Will Civ ever conquer its late-game malaise?

[DrJambo]

This is the one question that from the heady days of playing Civ 2 has always burned in the back of my mind. Each Civ title gradually improves the title - trying out new concepts, or ripping up previous ones for something better - but arguably Civ has never managed to conquer its inherent late game malaise, where interest wanes either through the boredom of managing a large empire, or the "I've won already" feeling.

I keep thinking that the most desired development for me as a consumer is a riveting late game, but it seems this hope is entirely misguided. After all, we're now at Civ 6 and this still hasn't materialised. We did have the UN in Civ 2 and Corporations in Civ 4 and these made good inroads to improving the late game, however, somewhat surprisingly these concepts haven't been developed in subsequent versions of Civ and instead have been stripped out...

The irony is the late game has so many cool options with advanced units and victory conditions to pursue, and yet the AI consistently fails to utilise any of these. We're now a year into Civ 6 and they still can't use or even build an airforce, can't deploy spec op parachutes, or for that matter successfully manage any of the late game units.

Maybe Civ 7 should be labelled Civ 7: The late game, a whole title dedicated to delivering the late game experience we've all been diligently waiting for since Civ's inception?

 

[Equilin]

It's just because of the snowball effect. If you did well in the first half then you already won. The only thing the devs can do is add something for you to do while waiting for victory. If you want something challenging that have a big impact on you when failed in the late game then you'll be disappointed, it's not happening.

On adopting existing concepts, each new iteration of Civ will try something new and such some mechanics will be discarded. They are all designed by different people after all. Firaxis isn't heading toward the perfect version of Civ, for that matter.

On the last point, so you are willing to discard the early game experience in exchange for that? Because there is no way you can get both, at least on vanilla release.

 

[blackbutterfly]

Perhaps Emergencies were added to combat this? IDK

IMO they only made the game a ton easier (and distracted from the endgame which TBH we want to come quicker and not be dragged out by these subplots)

 

[Council 13]

I thought Civ V did a good job with Ideologies and the World Congress mechanic. You really had to prepare for that shift in the last 3rd portion of a game. So Far Civ VI is definitely lacking something like that. It feels a bit empty and incomplete.

 

[BenitoChavez]

I think that the AI plays a big part in the boring late game. The way it is implemented on higher difficulties the AI gets a bunch of big bonuses at the beginning of the game (extra settlers, already researched techs/civics, etc.) which provides a big challenge and thus is more engaging to the player. Once the player overcomes these initial bonuses that the AI has, the outcome is already determined and thus the game becomes boring.

The solutions would be to improve the AI so that it provides a reasonable challenge throughout the game, not just the beginning.

 

[Council 13]

The AI is definitely a part of it. I'm still finding that it often fails to upgrade its units or build any kind of real armies. And even when it does, it can barely capture any kind of meaningful city.

 

[Stringer1313]

I agree that Civ V came closest with the Ideologies and World Congress. Putting more resources into the AI is a diminishing return. They need to introduce major game-shaking challenges to Civs that are in the lead, no matter how "unfair" they may seem - that is the only way to make this work. IF they want to work with Emergencies they should rework them to only trigger for Civs that are in a clear lead (not just any civ that conquers or converts somehing) and to make the challengers in an emergency far more powerful for instance by giving each challenging civ 10 free troops.

Another idea I mentioned in another thread is by having certain extremely-challenging events trigger when you reach certain milestones to a victory. For example:
- Domination: When you capture 2/3 of the world's capitals, your empire goes into civil war which you must resolve before you can win by conquering remaining capitals OR every other civ gets 10 free troops, gets +Y combat bonus permanently and automatically declares war on you (until you give up or lose 1/2 the worlds' capitals)
- Space Victory: After launching X spaceship parts, every other civ that hasn't achieved that increases science production by 25%, gets 2 extra free spies, and all spies get +X levels in sabotaging spaceship production
- Culture: when getting X% of all tourists, every other civ's culture and tourist production increases by 25% (until they reach the lead) or something like that
- Religion, when you convert 2/3 of the civs to your religion, every remaining religion gets X free apostles/inquisitors/whatever, and you lose your Follower benefit (b/c there's so many of you they don't feel special anymore or something

 

[agonistes]

Despite my favoring extremely slow games, I love the late game.

Projecting power with nuclear subs, keeping the peace globally... love it. If only there were more diplomatic options.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I thought the late game in Civ 5 was great. Quite different from the early game and enjoyable in its own right.

 

[blackbutterfly]

I thought Civ V did a good job with Ideologies and the World Congress mechanic. You really had to prepare for that shift in the last 3rd portion of a game. So Far Civ VI is definitely lacking something like that. It feels a bit empty and incomplete.

Yes! Ideology (or Affinity in Beyond Earth).

In contrast to my opinion of the need to simplify systems in Civ VI, this is one system that needs more depth exactly to improve on the late game. Governments.

IRL late game mechanics are espionage, satellite and drone warfare and of course competing political ideologies (ignoring terrorism). The Berlin Wall achievement in Civ V is pretty amazing at setting up how this should work.

BERT allowed you to earn affinity from quests: Liberate a city state for points towards Freedom. Capture a city state for points towards Autocracy (and negative points for Freedom). Implement the policy "Free Markets" for points towards Freedom, etc.

So you shouldn't be able to switch to a govt. like Democracy unless you have a certain number of points towards a particular ideology, for example. Nor should you be able to keep a govt. in Democracy if you've lost points towards Freedom.

Regardless Civ VI really needs to reign in early game systems and mechanics and flesh out the late game ones

 

[Xur]

No automation, no build queue and 1upt all contribute to terrible late game... so I doubt it.

 

[Stringer1313]

Yes! Ideology (or Affinity in Beyond Earth).

In contrast to my opinion of the need to simplify systems in Civ VI, this is one system that needs more depth exactly to improve on the late game. Governments.

IRL late game mechanics are espionage, satellite and drone warfare and of course competing political ideologies (ignoring terrorism). The Berlin Wall achievement in Civ V is pretty amazing at setting up how this should work.

BERT allowed you to earn affinity from quests: Liberate a city state for points towards Freedom. Capture a city state for points towards Autocracy (and negative points for Freedom). Implement the policy "Free Markets" for points towards Freedom, etc.

So you shouldn't be able to switch to a govt. like Democracy unless you have a certain number of points towards a particular ideology, for example. Nor should you be able to keep a govt. in Democracy if you've lost points towards Freedom.

Regardless Civ VI really needs to reign in early game systems and mechanics and flesh out the late game ones

I think the resistance to this is against any system that "forces" you into a certain rut (like the social policies in Civ V), but I never minded it that much. Every choice has long term consequences and there should be more of that.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It's not impossible in principle, but Firaxis doesn't seem to understand the issue at all, given how they implemented victory conditions and controls.

 

[Aristos]

It's not impossible in principle, but Firaxis doesn't seem to understand the issue at all, given how they implemented victory conditions and controls.

Doesn't understand or doesn't care? You said it many times, Phil: "doormat market". If that is their target audience, then why would they care? Shiny>Quality

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Doesn't understand or doesn't care? You said it many times, Phil: "doormat market". If that is their target audience, then why would they care? Shiny>Quality

You got me there, honestly I'm not sure if it's one, the other, or a combination. Is culture victory still a thing because it holds legitimate design purpose as an alternative to break a stalemate, or just because "it's been there since civ 3 and we think people expect it"? I doubt they bother with market research to the extent that one could reasonably attribute x% of sales to y mechanical choice.

I guess on reflection "don't care" is more likely. If you add more buttons and levels you can throw in more civs that emphasize those particular levers, not a difficult choice in a DLC model.

But how many sales do they lose when the game is consistently decided dozens of turns before a victory condition is reached? I don't know, and I suspect they also don't know. It's almost certainly > 0, but maybe not enough to be worth the cost to them in an environment with only weak/indirect competition.

 

[Eliminator_Sr]

In all fairness they do provide late era starts which allow you to focus more on the late game elements while still retaining some of the early game dynamics. I think they do a pretty good job of keeping things interesting but a better AI would make the most difference IMO. The late game would be a lot more interesting if it was more contested and the conclusion still in doubt.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

For me, most games follow a similar pattern:
1) Early game: exploration and expansion
In the beginning, everything is new. You are discovering a brand new map. There is exploration that gives you rewards. There are barbarians that can rain on your parade. You are forming your game strategy. In the early game, you are focused on exploration and expansion. And you are making key decisions that will affect the rest of the game: where to settle new cities? Can I aggressively expand or do I need to pause a bit and build up defenses? Should I attack my neighbor right away or wait? How you answer these questions set the tone for the rest of the game. They determine if you are able to set up an early empire that is strong enough to expand or if you will struggle. So there are plenty of challenges and important strategies that make the game interesting.
2) Mid game: developing your empire
The mid game is where you have finished expanding to about 6-7 cities, there aren't a lot of good spots left for new cities, so you shift your focus to building up your existing cities rather than settling new ones. In this phase of the game, you are cranking out builders to improve your land, making key decisions about what districts to build and where, and what buildings and units to build. You are following your overall game strategy towards a certain victory, focusing on science and production for a science victory, focusing on culture and tourism for a culture victory etc... So there are definitely some interesting strategies since your decisions here will determine how quickly you win the game. This phase of the game can also see wars where other civs might try to mess you up. You need to keep your defenses strong to avoid another civ wrecking your empire.
3) Late game: wrap up
Here is where the game falters because at this point, it is all wrap up. You have either won the game or not and it is just a matter of cruising to victory. The AI civs are no military threat at all. There aren't really any challenges to overcome. Your empire is strong, large and prosperous. You basically just need to grind through tech and civics and production until the game officially declares you the winner.

Conclusion: the early and mid game are interesting because there are challenges. The late game is tedious because the challenges are all gone at that point. While I welcome new late game systems (the late game definitely could use some cool new systems like a world congress, ideologies or terrorism), I think the key to making the late game interesting is not just to add more things for the player to do, but to give the player real challenges to overcome.

One way to do this would be through random global events that civs would have to deal with, either as allies or as enemies. For example, have a climate change event that causes your tiles to lose food production. Civs could agree to pool their resources to fight it. Have a terrorist global event where terrorist camps would pop up around the map and produce rebel units that would try to bomb your cities. Making military alliances could help in this case. And what if a terrorist camp is located in a neighboring civ? Do you invade that civ to stamp out the terrorists? There could be a plague event that would require civs to research a special "cure" tech to fight it and you would lose some pop until the cure is found. International trade routes would spread the plague so civs would most likely cut off trade until the cure is found. There could be a rogue state event where one of the city states goes warmonger and attacks one of its neighbors in force. Do you let the city state conquer some cities or do you help your neighbor fend off the attack? These are all events that would shake up the geopolitical landscape in the late game and add some challenges.

I also think the geopolitical landscape needs to be shaken up more. Civs tend to just get bigger over time in an exponential manner. I would definitely like to see civil wars, rebellions, and revolutions implemented where civs can split up, merge or change identity over time. If you look at a timelapse of world history, empires did not just grow bigger over time unchecked. Empires rose and fell, new empires emerged and fell. Empires split into nation-states. States merged into bigger states and then broke up again. Wars of course shifted borders a lot. We need to see that happen a lot more in civ.

 

[iammaxhailme]

THe main fun for me in civ is exploring and settling, so in my case, probably not.

Or... let's make a big new expansion for civ VI! In lategame, you open a second layer of the map in space, and settle and colonize a new planet! That'd solve late-game boredom...

uhh, that's probably too hard to implement....

 

[Abraxis]

I find different civs and even just different games to be wildly different in terms of potential for an interesting late game. I've really taken a liking to Indonesia lately because I think they are the most consistent in providing one since you can delay your growth as long as you like without really losing your opportunity to burst outward whenever is most opportune or interesting. Cree are fun too because you get to watch all your allies, so even if nothing fun is happening to your Civ, you're still likely to have something interesting to pay attention to. The French are great as well because you get to watch everyone (indirectly with the rumor system), and the only limit to how much of an advantage you can make from this is your game knowledge and attention to detail, I find it fun to just sit there and watch the reports and try to predict how future events will play out. Poke a bit here or there and see If I can manipulate those events with as little effort as possible. Watching those notifications is annoying when you're not used to it or aren't deriving much from them, but the more you watch the more they are like the code in the matrix, the abstract representation falling away to reveal the underlying narrative of the game, so it becomes more like a story.

I guess I think you sorta have to be able to create your own fun, and the best way to do that is by being somewhat reactionary to the AI and the map, and treating the game more like a simulation than a competition. The victory conditions just aren't very interesting, and if anything they're just a distraction from having fun I think. If they're all you're focused on, then yes, at any given point, sometimes even on the first turn, they're just a forgone conclusion.

Another way to mix things up is to pick an AI to sort of sponsor, and try to make them win with as heavy or light a touch as you like. Pick one who's very far behind if you want a real challenge. Or just pick little goals to keep yourself interested, like creating the best trade city possible and seeing how many of the AI trader's you can attract... there's no limit of ways you can challenge yourself -like picking your own much more interesting victory conditions. Having naval access is very important though, at least for me. Tedium is definitely a problem, and I think it's why the game defaults to the small map size. It's better now that smaller civs are more viable, but using a navy to project power instead of land units really lifts a huge burden of complexity from the late game without necessarily limiting what you can do.

 

[Karpius]

IMO they only made the game a ton easier (and distracted from the endgame which TBH we want to come quicker and not be dragged out by these subplots)

Speak for yourself! I love the end game! As someone who routinely sets the turn limit to 1000 or above, I find it the best part of the game. So I can't share your impatience with subplots and such.

I do wish there were a few more branches on the research tree, but only items that would require a large amount of time and investment.

As far as managing large empires, well.....thats what I'm here for!