Problems of modern age will soon become problem of every age

[stealth_nsk]

Recently we've discussed that modern age is too short, because victory comes too early. But there's an important thing here. In the roadmap there's a feature which allows ending the game in any age.

This means, that if you set the game to end earlier than modern, the final age will have victory projects strapped at the end of this age legacy path. So, it will be possible to rush one legacy path, and get victory much earlier. Playing antiquity only? Collect resources, finish your projects and the game is over. Playing with exploration as final age? Just conquer a few distant cities and you're ready to roll your victory project. Beelining one legacy path is always faster than trying to get as much as possible.

So, looking at this perspective, I think the solution for the modern age length problems should be universal for all ages and should be independent on whether 4th age will be added or not. Since legacy paths are ok, we need some changes in how victory projects are done:
1. The victory projects themselves need to be longer. Like significantly longer, probably taking several steps.
2. While each victory project should be focused on one legacy paths, other paths need to contribute to its completion significantly enough to make pursuing some progress in other legacy paths worth it.
3. Regardless of the settings, final age needs some adjustments to its end / score victory. If normal victories will be prolonged enough to make final age last as long as non-final ones, score victory need to be pushed further in the future to not happen too often instead of other victories. For example, setting some age to final could add some flat amount of turns to its expected length.

 

[WillK96]

I'm not sure I agree. The Modern age is too short because it comes in at 50-70 turns on Deity (40 if you're really skilled and 80-90 if you're trying to do a few paths at once for the challenges). For me, on Deity with long ages, I don't think I've had a antiquity come in under 130 and I've rarely finished a single tree, even focusing on one, in under 80 without some crazy RNG.

 

[wesplaysciv]

I'm not sure I agree. The Modern age is too short because it comes in at 50-70 turns on Deity (40 if you're really skilled and 80-90 if you're trying to do a few paths at once for the challenges). For me, on Deity with long ages, I don't think I've had a antiquity come in under 130 and I've rarely finished a single tree, even focusing on one, in under 80 without some crazy RNG.

Yes but is turn count the right measurement? Modern age turns take significantly longer than those in antiquity

 

[Siptah]

Yes but is turn count the right measurement? Modern age turns take significantly longer than those in antiquity

I don‘t fully understand what you mean. Do you suggest that play time would be the correct metric for equivalence?

 

[aelf]

Yes but is turn count the right measurement? Modern age turns take significantly longer than those in antiquity

This is definitely untrue in my case unless I'm gunning for military victory. Early Antiquity goes by fast, yes, but from the middle of it onward? Nah.

 

[Fluffball]

Yes but is turn count the right measurement? Modern age turns take significantly longer than those in antiquity

If you mean turns take longer to process, I am playing on a high spec PC. Processing times for turns are essentially instant whatever age i am playing.



If you mean turns take longer because there is more to do. I never experience that as most things just aren't worth doing anymore.

In the context of playing epic with extended era length. (Started at sovereign and made my way up to diety so not because I am playing low difficulty).

Playing 3-4 hours a night, antiquity and exploration take me a few evenings, partly because it is worth going for all the legacy points and dragging it out, partly because you have to explore and find things, and partly because you are setting up for the next era.

Modern takes me about an hour. I know where everything is, I have everything I need, I know exactly what I am going to do, I can rush build the couple of things related to victory conditions then just spam end turn until I have inevitably won.

It took longer the first few games as I didn't have a clue and purposefully dragged it out to build things like aerodrome and carriers just to see what they are like.

Usually I am now bored of the modern era before I have even started and drag myself through because I hate leaving things unfinished and i know it will be over quickly.

There's no point investing in food, any buildings i have I can just buy instantly with gold as I have so much. I have a massive military as I ran out of things to build in antiquity so spend the end of the era spamming 1 commander and 4 units in every city then spend the end of exploration spamming 1 naval commander and 4 ships so there is no point building anything apart from the projects which can't be bought.

I have won by the time I can build planes.

I only bought a carrier and sub once because I deliberately stopped myself winning to see how they worked in case I needed to know in the future (which I don't as the era ends way before they become available).

Now they rebalanced culture victory AI usually hasn't even registered on the legacy screen before I win my choice of victories.

I could win in about minutes if I didn't need to wait to take an ideology to only have to take 10 cities instead of 20.

The delay usually gives me enough to set up up military, economic and cultural victory together and it is then just me racing myself to see which finishes first.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I'm not sure I agree. The Modern age is too short because it comes in at 50-70 turns on Deity (40 if you're really skilled and 80-90 if you're trying to do a few paths at once for the challenges). For me, on Deity with long ages, I don't think I've had a antiquity come in under 130 and I've rarely finished a single tree, even focusing on one, in under 80 without some crazy RNG.

Well, I generally agree. Antiquity legacy paths are pretty hard to beeline, mostly because you start from zero and thus can't prepare properly.

But the second part of the problem will persist - players will beeline for their target victory mostly ignoring the rest. So I think victory projects affected by other legacy path achievements could be useful there too.

 

[Acken]

The problem with modern age "victories" is that they are all too easy to achieve. There is very little the AI will do to stop or slow you. Compare that to some previous iterations victories where you actually had to fight to win. Tourism vs culture in Civ5 CV, Domination requiring quite a lot more efforts. Diplomacy victory in civ5 was mostly viewed as a joke victory because of how easy it was with the AI not doing much to stop you there.
Now you reach modern, beeline a victory, jump a few hoops and voila. They are neither exciting nor challenging.
Having relatively simple paths is somewhat fine for intermediary ages but for the final event it's really disappointing.
Making it longer could extend it I guess but I'm not convinced it's going to make it all that much more fun.

 

[Krikkit1]

So, looking at this perspective, I think the solution for the modern age length problems should be universal for all ages and should be independent on whether 4th age will be added or not. Since legacy paths are ok, we need some changes in how victory projects are done:
1. The victory projects themselves need to be longer. Like significantly longer, probably taking several steps.
2. While each victory project should be focused on one legacy paths, other paths need to contribute to its completion significantly enough to make pursuing some progress in other legacy paths worth it.
3. Regardless of the settings, final age needs some adjustments to its end / score victory. If normal victories will be prolonged enough to make final age last as long as non-final ones, score victory need to be pushed further in the future to not happen too often instead of other victories. For example, setting some age to final could add some flat amount of turns to its expected length.

Regarding #1
Definitely Agree: although part of the problem for Modern might be that you have snowballed a bit already (especially if playing below your difficulty level... which the 1UPT means many players are)... I think the World Bank was Supposed to take a few turns to get the Gold/Influence to establish the base for each player. However, it basically is just # of players * 2 turns because of the low costs/large stockpiles.

At all ages, they need to look at how fast you can "Race" a Legacy and then
1. make the Legacy take longer if it is too short
and/or
2. make Legacies that come quicker have "Victories" that take longer (if not necessarily more investment)

Regarding #3. They adjusted the age progression in Modern so that the last milestone of the Legacy paths didn't give any age progression. I Imagine that to be the way any "Victory Age" should be

 

[MACKA0ili]

I agree with legacy paths longer, but I think reducing the amount of age progress from each milestone by half would extend the age enough to get there.
As for your second point, legacy paths in the antiquity and exploration ages already feed into each other. Pax imperatoria gives you more land and resources for Silk Road and those resources which can also be gotten through trade gives you yields which also contribute to wonder building and codex research and those two things boost your yields to get more wonders or codicies or settlers/armies to get more land and resources. Religion supports your cultural and military paths which gives you more settlements that have treasure resources for fleets that give you bursts of gold to buy buildings or missionaries etc. The modern age doesn't have the same setup phase that exploration and antiquity has and just pushes you into pursuing victories and really needs the most touchups.

Like I said in other threads though, I feel a big issue comes from the tech tree not being wide enough.

 

[Acken]

I agree with legacy paths longer, but I think reducing the amount of age progress from each milestone by half would extend the age enough to get there.
As for your second point, legacy paths in the antiquity and exploration ages already feed into each other. Pax imperatoria gives you more land and resources for Silk Road and those resources which can also be gotten through trade gives you yields which also contribute to wonder building and codex research and those two things boost your yields to get more wonders or codicies or settlers/armies to get more land and resources. Religion supports your cultural and military paths which gives you more settlements that have treasure resources for fleets that give you bursts of gold to buy buildings or missionaries etc. The modern age doesn't have the same setup phase that exploration and antiquity has and just pushes you into pursuing victories and really needs the most touchups.

Like I said in other threads though, I feel a big issue comes from the tech tree not being wide enough.

For age progress through milestones it's worth noting that Antiquity and Exploration do not use the same numbers. Antiquity is 20 points per track while Exploration is 35, almost double. This is the main driver why a lot of players are feeling exploration goes by much quicker: if you complete all paths, Antiquity will remove 80 points (20x4) so you are at 120 left => 120 turns. If you do the same in Exploration you will remove 140 points (35x4) so you only have 60 turns left.
The feeling people have of exploration being much much quicker is not just a feeling, it's a feature due to the path progression values.

 

[evonannoredars]

I really like how antiquity and exploration allow you to take your time with each legacy path because your progress only matters once the era ends. I think it'd be interesting to apply this approach to victories and not have any victories trigger until the era ends in the modern era (and the same for antiquity and exploration once we can end games in those eras).

Instead, rather than just getting a generic score victory at era end, you get a modular victory animation tailored to which victories you achieved (if you won overall), e.g. if you complete the economic then cultural then military victories, Gwendoline tells you how '[The thrumming of factories made [insert civ name here] into a economic global powerhouse,] [supported by] [their rich [antiquity civ name] heritage] [and] [militaristic prestige spanning land, sea and sky]'.

 

[Siptah]

For age progress through milestones it's worth noting that Antiquity and Exploration do not use the same numbers. Antiquity is 20 points per track while Exploration is 35, almost double. This is the main driver why a lot of players are feeling exploration goes by much quicker: if you complete all paths, Antiquity will remove 80 points (20x4) so you are at 120 left => 120 turns. If you do the same in Exploration you will remove 140 points (35x4) so you only have 60 turns left.
The feeling people have of exploration being much much quicker is not just a feeling, it's a feature due to the path progression values.

Ah, this is what it causes it.
I wonder why though. It would be very easy to just scale the amount of x needed for a milestone. Maybe it would require an additional source of 1-3 relics at some point, and military points for something else (e.g., +2 points if the distant land settlement of your religion is a city). Or just a higher chance to get these from events.

In general, I find the pacing in antiquity quite well though. While exploration is too short on standard and too long with long ages. So, some fine tuning would be welcome imho.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Instead, rather than just getting a generic score victory at era end, you get a modular victory animation tailored to which victories you achieved

Or add the "Victory Age', make this the short sprint to your chosen victory once the Modern Age has ended.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Or add the "Victory Age', make this the short sprint to your chosen victory once the Modern Age has ended.

But the whole point of this post is that those victory ages will need to be done for each of the ages.

 

[Krikkit1]

For age progress through milestones it's worth noting that Antiquity and Exploration do not use the same numbers. Antiquity is 20 points per track while Exploration is 35, almost double. This is the main driver why a lot of players are feeling exploration goes by much quicker: if you complete all paths, Antiquity will remove 80 points (20x4) so you are at 120 left => 120 turns. If you do the same in Exploration you will remove 140 points (35x4) so you only have 60 turns left.
The feeling people have of exploration being much much quicker is not just a feeling, it's a feature due to the path progression values.

I think there are 2 factors
1. score victory comes too soon
2. other victories come too soon

#1 is fixable through Age progression numbers for the milestones

Right now it’s
Antiquity: 5-5-10
Exploration: 5-10-20
Modern: 5-10-0 (was 5-10-20)

I’d suggest
Victory Age: 5-10-0
Antiquity: 5-5-10 (more time for setup)
any other Age: 5-10-10

#2 has to be fixed through altering the Victories themselves to take more time (and possibly investment)

The Legacies also need to be optimized to take more time…looking at them
Antiquity:
Cultural…must go through tree
Science…must go through tree
Military…must move units around go through tree for limits+production
Economic…must expand for resources and research for slot buildings

Exploration:
Cultural…can start at beginning, must move units into foreign territory
Science…must go through tree for spec/buildings/policies
Military…must move units around and find places
Economic…must expand for resources (similar to military)

Modern:
Cultural…available from start, move units in various places (including your territory)
Science…must go through tree
Military…mid way through tree, move units to conquer
Economic…available from almost start, resources already in your territories

So in Modern (and somewhat in Exploration) they need to adjust the Legacies so that rushers aren’t getting them in turn 40-60 but in turn 70-90, and then making the Victories themselves a reasonable length is a lot easier.

This may need a stronger Crisis at the end of Exploration to better “reset” any snowballs.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

But the whole point of this post is that those victory ages will need to be done for each of the ages.

Seems like a good idea then, let the full age run then if it's the last one the Victory Age gets triggered with targets dependant on which age it follows.

 

[Siptah]

Seems like a good idea then, let the full age run then if it's the last one the Victory Age gets triggered with targets dependant on which age it follows.

This requires a lot of work, but I think it would help, in MP and in SP.

 

[Krikkit1]

Another option might be to have Victory replace the crisis. ie Victories require a legacy finished and the age to be at 70% completion (30% available through Legacies…..so about turn 80)

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Another option might be to have Victory replace the crisis

Oh I like that idea!