What are Civ's biggest weaknesses?

[Aussie_Lurker]

Sorry, I only just read the rest of the replies in this thread.

That is a pretty good list Warpstorm and, if they do ALL of it, then I feel confident that I would be incredibly happy with the final product. I would like to add the following things I would also LOVE to see:

1) City Wealth being more dependant on demographic/civic/trade route factors, rather than it being produced from tiles. In addition, national income would be dependant on taxing your citizens, tithing income from cities and 'taxing' incoming trade (i.e. tarrifs)

2) The ability to vector food and shields from a city to a national 'pool', and vice versa.

3) The ability to 'overwork' tiles-especially if you have tile improvements on them. The cost being increased pollution risk and/or semi-permanent depletion of that tiles output.

4) Access to too many luxuries should have the potential to inrease corruption. 'Too much of a good thing'!

5) The ability to add and edit tile improvements in the editor!

Oh and, some other things that would be good to see are:

a) Unit Trading.

b) Allied/Protectorate Victories (where a small civ can 'win' by attaching itself to a 'superior' nation)

c) A UN which does more than simply give you a chance at a diplomatic victory. Should, at the very least, be as effective as it was in Civ2!

d) Unit 'Readiness'. Similar to mobilization, but allows you to sustain a larger military, for a smaller cost, by keeping them on a low 'readiness'. If you are attacked without warning, though, then your units will fight at a penalty until you put their readiness back to normal. By the same token, you can keep your military in 'High Readiness', which will cost you more, but give you bonuses in combat.

e) Better modelling of the effects of pollution, plagues and nuclear weapons.

f) Modified or even totally different population model.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Jon Shafer]

2 suggestions. Not major changes to the game design, but would probably significantly improve gameplay.

1) Allow a greater amount of buildup for individual cities.

This gives the builders and the non-expansionist folks a chance. Instead of 10 crappy cities you could have 4 really well developed cities. Not like the current system, where eventually all cities reach the same size and same development level (which means whoever has more land and more cities is more powerful). There should be a greater gap between the more developed and the less developed cities. Settlers cost more shields and population points.

2) Go back to Civ 2 in the respect that big bad civs are ganged up on.

The bigger and badder you are, the more people will go after you. And no, they won't be annoyed and it'll cost more to trade. If you conquer 1/3 of the world, everyone else should attack you.

 

[dh_epic]

A lot of people are beginning to talk solutions and I'll go with the flow. One of the biggest areas for improvement, in peoples' mind, is making the expansion game more balanced, and more challenging.

I already see people who are endorsing a Civ 2 style "being top dog means everyone wants to bring you down". While I hated this before, at least it makes the game interesting, and I'd be willing to venture down a scenario where the player battles a collective AI.

On the other hand, there are other people who are talking about ways to fiddle with the dynamics of expansion to make domination victory more complicated, but still possible. I nickname this one ebb and flow, and it tries to make the game more competitive without taking the "AI Cheat" approach some people hate.

PATH 1: Collective AI

In Civ 2, all the AI would gang up on the player as the player dominated more and more of the world. Why would they do this? Because no one AI Civ could give the player a challenge when they passed a certain size. They did this because it was the only way to make the end game challenging. Some people found this frustrating. Even in Civ 3, some people feel it's more like the player versus the world, versus the setting, rather than the player versus any individual Civ.

In Civ 4, I'd actually consider an approach more like the scenarios. There are many Civs, but not all are there to win. From the start, you know your competition is Rome, Persia, and Greece (who are controlled by Strong AI or other Human Players). In the meantime, there are 12 other "Pawn Civilizations" controlled by weak AI, to add strategy and realism to the world. In this sense, Rome plays more aggressively since they have ambitions of winning, while Babylon (a pawn) is more inclined to "lay down" for you or another Strong AI Civ.

By 1000 AD, most of the pawn nations are gone, and under the 4 main empires of Rome, Persia, Greece, and Yourself. By 1800 AD, only you and Rome and a few shreds of other Civilizations remain. You and Rome each control about 40% of the world, maintaining suspense and challenge right up until the end. To me, this would be a drastic improvement to you controlling 40% in 1800 AD, while the other AI civilizations control 10% chunks of the remaining world.


PATH 2: Ebb and Flow

Some people hate the idea of an AI that is given extra weight to compete with the player, like ganging up on a dominating player, or even the alternative above of some AI players playing deliberately like pawns while other AI players deliberately try to keep up with what the player is doing. If you feel this way, either you don't think challenge is an important part of your gameplay experience, or you believe balance is a much better means to an end..

My suggestion is to make domination happen faster and more often, by getting nations to surrender, through annexing, vassals, and puppet regimes. This way, the domination game can be over by 200 AD if you can just go a few shades further than the Roman Empire did! This is your flow.

So where does the challenge come from? Civil war, rebellion, breakaway republics, anti-colonial revolutions. The more you cross a certain threshhold, the harder it is to keep your empire together. Falling apart is an inevitability, even if that means 500 years from now. This is your ebb.

This is contraversial, but to me would make Civ more like a football game. That is, you flow towards domination victory, but if you fall short, you ebb backwards for a while.

The Romans are going for it! They're running passed the 20 yard line! The 10 yard line! No! Tackled by barbarians and domestic problems! They were so close to domination victory! Now the game changes over to Persia's advantage. Rome is going to be on defense, as Persia begins its push towards the end zone.

So Rome, having gotten close to domination victory but hurt by a civ split, they could still make another play for victory come the rennaisance. And this time, if they do it right, they could control 50% of the world BEFORE things fall apart, and secure victory!

Just an idea.

*****

On the whole, though, I think we can all agree that they should enhance alternative victories and reward different gameplay types (other than self-inspired desire for challenge). Economic, cultural, or utopian victories should become equally as viable as domination victories, with many strategic elements. This would address some of the larger problems.

 

[Jon Shafer]

I already see people who are endorsing a Civ 2 style "being top dog means everyone wants to bring you down". While I hated this before, at least it makes the game interesting, and I'd be willing to venture down a scenario where the player battles a collective AI.

I really don't see what's wrong with it. Yeah, it might seem unfair, but that's the price you pay for being the warmonger. What happened to Nazi Germany when it was attacking everyone left and right? Aside from a couple "allies" pretty much the rest of the world joined in an alliance to take them down. If you look at the # of countries on the side of the Allies during WWII it's something like 48 different countries. They all united (even the great powers, USA, UK, USSR) to take down Germany and once that threat was done, they split ways again.

It's both realistic and it has a practical purpose (keeping the game interesting!).

PATH 1: Collective AI

In Civ 2, all the AI would gang up on the player as the player dominated more and more of the world. Why would they do this? Because no one AI Civ could give the player a challenge when they passed a certain size. They did this because it was the only way to make the end game challenging. Some people found this frustrating. Even in Civ 3, some people feel it's more like the player versus the world, versus the setting, rather than the player versus any individual Civ.

In Civ 4, I'd actually consider an approach more like the scenarios. There are many Civs, but not all are there to win. From the start, you know your competition is Rome, Persia, and Greece (who are controlled by Strong AI or other Human Players). In the meantime, there are 12 other "Pawn Civilizations" controlled by weak AI, to add strategy and realism to the world. In this sense, Rome plays more aggressively since they have ambitions of winning, while Babylon (a pawn) is more inclined to "lay down" for you or another Strong AI Civ.

By 1000 AD, most of the pawn nations are gone, and under the 4 main empires of Rome, Persia, Greece, and Yourself. By 1800 AD, only you and Rome and a few shreds of other Civilizations remain. You and Rome each control about 40% of the world, maintaining suspense and challenge right up until the end. To me, this would be a drastic improvement to you controlling 40% in 1800 AD, while the other AI civilizations control 10% chunks of the remaining world.

The problem I see with this design is that it seems like things are heading towards an inevitable end. With so many weaker powers, you'll almost always end up with the same result - a couple superpowers there to duke it out at the end. That's just as bad as the current situation as I see it. Instead of having 1 massive human power and a few other AI civs (which actually spice things up, if they were able to give the human a challenge), you have 1 massive human player and 1 massive AI player. Or maybe the human wants to play a peaceful game, and instead ends up dwarfed and has no chance at winning at that point (flaws in the AI aside).

I think the simplest, most realistic and overall best solution is to have a number of powers that start off equally (but will eventually become stronger or weaker than others based on geography and interaction with other civs), and that work together to prevent any one power from getting too strong. Like the Concert of Europe. If you want to play a peaceful game, you have 6-8 medium sized civs all dueling for the win. Or you can be a warmonger and it'll be you vs. 4 other civs to keep you on your toes and stop you from winning easily. Either way, the game remains balanced.

PATH 2: Ebb and Flow

Some people hate the idea of an AI that is given extra weight to compete with the player, like ganging up on a dominating player, or even the alternative above of some AI players playing deliberately like pawns while other AI players deliberately try to keep up with what the player is doing. If you feel this way, either you don't think challenge is an important part of your gameplay experience, or you believe balance is a much better means to an end..

My suggestion is to make domination happen faster and more often, by getting nations to surrender, through annexing, vassals, and puppet regimes. This way, the domination game can be over by 200 AD if you can just go a few shades further than the Roman Empire did! This is your flow.

So where does the challenge come from? Civil war, rebellion, breakaway republics, anti-colonial revolutions. The more you cross a certain threshhold, the harder it is to keep your empire together. Falling apart is an inevitability, even if that means 500 years from now. This is your ebb.

This is contraversial, but to me would make Civ more like a football game. That is, you flow towards domination victory, but if you fall short, you ebb backwards for a while.

The Romans are going for it! They're running passed the 20 yard line! The 10 yard line! No! Tackled by barbarians and domestic problems! They were so close to domination victory! Now the game changes over to Persia's advantage. Rome is going to be on defense, as Persia begins its push towards the end zone.

So Rome, having gotten close to domination victory but hurt by a civ split, they could still make another play for victory come the rennaisance. And this time, if they do it right, they could control 50% of the world BEFORE things fall apart, and secure victory!

The problem with this is the whole "removing the unfun aspects of Civ" thing. Most people don't like to see their emipres get dismantled. Many players who are losing a single war (ones they can afford to lose, even) will simply quit or start over. The last thing Firaxis wants to have is a large group of disgruntled players who are complaining about how they got "this" close to victory and then the game screwed them over. And then they tell their friends the game sucks. And then Firaxis and their publisher lose moola, and there's no Civ V.

From a non-game industry perspective, yes, that's an excellent idea. Civs should not be made in the shade once they conquer a country - they should have rebellions and riots and all sorts of fun (ha) stuff to deal with afterwards. Stuff the real world conquerors had to deal with, and stuff that ended up bringing them down in the end.

But unfortunately, it's not realistic to expect something along those lines to ever be implimented I'm afraid.

On the whole, though, I think we can all agree that they should enhance alternative victories and reward different gameplay types (other than self-inspired desire for challenge). Economic, cultural, or utopian victories should become equally as viable as domination victories, with many strategic elements. This would address some of the larger problems.

If they're all equally viable and interesting, then certainly.

UN Victory is certainly a possibility but it's not really much fun or a very interesting way to win.

Simple fact is that war is the most interesting thing to do in Civ, and the thing that will reap you the most benefits. Building Temples and Libraries all game for culture really don't help you much when a big army can come knocking on your door and burn down all your pretty buildings in a flash. Nor does it compare with the excitement and intrigue of a good war.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I'm sorry Trip, but if people are going to QUIT the moment they suffer a Civil War or Dark Age (or lose a war), an event which would most likely only occur as a result of REALLY bad management on the players part or, perhaps, REALLY bad luck (or both together), then maybe they should go off and play a first person shooter or 'Level Game', and leave real strategy games to those who enjoy a REAL challenge!!
You know, I used to deal with people like that when I was at Primary school. We'd play sports and/or Hide-and-seek, chasey and the like and, whilst they were winning, they would be havin a great time but, the moment things went bad for them, they would sulk and say they 'didn't want to play anymore !' I used to really HATE people like that, coz they used to ruin the fun for everyone else-seems that, even with the advent of computer games, nothing much has changed in that regard !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Well, however you might feel about them, a lot of those people are who the Civ-series is catering to. It's part of human nature to try to flee from failure. People don't like to stick it out when things are grim or hopeless. That's just how it is. And that's why you will never see something like a major civil war, etc. designed to curb successful players. That's why a lot of people didn't like the Civ 2 gang-up effect (that has been recently discussed). People didn't think it was "fair" of the game to try and slow them down. So it was taken out of Civ 3, and now you can simply steam-roll your way to victory with a big army.

Dark Ages used to be a part of Civ, instead of Golden Ages. It was decided it wasn't fun and didn't add any pull to continue playing, so it was taken out in favor of something that did the opposite (enhanced your production and commerce).

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

You see, though, I wouldn't like 'ganging up', civil wars or dark ages either-IF it were completely random. If it were to follow a fairly set formula, and were more to do with things like nation-management, government style and international relations, then I would be ALL FOR IT-and so should anyone else who really likes good strategy! To me its no more different than 'Culture Flipping'. Yes it can suck when it happens to you, but you can benefit from it TOO (and I HAVE!!)
As for giving up. I was recently playing a game of civ3 where I underestimated the Babylonians and decided to declare war on them. They thrashed the living daylights out of me, and had me beaten before the end of the Classical Age!! Far from being angry and quitting, I fought bravely to the bitter end, and was VERY satisfied with how the AI bested me! A similar thing happened when I played 'War of the Worlds'. I underestimated the strength of the human defences in one sector, and got soundly thrashed by them-even though I had sent a HUGE invasion force. My point is that, for me at least, winning isn't everything-its how much I enjoy the game, win or lose!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Jon Shafer]

You are a brave soul. I know very few who would stick out to the end a good thrashing by the AI.

 

[dh_epic]

Hey Trip, I think you raise a lot of good points, and you're right about the facts... I guess everything else comes down to a matter of taste. I was hoping the makers would be able to put a positive enough spin on the game.

THE CIV 2 WAY

What you talk about, with everyone declaring war on the ambitious conquerer, pisses some people off. But you're right that the others may piss even more people off. I figure if everyone's gonna declare war on the leading player, have a "Rome is out of control and must be stopped!" event after a certain threshold. This way it feels like an actual gameplay event instead of an AI cheat. And this way it forces human players (in multiplayer mode) to do the same thing.

A BETTER AI?

Still, I think what you're talking about is the AI teaming up to play for a stalemate. Much more interesting would be fighting against someone who could actually WIN, instead of spitefully preventing ANYONE from winning. That's why I like the approach where you have a strong second place finisher who profits from the other weaker Civs as much as the player does.

EBB AND FLOW

I can see how people might feel robbed to get "this close to domination victory" only to have it snatched away. But the key is to empower the user so they can help to prevent the same thing in the competition (human or AI). When the player ebbs, and the competition flows, he finds ways to hold off the competition until they fall apart due to economic or civil stress.

Which is why I liken it to football. Someone gets down to the 10 yard line, and then gets stopped. People feel robbed when they don't score a touchdown, but they know they'll get another chance, especially if the game moves a lot faster (e.g.: domination is easy to get going, but hard to maintain).

To me, if people are going to quit when things don't go their way in Civ, then making it a better game might be a lost cause.

 

[Dr. Broom]

I like the ebb and flow and the civ II way. The ebb and flow is good because it would make it less wargame and more strategygame if you actually have to manage an empire instead of only build one. The civ II way is unrealistic but it would help avoid the snowball effect as long as if the AI gets too big then the other AI players will help the human chop the large AI down to size. I hate the AI club where the AI are all buddy buddy, trading cheaply, making MPPs and alliances and leave me out in the cold which is why I often pick an AI early on to be my little buddy who I will trade with and not kill just so somebody actually likes me.

 

[wohmongarinf00l]

some of my biggest petpeeves about the game -
1) use of handicapping and bonuses to mark the different levels while maintaining the same average AI.
2) naval invasions
3) artillery usage
4) determinism once u repeat the same early expansion routine.
this could be easily fixed by use of regions/provinces.
-each city belongs to a region determined by how far it is to the palace, with a certain limit to the number of cities that can be in one region.
-the longer a region goes without a regional capital (which acts as a forbidden palace in the mode of vanilla and ptw) the more susceptible it is to revolting and becoming a different civilization.
-type of government can modify the chance of revolting.
**most important of all, the option of turning all these things off in the editor.

 

[playshogi]

I want a new game that has been adventurous in introducing a vast multitude of changes.

Well, if they do that you can kiss a good AI good bye. The only hope for improved AI is if the core of the game remains like it is. That way the AI guys can use the accumulated experience of Civ 3 in designing the AI for Civ 4. If all they achieve is improved AI tactics in the Industrial and Modern Ages, the game will be very exciting throughout.

 

[dh_epic]

It looks like, given all the discussion and ideas for solutions, people feel as though the problems to solve are:

- lack of efficient gameplay (e.g.: too much micromanagement)
- bad default behaviors (e.g.: when automated, it goes wrong)
- very rarely does the AI remain competitive even at the end
- expansionist game is too deterministic to victory (this one's contraversial)

Believe it or not, there's many solutions to each of these problems. It's more of a question of which one will sell games and keep people playing.

 

[Jon Shafer]

THE CIV 2 WAY

What you talk about, with everyone declaring war on the ambitious conquerer, pisses some people off. But you're right that the others may piss even more people off. I figure if everyone's gonna declare war on the leading player, have a "Rome is out of control and must be stopped!" event after a certain threshold. This way it feels like an actual gameplay event instead of an AI cheat. And this way it forces human players (in multiplayer mode) to do the same thing.

Call it an event, call it a cheat, the result is the same. As I said above, it's both realistic and practical.

A BETTER AI?

Still, I think what you're talking about is the AI teaming up to play for a stalemate. Much more interesting would be fighting against someone who could actually WIN, instead of spitefully preventing ANYONE from winning. That's why I like the approach where you have a strong second place finisher who profits from the other weaker Civs as much as the player does.

Well, trying to stop someone else from winning is the best way to give yourself a shot at winning. Assume you're one of the little guys. What are you going to do? You know the big guy is going to win. So you team up with everyone else to take him down. Assuming your successful, then what? Then the victors duke it out.

It's only natural for things to follow that path. If they don't (which is common in Civ 3), then it's simply foolish of the AI (or a human player). Just because there's no huge superpower which has the same strength as a human player who goes warmonger the whole game doesn't mean that each civ isn't or shouldn't try to win.

I believe that is a superior solution to having a KAI (Killer AI) develop in every (or most) games. Maybe some games you end up with them (like currently), but I don't think stacking the deck in order to practically ensure that outcome is good for overall balanced gameplay. It puts even more focus on war, because if you're trying to play a peaceful game (under the current engine), if there's another huge AI civ, he'lll win over the peaceful human (assuming no AI errors).

EBB AND FLOW

I can see how people might feel robbed to get "this close to domination victory" only to have it snatched away. But the key is to empower the user so they can help to prevent the same thing in the competition (human or AI). When the player ebbs, and the competition flows, he finds ways to hold off the competition until they fall apart due to economic or civil stress.

Which is why I liken it to football. Someone gets down to the 10 yard line, and then gets stopped. People feel robbed when they don't score a touchdown, but they know they'll get another chance, especially if the game moves a lot faster (e.g.: domination is easy to get going, but hard to maintain).

To me, if people are going to quit when things don't go their way in Civ, then making it a better game might be a lost cause.

Well, that would require a complete restructuring of the game engine. As things currently stand, if you get into a postion to win through conquest (which usually takes quite a while), there's usually not enough time for everything to come into play. You spend the Ancient and Middle Ages conquering close to the domination limit, and then the other powers fight you back down for the Industrial and Modern. And then the game ends. No 2nd chance. The entire flow of the game would have to be redeveloped to incorporate a sort of ebb and flow system. Because of that alone, I think it's impossible to see in standard Civ 4.

(Plus, I fail to see how this isn't like the Civ 2 system that I've been promoting. )

Most people around here would probably be surprised to know how many people quit or otherwise be poor sports when the game is turning against them. Why do you think that Firaxis added the "preserve random seed" option for Civ 3? Because people wanted the option to reload and prevent whatever bad happened to them the first time around.

You will not find many mainstream people (which is what the Civ franchise is really about, not US) who enjoy a game which seeks to beat them simply because they're winning - and even if things have a direct result that can be prevented (e.g. unhappy conquered people revolt and start a new civ with a new army, etc.), people will quit the game in disgust. Look at culture flipping, and how many people dislike that even within this community. Imagine what Joe officeworker who's never heard of CFC or Apolyton and never downloaded a patch has a city with his army flip to the AI. No way he's going to keep playing.