Will Civ ever conquer its late-game malaise?

[agonistes]

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.

I love playing France and watching the messages scroll. Keeps it interesting between turns, too.

Think I agree with everything you said except trying to get someone else to win - but only cause I don't have vc's enabled. So I go for 'balance.'

 

[mitsho]

There's at least three angles on this. The Snowball Effect means that for a compelling late game you would need a dramatic shift. But that shift with new gameplay mechanisms cannot at the same time be so strong as to make the first half of the game not matter much itself. Or the Snowball Effect creates 1-2 big AI empires and you have a battle of the giants. But a competent AI cannot be a roleplaying one at the same time, and maybe sometimes you want to play as a small culture civ and maybe not every game should play itself out similarly. And lastly, Micromanagement of your own empire becomes a hassle so maybe toning down the amount of decision one has to take is a real way forward here. This brings us back to the dramatic shifts in gameplay elements, whatever they may be.

Another solution may be to abandon the concept of victory conditions as discussed in another thread. But would a more 'roleplay' focused civ still be a truly civ-game even? Where you can stay small or jump in at a later stage of a game. Kinda like the Rhye's and Fall-Mod? Maybe civilization as we know it really needs that 4X-model which just is like that: if you expand, you get to exterminate. Then the only thing they could do would be to prolong the cycle so that the endgame here understood as "the modern era" falls onto that last natural stage of all 4X-games.

I'm getting to philosophical. So no, I don't think they can solve their late-game problem, because they always start out coding their new game in the ancient era and run out of development time by the Renaissance.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Another solution may be to abandon the concept of victory conditions as discussed in another thread. But would a more 'roleplay' focused civ still be a truly civ-game even?

Yes, I think so. You could replace the traditional victory conditions with achievements where civs earn points by reaching certain achievements. This would enable all types of role-playing civs to still achieve these achievements and earn points to win.

 

[Abraxis]

Does anybody have any experience playing with only score victory on? Does it change the way the AI behaves?

 

[Disgustipated]

Does it change the way the AI behaves?I don't mind the late game, but obviously more needs to be done with ideology. There's even a CB for it. I don't necessarily want it to be like Civ5, but I'd be okay with something similar.

My only other gripe is general slowdowns in the in between turns in the late game. Improving this would help things quite a bit for me.

Does it change the way the AI behaves?

I'd say no. I know for certain disabling the other victory conditions does not change AI behavior. While I haven't actually played a 750 turn game all the way to the end with only this victory condition on, I routinely disable other victory conditions.

 

[Abraxis]

So you are telling me the AI chases victory conditions that aren't active?

 

[Zaarin]

Has any 4X game beaten the late game malaise? I think it's just a quirk of the genre. That being said, it could certainly be better than it is now.

 

[earlc]

Streamlining empire management would go a long way; from there it's 'just' adding more competitive or interesting mechanics and subtracting things that are too boring or take too much time. Being able to have your governors manage city production, being able to plant your spies until you choose to move them, and maybe somehow streamlining religion and its annoying units would all help reduce the tedium to next-button clicking (rather than next-button clicking and micromanagement of effectively meaningless actions).

With the eras mechanic, there's the idea of being able to "win" eras by era score or certain conditions, and then the final ranking would be based on who won the most eras. This would also remove the winner-takes-all nature of the game and open the door to more competitive AI, so that if you're losing to them in some way beyond interest to reverse, it's not a game-killer. It would really help with the 'create your own fun' or roleplay aspects mentioned above, too.

 

[Cagarustus]

I think Fireaxis need to add more 'behind the scenes' options, particularly for the late game. For example, in between turns, players could make decisions about their empire, or make decisions about corporations (if included). Your choices have real effect on your civilization. This would be part of the 'empire management' theme that I think Civ 6 needs. For me anyway, it's often about just End Turn-ing and waiting for technologies to be researched, etc., which can get a bit tedious.

Of course, another way is to add more victory conditions, like an Economic Victory, and to allow for vassals (as many Civ Fanatics fans have suggested).

Whilst I like R&F and it added some cool features, I think they could've gone much further, and hopefully they'll address this in the second (or third expansion). Having said that though, I totally understand that Fireaxis cannot deviate too much from the original game.

 

[MonkeyPaw]

Making each era even more distinct, kind of their own mini-game, could help keep the game fresh and make the late eras more interesting. Give every era its own feel, no building granaries in modern times.

Maybe each era you zoom out to a more macro view? Less micromanaging, or at least different micromanaging.

 

[Art Morte]

A big - maybe the biggest - issue I have with Civ6's late-game is that warfare becomes easier the further you are into a game. Defensive especially. You become so well prepared against AI attacks that any sense of danger all but vanishes in late-game. The AI is notoriously bad at combat and also bad at taking advantage of some of the later units, like Battleships or Artillery with balloons. And air force, what air force?

I wouldn't mind waiting around for a science or culture victory if all hell was breaking loose at the same time, but the combination of just waiting around while knowing the AI can't hurt you anymore at that stage is what kills the late-game.

 

[Ellerby]

Has any 4X game beaten the late game malaise? I think it's just a quirk of the genre. That being said, it could certainly be better than it is now.

This is an interesting question. I wonder which 4X title is regarded as having the strongest late game, and why this is so.

 

[Disgustipated]

So you are telling me the AI chases victory conditions that aren't active?

Most certainly. They will build seaside resorts with cultural victory off. I routinely disable cultural victory because it comes too early in my games, and I don't want the game to end quite that early. I find myself aiming for cultural victory nearly every game to defend against the AI going for it. Once they start getting close to 25% or 33% tourists needed, I really ramp up my efforts. Seasides resorts do provide some gold for the tile even with cultural victory turn off, but that's almost never a decent tile improvement on its own.

This is an interesting question. I wonder which 4X title is regarded as having the strongest late game, and why this is so.

I haven't played a wide assortment of 4x titles. All mine are exclusively Firaxis/microprose games. SMAC would be the closest one in my opinion of having a strong late game. Though even that game if you've been steamrolling, you can accumulate a pretty large empire by that point. Having many things to do helps that game. Lots of cool units you can design like drop pods to take you anywhere in the world. Planetbusters. Cool options with the Planetary Council like raising or lowering sea levels via the ice caps. You can even create fungus planetbusters iirc, and just start covering things in fungus. Makes me want to start up a game right now... Of course the game has some issues in that it's very difficult to play a peaceful game. I often just end up stomping on everyone to keep them from declaring war on me all the time.

 

[ezysquire]

Turn times waiting for the ai to grind are the worst part about the late game. But yeah agree late game malaise is a 4x genre issue. Perhaps having more variety in victory type would help beat the late game monotony. An environment victory, economic and ideological one to name a few possibilities.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Has any 4X game beaten the late game malaise? I think it's just a quirk of the genre.

I am not sure late game malaise is exclusively a 4X strategy game problem. For example, XCOM2 suffers from a bit of it too because once you have an uber squad, there is not much challenge anymore. I think any game can suffer from late game malaise if the player reaches that point where they feel that they have won before the game is actually over. It can happen in 4X strategy but it can happen in other genres as well. Having said that, late game malaise might be more prevalent in 4X strategy games because of the nature of the genre. Since the goal of the genre is to build up an empire, it can be easier to reach that point of being so powerful that you feel that you've won even though the game is not over yet. For example, in civ6, I often feel that I have "won" when I have conquered my entire continent because at that point, there are no more threats or challenges in my sphere of influence.

 

[sonicmyst]

I think there should be a warmonger secondary agenda in which the civ leader is almost impossible to please, always trigger war, almost enemy of everyone, and utilizes nukes, bombers, subs, and wrecks havoc no matter what.

Oh, how scary it would be if Alex, Chandra, Cyrus, Monty and Genghis could really do warmongering in late game.

 

[Disgustipated]

I think there should be a warmonger secondary agenda in which the civ leader is almost impossible to please, always trigger war, almost enemy of everyone, and utilizes nukes, bombers, subs, and wrecks havoc no matter what.

Or another idea is true revolutions and changes in leadership. Doubtful we'd ever see it in Civ6 due to the way leaders are designed. But maybe mods? I'd love to see a nation like, for example Germany, get overthrown and get a new leader say around 1933 and just wreck havoc on the world.

 

[Noob Fanboy]

Just play Civ5 with the Vox Populi mod, right now Civ6 sucks, and Civ V vanilla AI have many exploits, the Vox Populi mod fix a lot of those problems.

 

[Ellerby]

SMAC would be the closest one in my opinion of having a strong late game.

Makes me want to start up a game right now...

I actually downloaded and installed it from GOG last night, but just couldn't get past the fact that even with the widescreen fix I still had two areas of black dead screen at the bottom left and right of the screen. Either side of the bottom central UI bar. If I could find a way to have the map extend into these areas I'm pretty sure it's all id play right now.

With regards to Civ6 I'm sure some sort of UN or international council type affair that allowed you to impose sanctions and stuff would help a lot with making the end game more fun/challenging.

 

[OmegaDestroyer]

Has any 4X game beaten the late game malaise? I think it's just a quirk of the genre. That being said, it could certainly be better than it is now.

I remember Endless Legends' end game being pretty entertaining due to longer winters and quest system. But I don't recall it being truly amazing.