What's your opinion on civ switching?

[Gorbles]

Only because its cheaper tthan creating a competitive IA, not because its better. But that is also OPTIONAL, you can opt to play in lower difficulties

Yes, a lot of things in video games are a compromise between the ideal, and the reality of shipping something on a deadline.

But yes, an increasing amount of things in VII are becoming optional too. I'm not convinced this is always a good thing, but hey. I'm just one guy.

What other Civ game steps up the difficulty level during the same game ?

I don't think any do, fully. But plenty of Civ games feature the AI ganging up on the player as they approach a victory. That's somewhat similar.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

I didn't buy the game so I didn't vote.
Civ switch prevented me from buying it? It's not the same thing...

Would I play the game if there were all the nations of the world, including the hundreds of feuds and small kingdoms, like a paradox game and civ switching was regulated a lot better? Probably not anyway, it's a completely new formula that would need to be tested and I have no intentions of being a beta tester...

I don't hate Civ switching but I hate trust my Leader Agenda far more...

 

[Krikkit1]

The problem with snowballing is that it means part of the game doesn’t matter.

Achieving the snowball is an interesting and fun part of the game.

Using the snowball is fun for a while….but eventually gets boring…because “painting the map” is easy after the mid game.

Solutions are
1. have a competitive snowballer (one of the AIs beats the rest, staying comparable to you….or they ally up to stay comparable to you)
2. have anti snowball mechanics*

*Ideally these would let you play with the snowball for a while before forcing you back.

The mechanics can push you back and/or beef the competitors up.

That’s something that could definitely be done on age transition…Have the AIs gain extra bonuses based on how they did last age.
(not based on the human player actions so not gamable or feel like punishment for doing well)

 

[stealth_nsk]

The problem with snowballing is that it means part of the game doesn’t matter.

Yeah, but strong anti-snowball measures mean the other part of the game doesn't matter. I.e. the bigger reset you have between ages, the less previous age will matter. It's a hell complex thing to balance.

 

[Leucarum]

Civ switching also makes snowballing worse. Modern civs almost don't matter because the game is done by modern - previous games didn't invalidate civs like this. The devs goals were for all civs to be equally relevant, but that was contingent on them fixing the issues with late game, which they didn't manage.

It was worth trying... But I don't think they cracked the code and given how joined up 7's design is the knock-on effects are bad.

 

[Krikkit1]

Civ switching also makes snowballing worse. Modern civs almost don't matter because the game is done by modern - previous games didn't invalidate civs like this. The devs goals were for all civs to be equally relevant, but that was contingent on them fixing the issues with late game, which they didn't manage.

It was worth trying... But I don't think they cracked the code and given how joined up 7's design is the knock-on effects are bad.

I think that is reversed
Snowballing means Civ switching is worse
Snowball->late game doesn’t matter->late game civs are unimportant.

 

[McSpank01]

The AI having the ability to recognise someone is going to win and so teaming up with other players to prevent the snowballer winning should be a key part of the game. For the game to feel any way interactive the AI has to be reacting to game state and trying to win. It doesn’t feel like that now.

I also agree that there should be an anti snowballing mechanic inbuilt which is less clumsy than a simple settlement limit. Growing too fast without any period of real consolidation should be hugely penalising.

Building up science or culture to massive levels should only be possible if you are losing out in some other way. You should have to make real choices as to whether you are building up an army or putting resources into wonders and buildings. Right now it’s easy enough to build everything and nothing feels impactful.

Those are the sort of thing that should be holding people back. Making actual decisions

 

[Gorbles]

I also agree that there should be an anti snowballing mechanic inbuilt which is less clumsy than a simple settlement limit. Growing too fast without any period of real consolidation should be hugely penalising.

This is exactly what the settlement limit is. And even then, it's not really "hugely" penalising. If you keep growing your tech and civics, there are various ways to increase the settlement limit. If you blow past it, you suffer penalties.

(I do not think this by itself can hope to solve snowballing, and separately I think the new Continuity option for Age transitions makes snowballing easier / worse again)

 

[Leucarum]

I think that is reversed
Snowballing means Civ switching is worse
Snowball->late game doesn’t matter->late game civs are unimportant.

I think the relationship goes both ways.

Unfortunately.

And settlement limit is the best tool they've added to slow snowballs. Honestly I don't think they made it restrictive enough.

 

[The Economy]

Earlier, someone mentioned a corruption mechanic, which is what Civ 1 also had. The further away from your capital, the higher the corruption a city had. High corruption would translate into lost science and money.

The settlement limit is a bit like that, but different.

The problem with snowballing is that it means part of the game doesn’t matter.

Achieving the snowball is an interesting and fun part of the game.

Using the snowball is fun for a while….but eventually gets boring…because “painting the map” is easy after the mid game.

Depends on how you play the game, I guess. I'm more of a roleplayer so sometimes I intentionally play sub-optimal if something doesn't fit my civilization. If you're just playing to reach a victory screen, you're just going to sit there and click Next Turn until you get it.

 

[Civinator]

Earlier, someone mentioned a corruption mechanic, which is what Civ 1 also had. The further away from your capital, the higher the corruption a city had.

This was without doubt the most critisized feature in Civ 3 - and I did not like it, too.

A good part of a solution in my eyes in games of the civ series would be, that the control of a civ over its territory becomes more and more problematic with the expanded size of that civ - ending with the raising chance of breaking away of cities of that civ and forming additional enemies to that civ in a kind of civil war, and these rebel cities have the same level of sience and weapons as their old civ, as they are formed from that old civ.

Another part of a solution could be to find a better way for civs to receive their settlers. I think, here I found an interesting methode in the civ 3 mod CCM 3 (and its predecessors).

 

[reddishrecue]

I think that is reversed
Snowballing means Civ switching is worse
Snowball->late game doesn’t matter->late game civs are unimportant.

Huh, I also feel this way. I feel like civs have become unimportant and you can snowball the same way with any civ.

 

[GeneralZift]

Just because Civ3 did Corruption wrong doesn't mean that the mechanic is irredeemable. People say this about many mechanics for some reason.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Just because Civ3 did Corruption wrong doesn't mean that the mechanic is irredeemable. People say this about many mechanics for some reason.

Corruption is a very passive mechanics with a lot of calculations behind the scenes. It's hard to make impactful decisions around it.

But surely, it's possible to do it much better. Civ7 settlement limit is much more fun corruption mechanics implementation and there are more ways to improve it.

 

[The Economy]

This was without doubt the most critisized feature in Civ 3 - and I did not like it, too.

A good part of a solution in my eyes in games of the civ series would be, that the control of a civ over its territory becomes more and more problematic with the expanded size of that civ - ending with the raising chance of breaking away of cities of that civ and forming additional enemies to that civ in a kind of civil war, and these rebel cities have the same level of sience and weapons as their old civ, as they are formed from that old civ.

That is what the mod RevDCM did for Civ 4 and it has always my favorite way to play Civ. SInce then I've wished for this to become part of the series, but now we're up to 7 and still nothing.

It's all very disappointing.

 

[reddishrecue]

Just because Civ3 did Corruption wrong doesn't mean that the mechanic is irredeemable. People say this about many mechanics for some reason.

Corruption is a very passive mechanics with a lot of calculations behind the scenes. It's hard to make impactful decisions around it.

But surely, it's possible to do it much better. Civ7 settlement limit is much more fun corruption mechanics implementation and there are more ways to improve it.

IMHO, civ 1, 4 and 6 had corruption done really well. Civ 1 and 2 would charge more corruption by distance from the capital. Civ 4 had revolutions depending on culture and spies to cause trouble and counterespionage depending on the amount of EP one had. Civ 6 also had a good corruption system with spies where you can do all types of missions but what happened to the revolutions? Civ 7's revolutions sometimes come by surprise and relies heavily on technologies and social policies where more cities can be added to the maximum amount of cities that you can have. On top of that, there's happiness which really makes cities revolt and its no longer by culture like it was in civ 4 since this change came in from civ 5 and then civ 6 and 7 had happiness problems as revolutions.

 

[GeneralZift]

I didn't like Civ6 loyalty, because it was completely based on population and location, it made it basically impossible to settle colonies. Which makes sense I suppose but it strips the freedom of gameplay.
-20 loyalty for settling across the map was basically a revolt in 5 turns.

They needed more ways to manage 'loyalty' and frankly speaking they needed to make the martial law stronger (surrounded by tanks a 1 pop city should not revolt lol).

Finally, they needed some sort of cultural system. Okay I understand conquered cities revolt back to their original nations, but dependent satellite colonies that are settled with your own people should be highly unlikely to revolt.

If it were me and rebranding it as 'Corruption' I would downplay the geographic aspect, to give the player more freedom. And then I would add an 'Original founder' corruption penalty.
Puppet cities, if they were to return from Civ5, would also get corruption penalties.

You would be able to install corruption with Spies and steal cities that way.

I would also change the revolution system. So the cities would be openly revolting for, say, 10 Turns before they turn into a Free City, and not immediately upon Loyalty hitting 0 (or Corruption hitting 100 in this case)

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I didn't like Civ6 loyalty, because it was completely based on population and location, it made it basically impossible to settle colonies. Which makes sense I suppose but it strips the freedom of gameplay.
-20 loyalty for settling across the map was basically a revolt in 5 turns.

They needed more ways to manage 'loyalty' and frankly speaking they needed to make the martial law stronger (surrounded by tanks a 1 pop city should not revolt lol).

Finally, they needed some sort of cultural system. Okay I understand conquered cities revolt back to their original nations, but dependent satellite colonies that are settled with your own people should be highly unlikely to revolt.

If it were me and rebranding it as 'Corruption' I would downplay the geographic aspect, to give the player more freedom. And then I would add an 'Original founder' corruption penalty.
Puppet cities, if they were to return from Civ5, would also get corruption penalties.

You would be able to install corruption with Spies and steal cities that way.

I would also change the revolution system. So the cities would be openly revolting for, say, 10 Turns before they turn into a Free City, and not immediately upon Loyalty hitting 0 (or Corruption hitting 100 in this case)

I also disliked how the loyalty mechanic in civ6 was entirely based on distance and pop, making it impossible to settle colonies far away. I like your suggestions. If we look at the British colonies in America, they did not revolt because of distance, they revolted because they were angry at issues like taxation without representation. Distance played a role more in making it harder for England to control the colonies, not in why they revolted. I would call it "bureaucracy" rather than "corruption" because I think corruption has a different connotation. I would have "corruption" too but it would be in the capital and cities close to the capital, also dependent on government types, and it would cause a loss of gold. But "bureaucracy" would be based on number of cities and distance. It would increase production cost of stuff. I would also have a "happiness" mechanic that would determine the chance of revolt and flipping. "Happiness" would be determined based on number of amenities, religion, culture, housing, war weariness etc... So your colonies might have high bureaucracy, making it harder to build stuff, but if they are relatively happy, they would not revolt. Of course, if your colonies have both high bureaucracy and high unhappiness, then it would be very difficult to keep them. They would likely revolt. I would also like to see cities that revolt form a new civ, rather than just join another civ.

 

[fantsu]

I think VI got it partially right. Colonies worked better in late game. Dropping useless governor in a city far away was needed to keep the city it not revolting. Buffed Amani or Victor did let you keeping the city.
It stopped annoying settling multiplayer pretty much unless you were really ahead.

AI with bonuses did do some silly settling thou.

 

[Crashdummy]

I wish there was a way for those of us that dont want to be limited to ignore all these "solutions"

I dont want a limit on my settlements or where to found a city. It should be my choice how many and when to build them. I understand others do like the limits, so i think this should be another setting that could be enabled and isabledbefore a game