How do I keep from getting bored with it?

[Chris Withers]

Wondering if others have the problem with Civ4 (and had it with Civ3) of getting ahead somewhere in mid-game, then one knows one is going to win, but has to tediously play thru the exruciatingly long end-game to finish it off. In Civ4 I play Monarch & now Emperor and can get ahead enough to win most of the time. It is more fighting than I care for, especially at Emperor, but oh well. But what I mostly dislike is once I'm ahead, I know I am going to win, and I get bored with it and stop the game. To me a win is a win and I don't see much point in going for a larger domination conquest vs simply winning by points. It takes long enough as it is at these levels to get to victory by all the micro-management, fighting, etc. I do have a lot of fun at it until I get to that point, but after I'm assured of victory I think why bother?

Part of the problem I have always thought resides in a basically simple AI. At higher ability levels it just produces faster and whatnot. Why can't it play "smarter" too (and thus not overproduce as much)? Some simple smarter play to code in would be basic military stuff like no lone units coming into enemy territory that are easy pickings. At higher levels more & more of these "advanced" tactics/strategies would kick in for the AI. So what the current AI design does at higher levels is generally force one into attacking to take more territory to have more cities to offset the AI's bonuses. If one is time-lazy like me, I'd rather not have to take so many cities and spend all that time that it requires.

Anyway, anyone else have this issue and any solutions? Maybe play scenarios instead?

 

[Chris Withers]

btw, I already play at the fast speed option ...

 

[Psyringe]

This has always been a problem of Civ, and of many other strategy games. Brad Wardell, the AI programmer of GalCiv2, once called it "the problem of critical mass": When is one player so far ahead that he can't lose anymore, and how should the game react to it?

In Civ4, I see 3 possibilities for you:

a) As you said, you can play scenarios, which can be designed in a way that critical mass becomes less of a problem (but not all scenarios will be designed that way, there has to be a conscious effort on the part of the designer to prevent it)

b) You can play with an AI mod. Look at A Better AI for a very promising one. Not sure how it deals with critical mass though, I haven't tested it yet.

c) You can use the console to set the game on autoplay. I don't know the details, but I think with the command "game.aiplay X" you can set the game to autoplay X turns. This way, when you're sure you'll win, you can let the AI drive your victory home when it becomes too boring. I haven't tested this method though, so there may be more steps necessary.

One "solution" that many games offer is the "Mega Evil Empire", as Space Empires IV called it. This means that when one player gets too strong, all others unite against him. While this does provide more of a challenge, it also automatically makes endgames war-heavy, and feels artificially. Suddenly having all your trusted allies backstab you isn't much fun for many players. I think it's a good idea not to implement such a crude feature in Civ.

 

[Tulx]

Oh, yeah... I have this problem also. I usually stop in mid game. It just gets really booring. Unless somehow I wait these turns and advance to late game, then it starts to go intresting again. Modern warfare with nukes, aircrafts and tanks. Global Warning is wreaking havoc in my lands and cities are starwing. In clonclusion 100 first turns and 50-100 last turns are most intresting for me.

 

[Thedrin]

Going by your second paragraph, you should check out the AI mod linked by Psyringe. It'll also mean that the AI are much less likely to fall away when you take the lead in a competitive game.

 

[Quagga]

Given that it's a game, it seems one should play to enjoy rather than to meet finish conditions. If you get bored, quit and start another game.

Alternately, you could set yourself new victory conditions. For example, win by 500 AD or consider it a loss.

 

[Masquerouge]

Given that it's a game, it seems one should play to enjoy rather than to meet finish conditions. If you get bored, quit and start another game.

yeah, pretty much. To me the early game is the best part, and frequently start again as soon as I lose interest in the current game.

 

[Welnic]

Have I got the thing for you! My game finishing service!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=194255

 

[Chris Withers]

oh, dude, this is just a crackup (a paste from your link):

[... send me your unfinished game & I will end it for you for a fee ...]

The main charge is 5 cents per city per turn. Obviously this means that it is cheaper for smaller maps, and cheaper to go for conquest instead of domination.

There are various surcharges for things that are painful to deal with.

If you are on friendly or pleased terms with Louis XIV then 50 cents every time I have to deal with him when he initiates it. I just can't stand to look at the guy. If I don't have to be nice to him then there is no charge.

...

 

[Chris Withers]

Thanks for all the replies. Regarding:

"play with an AI mod. Look at A Better AI for a very promising one"

Can I use that with the original Civ4 (not Warlords) or do I need to buy Warlords?

Also, I saw one post in that Better AI thread that claimed the better AI simply caused more warmongering to win, not less. How do people feel about this?

 

[Psyringe]

Can I use that with the original Civ4 (not Warlords) or do I need to buy Warlords?

I think it needs Warlords. While I wouldn't want to talk you into buying something you might be doubtful of, let me say that Warlords is rather cheap and worth the money imho. But I realize that a solution that requires you to spend money isn't really a good one.

Also, I saw one post in that Better AI thread that claimed the better AI simply caused more warmongering to win, not less. How do people feel about this?

I haven't played it yet, but if that's the case, then it should be fixable by tweaking the leader personalities a little. The AI mod apparently does make the warmongers (Monty, Nappy, Julius) more dangerous, but one could tone down their agressiveness, if that's desired.

 

[manu-fan]

Here's another idea for you.

Set your self a domination date deadline.

I play at a lower level than you, but do that. Can I dominate by 1950?

And, make it more appealing by choosing random leaders, maps etc, each time.

Cheers.

 

[ollj]

Play faster games on smaller maps for a faster endgame:
Try a 200 turns Blitz speed game on snaky pangaea
(long winding seas that surround Ismiths and Peninsulas allow 2 to 4 times more crowded maps while you can still build 6 to 3 cities (within 200 rounds)).
That way a duel zized map plays like a normal sized map, only really quick.

 

[Thedrin]

Can I use that with the original Civ4 (not Warlords) or do I need to buy Warlords?

I think it needs Warlords. While I wouldn't want to talk you into buying something you might be doubtful of, let me say that Warlords is rather cheap and worth the money imho. But I realize that a solution that requires you to spend money isn't really a good one.

There are two better Ai mods being developed. They do exactly the same thing and are developed at the same rate but one is for Warlords and the other is for Vanilla.

Also, I saw one post in that Better AI thread that claimed the better AI simply caused more warmongering to win, not less. How do people feel about this?

I haven't played it yet, but if that's the case, then it should be fixable by tweaking the leader personalities a little. The AI mod apparently does make the warmongers (Monty, Nappy, Julius) more dangerous, but one could tone down their agressiveness, if that's desired.

It makes the AI better. AIs that favour warfare are now capable of winning via warfare while some AIs are capable of cultural victories (assuming you don't raze their cities).

It's a work in progress though so you may find problems with it. If you're going to read through the thread for it just read the posts by Blake and Iustus since they post the actual changes made in each succesive version.

 

[Welnic]

Thanks for all the replies. Regarding:

"play with an AI mod. Look at A Better AI for a very promising one"

Can I use that with the original Civ4 (not Warlords) or do I need to buy Warlords?

Also, I saw one post in that Better AI thread that claimed the better AI simply caused more warmongering to win, not less. How do people feel about this?

I think that most of the complaints about the need to increase warmongering are based on the Warlords 2.08 update. That has some of the Better AI stuff built in. But since the first thing that he improved was the AI's city placement and improvement and other peaceful things, it has left the AI's war skills as the weak point. So if before you could win a peaceful game on prince by just out teching the AI, you probably can't now, but you would still be able to beat them by going to war. I think the main problem is that the AI has always been weak at war and this just made it worse.

But it is not hard to me to see how this happened. City placement is at least a couple of orders of magnitude easier to figure out than fighting a war. It makes it the obvious thing to improve first.

So if you run Better AI, as it becomes more rounded out then you might have to drop down a level, but as long as you have a variety of things to do to win then it works out.

 

[siggboy]

So if before you could win a peaceful game on prince by just out teching the AI, you probably can't now, but you would still be able to beat them by going to war. I think the main problem is that the AI has always been weak at war and this just made it worse.

Last night I played a Prince session as Qin on Standard/Continents/Epic with Blake's Better AI.

I had a beautiful start that brought tears to my eyes. I was on the smaller of the two continents with Peter -- choked him, harassed him and kicked him off. Although the continent was mediocre, I took an early lead on the other continents and hogged wonders like crazy. When I met the others I was leading in tech by two to three levels on the tech tree. I've never had such a promising start.

What happened then? Well, Montezuma on the other continent was eliminating one after the other of his opponents although he was technologically backwards (as usual). When I realized that I have to do something about it, it was too late and he won by domination (he conquered the entire second continent which was enough).

For me this was the perfect example for a game that many players would have resigned in mid-game but indeed it was not won. Now it was a special situation, because his continent was large enough to win by domination by a large margin, but my message to the original poster is, maybe you should give Better AI a try, it might make your games more interesting.

It's also more comfortable for the human, because all of the automation logic and the city governor have been greatly improved.

--Sigi

 

[SharpMango]

Last night I played a Prince session as Qin on Standard/Continents/Epic with Blake's Better AI.

I had a beautiful start that brought tears to my eyes. I was on the smaller of the two continents with Peter -- choked him, harassed him and kicked him off. Although the continent was mediocre, I took an early lead on the other continents and hogged wonders like crazy. When I met the others I was leading in tech by two to three levels on the tech tree. I've never had such a promising start.

What happened then? Well, Montezuma on the other continent was eliminating one after the other of his opponents although he was technologically backwards (as usual). When I realized that I have to do something about it, it was too late and he won by domination (he conquered the entire second continent which was enough).

For me this was the perfect example for a game that many players would have resigned in mid-game but indeed it was not won. Now it was a special situation, because his continent was large enough to win by domination by a large margin, but my message to the original poster is, maybe you should give Better AI a try, it might make your games more interesting.

It's also more comfortable for the human, because all of the automation logic and the city governor have been greatly improved.

--Sigi

Fantastic!!!
you mean you actually witnessed an AI win by domination......
wow, if Blake and his friends have done such an ai improvement i am VERY impressed....
i have never witnessed this before, only time i ever have lost is via space race (barring an all out ai attack on my homelands ofcourse)
that must have been a brilliant game to play though

 

[siggboy]

Fantastic!!!
you mean you actually witnessed an AI win by domination......
wow, if Blake and his friends have done such an ai improvement i am VERY impressed....
i have never witnessed this before, only time i ever have lost is via space race (barring an all out ai attack on my homelands ofcourse)
that must have been a brilliant game to play though

I could have won by Culture easily before Monte would have had a change to finish his Domination (but I didn't go for Culture since it seemed too easy in that game). And actually I saw it coming. He had around half of his continent already when I started subsidizing his remaining rivals with techs. To no avail. His stacks must have been huge. When I finally started to build Destroyers, Transports and Infantry, he was catching up, so I could not do anything effective anymore at this point.

So, yes, the recent version of the AI definitely go for domination big times. On offense, they are really strong. Prepare to meet HUGE stacks going for your cities. Also, the AI chops for wonders. The Oracle usually gets build around 1100BC on Prince. Don't even think about a CS slingshot -- too much of a gamble. Even the CoL slingshot is risky if you're not very disciplined.

Better AI just rocks.

--Sigi