Atomic Era - The End

[bane_]

I would like to start saying that I LOVE Civilization 5. This is not a complain, just asking for information from those with larger experience than me.

Ok, here is the thing: I never lost a game if I got to the Atomic Era. Last game I played Babylon (First time!)/Emperor/Standard/Small Continents with 1 extra Civ was pretty rad up until Modern Era, where I got the top place from Lizzy for the first time. After that, the game just became dull; I eclipsed every other Civ in Technology, had almost every City-State as an ally, had the most wonders/policies/happiness.

When it came to the Victory, I had all City-States as allies, Lizzy was gone, 2 Civs Guarded and every other 'Afraid', every Spaceship part built, 3 Capitals (mine included), 47 Delegations + Dido and Pachacuti's unconditional support (39 needed to win) and won by Culture. People are just too nice with each other, when pressing F4, every thing on the Global Politics details was GREEN! Nobody denouncing, no wars, just happiness and friendly talk every where you look! I had to bribe people into fighting, but just 10 turns later they make peace. ALWAYS.
I already had researched FIVE Future Techs, and most of them were still entering Atomic Era, with only Dido left behind in the Renaissance.

I'm wondering, do this still happen in higher difficulties? This was just my third game in Emperor and it just feels boringly easy. My first Emperor was awesome as I struggled to build the first Wonders I wanted and was even nearly wiped out by two neighboring civs, and went so-so up until the end. The second one was just boring, but I believe it was because three Civs were wiped at Medieval thanks to Shaka and Attila's unseemly alliance.

Just now I started a game with Babylon again, 15 Civs, Huge map, Small Continents (I loved this map setting!) on Emperor again. I don't want to play Deity because they start with too many Techs and I would never be able to build the Wonders I like.

TL;DR: The games becomes too easy/boring near the end. Not enough fights, not enough challenge as well. Any solution?

 

[Quineloe]

what I did was get that mod that denies the AI all the free starting tech so their head start isn't that big. That allows you to increase the difficulty by one, which usually results in more aggressive late game

 

[Adjuvant]

I have observed adding even one or two additional civs to a map can cause constraints and make the AI perform less than optimally.

 

[bane_]

Damn. Is that verified? I thought that would make them more aggressive towards the nearby civs. I'm playing with 15 right now, 3 (IIRC) above the 'recommended' for the map.

@Quineloe: Which MOD is that? Could you provide me the name/link? Thanks

 

[lindsay40k]

I gather that the AI's biggest assets include reduced penalties for larger empires; more AI means less population per AI. Also, science leads can be extremely powerful, and Babylon are brilliant at pulling ahead early on. Sounds like your game was won a long time before the program declared you winner

 

[Sturmgewher88mm]

Ok, here is the thing: I never lost a game if I got to the Atomic Era. Last game I played Babylon (First time!)/Emperor/Standard/Small Continents with 1 extra Civ was pretty rad up until Modern Era, where I got the top place from Lizzy for the first time. After that, the game just became dull; I eclipsed every other Civ in Technology, had almost every City-State as an ally, had the most wonders/policies/happiness.

When it came to the Victory, I had all City-States as allies, Lizzy was gone, 2 Civs Guarded and every other 'Afraid', every Spaceship part built, 3 Capitals (mine included), 47 Delegations + Dido and Pachacuti's unconditional support (39 needed to win) and won by Culture. People are just too nice with each other, when pressing F4, every thing on the Global Politics details was GREEN! Nobody denouncing, no wars, just happiness and friendly talk every where you look! I had to bribe people into fighting, but just 10 turns later they make peace. ALWAYS.
I already had researched FIVE Future Techs, and most of them were still entering Atomic Era, with only Dido left behind in the Renaissance.

Haha sounds like all of my games on settler difficulty

 

[Fish Man]

I would like to start saying that I LOVE Civilization 5. This is not a complain, just asking for information from those with larger experience than me.

Ok, here is the thing: I never lost a game if I got to the Atomic Era. Last game I played Babylon (First time!)/Emperor/Standard/Small Continents with 1 extra Civ was pretty rad up until Modern Era, where I got the top place from Lizzy for the first time. After that, the game just became dull; I eclipsed every other Civ in Technology, had almost every City-State as an ally, had the most wonders/policies/happiness.

When it came to the Victory, I had all City-States as allies, Lizzy was gone, 2 Civs Guarded and every other 'Afraid', every Spaceship part built, 3 Capitals (mine included), 47 Delegations + Dido and Pachacuti's unconditional support (39 needed to win) and won by Culture. People are just too nice with each other, when pressing F4, every thing on the Global Politics details was GREEN! Nobody denouncing, no wars, just happiness and friendly talk every where you look! I had to bribe people into fighting, but just 10 turns later they make peace. ALWAYS.
I already had researched FIVE Future Techs, and most of them were still entering Atomic Era, with only Dido left behind in the Renaissance.

I'm wondering, do this still happen in higher difficulties? This was just my third game in Emperor and it just feels boringly easy. My first Emperor was awesome as I struggled to build the first Wonders I wanted and was even nearly wiped out by two neighboring civs, and went so-so up until the end. The second one was just boring, but I believe it was because three Civs were wiped at Medieval thanks to Shaka and Attila's unseemly alliance.

Just now I started a game with Babylon again, 15 Civs, Huge map, Small Continents (I loved this map setting!) on Emperor again. I don't want to play Deity because they start with too many Techs and I would never be able to build the Wonders I like.

TL;DR: The games becomes too easy/boring near the end. Not enough fights, not enough challenge as well. Any solution?

Play on deity. The game will become MUCH more challenging if you do. Probably to the point of impossible, if you don't know how to win.

OT: I'm surprised that this hasn't come up yet, but: play on a higher difficulty level. More AI bonuses and less of yours pretty much translates to a harder game in almost all areas.

 

[Tiresomehoopla]

Forgive my stupidity, but does adding too many civs into the map make them all perform terribly? I almost always overload my maps, I like the gnashing of teeth over land type game where everyone hates each other...

 

[bane_]

To be honest, re-reading my OP it sounds a bit condescending.
Let me be clear: I'm not a great player, I'm just regular. I've lost many times, just lost a game while trying Polynesia, even with the huge economic advantage at the start of the game.

What I don't like iis that the game seems to pull the break when I/someone reaches the Atomic Era. It is just an impression, I'm sure of it, but it still bugs me. Everyone is just too passive, like playing solitaire.

My problem with Deity - as briefly explained in the OP - is that they get a great head-start... which is not my reason to complain; the endgame is. The best part of the game for me is up until Renaissance; everybody is trying to get the other guy's land and luxuries. Then, comes the Modern Era and all Leaders are like 'We are civilized now! It's not like it was 1,000 years ago. C'mon, let's be buddies. Also, stop stealing my works. Thanks.'

The initial rush to build Great Library -> Parthenon gets me super excited all the time. I don't know openings, I barely remember the concept of ICS from Civ4 and I don't know what half of the Advanced Options do; I'm just a regular player who gets bored after Atomic Era.

In retrospect, maybe it's not the game's fault, you know? I just want to see if others share this feeling, and if anyone have a solution.

 

[Sturmgewher88mm]

To be honest, re-reading my OP it sounds a bit condescending.
Let me be clear: I'm not a great player, I'm just regular. I've lost many times, just lost a game while trying Polynesia, even with the huge economic advantage at the start of the game.

What I don't like iis that the game seems to pull the break when I/someone reaches the Atomic Era. It is just an impression, I'm sure of it, but it still bugs me. Everyone is just too passive, like playing solitaire.

My problem with Deity - as briefly explained in the OP - is that they get a great head-start... which is not my reason to complain; the endgame is. The best part of the game for me is up until Renaissance; everybody is trying to get the other guy's land and luxuries. Then, comes the Modern Era and all Leaders are like 'We are civilized now! It's not like it was 1,000 years ago. C'mon, let's be buddies. Also, stop stealing my works. Thanks.'

The initial rush to build Great Library -> Parthenon gets me super excited all the time. I don't know openings, I barely remember the concept of ICS from Civ4 and I don't know what half of the Advanced Options do; I'm just a regular player who gets bored after Atomic Era.

In retrospect, maybe it's not the game's fault, you know? I just want to see if others share this feeling, and if anyone have a solution.

Why don't you try starting a game in the atomic or information era?

 

[Quineloe]

Damn. Is that verified? I thought that would make them more aggressive towards the nearby civs. I'm playing with 15 right now, 3 (IIRC) above the 'recommended' for the map.

@Quineloe: Which MOD is that? Could you provide me the name/link? Thanks

I've employed two mods which I think are key to having a challenging experience throughout the entire game.
The first one is afaik unpublished, you get it here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=12931784#post12931784

the other mod is this :

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=177544192&searchtext=AI+tech

Play on deity. The game will become MUCH more challenging if you do. Probably to the point of impossible, if you don't know how to win.

OT: I'm surprised that this hasn't come up yet, but: play on a higher difficulty level. More AI bonuses and less of yours pretty much translates to a harder game in almost all areas.

increasing the difficulty just means you'll lose more games in the first 100 turns due to the AI just pulling way ahead of you, and on top difficulties you have to follow a certain build not to outright lose 90% of your games due to the massive, massive tech advantages the AI gets.

The difficulty you can reliably not lose due to the AI headstart is also the difficulty that is too easy once you've reached the industrial era. Just like with their other title, xcom, civ suffers from the tough start, trivial finish syndrome.

 

[Cao Cao Mengde]

One thing I always try is challenging myself in different ways. I've found that roleplaying as the civ I'm playing as is one way to do it- it makes things a lot more interesting and difficult, a handicap of sorts in a way.

Playing as strong civs like Babylon and playing as efficiently as possible does make everything feel too easy, I've found.

Anyways, just my two cents.

 

[Cao Cao Mengde]

One thing I always try is challenging myself in different ways. I've found that roleplaying as the civ I'm playing as is one way to do it- it makes things a lot more interesting and difficult, a handicap of sorts in a way.

Playing as strong civs like Babylon and playing as efficiently as possible does make everything feel too easy, I've found.

Anyways, just my two cents.

 

[Barghaest]

Forgive my stupidity, but does adding too many civs into the map make them all perform terribly? I almost always overload my maps, I like the gnashing of teeth over land type game where everyone hates each other...

Adding or removing tends to throw off the AI. I used to play with fewer Civs because I liked room to grow and always found the games boring since the AI would never really expand to fill in the gaps and with raging barbs the AI suffered more than I (especially if I went Honor since I tended to actively hunt barb camps and get a profound edge over AI).

Adding extras has a similar effect. It irks me that they gave us the ability to adjust the number of Civs to our preference but didn't properly adjust the game to handle it...

As to OPs complaint... one question - after you started pulling ahead of AI, did you start hogging all the wonders? If so, that tends to dynamically extend the gap and when the gap gets wide enough I've noticed the AI seems to "give up" and stop advancing (oddly enough it appears the AI can elect to research NOTHING... when I was first adjusting my mod I'd gone a few thousand turns into the game was approaching Renaissance and got one of the ranking screens for tech advances... most of the AI still listed as having 1 and even if they'd changed which item they researched every turn until each had only 1 turn left, they SHOULD have had more than 1 tech after 2500ish turns but did not so the AI MUST be able to research nothing to have accomplished this manner of f-tardery).

 

[Memoryjar]

I'm just a regular player who gets bored after Atomic Era.

In retrospect, maybe it's not the game's fault, you know? I just want to see if others share this feeling, and if anyone have a solution.

I have the same feeling.
Move to Immortal. You'll have a better challenge. But, when you reach Atomic Era (which mean you survive to medieval era), you still win the game. It's just a question of turn.

I don't know if on Deity there's more in late game. I'll move to it when I'll stop to loose in Medieval era between T100/150 where AI surround me and I fail to manage the assault.

 

[kaspergm]

Play on deity. The game will become MUCH more challenging if you do. Probably to the point of impossible, if you don't know how to win.

OT: I'm surprised that this hasn't come up yet, but: play on a higher difficulty level. More AI bonuses and less of yours pretty much translates to a harder game in almost all areas.

Playing on higher difficulty level is not necessarily the answer to this problem - or at least it might bring its own problems. Sure, upping the level will probably push the break-even point a bit backwards in the game, but it will also mean that the first three eras play like a completely different game. That may or may not be desirable, depending on the individual pov.

Personally, I play on Emperor, because I like this level - AI will give me some opposition, it will take some wonders, it will be ahead of me technologically in beginning, it will found religions before I do, and it will attack me if I neglect military - but it also gives me some breathing space, i.e. I do get some wonders, I do get to found a religion most of the time, etc. That breathing space is crucial for me. If I step up to Immortal or Diety I might be able to still win - well, at least on Immortal - but the game I play to get there will not be one I enjoy, because I will most likely not be able to do those things which I think is what makes the game fun.

In some ways, the issue of break-even is inherent to the game - at least with the way AI was designed in Civ5. Upping the level doesn't make AI better, it just gives it a bigger head-start; if you survive long enough, you will overtake the AI at some point (from where the game stops being interesting). Instead it should be so that the AI actually performs better on higher difficulty levels (could be illustrated like this). It goes to the credit of BnW that it generally managed to push that level of break even back a bit by making some features like archaeology and world congress that in many way made some sort of restarting of game in the middle, but it still doesn't change the fact that AI seems to completely stall sometime in between Industrial and Modern era on most upper-mid difficulty levels.

 

[bane_]

Funny that kaspergm could explain my problem better than me.

I'll try Quineloe's mods. Sounds interesting, specially the 'more war'.

Thanks for the answers, everybody!

 

[CaptainPatch]

The overall problem is that once the player starts to pull ahead in any area, it only takes about one Era to make the player's winning in that category inevitable. The easiest is Diplomatic: Complete Patronage, coupled with a decent cash flow -- just specializing in overrunning barbarian encampments is enough to fund that -- and you can be certain of a Diplomatic win before the Modern Era is over. UNLESS you deliberately limit the number of City States. (I prefer a Huge map, Marathon, with all 41 CSs in play.) In fact, even if you disable the Diplo victory, dominating the CSs will pretty much give you whatever type of victory you want. The Militaristic CSs give you so many units for free, you're assured of having the largest military by game's end. The Cultured CSs provide so much Culture, you can flesh out practically all of the Social Policy trees. Etc.

If you really want to be challenged, try Venice on practically any Difficulty setting. You can't build Settlers; the ONLY way you can expand is by buying CSs with Great Merchant of Venice units -- and those thing are very, very rare. (Approaching the Renaissance, and I've only had ONE of those so far.) About the ONLY thing keeping me competitive are my Alliances with CSs. But, again, dominating the CSs makes my win inevitable. I was the last of 10 civs to enter the Medieval Era, but I will probably be the first to enter the Renaissance, having completed ALL of the Medieval techs. (On Emperor Difficulty, in case you were wondering.)

So, try playing Venice, but with only 15-20 CSs in play.

 

[kaspergm]

If you really want to be challenged, try Venice on practically any Difficulty setting. You can't build Settlers; the ONLY way you can expand is by buying CSs with Great Merchant of Venice units -- and those thing are very, very rare. (Approaching the Renaissance, and I've only had ONE of those so far.) About the ONLY thing keeping me competitive are my Alliances with CSs. But, again, dominating the CSs makes my win inevitable. I was the last of 10 civs to enter the Medieval Era, but I will probably be the first to enter the Renaissance, having completed ALL of the Medieval techs. (On Emperor Difficulty, in case you were wondering.)

So, try playing Venice, but with only 15-20 CSs in play.

Then you are playing Venice wrong. Obviously when playing Venice, you should focus on Great Merchants and navy. That means beeline Great Lighthouse, get Mausoleum of Halicanassus, get markets and put specialists in merchant slots. Liberty is your friend because you will get a free MoV to get a very early puppet, and puppets are great for merchant specialists since they have force gold focus = more merchants = more puppets. Optics will give you another MoV and those Galeasses are not too bad either. Commerce is also your friend for increased Merchant production and buying GM with faith after Industrial.

 

[bane_]

I agree with kaspergm. I played Venice as soon as I was back to the game, it is one of my favorite due to their huge income, and not that hard to win - my friend call Venice 'the Hard mode' though . Double trade routes is basically free money - your navy will be ridiculously big and they are more than enough to protect your Cargo Ships.

You get a free Merchant of Venice as soon as you research Optics (I'm almost certain), the rest you focus with Markets and whatnot - I usually focus on GS and MoV. That's all the start you need. After that, just clearing some barbarian camps for the nearby CS and buying the friendship of the others is enough to get the game going on your way pretty soon. Your capital will be producing huge amounts of gold very soon! You can even rush-buy some buildings if needed and your pocket will not feel the hit at all.

Also, that's not the only way to expand. You can puppet enemy cities. Which I happen to do very often to those pesky expansionists who settle near me and then ask me to 'brush on my diplomacy'.

You don't need to focus on your military that much. If you're attacked, you can hold your capital pretty easily buying one or another unit when they start killing your guys.