Decided to test how much more you can snowball for Science win if you play more like Civ 6

[pjotroos]

Which means the anti snowball effect is way too weak. Bigger powers need stronger crises.

I kind of like the fact that the crisis has limited impact. It's important narratively, but if it was always bringing you down to the same level, it would be more frustrating than exciting. I had some that hit me relatively hard - ending antiquity with negative GPT, grinding my science and culture to a halt, losing a town or two to low happiness, spreading plague through all my towns and killing off end of an age productivity. But their malus doesn't carry over to the start of next age, regardless of what they do, so you will still start strong.

The real problem is the fact that the difficulties don't scale right - I want Immortal AI in the exploration to be tougher competitor than Immortal AI in antiquity, to match my snowball. Give them bigger force multipliers to Science or Culture, force them to always build their unique districts correctly so they get to benefit, or just rubberband their production pace to ours. I don't see their production numbers, I won't notice if their suddenly plop down universities in 3 turns instead of 7.

Also, I never let them get that far, but I saw others report they don't actually go for win conditions. As in - they would get 15 artifacts and just not build World Fair. I actually think it's a valid approach for something like Governor; they are meant to be a colour more than a competition there. But Sovereign and above, they really should gun for them the moment they unlock them. If I pick higher dificulty, I obviously want challenge all the way through.

 

[aelf]

I do suspect this approach is viable but not as strong as the regular approach unless you pick certain civs that are obviously strong for the victory condition you have in mind. It might even not work outside of the scientific route, since on higher difficulties it would be tricky to avoid getting stomped.

 

[Krikkit1]

I don't think the crisis system has worked very well. It doesn't impact the player much but I do find that the AI gets completely whalloped by a crises surprisingly often. I generally keep them off as it seems to be helping the human by throwing the AI something it doesn't handle well. Making the crisis strong enough to hit the human probably means making it strong enough to annihalate the AI...

What they need is a way for the Crisis to hit different players differently.

Big strong players should get hit more
Small weak players get hit less.
Deity: AIs get hit less, Humans get hit more
Scribe: AIs get hit more, Humans get hit less

For the barbs/plagues that is fairly easy, you could easily weight who gets targeted for attack/infected.

The internal happiness ones get more difficult….perhaps accompany them with a % drop in Settlement Cap….or a drop in settlement cap based on # of Settlements….or Any type of base happiness penalty that isn’t a Policy card but just an effect based on your “success/size etc. and difficulty level”

 

[Krikkit1]

I kind of like the fact that the crisis has limited impact. It's important narratively, but if it was always bringing you down to the same level, it would be more frustrating than exciting. I had some that hit me relatively hard - ending antiquity with negative GPT, grinding my science and culture to a halt, losing a town or two to low happiness, spreading plague through all my towns and killing off end of an age productivity. But their malus doesn't carry over to the start of next age, regardless of what they do, so you will still start strong.

The real problem is the fact that the difficulties don't scale right - I want Immortal AI in the exploration to be tougher competitor than Immortal AI in antiquity, to match my snowball. Give them bigger force multipliers to Science or Culture, force them to always build their unique districts correctly so they get to benefit, or just rubberband their production pace to ours. I don't see their production numbers, I won't notice if their suddenly plop down universities in 3 turns instead of 7.

Also, I never let them get that far, but I saw others report they don't actually go for win conditions. As in - they would get 15 artifacts and just not build World Fair. I actually think it's a valid approach for something like Governor; they are meant to be a colour more than a competition there. But Sovereign and above, they really should gun for them the moment they unlock them. If I pick higher dificulty, I obviously want challenge all the way through.

I think the Crisis shouldn’t force you all to the same level it should force you closer though.

 

[Leucarum]

What they need is a way for the Crisis to hit different players differently.

Big strong players should get hit more
Small weak players get hit less.
Deity: AIs get hit less, Humans get hit more
Scribe: AIs get hit more, Humans get hit less

For the barbs/plagues that is fairly easy, you could easily weight who gets targeted for attack/infected.

The internal happiness ones get more difficult….perhaps accompany them with a % drop in Settlement Cap….or a drop in settlement cap based on # of Settlements….or Any type of base happiness penalty that isn’t a Policy card but just an effect based on your “success/size etc. and difficulty level”

I have my doubts, what would be the criteria used for "doing well" and how long until players worked out how to game those thresholds. My impression is that while crises were an interesting idea, they're gonna end up left by the wayside.

And there'a also pacing. Especially on high difficulties, the crisis tends to last a very short time as multiple legacy paths get hit at once.

I think the Crisis shouldn’t force you all to the same level it should force you closer though.

Forcing everyone back to the same level would make it a case of "why not treat each age as a separate game?"

I personally think getting rid of victory projects and only having a score victory is the best idea. Focus on having the AI do better at trying to progress legacy paths on higher difficulties. The snowball is worse when you can win lightning-quick. Fix that and you go a longer way towards solving the problem than I think you would by tweaking crises.

 

[Krikkit1]

I have my doubts, what would be the criteria used for "doing well" and how long until players worked out how to game those thresholds. My impression is that while crises were an interesting idea, they're gonna end up left by the wayside.

And there'a also pacing. Especially on high difficulties, the crisis tends to last a very short time as multiple legacy paths get hit at once.


Forcing everyone back to the same level would make it a case of "why not treat each age as a separate game?"

I personally think getting rid of victory projects and only having a score victory is the best idea. Focus on having the AI do better at trying to progress legacy paths on higher difficulties. The snowball is worse when you can win lightning-quick. Fix that and you go a longer way towards solving the problem than I think you would by tweaking crises.

The AI could definitely be improved
and you should not all be at the same level
However, to get closer

Start with settlement number (something you get to carry over)

Possibly count total tiles in your territory or improved tiles in your territory or total population

A human player will be able to have their tiles/settlements etc. be more efficient for a certain score…but that’s what the AIs bonuses are for.