[Discussion] The "Too Much Money Problem" (aka "Late Game Boredom")

[raystuttgart]

Hi guys,

considering game design I always had one big issue with Civ4Col ... I call it the "Too Much Money Problem" (aka "Late Game Boredom").
(It especially applies in late game, when your economy has snowballed to incredible sizes.)

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Current Status:

The problem has been slightly reduced by a few game design decisions:

1) E.g. more goods are required for e.g. "Profession Settlers" or now also Yields like "Gun Powder" or "Bakery Products"
2) Features like Happiness, Health, Law require to hire Experts that do not produce Cash Yields
3) Increasing the Costs (in "New Hope") of e.g. Ships and some Experts a bit
...

But the problem has also on the other hand been slightly increased by a few other game decisions:

1) E.g. King gold requests are now a bit more realistic in early game and adapt to number of Citizens
2) There are now many events and features that give you additional powerful rewards for a good price
3) We now have many more Yields (especially in "New Hope") that allow to make even more money
...

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All in all the "Too Much Money Problem" in WTP has not really changed in its overall balance.
(There are just many more features that you can use money for but also get money from.)

The simple fact remains:

In late game you will swim in money and have almost no need for it and very little opportunity to invest it in anything interesting.
Because you can educate your own specialists, build your own ships, produce all the goods you need, immigration in masses ...

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But there are at least "mitigations"

I have come up with several concepts to change that and keep the game interesting for much longer and probably even in late game.
But those concepts will basically require players to be interested to give deeper and more challenging gameplay a chance ...

Such concepts may e.g. be:

Upkeep and Taxes (I am currently working on a new detail game concept, which I will post after Release 4.0)
Logistics and Supply (I am currently refining the existing concept a bit, because I had some new interesting ideas)
New Growth Mechanism (Which is actually one of the most popular concepts in quite a while and easy to implement)
City Workers also requiring Equipment (I know it is unpopular currently, but I still think it would make the mod better)
Connection and Distance to Capitol / Regional Governments (It is already accepted but currently not top priority)
More Diplomacy Options that require to invest Money (e.g. buying Land from Natives instead of just having the stronger Culture)
Potentially acquiring "Privileges" from the King (e.g. having to pay the King to be allowed to settle Colonies or acquire Privateers)
Social Progress System (aka Techs) (requiring to first unlock some of the Options to make more cash, also taking some time)
Political Crisis and Diseases (small conflicts in your colonies that will bind some attention and may require gold to be solved)
Loyalty to the Motherland (to balanced "Liberty Bells" and thus make a declaration of Independence a bit more challenging)
...

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In other words:

I believe the "Too much Money Problem" can be solved or at least be mitigated.
But it will require to implement more game mechanics that basically have 3 goals:

1) Slow down snowballing of the economy by requiring the player to invest more.
2) Add more gameplay that allows to spend money for other meaningful benefits.
2) Bind more attention of the player to game mechanics that do not generate cash.

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Personal Opinion:

If we do so, I believe that we can keep the game interesting until late into the endgame.
Because it will prevent the player from having too early so much money and power that he already won.

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The "Cons":

But yeah, I also see problems with this.

1. WTP would become even more difficult for new players to learn without lots of "guidance".
2. WTP would become a "hardcore game" that casual players might find too challenging.
3. WTP would become even more difficult to teach AI, altthough at the moment it does quite well.
4. WTP would become harder for players that like to play extremely wide, tall might be easier.

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To solve some of the "Cons":

Part 1:
Deactivation / Game Options

I intend to make some of these new mechanics deactivatable in XML at least, where it all can also be balanced of course.
And some of that may even become ingame Game Options or Player Options so the player can activate / deactivate in Custom Game.

But some of these new game mechanics will become so deeply tied into gameplay that fully deactivating will not work.
Or at least if the player does, he will heavily damage the intended gameplay or cause further balancing problems.

Part 2:
UI Optimization / Advisor Screens / Colopedia / Tutorials / Strategy Guides

A lot of this will come down to good visualization, good overviews and good explanations.
So of course we would need to put effort in Mouse-Over Helps, Advisor Screens and also Colopedia.

Also community could help to explain new content to others.
E.g. by writing good tutorials and and creating strategy guides.

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Kind of a "summary":

Still, this is the strategy I would like to use to solve the challenge of the "Too much Money Problem" and "Late Game Boredom".
It would simply be a lot more challenging to get into a situation where you feel you simply already won and have nothing more to achieve.

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Remark:

The "Too much Money Probem" is actually one of the fundamental "Cursed Problems" in game design (of 4X games) that until now was never solved.
(Because in one way or another in every 4X game you will come to a point when you are so powerful that you know you will definitely win - or feel that you already have.)

It is the conflict between these 2 "Player Promises":

Promise 1: If you play well, you will emerge as the stongest player and eventually win the game because it rewads your skill.
Promise 2: You will always be challenged and not get bored because there is always competition and always something to achieve.

Those 2 conflict heavily.
(Because once you feel you won, then there is not really anything to achieve anymore.)

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Well, I wrote this just to explain my current design thoughts on the mod.
Would of course be interested to hear what others think about this.

 

[Cacaso]

As the concept of "Connection and Distance to Capitol / Regional Governments" has already been accepted, I think it would be a good strategy to try to start solving this "Too much Money Problem" from there.

So we could add "Connection and Distance to Capitol / Regional Governments" and "Upkeep and Taxes", as the first 2 mechanisms to try to solve this problem. Because I believe that these would be mechanisms to be fixed as CORE in the mod (without the need to be able to deactivate it via XML), so new game mechanics could be tied to it. And I believe that as the impact is diluted throughout the game it would have a good acceptance by the public. In addition to the fact that costs would increase as the number of cities increases (which helps to prevent snowballing by exaggerated settling), and very distant cities would also be expensive, which would probably make the player more restricted in terms of the variety of cash crops available (you probably wouldn't have access to having cash crops from "colder" parts like tundra, grassland at the same time as from "hot" parts of savannah, plains, so prices for always selling the same products will fall, which helps to balance ).

After adding these 2 concepts (like Core) then you could measure what the impact of that was and then add new expenses like:
- having to buy tiles from indigenous people and not just cultural control.
- having to pay the King to be allowed to settle Colonies
- acquire letters of marque from king for Privateers
- Buy ship designs to then be able to produce them (so you would only start by being able to build caravels/fluits, and then you would have to buy the designs of other better ship models)
- Buy the king's "blessing/consent", to be able to buy better warships than the corvette.
- Buy king's "permission" to be able to sail/trade to Africa.
- Buy king's "permission", to be able to buy units in Africa (so the player could trade slaves/other units directly)
- Create some additional purchased interactions with the CIV Church, such as:
- maybe make a donation to the CIV church itself, which would increase the diplomatic relation with the church itself, increasing the probability of having positive events related to religion in the game;
-or even creating an "intercession" effect where with a strong relationship with ChurchCIV, if the king makes a very heavy demand you could have an opportunity to deny using this intercession of church CIV without suffering an embargo/reprisal, which would then spend the relationship and then would have to have new donations;
- Or a "reinforcement/fervor" effect where Catholic/Protestant CIV units would have a powerup if they faced a Protestant/Catholic CIV unit, if this effect was bought, it could apply to all units for a duration of one certain number of turns, or (to be simpler to implement) be a promotion bought with gold instead of XP


Because of its high rejection I think the idea of "City Workers also requiring Equipment" should be placed towards the bottom of the list.

 

[raystuttgart]

These here will most likely be the "thematic core" of Release 4.1:

Upkeep and Taxes (I am currently working on a new detail game concept, which I will post after Release 4.0)
Logistics and Supply (I am currently refining the existing concept a bit, because I had some new interesting ideas)
New Growth Mechanism (Which is actually one of the most popular concepts in quite a while and easy to implement)

The rest of the stuff may come in any order modders may like to work on them.
But yeah, this one is one of my favourites, because it holds a lot of potential to further expand on it.

Connection and Distance to Capitol / Regional Governments (It is already accepted but currently not top priority)

 

[raystuttgart]

Or let me try to describe what I want to achieve by this picture.

Currently we have: "Exponential Growth".
What I want to achieve again: "Linear Growth".

I kind of want to get rid of the "snowballing effects".
(In the graph it is called "disruption".)

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This "disruption" effect causes many issues:

1) Lots of balancing issues since what may feel right in early game, may feel totally boring in late game
2) Lots of immersion issues since such an exponential growth did not happen before age of industrialization
3) Lots of gameplay issues because the own player success starts killing challenge and feeling of achievement
4) Even potential performance issues because the map gets flooded by cities and units that have to be calculated

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Again, this issue is one of the "Cursed Problems" of 4X game design.
It is neither trivial nor does a "simple patent solution" exist.

With "cursed design problems" you can usually just "weaken" one of the conflicting player promises.

Our conflicting player promises are:
Promise 1: If you play well, you will emerge as the stongest player and eventually win the game because it rewads your skill.
Promise 2: You will always be challenged and not get bored because there is always competition and always something to achieve.

What we will do is "weaken" Promise 1 a bit by making it a bit harder and more challenging but still fair to win.
Because I feel it is much better alternative than "weakening" Promise 2 which would make the game boring.

In case you are interested in understanding "Cursed Problems in Game Design", watch this:

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Comments:

1) As you see in early game it should make almost no difference - since i.e. most features will hardly trigger - both feel satisfying.
2) In mid game to late game however the "disruption" of "exponential growth" is what lets the game become boring.
3) I am convinced that countering the "disruption" by game play mechanics that are still fun and bring other benefits is the way to go.
4) The player will still feel a "continous feeling of achievement and reward" without too easily reaching the point of "I have already won".
5) As a side effect games may actually take much longer to win, but when doing so the success will really feel earned and satisfying.

 

[Chentaur]

Perhaps, the money can be use to fund something like a "subsidy" to help boost some extra production of a certain non-monetary stuff (such as hammers, crosses, educations, liberty bells, or laws). Probably also fund a military training to give the standing units some XP, of course it would have a constraint in order to prevent it from becoming an exploit.

 

[raystuttgart]

Probably also fund a military training ...

Which we already have here on our todo list.

... boost some extra production of a certain non-monetary stuff (such as hammers, crosses, educations, liberty bells, or laws)

If there is a fun and immersive gameplay concept for it that is not all just free goodies, why not.

 

[Chentaur]

Maybe money could also help the natives create their unique improvements by sending the money to each respective settlement, giving more bonus to the relation, but this might also increase the goods flow in the continent, yikes.

 

[raystuttgart]

Maybe money could also help the natives ... giving more bonus to the relation ...

As I already said:

If there is a fun and immersive gameplay concept for it that is not all just free goodies, why not.

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But the problem is not really to have "ideas" for specific features - we even have an oveflow of idea.
Discussing single feature can happen once somebody actually has a proper gameplay concept.

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Generally I have game concepts to work on for several releases.
My main questions to community and team are more stuff like this:

• Should I try to explain again why "Too much money" is an issue for me?
• Do you agree and is it also an issue for you or do you maybe even like it?
• Is what I suggest the right direction in game design the mod should chose?
• Are there other design patterns you heard of to solve "Too much money"?
• Are there still any unclarities or questions what I suggest or why I suggest it?
• Do you like the ideas put forward? Are you afraid of some of the ideas?
• Any remarks of what to do to tackle the "Cons" of such game design?

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I want do discuss general game design of the mod to clarify our vision and goals.
Discussion of single features can come once we agreed on the general direction.

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To simplify it, I want to get feedback if am an on the right track before I actually start investing more effort.
Now is the best time to comment and influence because from Release 4.1 on I will work on some of that stuff.

 

[Cacaso]

I also think that "Too much money" really is a problem that usually happens in the game, in the lategame phase.

I think that one way for us to try to solve this issue is to first try to add costs that grow exponentially in the expansion phase of the number of cities, to avoid/disincentive the player to build a real empire during the colonial period, because it would be ahistorical. Thus, the issue of cost per number of cities should be a cost that grows exponentially (without an upper limit) to try to avoid the snowball effect that a large number of cities causes in the accumulation of wealth.

And also the accumulation of the number of units, is a problem, since throughout the game you only accumulate more and more units that start to produce more and more food/wealth, and then the cycle repeats itself with more force, in that sense I I think the new Growth mechanism will help a lot as it won't allow snowballing the number of units via food. The idea of Upkeep will also be very useful in this matter Maybe making some units like slave be expendable, being excluded after a few turns can also help, because the african slave is a very cheap unit with high productivity that is very used in the beginning of the game to start the process of snowballing the economy as early as possible, so making it affordable can help.

In general, I think what should be focused on in this issue is the number of cities, because the more cities the more resources, and there comes a point where the snowball effect in the accumulation of wealth is inevitable. And also try to add other types of expenses, because honestly I wouldn't like a game that was too long, because if it doesn't reach a point that you simply give up, because you don't have much time to play and the end of a game can take a while months to go, so I think that also needs to be taken into account.

But I think that if you add this cost per number of cities and distance and upkeep, in addition to these other suggested expenses (diplomacy, privileges ...) it will already have a good impact on this issue, so I think that when this is implemented from this stage it will give you an idea if more will be needed or if it is already enough.

 

[Guynemer]

Another option to help curb this might be eliminating the various production bonuses gained from increased liberty support.

As the game goes on, and you have more and more units, and those units are producing twice as many resources per unit as they did at the start of the game, well, that's a hell of a lot of yield bloat.

 

[codiac]

Hi, for me late game frustration doesn't come from money, it comes from resource management; the amount of time and effort required to make sure the right resource is in the right place becomes a chore and sucks fun out of the game. The increase in resource types exacerbates this.

Money actually helps alleviate this as I build the unit/building as much as I can and then rush the missing bits. Not because I don't have the resources somewhere, but just because organizing all the bits in all the many places just becomes a chore.

 

[raystuttgart]

@Guynemer
There is no problem generally in the player getting lots of gold if he also spends lots of gold.

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Most satisfying is the following:
Earn a lot, spend a lot meaningfully. <--- This is what I want to achieve.

Boring, thus not good design is this:
Earn almost nothing, spend almost nothing. <--- This we never had as an issue.

Unbalanced and also boring is this:
Earn a lot, spend almost nothing. <--- This is current late game.

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So I really have no intention to generally rebalance or change all the current game mechanics that most players like to reduce income (without giving anything back).
The solution I will chose is add new game mechanics to the player where he can invest or simply use gold in meaningful ways to get other gameplay benefits in exchange.

 

[devolution]

It boils down to a simple fact: cities are "free" i.e. they do not have any upkeep. Ditto for colonists that for some reason have chosen to work for free
I think that one the main flaws in WTP is that more colonists are always better. It would make the game "more interesting and deeper" if there were actual trade-offs between getting more colonists (from any source) or not. Various approaches have been attempted in other civ games. For example civ 1-3/AC: corruption and building upkeep, civ4: city and civic upkeep, civ5: global happiness, civ6: housing and semi-global happiness.
A combination of per city / colonist upkeep and global happiness (it could even be called morale) could perhaps be part of the solution.

 

[raystuttgart]

Ditto for colonists that for some reason have chosen to work for free

Don't these lazy bastards get Food for it ?

 

[raystuttgart]

I think that one the main flaws in WTP is that more colonists are always better.

Not 100% true anymore, if you are looking at a single city since we now have Health, Happiness and Law.
You need to take care that you can actually handle these "more colonists".

What is pretty much true is:
More Cities are still almost always better even though we have costs for equipping the Settler.
(Except that later you need more transports to handle them and maybe more troops to defend.)

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So playing "tall" (few Cities with many Colonists) has become more challenging. <--- Here I think we have no balancing issue to solve.
But playing "wide" (many Cities with few Colonists) is almost as strong as ever. <--- Here I think we may still challenge the player a bit.

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So what I kind of want to achieve:
Have the player invest into Cities to run smoothly.
And not just spam Cities calrelessly everywhere.

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This should also extremely help to solve other problems, because:
Players will not overburden themselves with having to manage transportation system between too many small cities.
Players will not overburden themselves with ressource management of too many small cities they hardly care about.

 

[NillerDNK]

Maybe a well-implemented upkeep system in combination with civics can remedy TMMP?

Around the year 1700 I have a medium size elite army consisting of mortars, cont. guards, ex-scouts upgraded to dragoons + ships of the line. Enough to conquer other all other colonies and natives with no need for mobilizing colonists. I appreciate the opportunity to play with those units, but it's unhistorical and way too overpowered when the elites don't need to get paid. In both the Revolutionary War and the Seven Years' War, militias played a major role. Not because they where better, but because they where affordable and easy to equip.

If militia units/city guards were without upkeep (they don't get paid, but also don't produce while on campaign) while elite units had upkeep, then there would be reason to use the former. Even the most powerful European countries could not afford standing armies before the 17th century. Wars should require mobilization and disruption of production and not just be carried out by the elite units that are expensive enough to acquire, but then free of upkeep = a standing army.

Regarding ships: The independent USA was able to build lineships in 1783 but couldn't afford to operate them. Even in the UK, lineships where laid up most of the time. It was simply too costly to operate them. Right now there is little reason no to invest in the best units. A upkeep system would favour merchantmen and fluyts as transport workhorses and brigs and maybe frigates as warships. Capital ships like galeons and lineships would be rare and specialized for profitable and dangerous tasks.

Wouldn't it bankrupt the AI? Not with proper use of civis (and a bit of AI-help/cheat). If the player is leading, the foreign King would start paying for AI ships and AI units. If the player want to produce every good in many far flung colonies and have lot's of units, they would have to decentralize and give more individual liberty to each colonist = expensive military and demanding citizens but normal production. Or they could go for a dictatorship with medium expensive military, but lower production.

Could go something like this:

CIVIC/royal charter - could be chosen freely, locked away by timer or purchased from king

Proprietary colony: Good for the first couple of colonies/playing very tall. The king appoints officials directly. Free upkeep for one ship and one elite per 4 first colonies. The king is very helpful if threatened. Low tax.

Trade company/joint stock: Good for many small cash-crop/trade colonies. Run by a director-general. Very little immigration. The king is very helpful if threatened. High military upkeep. Low tax.

Crown colony: The Governor is appointed by the king but handles every issue personaly. Good for midgame. King is medium helpfull. Medium upkeep. Like the current system. Medium tax.

Legislative council: Like the 13 colonies. High autonomy, high immigration, high production. Very high military upkeep, so fewer elites but massive industrial basis for war. King not helpfull. High tax.

Viceroyality: Governor rules like an european monarch. Low-medium military upkeep so massive military, but lower production and lower happiness. King is not helpfull. Medium tax.

 

[Ramstormp]

@raystuttgart ,

Most satisfying is the following:
Earn a lot, spend a lot meaningfully. <--- This is what I want to achieve.

Boring, thus not good design is this:
Earn almost nothing, spend almost nothing. <--- This we never had as an issue.

It would be interesting, to at least once, watch how you play the game as well as sort of feel how you react emotionally to each situation. I mean I have thought that I may have gone a bit extreme down the scarcity hole in my modmod; but I still don't understand how the huge amounts of yields harvested or produced, as well as the crowds of colonists and all those settlements is anything but overwhelming.

To me being a billionaire trying to invest yourself into becoming the optimum level of multibillionaire - while still going on 20 vacations a year each getting watered down by the similarities and excess of it all, thus ending up less exciting than it would be for a poor child to buy one ice cream a year - is not as much fun as being on the brink of extinction, having 5 different equally meaningful choices to stay alive and grow as well as have the perfect length of anticipation time for each step of progress.

In my games I end up having to buy huge amounts of demanded resources from overseas somewhere midgame (I hardly ever make it to the endgame before I start a new game for one reason or another) simply to keep my people somewhat happy, because I have not been able to prioritize having every single industry produce enough for every city. Satisfying domestic market demand is my favorite part of this game.

 

[raystuttgart]

@Ramstormp
Overwhelming feedback of our players is that early game expansion is th most satisfying part of the game and playing with all those resources is fun.
Also overwhelming feedback of our players is however that in lategame slowly but surely it gets boring because you just have too much gold.

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So please understand that:
1) I will keep what is fun for the players. (early game linear growth, which plays fine with general balancing)
2) I will improve what is not fun to the players. (late game exponential growth, resulting in lack of challenge)

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That is all I want to do. And mostly I want to achive it by new gameplay and not by drastic changes of existing gameplay.
So let us please stop discussing drastic balancing changes, because I would just end up refusing or vetoing them.

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In other words:
I have no interest to damage / remove what makes the mod so successful.
I just want to listen to some player feedback and make it even better.

 

[Ramstormp]

@Ramstormp

Overwhelming feedback of our players is that early game expansion is th most satisfying part of the game and playing with all those resources is fun.
Also overwhelming feedback of our players is however that in lategame slowly but surely it gets boring because you just have too much gold.

So please understand that:
1) I will keep what is fun for the players.
2) I will improve what is not fun to the players.

That is all I want to do. And mostly I want to achive it by new gameplay and not by drastic balancing changes.
So let us please stop discussing drastic balancing changes, because I would just end up refusing or vetoing them.

I was not suggesting any balancing changes as much as explaining what I consider fun or boring, and how I feel my changes has made the midgame less boring for me (as a response to you tagging my name for some reason); as well as genuinely trying to understand what excites you when you play.

 

[raystuttgart]

... as a response to you tagging my name for some reason ...

I thought I had seen a comment of you.
But maybe I was just confusing names ...

Ah, I get it why I was confused ...

It was a post of @Guynemer.
But I saw that you "liked" that post.

Thus the last name I kept in my head was yours.
But I should have answered to @Gunynemer, not you.

So sorry for confusing names ...
(I corrected it now.)