Could some kind of ladder system work with Civ?

[Bkeela]

Civ has some shortcomings when it comes to multiplayer. Even if lag and disconnections were eliminated, it still fosters a style of play where you are forced to sit at your computer for hours on end. Therefore Civ lovers who have a competitive spirit, but don't want to deal with the tedium of multiplayer, are left out in the cold.

But what if Firaxis implemented some kind of ladder system, so that players could measure their performance against others? Instead of the ridiculous game score system that rewards wide play over smart and efficient, you simply were awarded points based upon a victory. Victory at Prince would award one point, and victory on Diety ten points, (or some such appropriate score). Maybe a win/loss ratio could also be a viable metric by which to measure performance.

So that a few people didn't dominate the ladder because they played from the beginning, there could be seasons perhaps like Diablo 3, which reset the counter. Maybe even rewards for participating.

If a person much preferred to play the game in the spirit of a sandbox game, they simply would not participate.

I think such a system would be better than diluting the Civ experience with Eureka boosts and other mechanics, to make games faster for the sake of multiplayer games.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Ladder works best when you have
1. a lot of people
2. playing often

I'm not sure civ would work well with that.

 

[Bkeela]

Ladder works best when you have
1. a lot of people
2. playing often

I'm not sure civ would work well with that.

According to Steam Charts, Civ V is the 3rd ranked game with 37,109 current players. All you'd need would be a thousand competitive players to make a ladder interesting.

 

[playshogi]

There is the hall of fame right here on civfanatics and realms beyond looks like they will offer some competitive games.

 

[Civilization6]

sounds cool.

 

[Abraxis]

I think such a system would be better than diluting the Civ experience with Eureka boosts and other mechanics, to make games faster for the sake of multiplayer games.

I was totally with you until this sentence. If they wanted to speed the game up for multiplayer, they'd just include a faster pacing option -and there is some word suggesting they have, which none of us has to use so who cares?
I'm not sure why you think Eurekas would speed up the game, and that they would introduce wide-spread mechanics to do so in the first place to prioritise such a small part of their market above everyone else -pacing... it's all relative to pacing. There's no reason to get defensive about this.

That being said. I've always liked when single player games attempt to integrated communities into the game without strictly including multiplayer, whether it's heavier on mechanics and borderline multiplayer like dark souls, or very indirect and hands off secondary influence like Dragon's Dogma's pawn system. Just knowing your actions aren't in a total vacuum, and may potentially have some impact on another player's experience makes all the difference.
I wouldn't quite go that far with Civ though. I don't think the single player has much to gain from direct intrusion. But certainly there is to direct comparison, and just generally sharing your experiences.

• Having a profile with all kinds of statistics and graphs about your trends, playing habbits, and achievements.
• Having access to global statistics, how many players build which wonders, and graphs showing timing on a bell curve for each speed, how many people win at each difficulty and victory type, ect...
• Being able to pop in and easily observe a friend's game if only just to see how they're doing, and knowing others can do the same to you.
• Having a chat window to glance at in between turns, with either friends or public rooms.
• Firaxis issued weekly maps, a consistent start and settings (maybe even unique and random game alterations similar to second wave options spicing things up a bit) for all players to play and compare their results similar to Daily runs in Binding of Isaac.
• Some type of recognition for strong Deity performance.
• Top 100 player lists for each civ, speed, map types, ect.
• Even just community discussion boards integrated into the game engine.

Just being able to see how other people do things and how you compare in every little area is very interesting, and can provide very specific motivation, and a template upon which to create your own goals in a way achievements just don't. I think there is a lot more that could be done with this than just these few ideas. I'd love to see what the development team could come up with if properly motivated.

 

[Aldor]

^Those aren't bad ideas, although I'd prefer anonymous statistics only.

 

[Balkans]

If anything they should collect all the single player data in order to analyze, polish and balance the game more precisely. On topic, some kind of ladder system could work, but since civ is special kind of game it would need specially designed ladder system. By the way, great post from Abraxis.

 

[CanuckSoldier]

If you want to see a ladder in action Civplayers has a Civ6 league using the Cases Myleague ladder www.myleague.com/civ6players

Come and join and have some fun!

Our steam chat is here as well http://steamcommunity.com/gid/103582791431089902

CS