Age transitions being more of a reset

[void grove]

I made this post on the subreddit that encapsulates my thoughts: https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/1maapey/continuity_age_transitions_are_a_step_in_the/

TL:DR - There should be a mode for age transitions where you are limited to only a few of your previous settlements from the former era and have to build up again. I think it'd help capture the early-game feel of civ vii and give me a reason to explore the world more, especially in the exploration era. It also would deliver more on the fantasy of each civ transition being your empire bouncing back from crisis and evolving to combat a changing world.

[frosty sedge]

This could work pretty well especially with Spain and its Reconquista

[void grove]

yeah!

[pastel nexus]

It would definitely be a cool mode, along with better, brutal crises.

[craggy lark]

Thanks, I'm good. I actually like the continuity mode and consider it a big step forward from the reshuffling during age transition. I would prefer to keep the ages as a game mechanic but make the transitions more seamless.

[idle hemlock]

Agree 100%. IMHO, even before the continuity change, way too much was kept. The only thing you really lose is civic/tech bonuses.

A great deal of energy was expended going back and forth about adjacencies and building yields, but it’s mostly an illusion. The science/culture costs of the first tier of tech/civics in a new age are less than the third tier of the previous age, so it still scales much like previous Civ games.

I don’t like the continuity change, but the building yields is just a matter of changing the math up.

To really get to the core of what ages were supposed to do (reduce snowballing and micromanagement), you need to take a swing at the settlement sprawl.

I for one would love a “dramatic ages” mode where cities and armies are much more constricted through the transition.

[void grove]

I agree, absolutely. I just don't feel like age transitions deliver on the fantasy they're trying to sell, currently.

[mild cradle]

I like your suggestion as long as there is a way for the player to avoid the complete collapse scenario if you meet certain criteria. IMO that will make it very fun, almost like the triggering of new countries etc. in EU or CK. For example, the Barb antiquity crisis should be much harder but also have other venues to tackle them - you should be able to expend influence to pacify them as well as destroy them militarily, but doing the former should trigger further events around happiness and allow them to possibly break free again (maybe with some of your cities this time?) as the crisis continues. Make it HARD to win, but possible, and if you do make it through you should be rewarded for it. But it should be a gameplay thing not a "forced loss". Because people hate that.

[graceful anvil]

There is a need for an improvement in artificial intelligence for economic policies and internal policies. It shouldn't just be simple bonuses for food, resources, and governments, but rather dynamics and choices made by the player and the artificial intelligence. Then, a better diplomatic interface is needed: treaties that draw borders and create states, and then war: it is senseless for a war to go on for centuries without interruption; there wouldn't be enough men, and revolts or revolutions would break out, or the state's economy would collapse.

[void grove]

I could amenable to that, although ultimately I'd still want a soft-reset in that case to justify an entire civilization-switch during the age transition. It just doesn't really sell that to me otherwise if everything stays exactly the same after the transition.

[mild cradle]

Agreed. The two options I was thinking of are a soft reset akin to vanilla VII vs a harder reset akin to what you describe depending on player ability to counter a more difficult crisis.

To your point in the reddit post, I also do worry that Continuity has become the new default that the devs are leaving the original transition mechanic behind instead of improving it. I am all about choices so this isn't about adding the choice I think that was great. It is more about the game direction.

[void grove]

Yeah I'm worried about that too. I'm worried this is an attempt by the devs to appeal to the crowd of people who've already decided that they'll never like Civ VII instead of leaning into the direction they've already chosen for Civ VII and optimizing the experience to better deliver on the fantasy they've promised.

[smoky radish]

yoooo that idea is crazy good!!!!
1000% agree. I like transitions, they're exciting - but currently only after the transition. It feels like, well, starting a new game, sort-of. I'm the classic player with more 50-turn antiquity saves that I never continued than I count.

But the end of an era can be total drag. I always hope for riots at the end of an era - trying to put out a negative happiness fire, settlement rebellions, a surprise war; when not everything is in my control is when I'm having the most fun in civ!

But sometimes the end of an era just isn't exciting. If I don't need to finish the tech or civics tree, why put a new district anywhere? I've got the army I need, why build military 8buildings? I'm past the settlement cap, do I really need to start making 200 clicks a turn for conquest?

New angry Independent Peoples is engaging, but not threatening enough. Not always enticing. If my towns furthest from my capital rebel, though, and they don't just change factions - they turn Independent and hostile, that sounds like fun! And rather more realistic for both ages.

And if I'm playing on Deity with, I dunno, an Age Crisis Difficulty slider turned up, and I can't recapture every settlement (and maybe I did manage to take a neighbors)... that leads to an exciting new start, truly. Now I'm free to settle more settlements in Distant Lands - and I'm even more incentivized and able to do so, too. If I'm a civ that can spawn treasure fleets in the homelands, there's now more options for me - and more of a reason for other civs to deny me those options.

And what a better way to make a new civ feel like, well, a new civ! Out with the old, literally, and in with the new aye?

[solid tapir]

I agree that the continuity change has a lot of changes that feel like a step away from the identity that that civ 7 seemed to be going for. Things like removing the commander requirement to carry units over and making obsolete buildings better both feel like they remove a lot of the point of the age transition being a reset, and mechanics-wise, they also increase the amount that a player in the lead can keep snowballing across ages, making higher city/town ratios even better in the process. I do like being able to carry over boats and civilian units as well though.

In terms of crises being a reset, my biggest problem with them is how unequally they affect players, especially the players already snowballing into the lead. The happiness crisis has zero impact on someone playing peacefully and at the settlement cap, the plague crisis has less impact on someone with more cities (and sometimes just has no impact whatsoever) and the invasions crisis can be completely negated by having settled your available land. A better crisis system would need to, in my opinion, not just be more impactful but also have an equal affect on players instead of wrecking one empire while another feels no adverse effects from it

[lilac ember]

I'd rather we didn't have ages at all

[oblique saddle]

Well that isn't going to happen, thankfully. There's a thread about Classic Mode for those tired opinions but it's like asking for Civ6 without Districts IMHO.

I agree that too much is now carried over in age reset. Like the relative benefit of Golden Age Universities etc is now significantly more marginal with all building yields carrying over.

[lilac ember]

I think it will happen, it will just take time and probably launching alongside a expansion in the future. You have to admit, "civ classic" is a solid marketing line.

anyway, i hope u guys get what u want though

[mild cradle]

I don't see why we can't get both particularly now that they bifurcated into two modes, continuity and regroup. I just want to make sure they actually improve the "regroup" side now instead of just only fixing the continuity side.

[somber grotto]

Interesting that you are advocating the Ages be more of a reset. I think the majority of players would like to see the Age transitions be less of a reset.
If we get the ability to play a single Age (which is coming), Would that address your issue (with the transitions not being enough of a reset)? It would be starting out fresh.

[waxen knoll]

"Civ Classic" is simply playing previous titles. The benefit of the Civ franchise is the games haven't died. You can easily find strong communities surrounding the previous games and still run them fine on new systems. It would be a strange choice to take a Civ game that did something new and just make it the same as the old again.

[void grove]

That wouldn't, no. I'm talking about the base game mode of Civ VII, where you go from Antiquity -> Exploration -> Modern, and pick a new civ at the start of each age, and deal with different legacy paths/victory conditions in each age. I would like to see more of a shake up between each age, during the transition, a soft "reset" of sorts that lets you carry over rewards you've "earned" in the previous era, but otherwise has the game... not really "start over", but "start anew", you know? Like, have to deal with the ramifications of the crisis from the end of the last age and give me new objectives and strategies I have to deal with.

Like, my example in the reddit post is like, what if you didn't keep all your settlements in the age transition? To show that your old empire broke up and now you're building anew as a new empire? You have city states that are your old settlements maybe, and you can re-conquer them, diplomacy with them. Or maybe you decide not to and you focus on distant lands and settling somewhere new. I dunno, something just to re-capture the feeling of the first 50 or so turns of Civ that are, imo, some of the most interesting parts of the game. Where you're exploring the world, figuring out the bounds of your empire, and dealing with how to cement yourself in the situation that is the world you're in.

[somber grotto]

I saw one of devs talk about the age transitions in an interview. At one point, they were planning on deleting all your units and making you start over. But they knew people don't like losing things so decided to just move the units back to cities. At the time the game launched, you could still lose some military units if you didn't have enough commanders at the end of the age to pack them into. You also lost civilian units (I think that only recently changed). Also the decision to kick all cities except the capital back to towns was a controversial decision.
I don't think most players want the age transitions to be harsher than they already are. But maybe if the devs add a toggle at the setup screen in advanced options for "harder resets".

[graceful anvil]

Cultures do not always stay the same; cultures change slowly but they do change: the Quechua Aztec language did not end with the Spanish conquest. It continued and fused like Latin in Europe. It is necessary to restore ethnicity and culture as in civilization IV.

[lilac ember]

Not strange if the current version isn't popular and doesn't sell dlcs

[somber grotto]

I don't understand how that is a reply to what I said. I also don't get why you mentioned Civ 4. Or was that a typo?

[craggy lark]

Probably because Civ 4 was the last Civ that had some simulationist elements and he would like to see them come back. A lot of the current debate (e.g. on age transitions, but also on other aspects of the game like settlement limits) could benefit from the consideration of bringing back simulationist mechanics instead of gamey ones.

[somber grotto]

Well I feel like were getting off topic for this thread. Goth Sylvie suggested that the age transition be more of a reset. I already think it's so much of a reset it feels like I'm starting over already.
Which is why I suggested a toggle button on the setup screen. That way, Goth S. can get the harder reset and the rest of us can keep playing as is.
If I may suggest further, what if, turning the toggle option for harder resets on, you could pick which settlements you wanted to keep in the next age, and the number you got to keep was based on how many legacy points you earned? Maybe keep one settlement for every 4 legacy points (as an example).

[void grove]

I definitely thinking making it so what you start with in the next age depends on how well you did on your legacies makes sense, at least for vs AI

[graceful anvil]

A good artificial intelligence should evaluate the economy, the environment, the population, and their needs for government change and management of the game. Changes in government and possibly a change of era do not depend on the will of the players but on internal and external factors. The Seven Years' War bankrupted France, which lost in Canada and laid the groundwork for the French Revolution.

[rich sable]

Mate, you keep posting vague ai-related comments and nobody understands their relevance to these discussions lol. Is this an issue of a translation program or what is going on here

[graceful anvil]

Each government has different bonuses and penalties. But there are also events that determine occurrences, wars or revolutions, or civil wars. The changes of eras are also determined by economic systems, the ancient slave system is different from feudalism, and from the modern industrial system.

[spare compass]

Again @graceful anvil can you apply this to ingame mechanics? Or systems

[graceful anvil]

Both: how artificial intelligence makes a government choice. Legal system, depending on the situation, and what artificial intelligence considers the best bonuses.

[spare compass]

In terms of in game - explain how this looks

Because so far all I’m seeing is game needs better ai?

But how does this better work with the systems , that’s what your feedback needs to include. What mechanics change from your ideas? And how?

[rich sable]

For example, a feedback I gave about the game's AI a while back was about flaws in the pathfinding algorithm: #1357771195390628110 message. I gave a specific example, showed the problem case, and recommended a modification. That's the kind of thing nobody has been able to decipher from your posts - they don't actually talk about the game and they aren't, to be blunt, coherent. They read like AI-generated sentences about "historical strategy games" in general, not human written comment and feedback on this specific actual game.

[silver trench]

Advanced starts already kind of work this way and are pretty cool tbh. I could see that easily being extended to the age transition system but for existing settlements

I'm of two minds because I am a hardcore ages defender and want to see the concept pushed harder, but also I think the net effect of the building base yield and continuity changes has been that the game feels somewhat less gamey around the age transition

[graceful anvil]

A transition from one era to another cannot work without economic, historical, and political models influenced by technology, resources, and ideology.

[rich sable]

Can you please answer whether english is your first language, or at least a language you are fluent/capably conversant in or not? It does not seem like you are at all understanding the responses people are saying to you

[arctic furnace]

I think Firaxis is doing the right thing with Continuity. Age transition has been too intrusive. Prior to 1.2.3 I didn’t know what to do in the last 20-30 turns of an age because soon everything will be wiped anyway. There’s been no idea to go to war, no idea to build buildings, build wonders or save gold. And also since you don’t know exactly when the transition occurs it’s even worse.

There must be another way to prevent snowballing other than resetting everything during age transition. Maybe the AI could get smarter the more ahead you get, or other AI Civs starts really ganging up on you. Let’s say AI Civs once they get behind you starts to make alliances and unions to maintain the equilibrium?

[rich sable]

There are 0 games in existence that I know of that have solved snowballing by making the AI smarter (and I am an AI video game programmer who studies these kinds of things). It assumes that you can make the AI smarter than a human, which you largely can't, and that an AI that smart would still be fun to interact with, which it largely wouldn't be.

The anti snowballing objective also isn't just about the AI, it's about multiplayer also. So an AI specific solution simply can't replace a gameplay one here like you are proposing.

[plucky timber]

When I play 4X Board games, this problem is largely solved by weaker players ganging up on the stronger player. Easier in a board game, but surely something that could be the aim for a video game too. Making trade deals/alliances etc less likely for leading players, and the inverse for people in weaker positions. Of course you dont want to lock the leading player out of these mechanics so it would have to be thought about carefully.

[golden coyote]

What's wrong about snowballing? That's the point of playing good in previous ages, to have an advantage in the last one

[rich sable]

Snowballing tends to render the entire rest of a game pointless because it pulls the stakes out of everything - the conclusion is forgone so the path becomes a chore instead of an experience. It's why so many players don't complete modern age for example. Every game that has snowballing is in a constant fight to limit it, to let players believe they are experiencing snowballing without actually getting too far ahead.

This is one of those things where players, of all games, are just wrong about themselves. They enjoy the small time window of beginning to snowball and thus they don't realize all the other time windows that it made less fun. It's a widely acknowledged thing in every game where snowballing is a concept and all of those games try to limit it either by limiting snowballing, or by having snowballing lead to an efficient victory and entering a new game that has reset all of that.

None of that goes into multiplayer where the problem is even worse in all games, because the small fun gained by snowballing comes at the expense of other real people's enjoyment in addition to everything I said before.

[plucky timber]

The devs identified it as a problem from VI that they want to solve in VII (from their dev diary 1)

[golden coyote]

Oh yeah I agree with that, I didn't thought snowballing means as completely or almost unstoppable, Im in favour to have advantages based on your previous ages but I do agree to avoid pointless/time-wasting games

[graceful anvil]

And essentially what I continue to argue : simulated crises economic cici, serve to create a simulated history that avoids. The snowball effect simulating the rise and fall of a civilization, for this and, unused of a fixed leader in a game where there are civilizations and ideology that rise and fall

[rich sable]

Can you please answer the question I asked before about whether english is your first language/a language you are fluent in, or whether you are using some kind of translation or AI text program. Because every time people have tried to interact with you you don't seem to understand them and say the same kind of not very coherent posts over and over

[arctic furnace]

I didn't mean "smarter" in that sense. But what if there was a "dynamic" difficulty level. Like it starts on Sovereign, but if you get too far ahead it ramps up to Immortal och Deity.

[rich sable]

To clarify, you are arguing that the farther ahead the player gets, the larger the ai's "cheating behind the scenes" bonuses should grow to help it catch up? Since basically all of the difference in difficulty levels atm is it getting modifiers to it's yields and such

[arctic furnace]

I'm only arguing that there may be other ways to prevent snowballing other than a reset.

[rich sable]

I'm trying to understand what those better ways you think are. Because you originally said making it smarter, and then said you didn't mean it in the sense of making the AI better at the game. Then you referenced using the existing difficulties levels dynamically, and I asked to confirm that you meant making use of their modifiers to increase the AI's yields and otherwise give them advantages, which doesn't seem to be what you meant either. I'm trying to understand what you did mean because I don't currently understand

[arctic furnace]

Yes, adjusting modifiers to increase the AI's yields and give them advantages might be one way to prevent snowballing if that's what your after.

Making AI Civs form unions (like I don't know, Germany and France joins in European Union effectivly becoming the same AI Civ for the rest of the game) could be another.

I'm just saying I think the old age transition reset is too intrusive. I'd rather turn it off completely if I could and keep all units, gold, trade routes, etc. as it is from one age to another.

[oblique saddle]

Right, though it isn't a total reset, even before the latest patch. There was rubber banding to reduce snowball but it wasn't absolute.

[solid tapir]

Adjusting AI yields is the opposite of a snowball reducing mechanism, but the more you keep from previous ages the bigger your snowball is as well. I by far prefer the old setting to continuity (with the exception of liking keeping boats/scouts) because you snowball so much more over age transition with the continuity setting

[arctic furnace]

I know. Updated my post if that was unclear.

[pastel nexus]

Plus snowball is not only against other civs but against the systems.

[rich sable]

Fair enough. We'll have to agree to disagree on that one, I think those tools are far less preferable for the purpose of anti-snowballing then a soft reset

[somber grotto]

For a long time, players have wanted smarter AI. So when you increased the difficulty, the AI Civs would make better decisions. We didn't get that, we got the AI gets bonuses at higher difficulty levels.
Programing the AI to make decisions is quite difficult already because there are a lot of factors to consider and there are many possible situations. It would be even harder to program the AI to make better decisions than it already does.

[rich sable]

Not only is it hard, it's also often not fun. There is an inflection point where the AI getting smarter makes the player experience worse in virtually every game, because the AI's ultimate purpose in the game isn't to be the best at playing the game, it's to be the most fun to defeat. In virtually every strategy game, if the AI goes beyond a certain skill level, it will start using degenerate and annoying tactics. Like imagine if the AI was doing army commander unit shuffles with assyria wagons - it's very fun to do that, but the AI doing it to you would be really annoying. Or imagine if like, mayan ai was really really good at using forest cover to kite and poke your units with their hulche

This is something that basically every AI (in the classical definition in video games) programmer learns at one point - their AI isn't meant to be a chess grandmaster and solve the game, it's meant to be a rational opponent that is satisfying to exploit. I'm not arguing that civ 7's AI is already at that inflection point - there are changes I would hope to see made to it that would have the side effect of making it smarter and thus more of a challenge - but this kind of thing even if we ignored the technical challenge has a hard limit on how far you can go before it's no longer a good idea to continue

[somber grotto]

Well, I don't think the devs pulled their punches any when programming the AI. There are some things the AI in game tends to do better than any human player, like micromanage city development. Religion comes to mind, a lot of the reliquary beliefs are crazy. +1 relic converting a city with at least 10 urban population. What is a human player going to do? Count every urban tile in every city on the map? But that's easy to do for the computer.
Stratigic and tactical choices are a lot harder to program. There are just too many variations. I'm surprised it works as well as it does. And in fairness, the program is only considering what that Civ could see based on it's units and cities, even though the program knows the location of every unit in the game. This is why the AI sometimes walks a unit into the middle of your army. Or why some AI controlled units will move only to move back to where they started from.
I think the AI in Civ 7 is doing a little better than in Civ 6. But still it's already doing the best that it can. This is why the AI gets bonuses at higher difficulty levels (just can't make better decisions than it already is). And why we never got what fans have been wanting for a long time (smarter AI).

[somber grotto]

Oh, you can see the urban and rural population by hovering the mouse pointer over the population counter of a city.
I stand corrected.
Game is making progress. Don't stop please.

[silver trench]

Settlements that can give you a relic are also now highlighted when you select a missionary (though it's not perfect, it shows your own holy city for example if you picked that Pantheon)

[graceful anvil]

these are just calculations, artificial intelligence does not have a global strategic vision and medium to long-term objectives

[little terrace]

Continuity is finally a step in the right direction. People dont like having their empires reset for no reason

[pastel nexus]

Kinda, it's opening a different can of worms, creating two different game designs and balances.

[graceful anvil]

Is it not meaningless to change politics, internal and external creating different choices, then in the 21st century, a game that is defined as strategic, there is no internal policies? No opposition? A state can be very large but the population starving as in the Soviet Union potential revolts or revolutions are other political choices

[graceful anvil]

It is a political problem, and of events as I have always maintained: the crisis of Soviet Russia was an economic and political event just like the Roman Empire: if a fictional historical timeline of events is not created, a crisis cannot be simulated in a profound way!

[rich sable]

Can you please start talking like a human in these threads lol

[abstract swift]

What?!

[graceful anvil]

If events, causes, and effects of a player and their consequences on your civilization and others are not effectively simulated with a strong artificial intelligence, creating a fictional story, it will not be possible to effectively simulate an era transition.

[rich sable]

Ok I give up trying to translate for you lol.

[spare compass]

Just block them

[rich sable]

I was hoping to help them engage in actual conversation on the hopes that this was a language barrier or something but yeah, doing that

[spare compass]

And don't be rude.

[spare compass]

I've tried also 🙂

[void grove]

looks like they are no longer in the server

[valid maple]

Honestly continuity would be great if s crisis scaled with your empires power, so that keeping your massive army was actually a challenge and not just buying a million units right before age transition