(October 19th, 2016, 21:33)Singaboy Wrote: 1upt is not the right decision i fear. The AI simply cant handle it.
The AI not being able to handle it may be more feature than problem, at this point.
Civ dumped the audience that it had for the first fifteen years and went in another direction: a wider, more casual audience. Firaxis built it and the casuals came. To them, an AI that could beat them down on the battlefield may not be a plus. (Not that I believe the weak AI is intentional, but certainly 1UPT is intentional, and the AI cannot handle it, thus yes, indirectly, the weak AI is intentional!)
Game making is a business. The market has rewarded this audience shift. I can tell you, studios in all corners of the globe took notice of World of Warcraft's success and of Civ's success in following the same "broader appeal" model for a non-MMO franchise. If the dollars roll in again with Civ6, you can be 100% certain that Civ7 will be 1UPT again -- and that any other big budget strategy games will be trying to copycat as much of Civ as they can.
Moderate-budget games (like Offworld Trading Company, Endless Space, or any Paradox game) and small-budget games don't have the blockbuster budgets for blockbuster-level art, which is necessary to that broadest level of appeal, but they can afford to try to serve smaller niches in the market. That's where to look for more hardcore satisfaction.
The same thing is true in other genres. Skyrim (for instance) has been panned by many hardcore FPS players for being shallow. (You get two active skills at a time and no hotkey bar -- it's streamlined to work with a controller and not even use more than the basic controls there). It's the same broader-appeal design ethic at work -- and the market rewarded the move there, too.
I, personally, bit on Skyrim hook, line and sinker. I've played over a thousand hours of it. The art matters. The music matters. The detail put in to the game engine and mechanics matter. The AI is dumb as a rock, and yet that doesn't really matter because it does enough right to keep things interesting (and the unfair bonuses, stacked high on high difficulty, make it challenging enough). You have to exploit the terrain, exploit the AI, use the sneak feature, play with near-optimal builds or have some kind of edge to cope with enemies that can kill you in one or two hits, that you will have to hit forty times to kill. Keep a tree or a large rock between you and the foe and circle it, or stay in the shadows and retreat out of their search range over and over, or fire arrows from long range from a high perch, or fight outside at night when sneaking is more effective. Or use heavy armor and blocking, but dip in and out, physically dodging their blows. The list goes on (and on), and vs a human opponent, most of the tactics that are effective would be largely ineffective or even useless.
A ton of people bit on Civ5. They don't care about the small empire sizes or the passive play style. The weak AI lets them win a lot, and the random maps provide enough variation to keep them starting new games.
Civ6 has ditched the city screen, putting everything on the map. It was, to me (at least), the obvious next step in trying to broaden the appeal of the game.
If you are going in to it looking for Civ4 version 2.0, you don't stand a chance of being satisfied.
This all-on-the-map thing has not been tried before, though. A lot of us (me included) are curious how it will play. It has the potential to be fun, in the same way that Skyrim is casual-friendly but also a lot of fun. (I have not personally bought Civ6 yet, but that is more due to my family situation. No sense buying until I would have the time to play it, anyway.)
Also, lets not kid ourselves. Civ1 and Civ2 AI, and SMAC AI, sucked really hard at playing those game designs, too. Only Soren's AIs have raised the bar, and I could (and have!) written a clinic on their flaws, as well.
People have bought the new Civ and those of us waiting in the wings hoping it will be fun enough to join in will soon get to see what the explorer group has to report back to us.
- Sirian
Let's all keep perspective in mind and make the most of what we have.