Has FXS gone a little too far with the change to aggression ratio in Modern ?

[Calcifer]

I want the AI to be aggressive towards competing ideologies but I don't like how that aggression disincentivises players to pick an ideology at all.

If you aren't aiming for a millitary victory, don't pick one, so that you don't have to deal with attacks... And if you are, you need to wait and see what your prime targets pick - usually you're waiting long enough that you could usually win another way (or multiple other ways TBH)!

Culture was the most egregiously broken victory track (and it's improved but not ideal still) but Millitary is a close 2nd I think...

Ideology civics give huge yield boosts to specialists though so I think you're playing at a disadvantage by not choosing any ideology.

 

[marius_kaparius]

I’ve delayed picking an ideology to stay out of war. I think that should be changed so that having no ideology counts as having a different ideology.

 

[Leucarum]

Ideology civics give huge yield boosts to specialists though so I think you're playing at a disadvantage by not choosing any ideology.

That's a fair argument for science victory.

For culture you're still beelining to hegemony first before going down those trees at all, and in my test run once I had hegemony it was pretty much over; for economic the techs you need are so low that you probably have everything by the time you want to go down those trees unless your culture is way higher than your science.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Ideology civics give huge yield boosts to specialists though so I think you're playing at a disadvantage by not choosing any ideology.

But fat lot of good those bonuses do you if you need them all to fight an endless war instead of trying to win.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

i dont like how extreme the penalty for opposing idelogies is. america frequently supported facist regimes in the cold war that were ideologically opposed to us. we even had a working relationship with communist china.

I suspect those are supposed to be represented by the fact that you can have Trade Routes and some minor diplomatic bonuses with them, but not Alliances.

The more basic problem, though, is that each victory in the game seems to be predicated on a different one of the currencies: Science = Science or Domination Victory, Civics/Culture = Cultural Victory - and once you are focused on one type of victory you can almost ignore the other currencies. Centuries behind in Science? No problem, go for a cultural victory digging up every Relic in sight and ignore Science or the Space Race or any of that. Going Domination, and you may (and I have) not bother with a single Explorer or relic at all - and the Modern Age becomes Hobbsian: "Nasty, Brutish, and Short".

All made worse by the fact that if someone is concentrating on the Explorer Horde (which, mercifully, has been nerfed a bit in the latest rendition) there is nothing you can do to stop them except conquer or nuke their collective butts. Explorers, like Missionaries, are Immortal and Unstoppable. That is one of the things that has made the Cultural Victory so Unbalanced in the first month of play: short of smashing their cities, once someone got ahead of you in the Relic Race there was almost nothing 'cultural' you could do about it - you were forced to race for another victory or Move To Block by removing their cities holding their Relics: Relics in situ or Explorers couldn't be touched unless you invested in your own Explorer Extravaganza.

 

[Jkchart]

i dont like how extreme the penalty for opposing idelogies is. america frequently supported facist regimes in the cold war that were ideologically opposed to us. we even had a working relationship with communist china.

Well the modern era isn’t the cold war era! That’s for the alleged Atomic Era DLC

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Well the modern era isn’t the cold war era! That’s for the alleged Atomic Era DLC

The ideological 'shooting wars' were arguably the Spanish Civil War, World War Two, Korean War and Vietnam, stretching from approximately 1935 to 1975. Even assuming a 1970 cut-off for the Age, that still covers roughly 1/6 of the total Age since 1750.
Stretching it further, the 'anti-Communist' Ideology, or 'Red Scare' started right after WWI in the early 1920s, which makes the 'Ideological Hotbed' of the Age only about 25% of the total Age.

AND regardless of how much attention was lavished on the ideologies, the fact remains that even at the height of the Cold War most of the planet was the 'Third World' outside of the ideological blocs.

Methinks Ideology is much too emphasized in the Modern Age: yet another example of the strait-jacket-like design of the game that forces us gamers to follow their Narrative rather than attempt to construct our own . . .

 

[JNR13]

Fun fact: The modern age was at some point designed to end with an all-out world war as part of the crisis system, with each ideology getting custom crisis policies and such for it. It was all very explicitly WW2 themed. These policies are already in the game files:
TRADITION_COMMUNISM_UNIQUE
TRADITION_DEMOCRACY_UNIQUE
TRADITION_FASCISM_UNIQUE
TRADITION_WARTIME_INNOVATION
TRADITION_WAR_HEROES
TRADITION_WARTIME_ECONOMY
TRADITION_NATIONAL_PRESTIGE
TRADITION_LAST_RESERVES
TRADITION_GRAND_ALLIANCE

 

[StargazingDog]

I'd honestly rather have that than any of the immediate victory conditions.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Fun fact: The modern age was at some point designed to end with an all-out world war as part of the crisis system, with each ideology getting custom crisis policies and such for it. It was all very explicitly WW2 themed. These policies are already in the game files:
TRADITION_COMMUNISM_UNIQUE
TRADITION_DEMOCRACY_UNIQUE
TRADITION_FASCISM_UNIQUE
TRADITION_WARTIME_INNOVATION
TRADITION_WAR_HEROES
TRADITION_WARTIME_ECONOMY
TRADITION_NATIONAL_PRESTIGE
TRADITION_LAST_RESERVES
TRADITION_GRAND_ALLIANCE

Just another example of the Unspoken Design Philosophy of Civ VII.
While they said (Dev Diary 4) that the game would be about "larger stories that could emerge from your choices"

What they meant was:
Narratives driven by Our Decisions, not the gamers and all ending with the same inane Victory Conditions emerging from the same inane paths that are all we will allow you in the game.

Ending the Modern Age with an all-out war no matter how peacefully you wanted to play the game is just a more brazen example of the current game's demanding that you scamper to Distant Lands in Exploration Age no matter what else you and your Civ were doing or wanted to do, and grubbing around looking for Relics even when your idea of a Cultural Civ might have something to do with Opera Houses, Museums, and general Happiness rather than stealing artifacts from other cultures.

 

[StargazingDog]

You can completely ignore the legacy paths. I have done it for two games now. Just play it as any other Civ game. It feels the same. I feel like I am controlling my destiny and I always have a story that unfolded. Even moreso than in previous games, since I actually play until the end now.

I mean, Civ 6 playing on auto pilot for two hours while I wait for the UN to be built and call a vote, or being forced to research almost the entire tech tree then build a dozen ship parts... I'll choose Civ 7's handling of it any day. Even score victory is actually fun.

 

[agamemnon_of_the-bronze_]

Well the modern era isn’t the cold war era! That’s for the alleged Atomic Era DLC

haha fair enough!

 

[pokiehl]

Ending the Modern Age with an all-out war no matter how peacefully you wanted to play the game is just a more brazen example of the current game's demanding that you scamper to Distant Lands in Exploration Age no matter what else you and your Civ were doing or wanted to do, and grubbing around looking for Relics even when your idea of a Cultural Civ might have something to do with Opera Houses, Museums, and general Happiness rather than stealing artifacts from other cultures.

I think this isn't a fair criticism of that proposed crisis (or any in-game crisis really). Most of the world wanted to "peacefully play the game" but they still got dragged into World War 2.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I think this isn't a fair criticism of that proposed crisis (or any in-game crisis really). Most of the world wanted to "peacefully play the game" but they still got dragged into World War 2.

One of the points of their design, supposedly, was to provide the gamer with the opportunity to 'write their own narrative', yet time after time they have removed the ability of the gamer to write any narrative in the game - even in simple things like being able to name our own cities or ships - and their rigid Victory/Legacy paths and Crisis events remove all capability for the gamer to stray from the narrative that they devised.

So proposing that the 'narrative end in a colossal war because that's what happened in one instance of the game - albiet the 'real' one - opens them up to a very fair criticism that they have produced a game with more rigidity of design and less capability for the gamer to produce their own narrative than even the previous renditions of Civ did

 

[Yzman]

My latest game the whole world just declared on me for no reason. They don't even have ideologies yet!

 

[King of Prussia]

I am kinda surprised they didnt make it like Civ 5, where you have to pick one after some arbitrary point.

I would not be surprised, if they made to where non aligned civs get a malus similar to having a different ideology. This would make it so you have to pick at least one or end up with everyone hating you.


I would also say, there isnt a lot of pull towards picking one in general. In civ 5 it was worth it for the free policy(s). Culture victory and happiness was impacted by it. Some of those policies were very strong for different victory types. There are some good policies in 7, but id rather not deal with half the world hating me. I havent had the chance to see if its different post patch, but pre patch the AI varied a lot when they got their ideologies too. Some got it pretty late.

 

[StargazingDog]

There are some good policies in 7, but id rather not deal with half the world hating me.

I find that half the world hates me regardless. I’m not sure how you would avoid this. Never form any alliances, maybe?

 

[King of Prussia]

I find that half the world hates me regardless. I’m not sure how you would avoid this. Never form any alliances, maybe?

Personally i found getting at least 1 ally for most of the game doable. More often than not, they are about at strong as i am. Ive had games where there were 2 or 3 large alliance blocs. I had only 1 games where i ended up alone. Kinda depends on how other AI relations play out, and if you manage to make friends with their friends.

 

[protocol7]

If you spend all your influence on befriending city states the civs will all hate you, but once I stopped doing that and spreading the love around it was easy to keep a friend or two.

 

[Melkus]

Also: try to keep trading - mutual trade alone is +30 (incoming route, outgoing route and mutual trade are each +10) - and expanding the trade with influence gives additional love. Even when they hate you initially, they still send their traders.
When I have two grumpy neighbors: I pick the one I can more easily trade with.

Could even afford to reject an alliance here and keep two friends (unfortunately she' s at war with my bff Catherine). This is early on, but it works all game. (Obviously don't trade if you want them to be enemies, trade does make them stronger too)

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