[GS] Under 40% of players have won a game - REVISITED

[Solovey]

40% of players completing the game isn't that bad. First, you have to understand the nature of Steam - a lot of players never play a lot of games thay bought. You know, discount sales, much cheaper, I'll play it later at some moment, etc. I know the lad who has about a hundred purchased games on Steam he has never played. Most of my friends have some game they ve never played. I do.
Secondly, there is a low chance to retain a player who won several Settler games only, meaning make him buying Civ VII or another Civ VI add-ons. Almost all games even the most successful ones have qute low players retention rate. Most players buy (or download for free), try and quit. Or try for a little bit longer and ... quit. I would love to see how many players have won 10 games, 50 games.
What I mean is that developing a great AI for guys who love playing diety is a long term investment - features like this guarantee that these core players will stay buying all DLCs, add-ons and subsequent games for years.
What a smart game development company does is logging everything all their players do, analyse it and make right decisions based on that. It's not just only 40% of players have completed a game - it's literally everyhting you can imaging. So the 40% fact by itself shouldn't affect the decision to improve the AI. On the other hand, even top companies fail doing their job from time to time and we can only guess what happens in Firaxis.

Talking about Eleanor and that Indian guy - that is affected by a lot of things. First, players always prefer playing leaders and nations they know from real life. And guys always live sexy chicks on the screen. So no wonder we prefer european queen over a long forgotten guy from another side of the globe - Steam is mostly popular in qurope and america.

 

[Disgustipated]

Most of my friends have some game they ve never played.

Or games started, but never finished. I always say one of these days I'll finish Xcom2, Divinity Original Sin 2, and Torment Tides of Numenera. I started all 3 but never finished. And some games like Civ4 Colonization I didn't care for at all and only have about 8 hours played.

 

[LMT]

Surprised that religious victory is the second-lowest type with 9.7%. I think this is probably the easiest victory type on higher difficulty levels as long as you get a religion.

 

[L4Psha]

And guys always live sexy chicks on the screen. So no wonder we prefer european queen over a long forgotten guy from another side of the globe

But you won't see her if you'll play her. Only on loading screen and if you forgot your civ abilities.

 

[God of Kings]

There are many ways to win deity with great ease for any skill level and still count for achievements.

Best (and easiest) example: Rome One-Turn Score Victory Only. No wonder why Rome is the civ with the most wins.
Slightly More Difficult: Playing as a religious civ against Kongo with only Religious Victory enabled.

 

[bbbt]

40% of players completing the game isn't that bad. First, you have to understand the nature of Steam - a lot of players never play a lot of games thay bought. You know, discount sales, much cheaper, I'll play it later at some moment, etc. I know the lad who has about a hundred purchased games on Steam he has never played. Most of my friends have some game they ve never played. I do.

As a quick look, civ 6 actually seems to have a decent 'finished a game' rate for a 4x, though it's hard to do a perfect comparison:

Endless Legend - 20.2% (though iirc Endless legend had the same no mods no achievements rule as civ 5)
Endless Space 2 - 16.3%
Galactic Civ 3 - can't tell for sure (it's several independent 'win' achievements, the highest one is 6% - so hard to tell which is additive versus people who did all of them) - I'd guess maybe 12% based the civ 6 win ratios at least.
Age of Wonders 3 - another ambiguous one: definitely >50% have won a single scenario (which are much shorter than a game of civ). <5% have won a full campaign (which would be much longer than a civ game and closer to finishing an rpg)
Paradox games - don't really have win conditions and you can only unlock achievements in iron man anyways, so who knows.

Or games started, but never finished. I always say one of these days I'll finish Xcom2, Divinity Original Sin 2, and Torment Tides of Numenera. I started all 3 but never finished. And some games like Civ4 Colonization I didn't care for at all and only have about 8 hours played.

I'm especially bad with those sorts of 'baldurs gate' esque rpgs - I always start off doing all the side quests, then my characters level up too much and the game gets easy and I get bored and don't finish (though iirc pillars of eternity gave you an option to make it more difficult when it detected this - and I still didn't finish it). I guess that's not too dissimilar to why I don't finish a lot games of civ now that I think about it.

 

[Patine]

As a quick look, civ 6 actually seems to have a decent 'finished a game' rate for a 4x, though it's hard to do a perfect comparison:

Endless Legend - 20.2% (though iirc Endless legend had the same no mods no achievements rule as civ 5)
Endless Space 2 - 16.3%
Galactic Civ 3 - can't tell for sure (it's several independent 'win' achievements, the highest one is 6% - so hard to tell which is additive versus people who did all of them) - I'd guess maybe 12% based the civ 6 win ratios at least.
Age of Wonders 3 - another ambiguous one: definitely >50% have won a single scenario (which are much shorter than a game of civ). <5% have won a full campaign (which would be much longer than a civ game and closer to finishing an rpg)
Paradox games - don't really have win conditions and you can only unlock achievements in iron man anyways, so who knows.



I'm especially bad with those sorts of 'baldurs gate' esque rpgs - I always start off doing all the side quests, then my characters level up too much and the game gets easy and I get bored and don't finish (though iirc pillars of eternity gave you an option to make it more difficult when it detected this - and I still didn't finish it). I guess that's not too dissimilar to why I don't finish a lot games of civ now that I think about it.

I've never played any of these games, but the strategy games I do play outside Civ6 can be quite challenging, but I don't know the general statistics of game victory (and many are quite old, though with revised Steam, GoG, or Microsoft revivals in many cases, and one having a patch that taps the code giving it Renaissance) and may have a hard time tallying such stats:
-Age of Empires 1 (with Fall of Rome)
-Age of Empires 2 (with all Expansions)
-Age of Empires 3 (with both Expansions)
-Age of Mythology (with both Expansions)
-StarCraft 1 (with Brood Wars)
-Warcraft 3 (never had Frozen Thone)
-Rise of Legends
-Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-Earth 2 (with Rise of the Witch-King)
-Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds - NOT Battlefront - (with Clone Campaigns)
-Star Wars: Empire at War (never had Forces of Corruption)
-Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (with Alien Crossfire)
-Sid Meier's Colonization (original DOS game)
-Civilization 1
-Civilization 2 (with CiC, FW, and MGE) - Mostly custom scenario play
-Civilization 2: Test of Time (with Code Patch) - Mostly custom scenario play
-Civilization 3 (with Conquests)

 

[Uberfrog]

Surprised that religious victory is the second-lowest type with 9.7%. I think this is probably the easiest victory type on higher difficulty levels as long as you get a religion.

I think you’ve got the answer right here. Religious Victory is the only type that you can be locked out of in the early game. It should be clear from the achievement data that there are a lot of fairly casual players. If you do not actually try to win Religion, it’s not going to happen by accident, and you can’t pivot to it mid-game if you don’t have a religion.

There are many ways to win deity with great ease for any skill level and still count for achievements.

Best (and easiest) example: Rome One-Turn Score Victory Only. No wonder why Rome is the civ with the most wins.
Slightly More Difficult: Playing as a religious civ against Kongo with only Religious Victory enabled.

I’d be surprised if this sort of behaviour had a significant impact on these statistics, as I think it’s very rare. Also the people who are diehard achievement hunters would likely be fans of the game anyway, with enough playtime to grab many of these basic achievements legitimately.

 

[Patine]

I think you’ve got the answer right here. Religious Victory is the only type that you can be locked out of in the early game. It should be clear from the achievement data that there are a lot of fairly casual players. If you do not actually try to win Religion, it’s not going to happen by accident, and you can’t pivot to it mid-game if you don’t have a religion.

The way religion was handled in Civ6 is the absolute worst quality mechanic in the whole game. It is lazy, plastic, phoned-in, stupidly simplified, and in no way, shape, or form even resembles the tapestry of real world religion, EVEN insofar as we're talking about a Civilization game iteration. Whatever developers at Firaxis were directly working on it should hang their heads in public shame at that GOD-awful mess...

 

[Archon_Wing]

Religious Victories pigeonhole you into a certain style of play.

An incredibly dull style of play if you're going for the actual RV.

 

[Tech Osen]

Religious Victories pigeonhole you into a certain style of play.

An incredibly dull style of play if you're going for the actual RV.

This. I was trying for a religion victory a couple of weeks ago to fill the HoF. I just got so bored I stop playing and haven't booted up Civ 6 since.

 

[Disgustipated]

Speaking of religious victory I do need to light up that icon. I'll probably go for it with the Mali today. The thing about that victory is I would only do it with certain civs. I believe I have only done it with India, Scythia, Indonesia, Georgia, and Russia. Certainly not something I would do with Robert the Bruce or Kristina which requires focus on different districts.

 

[Tyroq]

The way religion was handled in Civ6 is the absolute worst quality mechanic in the whole game. It is lazy, plastic, phoned-in, stupidly simplified, and in no way, shape, or form even resembles the tapestry of real world religion, EVEN insofar as we're talking about a Civilization game iteration. Whatever developers at Firaxis were directly working on it should hang their heads in public shame at that GOD-awful mess...

In some ways it's still better than Civ 4's religious system had been. Back then you couldn't create your own or choose any beliefs. Instead you had to unlock each religion with specific techs! The only good thing about it back then was the ability for you to have more than one religion. And with the "Free Religion" policy, you could get happiness benefits from every religion in your cities. India does that now, but what about everybody else? This should probably go in a different thread, but man it would be nice to have something like that from 4 brought back. Let you choose Free Religion and get benefits from every one in your cities.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Do Civ VI achievements count if you achieve them when playing offline? I know some games they don't but others the next time you log on Steam will update your achievements.

 

[Sagax]

Speaking of religious victory I do need to light up that icon. I'll probably go for it with the Mali today. The thing about that victory is I would only do it with certain civs. I believe I have only done it with India, Scythia, Indonesia, Georgia, and Russia. Certainly not something I would do with Robert the Bruce or Kristina which requires focus on different districts.

Try Aztecs. It’s not about high Faith output, it’s about getting Battle Apostles with as many combat bonuses as possible and turning Religious Victory into Wizard Domination.

 

[Socrates99]

Do Civ VI achievements count if you achieve them when playing offline? I know some games they don't but others the next time you log on Steam will update your achievements.

Nope, my router likes to go in and out so I can attest to this.

 

[HermannLombard]

That was true for Civ V, but you can get achievements with mods enabled in Civ VI.

Isn't it true that you can get achievements with UI mods like CPWimmer but not with mods that alter the save file, meaning anything that isn't merely cosmetic?

 

[SagarRathore]

If they retain Chandragupta in Civ 7 with making India somewhat versatile,the numbers would definitely be high.I suppose strategy games like civ,HIO etc are still not that popular in India.I am the only one among my friends who is into such games.But yes interest are certainly rising.
#Apna time aayega

 

[monstercat]

40% sounds perfectly reasonable. I myself probably only finish less than a couple percent of games I start all the way to the victory screen, mostly because by the Modern/Atomic Era it's pretty obvious either 1. You've already won the game and just have to clean up the map, but could spend your time starting over on a new game and improving more, or 2.The game is lost, some other civ's snowballing like crazy, give up and restart something different. Plus a lot of new civ player who just downloaded the game not intending to ever be that hardcore about it might not have the patience to actually finish a whole game.

 

[_hero_]

It's always interesting when these stats come up for a game. I think what we find is that people never even playing the game they buy+people buying a game and only playing it briefly accounts for a significant percentage of net revenue in the industry.