Will Civ ever conquer its late-game malaise?

[Liufeng]

As many others here, I too believe the end game is kind of bland. Civ V's World congress and ideologies were a real sign they were heading into the a good direction. I'm especially thinking on the world congress, since now you simply cannot buy CS and have to work to get as many emissaries as you can and think twice if you should fight with another civ for x CS or not (I feel like the diplomatic Victory is really really missing).
As someone suggested it, I believe random events are a way to spice up the game, and to be blunt, they actually happened and participated in the destruction or the development of empires. These random events could be natural disasters (tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, epidemias or droughts) or natural benefits (good harvest or the excavation of a new resource) ; social problems (strikes and manifestations that lower the production due to the lack of housing or amenities, or lack of campuses, or else) or social benefits (the rise of a random Great Person, a nationalitic mobilisation that creates a free unit, ...). You could also have random events that would affect each Victory type : for military, a sudden epidemic for being too far away from your capital, or units that refuse to move for x turns because they've been on war for too long ; for cultural, there could be a fashion that would favor a certain type of Great works, which produce more tourism, while others would produce less (like the renaissance where there was a great boost on the antiquities but a lack of concern for the medieval production), or stormy weathers that would drive away tourists from your Wonder/resorts/natural parks/ ... ; for religion, a schism could born in a converted foe civilization, which for x turns could have double propagation boni ; for scientific, I believe it is long enough to have restraints ...
Another possibility after these two (random events and World Congress) could reside in climate change and over-exploitation of the resources. Some players chop every tree they see, build in every tile. Well, let's punish over exploitation ! Like by reducing production for a while, lowering food yields on tiles, reducing tourism, etc.
There are ways of spicing up the end game, but are some players ready to accept that some random casuality could "ruin" some of their efforts ? For me, yes. Because Civ VI takes its inspiration from history, and in history, sh*t happens, sometimes totally randomly !

 

[Crenickator]

When you implement this, the first people to hit the new goodies get a major snowball advantage, which is already pretty significant in Civ.

Some method or system where the first adopter gets an advantage, but where waiting may also have its own advantage, or something to make sure no one gets too far behind.
Something like, steam power enables civilizations to build railroads, giving them a distinct advantage and letting them truck surplus food or production around to allow cities to specialize. But, if you wait long enough, eventually you invent internal combustion and can upgrade your plain old roads to do the same thing, without having to build the railroads. You'd essentially skip that part, conferring an advantage in resources, versus the civ who built all those railroads.
Upgradeable buildings, in the same vein as unit upgrades, would also be a nice thing. Once discovered, the upgraded building can be built right away. You could fill your empire with Classical Age Libraries, but they remain just that, and would have to be upgraded further, while a competitor could fill his empire with Medieval Age Libraries from the get-go. So while you can get ahead, it will be cheaper to get ahead later instead of going through multiple upgrades of everything.
This also flies in the face of the current "the longer you wait to build districts, the more they cost", but I personally hate that nonsense.

 

[Noob Fanboy]

It's funny how people suggest a lot of new features without worrying about how the ai can handle those new features. This is the reason AI sucks. I'm fine with a new civ game without a lot of new mechanics

 

[PeterChu]

Civ VI takes its inspiration from history? That could be true from Civ 1 to Civ 4 at least, but definitely not true for Civ 6.

Civ 6 vanilla, as argued OP, took its inspiration mainly form the idea of 'digital board game'.

That basic decision on the overall principle of game design led to all sorts of problems discussed above, form bad UI to slow production. On the other hand, for a civ game with online speed as the de facto normal speed, its side-effect on the increase of 'micromanagement' for the MP gamer seem to crush the dream to turn the Civ game into an E-sport. It is funny to see that the emphasis on the MP game stimulated various attempts in addressing the 'balance problem' of different civs, which in turn made single player Civ 6 game not so interesting as it should be. The strategy of 'quick digital board game' did not work very well IMHO, despite its heavy simplification of traditional Civ game elements.

On this issue as whole, i am quite impressive with the view expressed by Soren Johnson, the lead designer of Civ 4. Quote:

If the game is just on this continual upward trajectory, it just gets boring. You need some sort of challenge and pushback. “Traditionally, in Civ, that comes from external forces. Other civilizations. I think that was totally fine in 1991. But nowadays there is a lot more you can do.​

It seems to me, there is something about the 'midlife crisis' of Civ game. What really makes a game about the human civilization so different or unique? A soul-searching might be wanted, but not easy for a well-known AAA title.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

When you implement this, the first people to hit the new goodies get a major snowball advantage, which is already pretty significant in Civ.

Yes, that is a problem, game play wise. You could argue it's realistic - see the territorial expansion of the early industrializers versus the late industrializers - but that doesn't necessarily make for a good game.

Still, I miss the "game changing" moments that things like railroads used to bring. The current game's gradualism may be the better approach and maybe it's just nostalgia, but I still miss them.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yes, that is a problem, game play wise. You could argue it's realistic - see the territorial expansion of the early industrializers versus the late industrializers - but that doesn't necessarily make for a good game.

Still, I miss the "game changing" moments that things like railroads used to bring. The current game's gradualism may be the better approach and maybe it's just nostalgia, but I still miss them.

Is it a problem? Ending games that are effectively faster over might be worth doing, even if the mechanic itself is limited.

 

[Liufeng]

It's funny how people suggest a lot of new features without worrying about how the ai can handle those new features. This is the reason AI sucks. I'm fine with a new civ game without a lot of new mechanics

Well, for some people, it's the contrary. I like the fact that there are a lot of mechanics in the gameplay. And if the AI is bad because of it, well, I don't mind. I mostly play Civ for fun and never in a « competition » mind with the goal of achieving a victory the fastest as I can. I like to build my empire, see it growing, see it encounter obstacles, ...

Civ VI takes its inspiration from history? That could be true from Civ 1 to Civ 4 at least, but definitely not true for Civ 6.

Civ 6 vanilla, as argued OP, took its inspiration mainly form the idea of 'digital board game'.

In the gameplay, it may be so. But like it or not, it's still inspired from history. Otherwise, why so many topics on the depection of civs and leaders. The devs could add new civs like Poneyland, Spira, Tamriel, and so on, if history was not the purpose. The tech itself is, arguably, inspired from the western european scientific developement.
Saying Civ VI is not inspired from history is a bit of a non sense, since every aspect of the game tries in some way to mimic an aspect of some time in history (although, I concede, the civilopedia quality dropped a lot from Civ V)

 

[Disgustipated]

Agreed. Things like railroads and factories should speed things along. You should get a bonus for getting there first. A way to counterbalance this would be to use spies to try to equalize tech. Industrial age tech is disappointing in this game. Units take longer to build late game than early game, even with factories. I'd love to see production ramp up like in SMAC.

 

[Cedbird77]

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?

The problem is threefold. We are impatient and we always want more .A little human nature and spoiled as well.

The start game is so awesome and new the last game will never beat it. So we are comparing Apples to Oranges.

Three: I heard some good solutions .Yes the expansions will add to the late game like they always do .But we will still be voted lol.

Ultimately making a better AI is the only solution to making this game fully acceptable and complete

The game is super fun just like the others. Just needs some tweaks

 

[Stalker0]

My thoughts are:

1) AI difficulty is not dynamic. One of the things the Vox Populi Civ 5 mod introduced was the idea of scaling handicaps. The AI starts weaker but gets tougher as the game goes on. This helps the "I have already won" feeling. Its something that could easily be introduced into Civ 6.

2) The Emergencies concept is an interesting idea. Ultimately, there has to be a mechanic that shakes up the late game snowball, either through victory conditions or things that happen to the leaders. Basically, the leaders have to deal with problems late game that the lesser civs don't. This gives the lesser civs a chance to come back, but in a way that makes "sense" to the game play.

3) Generally there aren't enough ways to beat a leading player other than militarily. Once you get to the late game, you are either in "I am already winning mode" or you are in "kill the leader with my army mode". There isn't enough in between, so for all of the options in the late game, they always come back to handling the game one of these 2 ways.

4) Need mechanics to reduce late game management. This would be the biggest shake up in terms of Civ gameplay. Something you see more in some Space 4x games (Stellaris attempted this for example), is the concept of many cities eventually evolving into a single "federation".

When the game starts, you manage a few cities, and its very fun. But as you expand into 10 cities or even 20....the micromanagement becomes monotonous. Most current solutions involve either really restricting the ability to get new cities, or using automated governors to reduce the tedium.

That is an unsatisfying scenario. The ideal would be:
1) Early Game: 4-5 cities....expanding into 10-20
2) Mid Game: 10-20 cities combine down to 4-5 regions. Regions start expanding to 10-20
3) Late game: 10-20 regions combine into 4-5 small countries (or other better named territory concept).

With this model, you maintain expansion throughout the game, but your exploitation remains focused on that 4-5 sweet spot area. In turn, the higher level types provide new fun ways to manage your civ.

 

[crouchy]

It's annoying when you open the score view and you can see there is one civ on course for a science victory in the near future and you know there's nothing you can do about it. The AI doesn't seem smart enough to do anything about it either. The only option seems to be full scale invasion to start bombing their space ports, and taking all the warmonger penalties that come with that.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

It's annoying when you open the score view and you can see there is one civ on course for a science victory in the near future and you know there's nothing you can do about it. The AI doesn't seem smart enough to do anything about it either. The only option seems to be full scale invasion to start bombing their space ports, and taking all the warmonger penalties that come with that.

Spies can be an effective way to delay an AI space victory. Target their spaceports for sabotage and you can slow them down considerably.

Mind you, I find that they don't particularly beeline victory even if left on their own. Doubling down on finishing off your own victory objective may be sufficient to outrace them.

 

[crouchy]

Spies can be an effective way to delay an AI space victory. Target their spaceports for sabotage and you can slow them down considerably.

Mind you, I find that they don't particularly beeline victory even if left on their own. Doubling down on finishing off your own victory objective may be sufficient to outrace them.

I tried this, but the Civ (Korea) had 3 space ports on the go. I must have sabotaged rocketry 4 times but still couldn't catch up. She was also more advanced than me military wise, so invasion wasn't an option. She had a better position on the map that let her focus on science, but I also think Korea science is quite strong too, right?

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Civ VI takes its inspiration from history? That could be true from Civ 1 to Civ 4 at least, but definitely not true for Civ 6.

Civ 6 vanilla, as argued OP, took its inspiration mainly form the idea of 'digital board game'.

That's silly. The original Civ was based on a board game (that was based on history).

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/71/civilization

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

but I also think Korea science is quite strong too, right?

Yes. Campuses are the most universally useful district and Korea gets them at half price. That bonus by itself would make Korea top tier, but then on top of that it also gets better adjacency bonuses for its campuses and another science boost from cities with governors.

So, yes, Korea is probably the AI that is going to win a science victory the fastest, or between them and Kongo, with Scotland not too far behind.

 

[Starwars]

For me, the reasons are twofold. 1) AI, and 2) lack of late game mechanics.

1) The early game is fun because the AI can screw you over, it can be a threat. For me personally, it can still be a threat in terms of culture and science later on, but it's incredibly rare that there is a militaristic threat against me which makes the late-game feel really tepid. There is never any "fear" so to speak.

2) There needs to be some mechanics introduced that feel unique to the end-game. I mean, there are archeologists and national parks but they don't feel "weighty". There needs to be something new introduced to the game (the World Congress is a good example even if I'm not supercrazy about how it was included in Civ V) that shakes the gameplay up. I had hopes the emergencies would fill that gap but they both feel kinda... toothless as well as random. I want a strong, decisive gameplay mechanic that the player *needs* to prepare for and play with in order to be successful. Something that truly can shake things up a bit even if the player is snowballing.

The Age mechanic sometimes does this to some extent if you happen to fall into a dark age later on. This is pretty damn rare but it managed to happen on one of my playthroughs and suddenly I woke up from my "click next turn" routine and I had to actually *do* things to save a few of my cities from flipping. But this is also something that is, at least in my experience, very rare in the late game.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

2) The Emergencies concept is an interesting idea. Ultimately, there has to be a mechanic that shakes up the late game snowball, either through victory conditions or things that happen to the leaders. Basically, the leaders have to deal with problems late game that the lesser civs don't. This gives the lesser civs a chance to come back, but in a way that makes "sense" to the game play.

It'd be nice if this were the function emergencies actually serve. Unfortunately they are not a "dogpile the leader" mechanic at present, but an "incentivize throwing" mechanic in more cases than not.

Military dominates the game because units (and by extension science/production to generate them) are king in terms of controlling who wins. The tack-on pseudo victory conditions are only functional in an environment where not all of the agents in a game of Civ 6 are playing Civ 6 (aka single player where only one is).

The problem with late game is its length. If the game ends close to when it's over in practice, you see a lot more finished late games. There's no way around this conclusion that I see. Anything else involves punishing or nerfing a nation that outplayed everyone else before the late game, reducing the meaning of earlier choices (would be pretty degenerate in Civ).

 

[seasnake]

I think the closest game to really get it done was Vox Populi Civ V. There's usually enough going on at the end because the AI is so active and the World Congress really shone (freakin' Open Door, grumble) and antiquity sites were usually in play until relatively late, and even Espionage had some stuff going on. Even so, there's still some times when you're dragging from one tech to another to get the victory.

The problem is if you've done well enough to establish and awesome empire early, it seems strange it should suddenly just fall apart. But if you don't face serious internal threats it's likely that nothing can stop you. Revolutions, secession and civil war should play a role in the late game, but 1) gameplay requires there be some mechanism to mitigate those risks, or it isn't fun it's just random, and 2) good players will take active steps to prepare.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I think the closest game to really get it done was Vox Populi Civ V. There's usually enough going on at the end because the AI is so active and the World Congress really shone (freakin' Open Door, grumble) and antiquity sites were usually in play until relatively late, and even Espionage had some stuff going on. Even so, there's still some times when you're dragging from one tech to another to get the victory.

The problem is if you've done well enough to establish and awesome empire early, it seems strange it should suddenly just fall apart. But if you don't face serious internal threats it's likely that nothing can stop you. Revolutions, secession and civil war should play a role in the late game, but 1) gameplay requires there be some mechanism to mitigate those risks, or it isn't fun it's just random, and 2) good players will take active steps to prepare.

Yes. Runaways are bad, but getting punished just because you're winning isn't very fun either.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yes. Runaways are bad, but getting punished just because you're winning isn't very fun either.

"Runaways", insofar as one actually exists in a given game, are only bad because the nation in question has "won" without winning. There's an obvious, time-tested solution to this. Organized MP games even use it sometimes, but it doesn't fit the fake narrative Firaxis likes to purport but not implement for single player.

Some leeway is acceptable, in the name of not anointing a winner prematurely. In the case of CIv games it's too egregious; you can legit have cases where someone has "won" for hours, especially on standard or larger maps.