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

[McSpank01]

I don’t think it is ever a good design decision to add more work for the player in understanding what is going on with their choices, or hiding information they could otherwise get.

Just because you see yield info on policy cards, it doesn’t mean you have removed complexity. There are still plenty of tactical decisions to be made with policy cards, and you always need to know where to put your focus, is it gold, production, science etc. Civ 6 gave you plenty of options and choices

Just because I suddenly need to guess how much gold unit maintenance is or go hunting for it elsewhere, that doesn’t make the game better. It’s bad design.

 

[uppi]

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

I can accept that certain policies might not be for me or not for this playthrough. But there are some policies for which I cannot even imagine why I would prefer them over others. Those are really a problem.

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.

The information what a policy does is not the answer which one I want to slot. Or the other way around: If providing me the exact yields of every option makes it immediately obvious which one I should take, there is a huge problem in the design of those.

 

[Siptah]

The information what a policy does is not the answer which one I want to slot. Or the other way around: If providing me the exact yields of every option makes it immediately obvious which one I should take, there is a huge problem in the design of those.

And that’s exactly the balancing they need to look at as first priority imho. For policies and traditions, you often get a choice between +12 culture or +70. That‘s not how it should be except in extreme circumstances, when you neglected one area completely. At the same time, I can get +100 culture from an attribute though, and +200 from a city state. So, why ever bother with +12 from a policy?

It‘s hard to balance these things, as many systems and ways of generating yields interact, overlap, and mutually support. I can see why it takes long to go from the current terrible balance to an ok-state in one update, but I wish they would have started with that one area already: policies, as there you directly choose between several options for the same yield.

With attributes, there‘s at least an incentive sometimes to select a bad one because you want the great option below.

 

[Monene]

The information what a policy does is not the answer which one I want to slot.

This shows without a doubt that it is neither vital nor necessary, let those who need it look for it.

 

[Monene]

I don’t think it is ever a good design decision to add more work for the player in understanding what is going on...

If the player finds it a chore, it's because it's not their ideal game type. Clearly, that was the real problem: trying to please very different types of players, because now most of them are dissatisfied.

 

[itix]

What kind of players they should try to satisfy?

 

[Monene]

What kind of players they should try to satisfy?

It no longer has anything to do with the main theme. Ideally, it would try to please veteran players of the franchise, with a small improvement to attract new players (it could be just visual, not a revolutionary gameplay mode). Unfortunately, they went after a type of compulsive consumer who prefers other types of games and will probably continue to prefer them.

 

[itix]

It no longer has anything to do with the main theme. Ideally, it would try to please veteran players of the franchise, with a small improvement to attract new players (it could be just visual, not a revolutionary gameplay mode). Unfortunately, they went after a type of compulsive consumer who prefers other types of games and will probably continue to prefer them.

I played Civ 1 and 2, then had a break and returned with Civ 6. I consider Civ 6 to be not so good because it hides data.

Civ 1 came with paper manual and it explained how happiness and other mechanics work. Since we dont have that luxury anymore, I expect they are explained in the game.

But to my question, I just found it funny because with Civ 7 everything is explained with "you are not in the target group"...

 

[Monene]

"you are not in the target group"...

I don't know, I guess it's the typical response from the target audience (impulsive people). I haven't played it, and even if it were free, I wouldn't play it; it's obviously not healthy.

 

[aieeegrunt]

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.

I’ve been playing Civ since the first one, on floppy, so consider your sad attempt at gatekeeping (which is itself worthy only of contempt) a failure.

The purpose of a UI is to present the player with information about the game state so they can make intelligent informed decisions about it.

So a card that says +2 Science to Library. Making me hunt the map and manually count up all the libraries is pointless busywork.

Some of us have lives.

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.

There was a glitch once that briefly disabled mods, oh my God it literally made the game unplayable, the stock UI was so bad I was almost laughing too hard to reinstall Civ6 (which fixed it).

It no longer has anything to do with the main theme. Ideally, it would try to please veteran players of the franchise, with a small improvement to attract new players (it could be just visual, not a revolutionary gameplay mode). Unfortunately, they went after a type of compulsive consumer who prefers other types of games and will probably continue to prefer them.

This is the exact type of reasoning that got games like Unreal Tournament where they are today.

That used to be a hilariously fun game that was challenging but you could still screw around and have fun

Then they catered to the TryHard Hardcores, the game became a nightmare for new players because they kept raising the skill floor because God Forbid one of the TryHard Hardcores dies once to an errant flak burst, and low and behold it died.

By the time they tried to right the ship with Unreal Championship 2 (still the best FPS every made) and UT3 and go back to the fun UT99 Gold vibe it was sadly too late.

I hung on to that UC2 disc for 13 fracking years waiting for it to be backwards compatible and one glorious day it was. Typical filthy casual behavior I guess.

 

[Krikkit1]

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.

They title it “current effect”

I see it is
+1 science per science building in my empire (current effect : +30 sci)

I understand that it will go up as I build science buildings

 

[aieeegrunt]

They title it “current effect”

I see it is
+1 science per science building in my empire (current effect : +30 sci)

I understand that it will go up as I build science buildings

Apparently we need to be spoon fed basic English as well

Oh man I’m gonna be cackling about that one all day.

 

[Monene]

Some of us have lives.

We undead aren't to blame for your "life" lacking free time, nor do we go around demanding that things we know should be enjoyed end quickly. For those kinds of people, sports highlights exist, and they aren't mandatory; they're an extra service.

 

[King Flevance]

I think a big part of the problem is that every Exploration Age Civ should have much more powerful uniques than Ancient Age Civs, and Modern Age uniques should be much more powerful than the Exploration Age uniques. Sometimes in the civ selection screen I feel like the bonuses I am giving up are not being replaced by equally powerful bonuses for the next age. I can usually rule out at least 2-3 civs just because they are much weaker than my Ancient Civ. Now, I do wish I could see the unique civic tree on Civ select because that actually can be the difference maker. But overall, I think each age all the civs should feel much more powerful than last age.

 

[Krikkit1]

Apparently we need to be spoon fed basic English as well

Oh man I’m gonna be cackling about that one all day.

The point is I shouldn’t have to maintain a running count of all the X buildings, Y terrain tiles, Z resources, Q units, J adjacencies, etc.

I can understand my general strategy involves building many / few science buildings and that lets me interpret that +30 number.

 

[aieeegrunt]

The point is I shouldn’t have to maintain a running count of all the X buildings, Y terrain tiles, Z resources, Q units, J adjacencies, etc.

I can understand my general strategy involves building many / few science buildings and that lets me interpret that +30 number.

Exactly

Some of us have lives after all.

 

[McSpank01]

If the player finds it a chore, it's because it's not their ideal game type. Clearly, that was the real problem: trying to please very different types of players, because now most of them are dissatisfied.

I don’t understand this point. Is there a type of player who don’t like good quality user interfaces that provide appropriate levels of feedback?

I have wondered this in the past. As a fan of Paradox games I’m always astounded at how appalling their user interfaces are in general. I work in this field and I would be fired if I presented the latest EU5 interface in a pitch, it’s so ugly and poor at displaying information. In contrast I can see the effort made to improve the latest football manager game and the way it conceptualises information to the user, which seems a big improvement.

Maybe there really are players who prefer to have to hunt around for information rather than have it be in the most obvious place. I keep trying to play Victoria 3 and my god is it a chore to understand where you are meant to look for things. Even veteran players seem to accidentally stumble on key info.

Not sure anyone would celebrate those design decisions.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

What do Crusaders have to do with what they’re saying?

Everything.

It was an OP Wonder, that on hard difficulties, could mean a civ without iron, could build an OP medieval unit.
Whichever civs did get them instantly became your first target to conquer.
Let them unchecked and eventually they will have an army capable of razing your civ to the ground.

Every civ had an OP unit, and an OP unique unit like the Crusader was HOW the system was kept in check
because it could flip odds instantly.

Germany Tiger Panzer was so OP that if Germany got one with just two cities, it could swipe the whole world.
But whoever still got Crusaders would have an ultimate line of defence, particularly if it had formed Armies of Crusaders.

From Civ IV onwards, they started the nerf of the Gallic warrior, the legionaire, and removed Crusaders.
Civ III is the G.O.A.T. for may reasons, and Crusaders is #1 reason why everything else cascades into meaningless arguments
such as snowballing.

It's that simple.

If you can't accept critical thinking you might have to change your mindset.
I will never change my argument just to appease the uniformitarian 1UPT lazyness Civ has become.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

Snowballing is generally an unsolvable problem because on one hand, you need player actions during each part of the game to be impactful, on the other hand you don't want players to snowball.

Why?
Who said so?
It's up to the player to be able to stop an opponent Snowballing.
Give Ai enough OP units and the system will balance itself...

 

[j51]

Everything.

It was an OP Wonder, that on hard difficulties, could mean a civ without iron, could build an OP medieval unit.
Whichever civs did get them instantly became your first target to conquer.
Let them unchecked and eventually they will have an army capable of razing your civ to the ground.

Every civ had an OP unit, and an OP unique unit like the Crusader was HOW the system was kept in check
because it could flip odds instantly.

Germany Tiger Panzer was so OP that if Germany got one with just two cities, it could swipe the whole world.
But whoever still got Crusaders would have an ultimate line of defence, particularly if it had formed Armies of Crusaders.

From Civ IV onwards, they started the nerf of the Gallic warrior, the legionaire, and removed Crusaders.
Civ III is the G.O.A.T. for may reasons, and Crusaders is #1 reason why everything else cascades into meaningless arguments
such as snowballing.

It's that simple.

If you can't accept critical thinking you might have to change your mindset.
I will never change my argument just to appease the uniformitarian 1UPT lazyness Civ has become.

Ah, ok. I was thinking about crusaders in Civ II.