I can see that point, I just feel that Dark Ages should imply some kind of penalty, since didn‘t meet the requirements needed to keep your civ in a good state. It‘s good that you get extra policies to catch up, and it‘s good that you can even reach some spectacular bonus with that. It‘s a matter of opinion and taste, but I think the most you should get from fail-big success is the same as from success-success. Encouraging failure to get more rewards later on can be seen as a later reward for an investment, a good gameplay element. Thematically, it feels wrong. But we need to see more details. Maybe it isn‘t even an effective strategy, just a fun one.
I see your point. It all depends on how easy it is to effectively run your empire through a Dark Age. If you accidentally stumble into a Dark Age through bad play, I'd hope you'd suffer even more badly from a Dark Age and end up in an even worse state unless you really start playing more effectively. Pulling your Empire back from a fall should take effort, whether you planned for it or not. Ideally the Dark/Heroic strategy should require careful planning, and certainly shouldn't happen by accident whenever you slip into a Dark Age.
Weights should be highly used yes, but not decision tree. Pure decision tree algorithms are used for games with limited choices.
I see, "immersively"... In reality, immersion only bothers really small fraction of players, the "fans" and most of fans use (and make) mods anyway. The gameplay role of AI tactical combat is to provide challenge, adequate to the set difficulty levels, that's the goal AI achieves easily by using difficulty level bonuses.
Also, I strongly disagree with "poor game design exposing that AI limitation". Exposing AI weaknesses vs. human is actually exposing human strengths, which is good game design. Tactical combat is interesting, no matter if opponent strength is in equal tactics or handicap.
By immersive, I was actually setting a lower standard for the combat AI than providing challenge. Along the lines of "vaguely looks like it knows what it is doing".
The idea of the Civ 6 combat AI providing a challenge, even at Deity, is so far from current reality as to be ridiculous. If you think that goal has been met, easily even, then I don't know what game you have been playing.
I see your point. It all depends on how easy it is to effectively run your empire through a Dark Age. If you accidentally stumble into a Dark Age through bad play, I'd hope you'd suffer even more badly from a Dark Age and end up in an even worse state unless you really start playing more effectively. Pulling your Empire back from a fall should take effort, whether you planned for it or not. Ideally the Dark/Heroic strategy should require careful planning, and certainly shouldn't happen by accident whenever you slip into a Dark Age.
I do think/hope that a Dark/Heroic strategy only becomes a big thing in multiplayer and the highest levels of the game--ie: the points where immersion and realism already matter little. MP is already about optimizing and exploiting mechanics so I don't mind ages being used similarly there, and deity already isn't the level to play if you're looking for somewhat realistic gameplay. For MP there's also the counterplay of attacking the other player while they're still in the Dark Age as well, making it not foolproof. As long as the strategy isn't so good that it feels bad to not use it in usual gameplay, it should be fine.
I agree about potential balance issues and since most features are simple rehashes of previous features that suffered this I hope they have learnt from the past. Civ 3 brought in city culture flipping of cities and it was a debacle initially and ultimately removed, players hated their city simply changing to the opposition due to culture especially in its first iteration which was vastly imbalanced.
Yes, it was a debacle in Civ3, which is why it was a lot more refined & nuanced in Civ4. I was surprised when it was removed in Civ5.....but hopefully it's been refined even more in Civ6....given it is about more than just cultural pressure.
Speaking of which, I'd love to see some of the alternate abilities for Great Artists, Musicians & Writers make a come-back. Aside from making Great Works, Artists could help to push a Civilization closer to a Golden Age, or perhaps "Culture Bomb" a city on the outskirts of the Empire. A Great Writer Could write a political treatise that could either trigger an Inspiration for a Civic, or maybe increase the loyalty of all your cities. Great Musicians could do tours of Civilizations you have Open Borders with, & they could help to increase the loyalty of the foreign cities to *your* empire
By immersive, I was actually setting a lower standard for the combat AI than providing challenge. Along the lines of "vaguely looks like it knows what it is doing".
The idea of the Civ 6 combat AI providing a challenge, even at Deity, is so far from current reality as to be ridiculous. If you think that goal has been met, easily even, then I don't know what game you have been playing.
I do hope they use the Expansion to further flesh out existing game mechanics-like making City-State Diplomacy more dynamic.....possibly more of a "zero sum game"....but certainly have the potential to both lose *and* gain envoys within a City State.....with espionage playing a particularly large role in the mid to late game.
I would also love to see resources play a much larger role than they currently do. Ideally I would love to see a return of Civ5's strategic resource system. I would also love for multiple copies of a luxury resource to be of use, particularly for sustaining larger empires (I would also love for resource monopolies to have a significant in-game effect). I would also love to see more buildings that can turn resources into other yields, & have bonus resources grant empire wide benefits. Basically really flesh out the domestic economy of the game.
Another thought. What if cultural pressure on a tile impacted how much it would cost to buy it? It would also be great to see the ability for empty border tiles to shift allegiences, based on relative cultural pressure, as we had in Civ4. Also, if you have a Friendship Pact with a neighbour, you should have the ability to purchase tiles that already belong to them-but only at a very high price, & only if you have a cultural presence on that tile. It would also have to be "empty" at the time of purchase.
Not finishing a Deity game =/= it was a challenging game.
Usually it's quite the opposite, the only Deity games I've bothered finishing were the rare ones that were actually challenging (like the one where I started on a 4 tile island with Russia). Meanwhile I've abandoned dozens of Deity games because they weren't a challenge.
As it is any intermediate player (I have a pretty low bar for intermediate: knows all the mechanics and can spot whats strong in a situation) can win a Deity game, with any start. That is not where the most challenging level should be right?
Usually it's quite the opposite, the only Deity games I've bothered finishing were the rare ones that were actually challenging (like the one where I started on a 4 tile island with Russia). Meanwhile I've abandoned dozens of Deity games because they weren't a challenge.
Not finishing a single deity game usually means you can't do it (or at least can't do it without too much luck).
As it is any intermediate player (I have a pretty low bar for intermediate: knows all the mechanics and can spot whats strong in a situation) can win a Deity game, with any start. That is not where the most challenging level should be right?
My bar for intermediate player is knowing all mechanics, but not knowing all strategies and avoiding too much micromanagement (i.e. not managing tiles other than first several levels of the first city). For Civ6 that's King level, Emperor with luck. That's for average setup, like Continents, Average size and speed, not Scythia.
Anyway, adjusting difficulty levels is quite easy task. Or developers could just add 2 more. It has nothing to do with AI programming.
Game is already on my wish list for Steam. I may or may not get it for Christmas.
That said, earlier comments about AI not utilizing new features are a concern, and the developers need to address this. I point to you the example of Indonesia's DLC. A nice civ, but the AI doesn't know how to use them. AI Indonesia only does well when they have lots of cities on a large landmass, they simply do not want to settle islands. This is an example of developers making new features, but not programming the AI to use them. I hope this is not the case with the new expansion.
I'm also worried my wide empires are getting a major nerf. Hopefully I can just reconquer any cities I may lose. Or just avoid it all together. I have had fun in my games conquering every single city in the world.
And 2/3rds of players have never finished any game at all (35.4% have the win on Chieftain achievement). So actually more like 13% of people who have actually completely a game have done so on deity.
But having played the game, you can't tell me you find the combat AI a challenge.
Moderator Action: Please stick to your own experiences and findings and don't make assumptions about other people --NobleZarkon
And 2/3rds of players have never finished any game at all (35.4% have the win on Chieftain achievement). So actually more like 13% of people who have actually completely a game have done so on deity.
Good point.
Civ6: 40.4% have Chieftain+ achievement, 4.7% have Deity. Yes, that means of all players who completed the game at least once, only 11.63% finished deity.
Unfortunately, Civ5 doesn't have Chieftain+ stats, instead it shows 22.4% for Chieftain, 15.4% for Prince, 14.6% for Warlord, etc. I'd say the amount of players who ever finished Civ5 game should be about 30-35%, with Deity on them close to Civ6 stats.
But having played the game, you can't tell me you find the combat AI a challenge.
This is a relatively minor quibble, but does it bother anyone else that the governors seem to be named as individuals (Raina the Financier) instead of as categories (economic governor)? It seems odd for the same dozen or so individual governors to be in use across every civ in the game and across every era.
Additionally, I've been thinking about the loyalty system, and I'm curious as to whether the recent religious view changes were inspired by and/or preparation for it. Loyalty may well have its own map mode, and city to city pressure, and time until city "flipping" will both be important to show.
This is a relatively minor quibble, but does it bother anyone else that the governors seem to be named as individuals (Raina the Financier) instead of as categories (economic governor)? It seems odd for the same dozen or so individual governors to be in use across every civ in the game and across every era.
Additionally, I've been thinking about the loyalty system, and I'm curious as to whether the recent religious view changes were inspired by and/or preparation for it. Loyalty may well have its own map mode, and city to city pressure, and time until city "flipping" will both be important to show.
Each civ would probably have their own named governors.
For example, only China can have Zhang the Builder, while England can have Bob the Builder (by name only; it's just as an example). Japan can have Norichika the Diplomat, while Rome can have Marcus the Diplomat for another example.
Each civ would probably have their own named governors.
For example, only China can have Zhang the Builder, while England can have Bob the Builder (by name only; it's just as an example). Japan can have Norichika the Diplomat, while Rome can have Marcus the Diplomat for another example.
Each civ would probably have their own named governors.
For example, only China can have Zhang the Builder, while England can have Bob the Builder (by name only; it's just as an example). Japan can have Norichika the Diplomat, while Rome can have Marcus the Diplomat for another example.
There isn't evidence of this so far, but it is certainly possible. Even so, I'd rather hire generic infrastructure governors than have every Chinese builder be named Zhang.
Generic names would also allow some ambiguity as to whether governors are individuals, successions of individuals, or broader bureaucracies, which would a way around the immersion issue of governors living thousands of years. Admittedly, civ leaders do this too, but their names are referencing specific history and related abilities, while governor names lack any such advantage over generic ones.
This is a relatively minor quibble, but does it bother anyone else that the governors seem to be named as individuals (Raina the Financier) instead of as categories (economic governor)? It seems odd for the same dozen or so individual governors to be in use across every civ in the game and across every era.
It would be weird if those names were true across all civs, especially as there doesn't seem to be any particular reason why they were chosen. Although I hope they do a slightly better job than they have for some of the Spy names.
Additionally, I've been thinking about the loyalty system, and I'm curious as to whether the recent religious view changes were inspired by and/or preparation for it. Loyalty may well have its own map mode, and city to city pressure, and time until city "flipping" will both be important to show.
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