How do I combat the 'cannot finish game' sickness?

[goldenhero]

I've had a real problem with not being able to finish games, and I got to wondering, how do you all push to finish games? I always get to around 1000 AD and stop playing and decide to start a new game. Does anyone here have suggestions on how to get past this?

 

[BarrageQueen]

It sounds like you feel like the game's won at that time so you quit.

The natural recourse would be for you to move up a level or two.

 

[Vox Mentis]

Focus on short term goals. I sometimes forget where I'm going and just keep upgrading my empire - of course all the other empires are too, so I end up more or less stagnating relative to them.

If you keep immediate goals, like planning out your next invasion, it stays interesting. Most of the games that I quit because they got boring ended shortly after I finished up on my own continent and for some absurd reason planned for a modern era war when grenadiers and cannons would be enough to start carving out some vassals on the other continent.

 

[Crusher1]

I've had a real problem with not being able to finish games, and I got to wondering, how do you all push to finish games? I always get to around 1000 AD and stop playing and decide to start a new game. Does anyone here have suggestions on how to get past this?

I do this constantly. There is no shame in it at all Besides, in my experience, 95% of the game is won or lost before 1000 AD because every important decision you made early has compounded and snowballed you to that point.

 

[Shurdus]

I've had a real problem with not being able to finish games, and I got to wondering, how do you all push to finish games? I always get to around 1000 AD and stop playing and decide to start a new game. Does anyone here have suggestions on how to get past this?

Do you feel like the game becomes to much trouble by then, or do you feel like there is nothing interesting to do by then?

I always thought that al this micro was not ment to be interesting for poor impatient me. then I indeed made short term goals for myself, like scouting ahead, minitiously planning how I would invade and how much units I would need...

This kept things interesting for me. Clicking what to build over and over again with no real attention to what is going on is no fun at all...

 

[Zavior]

I often tend to abandon my games after medieval conquest. Often the game is decided by that time anyways, depending on if I was able to conquer enough territory. If not, then the game would became interesting again.

 

[goldenhero]

Do you feel like the game becomes to much trouble by then, or do you feel like there is nothing interesting to do by then?

That pretty much sums it up, it seems like at that point in the game it's rebuilding the military conquests I won, and the turns get very tedious. Maybe I should move up, I have been on Noble for quite some time.

 

[fireb0rn]

That pretty much sums it up, it seems like at that point in the game it's rebuilding the military conquests I won, and the turns get very tedious. Maybe I should move up, I have been on Noble for quite some time.

I had the same problem as you... moving up helped a lot.

 

[Gliese 581]

I wish I knew, I rarely finish games but I often decide I won regardless. The micromanagement gets tedious and I like to reassign citizens every turn and so on so in my case the workload can be tremendous for the late game.

 

[Matthew5117]

I've had a real problem with not being able to finish games, and I got to wondering, how do you all push to finish games? I always get to around 1000 AD and stop playing and decide to start a new game. Does anyone here have suggestions on how to get past this?

THIS EXACTLY HAPPENS TO ME!

It frustrates me so much because I don't see good scores in the Hall of Fame.

I play Emperor, but I am not comfortable playing Immortal. Admittedly I haven't tried, but its just way too scary!

 

[Deckhand]

Good question.
My thanks for the suggestions above, like focusing on short term goals.

I tend to usually start a new game instead of continuing a saved one.

Besides moving up in difficulty, I suggest playing the GOTMs.
Now there is a motivation to finish so you can submit your game.
In fact, it's an obligation - they need to get submissions > 10% of starts
The GOTM will also force you to increase the difficulty level.

This may not be a complete fix. The only games I finish are GOTMs and even that is often a struggle.

 

[Tempesta13]

I'd agree maybe you should move up to prince so it's tougher - then you'll probably get games where you have no idea if you can win at 1000 AD. A really big part in games at higher levels is the renaissance wars. Try getting steel fast (maybe using liberalism to get it) or military tradition fast for cuirassiers. If you are way ahead of the AI in doing this it's a big turning point in the game around 1100-1400 AD or so. You could do the same with rifles/cannons later too. If you can concentrate on setting up for these wars and conquering 1-2 AI's during this time maybe it will keep your interest. After that war (or two) if you still want to keep playing and it would be too tedious to go for domination or build the spaceship try using the UN. UN wins have let me finish many games where i would have just quit otherwise. Practice diplo/UN abuse strategies such as getting the 2nd biggest civ (you're the 1st) to friendly by running his favorite civic and same religion - then tech mass media ahead of everyone, and gift it to an AI that isn't friendly with anyone. As soon as they build it you win the election, and win diplo victory on the 1st vote. You have to make sure you'll get enough votes, might have to get 2 AI's to vote for you. Anyway, it's another game entirely compared to domination or space. Also you can play from your last renaissance war to victory in 30 minutes to 1 hour probably.

 

[Harv]

I am glad to hear that I am not alone. I should post one of my saves titled, "Here I Got Bored.CivBeyondSwordSave"

 

[Defiant47]

I just find it way too tedious to micro obviously won wars within an obvious lead for an obvious win, where I'm obviously not having fun or being challenged anymore.

 

[JonathanStrange]

It's not a sickness; you're rationally cutting short a game that you're not enjoying. I do that alot when I see a game's going to be hundreds of years of dreary back-and-forth combat. It's not a question of my quitting a losing game - those are actually FUN for me as I love making the AI work for the victory but of my thinking "well, I could grind 'em down and win 2nd or 3rd place" which is, on this forum, considered a loss. But to me, holding half the world, having a kickass army and great cities, where's the loss?

If I'm winning and I know it, I'll often get bored: it's no fun being an executioner of the unfit. So I stop.

So I suppose I'm just saying "Chill dude, let's see what the enemy can do on random fractal maps next time!"

 

[Olmo2]

Some ideas from my side:
- Play more difficult games where you have to work for your victory (i.e. move up a level or two). Games where you have to prevent the AI from winning a space or cultural victory and time for your domination victory is runnign out, can be quite exciting.
- Enjoy the new aspects in modern warfare (ship and air combat, nukes, fast tanks, etc.). From my experience this can become quite a different game than medieval or renaissance warfare.
- Play GOTMS. Comparing your results with others can be a strong motivation to finish.
- Reduce Micromanagement / time to play a turn. The advices of TheMeInTeam helped me lot (Set waypoints for your new units, turn battle animation of)

 

[BarrageQueen]

Hmmm. Focusing on short term goals is fine if you want to just play longer for the sake of playing longer, but is that what you want? Try to make it fun. Either challenge yourself by level upgrade, or do one of those RPCs posted around here. Try different victory strategies.

 

[michmbk]

I get that feeling all the time, of not enjoying the late stages of a game, especially once I start to think it's in the bag, but I know there's a lot of tedious micro left to win. One thing that helps me is that due to time constraints, I'm only playing the public games on the forum. If I've posted updates for the first few rounds, it compels me to finish, as I'd hate to leave my posted game before completion.

I'm sure it's not that exciting for the group to read what I've posted, but mentally, that keeps me hanging in there to finish.

 

[Learningciv]

I had that problem but I found MY answer to it. I play games that are posted on this forum and make detailed posts at the required update times. Seeing my game in detail of how it progressed and being able to compare it to others makes it somewhat exciting and compels me to finish.

SIDE NOTE: This has actually improved my game overall. I think more about overall strategy early on (as I know I need to post about WHY I did something) and over the past few weeks have noticed my game becoming really structered, so much that I feel I can now move to immortal full time. I always played to a maps strength but now I feel that I am almost abusing the fact I am a human player compared to the AI in terms of overall tactics verse map.

 

[Vox Mentis]

Hmmm. Focusing on short term goals is fine if you want to just play longer for the sake of playing longer, but is that what you want? Try to make it fun. Either challenge yourself by level upgrade, or do one of those RPCs posted around here. Try different victory strategies.

I said it keeps it interesting... if it doesn't, then you might as well quit the game because there's no point playing if it stops being fun. I don't see how that's playing longer for the sake of playing longer any more than playing to win is ever playing longer for the sake of playing longer. Also, I didn't mean forget the long term goals - more like divide the long term goal - say conquest/domination because peace is boring - into short term goals that are constantly being achieved.

The point is that it never becomes a case of end turn.... end turn... end turn..., because there should always be something specific to do, moving towards whatever end you're playing for.

Of course, if you ever stop having fun there's no reason to sink more time into it... it's still just a game.