My fear: that there are screens with text "xxx years later" between ages"

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

We’ve tried nothing and are all out of ideas.

Sure.

 

[DWilson]

I wonder if they could balance it better by making over investment in one area require under investment in another which makes you vulnerable. For example, over investing in science requires under investing in population growth or cultural development, or becoming more vulnerable in some way.

It would be difficult for a civilization historically to invest in every area of development. I'll add that it's also commonly held that great success and expansion generally led to corruption and decline, which we know that people do not like in game.

(Edited for more accuracy, and to reduce more absolute over simplification)

 

[Zaarin]

The Romans...more literature...than the Gauls did in 60 BC.

I was going to object about the quality of Roman literature until I saw you were comparing them to a people who only marginally used writing for record keeping. Okay, I'll allow it. You know whom they did not have more literature than in 60 BC? Carthage. I am very resentful about the effect of water on papyrus.

 

[Zaarin]

I'm curious what's our evidence for the existence of a wide body of Punic literature?

Plautus gives evidence of a Punic theatre tradition by using portions of it in his play Poenulus. He treats it as nonsense, but ironically it's one of our most valuable sources on the Punic language. Augustine, a native Punic speaker, also talks about the extensive Punic literature; he goes so far as to say a man can't call himself educated if he can't read Punic. We also have references to and snippets of translations of Punic texts in various Greek and Roman authors. E.g., Hanno the Navigator apparently wrote about his travels in Punic, as referenced in Greek texts, but neither the Punic original nor the Greek translations survive. (I'm a Phoenician nerd. The loss of the Phoenician and Punic corpus cuts me deeper than the loss of the Library of Alexandria. Though, in truth, I don't doubt many a Punic text was also lost in the Library of Alexandria.)

 

[E.C.H]

I wonder if they could balance it better by making over investment in one area require under investment in another which makes you vulnerable. For example, over investing in science requires under investing in population growth or cultural development, or becoming more vulnerable in some way.

It would be difficult for a civilization historically to invest in every area of development. I'll add that it's also commonly held that great success and expansion generally led to corruption and decline, which we know that people do not like in game.

(Edited for more accuracy, and to reduce more absolute over simplification)

I was thinking something similar, that the legacy system and semi-reset on age transitions necessitates specialization in your civs more than previous instalments. Attempting to create a well-rounded empire will lead to less legacy pathways developed deeply and no pivotal Golden Age buffs, which seem pretty damn powerful. Additionally, with each age having objectives and points rewarded for each area of possible victory, you kinda have to be task-orientated and on-the-go the whole game, rather than just vibing and making the perfect neat little empire for the first 3/4 of the game before exploding into your desired victory strategy.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Seems like for Ancient>Exploration transition they would go with an outdated and forced "global dark age" but I wonder what would be the justification for Exploration>Modern era, I guess we should imagine a Aztec>Mexico situation when we England>UK

If I'm not mistaken, I think it was mentioned that between the Exploration and Modern Age would represent the various revolutionary wars worldwide and jump from 1750 to 1850. That would mean it's almost like 3 new post-colonial nations showing up in the Modern Age, I guess?

 

[Krikkit1]

I was thinking something similar, that the legacy system and semi-reset on age transitions necessitates specialization in your civs more than previous instalments. Attempting to create a well-rounded empire will lead to less legacy pathways developed deeply and no pivotal Golden Age buffs, which seem pretty damn powerful. Additionally, with each age having objectives and points rewarded for each area of possible victory, you kinda have to be task-orientated and on-the-go the whole game, rather than just vibing and making the perfect neat little empire for the first 3/4 of the game before exploding into your desired victory strategy.

It does seem like it is Rush for the "Victory" before the Crisis. I think the thing with snowballing is the gain in advantage. The Crisis reset could mean... ok you were 2x ahead of everyone else.... because of that you get to start 20% ahead of everyone else. That makes it easier for someone else to turn the tables (of course it means if you are behind because you stumbled in the Ancient... now you are only 20% behind the major powers.

[Numbers made up for illustration purposes]

 

[lt22677]

It does seem like it is Rush for the "Victory" before the Crisis. I think the thing with snowballing is the gain in advantage. The Crisis reset could mean... ok you were 2x ahead of everyone else.... because of that you get to start 20% ahead of everyone else. That makes it easier for someone else to turn the tables (of course it means if you are behind because you stumbled in the Ancient... now you are only 20% behind the major powers.

[Numbers made up for illustration purposes]

I have the fear that instead of doing Snowballing once (final stages of the game), it will simply be done 3 times (end of eras)

 

[Krikkit1]

I have the fear that instead of doing Snowballing once (final stages of the game), it will simply be done 3 times (end of eras)

That’s the idea… you have to get the snowball going 3 times (and a little bit after you get it going it gets reset),
(Basically they ideally removed the “late game” while keeping the high techs)

 

[BuchiTaton]

If I'm not mistaken, I think it was mentioned that between the Exploration and Modern Age would represent the various revolutionary wars worldwide and jump from 1750 to 1850. That would mean it's almost like 3 new post-colonial nations showing up in the Modern Age, I guess?

Thanks for the info.

Sadly this plus what seems to be the lack of recent technologies (post 1960's) is another dissappointment to me. So multiple eras worth of their own identity fused, three ghost time periods, forced civ identity changes, a smaller number of players and what seems to be smaller maps. This is trully the "monkey paw" CIV, a shame that map visual, independent peoples, the new settlement system and "packed" armies are pretty close to what I wanted for those topics...

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Sadly this plus what seems to be the lack of recent technologies (post 1960's) is another dissappointment to me.

Have they shown off the technology tree of the last era, and does it really end at around the space race?

 

[Gori the Grey]

If you're the winner in your game of Sorry, you get one free property when you start Monopoly, and if you're the winner of Monopoly, you start with one free kid already in your car in the Game of Life. You were the red pieces in Sorry, battling against blue, yellow and green, but they've become a Scottie and a wheelbarrow and an iron. Then in Life your car is racing against a Hot Wheel, a Tonka Truck, and a Matchbox.

It's neck and neck for the Alpha Centauri launch, but in the end your RedTopHatLifecar narrowly beats out the GreenWheelbarrowTonka.

 

[aieeegrunt]

A lot of the ideas suggested here, and more, to prevent snowballing have already been tried in various Civs and their expansions. None of them really worked.

The problem, I think, is fundamental to the way that Civilization handles victory. Specifically, that having a lot of a something that brings you closer to a victory condition, also makes it easier to gain more of that something. Culture might be the exception here for some iterations, but it's clear for the others.

I'll use Science victory as an example of the inevitability of snowballing. If I have more science, I'll get to universities before others, therefore I'll increase my science output before others, therefore I'll increase my lead in science. The thing that makes me ahead in a science victory is exactly the same thing that enables me to increase my lead in science victory. You can come up with all sorts of mechanics to limit how strong that positive feedback loop is (which is, essentially, what all proposals and past attempts boil down to) but it will keep being a positive feedback loop. The only way to break that would be to have the ability to increase science output not tied to technologies researched. Or, more broadly, for the things that give you lots of science to not be the things that make it easy to increase your science output. I don't think Civ7 will go that far - Crisis might act in that direction temporarily, but Golden Ages and legacy bonuses seem to pull the other way. Indeed, they have to, because otherwise there's no point in doing well in the early eras.

This might be clearer with an example of where this link between closeness to victory and ability to improve is broken. The deck-builder Dominion is great at this. You take turns buying and playing cards in order to make your deck stronger. But having a strong deck is not tied to victory conditions. Instead, you have to use this strong deck to make enough money to buy victory cards - its who has the most of these that win. But having victory cards in your deck makes it weaker! These cards do nothing useful outside of enabling victory, and they actively "pollute" your deck, making it less likely that you'll draw the powerful cards that enable you to buy more victory cards. This is a negative feedback loop (although one that kicks in so late in the game that it does more to cut-off the positive feedback loop that exists in the early and middle game than to truly reverse it).

Doing something like that in Civ would require a very drastic change. For example, it would be a conquest victory where you gain nothing from raising enemy cities (can't capture them, can't resettle the land, no loot) and don't gain any experience points from combat. In this case, military strength would be your way to victory, but using that military strength towards that victory wouldn't contribute to making your military stronger. Now this is not a serious proposal for a Civilization mechanic, it's more of an example for why truly breaking the snowball effect is incompatible with the basic ethos and aims of a civilization game.


I'll stop pontificating about game design theory, but the fundamental problem is a really interesting one.

They worked just fine, corruption and inherent culture in Civ3, happiness in Civ5 etc

Then there is Loyalty in 6, which works really well when fleshed out with various mods

The problem was the devs taking those out, which gave us Snowballing and Late Game Tedium.

 

[Professor Phobo]

They worked just fine, corruption and inherent culture in Civ3, happiness in Civ5 etc

Then there is Loyalty in 6, which works really well when fleshed out with various mods

The problem was the devs taking those out, which gave us Snowballing and Late Game Tedium.

Oh, the late game's been an afterthought in every iteration of the franchise.

 

[GeneralZIft]

I might have said this in another thread but it's definitely a complete cop out. It might work, of that I'm fairly confident, but it's not the best solution for sure

It's sort of like amputating an entire limb because you fractured a bone.
They needed precision and creativity to sort a problem like this but the method they implemented is sledgehammer.

Rubberbanding is one mechanic to ensure fairness amongst players, but what about rubberbanding within the player? FXs are too scared to give the player real challenges to prevent them from snowballing.
That's why they keep snowballing.

The science example given in this thread about how more science leads to more snowballing via more science - it's narrow-minded.
In this one example, I can give many solutions that don't involve resetting the player every third of the game.

Here is one. Losing soldiers in battle with high tech makes it far easier for that opponent to research that tech. Maybe it's possible for enemy soldiers to steal and use your technology in battle (thinking Aztecs + Horses).
Maybe conquering an opponent allows you to steal their technologies from their libraries.
But conquering a city hinders your stability.

If you wanted to really really genuinely model rise and fall, then you need rise and fall mechanics... But that doesn't mean ones that literally force a Rise and a Fall.
It means mechanics that will allow you to grow when you're losing and pull you back when you're winning.
It's true that no one Civilisation lasts at the top for long... But they don't magically die out either. Crises don't appear from thin air.
There should be involved mechanics you can see coming and you can feel are authentic and realistic.

 

[lt22677]

That’s the idea… you have to get the snowball going 3 times (and a little bit after you get it going it gets reset),
(Basically they ideally removed the “late game” while keeping the high techs)

In short, they take a problem and instead of trying to solve it, they multiply it by 3X a BRILLIANT idea

 

[Binkov]

Ed beach said the gap between first and second age will be a few hundred years.
I wonder what the gap between 2nd and 3rd age will be?
Is it possible there won't be one? IMO unlikely.
But it's plausible it'll be even fewer than 50 years that i first mused about. Losing control of your civ from 1780 to 1830 would seems like a pretty big deal for most players.

Us revolution lasted for 8 years. French revolution lasted for 10. So that seems like a possible ballpark period. In game terms, that could literally be just a few turns.
Possibly not enough to justify large changes in player's cities/towns.
Kinda hard to justify even tech changes. That might be one reason why 10 years would not be enough...
But it certainly could be enough to justify large change in standing military and nation's bank account.
Maybe game will continue in age 3 saying: after a bloody revolutionary war, your nation is healing its wounds, but its gold coffers are nearly empty and half of its military has been lost.

 

[lt22677]

Ed beach said the gap between first and second age will be a few hundred years.
I wonder what the gap between 2nd and 3rd age will be?
Is it possible there won't be one? IMO unlikely.
But it's plausible it'll be even fewer than 50 years that i first mused about. Losing control of your civ from 1780 to 1830 would seems like a pretty big deal for most players.

Us revolution lasted for 8 years. French revolution lasted for 10. So that seems like a possible ballpark period. In game terms, that could literally be just a few turns.
Possibly not enough to justify large changes in player's cities/towns.
Kinda hard to justify even tech changes. That might be one reason why 10 years would not be enough...
But it certainly could be enough to justify large change in standing military and nation's bank account.
Maybe game will continue in age 3 saying: after a bloody revolutionary war, your nation is healing its wounds, but its gold coffers are nearly empty and half of its military has been lost.

Guys, we are talking about a turn-based game, saying a few centuries has no meaning, it would be better to say how many turns this phase lasts

 

[Binkov]

Sure, i said the national revolution gap might be as little as 3 turns, and probably not over a dozen or so turns.
I expect the dark age gap to be like 16 to 30 turns worth of gameplay.

 

[greenOak]

Guys, we are talking about a turn-based game, saying a few centuries has no meaning, it would be better to say how many turns this phase lasts

Yep, and also because its unlikely actual turns will occur (or be simulated) during this gap, it's really just about how much of your empire will change as you transition to the next age.