The Slippery Slope

[Scramble]

Tech trading does seem to be the culprit of this slippery slope.
As much as I would dislike artificial advantages being given to those who are in the losing position, I honestly feel that the game would benefit.
I think that the advantages should be more subtle... small but many, and that apply to the human player as much as it would apply to the AI. Imagine if you are real far behind and suddenly you get a bunch of technology handed to you. Not only would that be pretty dumb from a game perspective, but very artificial and abrupt, making u feel confused when it suddenly happened.

Maybe if they take the civ IV system of making tech easier to research based on how many people have the techs. That way the civ in the tech lead is hacking through a thicket and clearing a path. Only a small amount, but it stacks up, so that it is 5% easier for every civ that has the tech already... meaning if you have 10 other civs with it, it is 50% easier... might be a bit too much, but it would certainly help. Not to mention it is pretty realistic, since people from places WITH those techs would certainly make it easier to discover something that others have discovered before them... Half of scientific discovery is shrugging off the criticism that "it cannot be done". If other Civs have proven that it can, then that is half the struggle right there.

What other counter methods would be a good way to counter the Slippery Slope? The Tech Race can be helped by above... the culture one is countered by cities increasing the cost of social policies.

Maybe with Diplomatic, influence could cost more and more money depending on how much combined influence you already have with every City State combined? Or is that how it works?

How about with a domination victory? I think that is a matter of AI behavior. Everyone should gang up on the Strongest, rather than the weakest.

What else you guys think could be added to help in this regard?

 

[r_rolo1]

Tech trading does seem to be the culprit of this slippery slope

It isn't. But in previous civ games it was used as a equalizing feature, sometimes with too much sucess in doing that Research pacts in civ V OTOH even make the problem worse

The kind of rubberbanding you are proposing already exists in civ IV ... and i would not be surprised if it already exists in civ V. OFC if it really exists, a tune up would surely helps a little

 

[Scramble]

OMB, zero sum does not mean everyone looses! It means that if one player gains 5 points, some other player or combination of players loose 5 points. If everyone looses, nobody wins and therefore the game cannot be described as zero sum.

The slippery slope talk is crap. A player that has more resources (ie research capacity, physical resources, etc) is considered to be winning and is ahead of the other players. That resourse lead will make it easier for that player to acquire more resources and therefore that player has an easier path to victory. The oly games without this slippery slope crap are games with a finite number of short rounds where each player accumulates points by winning short mini games that reset themselves during the greater game.

Smart players will halt the leading player through diplomacy as anyone who has played the board game Diplomacy would know. But civ 5 is broken: the ai is horrible, diplomacy is random, etc (you can find that stuff in other threads). I don't care if you "like" the game, it's broken and will never be the game civ 4 is. Civ rev is better than this piece of trash

We get it dude, you hate Civ V. This is an discussion on one particular part of Civ V, and how we can improve it if necessary. If you hate it that much, go play another game, and stop polluting discussion threads with your whiny repetitive rants.

 

[gingerbill]

I don't get the complaint here, it was the exact same in CIV4 , is anyone seriously saying getting techs for slightly cheaper made any real diffrence to the outcome of a game on harder difficulty . Do we want silly and tacky catch up built into the game? i can imagine the furor if that was in the game on release , then people really would have cause to complain it was too easy and dumbed down .

The only way i can see CIV5 as being diffrent is that it takes longer to churn out a replacement army and to be honest im not sure that makes much diffrence . There always will be a deciding battle , and i dont see the problem with that.

The problem is not slippery slope nonsense , its jus that some AI's dont expand and advance as well as others .

 

[SuperJay]

We get it dude, you hate Civ V. This is an discussion on one particular part of Civ V, and how we can improve it if necessary. If you hate it that much, go play another game, and stop polluting discussion threads with your whiny repetitive rants.

To think, we almost made it through a whole page of real discussion without any crying, too.

I do think the lack of tech trading is a big factor here. Diplomacy in general needs more options or versatility to address that growing gap between the haves and the have-nots, and the AI needs to be smarter about it. Have the 3 smaller nations be able to form an alliance to take on one of the larger powers, for example. Maybe that does happen, I don't know; I haven't seen it yet.

 

[Scramble]

You talk as if I want free techs given to those in the back, or a free 500g mailed to them every 20 turns if you are in last place. No, that is exactly what I was opposed to by mentioning Mario Kart syndrome. It needs to be subtle. Rather than one or two huge things, It needs to be a lot of very small subtle things to accomplish the same thing.
All games have a slippery slope problem, but it is important to remember that if it is too much, then the game falls flat and is decided by the late Classical era...
Civ IV had a bit of a slippery slope problem, where the game would often be decided pretty early, and the last 60% of the game is just a formality in order for your name to be recorded in the hall of fame...
Civ V seems to have a problem as bad or worse than civ IV, and I would prefer for it to actually be improved upon.

Part of it is certainly the AI, but I feel there is more there.

 

[Malecite]

Slippery slope is very steep in this incarnation of civ.

In fact its so bad that once you get a handle on the AI (ie they are not 6 techs ahead) its a very simple matter to micro 4 units to destroy their entire race.

Conversely: if you let the computer achieve its critical mass of 3-4 times your score (which one of them will do every game left to their own devices) you will lose 100% of the time.

The only cure to this seems to be rapid warfare often and early, otherwise one computer gobbles up the weak ones at an INSANE pace once it sets out to do so. This is largely the result of the weaker comps throwing valuable units (like artillery) at foot soldiers. It accelerates the process and your forced to either respond in kind or fall so far behind they win scientifically or culturally. If they beat you militarily well... you suck.

The only time your well and truly fraked as a human player is if the computer has a strong force of artillery units, then its nearly impossible to dislodge them by abusing their military stupidity as well... a unit that instant kills most things from 3 squares away is very difficult to mismanage. Otherwise the game is actually very very easy for human vs computers.

 

[The_Reckoning]

Or if you're unlucky enough to get rushed at the start. If the AI knew to raze cities it couldn't hold I'd have been taken out by Napoleon when he captured my best city.