New Civ5 player : I fail to entertain myself (weak AI and boring endgame)

[Fezvez]

Hello fellow Civilization players,

I have recently acquired Civilization 5 (with G&K and all the available DLCs), and I have completed 4 games so far agains the AI. The difficulty has progressed from 3 to 5 (I don't remember the names, sorry)

You should note that I have played 4 games, which total 70 hours, so I am not saying the game was not worth it, it definitely was. The problem is that whenever I try to start a new game, the flaws of the game are so apparent that I cannot enjoy myself anymore.

I currently play with Civ5 UP, Civ5 Enhanced G&K and Civ5 City State diplomacy mod. They all make the game better (when compared to my very first game). But I still feel that there are problems so fundamental that I cannot enjoy myself anymore.
The first main gripe is the A.I. I have read that it was terrible at the launch of the game, but has gotten better through patches. However, I can painfully see that it cheats so much that it becomes unfun. How come your civilization has 5 cities, more happiness, and a monstruous army while I struggle to get my third city? The problem is that I cannot allow myself to get a "no AI cheat mod" because once I get to the Renaissance era (roughly) there is a dramatic reversal. If I survived so far, I can crush the AI. With a much weaker army, I can take the AI in a straight fight and win with a huge margin. Basically, it becomes painfully obvious that at the Renaissance era, I have won the game.

This brings me to my second point : the endgame is boring. This is probably very linked with the weak AI problem. Because I can run around freely with my frigates and basically start doing whatever I want (expanding at strategic locations to make religious pressure, capturing/razing enemy cities, etc...) the game becomes just a boring snoozefest. I don't even care about the technologies anymore, I don't care about faith anymore (the uselessness and overall broken way it was set up baffles me. Faith buys great prophets that buys... faith?).

I do not wish to bash this game. I have played it more than I have played most of my games. But the flaws are so obvious that I feel compelled to come here for help. Are there any mods I am missing? (R.E.D modpack is fun, but no gameplay changes) Do I fail to see something? Do I really need to set myself some strange goal like "Oh, what if I tried to have a tech victory completed by 1000 AD"? "Go for domination victory in a huge map with 16 civilizations and 41 city states"?

Thanks for any input you may have. I am glad I did not preorder Brave New World, because I am not sure that my problems will be fixed with this

P.S : Among the very cool things of this game, I can say that I really liked the "no unit stacking". Separating technologies from social policies was also a great plus. The overall balance between food, production, culture, faith and science is wonderful in the early game. (Gold being a really nice way to hotfix your production and culture). So far, my best experience of the game is on level 4 difficulty, from a period ranging from 4000 BC to 1000 AD. During all that period, the game is really great, the AI does not cheat too much, barbarians, city states and enemy civilizations are all worthwhile, tech choices are relevant, all in all, the game is great.

Also, I posted this on Reddit, but it is probably much more relevant to be here

 

[Aldor]

Obviously only you can decide if a game is fun for you, so I won't tell you "But its great!"

However...four games is FAR too small a sample (IMO) to judge the game. And as you said yourself, maybe you just haven't found the "right" settings / mods etc which might make it more fun.

Personally the most fun for me is establishing my empire. Finding good city locations, getting there before the AI does (or taking the spot from them). Ensuring that your tech/growth etc all are ok.

BNW is supposed to improve the end game (which I think many will agree with you, isn't quite interesting currently because at that point you usually have won and its just clicking next turn until finish). If it succeeds...only time will tell

 

[Vohbo]

I dislike all the mods you installed and would never play the game with any of them.

The AI cheats yes, it plays at Chieftain level and gets additional bonuses as you increase your own difficulty. The AI just can't offer sufficient resistance when it plays at the same level as the player (I hope this will improve in BNW), and to be honest it's only an actual challenge when it's at least an era ahead.

Saying that, I don't see how it can be ahead of you in tech or production on any level other than Deity.

Faith is a bit of a strange system. If you choose faith bonuses that require many followers, you need to use faith to spread faith. If you went with buildings, you'll need to use faith to buy faith buildings, and if you went any other way, you save up faith to buy great persons in the late game. I usually only use faith for either the happiness or culture bonuses, and I think it could use an overhaul.

Most strategy games become easy once you overpower the enemy sufficiently, that's exactly why larger maps and higher difficulties make things more interesting. (You'll get much more interesting late game too that way, with helicopter and SAM fights).

 

[Antiphon]

The endgame gets more challenging and interesting at higher difficulties, note however that experience is hampered by the AI simply cheating more instead of behaving cleverly. You might still conquer the world, but leading AI might have built 9 rocket ship parts instead of just the Apollo Prorgram. And because you are informed of every part that gets added, this can lead to some amount of stress when you end your turn and wait for any "news of the world".

Also I disagree with Vohbo on religion, I don't think there's a need for a major overhaul, whereas I agree with non-dominance wins being too much "end of turn"-gameplay.

 

[Idleray]

I have this same problem with all of the Civ games. Late game becomes such a big mass of micro-management hell that I give up because I am obviously so far and away ahead.

I could upgrade from immortal to deity...but meh. My complaint is not that the game isn't difficult enough, but that basically that you have to play to the end rather than have the AI surrender and say "gg" when it knows it stands no chance against you.

 

[civvver]

The ai "cheats" because that's how the entire civilization series is designed. Basically it's not possible to make deity ai smarter than chieftain ai except they might be more aggressive, so to make deity ai harder to beat they get more bonuses and the player gets more penalties. It's the way every civ game has ever worked. It's not perfect, but in general it works, it's more like handicapping the player than actually making the ai smarter. But you'll notice the difficulty levels are just that, difficulty of the game not intelligence of the ai.

The end game is extremely boring. I feel this is a major flaw of civ 5 because of a few reasons:

1. One unit per tile. Makes end game wars take forever and become extremely tedious.
2. Strategic combat. Makes end game wars really easy for the player. Like you said once you get frigates the game is too easy. The ai simply isn't good enough to counter.
3. Happiness penalties. Again they slow down warfare to a crawl late game. Conquer 5 or 6 cities and you usually must buy happiness buildings or halt your invasion. Ruins domination victories.
4. Lack of tech variety. So you decided not to dominate and pursue science instead. There's pretty much one research path to a science victory. There are no significant branches in the tech tree. In civ4 there were major turning points and branch decisions in the tech tree. You didn't even need flight to get to space if you wanted to skip it. Not so in civ5 so tech victory has no variety and gets dull.

Anyway I agree with you and that's pretty much why I never finish civ5 games anymore. They start off fun and interesting but by industrial era I'm bored.

 

[civvver]

I have this same problem with all of the Civ games. Late game becomes such a big mass of micro-management hell that I give up because I am obviously so far and away ahead.

I could upgrade from immortal to deity...but meh. My complaint is not that the game isn't difficult enough, but that basically that you have to play to the end rather than have the AI surrender and say "gg" when it knows it stands no chance against you.

In civ4 you could stop micro managing once the game was clearly won and just dominate with a gigantic stack in a few turns. Shortened the end game dramatically and was very rewarding. Compare to civ5, it's such a pain to move my army between continents and finish everyone off.

 

[Hieschen]

I cannot help you or the boring endgame, because this is spot on. AI cheating is part of the game. I am still hooked to the ame, but i rarely start oe stand alone. I play exclusively the "challenge" games from the strategy subforum (there are plenty of choice and difficulties available) and the Game of the month series. Here the challenge is to be better than the others who play the same map. I find this hugely entertaining

 

[Vohbo]

It sounds odd to me that people think end game war takes forever. I always have the feeling early game wars take forever and end game wars go really fast.

 

[Unresolved]

It sounds odd to me that people think end game war takes forever. I always have the feeling early game wars take forever and end game wars go really fast.

Agreed. Planes and Calvary/Tanks allow you to take over a civilization in 10 turns or less. Much faster than marching your crossbows somewhere.

 

[Crafty Bison]

So the computer players cheat, but their AI doesn't give you a challenge? You're gonna have to put 2 and 2 together here. There are only 2 alternatives:
1) Make that actual AI better and smarter. For a game this complex, that would require a gargantuan legion of coders which firaxis cannot afford to spend time and money employing for what is essentially very little return to them. This would bump up the price considerably to the point where it would be a commercial flop, they would never make DLC's and add ons, and you and I would never hear about it. Hmm, I'm ok without that one.
2) Make the game less complex, and probably far worse. Hmm, don't think I'm gonna sell you on this one.
Conclusion, just turn the volume up to 8 (deity) and accept the fact that the AI gets a handicap bonus. If you still find it too easy later on then you'll be i a very small minority, even at this forum.
As for late game being boring to the extent you won't buy BNW... The late game is exactly what BNW's trying to fix.

 

[pilot00]

If you find the end game boring you might try to play on epic speed. You have a lot more time to use the new stuff in there.

 

[Karmah]

From 3 to 5 ?
Go on son, they still are much more level ahead.
In my opinion, before 7 its for learning , playing is 7 and 8 , 7 if you want to still build one or two wonders for the fun of it , 8 otherwise.