High Barrier to Entry

[Amicalola]

I have flirted with joining a game recently, but have thus far always decided against it. Which has made me think about why, and I think the reason is this. Compared to when I started (2020), it feels as though the barrier to entry has risen significantly to play MP civ. I mean this in terms of both new players, but also the amount of time/care that all players have to put into their civ to remain competitive. Theoretically I could play a game where my turns are <20 mins until the late game, but my chances of winning are practically zero. Whereas if I take a long time for my turns, I can usually contend with strong players. So to me, this time/energy input is the main predictor of relevance in a game.

Questions for the forum:

1. Does your experience align with this? Or is it a 'me' problem?

2. Is this an issue? I think it is, because it makes attracting new players very difficult, and retaining experienced ones somewhat difficult (I'd use myself as an example of someone who lost interest because the constraints of playing competitively were too high). But perhaps others disagree.

3. If it is an issue, how is it solved? Greens games are, in my opinion, not a great solution because the greens will just get eaten up once they move out of that space. But perhaps there are other solutions.
3a. How could a game be set up to restrict the amount of time players can spend on it? Is that possible, or a red herring?

4. Has this always been an issue? I feel as though it has worsened since 2020, but perhaps it is just that my life is busier.

5. For people who are typically not competing for wins, why do you join games? I mean that as a serious question: what is the part of Civ4 that you enjoy and keep coming back for? For me, winning is too much of the fun to sign up for games where I am extremely unlikely to contend, but clearly that is not the case for some people.

6. In contrast to Q4, for the people who are typically competitive but take a lot of time on their turns, how do you balance this with your real life?

[scooter]

Interesting post, and I can relate with a fair bit of this. It's definitely true that time to spend is a huge part of it. For me personally, I believe that when I'm fully engaged and spending lots of time I can hang with anyone, but over the course of 8 months of a game, realistically my time and energy ebbs and flows. Sometimes my free time evaporates as things come up, and sometimes I am just mentally not fully engaged. It's led to a couple long breaks from games, even if I inevitably always return. I think this sort of answered a couple of your questions, but I'll answer a few others. Not necessarily in the order you asked them.

4. Has this always been an issue? I feel as though it has worsened since 2020, but perhaps it is just that my life is busier.

It sounds like your life is busier. Can relate. I actually think the level of play in games has dropped since a few years ago, which lowers this barrier a bit. Some of the very best players are either inactive or less active. I definitely spent more time on games years ago.

3. If it is an issue, how is it solved? Greens games are, in my opinion, not a great solution because the greens will just get eaten up once they move out of that space. But perhaps there are other solutions.
3a. How could a game be set up to restrict the amount of time players can spend on it? Is that possible, or a red herring?

I don't think this is realistically possible. If someone wants to spend more time than you, they will do so, and that will help them. A firm belief I have though is you can go pretty far by simply making good macro decisions, which does not take nearly as much time as obsessive micro. It's also easy to do with spare brain cycles away from a PC. Part of why I play these games is it gives my brain a background puzzle to work on.

5. For people who are typically not competing for wins, why do you join games? I mean that as a serious question: what is the part of Civ4 that you enjoy and keep coming back for? For me, winning is too much of the fun to sign up for games where I am extremely unlikely to contend, but clearly that is not the case for some people.

6. In contrast to Q4, for the people who are typically competitive but take a lot of time on their turns, how do you balance this with your real life?

Which leads me to this. I try to win every single game I play, even when I know it's not realistic to win. I'm a super competitive person, and I know I cannot turn that switch off. I can control the time I spend though, in part because I have no choice. My life doesn't work if I spend hours a day. So I do my best to try to win within the time I have. Once it becomes clear to me that a game is lost that I am still a part of, I give myself new objectives.


One other important detail - game settings affect this a lot. In a 4-6 player game, the worst-case scenario is you'll have, what, 30 late-game cities to manage? And you'll conquer no more than 1.2 players? Much more than either of those, and you'll probably be conceded to. In a Big Game you can have dozens of cities and several full-scale conquests. Late game turns with 5 players take considerably less time than midgame turns with 18 players, for example. There's other settings that have a big effect. Water-heavy maps result in much more tedious turns in the later game.


TL;DR the barrier to entry is actually not nearly as bad in smaller games. It's the big ones that can nearly ruin your life.

[Gavagai]

This sort of thing hit me hard at the end of PB74. This was the game I won but really wish I did not: the time and effort I invested to achieve it was simply too much for a victory in a video game.
Not sure what can be done with it. I really wish democracy games were more of a thing, where you can spread the effort out among several teammates, but the concept does not seem to work that well in practice for various reasons. Also, for me personally, it is really hard to work as a part of a team when it comes to such things.

[El Grillo]

Good questions! I haven't played here in years at this point, but I also stopped when there was a significant increase in IRL demands on my time, as well as realizing that I enjoy playing other kinds of games more than I enjoy multiplayer Civ (single-session board games scratch the itch for me and are a lot more forgiving to organize).

[Qgqqqqq]

This is 100% why I don't play - I either heavily over-invest, where it can crowd into other parts of my life (and I can do well), or I lose interest, am checked out, and (often because I feel I have no chance for whatever reason).

I have huge admiration for the people who play consistently and enjoy it without obsessing.

I feel like limiting time spent could be possible, but realistically it would need to occur without reporting. The act of reporting is the act of spending a long time thinking about the game. It's more suited to a quasi-live game (e.g. 5minute turn timers), but somehow stretched over various peoples timezones. And any restrictions would be open to people spending even more effort getting around it (e.g. making their own sim to plan things out).

[greenline]

Speaking as a near exclusive player of <20 minute turns:

The amount of time spent in game is of the most benefit in the late game, especially when fighting large scale wars. The best way to improve the early - mid game can be done entirely in Microsoft excel and piecemeal, creating micro plans that are then slowly executed over weeks and months. This isn't something I ever do because I really don't like spreadsheets and never fully understood micro planning, but it is an option for improving your game strength.

If spreadsheets are not your thing, like they are not my thing, the best you can hope to do is just hone instincts. Enough games of Civ 4 on monarch gave me basic instincts for whipping and expansion. I was able to put in decent performances in some greens games with that.

[Cornflakes]

I second scooter's answers as well. I will add that it ultimately comes down to you and your personality. I enjoy trying to make the "best" decision at the time, which does not always mean the decision which gives the "best chances of winning". There can only be 1 winner in a game, but there can be an infinite number of paths to fun as long as you don't define "fun == winning". Personally I enjoy the journey of thinking through decisions ... sometimes the best decision involves limiting time investment in the game. There are many moments is losing games that I have enjoyed just as much or more than the couple of moments where I was declared the winner. There are also many moments of disappointment after blunders or neighbor actions drastically worsen the position. But in those cases I step back, find some mini-goals, and have just as much enjoyment from pursuing alternative goals with no pressure to win.

I do not always play in a way that gives me the best chance to win. Sometimes I decide to take a lower winning-chance decision in order to shoot for a greater survival chance. Many times especially in more recent games and/or larger games I choose the path that requires less in-game time investment.

As scooter points out, the game setup has a large impact on this. Which is why I have previously proposed or joined tight-map games, the most extreme being: squeze-4-players-on-a-tiny-Austrailia variant PB50. And in the big PB59 I chose a path that limited me to the number of cities in my starting area, knowing that I wasn't going to win the game. But recognizing that the winner would be controlling 100+ cities and 1000+ units, and I had much more fun interacting with my neighbors and ultimately dying to the 100+ city empire than I would have either controlling the winning empire or playing any game vs the AI.

The reason I proposed city elimination in the current game sign-up is because it will (hopefully) limit the late game war turns which take much longer to play than non-war turns.

So again, it all comes back to your personality. Why do I join games? I personally have more fun not-winning against humans than I have AI-smashing. I have fun finding little edges over the other players: Stealing a wonder or first-to bonus, racing to secure a border city, holding a border city, trying to extend survival beyond what should be expected, trying to get an edge out of a new combination of civ/leader, striking a blow at whoever attacks me (even if that "blow" is as small as killing their supermedic, or razing a city, or just surviving a couple more turns to make elimination a little more painful).

Scooter and Pindicator have probably the most spectacular alternative-goal win in RB history, when they successfully evacuated their dying civ to conquer a survival island in PB8 That was one of the first games that I lurked in real time as it was happening.

[Mjmd]

I've discussed this in my threads a bit before. Most games you can just lose a game in 20 minutes and then go play another and another and another. The time for civ4 multiplayer is certainly much greater. This leads I think to much deeper depth of feeling towards the game, which is both good and bad.

As far as early micro I think a lot of it is just playing and learning. I used to do a lot more micro than I currently do. A lot of that was just gaining experience and learning foodhammer math. Now I do a quick run through and if it feels good that is what I do, but it took me a while to feel that comfortable and to have the experience to know what I should be doing. Edit: Also, I tend to pick India and/or Imp a lot which makes it much easier. 

Expecting not to win is certainly part of it. Previously I did magic the gathering tournaments where even a small PPTQ was 20-30 people with only 1 winner, so having long odds going in is something I was pretty familiar with. Also, as others have mentioned finding other fun things to do. The most fun (and time intensive games) I've played here was PB66 which ended in a draw, but I was probably 4th at time of the draw, but still is the game I'm proudest of.

[superdeath]

When it comes to a GAME like civ 4 (or really anything that isnt basically Chess) beyond the first 20-30-40t of early simming, the rest should be done Macro style. If you spreadsheet, i feel you go against the spirit of the game. You are no longer playing a game for fun, you are now putting in a ton of work per turn. For instance, a normal (in my view) civ player would see a jump in the power graph and obviously go "well, this person just made a bunch of units" but someone who is obsessive ect will be able to tell just what someone most likely built by analyzing the itty bitty details.

I feel games should really just be one of the following: 1. Green games.. You are new to civ, or civ multiplayer or have the civ econ skills of me. 2. Normal games. For those that will login, think about what they will be doing 5-10-20t from now, and make guesstimates on what needs to be done to get there. Might mess with the tiles that the governor assigned. 3. Obsessive/elite games. For those that cant help but spreadsheet or plan every detail. Who spend multiple hours pre-industrial era on each turn. Usually doesnt use the city-governor.

Im probably most likely alone on those feelings, but the despair i feel when certain players join games, and i know there is no surprise factor in anything. (see krill knowing exactly how many Keshiks i had X pb's ago) It ruins my own personal excitement for a game.

That is probably the main reason i join nearly every PB. 1. Maybe ill get better/others wont judge me on the previous pb's and i can try something new. 2. So if i get disappointed during a pb i have something else to pass the time instead of dreading sitting down at my computer.

[pindicator]

I feel like a lot of my progression as a player has been to use spreadsheets and micro less and less. Perhaps I lose a small edge here and there, but really I started playing with extensive micro to compensate for my lack of experience.

I won't pretend doing all that work didn't have benefits. And honestly I haven't figured a way to optimize worker improvement scheduling without knowing what a city is going to build first. But with life now I just don't see the benefit in spending that much time on squeezing more out of a turn. Or maybe I'm just getting older and have less energy for such pursuits.