Make it more dynamical

[Ultraworld]

IMO the game is not dynamical enough. Would the number 1 civ suddenly fell into decay? Is it possible for a civ which start in 140 AD to become #1 after 1500 years? No.
Currently the strong civs become stronger and the weak civs weaker. (Except at the end of course). I hope the developpers will take this in account.

 

[warpstorm]

So, you want it to be random? Otherwise, the strong will tend to become stronger. Would you really want your strong Civ to become weaker just because the developers thought it'ds liven things up?

 

[Ultraworld]

yes. . . at least for other civs

 

[judgement]

Originally posted by warpstorm
So, you want it to be random? Otherwise, the strong will tend to become stronger. Would you really want your strong Civ to become weaker just because the developers thought it'ds liven things up?

As many people have observed, success builds upon success in a "snowball" effect: the strong get stronger and the weak weaker. 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? But the flip side is that the later parts of the game can become boring, since the outcome is no longer in any doubt: if I know I've already achieved enough success to win, why bother keep playing?

IMHO, there are really only two ways to keep things interesting in the endgame. Both ways can be used to some extent at the same time. The first is to try to prevent you (or any of the AI civs, for that matter) from becoming too much bigger and stronger than everyone else too early in the game, i.e., delay the point at which one civ becomes dominant. The second way is to introduce elements which can upset the status quo, i.e., make dominance less of a permanent condition. The first way attempts to slow down the "snowball" effect, and the second attempts to overturn it completely.

There are currently several mechanisms in the game that use the first method: corruption is a prime example. Corruption makes expansion produce dominishing returns, so that a large civ is not as much more powerful relative to a small civ as it would be if all cities were equal. There are also a few elements of the game that make limited use of the second way... golden ages, for example. A golden age lets a civ that is not the biggest or strongest have a chance to catch up and thus change the relative balance of power in the game. "Random events" certainly fall into this second category, but, the golden age concept is a good illustration of the fact that things that make the game more "dynamical" do not always have to be random: there's nothing random about the onset of a golden age, but it still gives a chance for the status quo to be shaken up a bit.

Both of the ways that I have described (slowing the snowball effect or overturning it) can help keep the game interesting longer when used correctly, but can decrease the fun when overdone. Certainly many people complain about the corruption implementation in Civ 3: its important to have something slowing unlimited expansion, but on the other hand, its not really any fun to build or conquer new cities and have them be nearly useless. Likewise, things that can shake up the balance of power can make the game more interesting (keep you guessing about who will win) but, if overdone, can lead to extreme frustration ("my perfectly good game, where I was doing really well, was ruined by some stupid random event").

I agree with Ultraworld that the game could stand to be a little more dynamic, but I also feel that it'd be easy to take the idea too far and sacrifice gameplay for realism. Basically, what I'd like is this: if you are the dominant civ, you shouldn't suddenly be reduced to less-than-dominance by any particular event, but you should experience some times when its easier to maintain your dominance and some times when staying on top requires some clever playing (how clever, naturally, depends on difficulty level). In other words, if I manage to become the biggest and most advanced civ, I should be likely to win, but it shouldn't be so easy that I get bored. Furthermore, when looking at the AI civs, it would be more interesting if, over the course of the game, which civs were powerful or not, and which were big threats to me or not, would change a little more. As it stands now, if you look at the world in the middle ages and see that the Japanese, for example, are the biggest AI civ, you can pretty much count on them staying that way unless you do something about it yourself. I don't want it to change every turn, I'm just saying that the possibility of a little more turnover over the course of the game would be nice.

 

[Borg]

Using "random events" to bring more balance to the game is a very bad idea IMO.
Nobody, absolutely nobody, would like to crawl back into a game, finally rise to the top after much struggle and clever play and then lose it all of a sudden to a random event.

Keeping the game interesting after a superpower has emerged will indeed not be simple.
A possible solution might be ......... an improved AI.

I think two or more nations should be able to put their "differences" aside at some point and join together to bring an (emerging) superpower down a few notches.
Certainly when those nations recognise the fact that they are falling behind.

Currently , the only time when the AI joins forces is when they've sniffed out a weak target and they dogpile on the nation.

Stronger nations are often left alone or are only attacked when the smaller civilisation has no room to expand anymore.
Usually the weak(er) civ attacks alone and has no chance against the biggie.

The weaker civs should have better cooperation to bring the bigger nation(s) down (a bit).
If that could be implemented, that would lead to prolongued and balanced games I think.

ps sorry for my "broken English"

 

[ComradeDavo]

Whilst for awhile it is fun to see your civ dominating the whole time, it does get a little tiring after a few games. So more randomness would be welcome, plus also the ability to pursue more techs and take your civ down different paths would be good.

Random events could include natural disasters, civil wars, world wars, collaspe of civs (if suddenly one of your rivals collasped and left a power vacum then some fun could be had fihghting with over civs to fill it) and so on.

 

[judgement]

Using "random events" to bring more balance to the game is a very bad idea IMO.
Nobody, absolutely nobody, would like to crawl back into a game, finally rise to the top after much struggle and clever play and then lose it all of a sudden to a random event.

A random event does not necessarily have to be a game-altering event. If I attack your spearman with my archer, the result is random, but neither of us is devasted if we lose since we understand that the odds are about even and thus we're likely to lose about half the time.

My point is that just because an event is random doesn't mean it would have to be the sort of even that would cause you to "lose it all" suddenly. You have a valid point only if we're talking about a few random events with large consequences. A much better system would be many random events with small consequences. In other words, if earthquakes, famines, plagues, rebellions and so on occur quite frequently, but only affect a small area (perhaps a single city, the way volcanoes in C3C do), then no single event will make or break you game. But, the bigger your empire, the more these things will affect you. Its the total of many random events that has an effect on the game, not any one event in particular, and that total can be relatively predictable even if the individual events are not. Just like combat - individual battles are random, but the total result can be quite predictable. If I invade you with 30 archers and you only have 5 spearmen, I'm going to win, even though I don't know which battles in particular I will win or exactly how many archers I'll have surviving at the end. It should be the same way with "random events" - the largest civ will have the most trouble with rebellions (since it's harder to keep a bigger civ together), and the most occurrences of earthquakes, fires, etc. (since they have the most cities). There's nothing random or mysterious - it's quite predictable that the largest civ will have the most trouble. The only thing random and unpredictable is which cities in particular are hit by earthquakes, fires, etc.

There would be no situation in which you could struggle to the top and then lose everything due to a single random event. I agree, absolutely nobody would enjoy that, but that doesn't mean smaller, more frequent random events are a bad idea. As long as the consequences of each individual event aren't too serious, then they won't ruin your game any more than a single occurence of bad luck during combat. Its not uncommon to get unlucky and lose a knight to a spearman or something similar. It's very uncommon that a single instance of that happening makes the difference between winning and losing a game!

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

As I've said so many times before, I fall somewhere in the middle! What I liked about golden ages, Plagues and Volcanoes in Civ3 is that, although they are in some ways random, there is a strong element of player actions influencing the final outcome. For instance, a plague could devestate your empire but, if you're prepared to forego your trade income, you can sever your trade links until after the disease has dissipated! There are other player choices which can effect the severity of plagues-for good or bad!
So it should be for all other so-called 'random events'. If you ruthlessly expand your empire to cover 2-3 continents, then you should stand a good chance of suffering a civil war in some of the most outlying 'provinces'-possibly leading to a new, independant nation, one which will now be hostile towards you ! Of course, even the most ruthless, expansionist player, could minimise the chance of civil war by keeping all of these cities very happy, very wealthy or have LOTS of troops stationed in them-'whatever floats your boat'! I do agree that a purely random event which creates even a moderate setback would be frustrating to even the most dedicated civver-no matter HOW historically accurate they want the game to be ! This is why I DEFINITELY lean more towards the semi-random approach to events. It would keep the game interesting, throughout, without wrecking otherwise winning strategies!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

EDIT: Come to think of it, if you had civil wars in the game, then you would have a new bonus for the otherwise poor 'Expansionist' trait. In my opinion, Seafaring and Expansionist civs should have a reduced chance of civil war breaking out in their empire!

 

[judgement]

As I've said so many times before, I fall somewhere in the middle! What I liked about golden ages, Plagues and Volcanoes in Civ3 is that, although they are in some ways random, there is a strong element of player actions influencing the final outcome.

Exactly: the occurence itself is random (analagous to the random result of a round of combat) but the chances of the event occuring are directly influenced by player actions (analagous to choosing which units to send into combat, which enemy units to attack, etc.) so that the total result is reasonably predictable (analagous to knowing you'll win a war if you send a dozen cavalry against a half dozen spearmen, or shaking in your boots if you see a SOD of infantry coming and all you have is pikemen). The important thing is this: even though the individual events are random, the total effect is predictable enough that you can incorporate it into your strategy rather than letting it disrupt your strategy.

EDIT: Come to think of it, if you had civil wars in the game, then you would have a new bonus for the otherwise poor 'Expansionist' trait. In my opinion, Seafaring and Expansionist civs should have a reduced chance of civil war breaking out in their empire!

I'm just curious: why Seafaring? Expansionist I can understand. One should also consider that some other traits like Commercial and Religious would be indirectly strengthened since the extra money or cheaper religious buildings, in the course of making it easier to keep the people wealthy and/or happy, would decrease the chances of rebellions.

 

[Borg]

A much better system would be many random events with small consequences. In other words, if earthquakes, famines, plagues, rebellions and so on occur quite frequently, but only affect a small area (perhaps a single city, the way volcanoes in C3C do), then no single event will make or break you game. But, the bigger your empire, the more these things will affect you.

OK I see your point, but I'm afraid that those "many random events with small consequences" will soon become very BORING and DISTRACTING to the players and take too much of their real-time and attention away from the real strategy part of the game.
Let me show you with an example. I think that there already ARE "many random events with small consequences" in the current game.
It's called "Pollution". I have the impression that the majority of the players find pollution very boring and annoying after a while and that it's not really adding much to the game. (except off course after a nuke attack)
So, I'm afraid that those "many random events with small consequences" would soon translate into "many annoying unnecessary and time consuming distractions".
Instead of "bugging" the players with negative effects I think we need more of a positive effect which does not get annoying after a while but ADDS some strategic element to the game.
Random events do not add strategy to the game IMO and are ......... well simply too random to prepare against.

 

[hclass]

This is the best thread I have ever read in all the Civ forums. You guys should be close assistants to SID.

Perhaps this one should be made sticky thread to ensure someone from Faraxis (especially SID) reads it.

 

[judgement]

OK I see your point, but I'm afraid that those "many random events with small consequences" will soon become very BORING and DISTRACTING to the players and take too much of their real-time and attention away from the real strategy part of the game.
Let me show you with an example. I think that there already ARE "many random events with small consequences" in the current game.
It's called "Pollution". I have the impression that the majority of the players find pollution very boring and annoying after a while and that it's not really adding much to the game. (except off course after a nuke attack)
So, I'm afraid that those "many random events with small consequences" would soon translate into "many annoying unnecessary and time consuming distractions".
Instead of "bugging" the players with negative effects I think we need more of a positive effect which does not get annoying after a while but ADDS some strategic element to the game.
Random events do not add strategy to the game IMO and are ......... well simply too random to prepare against.

That's a good point, but other types of random events wouldn't necessarily be the same as pollution. I have the same impression you do, that the majority of players find dealing with pollution boring and annoying, but in my opinion, that's a consequence of how you must deal with it, not a consequence of pollution itself. Its the extra clicks and keystrokes necessary to control and/or automate your workers to clean up pollution, and the need to keep a bunch of extra workers standing around just for that purpose, that make pollution tedious. And the other annoying element is that you can't avoid it: there's no real way to get recycling plants, mass transit, etc. in time to avoid having pollution pop up- so it always affects you, no matter what your strategic choices are. Compare this with a different "random event," galleys sinking at sea. That occurs randomly, and obviously affects your choices as a player, but its easily avoided (just end your turn in a coast tile), and you can decide as a player how many risks to take with your galleys. The designers have already said that they're going to revamp the way pollution is handled, to eliminate the "whack-a-mole" effect, but that doesn't necessarily mean that whatever effects pollution will have in Civ 4 won't be somewhat random- randomness in itself isn't bad, just random events that are completely unavoidable and whose results are tedious to deal with.

The point of pollution is to make you think twice before building tons of factories and power plants - these things give you advantages but also carry a disadvantage. The unintended consequence is a lot of tedious worker management. Presumably, Civ 4 would like to keep the former but eliminate the latter.

Volcanoes (in C3C) don't require any extra tedium. They exist simply as an element of extra interest, making you think twice about building a city in certain tiles. Likewise, resource dissappearance/reappearance (another "random event") doesn't make the game more tedious, it simply keeps things interesting by making access to a strategic resource less of a sure thing. In other words, these things influence your strategy, but they don't add any boring, tedious element to the game the way that pollution does.

A properly designed system of random events wouldn't add any extra tediousness for the player, it would simple alter a player's strategy. Personally, I would think that many players might find it interesting and fun to have to consider such things as the possibility of rebellions, natural disasters, etc., when planning their strategy.

For example, consider a potential random event called "Storm at Sea" that can randomly sink ancient and middle age ships (even when close to shore). If you want to invade a neighbor, you would have an interesting strategic choice: invade by land only, even though it will take your forces longer to get where they're going, or invade by sea, even though you run the risk of losing some of your forces to a storm. Or, hedge your bets and send some forces by sea and some by land. The point is, the existence of storms as a random event would make your decision a bit more interesting, without adding any tediousness like managing pollution.

Assuming that the odds of rebellions were affected by various things under a players control (like people's happiness, cultural values of a city, military units stationed there, etc.) then they would also serve to add an interesting strategic element, without necessarily increasing tedium. You'd have a variety of options for minimizing the occurences of rebellions: you could use any of them alone, a combination of all of them, or not use any for a while and take a risk that a rebellion might happen. Yes, it would be annoying to constantly have to put down rebellions (it would be whack-a-mole, just like pollution). But you'd only have to do it constantly if you chose not to do anything to avoid the problem. In other words, it'd be like losing all your galleys in sea and ocean tiles. You could claim its annoying to lose all your galleys, but the reality is that you could have played differently and made sure to end their turns in safe coastal tiles, so really, its not an external annoyance, its a consequence of your own poor play.

Any random events introduced to the game should mainly serve to offer you strategic choices about how much risk to accept. Combat is the main occurence of randomness in the game, but no one complains that random results make the game tedious and annoying (well, except the occasional freak result like a tank losing to a spearman ). Randomness in combat merely makes you think about how much risk you're comfortable with when planning your strategy, i.e., do you attack a city with 6 knights, when you'll only probably win, or do you wait until you have 10 knights, when you'll almost definately win. Or if you're really bold or desperate, attack with only 4 knights, even though that's taking a big gamble. You can't control the randomness itself, but its presence makes planning a strategy more interesting, precisely because its not too random to prepare against.

My point is, pollution is a bad example of randomness in Civ, but there are also plenty of good examples, and I think its perfectly reasonable to want to include other types of random events. They simply must follow these maxims: (1) have relatively minor consequences, so bad luck doesn't ruin anyone's game, (2) be at least somewhat preventable, so that they encourage you to take them into account when planning a strategy, and (3) not involve extra tedious work to deal with the results, like pollution (losing a galley at sea or having your source of iron dissappear may be bummers, but they don't add tedium).

 

[hclass]

Hello judgement,

"3) not involve extra tedious work to deal with the results, like pollution "

I will suggest this to be:
3) not involve extra tedious work to deal with the results OR provide a mean to stop the random event at all. (immagine building a wonder or archieving some tech which make polution no more exist in one's territory)

 

[judgement]

Hello judgement,

"3) not involve extra tedious work to deal with the results, like pollution "

I will suggest this to be:
3) not involve extra tedious work to deal with the results OR provide a mean to stop the random event at all. (immagine building a wonder or archieving some tech which make polution no more exist in one's territory)

Hmmm. Well, you can already build recycling plants, mass transit, hydro plants, and so on to reduce polution... but they don't come soon enough, so everyone's stuck dealing with polution for a portion of the game, which isn't fun.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

OK, I personally feel that pollution would work better this way:

Each city has a 'pollution scale', cut into four sections: harmless, annoying, harmful and deadly. When you pass into the annoying range, there is a chance of hexes in your city radius becoming less productive and that the population of that city will become unhappy. When it crosses into the harmful zone, then the unhappiness and hex degredation effects become more severe-even to the point of mild-terrain changes. In addition, there is now a small chance of population losses due to pollution-related deaths. Lastly, at this level, a % of the city's pollution now goes into the national 'pollution scale'. When it crosses into the deadly range, all of the previously mentioned effects are increased again-so major unhappiness and hex degredation/terrain change, as well as a greater chance of population losses. Your national 'pollution scale' would work much like your city one, only effecting a MUCH broader area-mostly within and just outside of your border areas. This means that hexes and cities, anywhere within your borders, can be hit by the pollution effects mentioned above. In addition, from harmful and above, a % of your national pollution will contribute to the Global 'Pollution Scale'. This is the pollution that can lead to global warming, destruction of WHOLE habitats and basically a poor outcome for 'mother earth'!
Improvements and population can all contribute to pollution-as they do now-but so can exploitation of certain resources, modern warfare, deforestation and overexploitation of a hex's resources. Nuclear and chemical weapons will cause a very large SPIKE in a city's pollution scale, and a smaller one in the national scale, but will come down in time if you're not producing any additional pollution.
Putting money into the environment, building environmentally friendly improvements, upgrading your production boosting improvements and underexploiting hexes can all help to stabilise and even reduce your pollution to acceptable levels.
No whack the mole stuff here, as degraded tiles would repair in their own time-depending on how degraded they are AND how much money you have invested in the environment. Of course, terrain changes can be overcome with terraforming-using either Public Works budget, workers or both-depending on what system they choose to use! Still, a hell of a lot less MM involved in my system!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[hclass]

Hello judgement,

"But the flip side is that the later parts of the game can become boring, since the outcome is no longer in any doubt: if I know I've already achieved enough success to win, why bother keep playing?
IMHO, there are really only two ways to keep things interesting in the endgame."

IMO, there is a third way. Allow "better/best way to win". What if at victory point of time, a player can delay a victory, go on pursueing other way of winning and win simultaneously with as many way as possible. (Very high score of course). Immagine the player is prompted:
"You have done what, what .... would you want to declare a SPACE RACE victory?" So the player answer no, and start ploting to brutally capture all rival cities so that he can eventually win with both a SPACE RACE + CONQUER victory.
So long as there is something which motivate one to go on playing, I think it won't be that boring, and to certain extend it can give bigger satisfaction of playing and winning...

 

[judgement]

Hello judgement,

IMO, there is a third way. Allow "better/best way to win". What if at victory point of time, a player can delay a victory, go on pursueing other way of winning and win simultaneously with as many way as possible. (Very high score of course). Immagine the player is prompted:
"You have done what, what .... would you want to declare a SPACE RACE victory?" So the player answer no, and start ploting to brutally capture all rival cities so that he can eventually win with both a SPACE RACE + CONQUER victory.
So long as there is something which motivate one to go on playing, I think it won't be that boring, and to certain extend it can give bigger satisfaction of playing and winning...

Interesting. I must admit that not everyone finds it boring to keep playing even after they know they're going to win. For some players, the game is only interesting as long as its competitive, but some people enjoying trying to get the highest score possible, and others just enjoy building a great civ and don't really care about score or winning/losing.

So, my "two ways" should more accurately be called "two ways to keep the endgame competitive," instead of interesting, since some people find the game plenty interesting even when it's not competitive. The purpose of keeping the game competitive longer, of course, is to keep it challenging longer, since some players (but not all) lose interest once its no longer challenging.

Your suggested "third way" doesn't really do anything to keep the game competitive longer - such a choice at the time you first achieved victory wouldn't have any affect on the earlier part of the game. By the time you get your choice, one civ (yours, assuming you're the one getting the choice) would usually already be far ahead of all others, and the game isn't competitive any more. However, your idea would add a new type of challenge: trying to win by as many ways as possible at the same time. Since some players might enjoy that challenge, I think your idea is pretty good, even though I don't think its a "third way" to do what I'm trying to do (keep the game competitive all the way through).

 

[hclass]

Hello judgement,

"So, my "two ways" should more accurately be called "two ways to keep the endgame competitive," instead of interesting"

That is right. However "Conquer victory" (wipe every rivals) has to end in the so called "snowball" way. Because the player who wipe out all rivals definitely is a single dominant power. (If there is a total of 100 cities built, the winner will have 99 cities under him before he strike the last one right?)
It looks like the option to let user win with "Conquer victory" is contradicting the effort to make endgame competitive (using both of your ways)...

It suddenly become clear to me that if user choose to (or prefer to) win "only by Conquer victory" then he/she shall not be interested in the so call competitive endgame (by removing snowball effect). So things like 99% corrupted (distant) cities should be exampted under this particular case. I have never thought about this before this discussion... Thanks for the guide!

 

[judgement]

I usually play with all victory conditions enabled, and I've found (as many others have) that the easiest way to win is usually conquest: either Domination (66% of land/population) or Elimination (no rivals left). These ways to win should of course be possible, but they should also be balanced with the other ways to win.

In other words, mechanisms to counter the "snowball effect" should never be so strong that its impossible to gain an advantage. On the other hand, they should be strong enough that the first civ to gain a slightly bigger empire than the rest doesn't automatically snowball to victory. You should need to get significantly ahead before you're comfortable assuming that you'll win.

Currently, once I get a little bit ahead, I'm not too worried about any AI civ catching up: I can build up a big army and crush them, build up a big tech lead at go for Space Victory, or whatever I want. If I play a harder difficulty level, I spend more of the early game behind, but once I catch up to the AI and pass them, there's no turning back. Essentially, the game is only challenging as long as I'm not in first place. Harder difficulty levels simply increase the challenge by making harder to get into first place.

I'd like to see it be a little harder to stay in first place. If you're only moderately ahead, you should be constantly concerned about someone else catching up, and therefore playing very carefully in order to get even farther ahead.

hclass, you are quite correct that military victory must end with the snowball effect. The question is simply how soon the snowball starts rolling. 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. Nobody else is a threat to me any more once I'm the biggest. What I'd prefer is a situation in which, even though I had 60 or 70 of them, I still could not rest on my laurels. Other, smaller civs could still pose a potential threat. 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.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

While I agree that deferring the snowball (without too much arbitrary setbacks) would be a very good thing, there's an easier way to make the current game challenging and interesting in the end game: Simply provide an option to reduce the number of turns.

This might simply take turns off the end or spread the current calendar out over fewer turns. Presumably, it will provide some bonus points to score. You'll still get the snowball effect, but now you'd better get it faster if you want to win certain victories. Individual players can set it to whatever they want to give themselves a challenge. For example, a casual regent player might generally achieve the very beginning of a snowball around 1500 AD. Depending on how hard he pushes it, this might lead to a victory between 1650 and 1900. If the game ends at 1700, suddenly the game just got a bit more challenging.