[R&F] Redundant game mechanics

[liv]

of time reading forums and watching let's plays just to get into the game.

I think complicated is that much of an issue. I would love a good strategy game.
I worry that we end up with BE- a lot of things to do that do not really matter. I do not see that yet but that is my concern

 

[Arent11]

Endless Legend basically had a system that merged Great People and Governors. You could attach the Heroes to your armies and get certain bonuses or to your cities and get another set of bonuses. The Heroes could also be upgraded through promotion trees that boosted army or city bonuses.

If Civ6 continued using the same system as Civ4 where each individual Great Person is interchangeable with the same type of Great Person, I would say the best solution would be to make Governors be GPs assigned to cities. But since GPs in Civ6 each do different things, it becomes a bit unwieldy.

Well, in master of orion 2 you had heroes that you could either assign to your colonies or to lead your armies. It was fun.

Science and culture is VERY diffrent. One is mire. Military focused and has more immediate gains and the ither is a long term investment.

Regardless, this split is one of the better ones. Why scientists would come up with theater anyways?

In civ 1, it was trade/exchange of ideas (signified by two arrows), that could either be invested in "science" or gold. Calling the development of new ideas "science" is an oversimplification, since, of course, first of all the general population comes up with new ideas & only in specific cases its "scientists".
At the same time, you can of course ask why theaters should produce new ideas for governments & policies. Of course, such ideas were developed by warlords, the early city states & only in very few cases by an "academy" in which plato discussed his political philosophy.

I've looked at Diablo 3 progress while it was in development. One of things developers tried to do is to remove boring parts - things which playes do anyway, all this pointless clicking, They moved into this direction, but at some point they realized - they are loosing the game, because Diablo is all about clicking. So, they went halfway back down this road.

I wouldn't call it redundant, but there are a lot of buckets now (gold, faith, production, science, culture, tourism, housing, amenities, loyalty, influence/envoys, great person points, governor tiles, era points, etc.).

I'm of course advocating the KISS principle here: Few rules that lead to a complex game. However, I fully agree with the "don't remove boring parts" I noticed that I want to load my units into transport ships. I want to have a full fledged landing operations at the shores of my enemies. By giving me embarkation, the designers thought they would remove a "boring" part, however, in truth they removed an essential part of naval warfare.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I'm of course advocating the KISS principle here: Few rules that lead to a complex game. However, I fully agree with the "don't remove boring parts" I noticed that I want to load my units into transport ships. I want to have a full fledged landing operations at the shores of my enemies. By giving me embarkation, the designers thought they would remove a "boring" part, however, in truth they removed an essential part of naval warfare.

I believe the removal of transport ships is more about 1UPT.

 

[kaspergm]

1) Governors & great people

I disagree, these are quite different. You earn them in quite different ways, GP are earned through buildings while governors are mostly earned passively. GP are one-time use and only one civ can earn each of them, while Governors are permanent and customizable to your civilization.

(2) Loyalty, housing and amenities, in addition rising settler/builder costs.

Mostly disagree. Housing limits tall growth, amenities limits overall growth and loyalty will probably limit wide growth and city placement mostly. As such, loyalty is a welcome and sorely needed feature. When that's said, loyalty should make rising Settler cost mostly redundant, so I hope they'll scale back on that.

(3) Science & Culture

I disagree strongly. This separation makes great sense and works great in the game. You can actually have one civ being strong in one, and another civ being strong in the other, while it's hard(er) to be strong in both. So in this way, it not only adds variety, it also puts a limit on snowballing. I do think the trees - particularly the civis tree - needs fleshing out, however, because there's a strong tendency to beelining and skipping through the era, particuarly from industrial and onwards.

 

[mitsho]

I agree and disagree...

They could have for example made the culture tree into a web similar to the tech tree of Beyond Earth to allow for more diversity, but in the end, culture and science do something different in-game. However, a lot of these systems interact with each other and overlap in certain areas. The more such concepts exist in the game (like now the new loyalty, governors, etc. ), the harder it is to understand the whole system for a (casual) player. I have a hard time f.e. explaining tourism victory or how religious pressure works so I just give up. For the next installment of civilization, I thus hope that they first do a tabula rasa with all yields, because - as you say - do we really need culture? And are food and production really that different?

I do not answer those questions but the overlaps you point out exist. One can argue whether they should or how big they are - as is being done in this thread - and those are valid points. Still, the game gets more and more complex whereas I would prefer "experiencing a story before my eyes".

 

[Hammurabbit]

I'm not against add more numbers, values, currencies, etc as long as they unlock interesting dynamics, difficult choices and opens up for intention in the game play. For example amenities, housing and loyalty looks promising to me. They all relates to the size of your empire (width / height) but are quite different to manage practically.
One of my favourite mechanics in Civ are resources (especially strategic resources) that often forces the player to change their strategies when it comes to settling, conquering, trading and even how you pick your research. You need to create plans ("Let's explore this area, look for resources, build a settler, settle", "Let's start building an army so i can invade this citystate, etc").
One of my least favourite mechanics in Civ 6 is culture and tourism, that to me is just about prioritizing culture buildings, trading artifacts to optimize your museums (with AIs that happily accept whatever trade you suggest). There is little strategic intent and few decisions needed.
I also don't think they nailed the boost system which muddles up my decisions in the tech/culture tree. Instead of carefully considering the next tech, i often pick whatever is boosted, so I don't waste science on things i could be boosting. It becomes a quest game, rather than long term strategy.

So for rise and fall, I hope that it can bring more intention in games. Unfortunately from the gameplay shown the other day, it feels like it might be getting overloaded with things that just happen on their own ("Oh, another great person", "Oh another title on a governor", "oh some era points"). Of course, they played on highest speed, which contributes to the number of things happening.

 

[Candido Rondon]

Well, in master of orion 2 you had heroes that you could either assign to your colonies or to lead your armies. It was fun.

Ah, ok. I haven't played MoO2, but that sounds very similar.

I actually started coding a mod for Civ4 a while back that would allow you to promote Great People to a national-level Cabinet. So if you put a Great Merchant in the War Minister position, you'd get one bonus, and if you put a Great Scientist there, you'd get another one, etc. Naturally, you'd get the biggest boosts from putting the GP in a Cabinet position most related to their type, but you could in theory have a whole Cabinet filled with Generals or Artists, etc

 

[Arent11]

I believe the removal of transport ships is more about 1UPT.

Yes, I think that was the main reason. Still, I miss escorting my transport ships, being surprised by the enemy navy & landing on well defended shores

I disagree, these are quite different. You earn them in quite different ways, GP are earned through buildings while governors are mostly earned passively. GP are one-time use and only one civ can earn each of them, while Governors are permanent and customizable to your civilization.

Mostly disagree. Housing limits tall growth, amenities limits overall growth and loyalty will probably limit wide growth and city placement mostly. As such, loyalty is a welcome and sorely needed feature. When that's said, loyalty should make rising Settler cost mostly redundant, so I hope they'll scale back on that.

That's actually exactly what I said You seem mainly to disagree that the differences are for you strong enough & for me not strong enough.

They could have for example made the culture tree into a web similar to the tech tree of Beyond Earth

The tech web of beyond earth always confused me (and my friends). Since you could go in all directions, you somehow immediately felt lost.

One of my least favourite mechanics in Civ 6 is culture and tourism, that to me is just about prioritizing culture buildings, trading artifacts to optimize your museums (with AIs that happily accept whatever trade you suggest). There is little strategic intent and few decisions needed.
I also don't think they nailed the boost system which muddles up my decisions in the tech/culture tree. Instead of carefully considering the next tech, i often pick whatever is boosted, so I don't waste science on things i could be boosting. It becomes a quest game, rather than long term strategy.

Well there is a certain tendency of "puzzles" in civ 6 (theming bonuses, city layout, grabbing boosts). Since I'm not so much into puzzles I do actually ignore that to an extent. For example my cities are seldomly extremely well planned, I do not invest much into great works of art, because I would have to manage them & I only use internal trade routes because I don't like to keep track of potentially plundered/threatened trade routes.

 

[Disgustipated]

Yeah I didn't care for the tech web. It was a bit weird to try to figure out which direction you wanted to go. Only played 69 hours of BE, it had promise, but the tech tree was the worst part of it. I actually think the factions were more realistic than SMAC factions (which had the silly Believers and Spartans which were a bit unrealistic), but they just lacked personality.

All this talk about Endless Legend has me interested. Is this a RTS game? Or is it turned based? How newbie friendly is it? Although I doubt much can drag me from Civ6 at this point. I'm still playing. Started an Aztec game yesterday.

I'm okay with the features they are bringing in, they look interesting. But I do worry the franchise may become a little too complicated for newbies coming into the genre. In some ways Civ2 was a much simpler game. Though you did have annoyances like city revolts which may not be easy to manage for a newbie.

 

[God of Kings]

All this talk about Endless Legend has me interested. Is this a RTS game? Or is it turned based? How newbie friendly is it?

It is a turn-based 4X. It's also the closest modern video game to Civ that has a budget of at least a million dollars.

One can win through many ways, but Endless Legend is optimized for warmongering (and battles can get tactical). Even the more "peaceful" factions such as the Roving Clans and the Drakken are good for warmongering to some degree.

 

[Disgustipated]

It is a turn-based 4X. It's also the closest modern video game to Civ that has a budget of at least a million dollars.

One can win through many ways, but Endless Legend is optimized for warmongering (and battles can get tactical). Even the more "peaceful" factions such as the Roving Clans and the Drakken are good for warmongering to some degree.

Sounds interesting. Going on my wish list. I prefer turn based because I suck at RTS. I still kind of want to try EU4, maybe some day. I'm not sure how newbie friendly that is for us "slower" folks. I'm not good with the fast clicking.

 

[HEF]

The tech web of beyond earth always confused me (and my friends). Since you could go in all directions, you somehow immediately felt lost.

The Technology Web system used in Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth, Rising Tide revolves around 5 rings of advancement; the design is clearly inspired by Astrology.

What's so confusing about it to you?

 

[Silverdawn]

It is a turn-based 4X. It's also the closest modern video game to Civ that has a budget of at least a million dollars.

One can win through many ways, but Endless Legend is optimized for warmongering (and battles can get tactical). Even the more "peaceful" factions such as the Roving Clans and the Drakken are good for warmongering to some degree.

Endless Space 2 is their more recent game and is also very good.

 

[liv]

The Technology Web system used in Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth, Rising Tide revolves around 5 rings of advancement; the design is clearly inspired by Astrology.

What's so confusing about it to you?

redundant civ 6 discussion

 

[Rosty K]

Sounds interesting. Going on my wish list. I prefer turn based because I suck at RTS. I still kind of want to try EU4, maybe some day. I'm not sure how newbie friendly that is for us "slower" folks. I'm not good with the fast clicking.

EU (or everything Paradox) isn't exactly RTS really. Most of the time the game is paused (and it allows to do everything while paused) and the slower among us have a speed slider too (so you can slow the time down for war, and speed up when nothing is happening). You don't need any fast clicking skill to play it. You need to know where the space bar is and be able to hit it quickly though to pause the time. But surely civ players (especially old school) know very well where the space bar is

 

[ChocolateShake]

This is an interesting discussion. Earlier versions of civ had simpler systems, like defenseless cities, trade units that grant a one-time payment, and many others. The simplicity of the earlier systems let us focus more on how we want to play the game, rather than perhaps thinking about the optimal way to do it. Now that we have a lot of systems, and more complicated ones, they can sometimes clash with our enjoyment of the game and with immersion as well.

I think an example of this are districts. Districts are great, but they're kind of a double-edged sword when it comes to immersion, because they introduce a bunch of pure gameplay decisions and puzzles like @Arent11 mentioned. You can't have a good science city without jungles or mountains. You have to preplan your city layout in case you want to optimize a building or wonder's radius effect. It feels good to plan out great district spots, but sometimes it gets in the way of actually enjoying the game, like if that ideal spot has a resource that you want to harvest first. From my own perspective, I think I preferred it when ideal play didn't make such a big difference.

Regarding science and culture, I think the idea you mentioned of having a single "ideas" currency could be better.

I think part of the problem is that we're getting a lot of minor decisions and fewer major ones. There's a lot more potential for min-maxing and optimal play, and that conflicts directly with immersion and even enjoyable gameplay sometimes. For people who like to play civ more as a roleplaying game, it can make it harder to get into a flow. Like @mitsho mentioned, I also prefer experiencing civ as a story rather than as a gameplay experience.

I like the new systems they're adding, especially governors, but I agree, it's probably time to take a look at all decisions we have to make in addition to the systems and yields we have to manage and see what can be changed. A clean start like @mitsho said.

As a side-note, I've started to notice that some of the ideas are similar to those of Rise of Nations, which I'd recommend any civ player to try! It was designed by Brian Reynolds, the Civ II designer.

 

[Sascha77]

(1) Governors & great people

Well, you now have great people and you have governors/heroes, which you can move around. Great people require "great people points" you get from districts, civics & wonders. Governors require governor titles, which you get from civics, wonders and other sources. Somehow, all that feels the same.

Watching the live-stream I was thinking that the race for governors reminded me a bit too much of the race for GP. Not that I'm a huge fan of the idea of having to compete for GP in the first place ... but I digress.

This made me wonder: why not simply use GP as governors? Meaning: If you attract a GP you can either use it as intended *or* decide to turn it into a governor.
You could also differentiate a bit more between governors and *great* governors, by giving players the option of recruiting either "mediocre" governors or
sacrificing a GP as described above to get your hands on an expert or elite governor.

In this scenario, a run-of-the-mill governor would have negative effects alongside his positive ones. Think of a "corrupt city-planner" who would add a few hammers to your city, but would also cause your economy -X GPT. Only an expert governor would have no negative effects, but you could only get a guy like that by using a GP in the role of governor.

Getting a bit OT now, but the way I see it, the game doesn't have enough negative consequences built-into it as it is. For example: I loved the idea of unhealthiness in Civ IV and how building up a "dirty city" could really mess up that city in the long run - and force you to research more modern tech and building facilities to boost the health of your citizens.

S.

 

[Arent11]

This is an interesting discussion. Earlier versions of civ had simpler systems, like defenseless cities, trade units that grant a one-time payment, and many others. The simplicity of the earlier systems let us focus more on how we want to play the game, rather than perhaps thinking about the optimal way to do it. Now that we have a lot of systems, and more complicated ones, they can sometimes clash with our enjoyment of the game and with immersion as well.

As I said, I'm advocating the KISS principle, and civilization up to ~civ 5 has always followed it:

(1) Few rules that create a complex interplay (best example is chess)
(2) Starting with few options & during the game adding more and more decisions (starting with a single settler in civ 1 & through technology slowly opening up more possibilities is one the most ingenious ways to implement that I have come across)

I think an example of this are districts. Districts are great, but they're kind of a double-edged sword when it comes to immersion, because they introduce a bunch of pure gameplay decisions and puzzles like @Arent11 mentioned. You can't have a good science city without jungles or mountains. You have to preplan your city layout in case you want to optimize a building or wonder's radius effect. It feels good to plan out great district spots, but sometimes it gets in the way of actually enjoying the game, like if that ideal spot has a resource that you want to harvest first. From my own perspective, I think I preferred it when ideal play didn't make such a big difference.

I'm not opposed to the idea of having a "spread out" city center. However, I would prefer if that city center would be compact/the districts adjacent to the city center & not somewhere in the mountains.

Regarding science and culture, I think the idea you mentioned of having a single "ideas" currency could be better.

I personally would use culture as a "currency" you need to "convince" people of your civilization:

(1) Implementing governments & policies
(2) spreading borders
(3) having influence on loyalty/culture flipping borders & cities

I think part of the problem is that we're getting a lot of minor decisions and fewer major ones. There's a lot more potential for min-maxing and optimal play, and that conflicts directly with immersion and even enjoyable gameplay sometimes. For people who like to play civ more as a roleplaying game, it can make it harder to get into a flow. Like @mitsho mentioned, I also prefer experiencing civ as a story rather than as a gameplay experience.

Well, rules should be elegant. Simple, yet leading to a complex game. That is not always easy to achieve.

This made me wonder: why not simply use GP as governors? Meaning: If you attract a GP you can either use it as intended *or* decide to turn it into a governor.

That's why I said I would like historical figures as "heroes". People like Isaac Newton or Ghengis Khan. Let's recruit Isaac Newton & put him as governor in your science city. & let's recruit Ghengis Khan and have him lead your tanks to victory

 

[blackbutterfly]

(2) Loyalty, housing and amenities, in addition rising settler/builder costs

All these mechanics apparently act to limit the growth of your civ. Some limit the citiy growth (housing), others seem to be intended to limit all out expansion (rising settler/builder costs, amenities). Loyalty might, depending on the exact rules, pose a limit on size of your civ. Which should make at least the rising settler/builder costs superfluous.

I agree that there maybe too many things limiting growth and expansion:
1. Food
2. Housing
3. Amenities
4. Loyalty

What I liked about Civ 5 was it simplified lots of things. You just had to worry about food and happiness.

Another concern I have is as complexity rises, the the AI becomes worse

 

[Candido Rondon]

Another concern I have is as complexity rises, the the AI becomes worse

I don't think that's necessarily true. Because complexity can emerge from more game mechanisms or from a few game mechanisms. Fewer game mechanisms can sometimes lead to more choices to be made at one time, which increases the odds of the AI (and the player) making suboptimal choices.

Take Workers/Builders for example. In Civ1 and 2, Settlers improved land and built cities. So the AI had to make a decision whether to use those Settlers to improve the land or build more cities. And if they improved the land, they had to decide which land to improve and how. But after Civ3, the AI had to make a decision whether to build a Worker or a Settler. But once that decision was made, what to do with them was more limited. It went from one unit to two, but it didn't double the number of possible choices the AI had to make at one time.

I think the thing that is worth remembering is that KISS isn't about always having the fewest number of mechanisms possible. It's about having the fewest number of mechanisms possible to create the kind of play experience you want.

If we want city-flipping (and I do), then you have to have some sort of mechanism controlling it. It could have been some kind of formula combining existing valyes like nearby city culture and amenities, but is that necessarily simpler or more intuitive than adding a new value like Loyalty? I'm not sure that it would be.