Idea: Scaled Game Depth, with Speed

[cassembler]

I always thought game speed as implemented was half-baked, since all it does is affect the frequency of choices, not the amount of choices.

Basic idea: Short games = fewer techs/units/buildings, long games = more techs/units/buildings.

Scale "number of choices" with "number of turns," and the game speed setting truly becomes, "how much time do you have?" instead of "how many choices do you want to make per turn?"


Just a though, curious what you guys think...


(Full disclosure - I only did a quick search in the workshop for C5, but I recall some prior mods have touched on this a bit...)

 

[cassembler]

I can see a case where this should be moved to ideas...

 

[Ryika]

Yes, I thought about that, too.

Imagine Marathon, not with slowed down production, but instead you unlock production chains etc. for every Era. I think that could be pretty amazing if done right.

There are however some limitations. How do you slow down combat enough to make actually building stuff other than units and rolling over everything worthwhile? I think that's the main reason with Marathon in general, disable the Happiness Limitations in Civ 5 and every game ends will me owning half of the map in the medieval era simply because conquering stuff is so efficient.

But slow it down too much and warfare begins to feel like you're not making any progress in war-focused games.

Then there's also the problem of Civs steamrolling out of control in general. The longer the game, the easier it becomes for Civs to dominate. That would need to be prevented by allowing Civs to rubberband without making it feel like you're being punished for getting ahead.

Of course such a project would also be rather massive, and I assume the amount of people who would actually be into such games in the long run would be relatively limited. While it sounds awesome it would certainly get exhausting after a while.

 

[qwerty25]

Edit: i realized before posting that youre actually talking about removing some techs/adding techs foe shorter and longer games. But i do wonder if historic mode would partially fulfill what you want.

So do you mean the "historic mode"? Like this: https://m.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/4xglwi/a_quick_plea_to_firaxis_to_include_a_historic/

With normal production speeds but slow science(and culture now)?

@ryika I think the strength of military (production) over other yields can only be solved if people can also conquer using culture or religion, but probably beyond the scope of this mod to try to fix.

Sent from my LG-H850 using Tapatalk

 

[cassembler]

Edit: i realized before posting that youre actually talking about removing some techs/adding techs foe shorter and longer games.
...
So do you mean the "historic mode"? Like this: https://m.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/4xglwi/a_quick_plea_to_firaxis_to_include_a_historic/

With normal production speeds but slow science(and culture now)?

Yes and partially... I'm all for adding depth/scale/granularity at longer game speeds, but I'm more interested in the speedier games. Family life + epic timescales = no finished games...

I'd love a quick game on a small/medium map to only take a few hours, but because each era only has 5 techs/3 units instead of the entire standard game simply being compressed into fewer turns... (The flipside of course is on longer games, there are more techs and units, but more subtle increments of value; thus the pacing of the game is similar, it's just a longer, deeper game... Obviously, adding depth is easily done, and has been, but I've not seen anyone taking away depth...)

Call me crazy for wanting 'less depth', but the hours I once had for gaming have evaporated, and it is usually days/weeks between play sessions for me

 

[Ryika]

Yes and partially... I'm all for adding depth/scale/granularity at longer game speeds, but I'm more interested in the speedier games. Family life + epic timescales = no finished games...

I'd love a quick game on a small/medium map to only take a few hours, but because each era only has 5 techs/3 units instead of the entire standard game simply being compressed into fewer turns... (The flipside of course is on longer games, there are more techs and units, but more subtle increments of value; thus the pacing of the game is similar, it's just a longer, deeper game... Obviously, adding depth is easily done, and has been, but I've not seen anyone taking away depth...)

Call me crazy for wanting 'less depth', but the hours I once had for gaming have evaporated, and it is usually days/weeks between play sessions for me

That's no excuse.

Why not just embrace the fact that every game takes 3 weeks to finish?

 

[cassembler]

That's no excuse.

Why not just embrace the fact that every game takes 3 weeks to finish?

Denial. Filthy, raw, scathing denial of adulthood.