Acken
Deity
This.
Balance issues amplify AI problems when said AI is not being "taught" what is good and what is bad.
Civ 6 too easy?
- Thread starter Tychonoir
- Start date
This.
Balance issues amplify AI problems when said AI is not being "taught" what is good and what is bad.
Esperr
King
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2012
- Messages
- 868
The DLC civs are all hilariously OP, but thats part of there appeal. Nubia just has a better version of the best unit in the game and AUS does everything better then everybody, even after the nerf.
edit: pro-tip, the best bonuses are usually the ones that reward you for doing what your going to do anyway, removing the opportunity cost. See Poland in V and Huayna in IV.
Morgawr
Civ Fanatic
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2007
- Messages
- 1,235
I agree. The maximum difficulty level needs to be DIFFICULT with <30% chance of winning with standard settings. (<10% ideally) Right now it's far from that which really bothers me
Tuvok694
Prince
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2002
- Messages
- 527
Question to all those superior I-play-on-deity-and-it's-too easy users:
I play on level king and although I've been playing many many hours, I never ever got even close to a victory on level "emperor".
Can you accept that I exist in this universe and that in my point of view the question "is Civ6 too easy" makes absolutely no sense???
I play on level king and although I've been playing many many hours, I never ever got even close to a victory on level "emperor".
Can you accept that I exist in this universe and that in my point of view the question "is Civ6 too easy" makes absolutely no sense???
Acken
Deity
Yes I accept that king difficulty is made for you. Why is it relevant for people criticizing its too easy at the highest difficulty offered by the game ? The two are not incompatible. Easy/hard is a subjective concept if that is your point.
Also the AI critics apply to all levels anyway. Deity players would not really be satisfied by a simple increase of bonuses which are already massive. Ive read many Prince players unsatisfied by the game because of the AI.
If the base AI was better and say Emperor would become the new Prince, would that stop your enjoyment if you play at Warlord/Chieftain ?
Last edited:
Archon_Wing
Vote for me or die
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2005
- Messages
- 5,257
Yea, the problems are not constrained by difficulty level, only masked.
Easy is not really the right word. Maybe a not engaging challenge is more like it.
Let's say the challenge is I want you to write all the numbers from 1 to X where Settler is 1 to 10, Prince is 1 to 100, and Deity is 1 to 10000. Now obviously, it is quite difficult to write every single number to 10,000 but it it's not an engaging challenge because it's not like counting is hard. If you can count to 100, you can probably count to 10000 so it really comes down to how well you can do it.
However, for the same challenge, I give you a second option. You can use Excel to print out the numbers. All you'd have to do is enter a formula, copy and paste, and finish it much faster than you could by writing it.
Now, maybe you just like writing numbers, maybe you don't like wasting ink. Maybe you don't like Excel. That's all and good, and you should do whatever you want. But regardless of all subjectivity, you can see this so called "game" is very badly designed given the large gulf between viable options to the point where the flow is simply forced down a certain direction.
And you can also see why the "difficulty" is generally not part of the discussion either. It holds regardless if I make you write to 100 or 10000.
Anyhow, metaphors aside, the problem ultimately is this situation does not encourage or reward players for exploring other options, unless they impose a challenge upon themselves. And really, who's designing the game here?
Although I would say, that if we were stuck on Chieftain, I'd probably find something to amuse myself with. It wouldn't be optimal, but I understand not everyone plays games like that.
Easy is not really the right word. Maybe a not engaging challenge is more like it.
Let's say the challenge is I want you to write all the numbers from 1 to X where Settler is 1 to 10, Prince is 1 to 100, and Deity is 1 to 10000. Now obviously, it is quite difficult to write every single number to 10,000 but it it's not an engaging challenge because it's not like counting is hard. If you can count to 100, you can probably count to 10000 so it really comes down to how well you can do it.
However, for the same challenge, I give you a second option. You can use Excel to print out the numbers. All you'd have to do is enter a formula, copy and paste, and finish it much faster than you could by writing it.
Now, maybe you just like writing numbers, maybe you don't like wasting ink. Maybe you don't like Excel. That's all and good, and you should do whatever you want. But regardless of all subjectivity, you can see this so called "game" is very badly designed given the large gulf between viable options to the point where the flow is simply forced down a certain direction.
And you can also see why the "difficulty" is generally not part of the discussion either. It holds regardless if I make you write to 100 or 10000.
Anyhow, metaphors aside, the problem ultimately is this situation does not encourage or reward players for exploring other options, unless they impose a challenge upon themselves. And really, who's designing the game here?
Although I would say, that if we were stuck on Chieftain, I'd probably find something to amuse myself with. It wouldn't be optimal, but I understand not everyone plays games like that.
Last edited:
Esperr
King
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2012
- Messages
- 868
Dang. no, you got us. This whole time we were all just humble bragging about our l33t skillz.
IMO Civ 6 is a vast improvement over 5 in most ways, but that settler capture thing is ridiculous for the reasons you mention. Capturing a settler early doors is like dropping two difficulty levels.
One of the things Civ 5 got right was puppet cities. They should bring that back, as well as either convert captured settlers to builders, or make any city founded by a captured settler a puppet.
Ferocitus
Deity
That depends on the map and how many civs you play against. Deity level against
a few opponents on the "standard issue" maps is a joke.
IMO Ynamp, at ludicrous size with 25 civs, and the maximum number of city-states
is challenging and great fun. Of course, that style of game is not to everyone's
liking. Win, lose, or abandoned, I have enjoyed every game I have played since
it was released.
It was your own mistake, not the devs.
People who wanted a perfect product should have waited much longer, especially
given the appalling state of Civ5 when it was released.
If Firaxis said they were starting on Civ7, I'd pay full money now to watch
it develop over time, even if the units were stick figures, and the music was
made by hitting the side of a bucket with a hammer.
So many people are claiming that the game is too easy, and the derivative of this problem is incompetent AI. But how many of those people have tried playing peacefully?
I also have beaten the game on deity with Scythia and it was a walk in the park. Then I did so again with France (tried picking what is considered the worst civ) and it wasn't that much harder. But the reason it was so easy was because, yes, you're right, the AI is restricted to (poorly implemented and inadaptable) algorithms it has to carry out to wage its wars, algorithms that won't hold up against a human with free thought, logic, and the ability to trouble-shoot.
But if you look at the new concepts and features of this game, such as districts, adjacency of districts and improvements, civic cards, a tech tree and a separate culture tree... these are all features that focus on the empire-building aspect of the game rather than the combat aspect of the game. It seems the intention of the game was to make the best empire-building game of the series, which frankly I think they've done a decent job at.
Now that I'm thinking about it, I have yet to play and finish a deity game where I didn't have a major, major headstart by jumping from 2 cities to 5 or 6 cities before turn 60 by conquering a neighbor. Most of the games where this opportunity wasn't available (either isolation or really unproductive lands) I ended up rage-quitting when the deity AI started to pull too far ahead. Others have noted that the deity AI doesn't follow victory condition paths very well, and maybe this is something that could be addressed. But the way that I see it is that using aggression is a crutch, it advances you much more quickly and incredibly more efficiently than peaceful building does.
I know its kind of a cop-out answer to say, "the AI can't do adapt to this-or-that very well, so don't do it." But the flip-side of that coin is that we've discovered very effective tactics and strategies, which is the whole point of this forum, and now by saying the game is too easy we're essentially complaining about how effective our strategies are.
I also have beaten the game on deity with Scythia and it was a walk in the park. Then I did so again with France (tried picking what is considered the worst civ) and it wasn't that much harder. But the reason it was so easy was because, yes, you're right, the AI is restricted to (poorly implemented and inadaptable) algorithms it has to carry out to wage its wars, algorithms that won't hold up against a human with free thought, logic, and the ability to trouble-shoot.
But if you look at the new concepts and features of this game, such as districts, adjacency of districts and improvements, civic cards, a tech tree and a separate culture tree... these are all features that focus on the empire-building aspect of the game rather than the combat aspect of the game. It seems the intention of the game was to make the best empire-building game of the series, which frankly I think they've done a decent job at.
Now that I'm thinking about it, I have yet to play and finish a deity game where I didn't have a major, major headstart by jumping from 2 cities to 5 or 6 cities before turn 60 by conquering a neighbor. Most of the games where this opportunity wasn't available (either isolation or really unproductive lands) I ended up rage-quitting when the deity AI started to pull too far ahead. Others have noted that the deity AI doesn't follow victory condition paths very well, and maybe this is something that could be addressed. But the way that I see it is that using aggression is a crutch, it advances you much more quickly and incredibly more efficiently than peaceful building does.
I know its kind of a cop-out answer to say, "the AI can't do adapt to this-or-that very well, so don't do it." But the flip-side of that coin is that we've discovered very effective tactics and strategies, which is the whole point of this forum, and now by saying the game is too easy we're essentially complaining about how effective our strategies are.
Acken
Deity
And then you wonder why even bother with 1UPT if the only way to make the game challenging is to ignore it by playing peacefully. I mean:
Conquest is fun => Stacks are boring => 1UPT introduced => 7 year later AI cant deal with it => Game too easy => Stop doing conquest
:|
And I don't even think you're wrong, I just think it's really ironic. For people that still want to play Civ6 and get a challenge theyll have to use home rules. Not my style so I just play the previous game though (too bad the forum is dead :/)
Conquest is fun => Stacks are boring => 1UPT introduced => 7 year later AI cant deal with it => Game too easy => Stop doing conquest
:|
And I don't even think you're wrong, I just think it's really ironic. For people that still want to play Civ6 and get a challenge theyll have to use home rules. Not my style so I just play the previous game though (too bad the forum is dead :/)
Last edited:
LOL. great synopsis, Acken. In my opinion, the problematic point in your chain of causality is that after 7 years (has it really been that long? We're getting old...) they still have yet to develop an AI that can adapt to the tile restrictions. It seems that at this point they should have either decided to focus resources on addressing this, which as you mention has been a known problems for years, or scrapped the idea and returned to the former placement rules... or come up with something in between. I guess if you're still looking for a challenge and you want to play aggressively, your options are multi-player or using house rules.
Esperr
King
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2012
- Messages
- 868
The 1upt are pretty lame either way. Having stacks of 20-30 dudes and taking actual losses in a war really let you try and out produce somebody out of a war. Yeah, sure, sometimes you just got 50 stacked and rolled, but it made for actual fronts and outproducing OP mattered more.
Tech Osen
Emperor
- Joined
- Nov 13, 2016
- Messages
- 1,943
1upt is fun for human players (imho), but too hard for the AI. But that doesn't excuse things like archers moving out of a city that's being attacked for no reason or land units embarking right before my fleet. Or unescorted settlers trying to move through enemy land.
Archon_Wing
Vote for me or die
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2005
- Messages
- 5,257
Meh, I think there would be the same issues if not a little better.
1UPT or stacked isn't relevant when :
The AI sends settlers unescorted
The AI forward settles stupidly
The AI pursues agendas to its own detriment
The AI creates a hatefest to no real benefit
The AI makes terrible deals.
The AI pursues weak, one-dimensional, holy sites and theater districts, as well as the developers making them as such in the first place.
The AI can't garrison a ranged unit into a city.
Developers releasing overpowered choices to sell on DLCs to pound on already inept AIs
The AI selling works for 1g and bringing up deals it can't accept.
The Developers deciding to hell with late game diplomacy, as well as crippled diplomatic options that cause the AI to be unable to seek help.
The Developers having a war bias, of which the AI can't handle.
Excessive luck elements like barb spawns, relics, and great people which you simply cannot get the AI (or really even people) to easily adapt to.
At what point are you going to tell me to stop "exploiting the AI"? This isn't anything on my part. It's literally the AI falling over without player interaction while the designers keep putting additional weights on them.
Sure rushes would be more effective and cities would be harder to take, but the problems with 5 and 6 go beyond just the combat system, and have been endemic to the series even in earlier versions. The franchise's idea of cost and balance is the second worst thing about it, only to be outdone by the complete inability to make a usable UI. The AI's obsession with religion is pretty much a throwback to it doing the same thing in IV to the same bad effects of shutting players out of religion while simultaneously crippling themselves. How little we have learned in the last 12 years.
And no, screw the deflecting. Just because they released a pile of garbage for V"s initial release does not mean that makes it should be some kind of baseline. It's like expecting praise because you didn't fall over in the first 5 seconds of a race like you did last time.
Oh, and I'd rather not go back to stacks, myself. The army/corps/support mechanics have already been a good enough compromise. Even at the cost of stupid AI. But let's be honest. I know many on the boards have spent a lot of times exploring the mechanics and I think that is the appeal of games such as this. But it's because of this that I despise factors that trivialize the know-how aspect.
1UPT or stacked isn't relevant when :
The AI sends settlers unescorted
The AI forward settles stupidly
The AI pursues agendas to its own detriment
The AI creates a hatefest to no real benefit
The AI makes terrible deals.
The AI pursues weak, one-dimensional, holy sites and theater districts, as well as the developers making them as such in the first place.
The AI can't garrison a ranged unit into a city.
Developers releasing overpowered choices to sell on DLCs to pound on already inept AIs
The AI selling works for 1g and bringing up deals it can't accept.
The Developers deciding to hell with late game diplomacy, as well as crippled diplomatic options that cause the AI to be unable to seek help.
The Developers having a war bias, of which the AI can't handle.
Excessive luck elements like barb spawns, relics, and great people which you simply cannot get the AI (or really even people) to easily adapt to.
At what point are you going to tell me to stop "exploiting the AI"? This isn't anything on my part. It's literally the AI falling over without player interaction while the designers keep putting additional weights on them.
Sure rushes would be more effective and cities would be harder to take, but the problems with 5 and 6 go beyond just the combat system, and have been endemic to the series even in earlier versions. The franchise's idea of cost and balance is the second worst thing about it, only to be outdone by the complete inability to make a usable UI. The AI's obsession with religion is pretty much a throwback to it doing the same thing in IV to the same bad effects of shutting players out of religion while simultaneously crippling themselves. How little we have learned in the last 12 years.
And no, screw the deflecting. Just because they released a pile of garbage for V"s initial release does not mean that makes it should be some kind of baseline. It's like expecting praise because you didn't fall over in the first 5 seconds of a race like you did last time.
Oh, and I'd rather not go back to stacks, myself. The army/corps/support mechanics have already been a good enough compromise. Even at the cost of stupid AI. But let's be honest. I know many on the boards have spent a lot of times exploring the mechanics and I think that is the appeal of games such as this. But it's because of this that I despise factors that trivialize the know-how aspect.
Last edited:
tedhebert
Emperor
ok so done with the other game...
Do you have any suggestions as to what civ to take ? Thinking of trying it out on king, standard size, pangea... Going for Culture...
Thinking Catherine or Cleo for the wonder boosts... Kongo might be good too, but just played one, I like to mix it up a little...
Maybe Gorgo or Pericles ?
Peter for the extra radius ?
Qin for the builder-wonder thingy ?
Thinking Cleo might be the best bet, but I wouldn't mind hearing some opinions on this
Also... Am I going too low at King ? I'm usually an immortal player that sometimes go down to emperor when just wanting to try out things...
thanks
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2011
- Messages
- 11,902
King is just fine.
Any civ... Gorgo get nice culture, England gets the museum tourism, Kongo for the pop and denial on gp
For Cleo, cheaper districts has some appeal.
It's a different game, play and discover rather than plan. You are cutting down on the fun of discovery the more you plan. I played a few as Pericles as he is not so good, choosing a bad civ may be more fun that a good.
Any civ... Gorgo get nice culture, England gets the museum tourism, Kongo for the pop and denial on gp
For Cleo, cheaper districts has some appeal.
It's a different game, play and discover rather than plan. You are cutting down on the fun of discovery the more you plan. I played a few as Pericles as he is not so good, choosing a bad civ may be more fun that a good.
They should bring back stacks of doom if it will help the A.I. compete militarily. Units are a lot more expensive than they used to be. I miss the feeling of terror I felt when the A.I. declared war on me. I still have nightmares of the Mongol stacks coming for my cities.
There were city stacks too. Cities needed military units to protect them otherwise a barb are any other military unit could just walk in and take the city without a scratch. Correct me if I'm wrong but could paratroopers drop in and take an occupied city? Bring back paratroopers!
What happened to partisans? They should bring back partisans too if you take an enemy city. The number of partisans could be driven by government type and city size.
A return of corruption might be a benefit as well especially against the wide empires you have to build to win the games today. Corruption could be mitigated through various buildings cultural and governmental or even non-spy diplomatic units.
The game can be improved. We just need to stop turning our backs on features that actually worked in the past and just tweek them for the current iteration of Civ.
There were city stacks too. Cities needed military units to protect them otherwise a barb are any other military unit could just walk in and take the city without a scratch. Correct me if I'm wrong but could paratroopers drop in and take an occupied city? Bring back paratroopers!
What happened to partisans? They should bring back partisans too if you take an enemy city. The number of partisans could be driven by government type and city size.
A return of corruption might be a benefit as well especially against the wide empires you have to build to win the games today. Corruption could be mitigated through various buildings cultural and governmental or even non-spy diplomatic units.
The game can be improved. We just need to stop turning our backs on features that actually worked in the past and just tweek them for the current iteration of Civ.
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2011
- Messages
- 11,902
I stopped playing when stacks of doom appeared. I agree they make AI coding a lot better but I hate them and am not alone. I have no issue if civ goes back to them I'll just move on. I do not think they will. Having that tactical unit feel to a game is more popular.
Corruption, yeah, we need a wide empire limiter , not as bad as before but we need something.
