Hi all. I'm sure this isn't anything new or profound, but here goes:
It seems like 4x games have three rough phases:
1. Early / AI advantage - You have few resources, need so many things, and the AI bonuses are strong. You struggle. The decisions have not expanded out to be too complicated for the AI yet. The challenge is high, but your options are low.
2. Early Mid / Even - You and the AI are even matches! Every little resource counts! Tension is high! This is the sweet spot - it is the right balance of challenge and options.
3. Late Game / Player advantage - You've turned the corner and know you've won. It's really just mop up. You've out-built or out-advanced AI bonuses, and the decisions have increased in size and complexity so the AI has a hard time handling them. Your options are unlimited, but your challenge is low. The AI could really use that early game power now.
(Building world wonders is a good example. Ancient wonders like the GL are basically impossible to get, then mid-game wonders become races to build first, and late modern wonders become sure-things, where you can build them all.)
Increasing difficulty seems to mean giving more free things and bonuses to the AI. This just draws out and worsens phase 1. The result is that, as you increase difficulty level, your early options become more and more constrained. Until finally, at the highest levels, your decisions might become rote and cookie-cutter.
BNW seems more open and is still being figured out, but G+K really displayed this constraining of options. They largely (not entirely) collapsed down to:
Full tradition, steal worker, sell luxuries, fast NC, no wonders, CB CB CB CB
Sure, some other options were viable, but that was the gist of it. The things you could do in the early game whittled away in the face of AI bonuses. And when you turned the corner, those AI bonuses eventually became too little to help the AI anyway.
All increasing difficulty really does is drag out phase 1 and does not much improve the challenge of phase 3. And it does this at the cost of constraining your early options, making phase 1 less interesting.
So would it be possible to make a difficulty that lengthens not phase 1, but instead lengthens phase 2, the sweet spot of the game? And would it be possible to keep player options alive in phase 1?
It seems to me AI bonuses should increase over time, instead of all being front-loaded like now. That would match the player's growth in strength, and help compensate the poor AI for the increasingly difficult and complicated decisions that develop as the game goes on.
I'm not sure how to do that exactly. Maybe a mid-level track would be roughly something like:
Turns 1 - 100 : King
Turns 101 - 200: Emperor
Turns 201 - 300: Immortal
Turns 300 - 400: Deity
Thanks for reading... so any thoughts please?
It seems like 4x games have three rough phases:
1. Early / AI advantage - You have few resources, need so many things, and the AI bonuses are strong. You struggle. The decisions have not expanded out to be too complicated for the AI yet. The challenge is high, but your options are low.
2. Early Mid / Even - You and the AI are even matches! Every little resource counts! Tension is high! This is the sweet spot - it is the right balance of challenge and options.
3. Late Game / Player advantage - You've turned the corner and know you've won. It's really just mop up. You've out-built or out-advanced AI bonuses, and the decisions have increased in size and complexity so the AI has a hard time handling them. Your options are unlimited, but your challenge is low. The AI could really use that early game power now.
(Building world wonders is a good example. Ancient wonders like the GL are basically impossible to get, then mid-game wonders become races to build first, and late modern wonders become sure-things, where you can build them all.)
Increasing difficulty seems to mean giving more free things and bonuses to the AI. This just draws out and worsens phase 1. The result is that, as you increase difficulty level, your early options become more and more constrained. Until finally, at the highest levels, your decisions might become rote and cookie-cutter.
BNW seems more open and is still being figured out, but G+K really displayed this constraining of options. They largely (not entirely) collapsed down to:
Full tradition, steal worker, sell luxuries, fast NC, no wonders, CB CB CB CB
Sure, some other options were viable, but that was the gist of it. The things you could do in the early game whittled away in the face of AI bonuses. And when you turned the corner, those AI bonuses eventually became too little to help the AI anyway.
All increasing difficulty really does is drag out phase 1 and does not much improve the challenge of phase 3. And it does this at the cost of constraining your early options, making phase 1 less interesting.
So would it be possible to make a difficulty that lengthens not phase 1, but instead lengthens phase 2, the sweet spot of the game? And would it be possible to keep player options alive in phase 1?
It seems to me AI bonuses should increase over time, instead of all being front-loaded like now. That would match the player's growth in strength, and help compensate the poor AI for the increasingly difficult and complicated decisions that develop as the game goes on.
I'm not sure how to do that exactly. Maybe a mid-level track would be roughly something like:
Turns 1 - 100 : King
Turns 101 - 200: Emperor
Turns 201 - 300: Immortal
Turns 300 - 400: Deity
Thanks for reading... so any thoughts please?
