Will some AI Civs even be able to progress Exploration Age Economic Legacy Path?

Except they are... with the Era change all civs have the same technology.
Its there only to represent how the new world original civs steal the tech from the old world civs, like with indigenous people learned to use guns?
Developers didnt really thought it out at all rationally, but it can at least be explained?

I wonder what drove Firaxis doing silly decisions like this.
 
I am surprised to read about this concept. Wasn't Firaxis all out to give more weight to indigenous civs, to get them represented in a much better light? This idea now sounds terrible to me if 'new world' civs are confined to be there to be exploited economically. I mean that's what unfortunately happened in our history, but wasn't civilization supposed to play out an alternative history. Crazy stuff
 
I am surprised to read about this concept. Wasn't Firaxis all out to give more weight to indigenous civs, to get them represented in a much better light? This idea now sounds terrible to me if 'new world' civs are confined to be there to be exploited economically. I mean that's what unfortunately happened in our history, but wasn't civilization supposed to play out an alternative history. Crazy stuff
I think it's just they hadn't worked it out yet.... making the Distant Land mechanics symmetrical doesn't entirely work when one side is more crowded than the other... they won't really be symmetrical. (still It should be mechanically symmetrical even if it is not balanced. [and certain map types Could be balanced].... ie All civs in one homeland, More in one Land:less in others, OR equal amounts in each Land.
 
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I wonder if Firaxis could program it so that AI civs that start on "distant lands" treat their continent as the "home continent" and treat the player's "home continent" as "distant lands". Basically, whichever continent you start on is your "home continent" and the other continent is "distant lands" for the purposes of gameplay. That way, all civs could do treasure fleets, they would just send them to different continents.
 
I think it's just they hadn't worked it out yet.... making the Distant Land mechanics symmetrical doesn't entirely work when one side is more crowded than the other... they won't really be symmetrical. (still It should be mechanically symeetrical even if it is not balanced. [and certain map types Could be balanced].... ie All civs in one homeland, More in one Land:less in others, OR equal amounts in each Land.

Yeah, I think the natural balance seems to be 2/3 of civs start in the home lands, and 1/3 start in distant lands (4 vs 2 in a standard/small game). Meaning that in a typical map, the home lands will probably be full when exploration opens up, but there's probably going to be some empty space to sneak in to the distant lands. Even if you gave both sides the same mechanism, it'd be a lot harder for a New World power to be able to find a tract of land to be able to get treasure fleets out from, other than sending an invasion force.

Even if you opened up the mechanism to work both ways, it feels like the New World civs in a default setup are at such a disadvantage that it doesn't really make sense. I'd rather they just have a different VC they aim for in that era. It might even open up some new gameplay options to create some exploration era civs with extra bonuses to defending that way.
 
What about not having Distant Land civs at all? Just more independent powers. Like in mp. Because i don't think DL civs will be possible there.
 
I wonder if Firaxis could program it so that AI civs that start on "distant lands" treat their continent as the "home continent" and treat the player's "home continent" as "distant lands". Basically, whichever continent you start on is your "home continent" and the other continent is "distant lands" for the purposes of gameplay. That way, all civs could do treasure fleets, they would just send them to different continents.
That just makes perfect sense. But, are you saying that's not the way it is?
 
Yeah, I think the natural balance seems to be 2/3 of civs start in the home lands, and 1/3 start in distant lands (4 vs 2 in a standard/small game). Meaning that in a typical map, the home lands will probably be full when exploration opens up, but there's probably going to be some empty space to sneak in to the distant lands. Even if you gave both sides the same mechanism, it'd be a lot harder for a New World power to be able to find a tract of land to be able to get treasure fleets out from, other than sending an invasion force.

Even if you opened up the mechanism to work both ways, it feels like the New World civs in a default setup are at such a disadvantage that it doesn't really make sense. I'd rather they just have a different VC they aim for in that era. It might even open up some new gameplay options to create some exploration era civs with extra bonuses to defending that way.
The only difference with the Distant Lands is the space

That’s why I think the Economic one needs an additional way (Get points by colonizing and shipping back home OR establishing a trade route and shipping to them…get points on both sides in that case)

But the military one doesn’t…because you get a bonus for conquered settlements. (settle 6 or conquer 3 if they are your religion)
 
I wonder if Firaxis could program it so that AI civs that start on "distant lands" treat their continent as the "home continent" and treat the player's "home continent" as "distant lands". Basically, whichever continent you start on is your "home continent" and the other continent is "distant lands" for the purposes of gameplay. That way, all civs could do treasure fleets, they would just send them to different continents.
I mean, that IS the solution. How is it so difficult to code that little tweak in?

it's weird to me that you come up with this entire system of Homelands and Distant Lands, use it for a Victory Condition for the Player, and then NOT think about the ramifications it has for the AIs from the Distant Lands before you even code it in.

Were they on a time crunch?
 
I mean, that IS the solution. How is it so difficult to code that little tweak in?

it's weird to me that you come up with this entire system of Homelands and Distant Lands, use it for a Victory Condition for the Player, and then NOT think about the ramifications it has for the AIs from the Distant Lands before you even code it in.

Were they on a time crunch?
The question came up during the livestream, and I think they said that it was something that they might like to add eventually? I remember thinking the answer was a bit odd at the time, I couldn't really parse whether there was a deeper reasoning or if there had been past discussion on the matter, or if they hadn't really considered it.
 
It really is hard to fathom, and it makes it feel like some of the civs in the game aren't full-fledged rivals, but are just flavor: mostly waiting around for you to discover them once the Age of Exploration arrives. And that, additionally, has this icky lingering subtext from our-world's colonialist period and its authorizing presuppositions.

But viewing it just from a game standpoint: Really fundamental to my sense of a Civ game is that all civs are starting out together in the year 4000 and developing as their leadership allows, and that my game is fundamentally a matter of how well I do relative to them: that we're all playing the same game according to exactly the same principles from the very start.

I don't want to start playing Sorry with red, green and yellow, and have blue just show up (out of the blue, ha ha) having been playing by its own rules for the first third of the game-time, and now awkwardly integrating with the other three colors.
 
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It really is hard to fathom, and it makes it feel like some of the civs in the game aren't full-fledged rivals, but are just flavor: mostly waiting around for you to discover them once the Age of Exploration arrives. And that, additionally, has this icky lingering subtext from our-world's colonialist period and its authorizing presuppositions.

But viewing it just from a game standpoint: Really fundamental to my sense of a Civ game is that all civs are starting out together in the year 4000 and developing as their leadership allows, and that my game is fundamentally a matter of how well I do relative to them: that we're all playing the same game according to exactly the same principles from the very start.

I don't want to start playing Sorry with red, green and yellow, and have blue just show up (out of the blue, ha ha) having been playing by its own rules for the first third of the game-time, and now awkwardly integrating with the other three colors.
Well that weren't playing by different rules in Antiquity (they can snipe your Wonders).... but unfortunately they ARE playing by different rules in exploration (since their Capital is in the Distant Lands and so 2 victory point paths are blocked for them.
 
Good point. I'll develop a different boardgame analogy.
 
Civs in distant lands could get a negative relationship modifier with civs from homelands, and get Economic legacy points from capturing settlement with treasure resources.
 
As I said in my OP, there are lots of things they could or might do in the future. My purpose for this thread was to discuss what the game will likely be at launch and as far as we know, this mechanic will not work for distant land AI.

Honestly, when you really dig into the details of how a lot of systems work, it looks more and more like a lot of the game is designed to give the appearance that the AI is playing and being competitive but actually it's all just "smoke and mirrors." The AI science progress will be bumped up to be on par with the player and military units (except generals) will be removed at the start of every age, some AI can't make treasure fleets, etc. It's like they knew they couldn't make AI play well so just decided to periodically "reset the board." Again and again we are seeing the game just tries to give the appearance that the AI is keeping up but it's all faked. Maybe they figure this makes a better experience by keeping the player from snowballing to the point where victory is certain but I think it's less fun.

Obviously this is all speculation and we won't really know until we play. I am optimistic and still looking forward to playing.
 
The AI science progress will be bumped up to be on par with the player and military units (except generals) will be removed at the start of every age,
I’m under the impression that armies are moved out of borders at era transition, but had not notice AI units being deleted. Is this confirmed (it would be terrible)? Whether it feels like AI is being bumped up on science will depend on if one plays at a difficulty where they eclipse the AI in all things.

Back to DL/HL, for symmetric gameplay to capture the intended effect, I think they would need to do one of two things:

1) Have more islands and smaller IP only continents that both sides could vie over.

2) Add a mechanism to limit Antiquity expansion, to leave abundant space on both continents shores. This could just be bigger maps, or some kind of distance-from-capital penalty in Antinquity, perhaps with civs starting clustered together WRT overall continent size. HK and Millenia both slowed expansion in ways that are a little more anathema to Civ, but maybe settler cost needs to scale more aggressively with each one.
 
As I said in my OP, there are lots of things they could or might do in the future. My purpose for this thread was to discuss what the game will likely be at launch and as far as we know, this mechanic will not work for distant land AI.

Honestly, when you really dig into the details of how a lot of systems work, it looks more and more like a lot of the game is designed to give the appearance that the AI is playing and being competitive but actually it's all just "smoke and mirrors." The AI science progress will be bumped up to be on par with the player and military units (except generals) will be removed at the start of every age, some AI can't make treasure fleets, etc. It's like they knew they couldn't make AI play well so just decided to periodically "reset the board." Again and again we are seeing the game just tries to give the appearance that the AI is keeping up but it's all faked. Maybe they figure this makes a better experience by keeping the player from snowballing to the point where victory is certain but I think it's less fun.

Obviously this is all speculation and we won't really know until we play. I am optimistic and still looking forward to playing.

To be honest, this is basically how all difficulty works in strategy games - there are very few strategy-focused games where you can both code an AI that is competitive with the player, and where that AI will take a reasonable amount of time to execute its code. The games that do fit both of those tend to be simpler, as that tends to make AI much easier to code. There's definitely ways to make the systems work better for the AI - that seems like it's what they're doing for stuff like commanders, removing micro on stuff like switching citizens around, etc. A game can be designed with that in mind from the ground up and have a much better AI - but it'll almost certainly still have these 'smoke and mirror' tricks to try and ensure players have a good time regardless. I'm not upset - it's still making the gameplay more challenging without introducing things that get in the way of the fun, which is fundamentally what I'm looking for with harder AI.
 
I’m under the impression that armies are moved out of borders at era transition, but had not notice AI units being deleted. Is this confirmed (it would be terrible)? Whether it feels like AI is being bumped up on science will depend on if one plays at a difficulty where they eclipse the AI in all things.

Back to DL/HL, for symmetric gameplay to capture the intended effect, I think they would need to do one of two things:

1) Have more islands and smaller IP only continents that both sides could vie over.

2) Add a mechanism to limit Antiquity expansion, to leave abundant space on both continents shores. This could just be bigger maps, or some kind of distance-from-capital penalty in Antinquity, perhaps with civs starting clustered together WRT overall continent size. HK and Millenia both slowed expansion in ways that are a little more anathema to Civ, but maybe settler cost needs to scale more aggressively with each one.
Antiquity expansion is already limited. And I think imbalanced approaches are fine.
(as long as you can get treasure fleets peacefully from a trade route to a distant land civ)

That way…
if you are in the “crowded lands” you most easily progress military+economic victories by settling in the “empty lands”

if you are in the “empty lands” you most easily progress military+economic victories by either conquering some of the “crowded lands” or establishing trade routes to exchange treasure fleets.
 
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