Civ VII Post-mortem: Crafting a redemption arc

[Gori the Grey]

There are not enough polities on the game board to get effective dynamic alliance building going.

I feel as though there potentially could be, if IPs were worked into the mix. (I don't necessarily mean in Civ 7, but in some future iteration.)

It would depend a little bit on two things: how "sensitive" you made the other civs to your own civ's emerging dominance and how many tools you gave for opposing that dominance. But let's say, you attack Civ 1 and take a city. The game could be programmed such that 1) any other civ with whom you share a border could think to itself "I could be next," and therefore be heavily predisposed to an alliance with Civ 1. Moreover, 2) both of those civs could be programmed to prioritize alliances with the IPs that also share borders with you. Relatively quickly, you could be facing the banded-together militaries of two civs and three or four IPs.

You would also want to give the other polities multiple ways of keeping you in check. Banding their armies together, but also (I'm referencing the trade mechanics of earlier games), they no longer trade with you for your resources. That could dry up your gold in a hurry. They become automatically more resistant to your religious spread (just out a hostility to you and everything you stand for) so any benefits you are receiving from religion dry up.

I stump for this possibility because, as I said in an earlier thread, I think this is the best way of building anti-snowballing into the game. Because it's the most natural, and therefore seems least like an arbitrary game-imposed check on your own success. When one set of nations sees another rising, it does motivate them to band together against the threat of dominance. So make them size you up as a threat even on the basis of just a little edge and give them multiple ways to check you.

If you're becoming tech dominant, they become that much more likely to form research agreements with one another*, and, again, to prioritize drawing tech from their IP connections. If culture, they collectively form a shared counter-culture to yours. (NATO is a military alliance, but it also works to promote democratic values in contrast with authoritarian ones. Or did.)

By the way, the player should be able to join in such alliances against a snowballing AI civ. One of the problems one can face in Civ 5 is a tech runaway on the opposite side of the world. There's little you can do to slow its tech down, and you're not in a position to attack it. A system like the one I'm sketching would give you some in-game resources for dealing with that.

*as always, Civ 5 is my reference point, I don't know if 7 has an equivalent of research agreements.

 

[itix]

In civ 7, the problem currently is that infantry is too weak, while cavalry and ranged seem fine. This is what I’d say, but I’m not sure whether this is a consensus?

An easy balance fix could be to make infantry cheaper and especially cavalry a bit more expensive. But I’m not sure if this really helps, because the limited theater for battles which are won within a few turns means that higher quality beats quantity in most cases (but ranged can actually challenge this). So, maybe ranged should either be more expensive as well or lose the ability to to move and shoot in the same turn? Or just make ranged much worse against walls and fortified units to make the game a bit more tactical?

The production cost/time is largely irrelevant.

In Civ games, space is limited. You can have only so many units in the front line, and only so many units can melee attack the enemy. Why not defend with the best one? Why not attack with the best units you can have? And because only so few units can actually melee attack the enemy (max 6), it is good to have many archers nearby.

To fix that, IMO other means should be used. Archer should not cause damage against walls, and only very little damage to fortified units or against units in the cover of urban/woods tile. Allow building heavy infantry that is resistant to arrows. Something like that.

 

[Krikkit1]

The production cost/time is largely irrelevant.

In Civ games, space is limited. You can have only so many units in the front line, and only so many units can melee attack the enemy. Why not defend with the best one? Why not attack with the best units you can have? And because only so few units can actually melee attack the enemy (max 6), it is good to have many archers nearby.

To fix that, IMO other means should be used. Archer should not cause damage against walls, and only very little damage to fortified units or against units in the cover of urban/woods tile. Allow building heavy infantry that is resistant to arrows. Something like that.

Possibly as simple as Infantry get +5 defending or attacking a fortified tile (so cavalry only have a bonus in the open field)

 

[Gori the Grey]

Exploits are not a bug but a feature: In a game with many moving parts, some things will be OP, and that’s ok. Finding and using them makes you, the player, feel smart and powerful. In fact, OP is a major source of replayability - trying different combinations of leaders and OP areas is fun.

Ok, as I continue to just kind of riff on the starting document you provided us, I want offer my elaboration on this.

There should be enough "moving parts" that about 20-25 turns into it, the game you are playing feels significantly different from any other game you have played.

I pause, at about that stage of the game, and say, "ok, if I win this game, it will be because I do a good job leveraging X and Y and Z from this specific start."

I'll take my most recent Civ 5 game as an example. I rolled Ethiopia. I was on a coast in an area with a good bit of jungle. Ethiopia's monument replacement also gives faith, so I got the first pantheon and took Sacred Path, which gives culture from those jungle tiles. Up the coast one way was Mt. Kilimanjaro and the other way was a settleable site. On coastal starts I almost never get a viable city site in both directions; there's always a CS or crap terrain.

So, once I'd explored enough to find those things out and snatched the pantheon, I said to myself "If I win this game, it will be because of the bonus culture plus settleable sites in both directions from my cap." That specific combination of things has never happened to me in over ten years of playing civ. It's a result of permutations from among several of the game's "moving parts" (my UA, starting terrain, nearby terrain, available pantheons). But it means that the game will play out differently from any previous game. Little sub-goals I shoot for will be different, etc. I can probably get huge population, with cargo ships and Tradition's free aqueducts coming early.

And yes, some things being OP are crucial to that. I finished the Tradition policy tree on turn 75. I have never finished a policy tree that early. So that's my special boost this time. Can I parlay that distinctive boost into a win?

As I said, I'm not really doing your "let's fix 7," so much as "here's what makes Civ games in general work," but what Saxy, e.g., says about tile yields seems to suggest that there is nothing particularly distinctive about where you found a city.

 

[Core Imposter]

That is a problem with snowballing.

In game, if you are big enough to exterminate your major competitors nothing can oppose you.

IRL, you must be ready to exterminate
1. constant “whack a mole” minor opponents that keep appearing
2. any and all parts of your own empire (far more policemen than soldiers)

Either of those make for strong “anti-snowball” mechanics…but not for fun gameplay for most people (see: whack a mole, taking away my stuff, punishing for success complaints)

Which is why they need to go for the slightly less realistic. but more fun, path of strengthening major competition as an anti snowball mechanic.

I want to push back strongly on the "most people" statement. Yes, there are a vocal group of people who want victory served up on a red carpet. Yes, mechanics for dealing with adversity can be very unfun. But who says everything in the game should be fun in the first place? Elements of a game that are challenging can be very satisfying to overcome. The real problems with snowballing occur when the player knows they have a won game and there are no challenges remaining. The task is to design a game that provides those challenges in an engaging manner. Just saying it can't be done is lazy and from the designer's viewpoint unprofessional.

One element of civilizational history that Firaxis has left almost totally undeveloped is internal politics. Civilizations are just as likely to fail from internal strife as external pressures. Likewise, shifts in climate have been significant factors in world history. What a weird design Firaxis chose for Civ 7. They acknowledged the sorts of crisis that transformed civilizations but totally failed to model them. Lazy and uninspired thinking. Claiming that the gameplayers do not want adversity is a total cop out.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Yeah, I too think that internal strife could be a good challenge within the game, and even designed to counter snowballing.

The bigger an empire gets, the more diverse it might be. That might have advantages, but past a certain limit, it could lead to internal unrest.

That could have different impacts. Border cities could shift allegiance to another civ with which they feel more cohesive. You could get uprisings the way you do in Civ 5 when your unhappiness gets below -10. Or just productivity could drop off.

The game should of course give you mechanisms for trying to keep your citizens feeling as though they have a common purpose, so that this internal strife doesn't interfere with your plans for world domination. But those could come at a price that pulls against whatever you would like to be building toward one of the victory conditions.

As for adversity, it's specifically listed in the OP as something that Kenshiro, at least, thinks is a huge part of the appeal of Civ, and as you and I do too.

Adversity: When you look back at your “best” game playthroughs, the games burned into your memory are the ones where you overcame significant obstacles. That could be a bad start location or an enemy holding a key resource that gives them a significant advantage. The games where you cruised to victory? They don’t even make the top 20.

I've shared elsewhere on the site that I recently played a game where I got only one copy of one lux. In Civ 5, it's routine to get two copies of one and one copy of another within cap's ultimate radius, so just one copy of one lux is a real drop off. (I've never seen it in over ten years of playing). I'd gotten invested in the civ before I even really noticed, so I continued to play on, thinking that if I did prevail, that starting adversity would just make my victory that much more glorious.

[Narrator: He did not, in fact, prevail.]

 

[Crashdummy]

I think doubling down on making the player's experience miserable after the players rejected your previous attempt isnt the way to go

Firaxis need to stabilize the franchise again, it isnt the time to do something like internal civilization struggle, revolutions, etc. I dont think you will make anyone come back for those changes

But maybe that's just me

 

[Gori the Grey]

Oh, not for fixing 7. Just for some future possible Civ.

7 took its shot at anti-snowballing.

 

[Krikkit1]

I want to push back strongly on the "most people" statement. Yes, there are a vocal group of people who want victory served up on a red carpet. Yes, mechanics for dealing with adversity can be very unfun. But who says everything in the game should be fun in the first place? Elements of a game that are challenging can be very satisfying to overcome. The real problems with snowballing occur when the player knows they have a won game and there are no challenges remaining. The task is to design a game that provides those challenges in an engaging manner. Just saying it can't be done is lazy and from the designer's viewpoint unprofessional.

One element of civilizational history that Firaxis has left almost totally undeveloped is internal politics. Civilizations are just as likely to fail from internal strife as external pressures. Likewise, shifts in climate have been significant factors in world history. What a weird design Firaxis chose for Civ 7. They acknowledged the sorts of crisis that transformed civilizations but totally failed to model them. Lazy and uninspired thinking. Claiming that the gameplayers do not want adversity is a total cop out.

There is a difference between challenging and unfun. Admittedly fun is subjective but just because something is or isn’t challenging doesn’t make it more or less fun.

Ideally they would be able to create mechanics that are challenging but fun… However, many mechanics that are meant to be challenging just become pointless busy work (whack-a-mole) issues.

I think internal struggles, etc. should be expanded on in civ.
However, they should be added because they have a fun way to do it rather than as an anti-snowball measure.
And they shouldn’t be expanded on too much now while the game still needs some emergency work.

Which is why I think “Dynamic AI bonuses” that adjust each Age would be fairly simple (AI bonuses are already in, are simple numbers and there are already legacies to measure how well an AI did during the age.)

Then when the game is a little bit better they can look into fun ways to add internal dissent and opposition to the hegemon.