Civilization losing its charm in late game

[Dokebi]

In fairness, many Deity players (and I'd advise lower skill level players to take note as well) are increasingly turning to Artillery to make the game-winning moves. That's an Industrial Era unit.

Seriously, once you build an artillery the game becomes too easy. I also don't enjoy modern era as much as medieval era. All the Civ has the exactly same units and no special units.

 

[Roxlimn]

Dokebi:

I would correct that to say, "Once you build several Artillery and the AI does not, the game becomes too easy."

Tangling with an AI who has Artillery is not easy at all. I'd go so far as to say that it's probably more entertaining as a game if you deliberately preserve AI strength to Industrial Era so that you have a credible opponent for Artillery wars. Or start at Industrial, that works, too. The AI seems more capable of handling Artillery than it is at handling Archers and Cannon.

There are modern Era UUs. That would be the Panzer, the B17, and the Zero, all of which are arguably OP for what they do. Given the large variety of units in the Modern Era, part of the secret to taking advantage of the AI's generalist approach is to just focus on one style of invasion and do that well. If you have the same units as the AI, you're not making an ideal composition, I think.

 

[Dokebi]

Dokebi:

I would correct that to say, "Once you build several Artillery and the AI does not, the game becomes too easy."

There are modern Era UUs. That would be the Panzer, the B17, and the Zero, all of which are arguably OP for what they do.

I play on Immortal, and AI always makes artillery faster than me, but once I survive and get the artillery my self the game becomes too easy for me. (I'm trying deity right now) It's always the same tactics. Get the meat shields (tanks) in front and just stay in the front line and do nothing and get the artillery to steam roll everything. Once you get extra range and twice attack, it's game over...AI can't do anything...Artillery is just too powerful IMO, so it's always the same tactics against the AI, until AI gets nukes. Alex had nukes in one of my game and he just kept on nuking me until earth split in half...

There are also modern UUs like you said, but compare to early era UUs, there aren't enough special units to be different. That's why I suggest people who feels this way play marathon games, so you can stay in the early era longer.

I do like modern wars, but I'm saying early era is more special to me because we get to see each countries special units.

 

[Martin Alvito]

In fairness, many Deity players (and I'd advise lower skill level players to take note as well) are increasingly turning to Artillery to make the game-winning moves. That's an Industrial Era unit. It's highly noteworthy that the Industrial Era game is good enough that it's fun to push at this point, and that there's an Era unit that makes this possible.

People have been abusing Artillery since release. There's a reason the devs hosed the unit so badly by adding Military Science as a pre-req. Things that can shoot without being shot at are trouble, as long as they bring enough combat strength to the table.

The comparable mechanic in Civ 4 was the Rifle Draft, and that wasn't nearly as fun of a war to wage, since the war was basically won on the tech tree.

I seem to remember Cavalry being the point in the vanilla release where the offense/defense balance shifted dramatically in favor of the attacker. Rifles were effective but tediously slow at leveraging a tech advantage. They also became available a lot later.

Of course, with the draft you could make up for some of those shortcomings in sheer quantity.

 

[kaltorak]

Civ 5 is actually the best of them all in the Industrial and Modern eras because of the limitations on units and cities.

Really? I think moving 1 stack of 30 units is much faster than moving 10 units. Don't get me wrong, I love the 1upt combat. But late game I end up stopping my games because it takes ages to move your 30 units across the map.

 

[Tavenier]

I never liked late game in any Civ. But in previous Civs that was because by that time I was so powerful that I know I would win and often could chose which way to win. Very rarely was it still competetive so I think I only really finished about 3% of all my games throughout 20 years of Civing.

In Civ5 it doesn't matter how well I am doing. I just lose interest anyway. It takes forever to take an enemy city and the fact that you can buy almost anything is also not so appealing to me.

I still like Civ5 quite some, but not half as much as I liked previous Civs.

 

[kaltorak]

You are right about the money Tavenier. I never build a single tradepost, I prefer farms. I never focus gold production, of course the more I can get the better. but lategame, I am always swimming in gold. Last game I finished with korea, science victory, I had 130'000 gold...

 

[Tavenier]

That's the weird thing indeed. I hardly ever build TP's. Maybe one for every city on average. And I spend a lot of money as well, on CS's, rushing units, buying trade goods, etc. Still I end up with loads and loads of money. It is never an issue. The only advantage of going for a TP strategy is that you can buy even more units and bribe more CS's.

 

[CYZ]

Sounds like a balance issue to me. Perhaps the gold-earning buildings need a nerf?

 

[Deggial]

Late game warfare in CiV seems to be a very subjective issue. I for one like modern wars in CiV more than I did in Civ4. Not only artillery, but all these fast moving units... don't you enjoy your sorrow regarding your elite artillery when you see the AI's gunships flying around?
I'm frequently close to panic.

And yes, double shooting long range artillery is sort of imbalanced. But then, you had to work for it and may take it as your well deserved gratification. Additionally not *all* of your artillery will be experienced veterans. And siege artillery against a fortified, city-defending artillery is still tricky.
Nevertheless, AI makes good enough use of their own artillery and I like, how I'm forced to hunt them down with my bombers and fighters.

But I have to admit, that there are some fascinating features less present in lategame:
One was already mentioned: there are less UUs than in early game.
Second, there are less modern world wonders to hunt for.
Third and maybe most important: The whole world is already known, all cities settled, all luxuries claimed. The excitement of the discovery of an unknown world is lost.

Regarding the first two points, there can be relief (at least theoretically). The third point is intrinsic to civ games and we have to live with it...

 

[Dokebi]

Third and maybe most important: The whole world is already known, all cities settled, all luxuries claimed. The excitement of the discovery of an unknown world is lost.

Maybe once we build the space shutter and send it to the other planet, we can put settlers there. We get to claim the planet first and other Civs will follow after! Probably not going to happen, but would be cool...Instead of barbs, we will be fighting Zergs in that planet!

 

[pspboy7]

I think war becomes more interesting late game personally, but most of my conquest games don't even touch modern era. Problem with modern warfare is that by then, you are usually so bored with fighting you tend to pick science or diplomacy to put yourself out of the AI's misery hehe