How are you introducing variety into your games?

[evonannoredars]

I've been thinking a bit about what is and isn't working in Civ 7 for me. Some games, I'll be nearing the end of Antiquity and then realise some element of fun is missing. Had this yesterday at the start of a China-themed Confucius Han>Ming>Qing run where the first attempt felt really bog-standard and dull, but the restarted Antiquity game was way more fun.

While wondering why that was, I think it occured to me what the specific cause is. In antiquity, I had this one specific spot where I was guessing would be a great culture adjacency, and spent ages trying to get there which required suzing a hostile IP, going through a mountain pass that turned out to be blocked by a cliff, then eventually having to go round the coast (shared it in the screenshots thread here). In exploration, I'm currently having a really fun time trying to make the longest Great Wall I can. In both eras, I've got unique objectives.

I.e. there's a goal I've got that I need to plan ahead for and work towards a solution, and it's a goal that's specific to the game I'm playing. The main reasons I can think of why I find it harder to have situations like this in Civ 7 compared to Civ 6 (even though Civ 7 has way more possible variety and depth between different civ/leader combos) are:

1. The terrain being so balanced means each settlement can be approached in the same way. Desert and tundra settlements no longer need extra planning to be successful.
2. There aren't as many civs or leaders with abilities that make gameplay significantly different. I expect this to change with time, civs tend to get more experimental as devs get more experience with how they can bend and stretch the game. At the moment there's only a few which make the experience significantly different, eg. Carthage, Bulgaria and the Ming.
3. All legacy paths are approached the same in each game. Victories were always kinda repetitive in civ 6, but only once you were approaching the final victory, the path leading up to it could be more varied. Here however, your main objectives in each era are always the same. Sure, you can ignore them, but then the need for some other unique objective is greater.
4. Crises also often lack impact and/or visual presence. I love the barbarian invasion crisis, but the others can usually be ignored most of the time, except for the happiness one if you happen to be doing badly happiness-wise already.

The second point I'm confident will improve with time, and I hope the third and fourth will too. But until then, I was curious what other people's thoughts are. Have you experienced similar things where some games feel really generic while others are way more unique experiences? Does anyone have ideas for objectives you could set yourself in a game?

 

[stealth_nsk]

I see 3 categories of objectives:

1. Directly given by the game, i.e. quests or legacy paths. Those clearly add fun to the game, but could feel repetitive, unless they interact with particular game situation. In Civ6 city-state quest to destroy nearby barbarian encampment is an example of good quest. Eurekas are much more repetitive.

2. Emergent. Goals, which naturally occur from playing the game, like settling on a specific spot, or building a specific wonder. Designing game for those events is the magic of game design.

3. Self-imposed, like the mentioned goal to build longest wall. Those goals have no specific gameplay effect, but if the game has a lot of fun stuff inside, people start to invent them.

I believe Civ7 leans a bit too much towards first type of goals, which is quite standard thing for more MP-oriented games, where opponent actions are the main source of variety.

Speaking about terrain, I'd say resources and adjacencies provide enough variety here. To me settlement is as good as in previous games, although I'm not a hardcore player.

 

[Ornen]

by playing other games…

 

[Buckets]

Trying out different leaders. Haven't even tied half of them yet.

Then there's the leader-civ combos. Lots to try but since I've played almost every civ already, the well is not as deep as I'd like.

Self imposed goals. Like trying to get certain victories, or maybe just a really nice looking city.

Mods. I wrote one that adds a little twist.

Crises. I haven't yet tried turning them off and want to try that.

Was playing on fractal, but have switched to Continents. It's much better map gen now. More variety and not so predictable.

By the time I finish all that I'll probably think of something else, or have a new update to try out.

 

[MutilationWave]

I play really slow and haven't had much time to lately. So this is taking me forever, but every time I pick a new leader and a civ I haven't played before if possible. I want to do each leader and civ at least once, and hopefully by the time I finish that the game will have changed.

Thanks for the insight on map types @Buckets. I've been playing fractal because I thought it would be the most unique, I'll try continents next.

 

[Leucarum]

There are plenty of mementos, and combos of mementos which really shake up your game. There's plenty, but personally I love games based on Chalcedony Seal, Gold & Sapphire Flowers, or the lantern...

 

[CliffCo]

I play really slow and haven't had much time to lately. So this is taking me forever, but every time I pick a new leader and a civ I haven't played before if possible. I want to do each leader and civ at least once, and hopefully by the time I finish that the game will have changed.

Thanks for the insight on map types @Buckets. I've been playing fractal because I thought it would be the most unique, I'll try continents next.

I’d recommend playing continents plus rather than continents, the extra islands make it more interesting, for me at least.