[R&F] Difficulty

[liv]

There are things I can do on Price that I cannot do on Deity like win seriously early culture or religious victories.
Is it fun? Sometimes

 

[Stringer1313]

I wouldn't say Deity in Civ 6 is the equivalent of "normal". "Sand box" has always been a valid way to play Civ, and Prince is a good difficulty level for that in pretty much any version of Civ, including Civ 6. Deity in Civ 6 takes away a lot of the game (scouting, early Wonders, a lot of City States), which is fine for players who want a challenge, but not what you want "normal" to be. No, I'd say Prince is still normal and perfectly fine for people who want to play around and do their own things with the tools the game provides.

The problem is for players who want to be challenged, who historically could be challenged by moving up, either King/Emperor/Immortal, or if really, really good (or masochistic) to Deity. It's those players who are expressing their frustration with comments like this.

You've provided some good specific reasons behind the current situation, but stepping back, I'd say it's as simple as the AI not being taught how to play the game efficiently. And as to that, while I've expressed as much disappointment as anyone with the state of Civ 6, I'd also say it's fair at this stage in the game's development that the AI not know how to play the game well. For starters, it's okay from my perspective for the development team to wait until players figure out the best way to play the game before adjusting the AI's strategy. For seconds, the game rules aren't finished yet, and won't be until the final expansion is announced, so teaching the AI to play interim rules may not be worth the effort.

What I wonder is will the development team ever decide to teach the AI how to play the game so that it has a reasonable chance to win? Do they care about this, and they're just not there yet? Or do they not care, and we'll need to rely on unpaid volunteers to teach the AI how to play?

If Firaxis would communicate with us about their vision for the game, we'd have a better sense about that. Since they won't, they deserve all the "AI sucks" reputation they get. Silence suggests they're fine with Civ 6 earning that reputation. Who knows? Maybe it will boost sales from all those people who wouldn't want to buy a game if they couldn't earn the Steam Achievement for winning on Deity (hint: play Duel versus Kongo with Religious Victory enabled).

As a non-diety player I disagree with this and still agree with OP. I never play past Emperor (because it's boring) but agree that once you win the early game land grab, you snowball into first place and remain unscathed. Improving the AI is never going to happen in a way that makes people happy, but certainly there should be some ways to create interesting choices when you are in the lead. And we all agree Emergencies are a joke and broken.

 

[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.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

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.

Something along this line, yes. I'd guess the scale would need to be at least doubled from your initial numbers, though. Also, I suspect that escalating the AI's bonus as you enter each new era will be required to avoid the current situation where once you catch the AI, you know it can't re-pass you.

In addition, a scaled combat bonus much larger than the current one (something on the order of +1 combat strength for King, +3 for Emperor, +6 for Immortal, and +10 for Deity, provided to both City States and major civs).

Plus all the existing bonuses to allow the AI to manage the happiness and maintenance systems.

Even with that, it may be a real problem to get the AI to pose a threat that you need to pay attention to. Changing the above could make the AI more competitive in science, culture, and production throughout the game, but I'm not sure it addresses the core issues that:

• even without engaging in any diplomacy, the AI is disinclined to attack you or interfere with your plans after the Classical age, even when they dislike you and have military superiority over you
• the AI isn't efficient at pursuing it's own victory; throwing more resources at it may let it stumble to a victory more quickly, but it would be more immersive if the AI was taught how to choose and pursue a victory condition more efficiently (and then you threw resources at it to help it along)

It's these last two points that I'd like to see addressed: make you worry about having bad relations with a neighbour, and make you worry about how the AI is doing on it's own victory objectives. I'm not sure just tweaking the AI bonuses will get us there, although how and when they get their bonuses could certainly help.

 

[DWilson]

I also want to throw in that the game currently has terrible balance between low science costs and high production costs. Without addressing these, modifiying the AI's yields will underwhelm, I suspect.

 

[Leathaface]

I also want to throw in that the game currently has terrible balance between low science costs and high production costs. Without addressing these, modifiying the AI's yields will underwhelm, I suspect.

Could you give a couple of examples?

 

[DWilson]

Well, I'll start by saying I don't have a lot of specific examples, it's more a matter of how it feels to play the game.

That said, one example is comparing the target deity science victory win turn in V and VI. In V, I recall a turn 240 win being a good, challenging target (at least it qas for a good while). Now, a sub-200 turn win is fairly commonplace. That is one example of the low cost of tech from my perspective- the game is moving much faster.

This increased pace also makes it very difficult to get much use out of units hard built when they become available. Usually, by the time your from scratch army is up and running, it's outdated (espespecially after the time it takes to move units with VI's rules). This is one reason hard-built UUs (outside of the ancient era) are generally less valuable than upgradeable ones. (I had wrote a bunch on upgrading and buying vs. hard building later, but see the next paragraph). I think this is a combination of eras being too short to truly do much, and it costing too much to build within these eras.

And I wrote a whole bunch on various production costs and the uselessness of IZs due to high cog requirements, before my mobile browser restarted deleting everything before this paragraph. If anyone else feels like covering that, I would appreciate it. If not, maybe I'll put it together again later.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Could you give a couple of examples?

It usually takes me fewer turns to research Flight than it takes me to build a Biplane. That's the one that stands out to me.

 

[DWilson]

One thing I really want to highlight, even if I don't retype everything out, is the end-game science strategy. On here, it's almost always considered normal and optimal to simply not produce the science parts. Governors to enable purchasing, great people, and chopping are always the best optiona; and even with ridiculous yield buffs and cost reductions, those are strategies the AI simply won't employ. If the production costs were better balanced, I think the AI would do vastly better here.

 

[EgonSpengler]

It usually takes me fewer turns to research Flight than it takes me to build a Biplane. That's the one that stands out to me.

Right, the game's design intent is that research is performed collectively - all of your cities contribute, and more Campuses always produce more Science. More always equates to faster. Conversely, production is an individual effort by each city, independently. Building another city or production-related District doesn't increase the pace of production (in fact, it can actually reduce it), it allows you to build more units simultaneously. In this case, more doesn't mean faster, more is just more. So, for example, the transition from peacetime to wartime production we had in the United States in 1942 can't really be modeled in Civ VI. Ford's famous Willow Run plant and the swift repair of USS Yorktown can't happen in Civ VI. Instead of producing a Bomber every turn for 5 turns, you get 5 Bombers all at once after 5 turns (or however long it takes, I'm just making up numbers), and units in port always heal at the same speed.

 

[acluewithout]

There is something wacky about production and costs and pace.

But some of this is maybe intentional, and maybe even makes a little sense. See, my guess is that making stuff with hammers (which lets you make things on a per city basis) is meant to drop off and get replaced with making stuff with gold and faith (which lets you concentrate production in a few key cities).

That’s my guess why you get the distinction between internal and external trade routes. Internal Trade Routes are for early game, letting you grow a few core cities and set up trading posts (you know, that add gold); then you transition to international routes to get all the gold and things. Likewise, this is the logic with projects. Turning local production into global gold and faith. Also the logic for various late game policy cards (eg Colonial Taxes).

I’m not saying production becomes irrelevant. But I mean that production everywhere is meant to become an obselete model deliberately, forcing you to focus production gold and resources into a few key cities.

It’s just a theory. But I think that makes sense in terms of gameplay - forcing you to differentiate between cities (a few core cities, supported by other gold generating ones), and also forcing your empire to have to pivot from local to global production. I think it also makes sense thematically: one of the things that drives modern productive capacity is the ability to have things supplied in one place through work done in many other places.

Catch is, if I’m right, we’ll, it doesn’t seem to work that way. Instead, everyone feels like they don’t have the hammers to make anything. I think a small part of that is maybe that people don’t tend to buy units. I think @Trav'ling Canuck Bi-Plane problem could be “solved” by saving up the gold beforehand and then just cash buying the plane when your unclock the tech, so no delay (btw that’s how I’ve always dealt with unique units you can’t upgrade into - if you really want them, you just buy them). But there are other reasons, like other strategies just being so much more powerful (eg prebuild and upgrade), and there being better things to spend money on (Builders and Buildings), and frankly the game going so fast (although personally I slow the game down through mods and limiting my science).

One thing that might help is discount cards for gold purchases late game, perhaps even with getting rid of production discount cards. It would be a more clear signal to players to switch to gold rather than sticking with hammers.

 

[DWilson]

There is something wacky about production and costs and pace.

But some of this is maybe intentional, and maybe even makes a little sense. See, my guess is that making stuff with hammers (which lets you make things on a per city basis) is meant to drop off and get replaced with making stuff with gold and faith (which lets you concentrate production in a few key cities).

That’s my guess why you get the distinction between internal and external trade routes. Internal Trade Routes are for early game, letting you grow a few core cities and set up trading posts (you know, that add gold); then you transition to international routes to get all the gold and things. Likewise, this is the logic with projects. Turning local production into global gold and faith. Also the logic for various late game policy cards (eg Colonial Taxes).

I’m not saying production becomes irrelevant. But I mean that production everywhere is meant to become an obselete model deliberately, forcing you to focus production gold and resources into a few key cities.

It’s just a theory. But I think that makes sense in terms of gameplay - forcing you to differentiate between cities (a few core cities, supported by other gold generating ones), and also forcing your empire to have to pivot from local to global production. I think it also makes sense thematically: one of the things that drives modern productive capacity is the ability to have things supplied in one place through work done in many other places.

Catch is, if I’m right, we’ll, it doesn’t seem to work that way. Instead, everyone feels like they don’t have the hammers to make anything. I think a small part of that is maybe that people don’t tend to buy units. I think @Trav'ling Canuck Bi-Plane problem could be “solved” by saving up the gold beforehand and then just cash buying the plane when your unclock the tech, so no delay (btw that’s how I’ve always dealt with unique units you can’t upgrade into - if you really want them, you just buy them). But there are other reasons, like other strategies just being so much more powerful (eg prebuild and upgrade), and there being better things to spend money on (Builders and Buildings), and frankly the game going so fast (although personally I slow the game down through mods and limiting my science).

One thing that might help is discount cards for gold purchases late game, perhaps even with getting rid of production discount cards. It would be a more clear signal to players to switch to gold rather than sticking with hammers.

I like where you're going with this, and would appreciate it if the game reflected it better.

That said, it still seems to leave out things like wonders, which gold can't really do anything with. And while I don't mind them being expensive, they seem far too expensive for their return.

Additionally, I would think that we should also tie IZs into commerce, then. Make them add economic yield as well, or just more potent to better run projects. Maybe make them purchaseable by default as well, to reflect the boon of economic success as a driver of industrialization and vice versa.

Lastly, this all seems to align with liberal (democracy) ideology/government, as opposed to Marxist (communist) or nationalist (fascist) govrrnments. A revamp of the system to reflect all three could be beneficial.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I think @Trav'ling Canuck Bi-Plane problem could be “solved” by saving up the gold beforehand and then just cash buying the plane when your unclock the tech, so no delay.

Agree, and that's how I do it with things that are important to have (rarely bi-planes except occasionally to get the Advanced Flight boost if my top Aerodrome city is particularly slow at production).

That doesn't change that building modern military units from scratch is expensive because of the underlying production cost (which also absorbs a lot of gold if you go that route), that Tier 3 buildings are expensive production wise (or gold wise) relative to their benefit, especially considering how few turns are likely to be left by the time you get them, and that Wonders in general do not provide benefits equal to their production cost, especially when the potential to lose the Wonder race is factored in. All of which are reasons why some people find the production (gold) cost of "stuff" to be high in this game (especially considering how little of that "stuff" is needed to achieve victory).

Then you combine that with the ability to whip through to the end of the tech & civics trees 100+ turns before the AI can finish a game, and some people feel that even with the prior science cost increase, you can research things faster than you can make use of them.

The flip side is that slowing down research without making the mid- to late-game more interesting wouldn't improve the game experience.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Agree, and that's how I do it with things that are important to have (rarely bi-planes except occasionally to get the Advanced Flight boost if my top Aerodrome city is particularly slow at production).

That doesn't change that building modern military units from scratch is expensive because of the underlying production cost (which also absorbs a lot of gold if you go that route), that Tier 3 buildings are expensive production wise (or gold wise) relative to their benefit, especially considering how few turns are likely to be left by the time you get them, and that Wonders in general do not provide benefits equal to their production cost, especially when the potential to lose the Wonder race is factored in. All of which are reasons why some people find the production (gold) cost of "stuff" to be high in this game (especially considering how little of that "stuff" is needed to achieve victory).

Then you combine that with the ability to whip through to the end of the tech & civics trees 100+ turns before the AI can finish a game, and some people feel that even with the prior science cost increase, you can research things faster than you can make use of them.

The flip side is that slowing down research without making the mid- to late-game more interesting wouldn't improve the game experience.

I use a mod that doubles the costs of everything in the research and culture tech trees, and you're right, it doesn't do a lot to help the end-game malaise. It pushes it back a bit, which I guess is better than nothing.

 

[acluewithout]

I like where you're going with this, and would appreciate it if the game reflected it better.

That said, it still seems to leave out things like wonders, which gold can't really do anything with. And while I don't mind them being expensive, they seem far too expensive for their return.

Additionally, I would think that we should also tie IZs into commerce, then. Make them add economic yield as well, or just more potent to better run projects. Maybe make them purchaseable by default as well, to reflect the boon of economic success as a driver of industrialization and vice versa.

Lastly, this all seems to align with liberal (democracy) ideology/government, as opposed to Marxist (communist) or nationalist (fascist) govrrnments. A revamp of the system to reflect all three could be beneficial.

Thanks.

It’s just a theory. I don’t think the game is based around this idea exclusively either - you’re right, communism and fascism suggest the game does try to also keep open a “local hammers” production model. And there’s also chopping, which is a whole other thing too.

Agree, and that's how I do it with things that are important to have (rarely bi-planes except occasionally to get the Advanced Flight boost if my top Aerodrome city is particularly slow at production).

That doesn't change that building modern military units from scratch is expensive because of the underlying production cost (which also absorbs a lot of gold if you go that route), that Tier 3 buildings are expensive production wise (or gold wise) relative to their benefit, especially considering how few turns are likely to be left by the time you get them, and that Wonders in general do not provide benefits equal to their production cost, especially when the potential to lose the Wonder race is factored in. All of which are reasons why some people find the production (gold) cost of "stuff" to be high in this game (especially considering how little of that "stuff" is needed to achieve victory).

Then you combine that with the ability to whip through to the end of the tech & civics trees 100+ turns before the AI can finish a game, and some people feel that even with the prior science cost increase, you can research things faster than you can make use of them.

The flip side is that slowing down research without making the mid- to late-game more interesting wouldn't improve the game experience.

You’re right. Whether you’re paying production with gold or hammers, late game stuff is too expensive. My post was suggesting there are other things at play too, including maybe some deliberate design choices. But I agree production costs are masssively out of whack, and that this is a big big problem.

The game also goes just too fast, I think partly because research is too fast. There are lots of reasons for that - not enough techs or civics, too easy so spam campuses, too much science generally.

 

[Leathaface]

With Seondeok or Gilgamesh in the game you have to tech fast if you want to win. Though them pumping out Science extremely quickly is a fault with the game too.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

With Seondeok or Gilgamesh in the game you have to tech fast if you want to win. Though them pumping out Science extremely quickly is a fault with the game too.

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.

Of the games I played to win (and didn't track), I have only less reliable memory to go on. I remember one game where Gilgamesh was the last AI civ I needed to pass to get the tech lead, I don't recall Seondeok ever getting out of her own way or putting any up any numbers worth noting.

The two Greeks make a noticeably larger amount of culture than other AI leaders on a fairly consistent basis, but I haven't noticed any AI leader putting up consistently larger science numbers than another civ over the full course of the game. Gilgamesh does seem to often get a bit of an early start, but doesn't seem particularly likely to hold that lead against other AI leaders, let alone the player.

 

[c4c6]

My post was suggesting there are other things at play too, including maybe some deliberate design choices.

Yes. I'm afraid, the intended major target group for the game is much bigger than "us" (fanatics/veterans/...) and relatively new to playing Civ, ie. significantly less efficient.

Maybe players new to the game don't have those issues at all - at least not severe. Per definition 'Everyone is above average' ... cf. Sid Meier Keynote (2010) - "Everything You Know is Wrong" ... and the wonders of 1:2 or 2:1 or 20:10 ...

I suppose, enough challenge/balance can be modded in after Schrödinger will cease to trash the code base with major patches (or not).

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Yes. I'm afraid, the intended major target group for the game is much bigger than "us" (fanatics/veterans/...) and relatively new to playing Civ, ie. significantly less efficient.

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.

 

[Leathaface]

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.

Of the games I played to win (and didn't track), I have only less reliable memory to go on. I remember one game where Gilgamesh was the last AI civ I needed to pass to get the tech lead, I don't recall Seondeok ever getting out of her own way or putting any up any numbers worth noting.

My fastest ever Science victory on Immortal was turn 280. I haven't played on Deity yet but I was watching TheGameMechanic on twitch and Seondeok had absurd Science output in some of his games.

I do guess when playing on Deity the main challenge is surviving until mid-game, make sure you have 8-12 cities by then and build up your economy. I do hope the AI is improved so it can get better at finishing their game.