[GS] Will the late game matter?

[bonafide11]

I am super pumped for "Gathering Storm" so don't get me wrong, but one concern I have in the back of my mind is that all of the new, cool features for the late game will be irrelevant because the game will always be won by then. Do you think the expansion will be able to keep the game close for that long? Even on Deity, the game is usually won before you reach the modern or even postmodern era.

 

[Disgustipated]

victories are being reworked according to the video. The only victory that I can see the human player achieving early is the conquest victory.

 

[darkace77450]

victories are being reworked according to the video. The only victory that I can see the human player achieving early is the conquest victory.

Religious victories can be achieved quite fast. But as you referenced, the science and cultural victories are probably being reworked in a way that slows the time to victory down a bit.

 

[Disgustipated]

Yeah I'm not sure how they could slow down religious victory. Or even if they want to. If they start messing around with Apostle faith costs, that will impact other areas of the game not related to religious victory.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I am guessing that the new science victory will now require you research some of the new future techs. That would be a good way to force the game into the late game.

 

[bonafide11]

My points is more: prolonging the game without making it more competitive doesn't really make it fun. If I can't win until 50 turns later, but I have had double the score for 150 turns, what fun is it? Civ has never been good at making the games stay competitive by the late game, so what's going to change it now?

 

[bite]

It will depend on the victories, but also I often play out to the end game, so I don't think it will be an issue

 

[AriochIV]

My games also go until the later eras, but they still don't matter, as the game was actually won long before then; it just takes forever for the cultural and scientific victories to actually end the game. I think the hope is that the changes will actually make the late eras matter, about which I'm doubtful.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Honestly, I don't think a competitive late game is the goal anyway. I think the devs are focused on adding "cool stuff" that they hope will create an interesting "just one more turn" experience for the player. The hope is that the player will play the late game because they enjoy the features.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Honestly, I don't think a competitive late game is the goal anyway. I think the devs are focused on adding "cool stuff" that they hope will create an interesting "just one more turn" experience for the player. The hope is that the player will play the late game because they enjoy the features.

Agreed. I believe they're all in on Civ as a simulation. For the civfanatics who want that, I hope they've done a good job with the new features, and found a way to make the late game interesting.

If the AI is as much a patsy in the diplomacy game as it is militarily, I'm not sure they'll succeed. I'm not sure anyone will find it interesting to accumulate the new diplomacy points just to make the AI do what you want, without the AI also trying to force you to do things you don't want to do. I would assume, therefore, that a lot of AI time will have gone into that system.

 

[acluewithout]

I am super pumped for "Gathering Storm" so don't get me wrong, but one concern I have in the back of my mind is that all of the new, cool features for the late game will be irrelevant because the game will always be won by then. Do you think the expansion will be able to keep the game close for that long? Even on Deity, the game is usually won before you reach the modern or even postmodern era.

My games also go until the later eras, but they still don't matter, as the game was actually won long before then; it just takes forever for the cultural and scientific victories to actually end the game. I think the hope is that the changes will actually make the late eras matter, about which I'm doubtful.

Honestly, I don't think a competitive late game is the goal anyway. I think the devs are focused on adding "cool stuff" that they hope will create an interesting "just one more turn" experience for the player. The hope is that the player will play the late game because they enjoy the features.

Agreed. I believe they're all in on Civ as a simulation. For the civfanatics who want that, I hope they've done a good job with the new features, and found a way to make the late game interesting.

If the AI is as much a patsy in the diplomacy game as it is militarily, I'm not sure they'll succeed. I'm not sure anyone will find it interesting to accumulate the new diplomacy points just to make the AI do what you want, without the AI also trying to force you to do things you don't want to do. I would assume, therefore, that a lot of AI time will have gone into that system.

Let's wait and see.

It looks like the changes to resources mean you wont be able to have such a huge standing army any more. Combine that with the existing loyalty mechanics, natural disasters, and whatever AI bonuses are (they may or may not have been revised), and it may be conquering the world could be a lot harder.

I also think that, depending on what is added to the game in the next Expansion, it may be that if the game isn't "hard" enough then modders might be able to bridge the gap.

I think there are really good reasons to be hopeful.

We're I think GF might be a little underwhelming could be around Governors and the Government Plaza. So far, it looks like we still have our very boring Governors and First Tier Government Plaza buildings. That's a bit of a shame, but if everything else is solid it's probably not a big deal. Governors and GP are something that could certainly be addressed in a patch and or dlc and or third expansion.

The other place where I think things may be, well, underwhelming, is the joining up of various systems. I'm not sure Tourism for example is going to have wider affects, although they say they've overhauled the Culture Victory so I'm happy to wait for that one.

Frankly, for my part, I'm really just looking for three maybe five things at a minimum. Fix England. Fix Anti-Cav and Pikes. Fix Industrial Zones and IZ buildings. Without those, a lot of the base Vanilla content of the game really doesn't work. You could add onto that Fix Walls (which would really help Georgia) and Fix AI using planes. So far, it's looking promising on all those.

 

[Tomice]

Civ has never been good at making the games stay competitive by the late game, so what's going to change it now?

The civ AI was never competitive during lategame due to frontloaded bonuses - overhaul mods improved that repeatedly, but Firaxis doesn't learn.
If most of the difficulty bonus consists of free settlers, units, and even techs, it's just natural that the AI is extremely dangerous at game start and quickly falls behind once you've caught up.

IMHO, the AI should only get enough starting bonus that they can' be easily rushed.
Their ongoing bonuses should scale by era, however (e.g. start with 20% research bonus, get 10% more each era).

Example (from https://civ6.gamepedia.com/Game_difficulty):
On Deity, the AI gets:
Starting bonus: 4 techs, 4 civics, 2 extra settlers, 4 extra warriors, 2 workers
Ongoing bonus: +32% tech/culture/faith, +80% gold/production

So I'd take away at least one of the free settlers and some of the free techs/civics (which also prevent peaceful players from expanding, founding a religion and getting an early wonder, resulting in warmongering dominance on higher difficulties).
Instead, the tech bonus could be significantly higher than 32% later on (as the AI will never optimize their cities as we do). An increasing bonus would also allow AI's to catch up, even if you overtook them once.
Also, I'd give free workers when they found a city instead of 2 free workers at game start. Lack of proper infrastructure was always a weakness of the Civ AI, and an immersion-breaker on top of it.
As far as I'm concerned, a newly founded AI city on deity could get up to 2 free workers, 1 free military unit and a free granary or monument without breaking anything - it would help them more than a zillion % of production bonus they invest in stuff they'll never need.

Regarding conquest, we could give the AI a chance to spawn a free unit at their capital once they lose a city ("refugees regrouped and formed a resistance"). This would not only be immersive but also help against steamrolling the AI once you've won against their main army.
_______________________________

TLDR: The AI really needs bonuses that help them stay competitive past the point you've caught up with their headstart bonus (to avoid the "moment of inevitable success" for the player)

 

[Myomoto]

The addition of climate change is hopefully going to make the later game descision making more interesting, as you need to start building new infrastructure to protect your coastal cities, swap your energy production to renewables etc.

The World Congress will hopefully also make the weaker players in the game able to wrangle stronger players back in line, creating a more dynamic late game. We'll have to wait and see, but I'm quite positive that the later turns will be much less of a "next turn simulator" than currently.

 

[Victoria]

I'm not sure Tourism for example is going to have wider affects

I suspect they will bring back the culture bomb in some form

creating a more dynamic late game

If they can limit a large empires ability in the late game then it will be more dynamic but I suspect a large rich empire will be buying votes with flood relief and the like... quite realistic but not so dynamic.late game turns take soooo long

 

[Elhoim]

I've modded my game with the R&F modifiers for tech and civics before and after the current era so that techs from a previous era are 95% cheaper, and from a future one 100% more expensive. They would never implement something like this as players will cry "rubberband!", but it creates a more competitive game throughout the ages in which if you have high tech and civics you get a strong difference, but not so much that you are 2 eras ahead, and if you are left behind you can catch up faster.

In my case, I like the idea of a dynamic difficulty option that keeps the challenge more or less the same throughout the game. And keep the constant difficulty for competitive games.

 

[leandrombraz]

Yeah I'm not sure how they could slow down religious victory. Or even if they want to. If they start messing around with Apostle faith costs, that will impact other areas of the game not related to religious victory.

The problem with religion victory going too fast is the AI. If the AI showed some real resistance and actually tried to convert stuff back, it would take longer. As it's now, the AI is too busy crossing the map to convert CSs. What religion victory is missing is some resistance to hold you back.

 

[acluewithout]

I've modded my game with the R&F modifiers for tech and civics before and after the current era so that techs from a previous era are 95% cheaper, and from a future one 100% more expensive. They would never implement something like this as players will cry "rubberband!", but it creates a more competitive game throughout the ages in which if you have high tech and civics you get a strong difference, but not so much that you are 2 eras ahead, and if you are left behind you can catch up faster.

In my case, I like the idea of a dynamic difficulty option that keeps the challenge more or less the same throughout the game. And keep the constant difficulty for competitive games.

I honestly don’t get why Civ doesn’t do this. This is what actually happens in real life! Less technically advanced countries tech up faster by leveraging advances from more developed countries. Honestly, just look at how mobile phones have proliferated.

 

[bonafide11]

The other place where I think things may be, well, underwhelming, is the joining up of various systems. I'm not sure Tourism for example is going to have wider affects, although they say they've overhauled the Culture Victory so I'm happy to wait for that one.

Sigh... That is a good point. Tourism and religion already felt disjointed and just sort of systems that you didn't really notice at all during the games. Adding in more systems without bring those into the loop makes me a bit worried about the game becoming more disjointed. I really hope they can do something to make tourism actually noticeable and not just a number that goes higher without having any other effect on the game what-so-ever.

 

[Myomoto]

Sigh... That is a good point. Tourism and religion already felt disjointed and just sort of systems that you didn't really notice at all during the games. Adding in more systems without bring those into the loop makes me a bit worried about the game becoming more disjointed. I really hope they can do something to make tourism actually noticeable and not just a number that goes higher without having any other effect on the game what-so-ever.

They need to bring back ideaologies. Right now tourism does literally nothing besides go into a bucket. If you fill the bucket full - you win! If your opponent makes a lot of culture, the bucket becomes deeper.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

The late game would be more interesting if they add losing conditions that do not depend on ai winning such as too much enviroment damage.