[R&F] Difficulty

[Archon_Wing]

This hasn't really been my experience. Of the Deity test games I tracked (3 games involving each of them), Gilgamesh did win one Science victory (on Turn 319), placed third in another (lost on T351 to Genghis), and didn't rank in the third. Seondeok had one game where she placed third (beaten by Pericles to a Science victory on T327) and two where she didn't rank high enough to make note of.

I dunno. On Emperor, Seondeok is generally double or tripling people in science so I'd expect her to be faster and I guess they could win by turn 300. Maybe.

However, on Deity, it's usually possible to win faster, so that's kinda moot too. I did a t260'ish science win when I was isolated and didn't war until t200 so that could have been faster. (Korea though). Nobody was threatening victory except Chang (notice he gets really strong the higher you go) but I just bombed him into oblivion and that really just summarizes why it's ultimately all moot.

 

[Spudsie74]

Thanks for the heads-up! I just watched The video "Sid Meyer 2010....Everything You Know Is Wrong." Kind of an eye-opener, but discouraging for Fanatics. Games with mega sales are (according to Sid) "optimized for the mass market," leaving the hard core player the odd man out....niche market, as it were. That's a shame...still, he may have evolved since 2010, and even if not, he does make some homage to modding, gamer feedback, and the like. This augments my belief that the best hope for a hard-core AI is with modding, or a source code rewrite. Tough break, but they ARE in it to make money.

 

[Victoria]

but they ARE in it to make money

There is some degree of built in fail coming up I imagine.

I imagne when VII is out there will be early iteration rare fans, a few hardcore Civ IV, quite a few civ V and maybe some civ VI.... so the take on with VII would be less

the money will tail off, more corners cut... fail...

Unless machine learning can just sack most people and take over .... as long as its learnt to play badly

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Games with mega sales are (according to Sid) "optimized for the mass market," leaving the hard core player the odd man out....niche market, as it were.

Almost by definition, yes, games with the highest sales must appeal to the greatest number of people.

There's no way, though, that Civ 6 is "optimized for the mass market". It has a level of complexity most casual gamers would have no interest in.

The game is designed to appeal to the people with fond memories of past games in the series. Yes, they also want it to appeal to as many people as possible, but there's very little in the game design to suggest that they have tried to make it simpler for new people to pick up and play.

I imagne when VII is out there will be early iteration rare fans, a few hardcore Civ IV, quite a few civ V and maybe some civ VI.... so the take on with VII would be less

the money will tail off, more corners cut... fail...

That's the risk of not satisfying the fanatics. A core of people who love the game are what create the economic certainty that you can invest in the next series of the game.

Also, a bunch of "meh" impressions from early sales puts a quick damper on obtaining mass appeal sales.

At the end of the day, you need to produce a good game to generate sales.

If anything, though, the history of what worked in Civ 1, 2, etc. can hold back innovation and evolution, and make it harder and harder to deliver a good product the next time.

 

[Leathaface]

If Civ VII looks good i'll move onto that from Civ VI. Though after I started playing Civilization games with Civ IV, back in June 2009, I purchased Civ V vanilla on a discount 2 years later and didn't really get into it.

People say Civ V with it's expansions is a good game, but Vanilla was well below par, that it was missing a lot of systems. If Civ VII were to be the same, i'd stick to Civ VI.

 

[Spudsie74]

I spoke poorly...Since the game has such a large audience, a big part of them do not play 1000+ hours, and (Firaxis) would not benefit (financially) by spending time and money in a smarter, more "human" AI. The 2010 lecture also indicated that Sid saw AI as a adjunct, feedback mechanism, and less of an opponent. Good for the bean counters (a whole section of his lecture was on how to save money on design), bad for us.

 

[Kurnn]

Has anything changed regarding AI bonuses?

I play on Immortal, and lately the AI has "+8 combat bonus when fighting melee, anti cavelry and land units" from start.
At first I thought it was just a City state bonus, or Natural Wonder bonus. But in 3 games now, the AI who I fight very early, has this bonus?

I play with mods, but have gone through em and cant find any that adds a standard +combat bonus to all AI.

Has anyone else seen this?

 

[c4c6]

The clarity of the game rules, complexity of the game systems, and quality of the UI data and in game reports suggest the development team did not go out of their way to make the game accessible to new players to the Civ series.

Therefore I wrote "relatively new" - there are also long time players, still low efficient.

I like very much what Sid said in the linked video about "Rise & Fall" ...
He wanted back then to make that game "we" would love, but experienced then, that too many customers don't want 'Fall'. I feel his disappointment - Rise and Rise and more Rise, no problem. NO Fall. (and obviously resulting boredom)

In this light Anton is my new hero. Rise&Fall, the expansion, I think, is somehow again a test balloon ... dark ages ... tiny Fall ... How to convince many players to take the risk to receive some hits and then win a fortiori ...

The problem: too many players have a low frustration tolerance: they think, they cannot stand any significant losses; they don't desire the satisfaction from overcoming problems.


I agree with Sid's statement, nobody complains about to often winning the game. Of course I want to win in the game most of the time, too, but I have an issue with winning every single battle ...

Civ1 WAS a GREAT game. I invite everybody to try it at least once (despite the graphics & everything). You experience real losses. Turn after turn: several or even a dozen units lost in mission. Of course also the tank against the legendary phalanx (but just with the appropriate, very _LOW_ probability!!!). All the time at war: losses. And it is ok. (Btw, war IS expensive.)

Are the players degenerating more & more? Is it that great to build a set of slingers, upgrade them to archers and crossbows and win again and again 'Deity-challenges' and upload whole series with barely any losses?

In a single player game the human shall usually win. That is the whole war. But the human shall not win every battle/skirmish.

Take WW2 as a simile. Of course I don't advocate the human player should experience to finally loose (as Germany or Japan). Also not winning after suffering terrible losses and devastating destructions (Russia). Even not winning after invasion, big losses and destructions (France).

Would Britain's experience be a too heavy burden for the player (destruction much more manageable compared to Russia)? Has it really to be the experience of the USA?

but there's very little in the game design to suggest that they have tried to make it simpler for new people to pick up and play.

I agree. But we don't complain about too few complex & complicated game mechanics. Still a bit unbalanced, but not too simple at all.

I'm unable to phrase it properly in English. Somehow it is an issue with a bit too childish, better childlike(?), players ...

Civ1 had the highest difficulty Emperor. And that was good. I began on Chieftain and finally loved King - Emperor was too strict for me in its possibilities.

We got a mad inflation on the names since then ... Immortal, Deity ...

Once Emperor was tough. Now many people on YouTube think, that they are good players or even experts, because they beat 'Deity' ... ('Everyone is above average')

Sid mentioned originally 4 difficulties being enough (sandbox, casual, experienced, difficult to beat).

Civ6 seems to have now the problem that this "highest difficulty" is still missing - hide it as option somewhere in the submenus.

(Firaxis) would not benefit (financially) by spending time and money in a smarter, more "human" AI.

They could agree though, that the human player shall experience a (bonus driven) challenge over the whole distance.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

The problem: too many players have a low frustration tolerance: they think, they cannot stand any significant losses; they don't desire the satisfaction from overcoming problems.

Yes and no.

A lot of the best selling phone games are infuriatingly difficult to progress on at higher level, but oh so satisfying when you do. I expect there's still a huge market for a Civ game that challenges you and makes it difficult to win, and then makes the next game even tougher, and then the next one after that tougher still.

What's different, though, is the amount of time it takes to try and fail on a phone game, compared to the amount of time in Civ.

Right now, Civ 6 reminds me of some of the monster board games I used to play in university: 20 hours of game time for 2 hours of meaningful game decisions. Those old board games have either been sold to collectors or now gather dust on my shelf, because there are a dozen newer games that offer just as much fun and experience in one tenth of the game time. Why do I want to wait for three weeks of game sessions to find out that an early gambit on turn 2 didn't pay off?

Civ 6 requires that you make some tough early decisions, then wait around for hours making hundreds (thousands?) of insignificant mouse clicks to find out how those decisions panned out. It's no wonder that a lot of players, having invested that much time in a game, would be frustrated to find out that something they didn't know about / hadn't expected derails all of their plans.

 

[Spudsie74]

The linked video about said it all...(Sid Meyer, 2010 GDC), After hearing that, I'm, surprised we got Rise & Fall....(even if it is more like Rise, and Rise, and Rise again (a little slower once time). Makes sense for the average player, but it would be nice if they added a few goodies for Fanatics.

 

[c4c6]

After hearing that, I'm, surprised we got Rise & Fall...

Well, if you ask me, I think Rise&Fall is a great concept. Of course, if the 'Fall' part is perceived as punishment ... ... things are already going wrong.

When boredom comes into play, perhaps punishment lies just in this context, the stable rest position (without fall)

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Well, if you ask me, I think Rise&Fall is a great concept. Of course, if the 'Fall' part is perceived as punishment ... ... things are already going wrong.

When boredom comes into play, perhaps punishment lies just in this context, the stable rest position (without fall)

Civ: Darwinism Edition … only civs that go through the biggest falls get strong enough to bounce back and win.

Okay, I can identify a number of really good reasons Firaxis should not go anywhere near that concept.

 

[c4c6]

the amount of time it takes to try and fail on a phone game, compared to the amount of time in Civ.
[...]
players, having invested that much time in a game, would be frustrated to find out that something they didn't know about / hadn't expected derails all of their plans.

Civ: Darwinism Edition … only civs that go through the biggest falls get strong enough to bounce back and win.

I find it quite interesting, that you talk about a type of falling, what I perceive as 'falling from full height nearly to zero'.

While many players seem to shirk from falling at all (at least that is how I understand this passage of the linked video). I perceive this type of falling as kind of rising, 'continuously not falling [math.]'.

To make it clear: in context with civ6 I am talking only about the MILDEST forms of falling.

 

[Leathaface]

Going back to my point about TheGameMechanic deity games. In one game he encountered Gilgamesh turn 179 and Gilgamesh had 234 Science. You'd think Gilgamesh would be well on his way to a Science victory.

 

[Sykes179]

I find it hilarious when posters, in response to a problem, say things like oh yeah just build 50 knights and when youve built your 20th city etc its easy to win on deity by turn 200.

and there definitely should be a penalty to repeated chopping. Imagine if someone came to your town and said they were going to chop everything down for some one off project. This sort of thing happened in WW2 but that as an extreme situation. As for how harvesting stone or chopping a forest would help you build a lunar module, it's just ludicrous.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I find it hilarious when posters, in response to a problem, say things like oh yeah just build 50 knights and when youve built your 20th city etc its easy to win on deity by turn 200.

A lot of times that's in response to posts that claim "I have a problem because I can't do X", when doing X is irrelevant to winning the game.

 

[shaglio]

Rather than giving the AI more Units & Settlers as you go up in difficulty, wouldn't it be more effective to give a % increase? So, for example, the base rates for Combat Strength, Science, Culture, and Faith would be 1 on Prince. Then on King they would be 1.1 * Prince, Emperor would be 1.2 * Prince, Immortal would be 1.3 * Prince, and Deity would be 1.4 * Prince. Similarly, Warlord would be .9 * Prince, Chieftain would be .8 * Prince, and Settler would be .7 * Prince. That way, the bonus/penalty for the AI would be felt throughout the game, instead of just an earlier rush and then nothing thereafter.

As frequently as a browse the Creation & Customization forum, I'm embarrassed to admit that I only now checked out the Smoother Difficulties mod which does pretty much exactly what I suggested above