Civ switching didn't fix early vs. late civ problem

[Civinator]

We need to go back to Civ3

... and the funny thing is, that in Civ 3 the mod CCM 3 is existing, with a working evolution of the civs and leaders (per example from Rome over the Italian City States to Italy), demonstrating that the Firaxis dogma, that an immortal leader for a civ game is needed to identify the parties of a game, is very wrong.

 

[stealth_nsk]

... and the funny thing is, that in Civ 3 the mod CCM 3 is existing, with a working evolution of the civs and leaders (per example from Rome over the Italian City States to Italy), demonstrating that the Firaxis dogma, that an immortal leader for a civ game is needed to identify the parties of a game, is very wrong.

I don't think the existence of a mod proves anything. Mods are pretty niche things.

 

[Crashdummy]

... and the funny thing is, that in Civ 3 the mod CCM 3 is existing, with a working evolution of the civs and leaders (per example from Rome over the Italian City States to Italy), demonstrating that the Firaxis dogma, that an immortal leader for a civ game is needed to identify the parties of a game, is very wrong.

I dont want to burst your bubble, but a very small minority of players play with mods. very very small

 

[Civinator]

I don't think the existence of a mod proves anything. Mods are pretty niche things.

I dont want to burst your bubble, but a very small minority of players play with mods. very very small

Your arguments have a quality similar to those of the catholic church in the 16th/17th century, that the sun circles around earth, because telescopes at that time were pretty niche things and were only owned by a very very small number of people.

 

[Gorbles]

Your arguments have a quality similar to those of the catholic church in the 16th/17th century, that the sun circles around earth, because telescopes at that time were pretty niche things and were only owned by a very very small number of people.

Mods have been around for decades. They will be around for decades more.

However, they're a subjective enhancement factually used by a small portion of the overall playerbase.

They are not the factual, scientifically-proven reality that is heliocentricity.

 

[reddishrecue]

Actually mods are useful. I recall civ 6 had good ones but I doubt it'll be enough to save civ 7.

 

[MrRadar]

I don't know, but I assume you can browse the patch notes just as well as me (I'll look when I have time, but feel free to beat me to the punch).

Is your claim that because an instance of it happened once, it hasn't been addressed? Is the intent that the AI should never forward settle, or was the issue that the AI was doing precious little but forward settling?

Struggling to understand the point you're trying to make, here. It'd help if you were a bit more forthcoming.

It was your assured claim that it "got patched", so I thought you had the supporting info at hand and I'm leaving the burden of supporting your claims to you. I just remembered that I had an example that illustrates possibly remaining problems after that patch, if it was up to and including 1.2.2. I don't know if it happened "only" once, how many examples through the player base do not get posted here or on Reddit? So more of "at least" once, and in my only game on 1.2.2, I did not manage to play more on that version.

But I remember one of my games of Civ VI, where I spawned with one AI on quite a large land mass and the AI sent a settler across it and over 20+ tiles to settle their second city 4 tiles from my capital, ignoring all the vast swathes of land. And now, after years of allegedly ever "increasing" investments into AI and its improvements I see the same thing in a new iteration. And what is worse, it is gluing their city center to my border, gluing it in a game, where you can't swap tiles, so it is useless and annoying even when captured. If you make AI forward settle, at least write some code lines so that they are able to do it properly.

I believe the AI should not be prevented from forward settling, as in some geography forward settling can be the only means to get a better position, when the land and resources are limited. But when they're plenty and to spare, to have AI marching their first settlers across continents for turns and turns is a bit wasteful, when they could already be growing cities nearby their capital, claiming resources and forming their heartlands. Maybe then they could resist the player and maintain the intrigue in the game longer than up to the mid-game only.

If in Civ VI (and VII) AI would knew much better how to play the game using the mechanics present in the game, maybe the player snowballing problem would be much less and tension about who is going to win would remain in the game for longer and not be gone like after 100 turns in Civ VI and after 1 turn or so in Civ VII.

 

[Gorbles]

It was your assured claim that it "got patched", so I thought you had the supporting info at hand and I'm leaving the burden of supporting your claims to you.

Ahh, the "burden of supporting my claims". No, I actively play the game and remember things that happened both in my games and in the patches that affected them. Much like you recall an anecdote of it happening to you. I don't have the correct line of patch notes in the (nicely styled, but horrendous to navigate) 2K / Civilisation patch notes webpage. The thing about good faith is it requires, well, that. Feel free to not believe me if it helps you. Feel free to look it up yourself if you actually want confirmation. I'm not lying, what can I say. I'm not even sure what providing the patch note would even do? Would it help you at all? Would it change the point you made?

My argument was that the AI in VII is better than in VI. There are more reports of it competing with players, which seems to be a first going back as far as V (though my memory, as vast as it is, struggles with going back a decade with any real precision).

The main* thing that hamstrung it post-release was the forward settling. There were of course other issues (there was a fantastic early mod here on CFC where someone really dug into how the AI was working, and diagnosed various improvements over time to its behaviour). None of this is controversial to claim. None of this, apparently, requires the burden of supporting evidence. Apparently?

Your argument is that the AI in both is poor? I'm not sure what your point is, exactly. Is it meant to complement my point? Are you nitpicking my claim that VII's AI is better than VI's? I still don't understand what you're trying to say. I agree that the AI should not be prevented from forward settling. With that in mind, I fail to see the relevance of an anecdote given the prevalence of forward settling behaviour at (and near) the game's release. If the AI still, situationally, forward settles, then that could be the intended result of what it is trying to do at that time.

The original context was that the AI was degrading between entries. I disagreed (and still do). Your contribution was to pop up after I mentioned a prominent issue being addressed to question said claim because it happened once, or twice, or however many handful of times around a certain patch. Where are we going with this? I think we can both agree that improving the AI would be a good thing for the game (for any video game, really).

EDIT - to demonstrate that I am interested in an actual discussion, I found a mention of settler AI in 1.1.1, but it's very vague. Directly from the Game Update Notes page:

Improved AI scouting and Settlement behavior.

So treat this as whatever confidence you have in "improved" vs. "addressed". Like you said, preventing it was probably not the outcome. But reducing it compared to what the AI was doing on release? Definitely. A lot of people were talking about it.

*main being both the perceived impact for players (as active behaviour is noticed more than, say, poor handling of city growth mechanics that only manifest more slowly over time), and the immediate impact on the earliest Age in the gameplay flow (Antiquity)

**edited for tone + grammar - apologies, it's early in the morning

 

[UWHabs]

1.1.1

• Improved AI scouting and Settlement behavior.

The AI always struggles, and will always take some dumb decisions. But I think overall, the AI in 7 is actually not terrible for a still early version. I mean in 6 it took them a couple years before they would stop rotating catapults into the water when trying to attack a city. There's definitely still things they can improve on, they're getting close in the UQ at least to make sure civs actually create them (in my current game I think they screwed up one city, but otherwise they did actually properly form the UQ in most others). Hopefully they'll fix some of their district planning next - still too many times there's like a perfect spot for a gold building and the AI has like a Granary and a Temple there instead. But I would guess some of that is that we still don't know the final form of everything, so if they steer the AI too much towards some district placement options, if they tweak some adjacency or specialist rules going forward, they might have to backtrack more on some of that.

 

[stealth_nsk]

1.1.1

• Improved AI scouting and Settlement behavior.

The AI always struggles, and will always take some dumb decisions. But I think overall, the AI in 7 is actually not terrible for a still early version. I mean in 6 it took them a couple years before they would stop rotating catapults into the water when trying to attack a city. There's definitely still things they can improve on, they're getting close in the UQ at least to make sure civs actually create them (in my current game I think they screwed up one city, but otherwise they did actually properly form the UQ in most others). Hopefully they'll fix some of their district planning next - still too many times there's like a perfect spot for a gold building and the AI has like a Granary and a Temple there instead. But I would guess some of that is that we still don't know the final form of everything, so if they steer the AI too much towards some district placement options, if they tweak some adjacency or specialist rules going forward, they might have to backtrack more on some of that.

Yes, every time new complex mechanics is introduced, AI needs time to catch up, because it always comes after the mechanics.

AI district placement is a big issue, because you actually see it and could conquer those settlements, so at least some basics like buildings from unique quarters placed together would be a great improvement.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Actually mods are useful. I recall civ 6 had good ones but I doubt it'll be enough to save civ 7.

Mods are the ONLY reason I play Civ6, since even basic stuff like UI is so incredibly low effort.

Like their stupid policy cards, like it’s 1977 and we are playing on cardboard. How goddamn difficult is it to show me, on the goddamn card, what the net effect on my yields or whatever is?

the answer is it’s pretty trivial, because a mod for that came out pretty fast, by one person, in their spare time.

They just couldn’t be bothered

Yes, every time new complex mechanics is introduced, AI needs time to catch up, because it always comes after the mechanics.

AI district placement is a big issue, because you actually see it and could conquer those settlements, so at least some basics like buildings from unique quarters placed together would be a great improvement.

If tney are the ones introducing the mechanic, then logically they SHOULD also be updating the AI as they do.

Hell AI mods do it all the time. Again, some rando in his spare time gets it done.

 

[Monene]

How goddamn difficult is it to show me, on the goddamn card, what the net effect on my yields or whatever is?

It's also not necessary for the game to show you every possibility in detail; not everyone wants the game to guide them like a little kid, and it's perfectly understandable why the developers didn't do that.

 

[phoenixician]

It's also not necessary for the game to show you every possibility in detail; not everyone wants the game to guide them like a little kid, and it's perfectly understandable why the developers didn't do that.

I grew up with games like Starcraft, Warcraft, Age of Empires, heroes M&M... etc... Besides the simple additive upgrades like +1 damage, they rarely if ever show the actual numerical change for every upgrade, especially for that ones that involve % or complicated formulas. Gamers back then were supposed to figure out the actual effectiveness themselves by playing the games. Honestly, for someone who likes to figure things out like me, it was an enjoyable experience to learn these stuff. We were not spoon-fed every single information by in-game tooltips like we do now, instead you either voluntarily share what you found with your own circle or learn it from someone else.

 

[itix]

It's also not necessary for the game to show you every possibility in detail; not everyone wants the game to guide them like a little kid, and it's perfectly understandable why the developers didn't do that.

Can you explain why they didnt do that? They could implement an option: [x] hide data if you prefer to play blind.

 

[McSpank01]

It's also not necessary for the game to show you every possibility in detail; not everyone wants the game to guide them like a little kid, and it's perfectly understandable why the developers didn't do that.

In principle that might be true, it doesn’t apply to Civ 6 however where mods have basically fixed the UI in such simple ways that it’s incredible the Devs didn’t implement it themselves.

I have almost forgotten what Civ 6 is like without UI mods, but I do know the game was so much worse without them.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Can you explain why they didnt do that? They could implement an option: [x] hide data if you prefer to play blind.

The problem was explained in details in one of the threads. When you see direct yield effects on cards, this reduces your choice to picking bigger yields, but:

1. It doesn't take into account any future changes
2. It doesn't take into account things, which don't affect yields directly

I myself don't think it's a big problem, because you could still make those decision. I'd go even further and show the relevant stat even if it's not yield. For example, if something increases defense of some cities, display number of current cities affected.

 

[uppi]

1. It doesn't take into account any future changes

This is a very important point. In my opinion, the best policy design are those which are neither an automatic slot nor a never take, but reward you for playing in a particular way. And for those, displaying the yields on the policies closes an important feedback loop: You see the results of your playstyle. This encourages trying different things and see how well they work. For me, a civ game is too long to just get feedback from whether I lose or win.

Also, by not developing this functionality, Firaxis has deprived themselves of an important balance tool. When you load a few saves and a policy seems never worth a slot, then maybe something is wrong with the balance of the policy.

 

[itix]

In Old World, you are informed about how your decisions and choices affect your net income. It just works.

 

[Monene]

When you load a few saves and a policy seems never worth a slot, then maybe something is wrong with the balance of the policy.

Or you have a very rigid playstyle that doesn't fit with that policy.

Since there are already good examples, I'll give a personal reason for not reducing my cities to simple yields: I like to keep track of each city in my civilization, review them, and devote my attention to them. I also don't mind spending a little extra time exploring which policy I'll use, and I'll generally use it because it's my playstyle, regardless of whether I get +10 or +32.

 

[Monene]

I understand that those seeking the minmax approach also have no problem spending time figuring out the best option. Others just want the game to deliver the answers pre-cooked and ready to eat with minimal effort, like many politicians. And then, to top it all off, they'd blame the game because suddenly the policy they chose turns out to be no longer the best, because something unexpected happened.