Prolonging interest

[feydras]

I'll throw my voice into the mix...

I think the strongest fair rubberband mechanic is to encourage the other civs to band together against you. This is what happens in an enjoyable human controlled multiplayer game. The effect should be mitigated by their relationship with you. It also seems an easy fix. Isn't this implemented when someone begins to build the Tower of Mastery?

How about replacing the religion VC with something a little more flavorful? Win would still go to the civ with the shrine.
FoL victory wins by having X% of terrain covered by Ancient Forests.
Runes wins by controlling X% of the world's commerce or hoarded wealth but that may be easier to exploit.
CoE victory requires planting and keeping the religion in every city in the world. You now have eyes everywhere!
Order could win by removing AV from every city in the world
etc...

Related could be one or two few civ specific VCs?
Grigori can win by 'cleaning' the world of all the holy shrines.

- feydras

 

[feydras]

Also, i'd hate to see the VCs made easier. I like to play on Huge maps with tons of civs. The idea of chasing around the globe stopping various civs from winning sounds like annoying work to me. And feels out of character if i'm a good civ. I think the current VCs are set up fine. There is some of that occassionally but not a whole lot.

- feydras

 

[marioflag]

I think that one of the concepts which could help making the end game better is approval rate.
One of the poorest aspect in Civ4.... and FfH2 which has inherited this aspect from Vanilla game is the effects of revolts; they only happen in cities which have culture from another city, and are not linked to player's actions in the game, so for example you can kill all population in a city with Slavery or Vampire Feast ability and your population will remain as quiet as before.Revolts also doesn't cause buildings destroyed they only force you to garrison troops inside a city until you have built an oberlisk or a theatre so that population won't revolt anymore.

Approval rate could be linked to city buildings,religion,unhappiness,unhealthiness,war weariness,events,civics, your actions( using an Eater of Dreams, a Vampire Feast, Slavery should have greater effects than 1 unhappy citizen),city culture,crime rate,AC.
An high approval rate wouldn't have any effect while a low approval rate could led to city revolts which can become independent, if approval rate is low in lot of cities it could led to a civil war.Like the crime rate, to a low approval rate could be linked a lot of negative events or effects.

FfH2 is a lot more centered on warfare than the Vanilla game, i don't think that a rubber band mechanic like other civs allying against the first player in the rank would necessary make a game more fun, the only effect it would have is to further make FfH2 more centered on war.
Emphasizing the aspect that you need not only to expand and destroy other civs but also maintain your empire "stable and healthy" could make gameplay more interesting and would certainly be a nice rubber band mechanic against civs which just focus on expansion without taking care of approval rate in their cities.

 

[Mortenart]

I agree with Marioflag. What would be great is if there was a threshold for unhappiness, and every unhappy/unhealthy citizen beyond this point would create a small change that your Civ could experience a civil war. You would have to have several warnings before this happened, maybe you could get a warning each time you fail the check (with an increased percentage chance after each failed check), and the fourth time this happens you`re hit with the civil war, with the most unhappy/unhealthy cities breaking away under the second leader of that Civ. This would add a new level of importance for city management and internal politics, equally as necessary as building armies and waging wars (although these would be needed if there was a civil war!).

 

[Grey Fox]

Your talking about a "rubber band" mechanic. Its a hard subject to brooch because it punishes players for playing well. Whats the point of takign the risk and doing the work to take the lead if the game comes back and punishes you for it?

A few things to consider (I dont know the answer but id be interested to hear what your ideas are):

1. Is there a way to change the handicaps so that they arent so punishing in the begining but provide a bigger threat later in the game?

1a) Lower AI's bonus vs barbarians. (Particularly vs Animals)
1b) Make AI less likely to build settlers (the settle spam race isn't too fun, we need more wildlife in the early game), while also reducing the incentive for the human to spam cities.

2. Is there a rubber band mechanic that we could apply as a game option?

2a) King of the Hill
- Have some way to become king of the hill. I.e. capture a Unique Improvement, or be score leader, etc. And give this person some bonuses. But also give every other player a bonus and an incentive to attack the king of the Hill. (Like economic bonuses and diplomatic penalties)

3. Is this an area we could base events on, to give winning players the choice to accept an in game challenge?

3) Definitely. But maybe make it optional.

4. Are there some flavorful victory conditions that could provide a new challenge for players that have mastered the normal game?

4) I'm sure there are. I can think of a few to do with the AC counter. Like turn the entire globe into hell.

As an example of the 3rd I have been thinking about an event where, if you are the highesst ranked player, you get approcahed by the lowest ranked civilization and asked to lead them. To do so you abandon your civilization and from that point on you play the loser civ, trying to bring them back.

Good idea.

As to question 4 I have been thinking that if we put that former event in we could force it to trigger in certain conditions (if you are the lead player and such) and the victory condition would be that you would have to take over the loser civ and raise them to be the most powerful 3 times (or whatever).

Sounds fun. A lot of "quests" could be added to the chain to victory, like when you accept the Event to lead another civ, you get a Quest with a timeframe, with another event in the chain if you complete it in time, otherwise you fail the chain to victory.


On the point of making the end game more fun. We need more reasons to play peacefully. To perfect your empire. In a fun way, not just build these buildings, click end turn, rinse repeat.

And quests and other stuff with clear goals and obstacles.

 

[Demus]

I like the idea of adding additional events to both reward the players for doing well, and make it more challenging for them.
It's not that tough to think of additional events that both benefit the leading civ, and give that civ a bigger challenge at the same time. For example:

"Some xxx (civ's name here) scholars grow tired of their nation's scientific incompetence. They want to join your more advanced nation!"

1. Aditional scholars are always welcome. (Libraries gain +1 science, -3 diplo modifier with home nation.
2. Repel them, they should attempt to improve the scientific knowledge of their home nation instead (nothing happens).

Shouldn't be tough to think up similar events.

Another option to improve the late game peaceful playtype would be to introduce more lategame buildings and/or improvements, or even wonders. Have more wonders at the very end of the tech tree, which give benefits to that entire specialisation line, but anger your neighbours at the same time.

 

[Ekolite]

On a related note, would it be possible for each leader to have a wonder they don't like, which would act basically like the opposte of their ''favourite wonder''. They would never try to build it themselves and they would give a diplo penalty to the civ that does build it. For eg, the Elohim could give a diplo penalty to the player that built Mokka's cauldron.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I believe I asked for that as soon as favorite wonders were added.

 

[Demus]

Actually, shouldn't the favorite wonders give diplomatic penalties instead of bonusses? If someone else beat sandalphon to the great library, wouldn't he want to conquer the city holding it, instead of helping defend it?

 

[Ekolite]

Yeah, but I think the idea is that they admire the other civ for having built it.

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

Actually, shouldn't the favorite wonders give diplomatic penalties instead of bonusses? If someone else beat sandalphon to the great library, wouldn't he want to conquer the city holding it, instead of helping defend it?

No, they see the wonder as an apogee of civilization, and the holder a worthy scholar.

i.e. Sndalphon thinks Dain, holder of the Great Library, is a leader of a noble and genius race worthy of respect.

 

[Winston]

I think there have been alot of good suggestions here - I like the idea of using code from revolutions and of making the VC thresholds lower and beefing up the horsemen but these should all be options that a player can choose as many people wouldnt like the changes.
I've played revolutions in the past and it does make the games very interesting but also frustrating - it makes domination wins nigh on impossible - and even maintaining a fairly small empire is difficult - the mechanism is a handicap for the player, not the AI because the player has to work within lower thresholds before uprisings start to happen. The games tend to be very dynamic and interesting but many people would hate it.
With the horsemen, maybe they should get a fire and brimstone type spell that works like a tactical nuke - I also think the horsemen and the avatar should auto raze cities and this should create zombies (like the mechanism for Bassium and Hyborem) - medic 1,2, march, drill 4 would also make them tougher too - again these things should be optional game selections. Orthus should auto raze too IMO
In terms of easier victory thresholds maybe:
1) make the final altar available with an earlier tech (fanaticism?),
2)make domination a 60% threshold,
3) the tower is now alot easier with metamagic 2, although I'm not sure the AI is making use of it
4) religion is pretty easy anyway - although I never see the AI spam disciples to spread religion
5) lower the culture thresholds - these are too high - the AI never gets near these thresholds

 

[xienwolf]

Indeed, one thing I would LOVE to see is an option setting for every VC where you can choose from 3 or more "Levels" of Victory under that condition. 2, 3 or 5 Legendary Cities for a Culture VC. 40%, 60% 90% Land Area for Domination VC. 60% Influence w/ 2 followers, 70% Influence w/3 followers, 80% influence with ALL following for Religious VCs....


Give something like that so that you can choose essentially a "Quick" "Standard" or "Neigh Impossible" option for each area of VC. Then you can customize how challenging/long each game will be a bit better.

 

[Caradoc]

What if there was a chance that achieving a regular victory would open up one of several "end" games where one of the gods intervenes? A supervictory would grant the player a position in an exalted Hall of Fame with suitable fanfare and eyecandy.

In 'nethack' some players attempt to ger victories under various self-imposed handicaps. (Such as vegetarians who do not eat corpses.) The ambitious FFH player might attempt to win while practicing agnosticism as someone besides the Grigori. Or to win using only Arcane or Divine units.

 

[Mewtarthio]

In 'nethack' some players attempt to ger victories under various self-imposed handicaps. (Such as vegetarians who do not eat corpses.) The ambitious FFH player might attempt to win while practicing agnosticism as someone besides the Grigori. Or to win using only Arcane or Divine units.

That could prove difficult, unless you're also going to allow them to use Warriors. In which case, the Sheiam would be quite pleased with that arrangement.

 

[Grey Fox]

Yeah I never converted that over into the BtS version. There was a lot of tracking done on that and in the end I didnt think it was worthwile just for the attitude modifier. It is a good idea, it just required to much backend work.

Just keep a counter on every player and add to this counter every time it should increase and decrease it every time it should decrease. Do this instead of doing loops and counts every time you need to check how much someone is "destroying" the world and it won't be that complex.

example (trying for Pseudo Code, not meant to be python):

in CvPlayer
m_iDestroyingTheWorld = 0;

in makeReligionFounded():
    if religion == VEIL
        player.changeDestroyingTheWorld(5);

in getYouAreDestroyingTheWorldFactor:
    if player.getDestroyingTheWorld() > 10
         setYouAreDestroyingTheWorldAttitude(me, you, getYouAreDestroyingTheWorldAttributeModifier(me))