Playing as a Continuous Civ- A HUGE Mistake

[Head_North]

But with those mechanical problems there and likely unsolvable, you can't justify locking civs to an uninteresting age.

And I as well see what you mean now, thanks for clearing that up! Thats a good point!

 

[disjointaccount]

Very good point. It's clear to anyone who's played a few games through modern that it was not meant to be the final age. I think modern will be de facto more interesting if it's building up to another age than it is being the final age. The question is, what can be added to or changed about modern if a 4th and final age is added? The map is explored, settlements are pretty much set, same for traditions.

For me, one of the big problems with modern is that there are all these things I'd like to engage with (wonders, buildings, unique civics trees, etc.), but that I don't touch because I have no reason to commit resources to anything that isn't winning the game. If modern worked like antiquity and explo in that the age played out regardless, suddenly the age's content stops being moot and I can drop down those fun wonders or whatever. This is compounded if the atomic age win conditions are set up such that I'm rewarded for having continued to develop my infrastructure (also, I'm making the assumption here that an atomic age intended as a "finale age" would have less in the way of stuff that doesn't just help you win faster to avoid repeating the problem we currently have with modern. This whole post really is assuming the best possible implementation of a fourth age as it relates to this issue. Obviously we have no idea what will actually happen).

The mere existence of a fourth age wouldn't instantly completely fix modern, but I think it'd definitely help, and in conjuction with some more work on modern (which we know is coming sooner than later anyway with the legacy path reworks they've mentioned alongside single-civ mode - really I think just making the legacy paths a little more engaging to hopefully scratch that same "mini-game" itch that 4X-ing the homelands and distant lands respectively in antiquity and explo do) I definitely think there's the potential for the endgame to get into a much better state.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Can I just ask, what is snowballing?
I see this term thrown around a lot. But I have no idea what it means lol.
Showing my age I guess lol.

Snowballing is where a civ gets stronger and stronger over time until the civ becomes way more powerful than all other civs. It is based on the idea of a snowball rolling down the hill and getting bigger and bigger. It stems from how small advantages can have a cumulative effect. For example, maybe I get some extra gold from a goody hut. I use that gold to rush a settler. I use that early settler to found a good science city early on. The extra science helps me get techs before other civs. So now, I have better military units. I use those better military units to conquer my closest neighbor. Now, I have more cities than my neighbor which means more production, science and culture. So now I can build even more units and get even further ahead in science. So now, my military is even stronger. So I conquer more civs. Now, I am even more powerful. etc... Eventually, I become the #1 civ in everything, 2x more powerful than all the other civs combined.

Snowballing is tricky because on one hand, we want players to get ahead. And there is satisfaction in knowing you played well and were able to leverage your advantages to get ahead. But at the same time, once you become too far ahead then there is no challenge anymore. Winning becomes a matter of just pressing end turn. The game becomes boring. That is a bad thing. This forum has debated a lot how to best prevent snowballing from getting out of control. Some suggest game mechanics to punish the civ that is too far ahead but we generally don't like punishing players for doing well. Others suggest game mechanics to help the smaller civs catch up but those mechanics are often not enough to overcome the snowballing advantage of the civ in the lead. Still others suggest maybe just ending the game sooner when it is obvious that the snowballing civ will win.

I think civ7 tried to fix snowballing by having Age transitions. By ending an Age and resetting the tech and civics tree, it prevents a civ from continuing to get too far ahead in science or culture. So it breaks up the snowballing effect. But I have noticed that snowballing is still alive and well in civ7. This is because if you do well in the Antiquity Age and get lots of legacy bonuses, it will help you do better in the next Exploration Age. This often puts you in a good position to do well in the Exploration Age and get lots of legacy bonuses again which sets you up to do even better in the Modern Age. So there is still a cumulative effect where winning in one Age snowballs into the next Age. Also, the crisis don't really do much to hinder the powerful civ. On the contrary, the more powerful you are, the easier it is to weather the crisis. And crisis cannot be too strong that they punish the player too much because it would be frustrating to lose all your hard earned advantages from an arbitary event that you have no control over.

 

[Smegger213]

Snowballing is where a civ gets stronger and stronger over time until the civ becomes way more powerful than all other civs. It is based on the idea of a snowball rolling down the hill and getting bigger and bigger. It stems from how small advantages can have a cumulative effect. For example, maybe I get some extra gold from a goody hut. I use that gold to rush a settler. I use that early settler to found a good science city early on. The extra science helps me get techs before other civs. So now, I have better military units. I use those better military units to conquer my closest neighbor. Now, I have more cities than my neighbor which means more production, science and culture. So now I can build even more units and get even further ahead in science. So now, my military is even stronger. So I conquer more civs. Now, I am even more powerful. etc... Eventually, I become the #1 civ in everything, 2x more powerful than all the other civs combined.

Snowballing is tricky because on one hand, we want players to get ahead. And there is satisfaction in knowing you played well and were able to leverage your advantages to get ahead. But at the same time, once you become too far ahead then there is no challenge anymore. Winning becomes a matter of just pressing end turn. The game becomes boring. That is a bad thing. This forum has debated a lot how to best prevent snowballing from getting out of control. Some suggest game mechanics to punish the civ that is too far ahead but we generally don't like punishing players for doing well. Others suggest game mechanics to help the smaller civs catch up but those mechanics are often not enough to overcome the snowballing advantage of the civ in the lead. Still others suggest maybe just ending the game sooner when it is obvious that the snowballing civ will win.

I think civ7 tried to fix snowballing by having Age transitions. By ending an Age and resetting the tech and civics tree, it prevents a civ from continuing to get too far ahead in science or culture. So it breaks up the snowballing effect. But I have noticed that snowballing is still alive and well in civ7. This is because if you do well in the Antiquity Age and get lots of legacy bonuses, it will help you do better in the next Exploration Age. This often puts you in a good position to do well in the Exploration Age and get lots of legacy bonuses again which sets you up to do even better in the Modern Age. So there is still a cumulative effect where winning in one Age snowballs into the next Age. Also, the crisis don't really do much to hinder the powerful civ. On the contrary, the more powerful you are, the easier it is to weather the crisis. And crisis cannot be too strong that they punish the player too much because it would be frustrating to lose all your hard earned advantages from an arbitary event that you have no control over.

Thanks for clearing that up. Pretty obvious really.

 

[Gorbles]

You might call the Ages System a "Vision", but Catherine the Great leading the Incas certainly is not!

Neither's George Washington living in 5,000 BC. Subjective is as subjective does.

(I'm well aware this point has been made a million times before, but so long as this kind of gotcha keeps being made, so shall the response)

 

[IntelligentDisk]

Neither's George Washington living in 5,000 BC. Subjective is as subjective does.

(I'm well aware this point has been made a million times before, but so long as this kind of gotcha keeps being made, so shall the response)

Neither is George Washington leading an army of archers & spearmen while building the pyramids.

The only reason players don't like leaders & civilizations splitting up is because they aren't used to it. Same with Civ-switching.

If Civs I - VI had leaders/Civs splitting up & Civ-switching and then Civ VII came out and introduced leaders being stuck with their Civilizations and no Civ-switching then you'd have massive complaints about how restrictive the game has become, how it has become dumbed down, how it is less immersive, and ultimately how the quality of the game has gone down.

 

[IntelligentDisk]

Very good point. It's clear to anyone who's played a few games through modern that it was not meant to be the final age. I think modern will be de facto more interesting if it's building up to another age than it is being the final age. The question is, what can be added to or changed about modern if a 4th and final age is added? The map is explored, settlements are pretty much set, same for traditions.

I'd want some huge map & game changing crises to happen at the end of Modern which lead into the next Age (some sort of reset which leads into more exploration and settlement settling). I hope it leads into a more futuristic Age with a fair amount of science fiction. Crises including:

• nuclear war: destroying settlements, covering land in nuclear debris, not sure how these would create/destroy land or water tiles though, maybe a new artificial land creation mechanic could come into play
• climate change: destroying settlements, covering land in water, could lead to artificial land creation
• supervolcano eruption: destroying settlements, covering land in ash as well as new land & ocean (leading to new exploration)
• asteroid impact: destroying settlements, huge crater is left in the map with new land & ocean (leading to new exploration) with new space materials/metals
• extreme earthquake (lean into science fiction): an earthquake so extreme that it changes the oceans & lands
• escape to Mars scenario: Earth is a lost cause, all or some Civilizations make it to Mars for the final Age, a new map is created at the start of each Age already right?
• alien invasion and/or pandemic leading to zombies: could lead into a scenario where all Civs form an alliance, certain Civs completely collapse & die, all Civs are left with just their capitals, not sure how these would create/destroy land or water tiles though

Not sure if this would be particularly popular but I could see it being very fun if done correctly, it's a game after all and a common complaint about the end of Civ games is how tedious they become. Each crisis could have its own unique victory conditions. You'd have the ability in settings to choose which crises you'd want, so could turn off the more outlandish alien/zombie ones. It does lean into a more gimmicky side of the game though and you'd have to have at least one Crisis enabled during the 4th Age.

 

[Krikkit1]

Snowballing is where a civ gets stronger and stronger over time until the civ becomes way more powerful than all other civs. It is based on the idea of a snowball rolling down the hill and getting bigger and bigger. It stems from how small advantages can have a cumulative effect. For example, maybe I get some extra gold from a goody hut. I use that gold to rush a settler. I use that early settler to found a good science city early on. The extra science helps me get techs before other civs. So now, I have better military units. I use those better military units to conquer my closest neighbor. Now, I have more cities than my neighbor which means more production, science and culture. So now I can build even more units and get even further ahead in science. So now, my military is even stronger. So I conquer more civs. Now, I am even more powerful. etc... Eventually, I become the #1 civ in everything, 2x more powerful than all the other civs combined.

Snowballing is tricky because on one hand, we want players to get ahead. And there is satisfaction in knowing you played well and were able to leverage your advantages to get ahead. But at the same time, once you become too far ahead then there is no challenge anymore. Winning becomes a matter of just pressing end turn. The game becomes boring. That is a bad thing. This forum has debated a lot how to best prevent snowballing from getting out of control. Some suggest game mechanics to punish the civ that is too far ahead but we generally don't like punishing players for doing well. Others suggest game mechanics to help the smaller civs catch up but those mechanics are often not enough to overcome the snowballing advantage of the civ in the lead. Still others suggest maybe just ending the game sooner when it is obvious that the snowballing civ will win.

I think civ7 tried to fix snowballing by having Age transitions. By ending an Age and resetting the tech and civics tree, it prevents a civ from continuing to get too far ahead in science or culture. So it breaks up the snowballing effect. But I have noticed that snowballing is still alive and well in civ7. This is because if you do well in the Antiquity Age and get lots of legacy bonuses, it will help you do better in the next Exploration Age. This often puts you in a good position to do well in the Exploration Age and get lots of legacy bonuses again which sets you up to do even better in the Modern Age. So there is still a cumulative effect where winning in one Age snowballs into the next Age. Also, the crisis don't really do much to hinder the powerful civ. On the contrary, the more powerful you are, the easier it is to weather the crisis. And crisis cannot be too strong that they punish the player too much because it would be frustrating to lose all your hard earned advantages from an arbitary event that you have no control over.

I think the thing they learned from the reactions to the Age Transition is that you can’t solve snowballing by taking things away from the player. The Age system could still allow them to solve it by boosting the AI.

If the AI got increasingly larger boosts in later ages, then that snowball could be interrupted (especially if there were bigger boosts for weaker AIs)

 

[Lazy sweeper]

"Dedicated fans" were too few to keep a game like Civilization alive

And what is a Dedicated fan? Because i have been playing Civilization since 1 and i hated how they changed the game for VII and think they should change it to go back to the roots of what made Civilization great. Civ switching is a Humankind mechanic, not a Civilization one

This new entry did a lot of damage to the franchise, the worst they can do is to keep being stubborn and try to keep their failed "vision"

Look, the mantra of getting rid of "workers" has been going on forever since Civ V inception...

I've never been QUIET on this.

I am ONE voice.

In every respectable society ONE voice is more than enough to shut down any illogical argument.

QUALITY over QUANTITY.

If your choice is QUANTITY, you have lost access to the only ONE, true, human, barrier between YOU and the infinity of the UNIVERSE VOID.

I, prefer to see where I walk, touch the grass, and smell the fresh air of the morning breeze.
I will not waste my time trying to convince a MADMAN that he CAN?T WALK ON THE WATER, unless he's ROGER WATER of course.

 

[Leucarum]

I don't disagree with this, but I think it overlooks the other factors affecting how age-limited civs interact with the late-game problem. Playing one civ the whole way through has been the way it worked in every previous civ game, and at no point was the 4X late game slog alleviated. I think if there is a solution to be had in Civ 7, it's with modern-specific civs, because the greater the extent to which as much of the gameplay as possible is tuned to the stage of the game, the more tools the devs have to address the relevant issues. I'm not saying they hit it out the park with modern as it currently exists (I maintain that its biggest problem right now is just square-peg-round-hole because it's acting as the final age when it's not ultimately meant to, but that's probably beyond the scope of this thread and we should maybe stick to only a handful of tangents at a time), but I think the potential is there, and it comes from age-specific civs. Again, I'm totally down to have an ageless civs mode added; my point is just on this specific matter, I think in the long run (and in a perfect world where every decision about 7's ongoing development is made perfectly) the better mode for alleviating the late game slog would be age-specific civs. (Also, fwiw, I do already find 7 a lot better than its predecessors for this. The boring mindless button-mashing is definitely still there, but it's nothing like in 6 where I was paying more attention to my second monitor by the time I reached industrialisation).

I honestly think the best thing 7 has done for the late game is the town/city split, getting rid of builders, and adding army commanders. It's still a click fest, and the late game is irrelevant but less production queues means less mindless clicking! I think the best thing Firaxis could focus on is going further down that route to make the late game go by quicker.

 

[ColtSeavers]

Neither's George Washington living in 5,000 BC. Subjective is as subjective does.

(I'm well aware this point has been made a million times before, but so long as this kind of gotcha keeps being made, so shall the response)

And what does this have to do with what I said? This so called "vision" some of you guys like to refer to so often, what do you mean by that exactly?

 

[Lord Lakely]

I honestly think the best thing 7 has done for the late game is the town/city split, getting rid of builders, and adding army commanders. It's still a click fest, and the late game is irrelevant but less production queues means less mindless clicking! I think the best thing Firaxis could focus on is going further down that route to make the late game go by quicker.

The main reason why it's a clickfest is because there is no ability to drag and drop. Which...

 

[Gorbles]

And what does this have to do with what I said? This so called "vision" some of you guys like to refer to so often, what do you mean by that exactly?

Your agreement (or even recognition) of a vision appears to be based on something you personally dislike. Mixing leaders and civilisations was a part of the vision this time around, whether you like it or not. You can criticise it of course!

 

[Leucarum]

The main reason why it's a clickfest is because there is no ability to drag and drop. Which...

I don't follow...

 

[Smegger213]

I honestly think the best thing 7 has done for the late game is the town/city split, getting rid of builders, and adding army commanders. It's still a click fest, and the late game is irrelevant but less production queues means less mindless clicking! I think the best thing Firaxis could focus on is going further down that route to make the late game go by quicker.

I don't like them getting rid of builders / workers. I loved building roads and railways, but I wish you could build them quicker.
Now you have no choice about roads or rails. If you wanted to build a road somewhere that isn't one of your towns and cities. You can't do that.

I am also not that impressed with commanders. I would prefer to have my individual units gain experience and get better.
Also, why do you lose ties with all your independent states at age transition? Plus it costs you double influence to befriend them again (but that's off topic).

 

[Evolena]

I think civ7 tried to fix snowballing by having Age transitions. By ending an Age and resetting the tech and civics tree, it prevents a civ from continuing to get too far ahead in science or culture. So it breaks up the snowballing effect. But I have noticed that snowballing is still alive and well in civ7. This is because if you do well in the Antiquity Age and get lots of legacy bonuses, it will help you do better in the next Exploration Age. This often puts you in a good position to do well in the Exploration Age and get lots of legacy bonuses again which sets you up to do even better in the Modern Age. So there is still a cumulative effect where winning in one Age snowballs into the next Age.

Has anyone tried to not use the legacy points they've earned? Would the snowballing effect feel better that way?

 

[Evolena]

Also, why do you lose ties with all your independent states at age transition? Plus it costs you double influence to befriend them again (but that's off topic).

There is one (small) tie:
* there's still an(other) IP in place of the previous befriended one
* this IP will start peaceful towards you, even if it should have been hostile. So half the time to befriend (or no need to spend more influence to make it faster).

 

[Gorbles]

When talking about snowballing, it would be helpful to know if peoples' experiences are when using Continuity, or Regroup.

Not only was Regroup softened from on launch, but Continuity explicitly lets you keep (quite a few) more things unaltered between Transitions. This waters down any anti-snowballing measures, and is therefore kinda irrelevant when discussing if the product on release actually achieved its aim.

Because it has changed, right? What was an aim on release might not be as much of an aim now. Firaxis have obviously gone some distance to try and smooth out the things players seemed to like the least. Which means the original design goal meets the compromise of retaining players (playing VII).

I've always said Legacy Points feel too powerful. It'll be interesting to see what the Legacy Path / Victories changes look like (if / when we get them).

 

[stealth_nsk]

Your agreement (or even recognition) of a vision appears to be based on something you personally dislike. Mixing leaders and civilisations was a part of the vision this time around, whether you like it or not. You can criticise it of course!

From what we can reconstruct, I don't think mixing civilizations and leaders was part of the vision. We know that Firaxis playtested other options, like keeping civilization through ages with changing leaders. So, I'd say that original vision included age reset only and things like changeable civilizations and mixing leaders with them, just came naturally from the vision.

This also fits with usual definition of vision, where it's something really short and usually aligned with marketing message. So it probably was something around "History built in layers".

 

[UWHabs]

Snowballing is where a civ gets stronger and stronger over time until the civ becomes way more powerful than all other civs. It is based on the idea of a snowball rolling down the hill and getting bigger and bigger. It stems from how small advantages can have a cumulative effect. For example, maybe I get some extra gold from a goody hut. I use that gold to rush a settler. I use that early settler to found a good science city early on. The extra science helps me get techs before other civs. So now, I have better military units. I use those better military units to conquer my closest neighbor. Now, I have more cities than my neighbor which means more production, science and culture. So now I can build even more units and get even further ahead in science. So now, my military is even stronger. So I conquer more civs. Now, I am even more powerful. etc... Eventually, I become the #1 civ in everything, 2x more powerful than all the other civs combined.

Snowballing is tricky because on one hand, we want players to get ahead. And there is satisfaction in knowing you played well and were able to leverage your advantages to get ahead. But at the same time, once you become too far ahead then there is no challenge anymore. Winning becomes a matter of just pressing end turn. The game becomes boring. That is a bad thing. This forum has debated a lot how to best prevent snowballing from getting out of control. Some suggest game mechanics to punish the civ that is too far ahead but we generally don't like punishing players for doing well. Others suggest game mechanics to help the smaller civs catch up but those mechanics are often not enough to overcome the snowballing advantage of the civ in the lead. Still others suggest maybe just ending the game sooner when it is obvious that the snowballing civ will win.

I think civ7 tried to fix snowballing by having Age transitions. By ending an Age and resetting the tech and civics tree, it prevents a civ from continuing to get too far ahead in science or culture. So it breaks up the snowballing effect. But I have noticed that snowballing is still alive and well in civ7. This is because if you do well in the Antiquity Age and get lots of legacy bonuses, it will help you do better in the next Exploration Age. This often puts you in a good position to do well in the Exploration Age and get lots of legacy bonuses again which sets you up to do even better in the Modern Age. So there is still a cumulative effect where winning in one Age snowballs into the next Age. Also, the crisis don't really do much to hinder the powerful civ. On the contrary, the more powerful you are, the easier it is to weather the crisis. And crisis cannot be too strong that they punish the player too much because it would be frustrating to lose all your hard earned advantages from an arbitary event that you have no control over.

Yeah, the biggest example of snowballing to me would be comparing one leader whose ability was "+20 culture per turn on your capital" compared to a leader who had no bonuses in antiquity and exploration, but 1000 culture per turn on your capital in the modern era. If I had to choose between the 2 of them, which would I take? The first one for sure. Sure, the second leader by turn 5 of modern era would have generated more culture, but little gains early are way more valuable than later.

When talking about snowballing, it would be helpful to know if peoples' experiences are when using Continuity, or Regroup.

Not only was Regroup softened from on launch, but Continuity explicitly lets you keep (quite a few) more things unaltered between Transitions. This waters down any anti-snowballing measures, and is therefore kinda irrelevant when discussing if the product on release actually achieved its aim.

Because it has changed, right? What was an aim on release might not be as much of an aim now. Firaxis have obviously gone some distance to try and smooth out the things players seemed to like the least. Which means the original design goal meets the compromise of retaining players (playing VII).

I've always said Legacy Points feel too powerful. It'll be interesting to see what the Legacy Path / Victories changes look like (if / when we get them).

I think I tend to like regroup more, but trying a continuity game right now, and I will say it's nice not to lose your armies between the eras. The old version I would often rush out and try to sneak in a last commander before the transition just to keep some more units.

Personally, with the legacy points, I think it would be nice if we had some more unique and varied options, rather than putting them into attribute points. Not even just for balance, which is sorely needed (hmm, should I spend 2 culture points to get like 5 culture and 5 happiness on my wonders, or get 2 culture attribute points and get me +1 culture for every resource assigned to my settlements), but I think to give some more variety to gameplay. Like I like being given the option for -2 settlement limit but +100% influence to befriend. Or event those -10% to culture but +15% to science type options. Sure, you always need a base ability, but it's cool to choose something radically different. Even if we just had like 2-3 choices for each point total, give me a couple different choices. I'd love a "golden age shipyard" sometimes. Or give me a military legacy option for Iceland to let my naval units pillage up to 2 tiles away in modern (ie. give each civ one of their age-specific abilities as an unlock that costs legacy points at the end of the age).