Will Civ ever conquer its late-game malaise?

[Abaxial]

I find emergencies a big disappointment. My experience so far is that when declared by the AI, no other AIs join in, and the task is one that usually can't possibly succeed: you have to defend a city against a civ that has very few military units compared to yours; or you have to maintain your religion in a city against a civ all of whose cities you have converted, and who has no religious units at all. I imagined an emergency along the lines of "Germany is winning! All civs are invited to declare war on Germany and prevent them from developing unstoppable force!"

 

[EgonSpengler]

I find emergencies a big disappointment. My experience so far is that when declared by the AI, no other AIs join in, and the task is one that usually can't possibly succeed: you have to defend a city against a civ that has very few military units compared to yours; or you have to maintain your religion in a city against a civ all of whose cities you have converted, and who has no religious units at all. I imagined an emergency along the lines of "Germany is winning! All civs are invited to declare war on Germany and prevent them from developing unstoppable force!"

I agree. While I don't quite know what the "Emergencies" idea was meant to add or accomplish, it seems like it was not a success. I suppose the simple fact that I cannot tell what it's supposed to do points to its failure. I can't tell if it just needs to be tweaked, if it was some kind of tepid half-measure, if it was a good idea poorly executed, or was just a bad idea altogether. They don't seem to do much at all.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I agree. While I don't quite know what the "Emergencies" idea was meant to add or accomplish, it seems like it was not a success. I suppose the simple fact that I cannot tell what it's supposed to do points to its failure. I can't tell if it just needs to be tweaked, if it was some kind of tepid half-measure, if it was a good idea poorly executed, or was just a bad idea altogether. They don't seem to do much at all.

I suspect the devs thought that emergencies would really shake things up and makes the game more interesting. Of course, as with many ideas, there can be a big gap between theory and practice. Ideas that sound good in your head can fail when they are actually put on paper. Conceptually, I think emergencies are a good idea but in their current implementation, fail to accomplish what the devs intended. With a rework, I think emergencies can be a great new feature.

 

[Rosty K]

I suspect the devs thought that emergencies would really shake things up and makes the game more interesting. Of course, as with many ideas, there can be a big gap between theory and practice. Ideas that sound good in your head can fail when they are actually put on paper. Conceptually, I think emergencies are a good idea but in their current implementation, fail to accomplish what the devs intended. With a rework, I think emergencies can be a great new feature.

To shake things up etc them emergencies have to happen against the human player and really work. But human players tend to be cunning enough to not let that happen. They'll more like use it to complete their domination

Actually I think one of the possible solutions to 'shake things up' could be built around the resources in some way. Like make us need some extra sources of iron, or coal to build new things or advanced units.

Currently the problem as I see it is that in the early eras you uncover the map, then play the map, but by the modern era the map part is essentially done. So, if the AI or new mechanics can't give the new challenge, the map could provide it.

Though first of all something would have to be done about the mid-game snowball.

My current pattern is (on marathon) something like 300 turns for the Ancient Era, then in the next 300 turns I smash all the way to the Modern, which doesn't seem right, and that could be what makes the end-game tedious. Victory conditions don't catch up with the snowball.

 

[unpossible251]

Actually I think one of the possible solutions to 'shake things up' could be built around the resources in some way. Like make us need some extra sources of iron, or coal to build new things or advanced units.

Currently the problem as I see it is that in the early eras you uncover the map, then play the map, but by the modern era the map part is essentially done. So, if the AI or new mechanics can't give the new challenge, the map could provide it.

yeah. civ 4 did a good job with corporations - resources that you hadn't thought about at all since getting them hooked up in the Anceint era take on a new life in Industrial.

In a sense, its rediscovering the map, and rethinking your civ. "what am I gonna do with these six obsolete horses as a non warmonger in the modern era?" ... "oh. start a circus."

4 (5?) victory conditions are great. but late game coasting is a problem. Bringing back the Corporate victory of c4 that starts warming up in the Industrial era, as well as the ideology / cs heavy Diplomatic victory of 5, is the way to go.

 

[bbbt]

I think in general Civ 6 is currently missing 'late game' specific mechanics that was present in earlier versions that helps make late game more interesting, if not entirely conquer the malaise.

 

[shaglio]

Yes, this is from Beach. He's on record in interviews from the time when Civ 6 was launched as indicating he didn't want any automated systems like "auto explore" and I expect build queues fall into that category. His view was that all decisions should be interesting things the player wants to be engaged in and so there shouldn't be any "set and forget" aspects to the game (my term, I can't remember his exact words). He also acknowledged that the team tried hard to get him to budge on this and eventually he relinquished on some topics.

And, yeah, if you watched him on some of those early intro plays, you'll see that Beach loves his micromanagement and agonizing over immaterial decisions.

I remember this. And to this day, I can't for the life of me figure out why he would consider a Production Queue to be an "automated" system. It's not like the player sets the city to "produce Science stuff" (for example) and then ignores it for the rest of the game. As long as we, the players, are manually entering items into a Production Queue, we're still making meaningful decisions - we're just making them in groups instead of one at a time.

I can't possibly be the only Civ player who sometimes forgets that, after building Item A, I wanted to build Item B.

And, the Production Queue can still be adjusted at any time if something comes up. If I have a city set to build a Monument, followed by a Granary, and then City Walls, I can still slot an Archer between the Monument and Granary if I discover a Barbarian threat looming nearby.

 

[Rosty K]

I can't possibly be the only Civ player who sometimes forgets that, after building Item A, I wanted to build Item B.

I tend to have a drink while playing, which immensely helps with forgetting things, so you're not alone

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I remember this. And to this day, I can't for the life of me figure out why he would consider a Production Queue to be an "automated" system. It's not like the player sets the city to "produce Science stuff" (for example) and then ignores it for the rest of the game. As long as we, the players, are manually entering items into a Production Queue, we're still making meaningful decisions - we're just making them in groups instead of one at a time.

I can't possibly be the only Civ player who sometimes forgets that, after building Item A, I wanted to build Item B.

And, the Production Queue can still be adjusted at any time if something comes up. If I have a city set to build a Monument, followed by a Granary, and then City Walls, I can still slot an Archer between the Monument and Granary if I discover a Barbarian threat looming nearby.

I think districts probably threw a wrench in the production queue idea. You would need to create a bunch of rules in order to make districts work in a production queue. For one, you would need to make sure that a district building is always placed after the district in the queue. For example, you can't build a library until you've completed a science district. And if the player cancels the district, the game would need to also cancel all subsequent district buildings attached to that district. Second, districts are placed on the map, so you would need to pre-place a district on the map at the time you first put it in the queue and lock that tile in for that district. If you cancel a district in the queue, that tile would be unreserved again. It is doable but I think the rules could get messy.

I personally love production queue because it would be nice to settle a new city and just place a template queue and forget it. While I am at it, I think it would be great if improving tiles were done in the production queue too instead of builders. You would just need to treat tile improvements as a "district" that you place on the map. That way, everything with the city could be set in the same production queue and you could just set how you want your city to develop.

 

[blackbutterfly]

Try playing against the Sophons and turn off pirates; that's what I do. (And yeah, ES2 has a gorgeous interface.)

Thanks for the tip. I'm playing ES2 until the Spring patch drops. Really, this is the game I was expecting of Sid's Starships
(Though I prefer Starships' battles).

Add corruption mechanic back, so cities far away are less effective - win win for tall and wide.

Was it Civ III that had corruption? Or Civ IV? Yes, that is one mechanic that would help tall vs. wide. But what is really desired is something that will have empires collapse when spread out thin. Chandragupta, Genghis, the Caesars all fell victim to that.

Another factor - time. E.g: Egpyt. Here's where the Ages system really could've played a part. Dark ages ought to have a penalty to science but maybe a buff to faith. Etc.

 

[shaglio]

I think districts probably threw a wrench in the production queue idea. You would need to create a bunch of rules in order to make districts work in a production queue. For one, you would need to make sure that a district building is always placed after the district in the queue. For example, you can't build a library until you've completed a science district. And if the player cancels the district, the game would need to also cancel all subsequent district buildings attached to that district. Second, districts are placed on the map, so you would need to pre-place a district on the map at the time you first put it in the queue and lock that tile in for that district. If you cancel a district in the queue, that tile would be unreserved again. It is doable but I think the rules could get messy.

It definitely is doable since there's a Production Queue mod right here in the Creation & Customization forum. It works pretty darn well, although I've never tried to remove a District from the queue, so I don't know how it handles that. It's one of the first mods I downloaded and the first mod I look to be updated after Patches/DLCs/Expansion break mods

 

[Disgustipated]

I tend to have a drink while playing, which immensely helps with forgetting things, so you're not alone

I tend to have a drink (or three or four) when playing after my Friday at work. Though it doesn't really cause me to forget too many things. I don't miss the queue too much. I actually think Civ6 has improved my memory about things I want to build for my cities. I used to be forgetful about stuff in Civ4 and civ5 days, but I'm pretty good about remembering things now. My only problem now is sometimes when I accomplish what I want with a city, there isn't anything really enticing to build. I could build a new district, but seeing as those districts don't help me with what I want to accomplish with that city, I'm often not keen on just plopping down districts just for the sake of plopping down districts (Sorry Nubia). I ran a lot of projects my last game. If only projects would auto-renew. Firaxis really needs to put this in. Really annoying having to keep reassigning district projects every 5 or 6 turns.

As for districts and queue, CQUI handled this quite well. While I never played with the mod, I've seen live streams of players who have, and it seems to work fairly well. I don't remember how it handled the library issue mentioned above, however.

As for the talk of roads mentioned in the previous page, I'm generally okay with how roads currently work, but I still think the military engineer should be able to build unlimited roads. 2 charges is ridiculous. I find roads don't get put into corners and little peninsulas, and it's kind of annoying that I have no way to get roads in these areas.

 

[Noob Fanboy]

Civ doesn't need a lot of new mechanics, Firaxis just need to do something about the AI bugs.

 

[blackbutterfly]

Civ doesn't need a lot of new mechanics, Firaxis just need to do something about the AI bugs.

Yes, but 2K+Fraxis can't sell an expansion called "Bug Fixes and Better AI" cos that's not the capitalists way. Although we would all gladly pay for a fixed game RN.

Commercial law is such that we'd be getting what we legitimately paid for already. Sure, no software is bug free but "bug fixes" should and always be free. You pay for new features and content. (That's why IMO Golden Ages, Governors and Emergencies were hyped. Loyalty was the only really significant system in R&F but they couldn't charge for just loyalty and 8-9 new civs/leaders).

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Yes, but 2K+Fraxis can't sell an expansion called "Bug Fixes and Better AI" cos that's not the capitalists way. Although we would all gladly pay for a fixed game RN.

No, but expansions include some bug fixes and AI improvements nevertheless.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I tend to have a drink while playing, which immensely helps with forgetting things, so you're not alone

Hmmm. New approach to improving the AI's likelihood of victory. Who needs mods?

 

[Pietato]

Civ 5 did it much better, especially war. Shaka once dropped an X-com trooper on every single square of my empire.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yes, this is from Beach. He's on record in interviews from the time when Civ 6 was launched as indicating he didn't want any automated systems like "auto explore" and I expect build queues fall into that category. His view was that all decisions should be interesting things the player wants to be engaged in and so there shouldn't be any "set and forget" aspects to the game (my term, I can't remember his exact words). He also acknowledged that the team tried hard to get him to budge on this and eventually he relinquished on some topics.

And, yeah, if you watched him on some of those early intro plays, you'll see that Beach loves his micromanagement and agonizing over immaterial decisions.

If he doesn't want to implement set and forget UI, he shouldn't implement set and forget mechanic interactions. Exploration is the kind of thing that necessarily has diminishing returns...you explore the places considered most valuable to know first.

That statement on auto explore is egregious. It's not defensible, no wonder the UI in this game is such trash. If this is also the reasoning for not implementing a build queue (as if you aren't making decisions when using one) or the ability to give orders to cities via the city list I have active disrespect for the design (non) rationale. It's tantamount to making the game worse on purpose. If that's the frame of mind going into late game design improving late game will never happen.

Micro decisions can add to a game but 3x the inputs necessary to accomplish micro outcomes do nothing but detract.

I think districts probably threw a wrench in the production queue idea. You would need to create a bunch of rules in order to make districts work in a production queue. For one, you would need to make sure that a district building is always placed after the district in the queue. For example, you can't build a library until you've completed a science district. And if the player cancels the district, the game would need to also cancel all subsequent district buildings attached to that district. Second, districts are placed on the map, so you would need to pre-place a district on the map at the time you first put it in the queue and lock that tile in for that district. If you cancel a district in the queue, that tile would be unreserved again. It is doable but I think the rules could get messy.

Modders managed it just fine, without complete access to the game code.

 

[isau]

I feel like they tried to address this and it just didn't take. For the late game to have meaning I think some of the following has to happen:

• Neighborhoods need to offer more than Housing. Neighborhoods should allow explosions in Population that otherwise aren't possible. Likewise, Populations over a certain number shouldn't necessarily offer a 1:1 ratio of workable tiles. In fact, once a city reaches a certain size perhaps the concept of "workable tiles" should disappear and we should be using the map differently (filling it with Neighborhoods, with Food produced elsewhere via a transportation network).
• Electricity and water should play a role. Not having Utilities should make some victory conditions almost undoable.

They kinda hinted at this in the early game trailers, and theres a even a policy card for replacing Farms with Neighborhoods but it doesn't come to fruition in any meaningful way. It's a real shame because there's a lot you could do with the end game to make it very different from the earlier segments, especially if some late game options cut back on tedium and allowed you to think of your empire more globally.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I feel like they tried to address this and it just didn't take. For the late game to have meaning I think some of the following has to happen:

• Neighborhoods need to offer more than Housing. Neighborhoods should allow explosions in Population that otherwise aren't possible. Likewise, Populations over a certain number shouldn't necessarily offer a 1:1 ratio of workable tiles. In fact, once a city reaches a certain size perhaps the concept of "workable tiles" should disappear and we should be using the map differently (filling it with Neighborhoods, with Food produced elsewhere via a transportation network).
• Electricity and water should play a role. Not having Utilities should make some victory conditions almost undoable.

They kinda hinted at this in the early game trailers, and theres a even a policy card for replacing Farms with Neighborhoods but it doesn't come to fruition in any meaningful way. It's a real shame because there's a lot you could do with the end game to make it very different from the earlier segments, especially if some late game options cut back on tedium and allowed you to think of your empire more globally.

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

Main problem with civ late game is that the game is over in terms of being competitive for potentially hours IRL before a victory condition is reached, and many of the victory conditions are poorly implemented/scaled against the reality that taking cities away blocks them.

These late game options don't need to "make you think more globally", they need to let you end the game without doing a large number of rote impacts that don't or barely impact the outcome.