[NFP] NFP Game Modes are half-baked

[Linklite]

My suggestion.
Heroes get called up once. That's it. No recalls.

I kind of agree with you, but I don't feel this the solution. I've seen several heroes so far, but only Hercules actually interested me enough to do anything about (I didn't realise that you had to get the hero straightaway or the AIs grab them, or Arthur and Mulan might have joined that list, I was holding them in reserve). If I can't recall the heroes, then the game mode would feel largely redundant (more on that later in response to another comment). 1,000 faith sounds cheap, but for me who never aims for faith at all, that will be an insurmountable amount until later in the game, so I'll only recall him twice, maybe three times? If no other hero catches my eye?

I think recall is essential, and upping the faith cost is not really the way to go.

The best thing about these game modes is that they are...modes. You can turn them on or off as you please.

While I appreciate that you can turn them off...that doesn't make it ok to push poor content. I've paid for an expansion that is meant to improve my experience, so I shouldn't have to turn them off to have a decent game. If they're good but not harmonious with a specific game I want to play, that's fine. But I shouldn't be keeping them off because they weren't designed very well.

I know that there is contention as to whether they are designed well, but I don't like the "just don't play with them on" argument, I've paid money for it.

 

[The googles do nothing]

The new game modes are laughably (sad laugh) harness by the AI.

I separate my criticism of AI from the rest of the game play.

- Secret Societies: Tried a couple of times, got bored with it because of poor balance.

Secret Societies and Heroes feel like they are balanced for multiplayer where you want a shorter game. They are just packaged in the same expansion with Civs that have absolutely zero multiplayer balance.

 

[James_Champagne]

- Apocalypse mode: sometimes I use it, sometimes I don't... if I'm in the mood for a dystopic endgame I'll leave it on but other than that...
- Secret Societies: usually leave it on
- Tech shuffle: tried once, didn't care for it
- Dramatic Ages: certainly made the game more of a challenge but a little too over-the-top
- Heroes: tried once, didn't care for it, mainly found it distracting

 

[Kwami]

I separate my criticism of AI from the rest of the game play.



Secret Societies and Heroes feel like they are balanced for multiplayer where you want a shorter game. They are just packaged in the same expansion with Civs that have absolutely zero multiplayer balance.

I don't know why anyone would care about multiplayer balance. The multiplayer community develops its own balance mods that change everything anyway.

Moksha's cost (after 4 titles) is approximately 1.6918 * Production in Faith. So, a district in the Classical Era is probably a bit less than 200 Faith, or less if you're getting a discount.

 

[Snarf054]

I can see how a Civ purist would be disappointed with NFP but that doesn't necessarily make it bad. I look at the game modes as similar to playing with House Rules. I think most of the modes give Civ a more arcadey feel compared to the way Civ regularly plays. I think that is partially Firaxis' way of making the game feel a little more fresh this late in it's life span as opposed to another straight expansion. It's also evidence of the way games are going in general lately. I've always considered Civ a PC game the idea of playing it on console or *cringe* mobile is just wrong to me, but that is the way gaming has been headed for a long time now like it or not.

The modes themselves are decent. Apocalypse was fun the only time I've played it, but I don't see me playing it again unless I get a strange whim. Secret Societies and Heroes add a little twist that I enjoy more often, though both could use some tweaking. Dramatic Ages adds a little more tension and challenge to players like myself that are not very methodical and basically just play however they feel like playing at that given time. The scrambled tech tree is by far my favorite mode and is on every game I play now. The new civs follow pretty much the same theme as the modes. They are more extreme than your standard civs and are more focused on being fun than strategic IMO.

Is NFP skewed towards the more casual Civ player? Yes. Is that necessarily bad? No. Do I think they should throw the more hard core players a huge bone with more traditional add-ons to finish? Absolutley, especially if they are looking towards vanilla Civ VII which is where the true Civ Fanatics will be the key.

 

[8housesofelixir]

And you know this how? Just because we post on a forum, we're worlds apart from the "typical" Civ VI player?

There is a concept called Survivorship Bias, which means people that made it past some selection process will often overlook those who did not - because these people are being surround by who past the same selection process, so they tend to think everyone else had passed the same process as well, despite it is not the case.

Take a look at Civ reddit, the comment section of Civ videos, as well as the percentage of people who have the "finished a game at X difficulty" Steam achievements, you will find out what is a "typical Civ VI player", or at least what "most of the Civ VI players look like". Spoiler alert: They are fairly casual.

 

[Taefin]

I had the most fun using SS as a way of punching above my weight. I played immortal with disasters at 4, and had my capital just pummeled by horse barbarians and flood after flood, and I just barely eeked out a religious win (first and last time I tried that) before Australia swarmed through me with tanks, my Caroleons holding their faltering line and cultists flipped some cities to slow down the assault. I actually didn’t know about the meteors when I later tried Apoc+SS but the cultist abuse let me establish a sizable second empire and I got bored when it was clear no one else was doing anything. I didn’t even have time to bring over my soothsayer to rain down volcano on a walled city, before it erupted on its own. So I got the impression these modes were geared toward making a flavorful system you can abuse in the early/mid game.

I am really happy with tech shuffle, for the mystery of what tech will cause a breakout of advanced units, but mostly for it breaking down the top/bottom tech tree divide. I haven’t learned all the eurekas yet, so it’s a pleasant surprise when I find samurai or muskets earlier than expected, though just as often it just elevates the role of non-strategic-resource units, as they come earlier half the time and often the resource and unit techs are far removed from each other. Add Babylon to the mix and it seems the Gaesataes singular destiny is to fight back the pike and shot.

 

[iammaxhailme]

I like secret societies and use it most of the time, but I do think it's pretty imbalanced, and, worse than that, the AI is really really bad at it. I can't count how many times I've seen an AI civ with 30 cultists sitting in their cities, doing nothing the entire game.

 

[c4c6]

pretty imbalanced, and, worse than that, the AI is really really bad at it

Yeah, probably most players (and even modders) underestimate that it is one thing to define additional rules and an entirely different thing how the players behave in the context of new rules.
The human player: Ok, interesting, let's try them out and have fun ... he has an intuition how it could work and learns very quickly (often even not noticing as it's a matter of course).
The AI players need AT LEAST a new finetuning. Depending on the impact of the changed rules the existing code has to be heavily extended or even rewritten. It is worse than baby sitting, you have to teach them every single step, again and again. If done right, the effort for the changed AI behaviour is bigger than for the rule changes. If missing/neglected, the AI players do what they "know" (cultists) or look dumb, Pirates! etc.

 

[Siddharth Venkatesh]

It must be a Mod as it works fine in a current stream I am recording without Mods.

I know it works for most people. I've no clue what causes the issue in my game. I've re-installed the game and deleted all mods and it did nothing.

 

[Vargas1]

I fully agree on Secret Societies. It should be a really interesting game mode, and each of the societies has the beginnings of a good idea. But the balance among them is just so off that I find it not fun to use. I've haven't even bothered with Hermetic Order, but I've tried multiple games with Owls and Sanguine, and each time it's clear I would have been better off just taking Voidsingers. +4 faith in every city for something I'd be building anyway, from more or less the beginning of the game, just dramatically outweighs the others. And you're entirely right that the AI not being able to use cultists just magnifies the issue.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I like the new game modes, mostly, but I think "half-baked" is a good way to characterize them. I understand the idea of having the Civs create myths and legends - every culture on Earth has them, irl - but the way Heroes and Secret Societies are implemented, they don't really feel like myths and legends to me, because they're implemented as though they were real. The easiest way to fix this problem with Secret Societies would be to change the names and lore to groups that were real (the Ninja, the Hashashin, the Knights Templar). Vampires? Cthulhu? Come on... Anyway, a mod might be able to fix that. But the biggest problem with all of the new modes is that the AI wasn't taught how to use them. Dramatic Ages right now just feels like an exploit.

 

[Taefin]

Dramatic Ages right now just feels like an exploit.

Try it out with free city default identity pressure of -10 or -20 (instead of +10) and free city identify per citizen < 1.0 (instead of 3.5). This will make dramatic ages play out as flips between neighboring AI, with 3-5 turns of free city in between. At least it stops the free city blob. And it gives that extra push where an AI can grow 3-4 cities larger during a game and pose more a threat to the player. Then having 40% of your empire break away every couple eras actually feels like a fun new constraint/challenge.