v3.1 plans

[shaken]

I plan to bring that back in. I'm going to rename them to "stories." We enjoy narratives as human beings, and the core Civilization series lacks this. My brother came up with some ideas to make events feel more like a story. I'm going to make the decisions more interesting instead of just a small +1food or something on a tile. I'm also going to make past decisions affect future events. I will show a "story so far" box when new events come up, so we can see the history of our empire.

In addition to the narrative flavor, events give us unique ways to do things. I plan to add an event for Natural Wonders so we can improve them later in the game. I feel choosing how to improve those wonders will be more fun than getting a passive bonus in the tech tree.

One example of an event I think I did well is the scout. A scout's adventures gain popularity with the people back home, and we get the choice of retiring the scout to write tales of their adventures (culture bonus), or send the scout new supplies to continue its rise to fame and glory (upgrade). I like this and want to do more like it.

I can't tell you how happy I am to hear this is coming back. Narrative is definitely something that I feel is missing from Civ, and your previous efforts, and now future plans, will work well in correcting that.

Do you plan on having negative effects events as well? I always thought it would be neat if Krakatoa erupted or something, possibly killing off some population in a nearby city, or adding another tile of land adjacent to it. Certain weather events could be negative too.

 

[EricB]

When you bring back opportunities, I would suggest toning them down considerably. They were way too frequent in GEM and too powerful. Adding +4 science to a tile was just ridiculous.


I had to disable all of them dealing with improving tiles or buildings in cities because they gave the human player such an advantage over the AI players. My focus is constantly on balance between the human and the AI.

 

[Thalassicus]

Humans and AIs both got equal opportunities, so there was no human advantage. The AI opportunities showed in the message log at the top of the screen. Is there some way I could clarify this balance to players ingame?

 

[Brannock]

The message log is easily overlooked, shows only 2-3 messages at any time, and fades out quickly when you start a turn. Players often look away from the computer or go do something else in between turns, especially when it starts taking longer.

On top of that, important messages are shown as icons on the right sidebar, while combat details and other miscellaneous items are shown on the top message box. Players are conditioned into checking the right sidebar if they want to know anything important, and to ignore the top box if they're not too concerned about the specific details of combat damage.

 

[Ahriman]

Humans and AIs both got equal opportunities, so there was no human advantage.

I don't think that's true. Humans were much better than the AI at selecting which option fit their current needs the best.

I also found the opportunity system to be too powerful, especially the policies that gave cheap settlers. I prefer the story to be something emergent that comes from playing the game, rather than from some random events.
I hope that if they are added, there is a game option to allow them to be set to "off".

 

[albie_123]

The message log is easily overlooked, shows only 2-3 messages at any time, and fades out quickly when you start a turn. Players often look away from the computer or go do something else in between turns, especially when it starts taking longer.

On top of that, important messages are shown as icons on the right sidebar, while combat details and other miscellaneous items are shown on the top message box. Players are conditioned into checking the right sidebar if they want to know anything important, and to ignore the top box if they're not too concerned about the specific details of combat damage.

...uh? I strongly disagree with all of this. I found myself paying a whole lot more attention to the few messages that appeared at the top (namely, opportunities) than the many, many messages that appeared on the side.

For the record, while I love random events and feel they were something that were an overall net good, and that focusing on 'stories' and making them more involved than just "invest gold = more yield" sounds great, it does seem like a feature that could both wait a while before implementation and one that could use an 'on/off' switch.

 

[Senteliks]

That's fantastic idea and i am glad that it will be even more better and fun than it was in Gem Also as said i would like to see that in Cep Advanced once you add cleaner and better interface and other features,that currently are missing from Gem and as albie_123 wrote it probably would be the best idea to implant option to switch off/on this feature,because of people like Brannon that will overact because they don't like it or don't understand it completely.

 

[Stalker0]

I do like opportunities myself, though i agree they shouldn't be highest on the list.

 

[Delekhan]

The opportunities from GEM are one of its most memorable features. They added a sense of discovery and character to the first several games I played after that feature was added.

I'm all for having them return, especially if you'll be adding new opportunities! Though to be honest I'd prefer to see Social Policies and the Tech Tree improved first

One unusual consequence of opportunities, though, was that after I razed an enemy city, their city ruins and now-vacant improvement tiles still had the opportunity bonuses applied to them. So we'd see horse pastures with 7 , and city ruins with 5 yields.

It's not a big deal at all, just something I thought I'd point out.

 

[Royco]

Looking forward to a stable release of this. Good work.

But my game crashes instantly on a specific turn in my one huge/communitas map game, just researched theology, seems to be when its Indonesias turn, could there be some problems with their Kris?

 

[Thalassicus]

@Royco
I have not encountered a crash. If you start a thread in the bug tracking forum, we will hopefully be able to find and fix the issue.


@Ahriman
What evidence indicated AIs chose event options poorly? I spent several days working on the selection algorithm, then watched their decisions in every game for a year with debug test mesages. I saw the AIs make the same choices I would. If you notice any problems, please point it out so I can improve the algorithm.

AIs with the right analytics have been capable at making better decisions than humans at games like chess or civilization for some time now. They think faster than us, and see more information, without getting tunnel vision like humans.

Most game developers just don't put much effort into their AIs. Firaxis doesn't even have code to instruct AIs to buy buildings with gold. I managed to make AI economies dramatically better with just eight hours of work last year. The AI might have a bad reputation, but with the right design, they can really excel.

 

[Ahriman]

Did you see any evidence AIs chose event options poorly?

It is difficult for a player to observe AI event choices or to know what their options were or to observe their circumstances, so it isn't possible to furnish such evidence.

Many of the options were not well balanced however (eg happiness was nearly aways better than other choices, since it is much easier to get yields other than happiness from other sources) and so unless the AI always picked that best choice I doubt they did a good job.

I did not enjoy the opportunities system; all I ask is that if you add these back in, you make it an option that can be turned off.

 

[Tomice]

The opportunities from GEM are one of its most memorable features. They added a sense of discovery and character to the first several games I played after that feature was added.

Personally, I miss them! Glad that you bring them back.

@Ahriman
What evidence indicated AIs chose event options poorly? I spent several days working on the selection algorithm, then watched their decisions in every game for a year with debug test mesages.

...

Firaxis doesn't even have code to instruct AIs to buy buildings with gold. I managed to make AI economies dramatically better with just eight hours of work last year.

I can't really describe why, but this statement reminds me why you're my personal hero ;-)

 

[mitsho]

Yeah, I second tomice, though hero is a word that is given away way too much, so i would use something else.

@Ahriman you can't just turn opportunities off, that'd turn the whole balance off! Just like in civ5 in general, you can play without City states, doesn't mean you should! So if you are willing to accept unbalanced gameplay, you can get an opportunities off button! I'm not sure that's the best idea (and I think the problem above was more due to the fact that the opp weren't balanced for all game speeds)...

And yes, I absolutely wan't Stories / Opportunities!!!

Absolutely!!!

 

[Brannock]

That's fantastic idea and i am glad that it will be even more better and fun than it was in Gem Also as said i would like to see that in Cep Advanced once you add cleaner and better interface and other features,that currently are missing from Gem and as albie_123 wrote it probably would be the best idea to implant option to switch off/on this feature,because of people like Brannon that will overact because they don't like it or don't understand it completely.

What? How am I overreacting? I didn't offer an opinion on anything; just an explanation for why people might be overlooking the top message box vs the right side message box. I don't have a problem, personally, with reading the top message box as well as the right sidebar, but I've seen others miss important information frequently because it was contained in the top box that fades out before they can read all of it.

...uh? I strongly disagree with all of this. I found myself paying a whole lot more attention to the few messages that appeared at the top (namely, opportunities) than the many, many messages that appeared on the side.

For the record, while I love random events and feel they were something that were an overall net good, and that focusing on 'stories' and making them more involved than just "invest gold = more yield" sounds great, it does seem like a feature that could both wait a while before implementation and one that could use an 'on/off' switch.

In GEM, yes, you were encouraged to pay attention to the top box, but this isn't something that vanilla/G&K/BNW trained into players.

I agree with you on stories vs. invest-gold-get-acceleration. I always felt that opportunities in GEM were unbalancing, even if it was "balanced" by both the AI and the human having access to them. Optimal play quickly became "Keep a reserve of gold in case an opportunity pops up" because the potential yields were just so incredibly good, and it was rarely a good decision to choose the option that didn't cost gold over the ones that cost gold and gave large yield bonuses.

 

[mystikx21]

Top box info can also be overloaded and difficult to follow. Late game "we love the king" days (usually all the same resource) ending for example.

 

[albie_123]

@Ahriman you can't just turn opportunities off, that'd turn the whole balance off! Just like in civ5 in general, you can play without City states, doesn't mean you should! So if you are willing to accept unbalanced gameplay, you can get an opportunities off button! I'm not sure that's the best idea (and I think the problem above was more due to the fact that the opp weren't balanced for all game speeds)...

Not sure if I agree with the first part of this comment, but the game speeds issue is very important to me as someone who plays on Epic.

There are already many issues with the balancing on Epic even in vanilla. I have a feeling that Firaxis neglected the 'alternate' options in testing (eg. trade route length on large maps), so we don't want to make it worse.

Regarding the opportunities system itself, I think we desperately need some choices that aren't entirely dependent on Gold.

 

[EricB]

I never was a big fan of the opportunities as they were just too powerful. Some of them I liked though. I liked the ones that gave culture/science at the expense of favor to a city state. Those types of ones. I disliked the ones that improved tiles into super tiles.

Maybe they would be alright if they were much less common too. Maybe 3 to 5 times less common. I could see them being a fun component to the game, but they shouldn't alter the fundamental game.

As for the AI, I wasn't aware that you made an AI algorithm. I've done some AI programming myself. Where is the code for that? I'd like to check it out!

 

[Tomice]

What I liked about opportunities is how they encouraged keeping some gold aside. It was a tough, but interesting choice if you had good reason to spend the last gold on (say) a miltary unit but knew the next opportunity could happen at any time.

Some might need balance, but the concept as a whole really adds to the game. I understand that some people don't like it, though. Maybe we could combine the deactivation with a reduced góld income to balance things out?

 

[Ahriman]

@Ahriman you can't just turn opportunities off, that'd turn the whole balance off!

Not really. GEM wasn't balanced around opportunities, and opportunities weren't balanced, either within the options or to each other. If Civ A gets opportunity X which gives them a cheap settler and Civ B gets opportunity Y which gives them a spearman, Civ A gets a huge advantage, purely at random.

The game is much more balanced (and in my view more fun, though obviously many people do not find this so) without the opportunities that we had.