The "late game problem" (lack of challenge)

[raystuttgart]

Hi guys,

I see the following again and again:

In (single player) late game, a Human Player is so powerful that there is no challenge at all anymore.
(My own games, reports from community, simple math ... all make this problem obvious.)

Depending on your game style and experience it is often already obvious in midgame that nothing can stop you anymore ...
Thus for players like me after early game the challenge and fun heavily decrease by every turn.

The main reasons:

• Stacking % Bonus Modifiers on Production (from Founding Fathers, Liberty Bells, Health, Buildings, ...)
• Snow Ball Effects (once you start conquering and massively expanding - there is nothing to stop you anymore)

There would be methods to counter this:
(Other than e.g. the already discussed "Scaling AI cheats".)

1. Transform more % Bonus Modifiers into flat + Bonus Modifiers
(the bonusses would not be "exponential" anymore but become "linear")

We had already done that for e.g.:

• Profession Specialists Bonusses
  
• Improvements Bonusses

But I think we should also do it for e.g.:

• Founding Fathers Bonusses
  
• Building Bonusses

2. Countering / slowing down Snow Ball Effects by new features

We already have some features for that, e.g.:
(They might however still be balanced too nicely and thus get rebalanced to become more challenging)

• Health
• Happiness
• ...

But we need even more of that:
(just a list of ideas - partially already discussed)

• Changing "Growing Improvements" to "Improvement Upgrades that have to be build" (by Pioneers costing gold)
  
• "Missing Connection to Capitol" malus (reducing your bonusses if you don't have street connection or sea connection)
• "Royal Interventions" (helping AI Players against overly aggressive Human Players)
  
• "Redesigning Settlers to a Profession with Equipment" (making founding new Cities more costly)
  
• "Military Upkeep" and maybe even "Building Upkeep" (having to pay more for becoming "Large")
  
• ...

----------
Like always looking forward to feedback?

Especially:

1. Should we change the "exponential" bonus modifier system (%modifiers) to a "linear" bonus modifier system (flat +modifiers)?
   
2. Should we make "midgame" and "lategame" more challenging by more complex features?

I am totally aware, that some player might like becoming an unbeatable "super power".
Others like me however might feel that this simply is boring at some point.

 

[raystuttgart]

@team:
This is basically a "call to arms".
(And feel free to bring in your own ideas.)

@devolution

I believe that by working on this, we can also "at least reduce" some AI problems.
(especially if we transform the %Bonusses into flat +Bonusses)

Some other things considering the new features however will cause problems to AI and need changes to AI logic.
(e.g. Redesigning Settlers to a Profession, Transforming Growing Improvements to Improvement Upgrades that have to be built, ...)

 

[lethiel]

I think many of these ideas are definitely the way to go.
The best ones IMO are:

• Flat rate bonuses! (a few bonus could maybe still be percentage).
• Malus for missing Connection to Capitol.
• Military Upkeep.

Mid game crisis and settler redesign could be okay too if done properly.
Would it be the same mid game crisis every game?

 

[Derek Brown]

Ray, a couple of ideas. Early game is pretty tense and exciting - everything you do is trajectory setting and has big future implications and there's more possible directions than you have resources to take so you have to be disciplined and strategic. Once you can protect your shipping lanes and can make and transport tools then the game gets really fun to grow large and conquer a few Natives / Europeans and grab more strategic real estate. Once you build that, it does start to get monotonous to outpace the REF and decide when to do WOI. I tend to also have dozens of colonists fortified outside of cities with nothing to do except wait to go to school and become a veteran infantry soldier.

1. Military upkeep will definitely help since right now I'm seeing cash piles of over $100,000 with nothing really to spend it on - More challenge
2. Make the unhappiness effects of taxes exponential rather than linear - historical precedent for that "no taxation without representation" - huge sore subject for the American colonists - too easily overcome now with another tavern or church
3. Also agree on building upkeep - but I'd say only if it included the option to tear down buildings since once prices crash you may need to scale down some production industries
4. Make happiness independent of rebel sentiment. Should roughly cancel out. If your rebel sentiment is high the game treats you as more motivated (more productive, etc), but you should also be more aware of offenses of the motherland so you'd have plenty of things to be pissed off about as you go about your day . Right now rebel sentiment boosts production but also boosts happiness which then boosts freeing workers, learning by doing, etc - kind of overamplifying the effects of rebel sentiment. In fact I don't move domestic goods around since I don't need the happiness boosts from that since rebel sentiment already boosts it heavily
4a. Alternative to 4, but more difficult - keep the rebel sentiment modifier to happiness, but as rebel sentiment goes up, impacts of tax on unhappiness are higher since you are no longer supportive of the king/motherland, so would close to cancel out

 

[raystuttgart]

@Derek Brown

About Happiness:
(this is pretty certain and should do the trick)

1. "Happiness from Buildings" will be reduced (it it too high in itself)
2. "%Boost from Rebel Bells" will be completely removed for "Happiness From Buildings" ( "%Boost from "Rebel Sentiment" also affects that part of Happiness)

About general "Late game problem":
(Other things than Happiness improvement will be needed as well.)

1. Transforming stacking %Bonus modifiers to flat +Bonus modifiers (it is pretty obviously a problem if you do the math)
2. New features to slow down the "Snowball effects" (they need to be discussed but I am quite certain that at least some of them will be implemented)

 

[raystuttgart]

Would it be the same mid game crisis every game?

Generally yes, because it would be a massive new feature, with a lot of effort.
But you are right, that could become boring if it is always the same and thus maybe the idea is not that good.

Edit:
Yes, it would become boring and predicable.
The effort and risks would also be massive.
Thus I will remove it from the list.

 

[Tugboatspotter]

1. Transform more % Bonus Modifiers into flat + Bonus Modifiers
(the bonusses would not be "exponential" anymore but become "linear")

I think founding fathers bonuses should stay as % but toned down. For example, the +25% production for furs is excessive considering how easy it is to produce huge amounts.

My observation is AI can't grow city population fast enough, and so a combination of limiting player city growth and relaxing some rules (or scaling cheats) for AI seems the way forward.

I like these suggestions:

• "Missing Connection to Capitol" malus (reducing your bonusses if you don't have street connection or sea connection)
• "Royal Interventions" (helping AI Players against overly aggressive Human Players)
  
• "Military Upkeep" and maybe even "Building Upkeep" (having to pay more for becoming "Large")

I also think the cost of buying ships is too low. Once your economy is picking up it is very cheap to buy ships from Europe and sabotage the AI.

Currently, it takes very little effort to buy a few privateers and the game is pretty much won. They should be rare units, possibly not even available to buy from Europe.

Ships like Ship of the line are also too cheap. It is too easy to buy a decisive fleet without ever bothering with shipbuilding.


Regarding this idea: "Redesigning Settlers to a Profession with Equipment" (making founding new Cities more costly)

I know this has been discussed before. My preference would be to have pioneers as the only profession allowed to settle, making them both settlers and workers (and with a bonus for settling with a hardy pioneer). This avoids the need for a new settler profession which doesn't make sense. Pioneers were settlers.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

...
I like these suggestions:

• "Missing Connection to Capitol" malus (reducing your bonusses if you don't have street connection or sea connection)

2 things: 1) consider not only street and sea but river too. The St. Lawrence and Missisippi were not without reason the main axis of trade and transport to French America. 2) as we have 2 different kinds of street the first could be enough to connect small villages/mining cities/specialpurposesmallsettlements to the capital and only the improved road would be enough to build a metropolis inland without sea or river access.

Currently, it takes very little effort to buy a few privateers and the game is pretty much won. They should be rare units, possibly not even available to buy from Europe.

What about Drake and his kind? English captains who preyed on the Spanish Main and Silver Train. At the start only "pirates" and later when they hauled back a royal share they became officially recognized and rewarded with titles. In an age where no standing fleet existed for most of the time even seafaring nations like England and the Netherlands depended on privateers who came with their own private ship and needed only a letter of marquee.

Ships like Ship of the line are also too cheap. It is too easy to buy a decisive fleet without ever bothering with shipbuilding.

That depends on quite a lot of different things - size of map, number of bonus squares you can squeeze into your cities, if you start right next to an enemy or tribes or can expand freely at start, difficulty settings, experience of the player... I personally find buying ships expensive (after the "must-have" buy of a galleon to bring home the treasures without 50% fee) but I would not want to see Ships of the Line produced in the New World, much less massproduced in the New World...

Regarding this idea: "Redesigning Settlers to a Profession with Equipment" (making founding new Cities more costly)

I know this has been discussed before. My preference would be to have pioneers as the only profession allowed to settle, making them both settlers and workers (and with a bonus for settling with a hardy pioneer). This avoids the need for a new settler profession which doesn't make sense. Pioneers were settlers.

In an US-american sense, yes. In the US context pioneer is a synonym for a settler - however normally a pioneer / Pionier means also a unit specialized for building tasks like building roads for the military or bridging rivers. "Settlers" in the US on their way west usually did not create large parts of infrastructure. They followed largely the landscape and sought fords to cross rivers.

From a logical point of view everyone should be able to found a city - because beneath the current profession everyone is a plain free settler.
Why would a hunter or a lumberjack be barred from building a village in the woods from which to ply their trade? Unless you want to restrict early settlers to sod houses and only allow block houses after the time the swedish immigration started...

 

[Tugboatspotter]

From a logical point of view everyone should be able to found a city - because beneath the current profession everyone is a plain free settler.
Why would a hunter or a lumberjack be barred from building a village in the woods from which to ply their trade? Unless you want to restrict early settlers to sod houses and only allow block houses after the time the swedish immigration started...

They still could found a settlement if assigned the profession of pioneer. It would be similar to how anyone could be a missionary but an evangelist is better. In the case of a pioneer founding a city, the hardy pioneer unit could lose half his tools whereas other units with pioneer profession would lose all of them.

It is similar to Rays idea of creating a new settler profession to slow down settling, but using pioneer profession in a duel role instead (like it was in civ 2)

 

[raystuttgart]

@Tugboatspotter

There are many reasons why a new Profession "Settler" is the better solution than giving Profession "Pioneer" a dual role.
I just give you one without repeating the complete discussion again ...

It is much easier to teach it to AI.

AI in this game is generally stupid if you give it real choices.
Thus if you tell it "This is a Settler, go found a City with it." it understands and does it.

But if you tell it "This is a Pioneer and you can go build Improvements, build Roads and now you can even found a City" with it, it will most likely mess up ...
It will either found too many cities without building enough Roads or Improvements or it will not found enough Cities anymore ...

We can also make it even easier for AI if the Profession "Settler" requires only little "Tools" (maybe even none) but more (or only) "Food" and "Wood" instead.
Because "Tools" can are used for many other things as well.

There will be no new Unit, just a new Profession (with different equipment).
And generally we will tell AI to only use "Normal Colonists" for that Profession "Settler" - thus not using / wasting Experts for it.

Summary:

Please trust me and the other modders, when we make a concept and explain that implementing the concept by using an new Profession "Settler" is better.
(We try to consider everything: gameplay, balance, AI, effort, immersion, bugs, performance ... properly.)

 

[Tugboatspotter]

Why would it be necessary to have to teach the AI to follow the same rules as the player?

For example, the AI assigns pioneer A as a settler (and never changes that) so off it goes and founds a city- at which point it can be reassigned, meanwhile pioneer B is assigned as a worker (and again it never considers it as anything else unless there is no work to do). No need to confuse the AI.

 

[raystuttgart]

Why would it be necessary to have to teach the AI to follow the same rules as the player?

That is exactly not what we are doing. We give it much more restrictive rules and basically eliminate all problematic choices (as much as possible reasonably) where it could mess up.
A Human has much more choice, because he can handle it and because he is smart enough to avoid to really mess up. AI is not.

For AI we need to make clear "childrens rules" that AI never questions.
(I will simply it a lot though.)

Unit X --> do not use it for Profession "Settler" (because you are too stupid to make a better decision on your own)
Unit Colonist --> Yes you are allowed to use it for Profession "Settler" (because it is in general a choice where little can go wrong)
Profession "Pioneer" --> always use it to build Improvements or Roads (because you are too stupid to make a better decision on your own)
Profession "Settler" --> always use it to found cities (because you are too stupid to make a better decision on your own)
...

Basically we usually code it in a way like that:
"Be a good child and do what mom told you to do now. Do not question that because you are not yet old enough to understand and make better choices of your own."
(It is relatively little effort, very performant because AI thinks very little of its own, very stable and works well in 80% of the cases.)

Summary:

We need to give AI really simply rules it can always follow without risking to really mess up.
Again just trust us, when we tell you, we know how to implement it best.

We simply understand how the game is implemented and AI logic works.
(As well as other aspects like performance, balance, feature side effects, ...)

 

[lethiel]

Generally yes, because it would be a massive new feature, with a lot of effort.
But you are right, that could become boring if it is always the same and thus maybe the idea is not that good.

Edit:
Yes, it would become boring and predicable.
The effort and risks would also be massive.
Thus I will remove it from the list.

In the mod Ryes and Fall of Civilization national 'stability' is a main feature. Its super exciting to expand while having to keep the empire stable without falling apart (just the plaque feature destroyed that mod a bit in the long run). He won some award for that mod and later got a new job for it I think. I'm not really suggesting to do the same here as it must have been a massive task to implement. Though it might make sense to have a internal national rivalry over slavery/ freedom with the risk of a civil war. Just a fun thought.

 

[Tugboatspotter]

That is exactly not what we are doing. We give it much more restrictive rules and basically eliminate all problematic choices (as much as possible reasonably) where it could mess up.
A Human has much more choice, because he can handle it and because he is smart enough to avoid to really mess up. AI is not.

For AI we need to make clear "childrens rules" that AI never questions.
(I will simply it a lot though.)

Unit X --> do not use it for Profession "Settler" (because you are too stupid to make a better decision on your own)
Unit Colonist --> Yes you are allowed to use it for Profession "Settler" (because it is in general a choice where little can go wrong)
Profession "Pioneer" --> always use it to build Improvements or Roads (because you are too stupid to make a better decision on your own)
Profession "Settler" --> always use it to found cities (because you are too stupid to make a better decision on your own)
...

This is exactly what I am saying though. The AI considers pioneer (settler) and pioneer (worker) as two different professions, essentially no different to what you are proposing. The only difference is the player treats them as one profession. It seems much more elegant to me.

 

[raystuttgart]

This is exactly what I am saying though.

Yes, but you still do not understand how this technically works
A Professions is more or less identical to a specific AI logic.

So by giving an AI a Profession "Settler" I also directly assign it the corresponding "Settler" logic.
So by giving an AI a Profession "Pioneer" I also directly assign it the corresponding "Pioneer" logic.

But the problem even starts earlier:
I need to make sure that AI chooses the best / most suitable Unit for a Profession.

A Unit "Hardend Pioneer" is too valuable to be wasted as a Settler, because it is simply much better as a Pioneer (because of its bonusses for building Roads and Improvements).
So why should I purposely weaken AI by allowing it waste "Hardened Pioneers" as a Settler if it can use much less valuable Units like a "Normal Coloinst" ???
I simply take away all "stupid choices" from AI to make sure it will make the "best choices".

Thus I need a clear 1:1 connection:
(Again, this is heavily simplified. But everything else will get too complicated)

Unit X ---> Best Unit for Profession Y (thus whenever possible choose that Profession Y for Unit X) --> In Profession Y always execute AI logic Z (unless it is not possible)
Unit A ---> Very bad Unit for Profession B (thus I forbid Unit A to choose Profession B unless absolutely no alternative)

Do you get what I am trying to explain?
Again, it is heavily simplified but that is the most easy way to explain it.
(see Civ4ProfessionInfos.xml, tag "DefaultUnitAI" - An AI logic can trigger switching to another AI logic if really necessary or unavoidable though)

• Profession = AI logic (that is simply how it works in Civ4Col)
  
• 2 "separate" Professions = 2 simple and safe AI logics that AI can use safely (because of "children's rules")
  
• 1 "Allrounder" Profession = 1 complex AI logic that AI will often mess up (because it has to make more complex decisions)

For AI there is a gigantic difference in "how you code such details".
This directly reflects in effort, performance, stability, ...

I know that players do not know and understand these details.
And they do not have to because they will not have to implement it.

But we modders have to understand all of that and also take the effort to implement it.
That is why I said: "Please trust us modders if we say that it is the better solution."

I need to consider much more than just gameplay / player preferences. I need to think about effort, AI, performance, stability, balance, ... as well.
(And personally I even prefer to have a seprate Profession actually - because it will use different Equipment Food and Wood, which I like.)

 

[raystuttgart]

And guys, sorry that I do not always explain the reasons for some details of implementation concepts understandable enough for players - non modders.

But it is most often too difficult and too abstract to explain shortly to somebody who never really modded himself before and experienced all the side effects and dependencies.
Especially the way "AI logic" in DLL works would be at least a complete 2 days training e.g. in Zoom to explain only the most important aspects.

Spoiler :

Currently there are 2 modders left that really understand and can program AI logic for Civ4Col.
Although I think both of us have quite different philosophies - which is good though.

Myself:
My philosophie is to write "safe, stable and performant AI logic" that simply works but is not spectacularly good. Human simply can always play better situationally / strategically.
I program AI either as "childrens rules" (hard coded rules that AI has to follow without making its own choices) or give AI "easier rules" (basically small cheats) so AI uses the feature without messing up.
That is pretty much the way 90% of Vanilla AI logic in Civ4Col was coded. It is design patterns proven to work.

devolution:
Devolution's philosophie is different though. He prefers to have AI learn "complex rules" to be able to think strategically / situationally and thus is potentially much smarter than my logic.
However, his approach is also much more effort, potentially impacting performance more because AI must calculate more and potentially more prone to bugs if a small detail was not considered.
It is pretty much the result of many years of modders experimenting to write better AI. It is often highly experimental. (That is why I write "potentially" so often, because it could also fail easily and totally mess up AI as well.)

In general:

"children's rules" / "easier rules" = proven design patterns, pretty dumb AI that however works at least generally, little effort, good performance, relatively stable
"complex rules" = often experimental concepts, smarter AI that might however also fail spectacularly if something was not considered, more effort, worse performance and more prone to bugs

Ideally:
I implement a full feature with "children's rules" (so it works and people can play with the feature) and then give it to devolution to improve it and to try to teach AI "smarter complex rules".

@devolution
Please correct me, if I wrote anything wrong.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

In the mod Ryes and Fall of Civilization national 'stability' is a main feature. Its super exciting to expand while having to keep the empire stable without falling apart (just the plaque feature destroyed that mod a bit in the long run). He won some award for that mod and later got a new job for it I think. I'm not really suggesting to do the same here as it must have been a massive task to implement. Though it might make sense to have a internal national rivalry over slavery/ freedom with the risk of a civil war. Just a fun thought.

Historically the US civil war was 1861 - 1864 and so long after the War of Independence. Even the british ban on international slave trade was long after US independence. So while such features may be mildly interesting - or really interesting in mods that expand the timeline beyond the 300 turns limit or that start later - I would not want to have anything be changed in the game to create civil wars about slavery that did not happen in the colonies during the games timeframe.

 

[raystuttgart]

Historically the US civil war was 1861 - 1864 and so long after the War of Independence. Even the british ban on international slave trade was long after US independence. So while such features may be mildly interesting - or really interesting in mods that expand the timeline beyond the 300 turns limit or that start later - I would not want to have anything be changed in the game to create civil wars about slavery that did not happen in the colonies during the games timeframe.

Accepted.

I just wanted to geht "thoughts" going about how to tackle the lack of challenge in late game.

A "mid game crisis" is also quite a lot of effort and might really get boring or annoying fast.
And there are other "low hanging fruits" to be tackled first.

I pretty much now already have some first task on my list though to work on.
I currently consider this my #1 top priority.

Things like these are most likely

• Rebalancing / Improving Bonus System
• Royal Interventions
  
• Upkeep Sytem (as Game Option)
• Redesigning Settlers to a Profession
• ...

I will simply create a "test version" of all of that in a separate branch, which I will call e.g. "More Challenge".

 

[Schmiddie]

Settler to a profession? Wow, that would be a complete change of the unit/profession system?! Is that really necessary? What is the reason behind that? What would be the unit for the profession?

 

[raystuttgart]

Settler to a profession? Wow, that would be a complete change of the unit/profession system?! Is that really necessary? What is the reason behind that? What would be the unit for the profession?

It is this concept, which was discussed a while ago.
(devolution and myself are huge fans of it. No other team member has voted against it.)

Have you forgotten about it?
(@Schmiddie If you have doubts or do not like it, please let me know.)

It is not a "complete change" of the Unit / Profession System itself. (Of course it will require some code changes as well.)
It is however mainly a heavy reconfiguration and it also has challenges for AI (to provide the Equipment and to use the Profession often enough).

It is not "absolutely necessary".
It would however make "spamming cities" early much more difficult.

For founding Cities a Player would always first need to produce (or buy) the Equipment needed for the Profession "Settler".
(Because the equipment is consumed when the City is founded.)

Now, founding new Cities is basically for free.
With that System, founding new Systems will be much more difficult (take more time and have more costs).

Spamming Cities early will not be possible anymore - at least not that easily.
And it will be a real strategic decision to found a new City or better use your ressources otherways.

Summary:

It does not sound like a big change at first.
But actually this "tiny feature" might be one of the biggest changes in gameplay we ever implemented.

Once you think about it, you will realize that it will fundamentally change the pace and challenge of expansion.
Early game will become longer and more challenging. You will consider more carefully when and how much you expand by founding new Cities.