Make it more dynamical

[hclass]

Hello judgement,

"Currently, if there are 100 cities and I have 55 of them, I know already that I'm going to be able to get all 100: the rest of the game becomes just a tedious exercise in destroying weaker neighbors."

This case is quite different from cleaning up pollution (really tedious), capturing cities from a rival is much more interesting. A lot have to be done before and after a rival city is captured. Competing with the rest and trying to be the strongest is challenging and beating weaker rival (by capturing all his cities, bullying) is as interesting. Except when the rival has one or few cities left (no more resist)

Again I would strongly suggest to remove/reduce the effect of "mechanisms to counter the snowball effect" when the choice of player is to win only by "Conquer victory". There isn't a way to determine "WHEN" is the best time to allow snowball effect to take over.

Your idea:
"I should be required to continue to play smart and pay attention to what I'm doing in order to increase my share of cities to 80 or 90. Only once I get that high should it become very obvious that I will win, and the snowball takes over and makes getting the last few cities quite easy"

is not much different from no snowball effect at all throughout the whole game and is contradicting with your opinion:

"Once you are the biggest and most advanced nation by any significant amount, you're pretty much guaranteed victory. To some extent, this is a natural part of the game, and a good one: if success doesn't lead to more success, what's the point of trying to succeed?"

 

[hclass]

To Crazy Jerome,

Ha, ha, ha a great idea: to win only by "Conquering all within xxx turns"
But this has to be done without the annoying "corruption" and crazy-tech-trade among AI players (which serves to close up the tech gap between the strong and weak players)
I.e. this should be really fun: Let the human player (assuming he becomes the strongest at some point) bully the stupid AI rivals as much as he wants (ah ha ha, great idea) however, if he is to win make it within xxx turns, this is the condition that make it challenging. You want to be BAD, do it smartly.

Crazy Jerome you are therefore granted the great prize for making the best suggestion
(just joking...)

 

[Duke_of_BOOM!]

How about civil/revolutionary wars? Your nation would split into various pieces that you would have to fight to regain. Different governments would have different rates of schism, un happy people are more likely to revolt, and of course: the bigger your empire is the more likely it is to break up.

 

[judgement]

There isn't a way to determine "WHEN" is the best time to allow snowball effect to take over.

Sure there is: playtesting.

More to the point: the snowball should "take over" once it becomes obvious who will win. My whole point is that it shouldn't become obvious who will win too early in the game.

Your idea:
"I should be required to continue to play smart and pay attention to what I'm doing in order to increase my share of cities to 80 or 90. Only once I get that high should it become very obvious that I will win, and the snowball takes over and makes getting the last few cities quite easy"

is not much different from no snowball effect at all throughout the whole game and is contradicting with your opinion:

"Once you are the biggest and most advanced nation by any significant amount, you're pretty much guaranteed victory. To some extent, this is a natural part of the game, and a good one: if success doesn't lead to more success, what's the point of trying to succeed?"

No, these don't contradict at all. Currently:

If you're... then the difficulty in getting bigger is....
much smaller than everyone else.... very high difficulty
a little smaller than others.... medium/high difficulty
the same size as others.... medium difficulty
a little bigger than others.... medium/easy
significantly bigger than the others.... very easy
much bigger than the others.... extremely easy

I think this is a pretty good situation (although it couold always be improved). You're rewarded for success, but the game doesn't get boringly easy until you've achieved a significant amount of success.

If, as you suggest, they were to remove/reduce anti-snowball mechanisms, then it will be more like this:

much smaller .... impossible
a little smaller ... high difficulty
same size ... medium difficulty
a little bigger ... easy
significantly bigger .. extremely easy
much bigger ... way too easy

To me, this is no good, because as soon as you achieve a small amount of success, the game gets easy. You don't have to play smart through the whole game, just long enough to get a little bit ahead, and then the snowball effect takes over.
At the opposite extreme, if anti-snowball mechisms are too strong, then its like this:

much smaller ... medium (or worse yet, easy)
a little smaller ... medium
same size ... medium
a little bigger ... medium
significantly bigger ... medium
much bigger ... medium (or worse yet, hard]/i])

This is of course bad as well, because there is no reward for success. No matter how well you do, you get no benefit from it (and maybe even get problems from it) so why bother trying to do well?

So, this is how I think it should be (note that it isn't very different from the current case):

much smaller ... high difficulty to expand
a little smaller ... a little bit harder than medium
same size ... medium
a little bigger ... a little bit easier than medium
significantly bigger ... somewhat easy (but not very easy)
much bigger ... very easy

Another way of saying this is that I think that, although success must be rewarded, the outcome of the game should not become obvious until you're way ahead of all rivals. Once the outcome is obvious, it shouldn't take too long for you to win (since its just delaying the inevitable). But the outcome shouldn't become obvious too early in the game. Without some anti-snowball mechanisms, whichever civ is the first to get just a small amount ahead of the others will always go on to win. The challenge and interest is gone once you know who's going to win. If you're the biggest, you can count on the snowball for victory (so you don't have to play very carefully or intelligently) and if you're small and someone else is snowballing larger and larger, you might as well give up. Personally, I would rather see things such that smart and careful playing is always rewarded, whether you are the biggest or the smallest. Just because you're the biggest, you should still benefit from smart play (and you don't really, if the snowball has already guaranteed that you'll win), and if you're the smallest, smart play should give you some hope of catching up (and it doesn't, if the snowball has already guaranteed that some other civ will win).

 

[judgement]

This is what I'm talking about, graphically:

 

[hclass]

Hello judgement,

Looking at your graph, I don't quite understand it. May be I try it the wrong way or ...
Take the pure snowball effect graph (dark red I assume it means no anti-snowball at all), the graph shouldn't have an upper bound/limit. (The bigger the easier)...

 

[judgement]

Hello judgement,

Looking at your graph, I don't quite understand it. May be I try it the wrong way or ...
Take the pure snowball effect graph (dark red I assume it means no anti-snowball at all), the graph shouldn't have an upper bound/limit. (The bigger the easier)...

You're right, the bigger the easier. The upper "limit" is just to represent the point at which you're so powerful that winning is guaranteed. Once you're more powerful than that, does it really matter anymore how powerful you are?

I guess the red line is a little misleading because they way I plotted it, it flattens out at the top of the plot: really, it should continue off the top. But the plot is just a look at the variations in power that make a difference: once you have so much power that you can't possibly lose, or are so weak that you can't possibly win, then you've moved off the top or bottom of the plot.

Hope that clears up the confusion. The point is, without any anti-snowball mechanism, you reach invincibility when you're not very much bigger than everyone else.

 

[Mojotronica]

Not to toot my own horn, but here are a couple of ways to introduce this concept of "dynamic civs" into the game, or to help counter the "snowball effect:"

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=88439

The designers of Civ 3 have mentioned that they did away with random events because they were arbitrary -- they don't want to include game mechanics that penalize players without some indication of their peril. The negative effects of Swamps, Jungles and now Volcanos are acceptable to the designers because a player can predict what will happen if they choose to start a city in that space.

(And they've allowed for random events in the form of plague for medieval scenarios.)

The key to implementing late-start civs or revolutions that fracture powerful civs is to build rules around such events, and those rules should give the player the opportunity to avoid the pitfall -- at the expense of powerful incentives to accept the risk.

You should think about potential incentives -- what are some powers that would be nice to have? Extra Forbidden Palaces for decreased corruption, for instance? Then build a powerful disinsentive -- e.g. the fracturing of the empire -- into the acquisition of the new power. It can be embraced or avoided as the player decides, but since the choice is the player's the new dynamic system is fair.

 

[judgement]

Not to toot my own horn, but here are a couple of ways to introduce this concept of "dynamic civs" into the game, or to help counter the "snowball effect:"
...

I'm not sure about all the specificsof your "provincial palaces" idea, but I do like the concept of rebellions, etc., as an anti-snowball mechanism. On the other hand, I agree with Misfit's criticism of "barbarians becoming civilized" in the second post in that thread. I think its unlikely that a "late-starting civ" would have much of a chance against established civs, unless there where already plenty of other anti-snowball effects. In that case, a late civ might be able to pull of a rise to significant power, but then, if there's already plenty of other anti-snowball effect making that possible, than we don't really need the barbarians becoming civilized affect in addition, do we? (That's not to say it would't be cool for other reasons, just that it will only be anti-snowball if its not needed as such because there's plenty of other anti-snowball effect).

The designers of Civ 3 have mentioned that they did away with random events because they were arbitrary -- they don't want to include game mechanics that penalize players without some indication of their peril. The negative effects of Swamps, Jungles and now Volcanos are acceptable to the designers because a player can predict what will happen if they choose to start a city in that space.

(And they've allowed for random events in the form of plague for medieval scenarios.)

The key to implementing late-start civs or revolutions that fracture powerful civs is to build rules around such events, and those rules should give the player the opportunity to avoid the pitfall -- at the expense of powerful incentives to accept the risk.

You should think about potential incentives -- what are some powers that would be nice to have? Extra Forbidden Palaces for decreased corruption, for instance? Then build a powerful disinsentive -- e.g. the fracturing of the empire -- into the acquisition of the new power. It can be embraced or avoided as the player decides, but since the choice is the player's the new dynamic system is fair.

I agree, well put. The only thing I would add is that it shouldn't be possible to completely avoid all danger of the pitfall. If that's possible, then there is a specific play style which becomes "safe" and thus a specific style which is "special" because further caution beyond that point is no longer beneficial. I'd rather see a continuum of risk: certain play styles are less risky than others, but you can always do a little more or a little less to minimize your risk, and thus there's never any one specific pattern of play that is singled out by the mechanics of the game as being special.

 

[hclass]

Hello Mojotronica

I have posted something similar to your "provincial palaces" here
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=88434

May I have your comment on the suggested model?