My take on why Civ 6 will be a bad game, a 3 pt. podcast

[Bibor]

Amazing. You manage to admit that the videos are badly presented, but only by not-so-subtly shifting the blame for that on other people because of their supposed ignorance.

This post reeks of condescension. I think we're done here.

My expectations are my problem. I'm not condescending. I'm not saying that you're stupid, I'm saying your line of thought is different than what I am used to. Am I burned out (from Civ)? Yes I am. That doesn't mean that my thoughts on the matter don't hold merit. I'm babbling incoherently. in public. Does that deserve scrutiny? Yes it does. Does it help clear my thoughts, though? Yes it does. This is not a discussion whether Farm should yield +1 or +2 food. I find it extremely complicated to say something relevant on this abstract level of game mechanics, without writing a whole new game on 1000 pages of text to explain what I'm trying to achieve.

On that note, clearing my thoughs, I made a new video. Concise, short and to the point. It sums up much better what I want to say. It's also a video. I downloaded Civ5 just for this occasion


Link to video.

 

[Magil]

Yes it was painful for me to suck up my pride and respond to him. Fortunately, he's starting to make some sort of sense, and I think the topic is more interesting than I think he's a jerk. If he will oblige, I will continue discussing. You should stay! The intellectual pursuit may be worthwhile.

I suppose I can give it another shot.

My expectations are my problem. I'm not condescending. I'm not saying that you're stupid, I'm saying your line of thought is different than what I am used to.

Your "expectations" that your audience was long-time Civ players who held informed opinions--thus the implication that those who replied were neither of these things. If you cannot see how this is condescending, I do not know what to tell you.

For the record, I actually agree on at least some of your points--as they relate to Civ V specifically. But you did an atrocious job of supporting these points, and made no effort whatsoever to link them to Civ VI. Your new video shows that the logic and reasoning you are using to support these points is deeply flawed, as I can explain in a moment. And that's putting aside the point that I fundamentally disagree with the approach you would take to solving the problem as presented in the first three videos, which is radically different from what you suggested in this latest video and in posts in this thread.

This new video you have made is also absolutely nothing like the other videos. You're not making the same points or saying the same things. It's also (more than) a little contradictory. In the second part of your video you mention being "forced" into certain diplomatic situations by the land, and cite it as a bad thing, right after detailing how you should be forced into building your civilization in a certain way based on the land available at your starting location. Perhaps you see the conflict here?

Earlier, you mentioned you thought Paradox games were "complex for complexity's sake", which interestingly enough, is an apt description for your suggestion on a new diplomatic system. Also because it actually reminded me of how diplomacy functions in Paradox games. If I wanted that, I would play a Paradox game, I think. I really don't care about having internal factions in a Civ game.

The first point, about terrain, well, the Civilization developers have been doing this all along. Yes, some starts may be better than others. And maybe the terrain-based bonuses built into the game don't help enough. But those are balance problems, not inherent design problems. There are ways to get more out of the ocean, specifically, for your civilization, in V--a pantheon related to fishing boats, an entire policy tree devoted to Maritime industry and commerce, specific buildings that boost sea tiles. Your argument makes sense if these do not exist, but they do exist. They're just not considered strong enough to accomplish their clear design purpose. There are other Civilization-based bonuses on top of this, they just happen at the Civ selection menu rather than in-game. This is a crucial difference, because balance concerns are a lot more likely to be different in a sequel than inherent design flaws.

Civilization VI in particular seems to be paying special attention to the terrain, which is rather telling for your argument that it will have the same issues as V. Maybe they're not building it in the way you would do it. But they are building bonuses tied to specific terrain features and terrain types, bonuses which alter how placing a certain district next to mountains is different than placing it on a river.

I should note that, as far as competition goes, an archipelago map is not problematic--after all, everyone gets similar starts. I don't think it's a huge issue that you'd probably need a hand-crafted map if you want a hyper-competitive game, as only a very small slice of the player base needs that (though Firaxis could include specific maps designed for "absolutely equal starts" without much issue).

There are always options for evening the score when you see someone else has a better start--the most obvious option being allying up with a neighbor to double-team them in war. Another possible option is to take a high-risk economic gambit, you use the Oracle as an example from IV, well, the Great Library exists in V and does the same thing (and it's a pretty risky move to go for it in Deity, but people have managed to get it).

I'll fully admit that there are less of those options available in V and they often don't have the same impact, but that doesn't speak for VI, especially as they existed in IV. No way we could know whether or not such things exist based on the information available to us right now. What I will say is this much: there is certainly a lot of opportunity in V's design to "even the score" if the terrain around your start is not quite as good as a neighbor's. A Eureka/Inspiration boost is 50% of the tech's cost up-front. That is big. If you can manage to secure even a handful of these that a neighbor cannot, then maybe their better terrain doesn't matter nearly as much.

Whether or not these will work out to actually address the balance-related concerns remains to be seen. But I dispute your argument in claiming Civilization needs these certain things by saying it already has them, at least to the first part of your argument. To the second part concerning diplomacy, I personally am not interested in such a system. I don't really see what the big concern over it is, the way you phrased it was brief and not very in-depth. I would certainly love to see AIs weigh their options and decisions in a different manner than they did in V so that I could have a variety of different diplomatic interactions relating to them, but that's a separate issue, and by all accounts the AI's in VI will be approaching the game in a different manner.

Edit: At the very end of the video, you lament being a "slave to the land". But that's exactly what you proposed earlier with a "policy or something" that grants 50% science if you have more sea tiles than land tiles? I mean, why would you ever choose to be that kind of Civilization if you weren't near water? I'm afraid you're being incoherent again.

 

[Bibor]

Your new video shows that the logic and reasoning you are using to support these points is deeply flawed, as I can explain in a moment. And that's putting aside the point that I fundamentally disagree with the approach you would take to solving the problem as presented in the first three videos, which is radically different from what you suggested in this latest video and in posts in this thread.

No it's not different. It's the same logic (and frustration) from the first three videos, but in application. I'm still frustrated about "wasted turns" and lack of meaningful decisions. My suggestions provide solution to both.

In the second part of your video you mention being "forced" into certain diplomatic situations by the land, and cite it as a bad thing, right after detailing how you should be forced into building your civilization in a certain way based on the land available at your starting location. Perhaps you see the conflict here?

I don't see a contradiction at all. Land should be the orchestra, but you should be the conductor. In my latest video I'm not suggesting that the land should dominate your diplomacy at all. I'm asking for mechanics that will enable me to develop any type of land and get it to similar "levels of power", that leads to "fair access" to world diplomacy and World Domination(TM).

Earlier, you mentioned you thought Paradox games were "complex for complexity's sake", which interestingly enough, is an apt description for your suggestion on a new diplomatic system. Also because it actually reminded me of how diplomacy functions in Paradox games. If I wanted that, I would play a Paradox game, I think. I really don't care about having internal factions in a Civ game.

Both of my suggestions combined are more transparent and playable than the religion system in Civ5. These suggestions would replace, rather than add to current mechanics.

The first point, about terrain, well, the Civilization developers have been doing this all along. Yes, some starts may be better than others. And maybe the terrain-based bonuses built into the game don't help enough. But those are balance problems, not inherent design problems. There are ways to get more out of the ocean, specifically, for your civilization, in V--a pantheon related to fishing boats, an entire policy tree devoted to Maritime industry and commerce, specific buildings that boost sea tiles. Your argument makes sense if these do not exist, but they do exist. They're just not considered strong enough to accomplish their clear design purpose. There are other Civilization-based bonuses on top of this, they just happen at the Civ selection menu rather than in-game. This is a crucial difference, because balance concerns are a lot more likely to be different in a sequel than inherent design flaws.

You're not considering the elements of time and chance. The pantheon does nothing to coastal starts without sea resources and only one civ can get it. Maritime tree comes way too late to balance out the starts. Some leaders do come with maritime focus, but these are mostly flavor/cosmetic. Even free harbors don't offer enough return. Besides, why would a valid strategy like playing a maritime nation be based on a leader? That's a tad restrictive, don't you think?

Civilization VI in particular seems to be paying special attention to the terrain, which is rather telling for your argument that it will have the same issues as V. Maybe they're not building it in the way you would do it. But they are building bonuses tied to specific terrain features and terrain types, bonuses which alter how placing a certain district next to mountains is different than placing it on a river.

Yes, they are paying special attention to terrain. And what if by chance my nation has no mountains in a 50 hex radius? I am being punished for not having a mountain in my boders. Not to mention how (insert fitting word here) the whole concept of mountain equals science is.

I should note that, as far as competition goes, an archipelago map is not problematic--after all, everyone gets similar starts. I don't think it's a huge issue that you'd probably need a hand-crafted map if you want a hyper-competitive game, as only a very small slice of the player base needs that (though Firaxis could include specific maps designed for "absolutely equal starts" without much issue).

It's not just about competetive gameplay. If the game is about terrain, removing terrain equals removing gameplay. We are not talking about "10% less terrain" here, you know very well that archipelago equals (tiny) islands with almost no land at all.

There are always options for evening the score when you see someone else has a better start--the most obvious option being allying up with a neighbor to double-team them in war. Another possible option is to take a high-risk economic gambit, you use the Oracle as an example from IV, well, the Great Library exists in V and does the same thing (and it's a pretty risky move to go for it in Deity, but people have managed to get it).

Again, I think you're not considering the element of time. In Civ5, by the time I get to catapults on a crappy start, the enemy has city walls and can one-shot my catapults. As I said, in civ5, you have no means for "total war" at start, because of the maintenance and general penalties for waging war. As I mentioned in the video, why not have policies or decisions that enable some form of total war (nomadic civ in my example). Not some crappy "+15% to building melee units" because that the level of decision making Civ5 policies are about.

I'll fully admit that there are less of those options available in V and they often don't have the same impact, but that doesn't speak for VI, especially as they existed in IV. No way we could know whether or not such things exist based on the information available to us right now. What I will say is this much: there is certainly a lot of opportunity in V's design to "even the score" if the terrain around your start is not quite as good as a neighbor's. A Eureka/Inspiration boost is 50% of the tech's cost up-front. That is big. If you can manage to secure even a handful of these that a neighbor cannot, then maybe their better terrain doesn't matter nearly as much.

I agree with you on that we don't know what Civ6 will bring. But the trend is telling. Maybe I'm completely wrong and civ6 will prove me wrong in everything. The Eureka moments are a move in the right direction. I think the developers would be more than happy to advertise if they had something up their sleeve. It's two months from release, now would be the time to advertise.

To the second part concerning diplomacy, I personally am not interested in such a system. I don't really see what the big concern over it is, the way you phrased it was brief and not very in-depth. I would certainly love to see AIs weigh their options and decisions in a different manner than they did in V so that I could have a variety of different diplomatic interactions relating to them, but that's a separate issue, and by all accounts the AI's in VI will be approaching the game in a different manner.

I'm not interested in a system where I conquer a civ and every other civ denounces me. Nor am I interested in a system where having enough resources just makes me ignore diplomacy alltogether and focus on city states. As I said in the video, they made some significant steps in the BE expansion. What will they do with civ6 remains to be seen.

Edit: At the very end of the video, you lament being a "slave to the land". But that's exactly what you proposed earlier with a "policy or something" that grants 50% science if you have more sea tiles than land tiles? I mean, why would you ever choose to be that kind of Civilization if you weren't near water? I'm afraid you're being incoherent again.

I'm not incoherent. Slavery is when you have 3 city improvements for the sea, 75 city improvements for land, and happen to be surrounded by sea.


Consider this: The current Civ mechanics would make perfect sense if maps would have room for 350 cities and 50 civilizations. I would have no objections at all. Zero. I wouldn't make a peep.
However, in most games played by most people, maps are small. You can see that from the civ6 videos, not just in civ5. SM-ALL I myself prefer to play on small maps. That's 6 civs and you can build 3, maybe 4 cities before you bump into Hiawatha. Are you aware how excruciatingly boring diplomacy is with 5 civs? And most people play small or medium maps.

A small retail store cannot play by the same rules as Walmart. Civ is no Walmart.

 

[Atlas627]

Magil just properly addressed every one of your new points, and you moved the goal posts AGAIN.

My goodness, what are you actually trying to say here?

Your initial point is that you KNOW Civ6 will be BAD. Inherently bad. Fundamentally flawed.

To support that viewpoint, you point out a bunch of things that are slightly wrong with Civ5, not even fundamentally wrong. Furthermore, each of these things have already been shown to NOT be in Civ6.

Because you make no sense, people asked for examples. All of your examples are either already in the Civilization series as a whole, or are explicitly in Civ6, or are not fundamentally different from the things that are in Civ6, or are in fact asking for a completely different type of game.

Every single Civ6 example that should satisfy your viewpoints doesn't satisfy you somehow. Either you are explaining your viewpoint poorly, or you are just stubborn.

If there is some trend that is bothering you, it must be that you don't actually want to play Civilization at all, you're looking for something else.

That's fine! You don't have to like Civ. Maybe you liked what Civ used to be. That's totally fine, since you still have those games. But just because you don't like what Civ6 is does not make it fundamentally flawed. And especially not for the reasons you've given.

I'll try this one more time. Every single mechanic from Civ5 that was widely regarded as fundamentally flawed has been removed. Mechanics that were widely acclaimed from Civ4 have returned in some way. Then there are new mechanics to make Civ6 a new game. From your logic, I would think you would like these, since they seem to move in the direction you want.

 

[Haggbart]

There is a lot of talk here about Civ6 from the viewpoint of someone who played CiV and expect certain stuff to be exactly the same EVEN WHEN the devs have commented on those very issues and how they are aware of them

One example: mountains. What if you are on an archipelago or you don't have mountains within 50 tiles of your capital. Actually that was one of the first things Dennis Shirk commented on in the early previews

"Did that present any design problems? Because, in theory, you could end up with a map that's terribly inhospitable and makes the game either unplayable or just un-fun."

- Oh, definitely. After we put the system in the game, the first time we fired up an archipelago map, we're like, “Nope, not going to work.” [Laughs] We had to make changes and adjustments to that. We found that players were restarting a lot if they weren't getting that perfect mix of mountains right away, because mountains are really powerful now for stuff like that. So we've had to re-tune the way the map generates and staggers stuff out.


If you did your research properly, and stop commenting on stuff you don't know about (either because they haven't told us yet, or even worse because you didn't bother to listen when they did), that would be great. At this point I'd say you believe whatever that fits with your narrative, and it's just sad that you won't even give the game a chance before you make an opinion.

 

[Bibor]

At this point I'd say you believe whatever that fits with your narrative, and it's just sad that you won't even give the game a chance before you make an opinion.

Sure, here's what fits my narrative best: we will know of sure in three months.

 

[Atlas627]

Sure, here's what fits my narrative best: we will know of sure in three months.

Honestly? No, we won't even know by then.

Civ5 was such an obvious trainwreck on release because it had development issues. The only thing that people were able to immediately figure out was "crap, they didn't finish the game!"

We didn't conclude that there were fundamental problems with some game mechanics until we had completely and utterly explored all other options. We had to test every bit of balance and look through every avenue of gameplay to be sure.

If you predicted it early, you were right. But just because you can be right doesn't mean its smart to be sure of it so soon.

So no, we won't know in 3 months. The game could be a release trainwreck again and it STILL wouldn't prove that its an inherently bad game.

 

[Lucius_]

Sure, here's what fits my narrative best: we will know of sure in three months.

I'm certain you will know for sure in 3 months and everyone who disagrees with you will be blabbering idiots who just don't understand you at your level. The game could be universally loved by critics, metacritic, and civfanatics alike but we'll all be wrong, if that is how it turns out.

If it turns out crap, I will not be looking forward to your high horse, I told you so, post.

 

[Bibor]

So no, we won't know in 3 months. The game could be a release trainwreck again and it STILL wouldn't prove that its an inherently bad game.

I don't know if release will be a trainwreck. I'm trying to learn more about the game, but all the videos I can find look still very civ5-ish to me, even with the new graphics and new mechanics. I watched Marbozir's and Qill18's recordings. I did play SMAC and other games quite extensively, so I might be more more numb to stuff like varied tile improvements. In that regard I don't think Civ6 will match SMAC, but could be wrong.

I'm certain you will know for sure in 3 months and everyone who disagrees with you will be blabbering idiots who just don't understand you at your level. The game could be universally loved by critics, metacritic, and civfanatics alike but we'll all be wrong, if that is how it turns out.

If it turns out crap, I will not be looking forward to your high horse, I told you so, post.

Wow. On my level? I don't mind disagreements. This is a discussion forum. I state something, you prove me wrong. I'm not interested in high horses, just better games for everyone. I'm angry at developers, not players. What the heck I'm pretty sure there are many people on civfanatics that have beat the crap out of me when it comes to insight into all Sid's 4X games. If any of them would've made the post or statements I did, my first reaction would be "Hm, I'm watching at the same stuff they are. What did I miss?" And if I would find evidence that proves them wrong, I would expect of them to accept my criticism.

 

[Atlas627]

I don't know if release will be a trainwreck. I'm trying to learn more about the game, but all the videos I can find look still very civ5-ish to me, even with the new graphics and new mechanics. I watched Marbozir's and Qill18's recordings. I did play SMAC and other games quite extensively, so I might be more more numb to stuff like varied tile improvements. In that regard I don't think Civ6 will match SMAC.

To be fair, most of those players were trying to play the game like Civ5. And I agree that it will be more-like-5-than-4. But I think it will be more like 6 than either.

I didn't get to play SMAC. I really think its just a different game. I've never enjoyed SciFi because I always felt that the setting is unintuitive. For example, I know that Sanitation is about making things clean. If I research that tech, I can probably have more population, because I know that cleaning saves lives. But how do I know what Neuro-psycho-telepathy does in this particular setting? Now I have to go check (every time, because I might not remember) whether it gives more powerful units, economic boosts, etc.

So are you saying that SMAC had so many tile improvements that Civ6 doesn't excite you with its options? Or are you saying that it had so few that you were happy with that?

Wow. On my level? I don't mind disagreements. This is a discussion forum. I state something, you prove me wrong. I'm not interested in high horses, just better games for everyone. I'm angry at developers, not players. What the heck I'm pretty sure there are many people on civfanatics that have better insight into all Sid's 4X games. If any of them would've made the post or statements I did, my first reaction would be "Hm, I'm watching at the same stuff they are. What did I miss?" And I would find evidence that proves them wrong, I would expect of them to accept my criticism.

If you go back and read your own posts and listen to your own podcast from someone else's perspective, you might find that you came across as a pretentious jerk. You also stubbornly moved the goalposts every time someone proved you wrong. You didn't accept anyone's criticism.

I think the fact that he had that emotional response shows that he read everything you posted. And to do that, he DID keep reading the whole time, still waiting to find the thing he missed.

So perhaps it is again that you are having a tough time explaining yourself, but you sound hypocritical here, just as you have in the whole thread.

 

[Lucius_]

Wow. On my level? I don't mind disagreements. This is a discussion forum. I state something, you prove me wrong. I'm not interested in high horses, just better games for everyone. I'm angry at developers, not players. What the heck

Have you read most of your posts in this thread? They come across a certain...way. If this confuses you, re-read the thread. If still confused, then nvm forget I said anything.

 

[cakes]

shouldn't you be proving yourself right? it seems like most of the criticism here is people telling you that you don't know what you're talking about. and this from someone who values the emphasis on thinking with 'mind games'... i think the real issue is that the game isn't congratulating your genius because of your basic gameplay decisions. this isn't insightful commentary it's literally entitlement

 

[frenzyfol]

But what if we needed different things during the span of the game? I think that is what Bibor - or someone else? - proposed somewhere, and I like that idea. What if faith is more powerful in the medieval era, to paraphrase what someone proposed - I could be the best in faith, but then, someone who invested in trade suddenly eclipses me as we enter the renaissance.

This is very interesting and I think you have nailed the problem.

Taken the given examples "1.ancient-era to 2.culture to 3.faith to gold to 4.industry to 5.science" I thought I'd add a few extra thoughts on implementing such mechanics (lets call them Eras).

Newer Era mechanics would have to be increasingly powerful in order to allow a civ that isn't currently dominating to become a threat. Powerful doesn't necessarily mean traditional power of the existing era. Maybe new eras are better tuned at hitting different victory conditions or nullifying the effect of previous eras.

How does one combat the snowball effect? It has to be a difficult decision for a player who is dominating in era 1 to switch to era 2. Going from eras 1 to 2 must get progressively more difficult the longer you stay in A. Yet the benefits of maximising era A must be equally tantalizing.

How do we activate the availability of era swaps? Should this be in the hand of the current era leader? I'm guessing not. If you managed to successfully risk a b-line for era 2 at the cost of era 1 power, then you should be the one to activate the second era.

The big decisions become:
Do I commit to era 1 and dominate now?
Having become dominant in era 1 do I put in all my chips and hope I can win sticking to an era 1 victory target.
Do I forfeit an advantage now, risking defeat to become more dominant in era 2.

I like to think of this as akin to local maxima / minima graphs. You can climb a power hill and become today's most powerful leader, but you need to walk back down that hill to get to the next TALLER hill. The player who is b-lining for that taller hill is risking everything today, but will have an advantage in the future.

On a side note. The dual tech tree in civ6 could help implement the above mechanics.

 

[wiggawuu]

Civ6 should be an expansion pack. It having a new engine is BS excuse to sell it full priced as a new game. All the game mechanics are the same civ5.

1-2 unit per tile is *****. Civ has just become boring.

Moderator Action: Please do not spell words in a way that evades the autocensor. Have deleted the offending word.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Atlas627]

shouldn't you be proving yourself right?

Eh, a discussion goes 2 ways. To convince us, he should prove himself right, and for us to convince him, we should prove him wrong. Otherwise thats no discussion at all, thats an interrogation.

it seems like most of the criticism here is people telling you that you don't know what you're talking about. and this from someone who values the emphasis on thinking with 'mind games'... i think the real issue is that the game isn't congratulating your genius because of your basic gameplay decisions

He either is uninformed because he is ignorant or stubborn, or he is a genius that sees something none of us do, that can't explain himself.

We listened and couldn't see the genius. That's the basic respect everyone should give to people's ideas. So the next assumption is that he is uninformed because he is ignorant, so we shared the information to prove him wrong. He then stubbornly refused to believe us and kept changing what we were arguing about at all, though that might have been because of a communication issue. Maybe he was arguing about that the whole time.

Anyway, this whole thing should be a lesson in how to NOT have a discussion. The logic has been twisted, the wording has been poor, and the framing of the arguments has caused hostility (which begat hostility, which begat hostility, and so on). Back off, reset, try again later.

 

[Bibor]

What made SMAC techs great was the fact that there was a really solid Sci-Fi story behind every tech. In time, you learned to navigate the pretty confusing tech tree.

So are you saying that SMAC had so many tile improvements that Civ6 doesn't excite you with its options? Or are you saying that it had so few that you were happy with that?

SMAC had so many tile improvements I can't even remember them all. There were farms, super farms, kelp (sea) farms, solar collectors, thermocline transducers (sea energy), mines, sea mines, thermal boreholes (super mines), roads, maglev, bunkers, airports, sensor arrays and a super tile improvement for each resource type that provided an adjacency bonus (for example solar mirror that provided +1 energy to all surrounding collectors).
Effects were also increased or reduced by elevation and humidity.

And then there were special terraforming options like plant forests, plant or remove fungus (both tile improvements), and the interesting ones: you could drill to aquifer and pop new rivers that way, raise and lower elevation (you could turn even sink or raise the coasts).

The fun part was that you could create tile improvement "clusters" of your own design. For example, you could elevate 9 tiles to over 4000 feet (for the bonus) and create a cluster of 8 solar collectors and one mirror in the middle. Or have an arid desert, but pop a river and build farms around it.

If you go back and read your own posts and listen to your own podcast from someone else's perspective, you might find that you came across as a pretentious jerk. You also stubbornly moved the goalposts every time someone proved you wrong. You didn't accept anyone's criticism.

I apologize for acting like that.

 

[qwerty25]

This is very interesting and I think you have nailed the problem.

Taken the given examples "1.ancient-era to 2.culture to 3.faith to gold to 4.industry to 5.science" I thought I'd add a few extra thoughts on implementing such mechanics (lets call them Eras).

Newer Era mechanics would have to be increasingly powerful in order to allow a civ that isn't currently dominating to become a threat. Powerful doesn't necessarily mean traditional power of the existing era. Maybe new eras are better tuned at hitting different victory conditions or nullifying the effect of previous eras.

How does one combat the snowball effect? It has to be a difficult decision for a player who is dominating in era 1 to switch to era 2. Going from eras 1 to 2 must get progressively more difficult the longer you stay in A. Yet the benefits of maximising era A must be equally tantalizing.

How do we activate the availability of era swaps? Should this be in the hand of the current era leader? I'm guessing not. If you managed to successfully risk a b-line for era 2 at the cost of era 1 power, then you should be the one to activate the second era.

The big decisions become:
Do I commit to era 1 and dominate now?
Having become dominant in era 1 do I put in all my chips and hope I can win sticking to an era 1 victory target.
Do I forfeit an advantage now, risking defeat to become more dominant in era 2.

I like to think of this as akin to local maxima / minima graphs. You can climb a power hill and become today's most powerful leader, but you need to walk back down that hill to get to the next TALLER hill. The player who is b-lining for that taller hill is risking everything today, but will have an advantage in the future.

On a side note. The dual tech tree in civ6 could help implement the above mechanics.

I concur that this era focusing on a resource sounds promising. I wish civilizations would expand and contract and expand over the eras . I always hated how the path to dominance is this slow steady path from -4000bc.

 

[Bibor]

He either is uninformed because he is ignorant or stubborn, or he is a genius that sees something none of us do, that can't explain himself.

We listened and couldn't see the genius. That's the basic respect everyone should give to people's ideas. So the next assumption is that he is uninformed because he is ignorant, so we shared the information to prove him wrong. He then stubbornly refused to believe us and kept changing what we were arguing about at all, though that might have been because of a communication issue. Maybe he was arguing about that the whole time.

In my defence, its really hard for me to nail it down. I was watching Quill18's video and I just went "Are you kidding me?" Yes, it might've been burnout, but I haven't touched Civ5 in 2 years, so I guess its unlikely. Am I driving this discussion on my gut feeling and driving everyone crazy (including myself)? Yes. Am I sorry for that? Yes. The gut feeling still remains though, but from now on I'll stay quiet and try to figure it out without ranting across the forums about it.

 

[Atlas627]

This is very interesting and I think you have nailed the problem.

Taken the given examples "1.ancient-era to 2.culture to 3.faith to gold to 4.industry to 5.science" I thought I'd add a few extra thoughts on implementing such mechanics (lets call them Eras).

Newer Era mechanics would have to be increasingly powerful in order to allow a civ that isn't currently dominating to become a threat. Powerful doesn't necessarily mean traditional power of the existing era. Maybe new eras are better tuned at hitting different victory conditions or nullifying the effect of previous eras.

How does one combat the snowball effect? It has to be a difficult decision for a player who is dominating in era 1 to switch to era 2. Going from eras 1 to 2 must get progressively more difficult the longer you stay in A. Yet the benefits of maximising era A must be equally tantalizing.

How do we activate the availability of era swaps? Should this be in the hand of the current era leader? I'm guessing not. If you managed to successfully risk a b-line for era 2 at the cost of era 1 power, then you should be the one to activate the second era.

The big decisions become:
Do I commit to era 1 and dominate now?
Having become dominant in era 1 do I put in all my chips and hope I can win sticking to an era 1 victory target.
Do I forfeit an advantage now, risking defeat to become more dominant in era 2.

I like to think of this as akin to local maxima / minima graphs. You can climb a power hill and become today's most powerful leader, but you need to walk back down that hill to get to the next TALLER hill. The player who is b-lining for that taller hill is risking everything today, but will have an advantage in the future.

On a side note. The dual tech tree in civ6 could help implement the above mechanics.

First off, when I suggested a change, I was only talking about the scoring system first. The more drastic changes you do, the less like Civilization the game becomes. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it probably is so far out of scope that we shouldn't waste time talking about ALL the options.

So I'm not going to talk about creating unique game mechanics for the eras. I'm also not going to talk about ending the game early, which seems to be what you're suggesting. One of the main goals of Civilization is to experience the whole march of progress through history and, at the end, see if you stood the test of time. Ending the game early goes against this, and is probably why Victory Conditions have always been near the end of the game content (so it never ended early by accident).


What I was suggesting was just a simple change: give each civ a score at the end of each time block (era), and add them up at the end to determine the winner. To keep things interesting, each time block would give different scores for different things. This way, you could allow a Civ that was strong in one era to "fall behind" later, but still make it worthwhile for that Civ to have gotten strong temporarily without it automatically translating to game-long power.

Of course, how do you define a time block? Depends on the game mechanics. Using Civ6's current mechanics, I'd suggest "50% of all Civs have entered the new Era in either Tech or Civics" as the time to score. Alternatively, you make more specific requirements for each Era. "Once a Civ has researched Philosophy, Classical Era is scored".

Now you have to decide what gets points. The Ancient Era should probably not give any points so you have some time to explore and get some sort of a base plan. Classical would give points to the Civ who researched Philosophy, less points to whichever Civ produces the most culture per turn, and a few points per Great Person purchased in the Era. Medieval would end when someone takes the Merchant Republic government. The Civ who took Merchant Republic gets some points, each Civ that founded a Religion gets a bunch of points, civs that own a Holy City would get some points, and the top 50% in military power get some points.

With this example system, Ancient Era would be about exploration so you can figure out what you can do. Some players might want to build small so they can start getting Great People Points for the Classical scoring, but others would want to expand because that gives them more cities to make more culture (for classical scoring) AND build a military (for Medieval scoring), and more culture also means they can rush the civic that lets them control when Medieval ends (by being the first to switch to Merchant Republic, for more points). Some players might want to expand so they can win other contests later in the game, but others might want to rush science so they can grab Philosophy for points (and then adopt a flexible strategy, since science unlocks things).

And that's just in the Ancient Era. Once you reach Classical, some science players might realize they won't be the first to Philosophy, so they start going for Military techs instead so they can get points for that in Medieval. The player who is furthest toward Philosophy could counter this by also going for Military, which extends the Era but doesn't lose him any points (and now he gets Medieval points). But now the Great Person player gets more points because he has time to get more people in the extended Era! The fact that players are so heavily influenced by each other's strategies adds a necessary interactive component and also makes each game different (assuming the AI is smart enough to play the game. If not, I'd just play with humans anyway).

And so on and so forth. Renaissance cares mostly about Great Works produced but ends when a Civ has found all other Civs (and gives that player a bunch of points), as well as a smaller bonus for Faith produced.

What all of this means is that long term goals still exist, because you know ahead of time what all the scoring conditions are. Game mechanics can still give you power without giving points (right now), and some game mechanics can give you less power right now but do give you points. There can be an ebb and flow in who is powerful right now and in what your short term goals are, because the short term goals have purpose other than building up to the end of the game.



Anyway, I fully intend to make a mod for Civ6 of this sort if its possible to change Victory Conditions. It shouldn't be too hard. All I'd have to do is disable all non-score victory conditions, and then change Score to only give you points when certain conditions are met. Making the unique conditions and balancing it all will be the hard part.

Civ6 should be an expansion pack. It having a new engine is BS excuse to sell it full priced as a new game. All the game mechanics are the same civ5.

1-2 unit per tile is retard3d. Civ has just become boring.

This is really not helpful or even relevant to the conversation.

 

[Atlas627]

What made SMAC techs great was the fact that there was a really solid Sci-Fi story behind every tech. In time, you learned to navigate the pretty confusing tech tree.

I DO like when there's a lot of cool lore to learn about. I might actually have read it all, and then I wouldn't have the same qualm with SMAC as with most Sci-Fi

SMAC had so many tile improvements I can't even remember them all. There were farms, super farms, kelp (sea) farms, solar collectors, thermocline transducers (sea energy), mines, sea mines, thermal boreholes (super mines), roads, maglev, bunkers, airports, sensor arrays and a super tile improvement for each resource type that provided an adjacency bonus (for example solar mirror that provided +1 energy to all surrounding collectors).
Effects were also increased or reduced by elevation and humidity.

And then there were special terraforming options like plant forests, plant or remove fungus (both tile improvements), and the interesting ones: you could drill to aquifer and pop new rivers that way, raise and lower elevation (you could turn even sink or raise the coasts).

The fun part was that you could create tile improvement "clusters" of your own design. For example, you could elevate 9 tiles to over 4000 feet (for the bonus) and create a cluster of 8 solar collectors and one mirror in the middle. Or have an arid desert, but pop a river and build farms around it.

That sounds really cool, though I'm not sure that's its better. I'd say its different. In some ways, I think the simplicity of fewer improvements is nice. It sounds like some of the improvements in SMAC could be integrated into other improvements with some simple redesigns. Sometimes, less is more.

I apologize for acting like that.

I apologize for getting upset as well. I think you've been making a lot more sense in this thread lately, even though I still don't agree with you. But at least I think I've been able to understand you.

In my defence, its really hard for me to nail it down. I was watching Quill18's video and I just went "Are you kidding me?" Yes, it might've been burnout, but I haven't touched Civ5 in 2 years, so I guess its unlikely. Am I driving this discussion on my gut feeling and driving everyone crazy (including myself)? Yes. Am I sorry for that? Yes. The gut feeling still remains though, but from now on I'll stay quiet and try to figure it out without ranting across the forums about it.

I suppose I can understand, if you hadn't looked at the game at all and only remember Civ5 as an awful dump, that you would see 6 and immediately freak out.

On the other hand, I think most of what *looks* the same are good things. It means that the UI design is clear and strong, that the elements are presented well enough at face value that you can try to guess what they do (even though you shouldnt assume they do the same as 5), and that they know what parts of 5 were positive (hexes, religion).

I am glad you brought up this topic though, because it got me to say what I've been thinking about for years, which is the "the game should add up scores of different types over the ages, rather than just check for victory at the end" spiel.