The "late game problem" (lack of challenge)

[raystuttgart]

Is that really necessary?

Comment on "necessary":

Basically at the current point, almost nothing we do in WTP is "necessary", other than maybe fixing a few bugs and correcting balancing issues.
And even the bugs we got reported are usually really "minor things".

WTP does not need new features or rebuilds, if everybody is happy with it as it is.
But still these features and rebuilds can improve the game for some players.

Usually when you create a new feature or implement a rebuild:
- Some people like or really love it.
- Some people just accept it or even hate it.

It is basically not possible to make everybody happy with a new feature or rebuild.

Summary:

It is not a question of "necessary or not".
It is simply a question of what does the team and the community "wants or does not want"?

To find that out, we are discussing.

 

[Tugboatspotter]

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".

I wasn't proposing this. I'm sorry I failed to make myself clear. At this stage with the new work you have done on the settler profession it doesn't matter anymore. I am happy to wait and see how it turns out.

Do you get what I am trying to explain?

Yes I do and I appreciate the comprehensive explanations you provide.

"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.)

I can assure you I have complete trust in yourself and the other modders involved in this mod. That was never in question.

 

[Nenos]

Another idea.

I call it: Royal tax enforcer ^^

For example, the player rejects a tax increase and the king insists to sending troops.

If the king holds the capital city more than 10 rounds he gets his tax increase plus 2 percent and the player gets his capital city back with 0 percent rebel mood.
If the player keep his capitol city more than 10 or 15 rounds. Or he kill all the troops. He get plus 5 prozent rebel mood.

 

[Sarin]

There's one big area where the game could be improved.

Natives. It'll need some brainstorming, but I believe there lies key to making the mid/late game more difficult.

 

[raystuttgart]

There's one big area where the game could be improved.
Natives. ... believe there lies key to making the mid/late game more difficult.

Well yes, we could make Natives much more aggressive, thus also having more wars with them.
But currently I personally do not feel that this would make gameplay better or more fun.

For players like me it would most likely be annoying since many interesting features with Natives work only at peace.
(Trading / Bargaining, Missions, Trade Posts, Diplomacy Events, ...)

Also wars in this game are incredibly boring and in 9 out of 10 cases not challenging.
(There is almost no thinking, no decisions, no tactical finesse, no ... in wars in this game.)

Summary:

I am not interested in anything that causes "just more of those unchallenging / boring wars".
(Like making Natives more aggressive.)

I might implement gameplay changes though that make "wars themselves more challenging / less boring".
(e.g. "Military Upkeep", "Royal Interventions", ...)

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Other than boring wars, what can we do with Natives to make the game more challenging?
I have simply no idea myself but am open to your ideas.

 

[Sarin]

Natives need, first of all, some form of population growth and ways to obtain horses and muskets, so they can grow into a mid-late threat.

 

[raystuttgart]

Natives need, first of all, some form of population growth and ways to obtain horses and muskets, so they can grow into a mid-late threat.

They have both.

About Guns and Horses:
1. Natives can steal Guns and Horses when e.g. winning combat against Units in Professions Militia, Dragoon (or other Military Professions with Guns or Horses)
2. Natves can get Guns and Horses from Trading (but of course somebody needs to sell them - which I e.g. do a lot because it is highly profitable)
3. Natives can steal guns from Native Raids (on Cities)

But of course, you will never ses that if you never

• lose Units in armed Professions in Combat against Natives
• get raided Guns by Natives (other events / outcomes of raids are possible as well)
  
• trade with Guns and Horses with Natives

Otherwise, where should they have them from?

About Growing:
Natives do grow Population by Food and can even build Population (by Hammers - which is a small Native AI cheat - it is just configured really slow)
All they are missing is Immigration like European Colonies. (But of course they start with a much higher population.)

Otherwise the map would be spammed with Native Units wandering around pointlessly.
Trust me, having gigantic amounts of Natives wandering around is not immersive and not fun.

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Natives are generally just a thread in early game if you mess up and expand to fast.
In mid game and especially late game (which is my main issue) you usually have:

• incredibly good relations to them by Missioning, Trade, ...
• completely outgrown them by industry and military strength

But that is actually even relatively realistic.

And if you want to have tougher / more aggressive Natives try hardest Difficulties on Gigantic Maps.
Noboby forces you to become friends with them - which I usually try to do though.

Once you have become friends them - they are no thread to you anymore - only to your enemies the other Colonial Nations.
(I even sometimes sold them lots of weapons if they had bad relationships to another Colonial Nation and watched the Natives slaughter them.)

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Natives can easily be configured to:

• grow a lot more population
• be much more aggressive to Human Player
  
• (and really extremely friendly to Colonial AIs - if you want to make the game complety unfair - which we did not)

BUT:
We have been there already and purposely reverted from it due to really bad game play results.

----------

Result was:

Especially on "Gigantic Maps" Natives became absolute beasts - Human Players had no chance in early game once a War with Natives started - which happened too often.
Players complained continuously about outrageously hard Native AIs slaughering them ...

Early game was basically heavily luck / RnG based (depending starting position) to not anger Natives too early because otherwise you would get slaughtered.
And the worst was that Colonial AIs were usually razed by Natives long before Human Play. (Unless we created really unfair AI Attitude Bonusses)

In midgame you were constantly annoyed with "Native Raids" - which just led to Human Players at some point starting wars to kill all those annoying Natives.
Many of the most interesting small features with Natives became reduced to a min and thus simply worthless. (Trading, Missioning, Native Mercenaries, ...)

• Completely unfair or at heavy RnG in early game depending on starting positions (even lower difficulties)
  
• Annoying, boring and not immersive - heavily devaluating gameplay with peaceful Native features (Trading, Missions, ..)
  
• Worse for Colonial AIs than Human - turned mid game into a stupid mass war (because you simply tried to get of that annoyance)

Summary:

Trying to turn "Natives into a threat" and thus enforcing more boring wars does not solve anything - it only creates worse gameplay.
Been there, done that and will not do it again ... (We already had this in really early RaR releases and had lots of complaints.)

If a Player really wants to, he can already now take the aggressive approach against Naitves.
(Which might even be quite successful when e.g. playing as Spain.)

All configuration settings to make Natives stronger and more aggressive are also already there in XML.
Everybody can use them to customize to his personal taste.

 

[Sarin]

They rarely get enough weapons and horses. There could be events that give them some.

By mid-game I have natives split into two groups, convert and conquer. Those that lie just off my desired expansion plans are to be converted, rest exterminated, and I'm basically on constant warpath ever since I can spare the troops. Few fodder troops like conquistadors or native mercenaries, and few hard-hitting troops like European line infantry, grab one renowned medic to tag along to help with healing, and every native tribe just melts away. Yeah, it's boring.

What I'm proposing is a bunch of events that will give the natives guns and horses, and boost to their population growth. Last time I suggested something like that I was told that events for the native AI are impossible, but event for European player that dumps some cargo into native villages should be possible, after all some events already seem to do that.

For example: if you are at war with a native tribe you might get an event that a foreign king decided to support them with guns and horses. You have two choices. Let it be, in which case what happens is something like 2-3 villages get 200 guns and 100 horses each, or ask you king to help stop the shipments, in which case they get less, you ge a chance to get a privateer, and you suffer relations hit with both foreign king and his colonies.
Or: your king decided to sell some surplus weapons to natives, and requests your aid in facilitating the deal. Option one, comply without hesitation, and two nearby villages get 300 guns each and you get +1 relations with your king. Option two, ask for part of the cargo in exchange, you get 200 guns and the village get also 200, option three, refuse, you get -1 relations with your king and one village gets 200 guns, as the merchant managed to make some deals on his own.

This will allow them to grow to be a threat without being early steamroller.

 

[Derek Brown]

Ray - what is the mod team's stance on unit casualties? I believe the ease of avoiding casualties is part of the late game problem. I play on governor level and it seems possible to win European wars and WOI with almost no unit losses if you accumulate experience, stack units, stop and heal weak units, and are disciplined about playing the odds when attacking. I'd say any of the human tactics the AI cannot do are unrealistic anyway. As a result, any guns / artillery I'm making after the WOI starts end up not being needed usually, taking away a strategic aspect of the game to supply the army during the war.. My thoughts - again consider this being submitted humbly for consideration with regards to the capacity limitations of the mod team:

1. While upgrades are desirable and are a huge part of the game, perhaps they're too strong, especially because I doubt the AI can factor in upgrades to its advantage when planning a war. Maybe if the increases were cut in about half? That way, you still get to build good units, but not the super units that can knock out about 3 regular infantry per turn.
2. Possible if healing must be inside of a city not currently at unrest? I think of healing as reinforcing the units by recruiting replacements. Maybe the seasoned scout unit, native warrior, ranger, hardy pioneer can be only units that can heal outside of a city as a special ability? Maybe also healing consumes food since food is used as the proxy for population growth? The rationale here is making offensive wars and recapturing cities from the REF tougher.
3. Possible to have the AI not necessarily attack your capital as often? I know it already doesn't happen 100% of time but it does seem to happen way more often than not. Too easy to prepare for.

 

[raystuttgart]

...I was told that events for the native AI are impossible, ...

Technically they are as easy or difficult to implement in general as any other events (for Players or Colonial AIs).

• Events for Native AIs are possible in general. (There is no general restriction that events for Natives are impossible.)
• The details of the concept really decide if it is easy or hard or even impossible to implement. (The more complex the event, the more difficult / the more effort.)

An event (fired a few times a game) will not really change anything - it is just not impactful as a regular full game mechanic.
Cheating (without Human player knowing) and giving Native AIs lots of weapons is incredibly easy - but I am not really convinced about that.

Generally I do not mind more events (with Natives).
If the concept is good and somebody is interested to implement them
Events are mostly about adding flavour and immersion though.

 

[raystuttgart]

Ray - what is the mod team's stance on unit casualties?

Well, I can not speak for the complete team.

Personally I am fine with casualties, but:

• Casual players like to level up their super strong Units
• Casual players simply reload if they lose too many Unit

Changing game play in ways that will cause Players to lose more units (e.g. by inforcing casualties) is something I do not like.
Taking away game features just because AI can not use them as well as Humans (e.g. Healing and Promotions) will not improve game play either.

------

Summary:

It is more about adding features than removing existing ones or making them extremely limited (like Healing or Promotions).
--> I do not want to damage gameplay that players got used to and like

The added features need to be implemented in ways that damage AI very little (or actually favour AI)
--> Added features will mainly impact Human Players and thus increase challenge.
--> Added features will either impact AI very little or favour AI - in hidden ways that Humans however hardly notice.

 

[raystuttgart]

@Sarin

Hm ok, I thought about your idea here and I think I can work with it.
(Although it would not be on top of my priority list.)

Detailled concept see here.

 

[Your_ardent_admirer]

Ideas for story-driven challenges to overcome, to make the late game more interesting:

1) European coalition.
Story: Because of developments in Europe, your country becomes isolated and a mighty coalition is formed to bring it to its knees. While your mother country struggles to defend it’s very capital, enemies take opportunity to steal its colonies.
Effect: 3 or more Colonial European AIs unite (auto-peace and alliance is formed between them), receive massive reinforcements from Europe (royal troops and even a few Menowars) and attack the player. You need to survive for a number of turns until internal disputes make the coalition fall apart.

2) Era of Religious turmoil (historically it is more suitable for early game though)
Story: Heretics [from other branches of Christianity] and witches have long been trying to subvert our noble plans to build Shining City upon a Hill (reference to early colonial religious philosophy), and now dare to openly defy our right to claim this Promised Land for the [Catholic/Protestant/Orthodox, choose one] faithful! (alright Orthodox has no business here historically, but this is a game hehe).
This might represent actual religious tensions, mass hysteria and witch-hunt, and hatred for foreigners.
Effect: Cities generate massive unrest, “barbarian” armies are formed right next door to your cities, lots of individual units of bandits start to roam and pillage the countryside. Wars declared on player by European nations of other branches of Christianity (they are outraged by persecution of their faith), these nations receive reinforcements.
Also maybe some people flee the cities and join rebels (might be too annoying though).

3) General natives uprising.
Story: after years of ruthless exploitation and oppression, native tribes of [New England] are openly rebel against their cruel neighbors, and start a war for their very survival. Enemies of [New England] are happy to use this opportunity to weaken competition and supplied arms to the rebels.
Effect: A few neighboring non-allied Indian civs declare war and receive reinforcements. Many “barbarian” native warbands, armed with guns and on horseback, attack player’s cities in several waves. Indian and African slaves, and Converted Natives in cities may join revolt. Player has to weather this storm.

4) Piracy!
Story: Our country, through our hard labours, has grown vast and rich. Envious and thieving [insert nation name], unable to produce something of value themselves, decided to take it from us! They are now distributing Letters of Marquee to the lowliest pirates to hunt our merchants!
Effect: The weakest ai nation receives many privateer ships, which are placed near your cities.

5) The great famine and ruination (not sure if it is technically possible)
Story: A series of unsuccessful wars and bizarre natural catastrophes led to immense suffering of the people of our Mother [e.g. England]. We have to help our fellow countryman overseas!
Effect: immigration by crosses stops or is lowered dramatically until huge amount of food, tools, wood and other appropriate goods is delivered to Europe (or subtracted by other means, via event for example).

Maybe you’ll find this useful!

 

[Vaeringjar]

In my last game, where I settled 31 settlements and destroyed a few native tribes, I literally lost zero land units the whole game...

Of course the units took damage but Civ IV has a flaw in that damaged units heal for free. If it required food and weapons to get a military pop back up to strength, or even as mentioned only being able to heal at settlements (but with a medical building, otherwise it's exploitable), then that'd have slowed down my wars significantly.

Healing upon promotion is imo also gamey, can it be disabled? Gonna need a rule with myself to not exploit it lol


My understanding on the AI's failure in the game is that they fail horribly at producing hammers. They chop down every single damn forest they find. The player will always end up outproducing all AI colonies combined. And its these hammers that allow cities to become more efficient (buildings)...

If it's not possible to make the AI not chop down everything on sight, then there needs to be an alternate local source of wood. Would a new "forest plantation" sort of improvement work? Or is the AI literally unable of building anything other than farms and mines?

 

[Derek Brown]

My understanding on the AI's failure in the game is that they fail horribly at producing hammers. They chop down every single damn forest they find. The player will always end up outproducing all AI colonies combined. And its these hammers that allow cities to become more efficient (buildings)...

If it's not possible to make the AI not chop down everything on sight, then there needs to be an alternate local source of wood. Would a new "forest plantation" sort of improvement work? Or is the AI literally unable of building anything other than farms and mines?

This. If the AI produced more hammers and buildings some of the other AI cheats could go away as it would play more realistic

 

[ConjurerDragon]

In my last game, where I settled 31 settlements and destroyed a few native tribes, I literally lost zero land units the whole game...

Of course the units took damage but Civ IV has a flaw in that damaged units heal for free. If it required food and weapons to get a military pop back up to strength, or even as mentioned only being able to heal at settlements (but with a medical building, otherwise it's exploitable), then that'd have slowed down my wars significantly.

Healing upon promotion is imo also gamey, can it be disabled? Gonna need a rule with myself to not exploit it lol


My understanding on the AI's failure in the game is that they fail horribly at producing hammers. They chop down every single damn forest they find. The player will always end up outproducing all AI colonies combined. And its these hammers that allow cities to become more efficient (buildings)...

If it's not possible to make the AI not chop down everything on sight, then there needs to be an alternate local source of wood. Would a new "forest plantation" sort of improvement work? Or is the AI literally unable of building anything other than farms and mines?

Are the game options not already there, two settings that, if checked, keep pioneers in line?

Spoiler :

Check "Automated Pioneers Leave Forests" and "Automated Pioneers Leave Old Improvements"

Or do those only work for automated pioneers of the player and not pioneers of the AI?

 

[Vaeringjar]

Or do those only work for automated pioneers of the player and not pioneers of the AI?

yeah I'm pretty sure that's player-only, I'm guessing AI's units aren't technically "automated" like a player's