Are crises impactful enough?

[evonannoredars]

I've only experienced two crises so far (revolt in antiquity and plague in exploration) and I felt both barely did anything - one city was unhappy for a bit in the first and I lost maybe three or four population total in the second. I am playing on an easier difficulty level for my first game and I'm unsure if that affects the severity of the crisis, so I was curious how theyve played out for others on different game speeds and difficulty levels. Have they been minor inconveniences or genuine emergencies for others?

Additionally, part of what made them so trivial for me was that insane future tech +10 age progression - with several hundred science per turn, I actively held off ending the age and did a few masteries first until I felt I'd experienced a bit of the exploration age plague. (Although even then I was a bit confused because the narrative choice let me interpret the plague as a good thing and benefit from it somehow?)

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Crisis for the Antiquity Age appeared to be all about Happiness going down, but I didn't see it have any influence on any Civ on my map (there were 4 of us left by Turn 115 when the first 'crisis' message appeared). I had 5 - 15 positive Happiness right up to the end of the Age in every city and settlement and never experienced anything negative at all - a Non-Crisis Crisis.

Himiko with Khmer got to 0 Happiness overall, and apparently had one settlement go into some kind of revolt - I saw smoke rising from tiles pillaged by the mob - but she never lost control of it, and she was 2 over her Settlement Cap (which, as was commented on before we got to play, appears to be a very 'soft' cap indeed) DShe had conquered and eliminated Machiavelli and the Greek Civil War, so this might be an indication that early conquest has to be carefully handled to make it through the Age without 'over-expansion' type problems.

Will play some of the Exploration Age tomorrow, but right now the 'Crisis' appears to be a bit of a Non-Event.

 

[AD1730]

To me, crises that just “make number go down” are extremely uninteresting.

 

[TreVor_ish]

They just feel like they were suppose to be impactful, but been too much and might be considered to be something players really don't like to see.
So they become just a nuisance without anything then just busy work.

 

[Siptah]

I had no problems with the antiquity crisis, but I lost some units to the plague in exploration. And of course some gold, because many districts were pillaged. Maybe it was more severe because I was overextending quite a bit with 24 cities? I should have bought doctors immediately in some spread out cities, and then it might have been easier. I'm sure it will be less painful next time.

What did you choose in the narrative event at the beginning of the crisis? The plague is god's mercy or the plague is god's punishment? I went with mercy.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Antiquity age plague was a nightmare for me - lost a number of units including 2 Military Commanders as well as a lot of production!

 

[Siptah]

Antiquity age plague was a nightmare for me - lost a number of units including 2 Military Commanders as well as a lot of production!

May I ask how? I didn't see any effects of the antiquity plague in my game, aside from the policies. What happens on the map?

 

[Noble Zarkon]

May I ask how? I didn't see any effects of the antiquity plague in my game

Towns affected stop sending food, cities stop working on their build queue, military units disappear off the map.

Don't know if I did something wrong but it was a bit of a nightmare!

 

[Uberfrog]

Sovereign difficulty, I found the Antiquity revolt a bit of a pain. I probably wasn’t prioritising happiness enough before the crisis, but the policy cards (which seemed to be the main way the crisis unfolded) just stacked unhappiness penalties until basically all of my Towns (which don’t get to slot resources?) were at the point of revolting. Every turn they burn down an improvement, which just makes the problem worse by removing resources (I can see where the Eurogamer review is coming from…). It’s my first game, but I feel like a barbarian or plague crisis would feel more dynamic?

Overall it wasn’t too bad as it gave me an excuse to declare war to get them back and progress the Military legacy. Overall I lost just one city to an ally at the end of the age, but managed to acquire three more by a revolt, settlement and conquest and now it’s the Exploration Era and everyone is happy again…

 

[UWHabs]

I had the antiquity plague. Nothing for most of it, and then near the end my capital got hit. Annoyingly, I had my army commander sitting there, and he died, doubly so because the last Shi Dafu I got was the free promotion on an army commander, and I couldn't rush another in time. But that was more laziness really, I could have just moved them around, it's not like he was doing anything at the time anyways.

Other than that, it was hard to tell what the impact was. I just kind of picked crisis policies at random, and didn't necessarily feel anything off. I'm sure if I was on the line, or fighting at the time, or trying to rush to get in a wonder before the rollover, I could see it being a pain.

Sovereign difficulty, I found the Antiquity revolt a bit of a pain. I probably wasn’t prioritising happiness enough before the crisis, but the policy cards (which seemed to be the main way the crisis unfolded) just stacked unhappiness penalties until basically all of my Towns (which don’t get to slot resources?) were at the point of revolting. Every turn they burn down an improvement, which just makes the problem worse by removing resources (I can see where the Eurogamer review is coming from…). It’s my first game, but I feel like a barbarian or plague crisis would feel more dynamic?

Overall it wasn’t too bad as it gave me an excuse to declare war to get them back and progress the Military legacy. Overall I lost just one city to an ally at the end of the age, but managed to acquire three more by a revolt, settlement and conquest and now it’s the Exploration Era and everyone is happy again…

That kind of sounds like what you want the crisis to be. You have some pain, you have to re-assign things to try to solve it, but it's not going to destroy you and cripple your empire. But you do need to pay attention to it.

 

[Uberfrog]

That kind of sounds like what you want the crisis to be. You have some pain, you have to re-assign things to try to solve it, but it's not going to destroy you and cripple your empire. But you do need to pay attention to it.

Yes, indeed! But I can’t tell how much of this is me being ignorant of the game mechanics. If I understood how happiness and resources worked better I may have had an easier time of it.

My main complaint is that I didn’t really get a sense of what was happening or why. I feel like it would have been more interesting if the revolts had happened as part of the narrative event system? Like “the citizens of Ravenna have dragged a patrician out into the street and are threatening to execute him - pick one of two bad options” rather than just being forced to slot negative policy cards. Context is key I think to making the narrative system work. It should feel like a big deal that they burned the harbour down.

 

[UWHabs]

Yes, indeed! But I can’t tell how much of this is me being ignorant of the game mechanics. If I understood how happiness and resources worked better I may have had an easier time of it.

My main complaint is that I didn’t really get a sense of what was happening or why. I feel like it would have been more interesting if the revolts had happened as part of the narrative event system? Like “the citizens of Ravenna have dragged a patrician out into the street and are threatening to execute him - pick one of two bad options” rather than just being forced to slot negative policy cards. Context is key I think to making the narrative system work. It should feel like a big deal that they burned the harbour down.

Yeah, there's so many narrative events in the rest of the game, it would definitely make sense to basically have every action in the crisis trigger a narrative event.

Your city got infected by the plague.
A. Quarantine the city, halt all yields for 5 turns and recover, low chance the plague spreads further
B. Send help from around. All other cities nearby get -25% to all yields, medium chance plague continues to spread

 

[uppi]

Yeah, there's so many narrative events in the rest of the game, it would definitely make sense to basically have every action in the crisis trigger a narrative event.

Your city got infected by the plague.
A. Quarantine the city, halt all yields for 5 turns and recover, low chance the plague spreads further
B. Send help from around. All other cities nearby get -25% to all yields, medium chance plague continues to spread

I feel that if you had that for every action, it would get annoying extremely quickly.

 

[Brutus2]

In my first Antiquity game, I had the one with all the negative happiness cards. Looking around the map, most of the other civs had lots of pillaged improvements and looking at the yield ribbons, all of their global happiness was very low. For myself it was especially hard because I had been going for a military legacy and I was already +2 over the settlement cap when the crisis started. I managed it best I could and had to repair lots of improvements every turn. One city did revolt (but not flip) which actually gave an interesting narrative choice. All in all, I felt I was just barely holding everything together and really ready for the age to end. It gave a nice narrative explanation for why my Antiquity age civ came to an end and a new civ would emerge in it's place.

 

[Leucarum]

I haven't had the plague one, but it seemed as if the AI was getting battered by the crises far worse than I was. I barely noticed the loyalty one in particular. Trying a game without the crisis to see how it feels, if the AI can't handle them well, it might be better to keep them switched off.

 

[evonannoredars]

May I ask how? I didn't see any effects of the antiquity plague in my game, aside from the policies. What happens on the map?

I barely saw any effects of the plague in my game because the yellow-green looks too similar to the terrain colour Purple or red would be much better imo

 

[Krumm Nonster]

I was sorta freaking out during my first playthrough cause the crisis seemed severe. I got the revolt one and was losing -6 happiness per crisis policy, and it was starting to build up- especially since I was already at war and had captured cities. I very rarely lost cities in VI due to lack of loyalty, and I at least knew how to mitigate it. I did end up losing 2 settlements through revolt, but gained a different one later. It wasn't as crushing as I thought it would be. My 2nd playthrough I was able to plan much better and I got the same revolt crisis- the -6 happiness really didn't effect me other than a scare with 1 recently captured city. I had figured out some early mitigation strats though, and just piled up happiness policies and kept a commander there etc. So once you get used to it, I think they are easy to plan for but idk how many there are and the first time I get the plague one I will probably not have planned well enough and will have to be reactionary vs proactive. All part of learning a new game with new events and new mechanics though, I can dig it.

Do the crises effects scale up with difficulty?

 

[Chuy1530]

The revolt one was impactful in my game. It had a cascading impact because I was using traded resources to prop up my happiness, but the other civs were losing control of their resources as their cities got mad and destroyed improvements, so it took a lot of managing to keep everything together. One foreign city actually flipped to me during it.

Edit: think I used the wrong name. It was the antiquity happiness one that I got. I haven’t gotten to the end of the second age so I didn’t know there was one actually called Revolt.

 

[Zaarin]

I struggled holding my empire together in the Antiquity happiness crisis; I barely noticed the Exploration revolt crisis.

 

[Tiger Genocide]

In my first Antiquity game, I had the one with all the negative happiness cards. Looking around the map, most of the other civs had lots of pillaged improvements and looking at the yield ribbons, all of their global happiness was very low. For myself it was especially hard because I had been going for a military legacy and I was already +2 over the settlement cap when the crisis started. I managed it best I could and had to repair lots of improvements every turn. One city did revolt (but not flip) which actually gave an interesting narrative choice. All in all, I felt I was just barely holding everything together and really ready for the age to end. It gave a nice narrative explanation for why my Antiquity age civ came to an end and a new civ would emerge in it's place.

This is why I came to the forums. This is going on in my first game and it is making the game kinda unpleasant. I have had 2 towns flip that I had taken from another leader. I am currently trying to wipe out that leader and my capital and original towns are threatening to flip on me. This Crisis mechanic needs some adjustments. It is too punishing. Feels like I am playing Path of Exile 2 right now.

My best recommendation is that Crisis needs either a sliding scale or level settings for the amount of impact a player might want, for either more challenge or for relaxed gameplay.

They also should add the amount of turns on that progress bar so you can see when the crisis will end. Need to shorten them too. They are too long. I am on Standard speed and this crisis has to have been longer than 50 turns, and I am on Turn 152.