Will Civ ever conquer its late-game malaise?

[Rosty K]

I don't understand this mentality. In Super Mario, the later levels are harder than the beginning ones; is that game punishing you for winning?

No, of course not. It's universally accepted in action/shooting/adventure/RPG/racing/etc... games that the difficulty curve needs to point up. Even turn based wargames (Advanced Wars or Panzer General) do that. But whenever someone suggests something like that in Civ, there's always someone complaining about "being punished for winning".

Technically, the late game mechanics in Civ as they are now do up the difficulty curve. The defenses get tougher, you (are supposed to) face more and stronger units, you need to utilize a larger variety of units, new unit types are gradually introduced (naval raiders, air units, nukes, etc), you (are supposed to) need more effort to maintain loyalty, amenities and housing capacity and build more stuff. As I tried to hint with my World War example, the problem is not mechanics, but the AI's inability to use them against you efficiently.

If the AI in its current state will receive the unconditional instruction to gang on the runaway civ every time, most of the games will end in domination victory for a human player

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I don't understand this mentality. In Super Mario, the later levels are harder than the beginning ones; is that game punishing you for winning?

No, of course not. It's universally accepted in action/shooting/adventure/RPG/racing/etc... games that the difficulty curve needs to point up. Even turn based wargames (Advanced Wars or Panzer General) do that. But whenever someone suggests something like that in Civ, there's always someone complaining about "being punished for winning".

I think it is because a lot of players look at civ from a role-playing angle. Also, the game is based on the history of human civilization. These players want to "write their own history of the world". So the emphasis is on that more than beating levels of a game.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I don't think there is a difficulty problem with Civ 6. The game should be fun, not nearly impossible to win. But I often see people complaining about the fact that they can win the game and declaring that it needs changes to make that more difficult.

When I look at the expansion for example, the loyalty system seemed to have the primary goal of adding another layer of difficulty to the game. I think this was accomplished, but I don't think it made the game more fun.

The game should be easy to win on lower levels and nearly impossible to win at higher levels. Otherwise, why have the difficulty tiers at all?

The people who are asking for the game to be more difficult are mostly asking for the AI to represent more of a challenge at the higher difficulty levels, Deity in particular. They aren't asking to make your life more difficult if you find the game a suitable challenge for you right now. That's what Settler, Prince, etc. are for.

I for one find that Loyalty was a huge step forward, and is lacking only in that the system needs to be made more robust. It definitely makes the game play experience more fun, and I'm looking forward to what can be done with this base system going forward. That said, I also think it would be nice if the developers offered an option to turn the Loyalty system off, just as you can disable Barbarians, for those who prefer a different game experience.

 

[Chibisuke]

The problem is, a game like Civ is generally going to involve using specific strategies to win. The designers can set up the game at the outset to be extremely challenging if not nearly impossible, and then players will figure out strategies to be able to overcome that challenge and win consistently. In this context, the difficulty is in learning and executing the strategy.

What happens here is that once a bunch of players have figured out the strategy and become very good at executing it, people start to say "This is too easy. Make it more impossible." So the devs can add some new gimmick to make it harder. Then people figure out the strategy for that. Then those same people say "This is too easy, make it more impossible."

We get into a loop of the devs trying to figure out new gimmicks to make the game more impossible, and apparently the complaining types won't be satisfied until it is literally impossible to win.

In my opinion, people should be saying "Make the game more fun." Also, the fun at top difficulty levels should come from learning and carefully executing the strategy (or coming up with your own unique strategy), not because you can't win. This has been my experience playing on deity. It's the same with most games. I've played MMORPGs and it's the same. Highest difficulty raiding involves learning strategies and executing them very precisely. The fun comes from honing your skill, not because success is virtually impossible.

So this is why I think Civ devs should be focusing on making the game more fun.

 

[AlannaT]

In my opinion, people should be saying "Make the game more fun." Also, the fun at top difficulty levels should come from learning and carefully executing the strategy (or coming up with your own unique strategy), not because you can't win. This has been my experience playing on deity. It's the same with most games. I've played MMORPGs and it's the same. Highest difficulty raiding involves learning strategies and executing them very precisely. The fun comes from honing your skill, not because success is virtually impossible.

If this was how diety worked I guess most people including me would be happy, but it's not. I don't have to play any strategy "carefully" or "very precisely" to win at diety. I can make quite some mistakes and/or sloppy plays and still win at diety - as long as I survive the early game. Those first 20-40 turns that are really unforgiving and a few wrong decisions can indeed end in defeat. But after that you can play without being especially careful or thoughtful or micromanagement-heavy and still win. And IMO that's not fitting for a difficulty level called "diety".

I certainly wouldn't be mad or discouraged or anything if I couldn't manage a Diety win and would instead be stuck at Immortal for challenging games and King/Emperor for more relaxed rounds.

If I was to define "diety": To win at this difficulty a player needs deep understanding of the game mechanics and willingness to extensively micromanagement and to use (exploit) every advantage he can get. Even then victory should not be certain. Any mistake or suboptimal play should severely lessen the chance of victory.

If THAT was Civ6's diety I would have tried it and failed it and would be perfectly alright with that. Maybe I would get ambitious and optimize my gameplay until I manage one diety win and then would never play that difficulty again (cause too much work and too little fun for me). But I would have a sense of accomplishment that I managed to beat diety and that's something that's surely missing at the moment.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

So even your allies would DoW you just because you are winning? I feel like that would be too gamey. It would also make diplomacy rather pointless. Why even bother making friends if they are all going to turn on you in the end?

To be fair, this is a 100% honest representation of action per how the rules of Civ 6 work. You only have one winner. Why even bother making friends if they're going to win and you're going to lose?

The answer is when someone else is a greater threat to win, and otherwise almost never (unless you can trick someone into believing you're not top threat to win for some leverage). But Firaxis likes to play pretend, creating a diplo system dishonest to the mechanics of the game.

No, of course not. It's universally accepted in action/shooting/adventure/RPG/racing/etc

Quote is unquestionably false. It's true in some of games of these genres, but nowhere near universal. RPGs on average become easier as you progress (more options --> more imbalanced combinations). Many shooters are either pure MP affairs or close. Even in action games, you're consistently rewarded for playing well, you progress.

In essence, the player should not be "punished for success", but neither should his opponents just sit there and not try. I'm against mechanics that equalize skill by tamping down on player progress via straight untenable mechanical interference.

However, unless the rules of the game change massed dogpiles on a runaway are warranted and this will frequently be the player. This would be the difficulty analogous to harder levels in a platformer.

I don't think the game needs a mechanic that causes all AI to declare war on you. That would just be too much of a gimmick to me and despite what some people have said, I don't think there is a difficulty problem with Civ 6. The game should be fun, not nearly impossible to win. But I often see people complaining about the fact that they can win the game and declaring that it needs changes to make that more difficult.

If devs don't want a game where all AI declare war on a winning player, they should not dishonestly (even to themselves) create a game where the mechanics dictate that such is the obvious move. Creating a fixed system with rules and win conditions and then opting to make the AI not play that game and instead throw is the kind of cognitive dissonance that makes "late game problems" impossible to resolve. You need to fix the incoherent reasoning in design or the end game can't improve.

They didn't, and they didn't really try. The mechanics scream that. The problem is that the game mechanics do not align with what is perceived to be "fun" if the AI actually tries. While civ 6 made it worse by forgoing end user experience, this problem dates back to before Shafer and Beach and has been consistent throughout Civ's history. Devs don't want to make mechanics where AI acting on actual game incentives is "fun" by their own estimation, so they make a game their own AI doesn't play. Stale late game will continue until that changes.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

The problem is, a game like Civ is generally going to involve using specific strategies to win. The designers can set up the game at the outset to be extremely challenging if not nearly impossible, and then players will figure out strategies to be able to overcome that challenge and win consistently. In this context, the difficulty is in learning and executing the strategy.

What happens here is that once a bunch of players have figured out the strategy and become very good at executing it, people start to say "This is too easy. Make it more impossible." So the devs can add some new gimmick to make it harder. Then people figure out the strategy for that. Then those same people say "This is too easy, make it more impossible."

We get into a loop of the devs trying to figure out new gimmicks to make the game more impossible, and apparently the complaining types won't be satisfied until it is literally impossible to win.

In my opinion, people should be saying "Make the game more fun." Also, the fun at top difficulty levels should come from learning and carefully executing the strategy (or coming up with your own unique strategy), not because you can't win. This has been my experience playing on deity. It's the same with most games. I've played MMORPGs and it's the same. Highest difficulty raiding involves learning strategies and executing them very precisely. The fun comes from honing your skill, not because success is virtually impossible.

So this is why I think Civ devs should be focusing on making the game more fun.

I disagree with most of this. People are disappointed with the difficulty level of Civ 6 partially because it's far easier than past iterations of Civ, mostly because people aren't able to choose a difficulty level that gives them an interesting challenge. I can beat Civ 5 regularly and easily at Emperor, have a good challenge at Immortal, but even after 1000s of hours of playing it, struggle to win consistently at Deity. I couldn't beat Civ 1 Deity at all, and doubt I could even today. Civ 6 is entirely different.

It's not about "gimmicks". Nor is it about making the game nearly impossible to win for other players. It's about making higher difficulty levels a challenge, where you know you have to make good decisions consistently to beat the AI.

Would it be a gimmick for the AI to build and use airforce, to make late game conflict more challenging? Would it be a gimmick for the AI to be more aggressive on the attack in the later part of the game? After the ancient era, the only thing I need to check when I'm declared war on is whether I have any builders I need to move. The AI is non-threatening militarily after the ancient era, and that is brand new to Civ 6, not something that early editions suffered from. Would it be a gimmick for the AI to choose and pursue a victory objective effectively, so that you knew you had to hit your own victory conditions within a certain period of time (short for deity, long for prince)? You could still choose to disable victory (or continue to play "one more turn") if that's the experience you want. Not everybody wants to play "sandbox" mode every game. That's what Settler is for, not Deity.

Civ 6 has some good intentions in this regard. The idea of having to "play the map", i.e. adapt your strategy to the situation around you, is one I agree with. but execution is something else entirely.

Creating a more challenging AI to beat is what would make the game more fun.

 

[LuckyAC]

Its true all you have to do is survive the beginning of the game, but it's not even really about it being unforgiving - if an aggressive civ is on your doorstep and DoWs early, then you'll be dead (or severely crippled) if you didn't prepare. If that doesn't happen though, you can play very sloppily and be fine.

The ideal, more important than raising difficulty (although that would be nice) would be for optimal strategies to vary significantly depending on your start and the actions of the opponents.

 

[Chibisuke]

That is a good point, Civ 6 is currently set up to frontload the challenge on deity to the beginning. I think it is more than first 20-40 turns though. It's more like first 50-100. You can still lose at that point if you don't build up adequate defense since the AI tends to send a Knight rush between turns 70-100, which could very easily wipe you out. Also, if you start between certain opponents (i.e. start between Mongols, Sumeria and Scythia) you could get triple rushed at any moment. You also have to get lucky enough not to be forward settled by more than 2 civs or you could get pinched during your initial growth just due to how fast the AI grows on deity. Even getting forward settled by 2 civs can be crippling, since you might get a DoW by the 2nd one while you are attacking the 1st.

There are a lot of ways you can get messed up on deity in the first 100 turns.

That being said, yes they could do things for the later game to keep the challenge alive. I gave an example. Make city states more dangerous. Give them the ability to expand and attack. World wars could disrupt your victory conditions. That is another good idea. I think there are ways to smooth out the experience other than just "make more impossible."

 

[TheMeInTeam]

^ The single hardest thing about Civ 4 deity was that it won the game decently fast while constraining the player. If Firaxis makes Civ 6 AI win the game faster, it will put a lot more pressure on the player. It certainly gets the tech lead in the short run.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

^ The single hardest thing about Civ 4 deity was that it won the game decently fast while constraining the player.

I would say that was also true of Civ 5. And it's the biggest reason why Civ 6, for all of it's new and fun additions, isn't for me as enjoyable a game (yet - I hope).

 

[Zaarin]

I am very adamantly against the idea of your allies suddenly turning on you just because you're winning. That's ridiculously game-y. The diplomatic penalties for approaching a science victory are already too much. IMO the AI shouldn't "play to win"; the AI should play competently to provide rivals, friends, and enemies for the player. If you want to be challenged by a bloodthirsty psychopath who will destroy everyone on his path to victory, go play multiplayer.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I don't understand this mentality. In Super Mario, the later levels are harder than the beginning ones; is that game punishing you for winning?

No, of course not. It's universally accepted in action/shooting/adventure/RPG/racing/etc... games that the difficulty curve needs to point up. Even turn based wargames (Advanced Wars or Panzer General) do that. But whenever someone suggests something like that in Civ, there's always someone complaining about "being punished for winning".

Well the challenges should be tougher, sure. I'm not sure about artificially making the player's car run slower because they happen to build it faster than everyone else's. There shouldn't be different rules because of where you are in the rankings.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

If you want to be challenged by a bloodthirsty psychopath who will destroy everyone on his path to victory, go play multiplayer.

Or randomly roll Shaka as your neighbour

I agree that the AI should err on the side of role playing, rather than pursuing victory at all costs. I'd just like to see it pursue it's own victory more competently than it currently does. And in a different manner based on who the AI is. Saladin on your border should pose a different type of challenge to deal with than Genghis.

Winning a science victory if you've survived the early eras and played the diplomacy game well enough to maintain friends and allies should still be a challenge because Teddy's gunning for a culture victory and the Bruce is also building Mars components and Catherine's spies are disrupting your economy.

Those are things I'm confident the AI can be designed to achieve, with the time it takes the AI to do so varying by difficulty level.

 

[Chibisuke]

Also, one thing I do to make the game more fun is turn off the science victory. In my opinion, science victory IS too easy. If it is available, I will simply complete it and I can pretty much be guaranteed to win the science victory on any difficulty level.

Culture and domination are a bit more difficult and time consuming.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Also, one thing I do to make the game more fun is turn off the science victory. In my opinion, science victory IS too easy. If it is available, I will simply complete it and I can pretty much be guaranteed to win the science victory on any difficulty level.

Culture and domination are a bit more difficult and time consuming.

You can also try forcing yourself to get a religion by building a Holy Site as your first district and running prayers until you get your Great Prophet. On Deity, I find that slows me down a lot, but also takes away a lot of the fun of the early game exploring and positioning for territory.

 

[shaglio]

Or randomly roll Shaka as your neighbour

I agree that the AI should err on the side of role playing, rather than pursuing victory at all costs. I'd just like to see it pursue it's own victory more competently than it currently does. And in a different manner based on who the AI is. Saladin on your border should pose a different type of challenge to deal with than Genghis.

Winning a science victory if you've survived the early eras and played the diplomacy game well enough to maintain friends and allies should still be a challenge because Teddy's gunning for a culture victory and the Bruce is also building Mars components and Catherine's spies are disrupting your economy.

Those are things I'm confident the AI can be designed to achieve, with the time it takes the AI to do so varying by difficulty level.

I agree. In the endgame, civs shouldn't be declaring war on you just because you're winning. They should declare war on you because they're trying for a Domination Victory, or because you keep converting their cities to your religion, or you have a Strategic Resource that you refuse to trade them, or you have nice Great Works that they feel would look better in their display cases.

 

[Patine]

I'm seeing this as well. My current game has had several World Wars, but not much action. Too bad the AI can't be poked with a stick and forced to fight.

Though the Mongols did have some action late game, and took a couple of cities, which they then lost to loyalty. That was enough to send Romans last city to free cities. Those 3 free cities were conquered and lost a few times, and eventually settled into the Mongol and Aztec empires. Poor AI can't manage loyalty at all.

I'm still in the middle of my conquer the world game, but wait for the information era to do it (I actually just waited until I finished the tech tree, the world hasn't quite hit information era yet). So we'll see if I can manage the loyalty. I've had to delay a wonder (and a ship and plane) in the Modern era to the Atomic era to ensure I can get golden age for the last age of the game

Although I'm well aware Civ6 is a much more complex engine, in Civ2, the AI players viciously attack each other like hives of wasps, capture each others cities with abandon, have units flickering across the map at each other, and tear each other apart, many times regardless of what your doing. That sort of AI vs. AI aggression needs to be made possible again.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Although I'm well aware Civ6 is a much more complex engine, in Civ2, the AI players viciously attack each other like hives of wasps, capture each others cities with abandon, have units flickering across the map at each other, and tear each other apart, many times regardless of what your doing. That sort of AI vs. AI aggression needs to be made possible again.

If I am remembering correctly, civ2 had infinite movement on railroads and the enemy could use them too. This made it ridiculously easy for units to zip across the map and capture multiple cities in just a couple turns.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I am very adamantly against the idea of your allies suddenly turning on you just because you're winning. That's ridiculously game-y.

Playing the game is gamey, and that's as much of an answer as that particular "argument" needs .

The diplomatic penalties for approaching a science victory are already too much. IMO the AI shouldn't "play to win"; the AI should play competently to provide rivals, friends, and enemies for the player. If you want to be challenged by a bloodthirsty psychopath who will destroy everyone on his path to victory, go play multiplayer.

The actions taken by competitors in a system should be consistent with that system. If you think getting dogpiled because you're near science is "gamey", then you think Civ 6 is gamey period. That's the only coherent logical progression.

That's what the mechanics dictate if your competitors are trying to win. The game has only one winner. It didn't have to be designed this way, and I'd argue it shouldn't have been designed this way.

But it was. The AI in Civ 6 should play Civ 6, not something else. It's always been interesting to me that this is a controversial notion.

I agree that the AI should err on the side of role playing, rather than pursuing victory at all costs.

If you want "role play AI", then the game should have mechanics where said role play is a valid part of the game's progression. "Role play" that runs counter to a win condition is throwing. Don't like that? Then the devs should not create self-contradicting mechanics and actions.

I agree. In the endgame, civs shouldn't be declaring war on you just because you're winning.

Makes no sense. If you win, they can't.