Playing as a Continuous Civ- A HUGE Mistake

[Krikkit1]

I think scaling enemies is definitely possible in civ. If I finish an age with 50% more yields than the strongest AI, there is no snowball if the AI gets a 50% bonus to their yields.

The issue is to not make it dependent on how well the player does. If I get ahead by 80% or 50% or 30% and the AI gets a 50% boost either way….
Then
I’m not being punished for success. Instead I need to Keep succeeding, because if my 80% lead got cut to 30…I need to get another 20% this age just to stay even for the next one.

Previous civs Really messed this up by giving the AI starting bonus…which means once you overcome the initial bonus the game is easy (or you lose in the first 50 turns)
Civ7 at least has made the bonuses even throughout the game.
However, that’s still not enough. Because any good player is going to snowball (due to mechanics) so AI bonuses must increase throughout the game. (maybe less for an AI that is snowballing itself)

 

[disjointaccount]

If we speak about snowballing the main definition to me is cumulative effect, meaning that early advantages (either from random or good play) weight much more than later ones.

Let's assume you found a settler in goody hut (which was possible in some earlier civ games). Now you have double the number of cities, production, science, territory, resources, etc. If everything else in the game is totally equal or even if opponents are slightly better at playing the game, the player with extra city is likely to win, because of huge cumulative effective from this extra settler.

Yes, Civ7 doesn't have settlers from goody huts, but some maps could provide similar effects. Let's say you start near 2 cotton and 2 wool resources. Production in capital skyrocket, you could build strong military without losing expansion momentum, etc. Not as good as extra settler in a first couple of turns, but still enough to give you cumulative advantage.

In those terms, limiting snowballing is a fair goal.

This is a big part of what makes Tonga so strong. Free dibs on half the goody huts on the map makes for crazy scaling.

 

[Leucarum]

I guess balanced starts were also an attempt as curbing snowballing from start position, but folks like variance!

Random snowballs are memorable too, so is it a good idea to get rid of them? It's why people love Isabella, why my most memorable Civ6 game was Canada starting next to Eyjafjallajökull, or why there are a hundred "OMG Great Barrier Reef start is so broken" videos on civtube.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I guess balanced starts were also an attempt as curbing snowballing from start position, but folks like variance!

Random snowballs are memorable too, so is it a good idea to get rid of them? It's why people love Isabella, why my most memorable Civ6 game was Canada starting next to Eyjafjallajökull, or why there are a hundred "OMG Great Barrier Reef start is so broken" videos on civtube.

I don't know which Civ you're referencing with Isabella and GBR, but I play 5, and in it 1) Isabella gets 500g for being first to find a wonder and 2) Great Barrier Reef counts as two such wonders because it covers two tiles. Just a single 500 is enough to buy a settler and overcome the single biggest boost AI gets at deity (two settlers at the start of the game, whereas the earliest a player will get that is about turn 30).

I once played Isabella and found both tiles of the GBR on turn 11. I have a folder of save games titled "call it a win" (for cases where I quit the game because I know I'm going to win it (i.e. I'm snowballing to such an extent)). I dropped this save file into that folder and fired up another game.

 

[Leucarum]

I don't know which Civ you're referencing, but I play 5, and in it 1) Isabella gets 500g for being first to find a wonder and 2) Great Barrier Reef counts as two such wonders because it covers two tiles. Just a single 500 is enough to buy a settler and overcome the single biggest boost AI gets at deity (two settlers at the start of the game, whereas the earliest a player will get that is about turn 30).

I once played Isabella and found both tiles of the GBR on turn 11. I have a folder of save games titled "call it a win" (for cases where I quit the game because I know I'm going to win it (i.e. I'm snowballing to such an extent)). I dropped this save file into that folder and fired up another game.

Honestly 5 or 7 both are true which is why I didn't specify.

 

[UWHabs]

I'm curious as to which mementos people like best (I don't use them, but when I watch streamers I see them mention them). Like, I think there's a reason why a simple 200 gold on turn 1 seems to be a favorite. getting that base right off the bat gets you way further ahead than a bigger boost that only kicks in late in the age.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

As someone stated earlier it has been debated a lot on the forum(but I have not been so active in the forum before so haven’t follow the debate earlier) and probably worthy of its own thread.

If you search "snowballing", you will find lots of past threads on the topic. I started a big thread on it last year that sums up a lot of ideas: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...n-civ7-good-or-bad-and-how-to-stop-it.690938/

What If the legacie points doesn’t give you advantages in the next age? Let’s say they only contribute to a total winning score instead? Then each age can be leveled and each age will be a competition to get the most legaciespoints.

I would be ok with that. I do think legacy points could serve as a good score mechanic for determining the winner. And by removing the bonus part, it could reduce snowballing from one Age to the next. I would like to see more legacy paths so that players have more variety in how they can collect legacy points, that rewards different styles of play.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I guess balanced starts were also an attempt as curbing snowballing from start position, but folks like variance!

Random snowballs are memorable too, so is it a good idea to get rid of them? It's why people love Isabella, why my most memorable Civ6 game was Canada starting next to Eyjafjallajökull, or why there are a hundred "OMG Great Barrier Reef start is so broken" videos on civtube.

The idea is to limit top, not bottom. It's ok for player to get strong early bonuses, but the game should cut the cumulative effect of it.

Like yes, with lucky start you could build second settler much faster (if you have enough gold and a lot of food, just buy it very quick), but towns aren't as good as cities in affecting your empire and converting town to city costs extra and comes with penalties. On top of that settlement limit kicks in at some point of expansion.

 

[Leucarum]

On top of that settlement limit kicks in at some point of expansion.

I want settlement limit to be lower.

Like, I think there's a reason why a simple 200 gold on turn 1 seems to be a favorite. getting that base right off the bat gets you way further ahead than a bigger boost that only kicks in late in the age.

This is partially why I want to lose switching momentos. Snowball enablers would be less of an autotake if you had to be stuck with a less powerful effect for the rest of the game

 

[stealth_nsk]

I want settlement limit to be lower.

I really like the concept of cities using 2 points of settlement limit. For Civ7 it would probably mean too many changes, but for future games it's possible.

 

[disjointaccount]

I don't think early tempo like natural wonder spawns or lots of/very good goody huts are much of an issue. The AI is just as likely to luck into them as the player and they're the sort of pure-numbers bonuses that have fairly equal effects, since "more science to get through the tree faster" is hard even for even the AI to mess up. Also, they're fun.

 

[aieeegrunt]

And an unequal reset would I suspect be about as popular as Syphyllis.

Oh no doubt, and it will get gamed like crazy as well the way Era Score does.

This why building in concepts like Diminishing Marginal Returns, waste, and other natural limits is a lot better. It feels less arbitrary and “unfair”, and is more of a gradual thing as well.

 

[Leucarum]

I don't think early tempo like natural wonder spawns or lots of/very good goody huts are much of an issue. The AI is just as likely to luck into them as the player and they're the sort of pure-numbers bonuses that have fairly equal effects, since "more science to get through the tree faster" is hard even for even the AI to mess up. Also, they're fun.

Agreed. Their popularity on social media is a good argument not to curb that source of snowballing. I definitely wasn't arguing that they should.

 

[King Flevance]

That would be a fast way to lose players

Why would i need to be punished for playing well? It makes no sense. The one playing well should win, the one playing BAD shsould be punished and pushed to learning how to play

If you play well, winning IS the LOGICAL OUTCOME

I would counter that statement with acknowledging the first civ games were designed so that the AI would all go to war every game with the player around the mid game regardless of player action. They constantly demanded outrageous tribute (impossible to pay every time) and constantly declaring war ASAP. Corruption also made expansion almost pointless. All these "unfun" mechanics and their players grew, not shrank.

Adding in a mechanism that makes holding the lead or dominating the game harder is not necessarily punishing you for playing well just like "catch up mechanics" do not always reward playing poorly. If implemented well, that will be the whole 'fun' of the game. Winning should be the reward, not the gap of victory. I would even argue that a great game design would eliminate having a player be able to play so poorly or so well that competition fades out mid game. That is the reason people stop playing Civ or any game is the design "stalls out" and it stops being fun. The crisis is a mechanic that should be implemented to purposely 'trip' the civ who has "most population" or "biggest military" or "best economy" etc. You should still be able to overcome it, but you should have to work a lot harder than those who don't. And yes, they will inevitably catch up at this time.

I will say that the snowball effect seems partially tied to or easy to mistake for AI ignorance and incompetence but Civ 7's design also needs tightened up as it is way too basic in a few areas. It isn't about attacking the player for doing good, it is about diminishing returns for anyone who makes it so far down a track. The lead remains but it should be easier to catch the leader or close a gap but still just as hard to take that lead away. My problem with districts in Civ 6 and also somewhat in Civ 7 is that if someone gets a bunch of mountains, it can be a big advantage determined by the RNG, not skill. The obvious choice is to capitalize on your luck i.e. chase those lucrative areas of the map. Districts do not offer multiple strategies to utilize the map, the map offers you a predetermined amount of potential - it just comes down to how much of that particular potential can you tap into. What if your government determined if mountains helped +, +, or +? The potential now has variables. Additionally, what if markets gave libraries in the same district +3 science? Making a +4 adjacency really the only "lucky find". You could play with wonders too. I mean, you can make a lot of these examples.

Civ 7 decided to make the map feel the same, regardless of terrain. I have a whole argument about barren deserts and floodplains and all that. But I don't want to complicate my point. Adjacencies are the new "good biomes". You look for mountains, navigable rivers, and resource tiles instead of grasslands, hills, and floodplains. By making adjacencies more dynamic and flexible you can still play the map and adjust. But it does add complexity.

 

[UWHabs]

I really like the concept of cities using 2 points of settlement limit. For Civ7 it would probably mean too many changes, but for future games it's possible.

Honestly, I don't think it would be THAT hard. I think I would probably add 3 more in antiquity, and I'm assuming it would come in with a deeper rebalance of the legacy requirements too, so you still couldn't just settle a bunch of towns as like Carthage while still staying under the settlement limit.

Oh no doubt, and it will get gamed like crazy as well the way Era Score does.

This why building in concepts like Diminishing Marginal Returns, waste, and other natural limits is a lot better. It feels less arbitrary and “unfair”, and is more of a gradual thing as well.

Yeah, the big thing you need to avoid with unbalanced resets is to avoid a case where going, say, one settlement over the limit you end up losing more than settling one less.

The game could add some more catch-up mechanics. I think earlier games gave you a discount to research when you had neighbours who knew a tech, stuff like that you could easily add in to promote coming from behind, without completely messing things up for the people in front. Another one I think might make sense would be for endeavor yields to be more unbalanced in favour of the losing civ. Whether directly or just relative - like, say the science endeavor support added "+5% of the combined science of the 2 civs", if I make 100 science and you make 50, then that result would be +7.5 science to each of us, but that is a much larger percent bonus for you than it is for me. You could even have it completely unbalanced, where you get +10% of the other civ's science from it, so you would gain 10 science and I would only gain 5. Doing stuff like that would encourage the people trailing to basically buddy up and leech off the top civ, and as the leader, you might actually be further encouraged to actually reject then potentially.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I think scaling enemies is definitely possible in civ. If I finish an age with 50% more yields than the strongest AI, there is no snowball if the AI gets a 50% bonus to their yields.

The issue is to not make it dependent on how well the player does. If I get ahead by 80% or 50% or 30% and the AI gets a 50% boost either way….
Then
I’m not being punished for success. Instead I need to Keep succeeding, because if my 80% lead got cut to 30…I need to get another 20% this age just to stay even for the next one.

Previous civs Really messed this up by giving the AI starting bonus…which means once you overcome the initial bonus the game is easy (or you lose in the first 50 turns)
Civ7 at least has made the bonuses even throughout the game.
However, that’s still not enough. Because any good player is going to snowball (due to mechanics) so AI bonuses must increase throughout the game. (maybe less for an AI that is snowballing itself)

Since civ7 has 3 Ages, the obvious solution would be to give the AI bonuses at each Age Transition. The game could ratch up the AI bonuses in the Exploration and Modern Ages. I think this would accomplish what you want. Yeah, it would be very "gamey" but it could serve to increase the challenge and reduce the impact of snowballing. And I kind of like the idea that it ratches up at each Age. It makes the Modern Age feel like the final boss challenge.

Another possibility would be to have the bonuses inversely dependent on the ranking of the civs. So at each Age transition, the civ in last place gets a bigger bonus. So for example, 1st place gets no bonus, 2nd place gets a 10% bonus, 3rd place gets a 20% bonus, last place gets a 50% bonus. This would serve to try to help the civs in last place to catch up. This might help to shake things up so the civ in 1st place is not always likely to win. Maybe the bonuses help the civ in last place at the end of Antiquity climb back to 2nd place at the end of Exploration or maybe the civ in 3rd place at the end of Exploration manages to win the game in Modern thanks to the bonus. And by the way, this could help the player too since the bonuses wojuld be based on civ rankings, not just the AI. So if the human player is doing poorly, they would get a bonus at the Age transition to help them catch up.

In terms of scaling up the enemies, I also think the game could scale up the threat from independent peoples and "barbarians". So for example, in the Antiquity Age, hostile independent peoples just throw a couple warriors or archers at you. Pretty easy to push back with a few military units. In the Exploration Age, you would face bigger armies from hostile independent peoples, especially in the distant lands. You might also face threats from pirates on the seas. Then in the Modern Age, you might face revolts with significant "rebel" armies attacking you from within or independent peoples that could represent terrorists able to strike deep into your territory.

 

[uppi]

Adding in a mechanism that makes holding the lead or dominating the game harder is not necessarily punishing you for playing well just like "catch up mechanics" do not always reward playing poorly. If implemented well, that will be the whole 'fun' of the game. Winning should be the reward, not the gap of victory. I would even argue that a great game design would eliminate having a player be able to play so poorly or so well that competition fades out mid game. That is the reason people stop playing Civ or any game is the design "stalls out" and it stops being fun. The crisis is a mechanic that should be implemented to purposely 'trip' the civ who has "most population" or "biggest military" or "best economy" etc. You should still be able to overcome it, but you should have to work a lot harder than those who don't. And yes, they will inevitably catch up at this time.

I think that too much rubber banding is also bad game design. If the game won't let you fall behind during the first 150 turns, those will not really matter. If the only thing that matters is playing the perfect last 50 turns, why play the first turns at all?

In my opinion, at every point in the game, you should be able to get an advantage. Depending on the game, this could be either by skilled moves or just sheer luck. Even if you are ahead, you should be able to increase your lead. It might just be harder to do so. It only becomes a snowballing problem when being ahead in the game increases the amount of advantage you are able to get, so you get exponential scaling.

But that also means that there will be a point in the game when victory is inevitable. Which is a price I am willing to pay for having the entire game matter.

 

[Krikkit1]

I think that too much rubber banding is also bad game design. If the game won't let you fall behind during the first 150 turns, those will not really matter. If the only thing that matters is playing the perfect last 50 turns, why play the first turns at all?

In my opinion, at every point in the game, you should be able to get an advantage. Depending on the game, this could be either by skilled moves or just sheer luck. Even if you are ahead, you should be able to increase your lead. It might just be harder to do so. It only becomes a snowballing problem when being ahead in the game increases the amount of advantage you are able to get, so you get exponential scaling.

But that also means that there will be a point in the game when victory is inevitable. Which is a price I am willing to pay for having the entire game matter.

I think Victory should only be inevitable if you are able to
1. Get a supermassive lead in the first Age (ie you are probably 2 or 3 difficulty levels too low for a competitive game)
OR
2. get a big lead in the first age and make it larger by the second age (you are probably 1 or 2 difficulty levels too low for a competitive game)

A competitive game (ie game played at the difficulty level that is a challenge for you) should be
Get a lead in the first age... lose most of it in the transition as the AIs are boosted
Pull ahead again in the second age... lose most of it in the transition as the AIs are boosted
Then pull ahead in the third age to get victory (so if victory becomes inevitable its about midway through modern)

If I get a lead that is much bigger than the AIs are boosted, then I will run away with it.

 

[Razpor]

civ 7 was a massive mistake is what you wanted to say

 

[aieeegrunt]

Honestly, I don't think it would be THAT hard. I think I would probably add 3 more in antiquity, and I'm assuming it would come in with a deeper rebalance of the legacy requirements too, so you still couldn't just settle a bunch of towns as like Carthage while still staying under the settlement limit.


Yeah, the big thing you need to avoid with unbalanced resets is to avoid a case where going, say, one settlement over the limit you end up losing more than settling one less.

The game could add some more catch-up mechanics. I think earlier games gave you a discount to research when you had neighbours who knew a tech, stuff like that you could easily add in to promote coming from behind, without completely messing things up for the people in front. Another one I think might make sense would be for endeavor yields to be more unbalanced in favour of the losing civ. Whether directly or just relative - like, say the science endeavor support added "+5% of the combined science of the 2 civs", if I make 100 science and you make 50, then that result would be +7.5 science to each of us, but that is a much larger percent bonus for you than it is for me. You could even have it completely unbalanced, where you get +10% of the other civ's science from it, so you would gain 10 science and I would only gain 5. Doing stuff like that would encourage the people trailing to basically buddy up and leech off the top civ, and as the leader, you might actually be further encouraged to actually reject then potentially.

There are quite a few “catch up” mods like that for Civ6, where you essentially get a free boost (Eureka or Inspiration) for a tech or civic if you don’t have it yet but a certain number of civs you have met do (adjusted for map scale).

There is also at least one mod that gives you a bonus to science yields if you are researching a tech that a Friend has but you do not, and a bigger bonus if it’s an Ally.

These are both great from both a “Historical Role Play” and gameplay perspective as they feel right, they are a gradual thing rather than arbitrary developer fiat, and it’s easy to balance.