The game is too fast and too easy

[AlanC9]

If you went all out, when would you finish?

On Deity? I don't even always win. (My numbers wouldn't be straight-up comparable to yours anyway since I play vanilla.)

 

[Pietato]

On Deity? I don't even always win. (My numbers wouldn't be straight-up comparable to yours anyway since I play vanilla.)

The game has gotten easier with each new expansion/patch. So vanilla is probably its hardest level.

 

[Daily Barrage]

I'm a n00b but agree the AI feels pretty naff.

I understand that the game has a high level of complexity that is somewhat hard to code for.

They should work on adaptive AI that can recognise your strategies and change tactics to counter. Then if they gave an option to 'remember' you over games it could start being insanely hard and force you to mix it up a bit.

 

[Stringer1313]

Like OP said, snowballing (or power creep) is the biggest problem in the game right now -- and in fact may be the only major problem I have. I recognize this is a problem with every 4x game. Once you start snowballing, you can win pretty much any victory you want. The game just gets mindless after Renaissance or so. I always have 5 alliances which I obtained extremely easily and then it's just easy cruising from there.

"Improving AI" will not solve this problem. There needs to be external threats / internal threats to your empire that make late game more challenging without relying on AI. The only feature they have is Natural Disasters, but these disasters are a joke and dealing with them is just playing whack-a-mole with workers which is not fun. And everyone can get flood barriers so easily.

Meanwhile specialists remain neglected like a redheaded step-child.

I had completely forgotten that specialists exist.

 

[hhhhhh]

Meanwhile specialists remain neglected like a redheaded step-child.

Speaking of specialists, it's a huge difference between Civ V and VI. We need something like Secularism on the Rationalism tree.

But for this I think the problem is the civic tree in VI is too much like the tech tree. I'd much prefer it's a graph of different shape, much wider, with lots of sub-trees so it has a lot more leaf nodes. So if you want to dedicate to a certain area via your policy, you can just go for it. And make it so that a normal player is unlikely to finish all civics, a choice has to be made.

Imagine that Enlightenment in Civ VI has 3 leaf node, one of them is like secularism. If you go culture or don't plan to use specialists at all you can just ignore that, if you want science and have a huge population then you go there. This will make tall empire more viable.

 

[Myomoto]

I think honestly the biggest fundamental problem in 4X game design is snowballing. If somebody has an early lead, it's tough to take them out, yet an early lead is a guarantee almost of being ahead later as well.

The game needs disruptive mechanics, something that shakes up the power dynamics during the eras. The emergency system was a very good idea in this direction in my opinion.

It's crazy to me there's no space race emergency (NASA was founded in direct response to the USSR launching Sputnik). Have something like whenever the science lead launches the next SV stage, a Space Race emergency is called. All participants gets +1 level to spy operations in the targets territory, stealing tech boosts and disrupting production and rocketry missions give score. Each participant gets a number of random tech boosts based on score. Target gets score for each spy mission fails in the territory, if they win they get a counterspy buff.

Similarly, have something for whenever someone becomes culturally dominant.

The AI seems to have a hard time punching back late game, give it some guidance with the emergency system.

Finally, I will beat the old horse that the game needs civ V style ideologies, as they disrupted the late game diplomacy and usually caused a world war or two

 

[hhhhhh]

I think honestly the biggest fundamental problem in 4X game design is snowballing. If somebody has an early lead, it's tough to take them out, yet an early lead is a guarantee almost of being ahead later as well.

The thing is, the Civ series is not really that 4X, it's more or less a "number accumulation" game, you earn science and culture from Turn 0. And if you earn more than others you have a lead, which make it easier for you to earn more. In classical board game like Chess or Go, the depth of the strategy lies on that it's not an easy thing to convert an early lead to a decisive victory, there are tons of chances for the leader to make mistake and be heavily punished. But if the game is "number accumulation", it's almost like nothing can go wrong for the leader. Maybe you make one or two minor mistake to accumulate your number slightly slower than ideal, but that's it.

If some history simulation 4X game can make it like, science doesn't even exists until Galileo (or you have some vague version of it after Aristotle) and before that you compete on other things like population and territory (and organize your government in a reasonable way). Maybe it will be very different. But it needs innovation on par with the invention of the very concept of "Technology Tree".

Currently Civ VI is like, for standard speed deity game on Lakes map, if you tell a good player how many cultural CS and science CS are in the game, and what the notable ones are (Geneva, Nan Madol etc.), and he takes a look of the Future era tech tree on Turn 1 and is like "Hmmm... 4 science CS and 3 cultural CS, this is a good map, and I can skip 3 tech in the future era, so I can win within 155T, and if I try harder I can get it to 140+T".

And some really good ones don't even bother to play the end game any more, they are like, "See I got Industrialization on T95, so I can win by T144 or T145. Time for next game". And you know he's correct. It's a sad state for a strategy game when people can conclude something like that.

It's crazy to me there's no space race emergency (NASA was founded in direct response to the USSR launching Sputnik). Have something like whenever the science lead launches the next SV stage, a Space Race emergency is called. All participants gets +1 level to spy operations in the targets territory, stealing tech boosts and disrupting production and rocketry missions give score. Each participant gets a number of random tech boosts based on score. Target gets score for each spy mission fails in the territory, if they win they get a counterspy buff.

This is a great idea. But targets of emergencies don't need to earn any score. Maybe if they can keep their space port safe for 20 turns they win. (with this restriction they will build less space ports.) And if they win let them have a +20% production boost to space projects.

 

[lotrmith]

The thing is, the Civ series is not really that 4X, it's more or less a "number accumulation" game, you earn science and culture from Turn 0. And if you earn more than others you have a lead, which make it easier for you to earn more. In classical board game like Chess or Go, the depth of the strategy lies on that it's not an easy thing to convert an early lead to a decisive victory, there are tons of chances for the leader to make mistake and be heavily punished. But if the game is "number accumulation", it's almost like nothing can go wrong for the leader. Maybe you make one or two minor mistake to accumulate your number slightly slower than ideal, but that's it.

If some history simulation 4X game can make it like, science doesn't even exists until Galileo (or you have some vague version of it after Aristotle) and before that you compete on other things like population and territory (and organize your government in a reasonable way). Maybe it will be very different. But it needs innovation on par with the invention of the very concept of "Technology Tree".

Currently Civ VI is like, for standard speed deity game on Lakes map, if you tell a good player how many cultural CS and science CS are in the game, and what the notable ones are (Geneva, Nan Madol etc.), and he takes a look of the Future era tech tree on Turn 1 and is like "Hmmm... 4 science CS and 3 cultural CS, this is a good map, and I can skip 3 tech in the future era, so I can win within 155T, and if I try harder I can get it to 140+T".

And some really good ones don't even bother to play the end game any more, they are like, "See I got Industrialization on T95, so I can win by T144 or T145. Time for next game". And you know he's correct. It's a sad state for a strategy game when people can conclude something like that.





This is a great idea. But targets of emergencies don't need to earn any score. Maybe if they can keep their space port safe for 20 turns they win. (with this restriction they will build less space ports.) And if they win let them have a +20% production boost to space projects.

I've long thought that the boosts/eurekas should be requirements to unlock the tech/ make it researchable.

Like, hey we have 6 farms... we need to figure out an effective way to manage them! Queue the thought process to develop Feudalism.


Gate them in a way that once half the civs have researched them fully, they unlock for everyone.

 

[James_Champagne]

One thing I've noticed is that with the last few patches/New Frontier Pass additions, the Classical Era seems to go by much faster. I almost always play on Marathon mode, and in the past the Medieval Era usually wouldn't roll around until sometimes within the 0-100 AD span (with Classical usually being reached around 1700 BC). In my more recent games, I've been reaching the Medieval Era way earlier, like around 430 BC, even 720 BC in one extreme case. Very strange...

 

[hhhhhh]

I've long thought that the boosts/eurekas should be requirements to unlock the tech/ make it researchable.

Like, hey we have 6 farms... we need to figure out an effective way to manage them! Queue the thought process to develop Feudalism.

In that case the tech/civic tree should be wider, currently it's too tall and have too many prerequisite.
Imagine having a slinger running around to find one thing to kill and not able to get horseback riding at all. WTF?
I'd much prefer that Horseback Riding is available right after Animal Husbandry, but if you get Archery then it's slightly cheaper (a "minor" eureka).

And if we stick to current Eurekas then Flight will be very hard to unlock (which is not a bad idea).

Gate them in a way that once half the civs have researched them fully, they unlock for everyone.

Oh I like this part!

 

[lotrmith]

In that case the tech/civic tree should be wider, currently it's too tall and have too many prerequisite.
Imagine having a slinger running around to find one thing to kill and not able to get horseback riding at all. WTF?
I'd much prefer that Horseback Riding is available right after Animal Husbandry, but if you get Archery then it's slightly cheaper (a "minor" eureka).

And if we stick to current Eurekas then Flight will be very hard to unlock (which is not a bad idea).



Oh I like this part!

Well yes, of course that would require an overhaul of the trees... something for Civ 7!

Lots of techs would need different unlocks... Flight for example might first require Combustion or something, and once someone completes Flight research it unlocks for anyone who has a Trade Route to/from that Civ, or who witnesses a plane.

Same could be true for all military unit techs, to be honest. Encounter a crossbow? Now Machinery is available for you to research (if you haven't already unlocked it via Engineering and having a bunch of archers). Fought a Longswordsman with castle-forged Steel? Well now you know that this harder metal exists and you can devote your research to figuring it out.

 

[DanQuayle]

Well yes, of course that would require an overhaul of the trees... something for Civ 7!

Lots of techs would need different unlocks... Flight for example might first require Combustion or something, and once someone completes Flight research it unlocks for anyone who has a Trade Route to/from that Civ, or who witnesses a plane.

Same could be true for all military unit techs, to be honest. Encounter a crossbow? Now Machinery is available for you to research (if you haven't already unlocked it via Engineering and having a bunch of archers). Fought a Longswordsman with castle-forged Steel? Well now you know that this harder metal exists and you can devote your research to figuring it out.

I don't want to tease something that might never happen, but...
I am preparing the "framework" for a mod idea that exactly addresses this point!

 

[BrotherInJah]

Gate them in a way that once half the civs have researched them fully, they unlock for everyone.

More than half, otherwise 1v1 would be broken..

 

[HiRezAudio]

I agree with the general feeling that it is getting too easy now and if I can beat it on Deity 50-60% of the time then it is definitely too easy as I am just not that good.
I ran up a deity game on Menelik, Fractal Map, SS and Apocalypse mode with a new world & all other settings at standard and am running away with it and not even trying.
There are combinations of the Work Ethic belief and certain pantheons that make production absolutely rampant now.

 

[acluewithout]

Some of the new game modes might end up making things harder, but adding in more challenging mechanics.

I can see the attraction of that for FXS, ie using game modes to increase difficulty, because if anyone finds anything too hard or inaccessible, they can just switch of whatever “farm-sim sovereign debt all my citizens have turned communist because of the rampant ideological pressure and corruption” game mode is stopping them posting their massive Moosehead Teddy Petra tile yields on reddit.

I also think that if the game being too easy and or too fast ultimately just comes down to a few numbers here or there, then it might end up being something that’s best sorted out with Mods. I already play with 8 ages of pace and sostratus’s unit balance mod, and it really doesn’t make the game “feel” modded. Instead, they just help the game play the way it “feels” it should (and actually both mods make the game incrementally harder).

 

[jozef57]

aahh typical again. the game is not to easy maybe for talented people who do nothing else but the ocasional player and they are the main bulk of players ans the main income sourse for firaxis it is good as it is

 

[acluewithout]

There’s a new / updated Mod on Steam that adjust techs. I think this could be my new go to Mod for tech costs. See here.

Somewhat obvious I know, but I think game speed is mostly a result of tech costs v adjacencies, envoy bonus, building yields, specialist yields and Rationalism type cards.

You could also add into that how early the Campus unlocks and lack of any anti-science mechanics (eg wife science penalties). But those things seem largely baked into the game, so I can see Firaxis ever changing those.

Firaxis have somewhat tweaked envoy bonuses, which might help with speed a little. But by itself I don’t think that will be enough.

So, leaving aside tech costs and not suggesting new significant mechanics, how do people think envoy bonuses, building yields, specialists and Rationalism type cards could be tweaked to improve game speed?

@Sostratus , @Victoria and @Pietato , I’d be particularly interest to hear your views. Maybe if there are some good ideas or consensus it might inspire Firaxis or be the start for a community mod.

For me, I think part of what would needed is the following.

• Adjacency. I’d get rid of the Campus & Geothermal Adjacency.
  
  
• Envoys. I’d maybe leave envoy bonuses where they are, except maybe buffing mercantile bonuses slightly.
  
  
• Specialists. I’d also be inclined to leave Specialists where they are. If Specialists need a boost, I’d suggest instead giving either Tier 1 or Tier 2 Buildings two Specialist slots instead if one. I’d also revert Harbours and Encampments Specialists back to giving Science and Culture.

• Tier 1 Buildings. I suggest getting rid of flat yield bonuses for Libraries and Amphitheatres. Instead, I’d give both zero yields, but they add yields to surrounding tiles, maybe +1 Culture to High Appeal tiles for Amphitheatres, and maybe +1 Science for Plantations for Libraries. (While I was at it, I’d have Workshops keep their bonuses, but give +1 Production to Pastures and Camps, as Workshops are still underpowered.)

• T2 and T3 Buildings. No idea what to do with T2 or T3 Buildings. I think some possibilities are linking both T2 and T3 yields to power and or perhaps lowering their bonuses but making them higher in a Golden Age or with higher tier governments so you have to work harder for their bonuses?

• Cards. Rework Rationalism type cards, so they are still linked to population and adjacencies, but scale more. Perhaps +10% per Adjacency, +10% Specialist District or Neighbourhood, max your Population? Perhaps the card also doubles maintenance?

Not sure if this is necessarily the way forward, or indeed there is an obvious way forward.

But given how slow Firaxis are with balancing stuff, I do wonder if CivFanatics could figure out at least part of how to get the numbers right. Anyone up for the challenge?

 

[hhhhhh]

Somewhat obvious I know, but I think game speed is mostly a result of tech costs v envoy bonus, building yields, specialist yields and Rationalism type cards.

Just to point out one thing, another contributing factor of current speed is that Monumentality Golden Age is just way too powerful. With a good economy you don't even need to bother with building builders. You buy all of them. I think instead of 30% off, a 15% off maybe more reasonable. And things like Pen, Brush, and Voice needs to be heavily buffed. Otherwise it's Monumentality 80% of the time, Free Inquiry for the rest 20%. Dedication is supposed to be a meaningful choice to make, but now it's kinda brainless.

 

[acluewithout]

Just to point out one thing, another contributing factor of current speed is that Monumentality Golden Age is just way too powerful. With a good economy you don't even need to bother with building builders. You buy all of them. I think instead of 30% off, a 15% off maybe more reasonable. And things like Pen, Brush, and Voice needs to be heavily buffed. Otherwise it's Monumentality 80% of the time, Free Inquiry for the rest 20%. Dedication is supposed to be a meaningful choice to make, but now it's kinda brainless.

I’d be totally fine with reducing the benefit of monumentality. But would just reducing the discount be enough? I’d be happy to try and see.

 

[hhhhhh]

I’d be totally fine with reducing the benefit of monumentality. But would just reducing the discount be enough? I’d be happy to try and see.

I think reducing the discount is just one way to make that the change has some continuity in it.

I don't think a goal is to hinder fast victory by the best players but the problem is for many the game is kinda "solved" you do so and so such that you don't need any creativity, just some luck, to win by Turn 160, or even by Turn 150.

I also like that they bring back the era game (next era tech/civic are +20% of the regular cost) in a recent update (not the most recent one). I think (but haven't thought about it thoroughly) it can be made that whenever one Civ get a next era tech then all the prerequisite of that tech are 20% cheaper. If any Civ is 2 era ahead of current world era, then all tech of current world era are 20% off, and next era's +20% penalty are removed. Maybe, just maybe, if any Civ is 3 era ahead of current world era then all the current era tech should be given free to all Civs and the world automatically advance to next era.