Do anyone play this game long after "one more turn" button, these days?

[Fins]

Hi.

See, i like to complete things, and official "win" in this game - comes way before i could complete all things i want to complete in a CivBE game. Like:
- complete research tree
- get done with virtues
- conquer and hold a whole continent for my colony, and fortify all the border
- build all possible buildings and complete their quests
- spawn resources i like in quantities i want (fabriactors/weather controllers)
- completely improve workable land for all cities
- grow up all cities to the point they work all their available tiles and have at least some specialists
- and may be, just may be, keep going without fighting AIs outside of my borders, until i see some AI becoming "the last man standing" of them all, and _then_ beat him to a pulp.

Obviously, not much (if any) of such goals get fulfilled before i achieve official "victory". But this doesn't bother me none - i push "just one more turn" and keep playing. I call it "long play". And so i wonder: are there more players like me, or am i some sort of abomination here?


If there are more people like me, then i'd be happy to discuss ideas, considerations and suggestions for this "long play" style. Because knowing that the game will take much, much longer than just some 200+ turns (normal speed) changes quite many things about how one proceeds with colony development, quest decisions, unit upgrades, etc. In fact, i have quite a list of observations, ideas and suggestions for long-play style myself, and i'd be happy to share if there are people who are interested.


I'll stay in touch and watch this topic for quite a while. Please, comment!

 

[Gorbles]

If you're an abomination, then you're not alone sir

I do this a lot, I like simply exploring the map, building my existing cities, competing against whatever factions are left. Obviously only when I'm not playing Domination, though sometimes I continue after a Domination to just rack up Tile purchases for that damn achievement, haha.

 

[Patrick Pelikan]

The part of the game I enjoy the most is actually the early game. Landing on the planet, explore around it to find good spots for cities, compete with the AI for elxploration sites, fight/evade the aliens etc. This gives me some kind of adventerous feelings Sometimes I abandon a game, when I see that I already won (I don't like to just push "Next Turn" for 20ish times and do nothing besides it) or if I clearly will lose the game (like Hutama finished mindflower, sitting on the other side of the continent and I haven't even started the Exodus gate...).

Saying that, I sometimes play way longer than victory. I then want to settle the whole planet (or at least a continent), develop the cities, build all the wonders, research all the techs, build all the buildings, get all the affinities, etc. I once covered a whole continent with terrascapes (except ressourses ofc) to build my own paradisiac new earth . I only use the weather controller in cases where there is really bad terrain but I want there anyway... well except I plaster terrascepes everywhere

Started doing this also for the tile purchase achievment, then got annoyed and created a specifig save for this... Kinda cheaty I know, but at least I used my own save game

 

[Ryika]

I sometimes do if there's an unfinished war going on (aka a war with an opponent who still has cities ), but in general not so much anymore these days. Back in Civ 5 I used that option a lot though - and I'm not quite sure if I've changed that behavior because BE doesn't really make my fantasy go wild like Civ 5 did or if it's just because my priorities changed more to the tactical aspects of the game.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I do occasionally continue playing after winning. Particularly if I'm going conquest route and I capture the capital of the last player who owns all the other capitals and then I insta-win (I think they were going to change this so you have to get all the capitals in order to win). That would be kind of annoying and felt like cheating. So I often continued the game to see the war through to its natural conclusion.

 

[Fins]

If you're an abomination, then you're not alone sir

I do this a lot, I like simply exploring the map, building my existing cities, competing against whatever factions are left. Obviously only when I'm not playing Domination, though sometimes I continue after a Domination to just rack up Tile purchases for that damn achievement, haha.

'dat Michael Jackson's song "you are not alone" is sure great, and so is the feeling i got after reading your post, sir!

Other gentlemen's (and ladies', may be? ) replies further convince me it is worth to discuss some details further, as it might be interesting to more people than just to me.

I'll start then. It is best to decide starting game parameters having long play in mind, already. After all, you'll be stuck with them for quite some time, right? So i gave it some thought now and then. So far, i got this (sorry for the wrong order %) ):

1. difficulty setting for long play.
I have several considerations about it:
- i do not like the idea of overpowered AI bonuses like double building rate, double unit XP gain, etc for AIs which Apollo difficulty bring. To me, this seems to be rather "artificial" difficulty, when made at such a scale;
- there is also my lazyness: it's OK and totally doable to plan ahead and do mostly without mistakes to achieve specific "win", but since i'm lazy, i want some room for mistakes and generally more relaxed play when i go long plays;
- for long play, some more time to develop is needed, because some decisions which lead to "better long-term long play" - are not compatible with "achieving victory ASAP";
- opposite to above considerations, the game itself in general is quite easy (note, i never exploit known things, but it's still quite easy). In significant part, this is because of "AI" ability in CivBE, which is weak in compare to human player, in large part because of complexity of the game itself, which is significant (for an "AI" in a computer game). So at least "some" buffs to AI sure seem to be in order to make things interesting.

Bottom line: preferred long play difficulty for me - is either Gemini or Soyuz. I still am not sure which one, though. It also depends on experience of the player, of course, so perhaps long play i am starting this week will perhaps be my last in Gemini. Still, i dare think one of the two should work the best for mostly any long play of any not-new CivBE player.

2. Sponsor.
I just have my personal preference for KP, but perhaps ARC or +10% melee units sponsor could be ultimately better for long plays? Not sure.

3. Biome.
I prefer to go advanced settings and select biome i want, not letting it go random. Mostly has to do with fungal colors, which i find 1) not appealing and 2) being harder to distinct lands/waters than other biomes. I prefer lush, but desert has its appeal too. I keep the rest of things standard, including pace, map size, age, etc.

4. Colonists.
Hard to argue definitely, but i have the impression that +2 culture is the most useful for long-plays. Not bad at the start, and those virtues often take much longer than whole science tree to get!

5. Cargo.
Err... Anybody taking anything but the worker, out there? Any reason to? =)

6. Planet.
This is sure per one's taste (as some other things). Me, i prefer terran though. Long plays with "some" distinct contitents, "some" distinct islands, "some" large open bodies of water brings good variability. After all, with long plays, we are "tied" to the same map for longer than "normal". Why not make it "varying", then?

7. Scanner
Another thing of tastes, i guess... I prefer alien nests' scanner. All those things seem to lose their value long-term, and alien nests' scanner helps me the most - i tend to avoid provoking aliens early as much as possible, and i sure hate losing any explorer early simply because it ran into 2-tiles range to some nest and got eaten by a bug. But, again, YMMV.


Any comments about this "good starting setting for a long play" will sure be welcome!

 

[liv]

I am a long player for sure.
I rarely play after victory but I ignore all science victories (as I think they are too boring to do).
So I go for domination and I may just postpone taking out the last civ to build my own up if I get into the story of the game.

I usually set my own goals and work to achieve those. Usually the goal is to expand as much as possible, not lose to a civ going for a science victory, and to maximise culture. I have fun with that. I usually last to around turn 400 before I have more or less maxed out on everything.
I enjoy building orbitals and cover everything if I can.

I choose water map and labs for starters as I max explore and try to find as many places to excavate as I can. It is part of my goal. Also try to keep friendly with the nations but my aggressive expansion gets me in a lot of trouble.
Because of culture I play African Union.

But I may sometimes play ARC and see how many capitals I can flip.

Now after the patch I may play Freeland to establish a trading empire.

 

[Fins]

Apparently those who do longer than normal often have their own, quite distinct reasons to do so! Interesting.

Few more points about long plays in no particular order from the top of my head.

Unit upgrades' delaying.
I find myself using this very much whenever i go for a long play. It is often i delay most units and have most units with mixed affinity upgrades. This, of course, makes early and midgame warfare less potent, but allows best results "for ever after" i got all 3 affinities to 16+.

City placing pattern.
Optimizing for victory is quite different than for long play. For long play i enjoy the most when my cities are well organized in terms of % of land which is in use. Each city can work a hexagonal area 7 tiles in "diameter". And so it is possible to place cities _precisely_ so that not a single land tile between them remains not worked, AND in the same time workable areas do not overlap. Basically you do this by placing a second city 7 tiles away from the first, following any path "4 tiles one direction, 3 tiles similar direction". For example, you send the colonist 4 tiles east and 3 tiles south-east. This will put second city to have one of 6 "sides" of its workable area to be right next to one of 6 "sides" of workable area of the 1st city. Next city, then, can be created so that it'd be next to those "sides of workable areas" of _both_ 1st and 2nd cities, and so on. In practice, canyons, mountains, coasts and nests often prevent that, of course. But for long play where possible, this is the pattern i follow, no matter any resources' initially present. All sorts of resources can be spawned later with satellites, if desired, and long play has all the time one needs for this.

Early +% affinity points virtue.
For a normal game, one does not care about "secondary" affinities, normally. In long play, comes a moment when one may be well disappointed that some secondary affinity almost reaches level 16 or even 18, but then there seem to be nothing left to get last few points to reach it. Some of best units' important upgrades could be out of reach. Taking that virtue as early as possible helps with that very much. For the same reason, i often delay free affinity levels quite much, to get more affinity "points" out of them by using them to get levels in _secondary_ affinities, which cost more points per level than primary, and not just in secondary affinity, but in secondary affinity which is already quite high in levels (again, this maximuses "points" free affinity level virtually brings).

Colonizing near AI neighbour capital early.
For long play, especially if you have some AI(s?) nearby at the start, their capitals are the only non-removable regions which you can't make yours. Once they get these tiles around them, up to range of 5, - these tiles will remain theirs. Sure, possible to capture them, but often they are in suboptimal position, and one can't raze capitals. Also, i and some other players simply prefer to avoid having annexed cities in their empires. Not even because of health hit, but because it's "bleh". I usually raze enemy cities and build my own - long play gives more than enough time to do so. All that said, if you try long play from the start and some AI is nearby, it makes sense to colnize near his capital early, even buy some tiles which would otherwise be taken by his capital, boost culture there, etc (one of reasons i love KP). Later in the game such capital can be completely surrounded by one's cities and become "puppet civilization", even: not capturing it, allowing that AI capital to be, while removing all his other nearby cities. Then, such a "puttet AI" can't be taken out by other AIs, despite probably having very low score and no military force to talk about. It's very simple to surround it by some SABRs and it'll sit there not even trying to disturb ya after their begging for peace would be approved, seeing all those SABR cannons at the border.

Trade routes.
While obviously nesessary early and mid-game, trade routes become more boredom than they worth end-game. And to me, this is more than enough reason to stop using trade routes altogether. With most/all techs open and most/all buildings constructed, resource satellites doing their job and economy thriving, we sure can live without the need to click and click almost every (for larger colonies - every) turn to renew trade routes. Completely doable, i find, to cancel all trade routes. Takes some work to compensate for needed food, sometimes, but nothing some +3 terrascapes couldn't do. Plus, personally, i usually tend to spawn quite many strategic resources for each city, and xenomass is one excellent food source, too. Coastal cities have it even easier with a few weather controllers over water for some extra algae on top of some xenomass on land part. And then comes the moment very last trade convoy/vessel is put to rest. Good feelin', i tell ya. %)

Magrails.
In a long play, there is often times when workers do not have very much to do - i tend to keep at least one worker near every city, to improve spawning resources without the need to reposition any worker any far. For times when they don't have much to do, making magrails well above just "connecting cities together" is what i find useful. Mostly for tactic reasons. I often magrail to hills near a city, for example, - ranged units have much easier times defending, if ever need arises, with this. No-setup SABRs rolling into firing positions and obliterating attackers from safe range is also nice, for sure. This is surely a "luxury" in a normal game, but during later stages of a long-play, it's sure something worth to do, if player enjoys micromanaging workers (which i still do).

Haste.
Last but definitely not least, is the player's attitude towards "completing" the game. If the player is in haste to "complete" the game, then long plays are definitely not as enjoyable as they are for me. I don't hurry in my long plays. May take me a month or few to complete just one. I don't click in a hurry; if i want to read something, i read it; if i want to spend quite some time considering where to put a city or plan some covert op or regional war, i take my time and then some; and in general, i play in relaxed pace in terms of my own thinking and clicking. After all, it's a game, not a job. And i know that whenever i happen to finish one long play, i can always do another, aiming at some different set of combat tactics/upgrades, quest decisions and a new planet, seeing how it'll go. I think, this is perhaps the most important thing about long plays: no hurry from the player himself. Sure, it makes long plays even longer, in terms of hours played. But if it's enjoyable, then i say: why not!


This is pretty much all i got about long plays off the top of my head. May be i forgot something, it's possible. But i felt may be i gotta write about this style, because searching internets about it produces surprisingly little. Anyhows, i wish good luck to anyone who sees any point in playing CivBE this way. Cheers!

 

[Doviello]

Apparently those who do longer than normal often have their own, quite distinct reasons to do so! Interesting.

Haha Sign me in. I always play to the end, and i only really give up if there's a runaway AI too far away for me to handle.

City placing pattern.

One thing to consider is that cities in BE are really harder to grow (in pop) than in Civ V, it's hard to put your city on pop 20 or so. So settling cities next to each other is not such a bad deal. Even 1 tile islands can become good cities if you keep 3 resource-spawn satellites on top of it. Mostly, i go for defensive positions; bottlenecks, behind canyons, etc.

Colonizing near AI neighbour capital early.

On really, really big maps, puppeting is really nice, unless you want to manage 100's of cities. Puppets do a good job on managing energy and health, they are quite good as far as automation in this game goes (i mean, we all know how terrible automated workers are)

Trade routes.

The last patch allows trade route to automatically renew, so you don't need to cancel them to save clicks

Magrails.

Once i research magrails, i like to take one worker, put him on one end of my empire, and order "route to" to the other end, he will place a line of rails thought the entire distance.