[GS] Civ VI lacks tension

[Boris Gudenuf]

IMO one of the big differences between civ5 and civ6 is that the PvE - which I'll call "Player vs Empire" is much more stark in 5 than 6. In civ5, there's a global happiness indicator right on the top bar, and you really need to actively manage it. Happiness is very scarce. Whereas in 6, actually keeping your empire running is much easier. Gold is not the bottleneck it was in 5; it is relatively easy to avoid amenity crunches; the tech tree used to have a housing crunch in the medieval/renn but now that has been smoothed out too.

While the AI's proficiency and agency on the world stage can be debated, I do think the game tension suffers a little from having the empire be so easy to manage. In BNW games it often felt like I was holding on to a rocket that might fall apart or explode on me at any time; constantly seesawing between positive and negative gold income and panicking every few turns as happiness dwindled to nil. Eventually that rocket will take you over the finish but it doesn't feel like a sure thing.

There's nothing wrong with having things set up the way civ6 does, it just forces tension to come from external sources. Look at an RTS game like Age of Empires. You firmly control your kingdom, there's no maintenance, resources are all simply accrued - because the point is to wield that kingdom against other players. This translates directly to civ6, except most people on this forum find the ways of interacting with the outside a bit lackluster. (Personally i think the era system is an untapped well of potential for fixing that!)

If I can "Pile On" to this . . .

In Civ 6 they did their best to remove any possible source of Unhappiness for the average, casual player: the bulk of the people who spend their money on a game, the folks who like playing against Jadwiga because she's cute but wouldn't know a Winged Hussar from a Wombat. Bottom line, though, it's their money that pays for the whole structure, so the decision makes perfect sense from a marketing and business survival standpoint.

But. It means that, essentially, there are no negatives in the game. Your population is either More Happy or Less Happy, but effectively, they are never Unhappy enough to make a difference. Natural Disasters, with a few exceptions that will probably be changed in the next Patch, are less Disasters than Annoyances. The 'Enemy' AI is less Enemy than Brat - the AI cries a lot and his animated self makes snarky comments, but doesn't do much, and what it does do, it does pretty ineffectively, as people on these Forums have been commenting on since the game was first released.

So, IF they were to jack up the tension by jacking up the potential problems to the Gamer, they risk turning off a lot of Gamers - and turning off the cash flow, which is Basic Business Suicide.

The answer? If I thought I had a 'perfect solution' I'd be gathering investors to start a Game Design Company. Instead, I'll throw out some ideas:
1. Any increase in Difficulty within the game has to be, like the so-called Difficulty Level overall, selectable by the Gamer. Instead of a "Diety" level in which the AI gets a bunch of starting bonuses and then settles down to being the same Brain-Dead Smurf it is at all the other 'difficulty' levels, break up the Difficulty into various areas: Right now we can set Natural Disasters, parts of the map (Abundant versus Scarce Resources, for instance) and overall Difficulty, how about being able to set Unhappiness difficulty, in which it is harder to keep your electronic population happy and the consequences are more severe. Enemy units heal faster. Some Barbarians move faster. Maintenance Costs are higher. Have Default Levels, but make almost every Aspect of the Game selectable for the gamer.

2. Related to that, the Era and Loyalty systems absolutely cry out to have higher levels of 'difficulty' or Potential Problems for the Gamer. A Dark Age should be a Diplomatic/Political Disaster, requiring a Civ to go into 'Survival Mode' for a while. Science may not actually be much affected (Dark Age Europe introduced better horse collars, horseshoes, multi-geared water wheels, multi-field crop rotation, and better metallurgy overall - NOT a Scientific Dead Zone historically), but the lack of government effectiveness/control and Gold may make it difficult to impossible to do anything with the Science. Cities should be very, very likely to 'break away' and become Free Cities or City States. While I'm concentrating on the negative, ALL types of Eras need to be Buffed as to their effects and how easy they are to accomplish: it should make a major difference what Era you are in as to how you play the next X turns.
And the levels of Era Importance should be Voluntary, so the casual gamer doesn't have to feel he's getting Bludgeoned by the Game and turn it of (and turn off the cash flow).
Loyalty is a mechanism sadly under-utilized. Yes, I've read all the Threads and comments about how it made Conquest Impossible, how it's a pain in the keyboard to play with, but in fact it is almost completely predictable and manageable without major changes to your game plan except, unless other factors apply, you don't settle too near an opposing capital and if someone settles too near yours, you have a new city shortly with a funny furrin name.
Suggestions: Make Loyalty dependent or modified by your type of Government and the type of government near you. Make the Amenity/Happiness level of cities near yours a factor in relative Loyalty Levels: Add Migration as a factor, and watch your starving, Arena- and Amenity-less population take off for a Better Life.
In other words, add real Population Management to the game for a change - but allow Mister/Ms Casual Player to turn it off or down if all they want to do is Kick AI Butt with Keshiks.

 

[Bibor]

Civ6 is just like real life.
If you don't find your own tension ("getting that campus in just the perfect spot", "aligning that policy change just on the turn you want to start producing melee units"), the game itself usually doesn't provide any.

If anything, I'm grateful for this lack of constant outside pressure, or, in other words, I do want pressure but not to have every single turn a game-changer.

 

[Civrinn]

To be honest, what you are describing has been the problem for all civ games. Late game will never be as fun as the start of a civ games. It's builiding the empire, exploring the map, settling new cities that are fun.

I highly disagree. I have always been fond of the late game portion of the Civ series. Especially the transition of combat style when aircraft and tanks become a factor. I have had many fun games where mid war I have been able to turn things around with flight or armor. I think almost every prior edition of Civ had an interesting late game, where 6 for a variety of reasons simply does not.

 

[Sostratus]

In Civ 6 they did their best to remove any possible source of Unhappiness for the average, casual player: the bulk of the people who spend their money on a game, the folks who like playing against Jadwiga because she's cute but wouldn't know a Winged Hussar from a Wombat. Bottom line, though, it's their money that pays for the whole structure, so the decision makes perfect sense from a marketing and business survival standpoint.

I'm not convinced some of the changes they made to the numerical systems were to make the game "casual" versus simply trying for the "boardgame" aesthetic. (I foten describe it as Past civs would represent "+2" as paying 2 to get 4, where civ6 is more of a flat +2. IE, (+4,-2) vs +2. But And from the perspective of the dynamics of the game systems there doesn't have to be any difference between the approaches at the end of the day. Unfortunately, I think the boardgame model leads itself to unintentionally stripping out a lot of PvE elements. Where there's a difference between "Another player won" (beat me to victory) and "I lost" (my empire imploded.) Yes, it's more 'hardcore' to have to worry about, although I do like your idea to link some of that to the general game difficulty. IE you wont have huge secession and rebellions on settler like you might on emperor.

 

[Aristos]

What? Civ 6 has plenty of tension. You should see the tension between the "yay-sayers" and the "nay-sayers" in this very forum every time we discuss something controversial (AI, I am looking at you)...

Plenty of tension.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I'm not convinced some of the changes they made to the numerical systems were to make the game "casual" versus simply trying for the "boardgame" aesthetic. (I foten describe it as Past civs would represent "+2" as paying 2 to get 4, where civ6 is more of a flat +2. IE, (+4,-2) vs +2. But And from the perspective of the dynamics of the game systems there doesn't have to be any difference between the approaches at the end of the day. Unfortunately, I think the boardgame model leads itself to unintentionally stripping out a lot of PvE elements. Where there's a difference between "Another player won" (beat me to victory) and "I lost" (my empire imploded.) Yes, it's more 'hardcore' to have to worry about, although I do like your idea to link some of that to the general game difficulty. IE you wont have huge secession and rebellions on settler like you might on emperor.

I've read a lot on this Forum about a "Boardgame Esthetic" and it occurs to me that I have no idea what they are talking about.

Background: I've been playing boardgames since the Avalon-Hill games of the 1960s, was a play tester for Simulations Publications or a while in college, provided background research for Games Research/Design and at one time or another counted (and still count) as friends Frank Chadwck, Jack Radey, and Al Nofi - if none of the companies and people I mentioned are familiar to you, I submit that when you say "board game esthetic" you do not know a lot about adult-audience, military history-based board games..

Yes, there are simplistic board games - and miniatures games, and computer/electronic games, and card games for that matter. I've probably played a fair sampling of all of them. But I have also sat down and played a little board game ("little" as in 2500 counters, 15 square feet of maps, a 30 page rule book) called Europa, which took a long weekend and 30 hours of playing time or more (and no, I don't do that anymore, life's too short!).
And very few computer games have ever provided the tension or sheer fun of playing the original Diplomacy board game with 6 other people on a Sunday afternoon in college, when every turn you could be sure that someone was going to be Backstabbed by a supposed ally and Your Turn in the Barrel was bound to come one of those times. Happy Days.

The problems with Civ VI due not result from any Boardgame Antecedents, they are the result of bad implementation of a bunch of ideas, some brilliant, some good, and some from the WTH? drawer. I believe much of the bad implementation is because the interaction amongst the various ideas and systems was never properly play tested, and that means that Firaxis ignored the basic Game Design system developed by SPI back in the 1960s and used by successful board game, miniatures rules, and computer game design groups ever since.
Consequently, the flaws that should have been found in proper Alpha and Beta testing, as they are now known (in 1968 it was simply the Friday Night Test Sessions at SPI on East 23rd Street in New York City, but that was in the Neolithic Game Design Era), are instead found by gamers and discussed in Forums like this one.

Just my pfennig's worth of opinion . . .

 

[Aristos]

Consequently, the flaws that should have been found in proper Alpha and Beta testing, as they are now known (in 1968 it was simply the Friday Night Test Sessions at SPI on East 23rd Street in New York City, but that was in the Neolithic Game Design Era), are instead found by gamers and discussed in Forums like this one.

Found, discussed, and then mostly ignored by Firaxis.

 

[glider1]

Problem is both AI and human psyche. You can't add tension to the game unless you code an AI that is capable of handling the tension. If you make the game tense people become angry. They have obviously created an amusing history game for young people that is non-controversial and a relaxing non-stressful game for adults to enjoy. For the fanatics, well they can live in frustration until the DLL code is released.

 

[acluewithout]

Some good posts here. But I think maybe one of my initial points has got lost.

See, I think one reason Civ lacks tension in the late game is because there is a lack of a strong game loop.

I can’t find a good definition of a “game loop” online. But I guess what I mean is a core mechanic that provides both challenge and reward that you cycle through during the game. Good games often have a very strong core game loop, which is what makes the game fun and so addictive.

Think of Tetris. The core loop is that random blocks drop from the sky, and you need to place them into rows to gain points, but also to eliminate blocks so there’s room for more blocks to fall. Added to that the fact the game gets faster over time, and you have this addictive loop where you keep doing the same thing over and over, but by doing so you get bigger rewards (points, levels) but the game also gets harder. Rinse repeat. Game loop.

Or think of Diablo or similar games. Explore and find monsters, kill monsters for loot, which makes you better at exploring, finding and killing monsters. But then added to that the monsters get harder, which means more chance of getting killed but harder monsters also provide better loot. Rinse repeat. Game loop.

Civ has a strong loop in the early game: use Cities to build more settlers or military to get more Cities to then build even more settlers and units, and so on. Again - rinse repeat game loop.

But once that initial expansion is over, the game doesn’t have a core loop any more. You can’t really keep expanding through settlers or military (at least not in a meaningful way); and there’s no new strong loop to replace it.

I don’t think just making the game harder would fix that. Sure, I’d love the empire management to be harder. I’d like the AI to put up more of a fight. But the game would still lack a central loop, ie tension, that would keep you coming back.

I think there are really only two solutions. First, extend the existing core game loop - ie extend expansion into the mid to late game. I think this would mean having the whole expansion dynamic change mid game, so it’s both harder and more rewarding. Indeed, there are already a lot of great mechanics around colonialism post RnF but overall it hasn’t quite gelled yet.

Second, there needs to be a new loop. Maybe it’s building alliances and coalition - each alliance makes you more powerful, but makes getting the next alliance harder to get. Something like that.

Anyway. Just my two cents.

 

[Archon_Wing]

You're not going to feel tension if there's no danger. Back when I wasn't that great (still am not), I 'd be worried about Kongo running away with a culture victory.

Yes the t150-200 crowd isn't going to be affected regardless , but I'd imagine most players would be

 

[Civrinn]

Some good posts here. But I think maybe one of my initial points has got lost.

See, I think one reason Civ lacks tension in the late game is because there is a lack of a strong game loop.

I can’t find a good definition of a “game loop” online. But I guess what I mean is a core mechanic that provides both challenge and reward that you cycle through during the game. Good games often have a very strong core game loop, which is what makes the game fun and so addictive.

Think of Tetris. The core loop is that random blocks drop from the sky, and you need to place them into rows to gain points, but also to eliminate blocks so there’s room for more blocks to fall. Added to that the fact the game gets faster over time, and you have this addictive loop where you keep doing the same thing over and over, but by doing so you get bigger rewards (points, levels) but the game also gets harder.

Civ has a strong loop in the early game: use Cities to build more settlers or military to get more Cities to then build even more settlers and units, and so on.

But once that initial expansion is over, the game doesn’t have a core loop any more. You can’t really keep expanding through settlers or military (at least not in a meaningful way); and there’s no new strong loop to replace it.

I don’t think just making the game harder would fix that. Sure, I’d love the empire management to be harder. I’d like the AI to put up more of a fight. But the game would still lack a central loop, ie tension, that would keep you coming back.

I think there are really only two solutions. First, extend the existing core game loop - ie extend expansion into the mid to late game. I think this would mean having the whole expansion dynamic change mid game, so it’s both harder and more rewarding. Indeed, there are already a lot of great mechanics around colonialism post RnF but overall it hasn’t quite gelled yet.

Second, there needs to be a new loop. Maybe it’s building alliances and coalition - each alliance makes you more powerful, but makes getting the next alliance harder to get. Something like that.

Anyway. Just my two cents.

This is where I think Firaxis could have expanded the Global Warming mechanic that "I thought" was supposed to be more or less end game. Similar to Civ 5 when about halfway through the game things change from expansion (granted Vanilla Civ 5 and BNW favored tall so I use expansion loosely here) into Ideologies. To be fair, I don't own GS but from my impression from posts around here that mechanic (global warming) is more or less pointless from a game perspective. I am not much of a game designer but something like "If you choose to be pro environment you are rewarded in bonuses reflecting that. Maybe you could choose to pollute and burn the planet down and you are "rewarded" in a different way. Maybe bringing in some kind of dystopia for the planet. Clearly this hasn't been remotely thought through and the specifics here shouldn't be taken seriously. Something along those lines would respark interest midway through the game.

 

[Sostratus]

I've read a lot on this Forum about a "Boardgame Esthetic" and it occurs to me that I have no idea what they are talking about.

I guess people use it as term for something that's not really defined well here. But I'm thinking more about how everything in the game basically follows a 1-2-3 pattern; 3 levels of buildings, with a progression of flat yields; specialists and GPP are all uniform, policy cards mostly follow progressions, as do unit lines, etc. A lot of the terrain and city rules would map well onto something like a complex catan game. There's just a ton of clean symmetries. (This need not make a game simple. Arguably, districts and adjacency are much deeper systems than civ4 specialists, even though they require little micromanagement.)

I can’t find a good definition of a “game loop” online. But I guess what I mean is a core mechanic that provides both challenge and reward that you cycle through during the game. Good games often have a very strong core game loop, which is what makes the game fun and so addictive.

When I read the OP my first thought was of Civ5 G+K's poorly timed Empires of the Smoky Skies scenario which had, among other things, "titles" as a victory condition. Essentially, who has the most gold, who has the most production, etc. You'd compete for control of a number of these titles to win the scenario.
Okay, take that concept, and translate it into the civ6 era system. Instead of an outright victory condition, civs could compete along several goals in each era, with the winners getting some bonuses and the losers generally being nonplussed. And then the counters and categories reset in the next era. As an example, perhaps the Renaissance has categories around who completed the most intercontinental trade routes and who create the most great works, but the industrial looks at things like who laid the most railroads and who has the biggest coal powered navy. Winning one of these would replace the Golden Age dedication concept; if you win a category, you get a dedication like bonus in it for the next era to reward what you did.
The idea is that now there's a gameplay element challenging you to do something with your empire, and its on a timed cycle. One could even implement rewards like world congress competitions, where the winner gets the big prize but there are still runner up prizes.
The actual victories would be unchanged - this would simply add a ton of depth to the "new era" pop up and era score system. And yet, players could choose how much to engage with it!

Add in some tech & civic rubber band systems to keep civs from falling too far behind and you have a real ballgame.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

To be honest, what you are describing has been the problem for all civ games. Late game will never be as fun as the start of a civ games. It's builiding the empire, exploring the map, settling new cities that are fun.

It's been a problem in Civ games because Civ games make it a problem. There can be some tension in late eras of close games, if someone else is a threat to win. That's...pretty rare for experienced players in Civ 6.

There are two ways to go about making this less of an issue. One is rubber banding (generally bad), the other is to have a mechanism to end games that are over (generally good). Throughout the history of strategy games both of these have been used to varying effect.

 

[acluewithout]

I guess people use it as term for something that's not really defined well here. But I'm thinking more about how everything in the game basically follows a 1-2-3 pattern; 3 levels of buildings, with a progression of flat yields; specialists and GPP are all uniform, policy cards mostly follow progressions, as do unit lines, etc. A lot of the terrain and city rules would map well onto something like a complex catan game. There's just a ton of clean symmetries. (This need not make a game simple. Arguably, districts and adjacency are much deeper systems than civ4 specialists, even though they require little micromanagement.)


When I read the OP my first thought was of Civ5 G+K's poorly timed Empires of the Smoky Skies scenario which had, among other things, "titles" as a victory condition. Essentially, who has the most gold, who has the most production, etc. You'd compete for control of a number of these titles to win the scenario.
Okay, take that concept, and translate it into the civ6 era system. Instead of an outright victory condition, civs could compete along several goals in each era, with the winners getting some bonuses and the losers generally being nonplussed. And then the counters and categories reset in the next era. As an example, perhaps the Renaissance has categories around who completed the most intercontinental trade routes and who create the most great works, but the industrial looks at things like who laid the most railroads and who has the biggest coal powered navy. Winning one of these would replace the Golden Age dedication concept; if you win a category, you get a dedication like bonus in it for the next era to reward what you did.
The idea is that now there's a gameplay element challenging you to do something with your empire, and its on a timed cycle. One could even implement rewards like world congress competitions, where the winner gets the big prize but there are still runner up prizes.
The actual victories would be unchanged - this would simply add a ton of depth to the "new era" pop up and era score system. And yet, players could choose how much to engage with it!

Add in some tech & civic rubber band systems to keep civs from falling too far behind and you have a real ballgame.

I think if Religion and Diplomacy/ World Congress hadn’t had Victory Conditions attached to them, both of these mechanics could have been interesting tools mid and late game to create new game loops or extend the early “expansion” loop. For example, you could have allowed players to “conquer” foreign cities via Religion or Diplomacy (vassals?) and have that fuel further expansion or count towards a dom victory etc.

But it is what it is.

As much as I like the FXS guys and Civ, I do think the key problem with the late game is that FXS don’t have a clear idea of what the game should be about after the early expansion phase. FXS keep coming up with new stuff to do late game, and sure some of it is genuinely challenging and or dynamic not merely busy work, but there’s still no overall feeling of what the point is, what you’re trying to accomplish.

Early game to have to expand. But late game, there’s really nothing you have to do, except “keep going”.

I guess by the end game you’re just trying to race to the finish ASAP, but that’s not really a “game loop”. It’s just a sprint which is not as fun relatively speaking, and certainly doesn’t have much repeat value beyond just beating your turn times.

The end game needs a loop. I do X, which makes me better at Y (but also maybe creates more of problem Z), which in turn makes me better at X. Rinse. Repeat. Loop.

 

[seanos08]

There don't seem to be the CIV leaders who inspire the terror Stalin did in CIV 1 except perhaps that new India guy.

"Nice little Civilization you have there. Be a shame if something happened to it...."

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I think if Religion and Diplomacy/ World Congress hadn’t had Victory Conditions attached to them, both of these mechanics could have been interesting tools mid and late game to create new game loops or extend the early “expansion” loop. For example, you could have allowed players to “conquer” foreign cities via Religion or Diplomacy (vassals?) and have that fuel further expansion or count towards a dom victory etc.

But it is what it is.

As much as I like the FXS guys and Civ, I do think the key problem with the late game is that FXS don’t have a clear idea of what the game should be about after the early expansion phase. FXS keep coming up with new stuff to do late game, and sure some of it is genuinely challenging and or dynamic not merely busy work, but there’s still no overall feeling of what the point is, what you’re trying to accomplish.

Early game to have to expand. But late game, there’s really nothing you have to do, except “keep going”.

I guess by the end game you’re just trying to race to the finish ASAP, but that’s not really a “game loop”. It’s just a sprint which is not as fun relatively speaking, and certainly doesn’t have much repeat value beyond just beating your turn times.

The end game needs a loop. I do X, which makes me better at Y (but also maybe creates more of problem Z), which in turn makes me better at X. Rinse. Repeat. Loop.

Let's go back to the basics of Civ games: the "4X" model and how it really plays out in Civ VI:

1.EXplore
This is really all about the map, and unless you are playing a TSL Earth map, it's largely Unknown and Explorable at the start of the game, and less and less so as the game goes on. Generally, by Renaissance Era at the latest (much sooner on, say, a Pangaea Map) all but the most remote icy corners of the map have been Explored, and you have a 3X game for the last 60% of the designed game turns (the last 4 + Eras of the game)
2. EXpand
In Civ VI, this means Building Cities. Again, at the start most of the map is available for this. As the game progresses, building Cities becomes much more complicated and difficult: the land is already taken with other cities from Civs and City States, or there is no decent location that isn't too close to other cities and you have Loyalty problems, or the location is Undefendable (a lovely city site right between Shaka, Corvinus, Amanitore and Genghis, for instance). Effectively then, Expand turns into Exterminate after the mid-game, as there is simply no other way to Make Room for your expansion.
3. EXploit
This changes throughout the game: you start by exploiting Resources, Strategic, Bonus and Luxury, and you keep that up all game, but realistically, all Resources appear at once: every bit of Iron on the map magically appears when you get Bronze-Working, every deposit of Silver is visible from 4000 BCE everywhere in the world. Once you've explored the map (see above), Exploiting Resources is largely a matter of Expanding to put cities on or near the Resources.
Exploiting Game mechanics like Trade and Religion and Diplomacy are theoretically all game long or unto Victory, but again Trade is based on Cities within reach and Resources, and you've placed the cities and found most of the Resources by mid-game, and by the Medieval/Renaissance Era you'd better have your Religion up and running or you are Too Late to exploit it at all. Diplomacy is a late game mechanism, but, frankly, is broken in that it results in an interminable and dull 'wait for victory'. As it stands now, it's a Last Choice mechanic. Other Diplomacy is also broken, in that your in-game actions will have more effect on diplomatic relations than all the Envoys and Favor in the world: one Surprise War, a couple of Razed Cities, and Diplomacy unravels no matter what else you do for many, many turns.
4. EXterminate
You can beat up Barbarians (in fact, you'd better) from the beginning of the game, and you can even attack another Civ early on, but it's dicey: on the higher levels, they are always going to be stronger than you, and of course while you are Exterminating you are not Expanding or Exploiting as much, and so unless your wars are wildly successful, you are falling behind. Extermination, unlike the other Xes, gets easier as the game goes on because at all levels the AI is still incompetent so the Human advantage mushrooms the longer the game progresses. It's hard to find any Tension when your opponent has 10 coastal cities and you have 30 Battleships.

So, after you play the first half of the game or so, 4X in Civ VI becomes 2X or 1X, and you might as well be playing checkers (a board game, just to tie the previous posts together).

I suggest that the answer lies in creating possibilities for Exploring, Expanding and Exploiting in the last half of the game that match, or match as much as possible, the possibilities early in the game. In other words, the Resources, Trade possibilities, Diplomatic possibilities, and even elements of the map have to keep changing throughout the game.

Some of which I've posted abut elsewhere: Dynamic Resources, where not all the Iron, Aluminum, or Coal appear magically all at once, and you have to actually Explore the map again to find new 'deposits', Horses, Bananas, Coffee can be 'planted' in new locations with the right Tech and Improvements (There is a Herdsman Mod for moving 'pasturable' Resources, but the AI doesn't know how to use it, so at the moment it's just a Human Exploit). Right now the Terrain Change is almost all 'linked' to Climate Change at the end of the game: expand that throughout the game, so that you have to keep 'maintaining' against rivers changing their course (as, catastrophically, they've been doing in China for several thousand years) or harbors silting up, or chopping forests caused the resulting plains or grasslands to change into Desert . . .
Diplomatically, add options.
For one example, Archeologists basically looted City State and some Civ territory in the 18th and 19th centuries IRL. Then, in the late twentieth century (Atomic Era), all the States got very possessive of their Archeological Treasures. There should be Diplomatic Options to gain access so that some of the 'finds' go into other museums, some into yours, and even Diplomatic Favor from 'returning' archeological or art treasures 'stolen' earlier. And more archeological sites should keep 'popping up', as the recent LIDAR explorations have revealed entire cities in central America and southeast Asia, and ancient/classical shipwrecks seem to come to light every other month . . .

Right now, Civ VI is at best Half A Game: it flattens out into Interminable 1 - 2X Dullness after about Turn 150 - 250, and the last 200-300 turns of what is supposed to be a 500 turn game (normal speed) is, frankly, unplayable (I suffer from a "Life's Too Short To Put Up With This S#@t" syndrome, so I quit most games between Turn 100 and 150 because there's nothing interesting left to do in the game. I don't think I'm alone in that).
It doesn't have to be that way, but adding a bunch of stuff to the end of the game, as Gathering Storm did, is not the answer. The game has to have real 4X possibilities for all 8 Eras, not just the first 3 and the last 1.

 

[glider1]

Big word of warning to everyone on this thread. The civ series since GS is already in a transition from becoming a 4X game into a SimCiv game. It is the elephant in the room. Unless you keep your eyes open to this all the tension you want is in the future going to be fed to you in trivialised yet shallowly addictive external game mechanics that are so typical of Sim series style games. Any remaining strategic depth in Civ as it once was a 4X game, is likely to become a casualty. You can't just tack on tension. It has to be an emergent property of the game itself.

 

[Bitterman]

The only reason this game lacks tension is because AI can't handle war and the human player can exploit that, nothing more.

I don't know how many people here played against humans, but attacking against a human player is a complete different thing. You'd need either a much bigger army or a more modern one or some kind of collateral advantage that allows you to pull out a fast and brutal victory, otherwise you will lose a ton of resources into nothing. And this is also a thing vice versa, you know that the other player can throw his/her entire army against you if you are not careful enough. If the AI were capable of being a threat in war (both defensive and aggresive) most players here could probably forgive the rest, at least to a much higher degree.

Hope is when they release the dll someone will adress this with a mod and make the game x10000 better. I mean the foundations of the game are already very solid, and I find it extremely fun when playing MP even if we are only 3-4 people, can't imagine with a semi decent AI.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The only reason this game lacks tension is because AI can't handle war and the human player can exploit that, nothing more.

I don't know how many people here played against humans, but attacking against a human player is a complete different thing. You'd need either a much bigger army or a more modern one or some kind of collateral advantage that allows you to pull out a fast and brutal victory, otherwise you will lose a ton of resources into nothing. And this is also a thing vice versa, you know that the other player can throw his/her entire army against you if you are not careful enough. If the AI were capable of being a threat in war (both defensive and aggresive) most players here could probably forgive the rest, at least to a much higher degree.

Hope is when they release the dll someone will adress this with a mod and make the game x10000 better. I mean the foundations of the game are already very solid, and I find it extremely fun when playing MP even if we are only 3-4 people, can't imagine with a semi decent AI.

Going to have to disagree, somewhat. Somewhat in that you are exactly right that the current AI is an egregious embarrassment: not just in its complete inability to handle war, but also in its simple-minded diplomacy and trade agreements, wretched placement and development of cities, and on and on. ANY improvement in the AI would make a huge difference in the game.

BUT it would not solve all the problems. The game would still be sadly lacking in half of the "4X" for over half of the game, and with a competent AI that just means you are not just bored with the last half of the game, you are both bored and frustrated.
Better AI also doesn't address numerous problems that have been remarked upon in these Forums: the mismatch between rising Production Costs and Production ability, poor numerical/strength relationships among the units (the Anti-Cav Line, or Cavalry Speed Bumps. overpowered air units now, the Recon Line still, just for starters) and my personal Teeth Grinder, the poorly coded Starting Bias for so many Civs.
Given the number of game Civilizations with some kind of Unique based all or in part on TerrainGeography, it is still amazing how often you get a starting position that absolutely senseless: center of the continent starts for England, Tundra starts for Nubia, Rainforest starts for Russia. I would guess that I restart an average of 3 - 5 games for every one that I actually play from the original starting position given, and on many an afternoon I have restarted for 30 - 45 minutes and then given up, turned off the game, and done something else rather than put up with playing a game in which your chief opponent is the Brain Dead programmer.

Ending Rant.

So, yes, by all means get a better, at least minimally competent AI, but don't think that makes the game perfect, or even perfectly acceptable.

 

[Aristos]

The civ series since GS is already in a transition from becoming a 4X game into a SimCiv game.

In transition?