Civ Switching - Will it prevent you from buying Civ 7?

[King Flevance]

House Rules to fix imbalance = poor game design. The leader's thing worries me too but I can overlook it. But it is a fair criticism for concern.

 

[Riconatic]

House Rules to fix imbalance = poor game design. The leader's thing worries me too but I can overlook it. But it is a fair criticism for concern.

Like mentionedin earlier posts. This game does not have goal to make balance. Such games are different type games.

For some that is excelent game design.

 

[King Flevance]

Like mentionedin earlier posts. This game does not have goal to make balance. Such games are different type games.

For some that is excelent game design.

If you have to make a house rule to keep someone from steamrolling other players due to a clear superior advantage, I see that as bad game design.

I am not advocating for perfect balance, just pointing out that if you have to house rule to make things fair, that is a fault to the design. Balance should be integrated to a certain degree that house rules should be optional for fair play, not mandatory.

 

[Riconatic]

If you have to make a house rule to keep someone from steamrolling other players due to a clear superior advantage, I see that as bad game design.

I am not advocating for perfect balance, just pointing out that if you have to house rule to make things fair, that is a fault to the design. Balance should be integrated to a certain degree that house rules should be optional for fair play, not mandatory.

I disagree fully. Civilization is much more fun game when that kind of thinking is kept out. As as far as I have interpreted gameplay videos and mechanics added, it has been kept out. But sure some settings have been added to achieve balance too. Mementos have MP-setting.

 

[Acken]

There's a reason why BBG is a thing in Civ6 multiplayer. If you are waiting for Firaxis to balance the game (especially in MP) instead of using house rules (or in the case of a mod, community rules) you are in for a rude awakening.

 

[King Flevance]

I also think Civ 6 has design flaws. I am not expecting any game to be perfectly balanced or designed. However, balance being disregarded doesn't make a good environment for strategic competition any more than random luck or simply picking the bigger object.

Overlooking flaws is not the same as there being none. I understand the fun in finding synergies that work well together and exploring combinations. But if you are going to design a game that offers this, you can make a general guideline that limits how impacted a specific attribute has or can have. The wider the range, and asymetrics, the harder this balance becomes. If someone finds a synergy that is clearly superior, you have failed to deliver a good design.

Sure, players can make rules around it, but it is still a broken system. These rules are "fixing" the broken design.

 

[ombak]

Balance as in having all civ equal in power is probably not their goal really. Firaxis has never been good at balancing games anyway. Mods are where you need to go for that (and balancing for single player or MP is a different problem).
I think their goal has more to do with making them equally "fun", thinking (and you may disagree because fun is subjective) that late game civs were not fun because most people favorite eras are the early ones.

I have to agree with the goal of fun being more important than balance.

This isn't Starcraft, where there are only 3 factions and the game has a huge competitive tradition and needs to be balanced in a rock-paper-scissors sort of way.

A competitive game with more playable choices, like League of Legends, has it even tougher. In that case, devs should balance, but I think the way to do it is to occasionally revisit the characters that are lagging behind and bring them back to the forefront, rather than constantly trying to maintain everyone at a similar level.

Those are both very different from less competitive or mostly single-player games.

For a single-player comparison, take Diablo 3. In my opinion, it flourished when the devs focused on "balancing" for fun more than for equal outcomes. But that's a game with only 7 classes to play.

It's comparable to Civ, for me, because I think it's more important for the overall playerbase in Civ that leaders and civs feel fun to play, rather than feel like they can all do the same thing more or less with the same number of turns/effort, etc.

Using these examples, I'd say Civ is the type that needs to focus on fun over balance and make "balance" adjustments in two major scenarios: nerfing only if something is out of control OP or exploitative; at major milestones revisiting Civs and leaders that are seeing less play and adjusting them to be more fun and likely to be chosen in the new context.

 

[Acken]

I also think Civ 6 has design flaws. I am not expecting any game to be perfectly balanced or designed. However, balance being disregarded doesn't make a good environment for strategic competition any more than random luck or simply picking the bigger object.

Overlooking flaws is not the same as there being none. I understand the fun in finding synergies that work well together and exploring combinations. But if you are going to design a game that offers this, you can make a general guideline that limits how impacted a specific attribute has or can have. The wider the range, and asymetrics, the harder this balance becomes. If someone finds a synergy that is clearly superior, you have failed to deliver a good design.

Sure, players can make rules around it, but it is still a broken system. These rules are "fixing" the broken design.

I would agree on principles but that's a bit wishful thinking imo based on my experience with this series.
Video games are typically balanced through patches after the community that has way more power to test the game give some feedback and discovers issues.
And that requires frequent patches from a dev that cares about it (example right now with PoE2 in EA and GGG patching it regularly).
Firaxis has never engaged very strongly on that front and has mostly fixed the most ridiculous things.

Maybe that's sad but I've learned that instead of being disappointed I'll just turn to the community mods or make my own. Assuming the base game is good enough that I even care for a more balanced/challenging experience (and the jury is still out for civ7 on that front)

 

[King Flevance]

I would agree on principles but that's a bit wishful thinking imo based on my experience with this series.
Video games are typically balanced through patches after the community that has way more power to test the game give some feedback and discovers issues.
And that requires frequent patches from a dev that cares about it (example right now with PoE2 in EA and GGG patching it regularly).
Firaxis has never engaged very strongly on that front and has mostly fixed the most ridiculous things.

Maybe that's sad but I've learned that instead of being disappointed I'll just turn to the community mods or make my own. Assuming the base game is good enough that I even care for a more balanced/challenging experience (and the jury is still out for civ7 on that front)

Civ is more a numbers game and a lot can be balanced by simply adjusting values. By comparing these values to other units/buildings in the same age, balance can be achieved within reason.
EDIT: Of course uniques will stand out as more powerful than the standard. But even this can be balanced to a degree. You wouldn't give one unique +5 stength, and a unit in the same age + 10 movement. But there is no way to completely balance it.

It is sad to me that some see this as wishful thinking for Firaxis to achieve this. As you say, Firaxis usually addresses ridiculous cases of imbalance and Paideia was worried about ridiculous cases being abundant and no doubt Firaxis's tendency to ignore imbalance gaps for new features. This is an understandable concern and relying on "house rules" instead of official fixes is probably not a satisfying solution to spend $70+ on.

I am not convinced this will be a problem. But certainly not based on Firaxis's track record. I think the attribute tree and civ basic values can be done competently just generally speaking. But if I was concerned about it, I could see choosing not to buy in over that reason alone. It will have an impact on every game if you don't go out of your way on game setup to eliminate possible outcomes or seek modding files. Waiting on Firaxis could take over a year even if it is a small fix.

 

[Paideia]

To me multiplayer balance is not that relevant. I only play with few people and usually co-op against the computers.. What frustrates me about the balance aspect (and actually takes some of the fun away from playing), is that if I know that by choosing X leader, Y civilizations and Z mementos, I can completely trounce the AI, I'm gonna be tempted just to do that every game.. Some people really enjoy a challenge and set up articifial ones if the game itself doesn't supply enough. I don't. I'm just here to have fun. And I have less fun, if I have to handicap myself not to get bored playing Civ..

 

[Krikkit1]

To me multiplayer balance is not that relevant. I only play with few people and usually co-op against the computers.. What frustrates me about the balance aspect (and actually takes some of the fun away from playing), is that if I know that by choosing X leader, Y civilizations and Z mementos, I can completely trounce the AI, I'm gonna be tempted just to do that every game.. Some people really enjoy a challenge and set up articifial ones if the game itself doesn't supply enough. I don't. I'm just here to have fun. And I have less fun, if I have to handicap myself not to get bored playing Civ..

I think part of that can be handled with Fun difficulty levels.
ie The AI gets the type of bonuses that keep it a fun challenge throughout the game. (as opposed to the common…it will kill you in the cradle or you will snowball it, making the end game boring)

The Age structure might help with this.

 

[Riconatic]

To me multiplayer balance is not that relevant. I only play with few people and usually co-op against the computers.. What frustrates me about the balance aspect (and actually takes some of the fun away from playing), is that if I know that by choosing X leader, Y civilizations and Z mementos, I can completely trounce the AI, I'm gonna be tempted just to do that every game.. Some people really enjoy a challenge and set up articifial ones if the game itself doesn't supply enough. I don't. I'm just here to have fun. And I have less fun, if I have to handicap myself not to get bored playing Civ..

I have very very hard time to understand any of your logic. You want to pay to have fun. Then you find combination that can always trump AI. That ends up taking the fun away also as it is not balanced. But still you can not choose any other combination and that takes the fun away too.

I still feel that the solution is to play some other combination instead changing the game.

 

[Uberfrog]

Balance is still an important factor though. It’s a strategy game, it’s supposed to be about the player making interesting choices. If the game is not properly balanced, it actually works against the systemic complexity of the game, by reducing the viable choices open to the player. The replay value of the game is much diminished if one strategy is overwhelmingly better than all others.

Yes, the player could simply choose not to play the way that always wins, but that’s a rather perverse approach to game design. It would be far better if there were fewer overpowered strategies in the first place.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Balance is still an important factor though. It’s a strategy game, it’s supposed to be about the player making interesting choices. If the game is not properly balanced, it actually works against the systemic complexity of the game, by reducing the viable choices open to the player. The replay value of the game is much diminished if one strategy is overwhelmingly better than all others.

Yes, the player could simply choose not to play the way that always wins, but that’s a rather perverse approach to game design. It would be far better if there were fewer overpowered strategies in the first place.

Yes, but there are many types of balance. And each one has different scale. For example, having imbalance between starting options could be part of difficulty setting, like in Total War games, where different factions have different difficulty indicated.

If we speak about viability of various strategies, it's not interesting if some strategies always beat others, but if effectiveness of strategies depends on starting locations, other player actions, etc, that's interesting even if on average some strategies are better.

As I see, current "overpowered" approaches are actually min-maxing, maxing one parameter by minimizing others. And while numbers are impressive, I doubt any of those strategies are universally good.

 

[Acken]

Yeah, leader imbalances are not a big issue outside of MP. What is more aggravating to me is when choices you get during the game have options that are always the best. Like rationalism in civ5.

 

[King Flevance]

Yes, but there are many types of balance. And each one has different scale. For example, having imbalance between starting options could be part of difficulty setting, like in Total War games, where different factions have different difficulty indicated.

If we speak about viability of various strategies, it's not interesting if some strategies always beat others, but if effectiveness of strategies depends on starting locations, other player actions, etc, that's interesting even if on average some strategies are better.

As I see, current "overpowered" approaches are actually min-maxing, maxing one parameter by minimizing others. And while numbers are impressive, I doubt any of those strategies are universally good.

This is what I am seeing currently too. Mementos may make things a bit crazy but those are optional.

I suspect some leaders are going to blend well with many civs, and others are going to blend very strong but only with a few select civs. However, this is just my guess. I get the feeling that any strong civ/leader combo will only be for 1/3 of the game, you have "rubberbanding" built in so that makes this much more forgivable, plus they could not pair too well with their next civ. I will say that I suspect a couple leaders to maybe blend a little too well with every civ, but I could be very wrong. I know I don't have a very good view of how all this is going to mesh together. I feel like Firaxis dumped a bunch of parts in front of me and says that it all adds up to a bike and showed me a picture of the bike. But I just keep looking at this pile of parts that I don't know how they fit together yet..

 

[penvzila]

If it was a toggle-able option, or something that you could prevent with certain gameplay decisions, I would absolutely buy Civ 7. Not making it optional is extremely user hostile for a series like this.

 

[Zaarin]

If it was a toggle-able option, or something that you could prevent with certain gameplay decisions, I would absolutely buy Civ 7.

I perfectly understand some people dislike the design decision, but making a core design feature togglable is a recipe for bad design. It would be like making districts togglable in Civ6. The entire game is designed around them; you can't toggle that and still have the same game. (And I understand some people would say they should have designed a different game, and that's fine--but we're talking about the game we have.)

 

[penvzila]

Having done a bit more reasearch, I agree that making it a toggle in Civ 7 is kind of nonsensical. So, I will never by purchashing Civ 7