How do you keep interest in the late game?

[Mojo85]

I’m on my way to a religious victory with Tamar but find I can’t stay interested because it feels like it’s just a matter of time rather than skill. Making 400 faith per turn with Yaravan and The Bishop maxed for apostle promotions. Only one close is Kongo in culture but I just can’t seem to stay interested to finish these games, i get to this point and say well why bother since I’m just making clicks. Anyone know how to make the late game interesting?

 

[Disgustipated]

Some people don't like the late game, but I do. Getting my cities as big and productive are what keeps me going to finish the game. I am a builder at heart, even if I sometimes conquer lots of stuff. I usually don't get my fisheries out until late, and that keeps me occupied late game.

 

[aguliondew]

Well Emergencies make part of the game more interesting but they tend to happen mostly around mid-game. If the last 50 turns fills like a chore stop playing. Start a new game or increase the difficult or play on a smaller map. You do not need to get the achievements. Yea sometimes late game is a bore other time you find out someone is closer to a victory than you , then you have to act.

 

[Xandinho]

I also feel bored at the end of the game, the eras system leaves this part of the game a bit less boring, but still not stimulating. I think we need ideologies back, or something else we can think about and decide besides just getting through the turns.

 

[bonafide11]

I find the late game very tedious in 95% of my games as well, and I have in every iteration of Civ that I’ve played. When you know you’re just counting down turns to win and going through the motions, it gets annoying to have to still choose meaningless trade routes, spy missions, or build choices in minor cities. I wish there was more way to auto-pilot selections in the late game. I do like finishing my games but sometimes it’s just way too tedious and boring to do it.

 

[Zuizgond]

AI is just too stupid to provide a challenge unless given huge boosts (aka the so-called "difficulties"). As long as Firaxis doesn't focus on developing a decent AI this game will remain pointless to play.

 

[Stringer1313]

The only thing keeping late game interesting is preventing AI from winning space victories but I agree that's not good enough

 

[blackcatatonic]

Things that happened in the final 30 turns of my first game in R&F (Scotland, Prince, SV):
- Long-standing pain-in-the-rear-end Tamar captured Lisbon, triggering the game's first Emergency. I was the only one to accept so that was a nice easy pot of gold for me.
- The next turn, Lautaro (on the other continent) captured Geneva, triggering another Emergency. No-one accepted: I instead declared a Liberation war against him as he had Groningen, which used to belong to my cultural ally Wilhelmina.
- Took Liverpool from Georgia and liberated it to revive England, largely for giggles.
- Flipped a Georgian outpost city she had no business building where she did.
- Liberated Geneva but didn't have enough time to free Groningen. Lautaro put up a decent fight. I could have delayed my SV to finish dealing with him but I was impatient to roll a new map. The liberation war production buff is ridiculously good; I was capable of building late game wonders in single-figure turns at the end, even in second-rate cities.
- An AI spy (probably Tamar's) knocked out Magnus in the city building my last spaceship part the turn before it completed, so costing me a turn.

Anyway the point of all that was basically to say that usually I hate the late game, have very little interest in winning and more or less switch off once my empire is fully set up. But I haven't had that much fun in the closing stages of a game in a long time. So I'm hoping that wasn't an anomaly, and the expansion is going to make the late game more interesting overall.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

My biggest problem with the late game is that turns take too long to complete because my laptop isn't very good.

 

[leandrombraz]

I think it really depend on what kind of player you're. I like to manage my empire, decide what and where, so even though I would love to have some uncertainty and actually feel threatened by the AI, I enjoy just building stuff and trying to do what I want to do efficiently. In my current game as Japan I'm completing my clusters of districts, that's is keeping me engaged. I'm also trying to come up with an efficient use of my apostles (going for religious), trying to get a third golden age in a roll since Dark Age won't happen because I'll convert way too much holy cities (I still didn't get a dark age since R&F launch!). Basically I enjoy making decisions in the game.

I actually enjoy late game quite a lot, mostly because of the music. It get more intense right at the time where I'm getting at peak efficiency, everything feels epic. Sadly there's an annoying sound bug that is turning off the music and some other sound effects right when I enjoy it the most. It's making things quite less enjoyable.

 

[Bad Wolf]

This is the fatal weakness of most Civ games, but for some reason I'm finding I finish a way higher percentage of my Civ VI games than any previous Civ. I think it's because they really put a lot of effort into making the late game at least dynamic and interesting, even if you know you're going to win. The city-building is still fun right up until the end, since you get to see the results on the map.

 

[KyivanRusCivPlease]

Yeah, the end game still isn't very interesting with R&F even on Immortal. The AI just can't offer a challenge on my way to victory in the late game. What I'm thinking of is enabling only score victory and trying to win by turn say 300. That would be more challenging, I guess, since the AI builds wonders, founds religions etc which contributes to the score, and, if I recall correctly, I usually have strong rivals in the score table and sometimes I am not number 1. Besides, other victory types have become too familiar and not that fresh and interesting.

 

[Ferocitus]

Yeah, the end game still isn't very interesting with R&F even on Immortal. The AI just can't offer a challenge on my way to victory in the late game. What I'm thinking of is enabling only score victory and trying to win by turn say 300. That would be more challenging, I guess, since the AI builds wonders, founds religions etc which contributes to the score, and, if I recall correctly, I usually have strong rivals in the score table and sometimes I am not number 1. Besides, other victory types have become too familiar and not that fresh and interesting.

That's why (since Civ 5) I only play on the largest maps and against
as many other civs as I can. AI flaws by one or two civs become
irrelevant when you play against 25 to 30 others.

 

[Xur]

There's no replay of the map like previous civ games - what's the point of finishing a game you know that you will win? Wether or not you actively quit or end up at the menu by winning makes no diffence... zero reward or gratification. So I just quit when the result is obvious.

 

[Karpius]

I’m on my way to a religious victory with Tamar but find I can’t stay interested because it feels like it’s just a matter of time rather than skill. Making 400 faith per turn with Yaravan and The Bishop maxed for apostle promotions. Only one close is Kongo in culture but I just can’t seem to stay interested to finish these games, i get to this point and say well why bother since I’m just making clicks. Anyone know how to make the late game interesting?

If your only concern in that game is that particular victory, then I suppose you are done. If there is nothing else within the game that you would like to accomplish along with that Religious Victory, then you are done.

For myself, I always have other goals I want to accomplish independent of any other victory conditions. Occasionally I might be trying for a certain Steam achievement, but usually its some other obscure thing I either decided at the very beginning of the game, or an idea that struck me mid or late game.

For me, there is always something else to do.

 

[Ferocitus]

If you're only concern in that game is that particular victory, then I suppose you are done. If there is nothing else within the game that you would like to accomplish along with that Religious Victory, then you are done.

For myself, I always have other goals I want to accomplish independent of any other victory conditions. Occasionally I might be trying for a certain Steam achievement, but usually its some other obscure thing I either decided at the very beginning of the game, or an idea that struck me mid or late game.

For me, there is always something else to do.

Well put, K.
Some games have no replayability, others have a lot. Then there are others
where the players themselves impose a limit on how replayable a game is.
If they are not prepared to look for other ways to play, or to use mods, then
they have to accept that the game is no longer for them and they should
move on to something else.

 

[Dragonsfire]

I realy enjoy exploring and building, near the end of the game its basically maintenance I find, end up being in a routine.
I end up just starting a new game, Im still learning so I find that more satisfying.

 

[Disgustipated]

Here is some fishery madness if you can handle it. LOL I'm a bit obsessed, the cities aren't even working that many tiles. I guess that's how I finish games. I'm always building something. As a strategy game, it doesn't have much to offer late game, but as a builder game there's something to do. Quitting before finishing would be like getting a pretty girl undressed and not doing anything. You have to follow through.

I'll also share my screenshot of my Mongol game. Look a the mini map. There's always something to conquer. Though my computer wasn't liking this many cities, the game isn't as fast as Vanilla Civ6, and I was getting some slow downs at the end. I brought the Cree back to life just to kill them again. There are open spaces in North America because I razed cities so the Cree city wouldn't flip before I could properly conquer it (I saved them for last). I didn't count my cities, but it was over 70 from what the end game graph looks like.

Either peaceful building or warmongering, I find something to do.

 

[Lee Duane Fitzsimmons]

I have also struggled with this dilemma. I am hoping that Civ VI will eventually have some type of apparatus in place in order to keep this from occurring so frequently with so many good players.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

There's no getting around the fact that there is a (big) gap between the time victory is inevitable and the actual victory screen. I look for different ways to play to keep things interesting, but my favorite is probably to see how many wonders I can build on top of my victory. Once you can win reliably at the Deity level you either have to start competing for fast wins or play multiplayer games if you want to challenge yourself. Personally I've only completed three R&F games (Cree, Mongols and Netherlands) and I'm still having too much fun playing with the new toys to start thinking about what's "optimal" or trying for a Deity win. Eventually the novelty will wear down and I'll put my mind to cracking Deity, but for now I'm just enjoying the new features. I think I want to turn the difficulty down and see what kind of mega-city I can make with ToA and HGB. Other than that... I took a break from Civ and played some XCom2 WoTC. After all, even the best games will start to feel stale after a 1,000+ hours.