Am I the only one who starts games, gets to the modern age, and as victory gets in sight, gets bored and starts over? I just love the early game so much. I'm not saying the late game isn't fun, but for me the joy is in sowing the seeds and watching them grow. I get bored eating the finished vegetables.
I'm SoonerJBD, and I am addicted to the early game
- Thread starter SoonerJBD
- Start date
You're managing to get to the Modern Era?! Tell me your secret man!
I rarely get passed the Renaissance!
Don't know what to tell you dude.. I've had this curse since I've started (more than a year ago) and have yet to find a cure. Although I can see a positive trend when I try to find out what is it exactly that I like and try to shorten the game concentrating on it.
Example: My 7th finished game in my life happened 2 days ago.
It was:
Carthage
Fractal
Standard Size
Marathon Speed
10 Civs (All the Ancient Era civs)
Time and Domination
Turn Timer: 333
Deity
Idea: I love early game wars and I have always feel they are lacking in my games since on Immortal and Deity the AI blazes through tech. So @Deity it's impossible to have a long early game unless playing on Marathon. Since I never finish my games I thought that I should change the settings to advantage my "handicap" - the game would end during the period I love, so I couldn't lose interest! At turn 333 the Civ with the the points would win or someone would achieve a DV! And 333 turns aren't that much on Marathon Speed! I must say it was an awesome game! Finally found a way to scratch my itch for the early eras' wars!
Anyways, post became an essay, so I'll try to stop now. I know it may seem like I'm mostly talking about myself, but maybe somewhere in the post I have given you an idea for you to find a fix for this Bug, because I'm definitely sympathetic, it sucks!
I rarely get passed the Renaissance!
Don't know what to tell you dude.. I've had this curse since I've started (more than a year ago) and have yet to find a cure. Although I can see a positive trend when I try to find out what is it exactly that I like and try to shorten the game concentrating on it.
Example: My 7th finished game in my life happened 2 days ago.
It was:
Carthage
Fractal
Standard Size
Marathon Speed
10 Civs (All the Ancient Era civs)
Time and Domination
Turn Timer: 333
Deity
Idea: I love early game wars and I have always feel they are lacking in my games since on Immortal and Deity the AI blazes through tech. So @Deity it's impossible to have a long early game unless playing on Marathon. Since I never finish my games I thought that I should change the settings to advantage my "handicap" - the game would end during the period I love, so I couldn't lose interest! At turn 333 the Civ with the the points would win or someone would achieve a DV! And 333 turns aren't that much on Marathon Speed! I must say it was an awesome game! Finally found a way to scratch my itch for the early eras' wars!
Anyways, post became an essay, so I'll try to stop now. I know it may seem like I'm mostly talking about myself, but maybe somewhere in the post I have given you an idea for you to find a fix for this Bug, because I'm definitely sympathetic, it sucks!
Any level. Although easier level games get boring more quickly because you can pretty plainly see how you are going to win by the time you are in the mid-game.
I do think the late game is more fun on deity and higher levels in general because it's just so much more difficult to know for sure how it is going to end. You might think you are closing in on a victory when a hostile army shows up on your doorstep and changes the math.
Regardless, I just have more fun exploring the map, finding and securing the best expansion sites and trying to hit all my marks for setting up a great empire. It's so satisfying when you pull it off just like you planned, particularly if you have to troubleshoot some sort of hurdle.
killmeplease
Mk Z on Steam
late game is less dynamic and more tedious
you just click through production queues and hoard great scientists
you just click through production queues and hoard great scientists
TheMarshmallowBear
Benelovent Chieftain of the Ursu Kingdom
This is exactly why Civ 5 fails. The Late game has so little to do.
I'm really hoping Civ 6 will change the overall design of the game.
I'm wondering what makes Civ 4 interesting to play during the same period of time.
Late game warfare can be dynamic and lots of fun. Actually achieving non-domination victory conditions is where I think it gets less satisfying. I like the world congress and manipulating other Cubs to get what I want passed. But the vote for world leader is less satisfying because it's just a question of allying enough city states. You mentioned science. Cultural is similar. There just isn't a satisfying end to those victory paths.
liv
Emperor
- Joined
- Dec 2, 2010
- Messages
- 1,394
On the highest difficulties a culture victory may be the hardest to achieve. Science may be the easiest as you can do that in isolation and it very often is not determined on what else is happening in the game. "All" you have to do is to get a good fast start the rest follows
Unless you are like me and get distracted by the game and suddenly find your scientists bulbing military techs instead
Tristan_C
Emperor
- Joined
- Aug 16, 2006
- Messages
- 1,724
Civ4's Modern and Future are interesting if the world is at tech parity. Yields from tiles and/or corporations finally all come together; the massive output seems to awaken the AIs from their torpor and there is a lemming stampede towards different victory conditions. This is quite a change in pace, as beforehand, the AIs are more obviously just playing their personalities.
I think the OP's point applies to the earlier civs. The wealth overload is useful to a person who seems to have already won, but maybe just isn't playing optimally anymore, and it will help wrap a game up fast. It can be hard to get through the last few turns if the match is decided.
SULOMON
Mod Civs Best Civs.
I usually stop playing by the Industrial Era. After that there are barely any unique units to keep things interesting and the game is generally decided by that point anyway. If not it's simply a matter of getting artillery.
On the highest difficulties a culture victory may be the hardest to achieve. Science may be the easiest as you can do that in isolation and it very often is not determined on what else is happening in the game. "All" you have to do is to get a good fast start the rest follows
Unless you are like me and get distracted by the game and suddenly find your scientists bulbing military techs instead
Difficulty is not the question. An easy victory can be satisfying if the gameplay is fun, although it's obviously more interesting when success is not guaranteed. A difficult victory is not always satisfying. My complaint with cultural victory is that the ending is just not satisfying. One turn you are aren't popular enough in the last Civ, and the next you are. Game over. I don't know if I'm suggesting the game needs more cutscenes or something, but I wish you got more of a feel for how your culture is catching on. Some sort of visual or audio cues from Civs where your culture is taking over would be nice. Like maybe they change the names of cities to mirror your great people or something.
But with domination, you get to plan and then execute your invasions. You get to see and hear as your opponents' units are blown to smithereens and watch your armies march on their capitols. You are obviously likely to engage in late game warfare with other victory conditions, but defending while you go for a science or diplomatic or cultural victory doesn't bring the same satisfaction as unleashing nukes and stealth bombers and giant death robots on the enemy en masse.
I find it fun to build up to any of those victory conditions. But the actual victory itself feels less satisfying.
I have found a pretty similar thing. Usually around the renaissance is when i get bored. I find mods help though. I use the Community Balance Patch, a ton of Whoward's pick'n'mix mods, and lately ive been experimenting with cultural diversity, piety and prestige, and exploration continued expanded. They play rather nicely together and i think it makes the games a lot more interesting
SULOMON
Mod Civs Best Civs.
GBRs and stealth bombers are to easy, more tedious than fun for me. But I do enjoy a good GW Infantry, landship blitzkrieg. Or just a continuous mass push of riflemen and artillery. I will admit part of the reason is I don't like how the later units look that much (riflemen model best model).
I mentioned difficulty level because, in my experience, a lack of a conceivable threat, or a remotely competitive opposition, is the source of apathy for most players. Most of us play at a difficulty level where we're going to win the vast majority of the time, most of which is also because it's deity and we can't crank it up anymore. But even so, at the start of the game at any level at or above Prince, the player is behind the AI and at that moment, there is a perceived vulnerability and problem to be solved. This is what most strategy games break down to: problem-solving, and as fans of this game that's something that we like to do.
But for experienced and capable players, levels between King and Immortal present the thrill of starting vulnerable and needing to catch up, coupled with the safety-net of insurance on the time we're going to invest in the game: the AI at that level is NOT going to beat us, it can't. Deity in an entirely different game, where the thrill of initial vulnerability is markedly increased, but the safety-net disappears because I maintain (subjectively) that there are some situations where with this civ, this map, these neighbors, you're going to lose the game.
If you play at a level below your ability, the benefit is that you can try things that won't work on your level (ex. piety starts) or experiment with alternative strategies. The downside is that you still play as proficiently as you can, and you put yourself in a position where winning the game is a foregone conclusion and you're just going through the motions to achieve victory. There may still be situations to read and respond to, but all the problem-solving for that game is done. If this is accomplished by the medieval or renaissance era, then the time spent in that game breaks down to 5% setting up victory and 95% turn-clicking to realize that victory.
But yes, a lot of it also has to do with the game mechanics of the late game. I'm currently deleting a Denmark small continents game where victory is a foregone conclusion. I missed the window for berserker dominance, but just loaded the game at turn 170ish and all opponents are renaissance entering industrial, I oxford-slinged radio and have an embarked carpet of 8 rifles, 4 gatlings and 6 cannons, escorted by 5 frigates and 3 privateers. They're going island hopping against deity-sized hordes of pikes and knights, with a few new muskets as well. And that's the first of 5 AI that I'll have to grind through. It will be epic, it will be successful, and it will be tedious to the point that I simply don't want to do it.
You can lose on deity, but again, you are going to know that by the mid-game or even earlier. Late game is going through the motions regardless. There are occasional situations where a specific AI might be relatively close, but the AI just isn't capable of adjusting to a specific threat like a human player is.
I have to respectfully disagree to this point in certain circumstances. I think you're referring to the situations where you are DoWed and a horde of pikes, longswords, and trebs enters your lands and you only have a composite bow, 2 archers that you can't afford to upgrade, and a couple of warriors. In that case, game's pretty much over. This situation can be defused, though, by war-bribing and the important follow-up (which we sometimes forget) of creating the units to neutralize that threat when the war-bribe terminates.
The situation that I find to be the most fun is when you have a runaway deity AI and you're racing against them until the very end. They hit modern before you, maybe even atomic before you, and pose a realistic threat of beating you right up until you're a few turns from winning. These are the only games that I find a relatively consistent level of enjoyment from start to finish, and the reason is that there's a perceived vulnerability even late game, and that there's still problem-solving that needs to be done in the atomic or even info era.
Illianor123
Warlord
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2014
- Messages
- 293
I think he more means situations where you are sandwiched between the Huns and the Aztecs (who are on opposite sides of you, and won't meet each other without going through your (relatively flat) borders, and you're wondering which one will be the one to take your capital after the turn 20 DOW, (good thing for me was that I was experimenting on King and so I wasn't actually crushed, but if it was the same set up on Diety then you are going to lose.
Isolated Venice can also be bad (where you sea is blocked off from the rest of the world by ice).
Isolated Venice can also be bad (where you sea is blocked off from the rest of the world by ice).
killmeplease
Mk Z on Steam
i dont remember civ4 very good but i think it had same problem too
at least at war, you had to capture every city not just capitals; though moving the SoD around was easier than 20 individual units.
killmeplease
Mk Z on Steam
how to make the game less boring in the late phase, some ideas:
- in a domination victory, i think weaker AIs should resign after the alpha dogs were crushed. also the vassalage mechanic from civ4 could be revived so you did not have to conquer weak civs but subjugate them diplomatically
- culture victory: less tied to technology. e.g. techs like internet affect all players not just the one who has researched it. there should be more active ways to create tourism than to run gwams in the guilds in the early game.
- in general, science should be less powerful and it should not be needed to rush science just for every VC. now players are restricted to the narrow path of science techs and rationalism, science is just op. also backwards civs should be able to catch up easier, e.g. spies should steal techs faster and trade routes should give more science.
- expansion should give benefits on every game stage not just pre-medieval. its expansion which makes early game such entertaining. later in the game new cities should start with free buildings and population, and resources should be more valuable. now its too easy to get the needed resources or luxes buying them from other civs or with cs. late game happines should be an issue too.
- as your empire grows, you should be able to combine several cities into provinces or something like that, so those had one production queue. AIs and city states should create leagues also (or make vassal states so the lesser members could not conduct diplomacy on their own). I mean, at the every moment in the game the player should not have to control more than say 10 objects in a given shpere - economy, diplomacy, military etc. otherwise it becomes exhausting.
- in a domination victory, i think weaker AIs should resign after the alpha dogs were crushed. also the vassalage mechanic from civ4 could be revived so you did not have to conquer weak civs but subjugate them diplomatically
- culture victory: less tied to technology. e.g. techs like internet affect all players not just the one who has researched it. there should be more active ways to create tourism than to run gwams in the guilds in the early game.
- in general, science should be less powerful and it should not be needed to rush science just for every VC. now players are restricted to the narrow path of science techs and rationalism, science is just op. also backwards civs should be able to catch up easier, e.g. spies should steal techs faster and trade routes should give more science.
- expansion should give benefits on every game stage not just pre-medieval. its expansion which makes early game such entertaining. later in the game new cities should start with free buildings and population, and resources should be more valuable. now its too easy to get the needed resources or luxes buying them from other civs or with cs. late game happines should be an issue too.
- as your empire grows, you should be able to combine several cities into provinces or something like that, so those had one production queue. AIs and city states should create leagues also (or make vassal states so the lesser members could not conduct diplomacy on their own). I mean, at the every moment in the game the player should not have to control more than say 10 objects in a given shpere - economy, diplomacy, military etc. otherwise it becomes exhausting.
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