Unique Civs is a Big mistake. Re-introduce traits.

[sayhisam1]

I enjoy the new system. It makes the game fun and interesting, and it gives off the vibe that the NPCs have their own agendas and personalities. Just like if I was to play with human players, who have their own tendencies and rules, the civs each have their own quirks that make interacting with them much more interesting.
Take for example China's agenda to build as many wonders as they can. If I was allied to China, I would have to choose between building a lot of wonders and possibly angering China, or keeping the alliance intact.

Of course, it needs to be refined a lot. The Aztecs, for one, should stop getting so pissy every time I start mining silver or something and they don't have any, and making allies feels a lot harder than it was in civ 5 (why does everyone in the game hate me? lol). But overall, I think the direction that Firaxis is moving is the correct one.

 

[Roald Amundsen]

Sorry, give me a weak AI and flavorful civs. Vanilla Civ5 was playable only because the civs felt distinct, making going back to Civ4's generic civs difficult; Civ6 makes Civ5's civs look bland. If playing one civ feels the same as playing another, something is wrong with the game.

Or something is wrong with you?

Agree with that. Game I believe should be built to let the AI make proper decisions, without extensive programing of every feature. I will give you the example, and you can find many of them in the game. There is a great general which supports you units in certain era and than gives you ironclad. So only for that general there needs to be programmed: 1. following the fleet, than when his era ends programing to go back safely with escort home. Lets imagine there is a naval battle with that general (hard too imagine, huh?). How large should be escort? Player knows, but AI cannot consider it during that battle - should it go immediatelly with one escort (which will leave battle)? Maybe two? Shall all escort him back, shall it wait untill battle is ended (let's programm now the end of the battle). Is the way back safe and shall we avoid bomarding cities?

I could give you much more rules which should determine the behaviour of that one single general. And there are hundreds systems like that which is not possible to program. Proper behaviour (similar to human decsions) would take huge amount of time and resources. And it coud be done simplier with the same result (not really diminishing gameplay). When era ends you have the ironclad appears in the port. So simple.

Actually i'm not a Big fan of the New GP system. It adds complexity but not any depth at all. And as you say a hell to program properly for the AI. Actually i prefered civ4's Take on it. Just enough randomness to create tension, just enough tools to try direction IT, clean simple and elegant.

 

[Roald Amundsen]

Sorry, give me a weak AI and flavorful civs. Vanilla Civ5 was playable only because the civs felt distinct, making going back to Civ4's generic civs difficult; Civ6 makes Civ5's civs look bland. If playing one civ feels the same as playing another, something is wrong with the game.

I mean, back in the days the only unique things were color , city names and theme music. Our imagination worked better back then and civ 4 Civs not unique? They all have different traits, they all have different special unit, they all have special buildings, and they Even start with different techs which is huge! At least on emperor above with raging barbs!

 

[kornelm1978]

I mean, back in the days the only unique things were color , city names and theme music. Our imagination worked better back then and civ 4 Civs not unique? They all have different traits, they all have different special unit, they all have special buildings, and they Even start with different techs which is huge! At least on emperor above with raging barbs!

Agree. Every civ had uniqueness, becasue of different traits in Civ 4. Flat bonuses change the gameplay significantly and AI uses them becasue they are passive. Adding "acive bonuses" doesnt really add much to varied gameplay, but spoils AI again. They can not programm standard AI behaviour, thus they will not be able to programm distinct behaviour for each civ.

So to achieve variousnes you could have simply programmed:
- non gameplay features - animation of leader, city styles, etc..
- diferrent bonuses - one civ is more porductive, one producess more research
- different agressivenes - Montezuma may attack you when you are friendly and i.e. Cleopatra does that only in extereme situations.

The result is: so easy to be done comparing to current programing of actions of each civ, civs are very distinct still. And gameplay is better becasue AI is more competent with flat bonuses (but it does not diminishes your thinking, because combining traits with situation on the map and many other factors is still to be thought of deeply). It works also greatly with multiplayer balance, if something is OP changing flat bonus is just changing bonus factor. While if something is OP in active bonus - you need to change whole mechanic, and again change AI behaviour for good work with different mechanic.

That is why I am saying that devs have little idea of creating good games. They are making up systems which look nice on paper, but will never work for AI. The argument that AI will be improved is just wishfull thinking. To back it - civ5 had no decent AI even after 5 years.

I am not the person who could make the simplest code for AI. But I can see that you can achieve deep gameplay with AI beeing able to make at least decent decisions, even if suboptimal comparing to players ones (by proper design, no necceseraly by writing tons of code). The bonus for human thinking should be small, so wise decisions would be still rewarding, but the AI would be much more competitive. It would add so much gameplay. But look now at the warefere - becasue of the design computer needs three times more units to do anything to you. Creating so many complex systems - where each of them would require tons of work for AI is just not wise approach to creating the game. I am for complex systems but for desingn of them to be easily used by computer, and inteligent thinking would just add a little and very inteligent thinking a little bit more.

 

[dunam]

Civs in alpha centauri are far more different from each other than civ 5 or 6 and that AI is better than the last three civ games.

It's not their uniqueness that makes the AI bad. It's just bad AI.

I did prefer the older, less unique civs, like civ 4, but I think the choice to go for unique civs itself is a solid one. What I think they did well is that the different bonuses that civs get are better spread out over the ages this time around. Although some certainly shine in a particular time (most notably america being a civ that benefits late), the various bonuses are nicely spread.

Most of all I wish there was more civic type stuff to play around with. I think it's a hugely interesting system with lots of potential.

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[Roxlimn]

Just trying to think outside of the box here. They wen't back to a govt system closer to civ4 and scrapped the poor impemented policy system in 5. How do you explain that?

The policy system was pretty okay in Civ 5. I thought it was great, especially in BNW. Any complaints about some paths being optimal is completely swamped under by the very idea that in Civ 4, you NEVER went back to Despotism. There's just no benefit to it, literally. It's a nice enough system for its time, but we've moved on.

For that matter, Civ 4 wasn't the first game to feature this. Alpha Centauri was the first game to do so, and arguably its system was better than Civ4's because then you had a reason to go back to other entries in policies, so it wasn't a case of just some choices being completely obsolete.

Civ 6 is an evolution of Civ 4 and 5. Unlike Civ 4, you have a lot of choices and policies to choose from, and they evolve as you go along. Apart from that, how you chose your government previously affects your current situation. If you've been in Monarchy a long time, you get a Legacy effect. That matters. The fact that Culture is what gets you Policies is also a Civ 5 idea - as is the idea of many different powers applying simultaneously for a cumulative effect.

As for unique traits. Once again, they had their time, but their time is done. They were interesting, but they made the Civs less distinctive.

A Financial Civ would play similar to another one in a significant manner, even if one is Aggressive and the other Protective.

In Civ 6, Japan plays nothing like Russia. They're completely different in fairly dramatic fashion. All the traits are meant to be. The worst that could be said is that Civs like America have no distinctive trait that makes them play in a distinctive fashion, although their massive +5 global military strength on their own continent would argue that they're going to be all about the war for a pretty long time.

 

[Roald Amundsen]

The policy system was pretty okay in Civ 5. I thought it was great, especially in BNW. Any complaints about some paths being optimal is completely swamped under by the very idea that in Civ 4, you NEVER went back to Despotism. There's just no benefit to it, literally. It's a nice enough system for its time, but we've moved on.

For that matter, Civ 4 wasn't the first game to feature this. Alpha Centauri was the first game to do so, and arguably its system was better than Civ4's because then you had a reason to go back to other entries in policies, so it wasn't a case of just some choices being completely obsolete.

Civ 6 is an evolution of Civ 4 and 5. Unlike Civ 4, you have a lot of choices and policies to choose from, and they evolve as you go along. Apart from that, how you chose your government previously affects your current situation. If you've been in Monarchy a long time, you get a Legacy effect. That matters. The fact that Culture is what gets you Policies is also a Civ 5 idea - as is the idea of many different powers applying simultaneously for a cumulative effect.

As for unique traits. Once again, they had their time, but their time is done. They were interesting, but they made the Civs less distinctive.

A Financial Civ would play similar to another one in a significant manner, even if one is Aggressive and the other Protective.

In Civ 6, Japan plays nothing like Russia. They're completely different in fairly dramatic fashion. All the traits are meant to be. The worst that could be said is that Civs like America have no distinctive trait that makes them play in a distinctive fashion, although their massive +5 global military strength on their own continent would argue that they're going to be all about the war for a pretty long time.

All good points. I'm not agreeing 100% though. My gripes with the New govt system is the same as with the topic on this thread. The system is hard to understand for the AI. There's too many choices and the player will always outplay the AI with it. In this regard i liked civ4 system better as it wad a lot more elegant and streamlined design. And if you say you didn't have to switch policies then i guess u never played the spiritual trait on higher difficulties.

But all in all I think the New system is Ok and miles past the one found in civ5.

My point was though, that games change. And develop , and sometimes for the better but also a lot of times for the worse. We now see more stacking in the game. This could mean the devs thinking 1upt is not good and thus starting to move away. This is just one of many possilke proofs that scrapping a mechanic could be considered a mistake.