Concerns about difficulty vs. AI.

Naokaukodem

Millenary King
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I've seen most of (but not all, needed a pause after all those informations) Marbozir's preview let's play of Civilization VII of 1 hour and I don't know in what difficulty it was, but it was in Online speed and things was going out of hand quickly. Marbozir befriended most of the barbarians and got several cities that way, not saying he founded some towns himself also, so he reached and exceeded the threshold.

I don't really know, but Marbozir is a very good player with I would say a luck ability (especially in Civ6), and he really did well playing with the new mechanics. But I'm wondering : isn't it a little bit too easy ? I mean at least, for elite players such as Marbz (and quite a lot in this forum too, when they can beat Civ6 Deity everytime), couldn't this harm the reputation of the game here or on Reddit or whatever ?

There still seems to be optimal paths (libraries improvements, Influence to befriend barbarians early, camels...) and I'm wondering if the game will not be cracked sooner than any other iteration.

Don't get me wrong, that's not a problem for me as I apparently am a casual player (judging by my "success" in Deity with Civ6...) but couldn't it be an issue for the game overall feedback ?

P.-S. : I know every vanilla version has its controversies, and the expansions are here to fill any gap though.
 
I think most of those preview streams were played at the default difficulty, which is 2nd or 3rd one. One of the streamers mentioned that the AI is actually pretty strong but those streamers are usually not the best players so i'll have to see for myself.
 
I think he was playing on a lower difficulty. For some reason his game is not showing the setup at all.
The AI was more aggressive on boesthius's immortal game.
I don't think the AI will hold well against good players with a little bit of meta knowledge but it didn't look too awful in that immortal game.

And yes. Considering the vast amount of bonuses and customization available it will definitely be to the advantage of the player to have some really powerful combinations, timings etc.

At which point you will need both balance and ai behavior adjustments for it to keep up in providing a challenge.Something that Firaxis is sadly not well known for so hopefully modding at least some of it will be possible.
 
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Governor is the default difficulty (if the streams are to be believed) and most streamers didn't change that, probably because they didn't want to look like total noobs to the (better) players watching their videos 😆
I have yet to watch that Boesthius video, should be interesting to see a higher difficulty AI in action against a skilled player
I don't think the AI will hold well against good players with a little bit of meta knowledge but it didn't look too awful in that immortal game.
I don't think it ever will, not in the forseeable future anyway, Civ is far too complex for an AI to be good at it. AIs (and computers in general) are very good at executing many mathematical operations quickly, but the human brain is (still) better at getting the "big picture" and for a game like Civ, that "big picture" is extremely important.
I think players need to stop thinking of the AI as an opponent (MP is there for those who wants a real opponent) and rather see it as part of the game world. It's there to provide immersion, make the game more alive (we could very well play Civ without any AI and just try to beat our previous score/timing, but that wouldn't be as fun) but it's not there to win the game. Of course in order to achieve it's objectives, the AI has to provide some challenge and previous AIs failed at that against skilled players (and relied on silly front-loaded bonuses to be able to compete against moderately skilled ones, to the point it wasn't even fun for many of us). I hope the AI here is better, if only to get rid of the silly bonuses Civ6 Deity AI was receiving. If only Firaxis gave the AI some gradual bonuses instead of 2 free settlers 🙄
We'll see i guess. Hopefully they had some time to look at your Civ5 mod 😉
 
Several of the streams I saw were on Deity, and aside from the AI getting pretty insane yield bonuses, it didn't seem much harder or to go much slower. The game is way too fast at present in my opinion.
Most of the streams I've seen were so heavily edited that it was pretty hard to tell. It didn't seem so bad in Potato's stream, though at the moment I think I will probably play my first game on something slower than Standard.
 
Most of the streams I've seen were so heavily edited that it was pretty hard to tell. It didn't seem so bad in Potato's stream, though at the moment I think I will probably play my first game on something slower than Standard.
This is funny because Potato definitely sped up his recording to (unsuccessfully) cut it down to the 60 minute mark :lol:

Pacing seems to be a really problem, but this is exactly the sort of thing that can be solved with a few adjustments to yields, costs and abilities.
 
I'm usually more of a lurker, but here goes...

I think the game will be hard enough on Immortal and Deity, but this is primarily because the AI has a huge advantage in some specific areas of the game, such as war. They not only get a +8 combat strength bonus on Deity, they seem to have a much easier time getting war support (I'm not sure if they have a bonus towards spending influence on it, or just get more influence in general), which leads to you getting war weariness and significant combat strength penalties. If you end up fighting multiple wars, with multiple AI's boosting their war support, this can get out of hand really fast (your combat penalty can reach -10 or even -20, while they have a +8 bonus). But I'm sure people will find a way around that. It does make influence a pretty important resource for war though.
With that said, I've seen the AI do plenty of really stupid things, like leaving their army commander undefended and easily killed (and army commanders, especially experienced ones, are super valuable).

Speaking of bonuses, one thing I did like was that the AI didn't seem to start with extra settlers on Deity. At least in the Deity games I tried, the AI's I met right at the start, didn't get their first town / second city until like, turn 20 on standard speed (you can tell from their military milestone points), which is roughly when you can get yours as well. So that's a big positive, at least from my point of view. But that's not to say they don't get major bonuses to other things on Deity, they do (like in the example above).

As for befriending the "barbarians", I did focus pretty heavily on getting more influence, specifically with that goal in mind, and I picked up some attribute bonuses that make it easier as well (and as mentioned above, influence can be a very important war resource due to the fact you can use it to boost war support at the start of the war, which gives a direct combat advantage). That's just one strategy, I'm sure there will be many others.

The aggressive editing was sadly necessary, because we were limited to one hour only. I definitely had to cut out more than I wanted to in order to fit in that one hour limit...

Edit: Oh, and the city cap is more of a soft cap than a hard cap, you just get -5 happiness penalty for exceeding it (for each extra town/city over the cap, up to -35). So exceeding it by one or two is not that big of a deal, there are many ways to boost happiness. The biggest pitfall of doing that is the crisis that tanks your happiness (there's more than one crisis type, so there's some randomness in which one you get) - if that happens and you fail to get it back into the positives quickly enough, the city will flip to the the AI. Speaking of the crisis, it can also be turned off during game setup.

Edit 2: One more thing I want to say is that I played through the whole antiquity age on Deity and standard speed, and it felt easier than Deity in Civ 4 or Civ 5. I found the happiness crisis to be more challenging. BUT this is a very small sample size, so take it with a grain of salt. (and I haven't tried deity beyond antiquity age yet)
 
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This is funny because Potato definitely sped up his recording to (unsuccessfully) cut it down to the 60 minute mark :lol:
True! But he didn't skip loads of turns, so it was easier to get a sense of pacing. I feel like Civ VI never quite got its pacing right, tbh.
 
I'm usually more of a lurker, but here goes...

I think the game will be hard enough on Immortal and Deity, but this is primarily because the AI has a huge advantage in some specific areas of the game, such as war. They not only get a +8 combat strength bonus on Deity, they seem to have a much easier time getting war support (I'm not sure if they have a bonus towards spending influence on it, or just get more influence in general), which leads to you getting war weariness and significant combat strength penalties. If you end up fighting multiple wars, with multiple AI's boosting their war support, this can get out of hand really fast (your combat penalty can reach -10 or even -20, while they have a +8 bonus). But I'm sure people will find a way around that. It does make influence a pretty important resource for war though.
With that said, I've seen the AI do plenty of really stupid things, like leaving their army commander undefended and easily killed (and army commanders, especially experienced ones, are super valuable).

Speaking of bonuses, one thing I did like was that the AI didn't seem to start with extra settlers on Deity. At least in the Deity games I tried, the AI's I met right at the start, didn't get their first town / second city until like, turn 20 on standard speed (you can tell from their military milestone points), which is roughly when you can get yours as well. So that's a big positive, at least from my point of view. But that's not to say they don't get major bonuses to other things on Deity, they do (like in the example above).

As for befriending the "barbarians", I did focus pretty heavily on getting more influence, specifically with that goal in mind, and I picked up some attribute bonuses that make it easier as well (and as mentioned above, influence can be a very important war resource due to the fact you can use it to boost war support at the start of the war, which gives a direct combat advantage). That's just one strategy, I'm sure there will be many others.

The aggressive editing was sadly necessary, because we were limited to one hour only. I definitely had to cut out more than I wanted to in order to fit in that one hour limit...

Edit: Oh, and the city cap is more of a soft cap than a hard cap, you just get -5 happiness penalty for exceeding it (for each extra town/city over the cap, up to -35). So exceeding it by one or two is not that big of a deal, there are many ways to boost happiness. The biggest pitfall of doing that is the crisis that tanks your happiness (there's more than one crisis type, so there's some randomness in which one you get) - if that happens and you fail to get it back into the positives quickly enough, the city will flip to the the AI. Speaking of the crisis, it can also be turned off during game setup.

Edit 2: One more thing I want to say is that I played through the whole antiquity age on Deity and standard speed, and it felt easier than Deity in Civ 4 or Civ 5. I found the happiness crisis to be more challenging. BUT this is a very small sample size, so take it with a grain of salt. (and I haven't tried deity beyond antiquity age yet)
Off topic, but thanks a lot for showing how the Trading Route mechanics worked! It is very powerful together with resources, both to balance between building in cities vs gold production in towns, but also how to address happiness in towns during crisis. Much appreciated. :thumbsup:
 
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I'm usually more of a lurker, but here goes...
Thank you for your video. Of the ones I've watched, it does the best job of conveying how an actual game will progress. You weren't just demonstrating how new mechanics work, you were playing as though you wanted to win, and using what you'd learned playing previous games to show, among the choices the new game gives, why a player is likely to do X or Y (the usefulness of influence, e.g.)

Nice work.
 
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Most of the streams I've seen were so heavily edited that it was pretty hard to tell. It didn't seem so bad in Potato's stream, though at the moment I think I will probably play my first game on something slower than Standard.
They're almost all edited (you can't get through the Age in less than an hour); I mean in terms of number of turns. They're usually hitting the Crisis before turn 100.
 
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Marbozir's video is done on lower difficulty level for sure. Independent people's unit is getting combat penalty, which doesn't show up in boesthius' immortal gameplay viedo.


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Quarbit's video shows he set the difficulty as viceroy (3rd difficulty out of 6), and those independent people were suffering same -3 combat penalty.
 
Edit: Oh, and the city cap is more of a soft cap than a hard cap, you just get -5 happiness penalty for exceeding it (for each extra town/city over the cap, up to -35). So exceeding it by one or two is not that big of a deal, there are many ways to boost happiness. The biggest pitfall of doing that is the crisis that tanks your happiness (there's more than one crisis type, so there's some randomness in which one you get) - if that happens and you fail to get it back into the positives quickly enough, the city will flip to the the AI. Speaking of the crisis, it can also be turned off during game setup.

Can you say anything about what high or low happiness actually means for a settlement beyond the chance of it flipping?
 
Can you say anything about what high or low happiness actually means for a settlement beyond the chance of it flipping?
If a city stays in negative happiness for too long, I'm pretty sure it's guaranteed to flip (but I'd have to double check to make sure, so don't quote me on that just yet...) - you do get a warning about it in advance.
I know one thing, the one time I ignored it, one of my bigger cities, in the middle of my territory, flipped to the AI (and split my territory in two)

Edit: When the AI's city flips to you, you have the option to decline. I assume the AI can decline as well, if they're over the cap already, or something like that.
 
They're usually hitting the Crisis before turn 100.
Speaking of the crisis and game pacing, there are two separate options during game setup - game speed (which is basically the same thing as before) and age length (abbreviated, standard, long). They are completely independent of each other, and you can play with any combination you want, like quick speed + long age length, or epic speed + abbreviated age length. I haven't done too much testing on that yet though. I tried abbreviated age length once, and the age ended quickly enough that I didn't get anywhere close to finishing any of the 4 milestone tracks (to get the golden age bonus).
 
Speaking of the crisis and game pacing, there are two separate options during game setup - game speed (which is basically the same thing as before) and age length (abbreviated, standard, long). They are completely independent of each other, and you can play with any combination you want, like quick speed + long age length, or epic speed + abbreviated age length. I haven't done too much testing on that yet though. I tried abbreviated age length once, and the age ended quickly enough that I didn't get anywhere close to finishing any of the 4 milestone tracks (to get the golden age bonus).
Yes, I noticed that... but unfortunately Civ's speed settings tend to throw game pacing completely out of whack. With any luck there will be a set of settings that works properly, but it would be nice if it we didn't have to monkey with it like this. Currently it doesn't do what they said they intended it to do.
 
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Thanks Marbozir for that insight.

Difficulty influencing war by providing boni and mali is not something I fancy. Goes to show that Firaxis knows the AI can't handle the new commander units and 1upt. NOthing will change for a warmonger at heart in civ games....stuck with civ3/4
 
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