New Developer Interview SA-Games

[Ryika]

Well, Singleplayer plays out a lot different than multiplayer does and has different problems to solve. City Placement in Singleplayer for example mostly evolves around the resources you want, while in Multiplayer - as fas as I know - the most important factor is zoning out other players and taking up the contested space. Singleplayer in general evolves around the idea of having "no meaningful military at all" for a very long time and many people know that in MP they won't get away with that, so I can totally see the tendency to either completely overshoot military production and never get anywhere, or to basically have too few defenses against players who know how to move units right.

Overall Singleplayer-Strategies just don't translate well into MP-Gameplay and I don't think evaluating the player's experience on that one MP-game they played is really meaningful. After all there's not much of a difference between a "new player" and a player who has knowledge that will lead him to false decisions. You'd need to give a player time to adapt to really evaluate his skill.

With that said though, I think singleplayer has a tendency to give players a false pretend of being good. Many players who can beat Deity in Civ5 aren't "good" at the game, they've just learned how to efficiently use and abuse the good strategies. Being able to win on Deity can be achieved really fast if that's what one wants, the "skill-challenge" is winning extremely fast.

In Beyond Earth, Apollo-AI is even weaker, so just being able to win on Apollo inflates that problem even further.

 

[AriochIV]

However the general attitude of the MP community is that most of the SP players are not exactly firing on all cylinders since they find the extremely inept AI to be fun, fulfilling and some how challenging. That or they simply don't have the experience or time to realize how bad the AI is.

4X games like Civilization are poorly suited to multiplayer because of the length of the game. My typical playthrough spans many hours spread across multiple days. This game experience is not possible in multiplayer and so I have no interest in it. That has absolutely nothing to do with my relative skill as a player.

 

[Westwall]

4X games like Civilization are poorly suited to multiplayer because of the length of the game. My typical playthrough spans many hours spread across multiple days. This game experience is not possible in multiplayer and so I have no interest in it. That has absolutely nothing to do with my relative skill as a player.

This. I've always played Civ games for the SP experience and the sensation of forging a thriving empire. I never wanted "turn-based StarCraft." I don't care about being especially "good" or skillful at the game or exploiting AI weaknesses.

That said, the AI in BE is just abysmal and way too passive and that is a problem. It baffles me when people say the MP experience is supposed to be paramount in these games. Really? A turn-based 4x is supposed to be MP-focused?

Am I really not supposed to find the SP experience more appealing with more time to make my decisions and sometimes just sit back and enjoy the view of my cities and wonders and improvements and workers?

 

[Galgus]

As a Marathon player I second that.

 

[Ryika]

And of course, mods allow for very different experiences from the same game, while PvP (in the sense of competitive PvP) always evolves around mastering the same ideas.

 

[Galgus]

And of course, mods allow for very different experiences from the same game, while PvP (in the sense of competitive PvP) always evolves around mastering the same ideas.

True, playing unmodded BNW Civ 5 would feel like losing one or two expansions worth of content and tweaks I get from mods.

Sadly BE doesn't have quite the mod community that Civ 5 does.

I would absolutely love to see a version of Events and Decisions for BE, or for the guy behind Barbarian Lands to work on Alien AI, for instance.

 

[Westwall]

And of course, mods allow for very different experiences from the same game, while PvP (in the sense of competitive PvP) always evolves around mastering the same ideas.

Exactly. People who are more SP-oriented aren't going to ever be the best at exploiting and min-maxing the game's mechanics because competitive play was never the point for them in the first place.

I would absolutely love to see a version of Events and Decisions for BE, or for the guy behind Barbarian Lands to work on Alien AI, for instance.

This is sorely needed.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Sadly BE doesn't have quite the mod community that Civ 5 does.

For what it's worth, Civ5's mod community took a long time to properly take off. The lack of the DLL source and the lacklustre experience pre-G+K/BNW really dampened Civ5 modding interest. The combination of the expansions, the DLL source and Deliverator's breakthroughs in graphics modding really made the current Civ5 modding scene into what it is.

If RT is well-received and we get the DLL again, then I'm pretty sure Civ:BE modding with make a leap ahead.

 

[Galgus]

For what it's worth, Civ5's mod community took a long time to properly take off. The lack of the DLL source and the lacklustre experience pre-G+K/BNW really dampened Civ5 modding interest. The combination of the expansions, the DLL source and Deliverator's breakthroughs in graphics modding really made the current Civ5 modding scene into what it is.

If RT is well-received and we get the DLL again, then I'm pretty sure Civ:BE modding with make a leap ahead.

True, I'm just hoping RT attracts more great modders to BE.

There are some gems, but the BE modding scene isn't nearly as developed.

 

[CraigMak]

4X games like Civilization are poorly suited to multiplayer because of the length of the game. My typical playthrough spans many hours spread across multiple days. This game experience is not possible in multiplayer and so I have no interest in it. That has absolutely nothing to do with my relative skill as a player.

If you can have the same game in 4 hours instead of several days what is the point in dragging it out? I really don't understand the desire to play on any game speed other than quick. Why would I want to hit the next turn button more times to finish everything?

The only real reason I can see not to play MP is the inability to play a game in one sitting. Either due to having obligations or lack of attention span. If you have kids and a wife I can see this being an impossibility. 4 hours will be an eternity to your children and nagging wife.

 

[CraigMak]

Well, Singleplayer plays out a lot different than multiplayer does and has different problems to solve. City Placement in Singleplayer for example mostly evolves around the resources you want, while in Multiplayer - as fas as I know - the most important factor is zoning out other players and taking up the contested space. Singleplayer in general evolves around the idea of having "no meaningful military at all" for a very long time and many people know that in MP they won't get away with that, so I can totally see the tendency to either completely overshoot military production and never get anywhere, or to basically have too few defenses against players who know how to move units right.

Overall Singleplayer-Strategies just don't translate well into MP-Gameplay and I don't think evaluating the player's experience on that one MP-game they played is really meaningful. After all there's not much of a difference between a "new player" and a player who has knowledge that will lead him to false decisions. You'd need to give a player time to adapt to really evaluate his skill.

With that said though, I think singleplayer has a tendency to give players a false pretend of being good. Many players who can beat Deity in Civ5 aren't "good" at the game, they've just learned how to efficiently use and abuse the good strategies. Being able to win on Deity can be achieved really fast if that's what one wants, the "skill-challenge" is winning extremely fast.

In Beyond Earth, Apollo-AI is even weaker, so just being able to win on Apollo inflates that problem even further.

The problem is that I see experienced SP players making fundamental errors in judgement that should not be acceptable in either MP or SP. Doing things such as settling 1 tile away from a mountain being unable to get an observatory, settling on top of wheat, horses etc.. thus making the tile useless, planting a city in another players face and then not making units to defend when doing so is obviously a declaration of war. Being unaware of chariot spam, composite rushes etc..

A good MP FFA actually involves everyone attempting to settle mountains whenver possible and growing/teching as much as possible avoiding war at all cost. Two people going to war usually ensures that both will not win the game regardless of who wins the war. Avoiding planting cities in locations that might annoy another player. Land grabbing is not the way to go because it leads to early war which leads to making units instead of infrastructure.

 

[Galgus]

If you can have the same game in 4 hours instead of several days what is the point in dragging it out? I really don't understand the desire to play on any game speed other than quick. Why would I want to hit the next turn button more times to finish everything?

The only real reason I can see not to play MP is the inability to play a game in one sitting. Either due to having obligations or lack of attention span. If you have kids and a wife I can see this being an impossibility. 4 hours will be an eternity to your children and nagging wife.

I have two main reasons for being a Marathon player:

1. The rate the world changes relative to unit movement is insane in faster difficulties.

I enjoy being able to actually explore and fight long wars without the tech rapidly changing.
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2. Immersion.

It just feels wrong when eras zoom by too quickly - like I don't get to properly appreciate that part of the civilization's history.

 

[Westwall]

The problem is that I see experienced SP players making fundamental errors in judgement that should not be acceptable in either MP or SP. Doing things such as settling 1 tile away from a mountain being unable to get an observatory, settling on top of wheat, horses etc.. thus making the tile useless, planting a city in another players face and then not making units to defend when doing so is obviously a declaration of war. Being unaware of chariot spam, composite rushes etc..

I'm an SP-only player and I don't make any of those mistakes.

Also you essentially seem to take issue with people playing this game however they want.

Games are still meant to be fun at the end of the day.

So if experienced players are making "fundamental errors," they must not be all that game-breaking if they still manage to win.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Also you essentially seem to take issue with people playing this game however they want.

Games are still meant to be fun at the end of the day.

Clearly, we single player people are having fun the wrong way. We're having badwrongfun!

 

[CraigMak]

I'm an SP-only player and I don't make any of those mistakes.

Also you essentially seem to take issue with people playing this game however they want.

Games are still meant to be fun at the end of the day.

So if experienced players are making "fundamental errors," they must not be all that game-breaking if they still manage to win.

People can manage to win in SP while making fundamental errors because the AI is that bad. The margin for error vs the inept and exploitable AI is massive compared to a reasoning, thinking human.

Also, it really depends on the difficulty settings. On prince you can do pretty much anything you want and still win. That doesn't mean you're playing well. Having fun? That's a different story. I'm sure some people may have tons of fun shooting air balls all day while others prefer to actually make baskets and improve their shot.

I didn't say people shouldn't play that way or that they shouldn't be having fun doing that. I was just pointing out that SP doesn't really teach you much about the game and that's why people often think they are good when they clearly are not good.

Civ 5 is the only game in the world where everyone no matter how terrible they are thinks they are awesome at the game. Believing that you're already amazing and attributing every loss to luck or he had better land is a great way to never learn a thing. If you already think you're amazing with no room for improvement, you're not going to improve.

Long story short, they need to put forth a lot more effort in making the AI play more intelligently. Allowing the AI to actually make good decisions instead of just handing it stuff for free to make it harder. If they did that then SP would be much more fun and challenging for everyone. Not just the role players and casuals which admittedly is a large portion of the player base.

 

[CraigMak]

I have two main reasons for being a Marathon player:

1. The rate the world changes relative to unit movement is insane in faster difficulties.

I enjoy being able to actually explore and fight long wars without the tech rapidly changing.
___________________________________

2. Immersion.

It just feels wrong when eras zoom by too quickly - like I don't get to properly appreciate that part of the civilization's history.

I fail to see the point of fighting a long war with an AI that doesn't know how to fight. Combat is probably its largest shortcoming.

The only parts where things feel too quick for me is once you hit the industrial era you can pretty much enter the modern era 2 turns later. If you save up your GS until you get labs you can go straight from plastics to the info era in a snap. That is kind of weird. The only way to fix this would be to make it so that you can't save up scientists forever.

 

[Westwall]

People can manage to win in SP while making fundamental errors because the AI is that bad. The margin for error vs the inept and exploitable AI is massive compared to a reasoning, thinking human.

Civ 5 is the only game in the world where everyone no matter how terrible they are thinks they are awesome at the game. Believing that you're already amazing and attributing every loss to luck or he had better land is a great way to never learn a thing. If you already think you're amazing with no room for improvement, you're not going to improve.

But by the AI's standards (and by extension the game itself), they are that good. I agree that it's the AI that needs to be improved but you almost seem to put some of the blame on SP players themselves, simply for succeeding as much as the game allows them. Unless they're actually bragging to you about how good they are or crying foul when they lose in MP, I just don't see why it matters.

As you say, they'll improve along with the AI so the onus is on the developers.

 

[CraigMak]

Then by the AI's standards (and by extension the game itself), they are that good. I agree that it's the AI that needs to be improved but you almost seem to put some of the blame on SP players themselves, simply for succeeding as much as the game allows them. Unless they're actually bragging to you about how good they are or crying foul when they lose in MP, I just don't see why it matters.

As you say, they'll improve along with the AI so the onus is on the developers.

They do cry foul when they lose in MP. They claim it's all land and no skill or OP civ, OP unit or simu turns is broken. Lots of dumb nonsense. Then I tell them OK, if it's luck let's see how the next 10 games turn out. They of course decline.

I would prefer to meet better players that are more willing to learn and get better as opposed to those who think they are good and unwilling to listen to tips.

This game breeds a very stubborn community and that stubbornness is what prevents improvement. That stubbornness is born from them believing they are already amazing due to beating up on the inept AI. Unfortunately the difficulty setting is labeled EMPEROR or IMMORTAL or DEITY, so they think these settings must be incredibly difficult and challenging. It even says some where that only a handful of players in the world will be able to defeat the AI on Deity. That is of course complete nonsense.

I have literally met at least 20 people who actually believe they are the best player in the world. It's quite sad.

 

[Ryika]

Yeah, because PvP-Players are not at all known for being whiny and cocky at the same time and claiming that the opponent has won because of skill, cheating, cheesing or just a bad internet connetion, right? 8) Sore losers exist everywhere, your "Us versus them"-mentality is nonsensical.

I don't think it's your business how other people play the game though. If you can't live with meeting idiots, well, extend your circle of friends. Even if people don't want to improve - that's their own decision.

 

[Westwall]

They do cry foul when they lose in MP. They claim it's all land and no skill or OP civ, OP unit or simu turns is broken. Lots of dumb nonsense. Then I tell them OK, if it's luck let's see how the next 10 games turn out. They of course decline.

I would prefer to meet better players that are more willing to learn and get better as opposed to those who think they are good and unwilling to listen to tips.

I'd say if they're beating Civ 5 on the highest difficulty levels, they're going to do fairly decent in multi-player, just because it still takes a fair amount of skill to beat an AI that's being given so many boosts. I could be wrong, but I know not many players would last long on Immortal and Deity by making the mistakes you claim they make.

That said, I doubt you're really meeting that many true SP players in MP, because of course true SP players don't play MP. That's why they're SP players. I sure as hell don't play MP and don't plan on it anytime soon.

The bottom line that we can all agree on is that the AI needs to be improved in the way it conducts itself, both tactically on the map and in long-term strategic planning.