PolyCast Episode 288: "A Lot of Clicks"

[DanQ]

Mouseover. The two-hundred-and-eighty-eighth episode of PolyCast, "A Lot of Clicks", features regular Stephanie "Makahlua" and "MadDjinn" with returning guest co-hosts Brian "Drusain", Jonah Falcon and Chris "TheChrisD". It carries a runtime of 59m59s.

The summary of topics is as follows:

- 01m56s | Senate
Necessity, avoidance or somewhere in between for early war engagement in Civilization VI and on squeezing the Artifical Intelligence (AI) for every last gain in trade negotiations (10m49s).
- 15m13s | Forum Talk
A call to rate CivVI pantheons inspires the start of doing the same for Great People, starting with Admirals (25m55s) then Artists (32m09s).
- 34m05s | Research Lab
Reworking Civilization VI diplomacy that incorporates a return to the World Congress mechanic and the notion that some Policy Cards should be restricted by government (42m04s).
- 51m51s | Open Mic
Reactions to community feedback for Episode 286 and Episode 287 moreso.

- Intro/Outro | Miscellaneous
Wondering whereabouts, laying blame and counting nothing.

PolyCast is a bi-weekly audio production recording live every other Saturday throughout the year, in an ongoing effort to give the Civilization community an interactive voice; sibling show ModCast focuses on Civ modding, TurnCast on Civ multiplay.

 

[drubell]

Building on the "World Congress" discussion, maybe there could be a good implementation to a "diplomatic" victory in Civ 6, but as was discussed in the podcast, going back to a focus on using city-states to determine a victory seems like a bad idea. City-states as a concept are too flat and uninteresting to be the core of building a victory out of. Maybe instead, a "diplomatic" victory could be determined based on your government type and some other criteria. For example, perhaps a diplomatic victory would be focused on getting your Tier 3 government and performing actions that make your government type appear as the strongest government out of any other governments. The Cold War would be a historical precedent on that (Democracy vs Communism). Perhaps a Diplomatic Victory would be to have all civs accept your particular civ's government as the World's de facto government type. If you have multiple civ's running the same government type, like multiple Democracies for example, there would be mechanics developed to make the world see that your Democracy has better standing in the world than other Democracies.

As the discussion with the Admirals and Artists showed, there's not enough of a pool to fit in each era provided that each civ actively goes for certain Great People points. This issue is very much a problem with General and Admirals because if multiple civs are taking those particular Great People, then you can easily run out of people in an era quickly. Great Generals only have three generals total for each era up until Atomic where it's instead four generals. I'm aware that in competitive multiplayer, the cap of Classical Great Generals being 3 makes it difficult to justify allowing players to use Great Generals at all. I really feel that the pool for Great People needs to be doubled at the very least. I wouldn't even mind if some Great People were created that share the bonus of other Great People if all that means is that the pool is larger.

Oh and props on your Dan for editing this episode. That Drusain guy seemed to be talking on and on and on and finding good places to cut him out must've been hard. Maybe he'll try to swear less next time too

 

[DanQ]

... props on your Dan for editing this episode.

Thank you kindly.

That Drusain guy seemed to be talking on and on and on and finding good places to cut him out must've been hard. Maybe he'll try to swear less next time too

 

[Timothy001]

I warned them during the live stream, that you would be evil in your editing. We missed you and The Me In Team, Dan. Hopefully you are both back next episode.

 

[DanQ]

I warned them during the live stream, that you would be evil in your editing.

, so I lived up to the prediction then?

We missed you and The Me In Team, Dan. Hopefully you are both back next episode.

I appreciate the kind words.

Yes, both Phil and I expect to be back for Episode 289.

 

[Timothy001]

so I lived up to the prediction then?

Affirmative.

 

[DanQ]

Affirmative.

There is some material archived from this episode's recording that has been saved for inclusion in future productions, including two full topic discussions.

 

[Timothy001]

I am not surprised. They covered a great deal of information, even went over the usual time. If someone (MadDjinn I think) hadn't stepped in, they possibly could have gone on another hour. It is nice to see passionate CiVi players, talking about the game, especially missing to regulars. This was one of my more favorite episodes (not because you and Phil were missing either).

 

[DanQ]

It is nice to see passionate CiVi players, talking about the game, especially missing to regulars. This was one of my more favorite episodes (not because you and Phil were missing either).

Cheers all around!

 

[shaglio]

Building on the "World Congress" discussion, maybe there could be a good implementation to a "diplomatic" victory in Civ 6, but as was discussed in the podcast, going back to a focus on using city-states to determine a victory seems like a bad idea. City-states as a concept are too flat and uninteresting to be the core of building a victory out of. Maybe instead, a "diplomatic" victory could be determined based on your government type and some other criteria. For example, perhaps a diplomatic victory would be focused on getting your Tier 3 government and performing actions that make your government type appear as the strongest government out of any other governments. The Cold War would be a historical precedent on that (Democracy vs Communism). Perhaps a Diplomatic Victory would be to have all civs accept your particular civ's government as the World's de facto government type. If you have multiple civ's running the same government type, like multiple Democracies for example, there would be mechanics developed to make the world see that your Democracy has better standing in the world than other Democracies.

There is a mod called CiVI Reformation Victories by @greyTiger that includes a Diplomatic Victory. The terms are "To achieve victory you need to have peace with all civs, embassies with all major civs and have alliances with at least 2 civs. You also need to be suzerain of at least 3 city states." So it doesn't rely solely on City States, but they are a small factor. It focuses more on, you guessed it, your diplomatic relations with other civs.

 

[MadDjinn]

There is a mod called CiVI Reformation Victories by @greyTiger that includes a Diplomatic Victory. The terms are "To achieve victory you need to have peace with all civs, embassies with all major civs and have alliances with at least 2 civs. You also need to be suzerain of at least 3 city states." So it doesn't rely solely on City States, but they are a small factor. It focuses more on, you guessed it, your diplomatic relations with other civs.

Using Diplomacy to get a Diplomatic VC? Sounds totally crazy, wouldn't work

It does sound slightly better than previous attempts, but I'd probably want that extended to 'allied with X %' of the world pop. Then count either Suzerain (CS) or full allied status with other civs.

edit: and probably no ongoing wars or bad relations.

 

[Victoria]

and have alliances with at least 2 civs

pfffft! Good luck with that one currently

 

[kaspergm]

Thanx for taking time to cover the pantheon topic.

However, you are wrong when discussing the great art theming. It does not care for era at all, so you don't have to worry about certain eras having fewer than others. Theming only goes by type, so you need three items of the same type from different artists. This can be three sculptures, three religious art, three landscapes or three portraits.

As such, it matters quite a lot which artists you get, and personally, I often skip or rush certain artists to get the kinds that I need. Religious art is generally the worst in unmodded game, because it's all but impossible to get three different artists that all give religious works before you're into the late eras. Only exception is if you have the cathedrals belief, which is thoroughly underwhelming but fills this niche. Sculptures are generally also bad, because like mentioned in the broadcast, there's a huge gap from renaissance until atomic era where no new sculptural artists spawn. Again, exceptions can come if you're Kongo or has the Medici bank. Portraits and Landscapes are about equal, although Landscapes have slightly more artists spawning them, making them a bit easier to theme (also the fact that there are no atomic era artists giving portraits can make it difficult to theme those, depending on how your spawns are timed).

Gustav Klimt is an interesting late-game artist to look out for, because he's the only post-industrial era artist to give mixed types of art, so he can potentially help you fill several types of gaps. But generally, you'll want to aim for three artists with three landscapes, as this will easily give you theming in three museums.

 

[Morningcalm]

Using Diplomacy to get a Diplomatic VC? Sounds totally crazy, wouldn't work

It does sound slightly better than previous attempts, but I'd probably want that extended to 'allied with X %' of the world pop. Then count either Suzerain (CS) or full allied status with other civs.

edit: and probably no ongoing wars or bad relations.

Why not something along Civ IV's diplomacy victory? While not perfect, I never considered it quite as easy as Civ V's "throw money at CSes" diplomacy victory.

(Also, it might be nice to attempt to get an economic victory into VI somehow. I liked how they implemented it in the Civilization board game by Fantasy Flight, but their version would probably not work quite as well for the computer game.)

 

[MadDjinn]

Why not something along Civ IV's diplomacy victory? While not perfect, I never considered it quite as easy as Civ V's "throw money at CSes" diplomacy victory.

(Also, it might be nice to attempt to get an economic victory into VI somehow. I liked how they implemented it in the Civilization board game by Fantasy Flight, but their version would probably not work quite as well for the computer game.)

I'd be cool with a 'semi' Permanent Alliances (of more than a 2 player type allowed), vassals, etc returning. You could still back out of a tight alliance, but would need reasons. Vassals could grow strong enough to break away (and/or added pressure to 'freeing' them if you go democracy). Protectorates, etc as well. Then building a diplo VC off of that.

 

[masda_gib]

The thing with required alliances for diplomatic victories is just... they can be denied for no good reason. Especially with human opponents. They can just say no to alliances without having any in-game reasons, negating a whole victory path.

A gameyier system with either vassal status or some diplo-currency buckets filling up or being allied with a % of the world including city-states like MadDjinn says would be nicer I think.

 

[Morningcalm]

I think Civ IV's diplomacy victory worked well--getting AI to vote for you was tough but there were many ways to do it. In Civ V it all boiled down to money. I think MadDjinn is onto something re: alliances of more than two civs--we can already propose joint wars against another AI, so why not a joint (Triple) Alliance? It would be positively Aztec. Or pre-World War I.

I also miss vassals from Civ IV, which covered an important aspect of historical diplomacy in an interesting way (as civs you were crushing could vassal themselves to stronger allies you were on good terms with, making war on your weak victim civs dangerous and risky thereafter. And fun.)

 

[Amrunril]

With regards to the Diplomatic Victory discussion, I think requiring other civs to directly vote for you would be very hard to get right. It's one of those mechanics that makes it more or less impossible to satisfy immersion-focused players and strategy game focused players at the same time.

I actually think, though, that Civ V's Diplomatic Victory system was close to being quite well designed. It combined an interesting variety of mechanisms to generate the votes you needed to win, several of them including the support of other major civs: you might not be able to get them to directly vote you world leader, but you could, with careful planning, get them to elect you UN chairman (or whatever the title of the person choosing resolutions was) for increased voting power, and you could get them to enact your preferred World Ideology and Religion, potentially to their benefit as well as their own. There was a wonder you could build for a couple more votes, and a CIv VI update could incorporate a few great people as well.

Now, as the system was actually balanced, all of those strategies only mattered at the margins. City state control accounted for the vast majority of the votes and vast sums of cash overrode every other consideration when it came to city state control. This doesn't mean the underlying mechanics weren't sound though, and I think a similar system for world congress control and diplomatic victory could work well in CIv VI.

 

[kaspergm]

Civ5's system did offer a meaningful frame, but it never got close to actually being meaningful in its implementation. If the world-leader vote had not been FFA, but had instead been one of multiple rounds where you first elected two or three candidates, and then had a vote-off between those, it would have made some sense. That would have forced less influential civs to decide between the final candidates, and would mean actual diplomatic relations would have some meaning. Also, the fact that you could not trade for votes when an actual vote was in progress was beyond stupid.

I think MadDjinn is onto something re: alliances of more than two civs--we can already propose joint wars against another AI, so why not a joint (Triple) Alliance?

Somewhat related, but could we please have the option to engage multiple civs with offers for joint wars? I have so often been in a situation where I want to engage in a joint war, and I have several AIs that I'm friendly with. Then I need to choose one of them to make the joint war with, while the others will likely hate me as a warmonger afterwards - even if they disliked the subject of the DoW just as much as those of us who declared the war.

 

[Amrunril]

Civ5's system did offer a meaningful frame, but it never got close to actually being meaningful in its implementation. If the world-leader vote had not been FFA, but had instead been one of multiple rounds where you first elected two or three candidates, and then had a vote-off between those, it would have made some sense. That would have forced less influential civs to decide between the final candidates, and would mean actual diplomatic relations would have some meaning. Also, the fact that you could not trade for votes when an actual vote was in progress was beyond stupid.

A runoff system still doesn't resolve the strategy vs. immersion issue, though. If you approach the game from a purely strategic perspective (as many players do, and some of them expect the AI to), you're still not going to vote for one of your friends over someone else if the consequence of that vote is the game ending with a victory for someone other than you (unless the runoff system guarantees that one of the finalists will ultimately win, but that would step on the toes of every other victory condition).