When do you call it quits?

[rsc2a]

After being able to consistently win on Emperor difficulty, I moved up to Immortal where I manage to win about 20% of the time. Now I've playing with the Alternative Difficulty Mod and just getting clobbered. This has brought up a question I'm interested in...

When do you call it quits and say a game is lost? A full game can take a ton of hours, and I don't want to keep playing a lost cause. AI is ahead a policy or two along five-ish techs. There might be an outlier that's got a slightly stronger lead. Not a big deal.

But lately, it seems like the AI is ahead 3-5 policies (sometimes even more) and 10+ techs ahead. I'm dead last, and the second lowest might only be a policy and a couple techs ahead, and that's only because I've been pounding on them for ages.

3-5 policies and 10+ techs. That's pretty much a lost cause? At what point do you quite a game as unwinnable?

 

[Jdoug312]

I only consider a game unwinnable when an AI has like 52/54 votes needed for a DV + a friend with some diplomatic power and I can't match that.

In my previous game that situation happened with Austria. Austria, Sweden and I (Ethiopia) had been friends all game and at the end she was just shy of 2-4 votes for the DV. I had like 40 votes + 4 vassals and I thought my vassals had to vote for me? Turns out they don't, so instead of winning at the next Global Hegemony vote, I lost.

In my current game Germany is influential with every civ + the science leader with 3/6 SS parts built, but I'm closing in on the influence gap myself (Egypt).

I'm 21 turns away from completing the tech tree, so it's really just a race to see if someone can drop Germany's influence and if our spies can keep disrupting his SS parts long enough for me to steal a CV. Realistically this is probably a loss, but I'm seeing it through to the end.

 

[psparky]

I do think the difficulty levels are pretty steep increases. I play most of my games at a custom level roughly halfway between King and Emperor. Thinking about it now, I've been on a good run (possibly because I started using a custom game speed 'A Bit Epic' which is 1.2 times slower than standard - slower games are easier) so perhaps I'll move it closed to Emperor.

I usually play on regardless, trying to do the best I can for my people - role-playing I guess. I also quite enjoy seeing an AI completing a victory and seeing if I can influence things, even if I can't win.

 

[Favorius]

It is about setting up my victory machine. Do I successfully set up my empire, picked correct policies, beliefs and wonders that will propel me into future? If yes, then being 5 policies and/or 10 techs behind is not important, I know I will catch. Indeed in my current Russia playthrough when I discovered Babylon on the other contitent I was 9 techs behind. 50-60 turns later gap is 1 tech. Because for me everything is going smoothly as planned.

So when I would quit? If I failed to set up properly or my planned set up is not as effective as i thought, now being behind hurts. Does the gap closes or widens as the game progresses? If it is widening, then I quit.

 

[looorg]

But lately, it seems like the AI is ahead 3-5 policies (sometimes even more) and 10+ techs ahead. I'm dead last, and the second lowest might only be a policy and a couple techs ahead, and that's only because I've been pounding on them for ages.

3-5 policies and 10+ techs. That's pretty much a lost cause? At what point do you quite a game as unwinnable?

That is normal on higher difficulties. Things are fine in ancient era. Then the AI pull for classic- and ren-era. Then you as a player pull back usually during the mid-late industrial era.

What makes me restart or quit? Usually either early if things just doesn't come together or I just note that this is borked. Mostly it is a geography and setup thing that failed or if you find out that there is some runaway aggressive civ in a far remote land that you can't influence (by force) and the other AI seem to leave alone to then you sort of know how this is going. But usually you can claw your way back from that to but it might not be interesting. But otherwise I don't normally quit. I mainly restart if the early game didn't go to my liking and there is no way of changing it thru force.

 

[Bruhmoment]

Usually will only call quits if I'm being declared war, or generally ganged on by the ENTIRE world, (had a abhorrent game like this before) or tech rate and production rate of the other competitors fares far too well

 

[CppMaster]

I quit when I'm bored of the current game, regardless of chance to win

 

[stii]

It is a lot easier to win while being behind in tech if you are being aggressive. Ten non military techs don't matter at all if you are attacking them with tanks.

 

[Zanteogo]

I will call it quits when I have an aggressive AI who's power far exceeds my own and either just keeps attacking me and slowly is taking my empire down a city at a time, or get's stuck in a never ending war were they just will never grant peace and I just don't have the power to force a peace.

I do think the difficulty levels are pretty steep increases.

This in an understatement. I actually wish we had more difficultly level options because the difference between Prince -> King and King -> Emperor is insane. How do we make our own custom?

I usually don't like playing on harder difficulties due to needing to "game" the AI in order to actually live. Wars, to me, at higher difficulties are silly because you need to kill units at a 3 to 1 ratio to actually win. The AI just has the ability to replace units at a way notable level were it's clear they are playing with massive advantages. It's cool others like this, to me it's just way too immersion breaking.

 

[Jdoug312]

I will call it quits when I have an aggressive AI who's power far exceeds my own and either just keeps attacking me and slowly is taking my empire down a city at a time, or get's stuck in a never ending war were they just will never grant peace and I just don't have the power to force a peace.



This in an understatement. I actually wish we had more difficultly level options because the difference between Prince -> King and King -> Emperor is insane. How do we make our own custom?

I usually don't like playing on harder difficulties due to needing to "game" the AI in order to actually live. Wars, to me, at higher difficulties are silly because you need to kill units at a 3 to 1 ratio to actually win. The AI just has the ability to replace units at a way notable level were it's clear they are playing with massive advantages. It's cool others like this, to me it's just way too immersion breaking.

Consider trying the Alternative Difficulty Mod on Prince level

 

[JamesNinelives]

One big thing for me is founding a religion. If I can found then I find that I'm often in at least a decent position to win the game eventually, and if I don't the game is usually just not as fun for me.

More generally I guess I use game score as a sort of composite metric. I always start out near the bottom, and someone having a tech lead early on for example doesn't mean it's insurmountable. Especially if my uniques haven't kicked in yet! I'm good at playing defensively.

If someone is in the lead both in terms of tech/culture/wonders *and* military then I usually give up. For example if they have more units and their units are more advanced I don't feel I have much of a chance. Or if I loose to someone militarily but they're also leading the space race. Whereas if a civ only has a lead in one area then I feel I can often leverage the other areas to win (usually space, world congress, or military). I find cultural victories difficult, and someone usually wins before we reach the turn limit.

The other things that's a bit of a pet peeve of mine is city-states. If one AI has control over like half of the city-states that just doesn't feel fun to me. That happened with Austria in one game and I did end up winning but only because I conquered lots of their city-states and then attacked them directly. If I have to use a lot of scorched earth tactics to win (e.g. if nuking everyone is my only option), I feel like I've sort of already lost because the world my citizens live in isn't one I would want to live in XD.

 

[azum4roll]

I will call it quits when I have an aggressive AI who's power far exceeds my own and either just keeps attacking me and slowly is taking my empire down a city at a time, or get's stuck in a never ending war were they just will never grant peace and I just don't have the power to force a peace.



This in an understatement. I actually wish we had more difficultly level options because the difference between Prince -> King and King -> Emperor is insane. How do we make our own custom?

I usually don't like playing on harder difficulties due to needing to "game" the AI in order to actually live. Wars, to me, at higher difficulties are silly because you need to kill units at a 3 to 1 ratio to actually win. The AI just has the ability to replace units at a way notable level were it's clear they are playing with massive advantages. It's cool others like this, to me it's just way too immersion breaking.

I removed AI's supply bonus and it feels better. You won't really notice a difference at start of wars since they still fill their front line with units (with supply bonus they just use excess units to surround their own cities), but wars will be less of a grind since the supply drop from war weariness will kick in earlier.

 

[psparky]

This in an understatement. I actually wish we had more difficultly level options because the difference between Prince -> King and King -> Emperor is insane. How do we make our own custom?

Sorry, I missed your question. What I do is to modify the Emperor difficulty to be a mix of King and Emperor. I use https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/change-vp-options.620079/ so I don't have to redo it for every version. You can get the default values from the database table HandicapInfos.

Then my code is like this

-- Make Emperor difficulty a mix of Emperor and King.
UPDATE HandicapInfos SET
...
            AIWorkRateModifier = '45', -- E 50 K 40
            AIUnhappinessPercent = '82', -- E 80 K 85
...
WHERE Type = 'HANDICAP_EMPEROR';

There are a bunch more, this is just a sample. The "-- E 50 K 40" bit is just a comment showing the Emperor and King defaults to make future tweaks easier, so not really necessary.

It might (or might not!) be possible to actually add a new level that you could select when you create a game, but it would be more work.

One interesting option here is to dynamically change the difficulty during the game. I usually start at my intermediate level, but if I find I have a particularly strong start, I can just save the game, comment out my changes to restore full emperor, reload the mod and saved game and carry on. This won't affect anything that already happened, but will affect all further turns (at least, it will for most things).

 

[Rick Drayson]

If i play king i win almost all my games and can play any civ. If i play Emperor I will lose most of my games and feel forced into playing strong civs in order to compete. If i don't get a great start then games already lost. The gap between king and emperor is just that large
I very really complete games, usually boredom leads to starting again. Most common culprit is war with too many units in too small a front. Lack of unit stacking really nerfs civ v. WTH were they thinking?

 

[Fluffball]

I very really complete games, usually boredom leads to starting again. Most common culprit is war with too many units in too small a front. Lack of unit stacking really nerfs civ v. WTH were they thinking?

I am not trying to judge but i do see a trend the words boredom, starting again and lack of unit stacking. Everyone likes different things and everyone is entitled to play how they want to but it feels like people who like unit stacking or hate managing units in civ v want more of a quick fix rather than a game which takes time to develop.

I really enjoy the the anticipation of the longer drawn out battles instead of just mass building units and throwing my doom stack at the enemy and the war is won. When you have difficult situations like bottlenecks this is even more interesting as you really have to think your way around the problem and play the long game. I am in a war currently in a heavily forested area and i am slowly creeping forward building roads everywhere to run skirmishers through and pushing forward with citadels. I am sure many people would hate this long drawn out process but it has been really interesting and when you do break through you really feel like you have achieved something.


To keep things interesting i usually start with a random civ and aim for whatever victory they seem suited for.

If i get a civ i have played recently i tend to start over or if it's victory type is the same as the last game i played or if i get a really bad start position.

If i am looking at a less warmonger game and find myself next to multiple warmongers i may restart as all that means is i will just end up in an endless spiral of defensive wars.

Other than that i tend to play out games as i try set up games so that i have to play to the end rather than knowing the result long before the end of the game.

 

[Rick Drayson]

I am not trying to judge but i do see a trend the words boredom, starting again and lack of unit stacking. Everyone likes different things and everyone is entitled to play how they want to but it feels like people who like unit stacking or hate managing units in civ v want more of a quick fix rather than a game which takes time to develop.
.

At higher levels, war becomes permanent. The ai is always just going to attack you.
When you have 100 ai units four ranks deep where you can range no more than 2 tiles and they replace losses faster than you can kill. Where terrain compresses the front even further in places. There is no strategy or game play.

Even though Civ VI is a terrible game even those low iq developers tried to address Civ v ruinous single unit stacking issue with corps and armies.

With vox populi having the best civ ai ever, the single stacking issue was magnified 100x more.

In civ V players and AI need the ability to perform a schwerepunkt.

If i can get through to later ages with airpower the game starts to get blown open more rather than a tedious repetitive slog. (mostly due to the ability to finish off damaged units and of course hit a single point in the line with lots of units) The issue is that at high levels its impossible to reach airpower before the AI is permanently at war with you with vast armies and fast building times.

 

[stii]

Yeah neither of those things are true.

On deity the AI won't always attack you, it is possible to win peaceful games. It can be a bit random and depends on neighbours more than your army size but it is possible. And on the other end you can certainly be aggressive enough that the AI never declares on you no matter how much they hate you, the only wars you fight are when you are stomping over them.

And you can kill enough units to break through. Sometimes it will be a massive grind but it is never impossible. It is very far from impossible or no strategy. There are people on the forum who play deity and have no issues and a smaller group who play things harder than deity and still win.

 

[CppMaster]

Even though Civ VI is a terrible game even those low iq developers tried to address Civ v ruinous single unit stacking issue with corps and armies.

Oh, the audacity...