That's an entirely different problem. By which I mean, it's one that's not directly impacted by simply adding new vectors of interaction - unless they're designed explicitly to favor the underdog, they're more likely to excaberate the problem you highlight rather than mitigate it. Espionage in Civ4 is a prime example.
Oh, I agree with this. My point is more to do with the way the game as a whole is structured, in response to your querying my characterisation of war as the main form of interaction as a 'problem'. If there's essentially one route to victory, as is generally the case in Civ games, further subdividing the number of victory conditions you can shoot for in the late game is largely a window-dressing exercise. You have the better strategy, it's the better strategy for every one of the existing victory conditions.
It's also something that's true for most strategy games, with exceptions rare enough that I can't actually think of any off the top of my head.
It's something that can be true for most strategy games. It's not the default route to victory for most - you don't generally win chess by taking so many of your opponent's pieces that he has no way of coming back. Of course the goal is to manoeuvre your opponent into a position where he's forced into check, but it's the essence of a strategy game - rather than a puzzle game - that your opponent can counter or derail your strategy, rather than trying to find the single optimal route to victory that works every time. There's a reason in Civ V for the ubiquity of the GL-HS-PT route; once you have that strong a tech advantage, and a high rate of scientist generation from this combination of Wonders, there really isn't very much an opponent can do to restore parity. And if you get the GL and are in a position to select Theology as the free tech, there's no prospect of another player beating you to HS, while you're sufficiently far advanced techwise that you're unlikely to be beaten to Education. And the trouble with this kind of puzzle game in strategy game clothing is that it doesn't revolve around who has the best strategy; any cookie-cutter build taken from the internet will always work whatever your opponent's strategy or counters. It also becomes boring once the snowball hits - either you're the leader and there's no challenge, or you aren't and you either set yourself objectives to keep yourself occupied (such as wiping out your next biggest rival) or you call it a day.
Certainly there are exceptions - there are Civ games that can be (or can seem) close right to the end, but in my experience it's much more common for one player or another to reach critical mass and run away with the game. When this happens early (say, you're in MP and one player gets the GL-HS-PT), it can be game over - your rivals can at best refuse to sign RAs with you, but that does nothing to overcome your GS production advantage.
Actually, it's effective against anyone who lets their military lag while they focus on economy or growth - at least, until they leverage their advantage in those fields to catch up and then overtake you on the military side. "Pulling ahead" in one field usually involves a window where you lag behind on others - and it's not until that window closes that you become untouchable.
This, I'd argue, is the essential issue - this doesn't work well in practice. I've had games where opponents have had the jump on me militarily, but then I adjust to build a bigger military and can usually carry on the same strategy unopposed, so long as I have at least one production city I can devote to military development full-time. In Civ everything is so closely-tied to science that if you have the lead in science, there are few trade-offs with other aspects of play - you have a lead in science buildings to accelerate your tech further, more production building techs, more economic techs. You can afford to develop more slowly in these areas once you have a strong enough lead over your rivals. I only run into the need to compromise strongly when going for culture victory, since I want to maximise culture in all cities and generally to expand slowly.
And I'd also argue this is where Civ4's SoD gives it a bit of an advantage. Between 1UPT and city-militias, it's much easier to bog down an invasion and hold out long enough to shut that window against someone looking to exploit it.
Not to mention the AI. When your only sanction against rivals is war, and the AI can't handle warfare, the game is going to seem too easy.
And can easily fight off attempts to out-bid him on CS influence. And have more power on the espionage front (at least in previous editions - we'll see in a bit whether Civ5's implementation breaks the trend.)
From what we've heard so far, I doubt it. Espionage is tied to entering the Renaissance (no one gets spies before that), and spies develop through gaining experience. That seems a recipe for a tech race to the Renaissance to get the earliest spies and consequently promote them more quickly; again, the tech leader gets the advantage. Although since rushing to the next era isn't always the most effective tech route for victory, there may be a balancing factor there or at least an interesting dynamic.
I read that as "if you outplay the opponent and nullify his/her attempts to interact with your victory, you win." Which in turn I read as "how things should be."
It's how things should be if this is the only determining factor, but that's not my experience. My strongest common MP opponent is newer than I am to Civ V, but generally better than me in MP Civ IV - he's better at expanding, is more familiar with the Civ IV tech path and hence optimal techs, and tends to develop a stronger military. I'd expect to be somewhat better than him in Civ V, but not to the extent that I run away with the game. Yet we've played full games of Civ V together twice now - the first game, I was so far ahead that his only recourse was to invade before I completed the Utopia Project, which succeeded because we normally play peaceful games and so I'd completely neglected my military. Had I had an army, my tech advantage would have prevented him from pulling that off. In the second game, he had a strong lead to begin with but fell behind due to a war with France (AI) early enough to drain his resources, and had no prospect of recovering. In our last game of Civ IV, he was hemmed in and unable to expand strongly and, again, my civ was able to snowball.
Granted he probably deserved to lose those games, since he seems very reliant on expansionist strategies and doesn't adapt well when his opportunity to do so is denied, but my point is that he should have had some opportunity to either come back or delay my victory progress. And the fact that AI civs act in exactly the same way, either as leaders or followers, is telling. If the Ottomans lose their capital and most cities, of course it makes sense that they can't recover. But if the English just suffer a defeat in a war they began, lose their army but keep all their cities, they should have a prospect of coming back. No AI civ will ever topple the leading AI, and it's not easy to argue that one AI player is less skilled than another.
And alliances seem to be so badly-coordinated in wartime that neither an AI-AI alliance nor a human-AI alliance is likely to be game changing. In the game I started yesterday, England and Korea - at different sides of my empire - declared war on me simultaneously, with a bunch of Korean archers attacking Susa while English melee forces attacked Persepolis; by the time English ranged units joined the party, the English were out of melee units (which was just as well, since they brought catapults) and I had higher-tech Pikemen against their archers. Although interestingly Isabella saved Susa once Korean melee joined the fray - she seemed to deliberately move her army up to protect my city while my army was taking care of the English, declared war on Sejong and mopped up his attackers and then declared peace without, as far as I know, making any effort to capture Korean territory.
First, 'wonder-rushing' isn't a sanction, it's a competition. Espionage/sabotage is a sanction - an alternative to straight racing for the wonder (if you know where to direct it) or bashing his head in for it.
Competing for city states is... well, a competition that's won by whoever's ahead, just like everything else. And I have trouble viewing it as anything more than an indirect method of interaction, since you're... well, not actually interacting with him. You're interacting with the 'terrain.'
It's direct in the sense that you're directly interfering with another player's strategy - if you build a city to claim an iron resource you want to deny your opponent, you're "interacting with the terrain" but I'd class that as a direct sanction against that opposing civ.
I need to watch the move again. It's been a while.
![[civ5]](/images/icons/civ5/entries/entry2.gif "Civ5 [civ5]"){kind=icon}
.
