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"From Civilization to Stellaris, how strategy games struggle against player power" (PCGamesN games design article)


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It’s safe to say that the endgame is the hardest part to get right in strategy games, as it’s an area full of design contradictions. As Civilization VI’s lead designer Ed Beach points out, “you want to reward players who are making smart decisions during their course of play,” but at the same time, Civilization (and plenty of other 4X games) suffer a common complaint: those smart decisions usually result in the player ‘snowballing’, and becoming so strong that they’re able to defeat almost any AI opponent.

 

There are other issues as well. Sometimes, if an AI faction is left in isolation to snowball themselves, they can become too powerful for the player to deal with once encountered. More often than not, though, human ingenuity and the inherently exploitable nature of strategy games means that challenging the player into the endgame, in a fair and meaningful way, is the true final boss for designers in this genre.

 

 

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This is a really issue for me. I love 4X games, but the two parts I hate the most about them (which are interlinked) are the end game as well as combat. In most games you really need to wipe out everyone to win, or take their territory (with the exception of some culture-type victories), and I've noticed a big move away from games that allow for tall civs instead of wide. It's a tough thing to balance, but I don't think I've ever played a 4X game that hasn't gotten extremely boring after the mid game. I have fun exploring the galaxy/world and growing and expanding...and then as soon as that's done, the only thing left to do is spend 100 hours in a constant, grinding war. So I just quit and make a new game.

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9 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

This is a really issue for me. I love 4X games, but the two parts I hate the most about them (which are interlinked) are the end game as well as combat. In most games you really need to wipe out everyone to win, or take their territory (with the exception of some culture-type victories), and I've noticed a big move away from games that allow for tall civs instead of wide. It's a tough thing to balance, but I don't think I've ever played a 4X game that hasn't gotten extremely boring after the mid game. I have fun exploring the galaxy/world and growing and expanding...and then as soon as that's done, the only thing left to do is spend 100 hours in a constant, grinding war. So I just quit and make a new game.

 

I miss Venice from Civ V.

 

I also miss my Venice strategy of rushing religion, picking Judaism, and then picking religion enhancements that give you more gold per turn for the number of followers/converted cities. :pUsually converted cities first unless I was somehow beaten to the punch on picking it, more valuable early on.

 

But Jewish Venetian merchant jokes aside I really did just love going tall instead of wide. You still generally had to pick up some cities over time for stuff like getting resources, being able to pop out units farther afield, and having a buffer around your capital, but at least you didn't have to actively manage those cities.

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17 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

This is a really issue for me. I love 4X games, but the two parts I hate the most about them (which are interlinked) are the end game as well as combat. In most games you really need to wipe out everyone to win, or take their territory (with the exception of some culture-type victories), and I've noticed a big move away from games that allow for tall civs instead of wide. It's a tough thing to balance, but I don't think I've ever played a 4X game that hasn't gotten extremely boring after the mid game. I have fun exploring the galaxy/world and growing and expanding...and then as soon as that's done, the only thing left to do is spend 100 hours in a constant, grinding war. So I just quit and make a new game.

 

You should play Crusader Kings 3. It will resolve all of your issues.

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