Civ 7.

Sometimes a particular feature becomes the sole domain of a single programmer, who may have really obtuse and poorly documented code that nobody else can read, and sometimes it can be hard to get him to fix a problem (especially if he has been reassigned to a different project, or left the company entirely). Some of the vanilla bugs had this kind of feel to them -- like the bug in the production menu where it would sometimes show the wrong "just completed" item, which took them like two or three patches to finally fix. That kind of thing smacks of working on someone else's code that you don't really know very well (and which probably wasn't very well-written to begin with).

The whole aircraft feature set has this feel. Lots of expanded options compared to Civ 5 that suggest a lot of ambition for this area, but then not followed through on, notably with respect to making the feature set work with carriers or be handled well by the AI.​

 

[AmazonQueen]

There's definitely been an effort to carry forward all of the features from Civ 5 into the new game. I hope they drop that mindset for Civ 7.

I seem to remember that when Civ V came out it got a lot of flack because of the number of features it had compared to Civ IV.
People always seem to compare a new game with the final version of its predecessor in terms of what they expect it to have at start.

I'm dreading when (if ever) CK III will come out if its expected to include all the features Paradox has added to CK II over the years.

 

[Victoria]

There's definitely been an effort to carry forward all of the features from Civ 5 into the new game.

I suspect a lot of this is due to Civ V players being the majority moving over and crticising features they felt were great in civ V that were not included and then just trying to be crowd pleasers. Certainly they seem to stress that they read and react to forums and this seems to make sense to me.

I hope they drop that mindset for Civ 7.

1. If you do not make the sales you do not make the game
2. If the game now is not an improvement you do not make the sales.

It's no longer a game of people taking a punt buying a game off a shop shelf... but equally I guess it's about people auto buying in steam as well.

 

[UncivilizedGuy]

There's definitely been an effort to carry forward all of the features from Civ 5 into the new game. I hope they drop that mindset for Civ 7.

If they bring most of the content over to the first iteration of Civ 7 then they would have to push their creativity to the limit. There are very few things left that can be added IMO. I expect Civ 7 will be a total rethink. The only direction that I can see them going is to make city building more detailed. It’s really hard to imagine how they would expand game mechanics and content.

 

[mitsho]

Agree, with climate change, the whole „let‘s put everything on the map“ seems to have been played out. There‘s corporations and revamping existing mechanics, but that‘s it. I rather expect them to try something new with the goal of making the next game last ten years or so. I expect differences in the scale of the tile-> hexes change. Like reducing the number of yields (especially food) or not having leader screens who seem to be a big expenditure (replace them with eye candy that‘s easier to integrate) or having staggered starts. Something radical that wouldn‘t be possible with the current engine for sure.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Agree, with climate change, the whole „let‘s put everything on the map“ seems to have been played out.

I personally couldn't care less about the climate change mechanic, but the naming of rivers and mountains on the map is amazing!

The art team in Civ 6 never fails to impress me. They really do top notch work.

 

[Siptah]

The art team in Civ 6 never fails to impress me. They really do top notch work.

Except for some things (Great Person screen, Main Menu, Blue Buttons) I agree.

But it‘s kind of a shock to me - think about 20 years ago, it was unimaginable back then that the graphics would be a noteworthy positive feature of a civ game.

 

[Aristos]

To be honest with you, I really like the game and when someone comes along and starts rubbishing it I get triggered.

The truth hurts.

Yeap. And don't get confused, I like the game too, and especially the series, despite its shortcomings... that's why most of us veterans complain, not because we "hate" it, but the opposite... we want it see shine its true potential (which it can't if core components are up to standard).

I think part of the reason why some of the features may seem "bleh" in design and execution (like the VI version of great works) is that they spread themselves a bit thin in trying to include so many features in the initial release, but I'm not sure that's the problem with the AI.

Nope. The problem with the AI is the model (BTs); it's an obsolete model that only shines (in gaming terms) in RTS games such as Starcraft, but fails miserably in systems that are complex and based on mid to long term "planning"/effects, such as TBS. Now, guess where the AI guy for civ 6 came from? What is his main programming expertise in gaming previous to civ 6?

Yeap. Starcraft.

That's why you see a somewhat "effective" initial rush from the AI in Ancient/Classical; it's not only because of the bonus to everything, it's because it has been well trained for "zerging", ala Starcraft. When it fails at that, it fails at everything.

BTs are not an AI model fit for TBS games. That is what has me pessimistic about civ 6 AI; how do you fix that without changing the model?

Bottom line: they dropped the ball by bringing a Starcraft "expert" for their AI.

 

[Elhoim]

I think Civ VII should move in the direction of Endless Legend and the upcoming AoW: Planetfall. Basically:

- Divide the world in regions, one city per region. You can place it wherever you want, and build districts anywhere on the region. Each region has a "special", whether it be a city-state or natural wonder. This would solve the AI making crappy cities, and even help them with settling. Plus less city management for the player, and better performance (you could have bigger maps). Culture would be more tied to foreign influence resistance (affecting the loyalty system), instead of tile gaining. The main point is less, but more involved city choices. They could even divide the production in units and buildings.
- Units should be armies, and be a bit more limited (but bigger ZoC). When they clash, a slice of the map is closed off like in EL, and the AI and you place your units. Separate map like in AoW would be too much. This change would "improve" the AI as it's easier to make a logical formation in a set-up your units environment (melee front, archers behind, cavalry on the sides, etc). Also would unclutter the map, both for the AI and player management, with less units to individually move around. Plus more challenging combat.

 

[Cerilis]

I think Civ VII should move in the direction of Endless Legend and the upcoming AoW: Planetfall. Basically:

- Divide the world in regions, one city per region. You can place it wherever you want, and build districts anywhere on the region. Each region has a "special", whether it be a city-state or natural wonder. This would solve the AI making crappy cities, and even help them with settling. Plus less city management for the player, and better performance (you could have bigger maps). Culture would be more tied to foreign influence resistance (affecting the loyalty system), instead of tile gaining. The main point is less, but more involved city choices. They could even divide the production in units and buildings.
- Units should be armies, and be a bit more limited (but bigger ZoC). When they clash, a slice of the map is closed off like in EL, and the AI and you place your units. Separate map like in AoW would be too much. This change would "improve" the AI as it's easier to make a logical formation in a set-up your units environment (melee front, archers behind, cavalry on the sides, etc). Also would unclutter the map, both for the AI and player management, with less units to individually move around. Plus more challenging combat.

No, just no. I hate different map-combat. It's why I prefer civ over those other 2 franchises. ^^
I dare say, it's part of what makes civ civ.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

It has been said many times but I think the #1 reason why players lose interest before the latter eras is because most games are already decided by the mid game. Why keep playing when you know you are going to win? In almost all my games, I know by the renaissance era, sometimes sooner, if I am going to win or not. This is due in large part to civs always growing and never falling. So if I have successfully conquered a few of my neighbors and have carved out a sizeable empire for myself by the end of the classical era, I know I am just going to get even bigger and my opponents will never be a threat to me. Once the initial expansion/conquest phase in the early game is finished, the rest of the game is just building the right stuff in your cities until you eventually win. This phase of the game can feel tedious because there is rarely any challenge. It's just hundreds of turns of selecting the next thing to build. This is why I often don't finish my games. Once I establish a nice empire, I feel like I accomplished the most important thing. My civ is the best and strongest. I don't feel like playing another 200 turns of just selecting the next thing to build to make it official.

Firaxis' solution in Gathering Storm appears to be to push the victories back so that players will be forced to play through to the new future era in order to win and also add new stuff (climate change, power, world congress, rock bands) to give the player interesting stuff to do in the late game. The approach seems to be "yeah, we know the single player game won't really be competitive anymore by the mid game but at least there will still be fun stuff to do". I think this will be fine for players who enjoy the "role-playing" parts of the game. Certainly, a lot of those new features do look interesting and fun. I will probably play a couple times to the future era, to see what the new features are like. For the more competitive players, I am not sure it will work. It does not seem to address the main issue which is that if I already know I am going to win by the renaissance/early industrial era, why would I keep playing just because you gave me more buttons to push? I am concerned that veteran players will still quit mid game because they won't really care about the cool features. For them, once the game is in the bag, they won't care about continuing the game.

For me, the key to making the late game interesting is addressing the fundamental problem above. If you want the player to stay engaged, then the game needs to offer a real challenge where the winner is still up for grabs even late game.

A couple solutions:
1) Add more geopolitical events that could potentially upset the power structure. For example, have real revolutions and rebellions that the player would have to fight or change their government/policy cards to placate. Have civil wars even that the player would have to fight. Have a neighboring civ face a rebellion or civil war that could spill over into your territory. Have a serious barbarian invasion that you would need to find other civs to ally with to help you resist it. etc... If the player were facing rebellions, revolutions, coups, civil wars etc either within or in neighboring civs that would really spice up the game.
2) Change how victories work. Get rid of the individual victories and replace them with one single "score" type victory that only triggers at the very end. Players could still pursue culture, science or domination to win victory points. Also, victory points would ramp up with eras. This would help players catch up since they could earn more points in the late game. By allocating more victory points in the late game eras, it would shift the focus to the late game. Games would be decided in the late game since that is where the most victory points could be earned. This would prevent the game from being won in the middle.
3) This might be radical but maybe when you research nationalism, your civ would fundamentally change. You would lose some outer cities and they would become independent nations, your remaining cities would also change. Your civ name would change. For example, if you are playing as the roman civ, your civ name would change to the Italian civ. And you would get brand new civ abilities and unique units etc... This could help the game feel new and fresh as it would be like starting a new game with a new civ except with the map already settled with nation/civs.

 

[Aristos]

No, just no. I hate different map-combat. It's why I prefer civ over those other 2 franchises. ^^
I dare say, it's part of what makes civ civ.

It's not really "different map combat" ala Total War; it's the exact same region where the armies engage, taken from the strategic map... imagine a zoom in to the area where the armies clash, exact same tiles and features, only that it gets "enclosed" by a limit where the armies move and fight.

It has been said many times but I think the #1 reason why players lose interest before the latter eras is because most games are already decided by the mid game. Why keep playing when you know you are going to win? In almost all my games, I know by the renaissance era, sometimes sooner, if I am going to win or not. This is due in large part to civs always growing and never falling. So if I have successfully conquered a few of my neighbors and have carved out a sizeable empire for myself by the end of the classical era, I know I am just going to get even bigger and my opponents will never be a threat to me.

That is THE key to the "mid to late game boredom", the complete lack of challenge from the AI to ANY winning civ (not only player). That is why some of us insist and insist on the quality of the AI; without it, there will be no challenge after that initial phase you correctly pinpoint, no matter how many new puzzles they add (in fact, every added mechanism will amplify the AI failures).

 

[Elhoim]

No, just no. I hate different map-combat. It's why I prefer civ over those other 2 franchises. ^^
I dare say, it's part of what makes civ civ.

That's why I said it shouldn't be like AoW. EL doesn't make a new map, basically, it places borders 5 tiles in each direction around the spot where combat started and the armies "spread out" in there:



Basically, the fight happens in the world map, but the battlefield is determined by where the armies clash.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

That's why I said it shouldn't be like AoW. EL doesn't make a new map, basically, it places borders 5 tiles in each direction around the spot where combat started and the armies "spread out" in there:



Basically, the fight happens in the world map, but the battlefield is determined by where the armies clash.

The combat system in EL seems deliberately designed to address the issues with stacks and 1upt and as such, could be well suited for civ. Players could move stacks when they are not fighting but have them spread out for combat. It would be the best of both worlds. I really hope civ7 considers this or something very similar.

 

[Elhoim]

Yeah, exactly my point. It keeps the Civ feel, but solves movement issues for the player and helps the AI with combat. AoW is more like a "Heroes of Might & Magic" style, which is why I discarded it.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

There's definitely been an effort to carry forward all of the features from Civ 5 into the new game. I hope they drop that mindset for Civ 7.

Probably because they got slaughtered for not doing so between IV and V!

That is THE key to the "mid to late game boredom", the complete lack of challenge from the AI to ANY winning civ (not only player). That is why some of us insist and insist on the quality of the AI; without it, there will be no challenge after that initial phase you correctly pinpoint, no matter how many new puzzles they add (in fact, every added mechanism will amplify the AI failures).

I think the problem is deeper than the AI, I think it's a fundamental problem with the way Civ has always worked. I played a lot of multiplayer with friends on V and even then it was obvious who was going to win after a certain point; it's just very difficult to overturn a science and production defecit. Against the AI you can do it with war but that's not so easy against a decent human player.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Yeap. Starcraft.

That's why you see a somewhat "effective" initial rush from the AI in Ancient/Classical; it's not only because of the bonus to everything, it's because it has been well trained for "zerging", ala Starcraft. When it fails at that, it fails at everything.

BTs are not an AI model fit for TBS games. That is what has me pessimistic about civ 6 AI; how do you fix that without changing the model?

Bottom line: they dropped the ball by bringing a Starcraft "expert" for their AI.

Funny because Starcraft's ai is terrible too for the same reason.

But eh the ai has always bum rushed the player in civ being its biggest advantage.

 

[acluewithout]

Yeap. And don't get confused, I like the game too, and especially the series, despite its shortcomings... that's why most of us veterans complain, not because we "hate" it, but the opposite... we want it see shine its true potential (which it can't if core components are up to standard).



Nope. The problem with the AI is the model (BTs); it's an obsolete model that only shines (in gaming terms) in RTS games such as Starcraft, but fails miserably in systems that are complex and based on mid to long term "planning"/effects, such as TBS. Now, guess where the AI guy for civ 6 came from? What is his main programming expertise in gaming previous to civ 6?

Yeap. Starcraft.

That's why you see a somewhat "effective" initial rush from the AI in Ancient/Classical; it's not only because of the bonus to everything, it's because it has been well trained for "zerging", ala Starcraft. When it fails at that, it fails at everything.

BTs are not an AI model fit for TBS games. That is what has me pessimistic about civ 6 AI; how do you fix that without changing the model?

Bottom line: they dropped the ball by bringing a Starcraft "expert" for their AI.

That’s interesting. What model should FXS have used instead?

 

[Cagarustus]

Yeap. And don't get confused, I like the game too, and especially the series, despite its shortcomings... that's why most of us veterans complain, not because we "hate" it, but the opposite... we want it see shine its true potential (which it can't if core components are up to standard).

I understand. Apologies for my snideness before.

 

[Aristos]

That’s interesting. What model should FXS have used instead?

In my humble opinion, a dynamic task allocation system within a hierarchical multi-layer model...

Seriously. The link below is a beautiful MSc Thesis that tackles the problem of our beloved series (literally, read it), and presents options and solutions.

https://ai.vub.ac.be/sites/default/files/Thesis_Schtickzelle_2012.pdf

If my understanding of civ 5's code is correct, that is basically what they tried to develop (remember all those talks about the "different levels of AI in charge of different goals" during civ 5 development? That's the hierarchical model in action)... it's just that they did not finish it, literally, there were huge blocks of emptiness left behind (i.e. code for ranged units to move and shoot, and many more). So, you have Gazebo and Ilteroi brilliantly filling in those gaps and even expanding the "dynamic task allocation" parts of the code to make the CP AI the opponent that can be created using said model, but the model is still there, and basically showing its strength for TBS games in the hands of two passionate hobbyists... imagine what it can do in the hands of competent, well funded and focused developers...

Read the paper, it's amazing, even if it may be hard to read in some parts.

No mention of BTs at all, by the way. For obvious reasons, if you ask me.