Firaxis' big swing with Civilization VII? Convincing players to actually finish their games
Creative director Ed Beach says the number of player who completed games in Civilization VI was 'depressingly' low.
Interested to see how they implement this. I've always thought that the first 150 turns of Civ are a ton of fun, but eventually it turns into a slog. I've always wished there were more automation options in the late game, and faster processing of enemy turns.
Being able to form armies that move as one is already a great improvement that could reduce a lot of managing late game. Same with reinforcements which will find their way to the front alone in Civ VII.
After 150 turns it's only fun when you go to war a lot.
You can speed up the animations or deactivate them completely, which speeds up the gameplay immensely.
I'm primarily a Civ 5 player and my issue is not with quick movement or quick combat (both on, of course) but the actual time to process enemy turns. It's a 14 year old game running on my absolute monster of a gaming PC, but it's still sluggish, especially with larger maps with more opponents. I can't imagine the Civ AI is that computationally intensive so I've never understood why it takes so long. I'd also like more customization options in cities so they auto-govern better in the late game, which is also a huge time suck especially when going dom.
It's 2024... Please fix the AI...
Biggest weakness in every civ game is the shitty AI that requires massive cheating, and terrible diplomacy (constantly making ridiculous demands, then getting mad and denouncing you if you dont hand over the goods)
Seriously. I remember first getting into Deity and realizing it's basically just exploiting intimate knowledge of how the AI works. The actual max difficulty is Prince, where the AI doesn't get bonuses, and it's so terrible at actually pursuing an agenda it's not very challenging.
I am a bit hopeful that VII's decoupling leaders and civs will force the AI to be a bit more generally good. At least make it so you don't know exactly what sort of tactics to use from the first turn you meet it.
The gameplay stretching out in later rounds is also what makes the AI so hard to improve. There is just too much to do and the effects are too complex to understand for a classic game AI. If they simplify the gameplay with the player progression into later ages it will also make the development of a competent AI more likely.
But to be honest: I doubt anything like that is going to happen. Even when controlling a planet wide empire I will have to decide what every city is going to do next and what every unit is going to do in the next turn...
Well thats kind of the point of my statement about "it's 2024"
I understand game AI is a complex problem. But it seems like we havent made any progress since civ3.... And we're right in the middle of an AI hype cycle... Can we not use AI for something useful like games? Instead of just making deepfakes, disinformation, and firing workers?
Honestly, I wouldn't mind if they made a version that just stays in one age indefinitely and lets you explore it in an open world sort of way?
Like take Minecraft. I played that for years without even knowing there is an end game, and it came as something of a shock when someone told me. You can finish Minecraft?!?
But then I was like meh, leave me alone. I'm trying to build Noah's Ark with a functioning village on top and a crystal waterfall down to the animal sanctuary below. And I still haven't completed the Mars colony. Wonder how the pandas are doing over there?
In the gameplay showcase, they said "every age can be played on its own, or woven together into a full campaign". So I expect you will be able to set up a game with one age and no turn limit. If not, that will be the very first mod.
IDK what it was, but Civ 6 just didn't do it for me. Going back to 5 I'll still easily get through a 20 hour game, but something about 6 I can't get past even mid game.
I have nearly 1500 hours played in Civ V. Never completed a single Civ VI game. Hoping they rediscover whatever it was that made 5 so great!
As someone who only ever played civ 6, I played one game for a whole week and never got bored.
So whatever draws you to civ 5, I am drawn in to civ 6 the same way.
I find that very interesting, considering you don't like it as much.
I played Civ 1 as a kid and civ 2 was a big improvement. Civ 3 I had to stop playing because it was interfering with my college. Civ 4 was my favorite and I played thousands of hours of it (after BtS) great modding scene too. Civ 5 was ok, but i found I played it the same way a lot. I did not like Civ 6 at all, mostly because of the AI, but also the civics system.
I am not especially confident in Civ 7, but I will reserve judgement. I often play 4x games multi-player and if they use the same DLC policy as Civ 6 I will probably give it a miss.
I never play Civ with the intention of finishing, that's a rare delight when all the stars and RNGs align... I play to see what a beautiful mess my imaginary world becomes before I run out of free time.
They shouldn't take it personally
Yeah and there comes a point where you know you can win, but don't want to go through all the turns to get there.
I think most chess games don't end with a checkmate, many games end when a player concedes because everyone knows the outcome and it's pointless to play it out.
I mostly played 2. It was simpler and had a lot of action. Later games became more tedious, I didn't think the advancements in diplomacy and other stuff were good enough to displace that.
On the other hand I never really wanted the games to end. Whenever I would get close to the end I would start playing in a way to delay the end.
There were pretty fantastic mods for 2. There was a Star Wars-themed one and that was the first time I realized a large empire could have a civil war.
However, my favorite one was an imagined continuation of the game in a different planet.
I liked 2, 3, 4, 5, & 6 and will probably like 7. Also, finishing games isn't that hard, as long as you're on a difficulty level you can handle.
It's not that it's hard, it's that it's not engaging or fun. The early/mid game is where most of the action happens and the end game is when you spend 40+ turns rolling enemy cities with your tank armies.
I’ve finished 3 games I think across Civ 4-6. Two were military victories and then one I tried to get one of the social victories, but then kept losing so I just built up my military and took over the world again.
Several thousand hours later, I’m still waiting to finish another. It’ll happen soon; just one more turn…
Missing out on the truest of Civ victories: declaring war on literally everyone and nuking their capitals one turn before you win a science victory
Nothing sweeter than imagine "fuck this shit I'm out" playing on loudspeakers all over the world as you board the rocket and look down at the smoking husk of a world you leave behind.
Firaxis' big swing: End of Civilization
"No more turns"
The idea that anyone finishes a game of Civilization is a myth.
Next thing they will say that we should have finished the main story quest in a TES game.
"Main Quest". What does that even mean? That's nonsense.
My introduction was the old Call to Power game. Still waiting for a Civ-like game that has a near-future age of gameplay. That was always the coolest part to me.
Feels like most of the similar games today are either historical/current or purely scifi. I like the transition point. To play out possible ways of advancing forward. How do we get from today to entering the stars? Those were fun scenarios to play out.
There's a couple of mods for civ that covers this I know, but they're all abandoned and somewhat buggy these days. Plus this sort of thing works best if the game is balanced around it to begin with.
CIV
Finish
Choose one. You fucked up Firaxis, you missed what made CIV great.
Ha, fat chance nerds!
Director had a wonderfully bad take about last two CIV games that’s still been on Steam’s daily concurrent top 100 games after all these years.
There are reasons RTS is superior to turn-based. These get old.