that steamrolling

[caiman0815]

One of the biggest problems I've so far with every iteration of civ is that every core mechanic of the game is heavenly influenced by steamrolling

its ok that good decisions will give you benefits in future, but its just silly that 90% of all games are decided in renaissance era or earlier.

Is it me, but that is why endgame is just hitting the end bar and waiting for victory. Sure, playing on diety is another case and I had some pretty exciting endgames on this level, however, I am competitive on this level because I steamrolled or exploited some core mechanic ... be it tech beelining, beaker maximizing, worker/settler stealing, citytaking from an incompetent AI or the else

Whats the sense in building Ruhr valley just around 100 AD but steamrolling that huge production into victory? Is that good gameplay or just exploiting a poorly designed tech tree

Whats the sense in having two kingdoms next to another, one with advanced arms and the other just hitting bronze working? Just to gobble up some cities and increase your tech advantage steamroll in boring heights? Thats not how it works out, neither in real history nor in games.

And steamrollling is preventing the defs from designing some really interesting game mechanics imo.

For example, it is possible to reveal the whole map until renaissance, where the age of exploration should begin, just because your scouts had plenty of turns checking out everything on the map. Would be much better if there is a mechanic preventing you from doing so (no healing in neutral territory f.e)
But preventing your units to reach every place until industrial eras would prevent you from stopping that steamrolling runaway on the other side of the world and there would be reasonable complains about this

tl,dr why not designing a better tech tree without possibility to beeline that core tech which gives you a huge advantage just because you know it? Why not a tech system where tech advantage means leading by a few techs, not a few dozen. Why a combat system the AI cant handle and then no penalties beside crappy diplomatic ones (and the AI just hates you most of times, so no problem being a warmonger) like cities in rebellion, cities becoming suddenly city states or something like this

Cant understand

 

[KrikkitTwo]

One thought....

make the game a "score win"...where each turn you add a certain amount to a permanent score based on how well you are doing that turn.

This way doing well in turn 50 is still good for your victory...even if it doesn't help you get a larger empire in turn 250

So essentially each turn you "invest" in
1. something that increases my score this turn (giving me permanent points)..but doesn't help me get score in future turns
OR
2. something that will help me increase my score in future turns

Just make sure that 1 is competitive with 2 (so investing everything in #2 until the modern eras is a bad idea...unless you are a civ like America with big bonuses to modern eras)
Ancient Era "1s" have to give some big bonuses since there is more time...Information era "1s" are relatively weak...and their "2s" are strong.

(right now the game has only modern+era "1s")

[ending the game at turn X through a Victory. would give you a bunch of score for the remaining "time on the clock"..based on how well your empire is doing]
[also you might win even if you got eliminated in the end game.... your civilization stood the test of time the best]

 

[dexters]

Well I like the idea of soft reset points and the game does try to do it with resources and dilpomacy but you get equally loud voices from the other side against these resets.

I like the soft diplo resets in Civ 5 and is somewhat indifferent to the resource scarcity in civ 6 (I could be doing awesome but then find I lack niter!)

The current resource distribution actually really reminds me if how it was in vanilla civ 3. Lacking rubber as industrial rolls along was a huge cause for consternation. But it really drove the dynamism of the mid and late game.

I'm sure people will complain loudly enough that the resource distribution will get nerfed in a patch or expansion like it did in civ 3

 

[Larsenex]

I am in a game playing as a warmonger. I am on an 'enormous' map..(size past huge, mod only) and 14 other civs. I had a classical era war that was against Scythia and it stalemated. I lost too many swordsman ( I had iron she doesn't) and had to accept her peace deal so I can rebuild. Its now ren era and I got lucky and found niter under an encampment. You have no idea how happy this brings the warmonger out in me, Grima wormtongue would have be pleased!

Anyway, I agree about the steam roll part but, my experience has shown that larger maps, and a tad fewer civs will really REALLY stretch out the time before you get a chance to steam roll if ever. i am 180 turns in and not sure if I will pull off a domination victory but I think I can at least clear my continent in the next 100 turns.

 

[Seabastian Civ]

A valid point. Steamrolling isn't fun. But...

By design, the only thing Civ 6 balances is the start of the game. (And even then some Locations are better than others.) the middle and end of the game isn't designed to be balanced.

This is what makes Civ so fun, IMO. It's fun to run away and crush!. I agree that right now the game is unbalanced and bee lining works way too well against the AI, but I'm confident that with a few patches and expansions the game will be excellent.

For a more balanced middle and end game try one of the paradox games like Europa Universails 4, Crusader Kings 2, or the new hearts of iron. The games are "rigged" to prevent runaways middle and end game. Civ 6 (thankfully!) borrowed a few excellent EU4 features like casus belli and war weariness.

 

[MyOtherName]

Start of game balance doesn't really matter if the game is designed for the player to run away late game -- the game simply boils down to hunkering down and surviving until the game gives you your free win.

 

[redwings1340]

This seems to be a fundamental design problem of a long game, in my opinion, and I don't think its easy to fix. Nobody would like it if your initial decisions didn't matter. So, Civ creates some comeback mechanics, but if you have an advantage after 100 turns, you should have an advantage for the game. The only thing that should let you give up that advantage should be poor decisions on your part, good perks your opponents civ gets that lets your opponent get ahead, or diplomacy. Otherwise the first 100 turns would be meaningless.

 

[aimlessgun]

Possibly deity AI should cheat harder as the game goes along ^ ^ Would be a stopgap solution until they can figure out how to make it optimize boosts and AoE bonuses (if that ever happens...)

For example, it is possible to reveal the whole map until renaissance, where the age of exploration should begin, just because your scouts had plenty of turns checking out everything on the map. Would be much better if there is a mechanic preventing you from doing so (no healing in neutral territory f.e)

This I think is honestly more of an issue with standard maps being extremely small, nothing like an actual 'world'. Play on modded huge map continents or island plates and you will not even come close to revealing the whole map before Caravels.

 

[Jabulani]

Btw, does civ vi have the possibility to continue playing after a victory ?

 

[The Highwayman]

Btw, does civ vi have the possibility to continue playing after a victory ?

Yes you can continue playing after victory. Click "Just one more turn..." on the victory screen.

 

[Nixalo]

Rather than a counter for steamrolling, a more appropriate opposition to steamrolling is a new lategame victory type. One that you can retool your empire to in the midgame.

The steamrolling civs would still have access to their tools and still have their early work validated. However the weakest civs could switch to the policies and buildings that steamrollers don't need.

One of my issues with Civ as a series is it doesn't represent late bloomers of our history like America, Canada, and Brazil well. A new victory type that pushes new policies and building that early civs find useless would help.

 

[ilcobra]

One possible answer is to implement a kind of "decadence" mechnic, wherewhen you begin to get ahead you get maluses for production and science. Nothing too big, bit just enough so that players who didn't do well in the early game have a chance of a comeback.

 

[REDfeller]

Maps aren't big enough full stop.

Need to look into mods I think to re-energise my frustrations with Civ 6, I don't want to forget all about a £50 investment for another year like I did with Civ5 vanilla.

 

[rjg85]

If you want a balanced late game why not just do an advanced start in the modern era? No more tanks Vs spearmen.

 

[Victoria]

These things will hopefully all be balanced in the future. That's our job as fanatics.

Many games have steamrolling to some degree.

I like the idea of bleed. If you are running away with science, more should bleed outward that currently does.
If you have better tech weapons and many of them, of course some should bleed to neighbors and so on.
If you have awesome factory power that really needs a bit of nerfing just like I said at the start

 

[redwings1340]

One possible answer is to implement a kind of "decadence" mechnic, wherewhen you begin to get ahead you get maluses for production and science. Nothing too big, bit just enough so that players who didn't do well in the early game have a chance of a comeback.

I think I'm on track to win a deity game in which I had 27 science per turn at a time when Kongo had over 200.

Now, this probably says more about the AI's ineptness with naval combat than anything else, but I think this also shows any sort of comeback mechanic would be difficult to pull off, because civ VI is all about empires with different strengths and weaknesses.

 

[Takfloyd]

This is what the diplomatic victory existed for, not that it was fun to win that way. But now it's been replaced with another boring victory type that is only relevant early in the game. Bad call.

 

[Onii-chan]

I guess Russia has an innate comeback mechanic like that with how they get more culture and science from trade routes the further behind they are. But yeah it seems a bit lacking otherwise

In Civ V the biggest comeback mechanic was espionage, where you were always in danger of having all your techs stolen if you were the tech leader. But in Civ VI you just steal random boosts even though people hasn't researched those techs themselves... which for one doesn't make any sense at all but it's also just as usable for the leader as the guy in last place, so it's certainly not a comeback mechanic anymore. That's one thing I'd like to see modded back to Civ V's system instead (or well you can use the new system of stealing boosts rather than techs, but only for ones the civ you're stealing from has already researched themselves)

 

[smartcanuck1988]

Yeah right now there are simply no mechanics to compensate a delayed start so the early game is crucial.

Our current era is defined by economics (including immigration and brain drains..etc) and cold wars. The former is completely lacking in civ6. The latter is implemented in spies that don't do anything significant.

 

[redwings1340]

But in Civ VI you just steal random boosts even though people hasn't researched those techs themselves...

Are you sure? I've definitely been unable to steal techs before. Maybe you can steal whenever they have either the tech or the eureka moment?