
4X - tosh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4X
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skybrian
I start Civ VI games but never finish them. It always seems more fun to start
over than continue a saved game. With the latest expansion, triggering a
golden age is a good goal to shoot for, as well as a good stopping point to
prevent "one more turn" syndrome.

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chongli
That's due to the nature of economic engine games. When you're just starting
out, it's an uphill battle where every decision matters a lot. When you get
past a certain point, you enter what my friend and I like to call the "mop-up
phase." This is the situation where your opponents are extremely far behind,
with no hope of catching up, and your decisions matter very little. Not only
do you have to make a lot of mistakes to even come close to falling behind but
your good decisions are inconsequential as well.

Game designers have thought long and hard about this problem over the entire
history of the genre. There have been numerous attempts at putting in
mechanisms to slow down a player with a large empire but they often just make
the game more tedious. I think this is the wrong approach. Once you reach an
overwhelming advantage the game should allow you to close it out easily.

I think of chess at a high level. If no player ever resigned, instead forcing
their opponents to perform extremely long, drawn-out checkmate sequences in
theoretical win positions, people would hate it. Just resign so we can move on
to the next game!

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j_4
In my experience it's mostly just the novelty of figuring out new starting
conditions, and crafting a small system that you can know intimately without
too much mental burden. We like figuring out challenges, but starting from
scratch tends to be a greener pasture than building up what you already have.

It's an issue I have with all of these infinitely replayable games, and a
fundamental part of human psychology, I think. Most people tend to start lots
of personal side projects, but not many can truly commit to finishing
something worthwhile.

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ansible
I'd be interested in playing a 4X game where research more closely resembles
how R&D works in the real world. Meaning that you don't always get what you
want. Success is not guaranteed. And sometimes you figure out something else
that works even better.

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GrumpyYoungMan
The only game I can think of that was similar to the model you suggest was the
long ago "Spaceward Ho!" series, which was uncomplicated but fun. There was no
tech tree; putting money into each of several categories of research yielded
incremental improvements in that area over time but occasionally one would get
a "breakthrough" that would boost that area dramatically or provide a new
capability.

I thought it was an interesting idea but it seems fundamentally incompatible
with having a tech tree at all.

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vatys
That also made me think of Spaceward Ho! I know it may be too simple a game
for a “serious” 4x game conversation, but I still in joy its style of
gameplay. Sometimes a game like Civ can be too deep, or demand too much time
for a satisfying play through, where Spaceward Ho! is fun, quick, but still
hits some of those 4x notes.

Are there any modern 4x “lite” type games like this?

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stuart78
These grand strategy games are always my theoretical favorite genre, but I
just don't have the patience and/or time to commit to them (beyond the
relatively simple Civ entries). I am equally envious and dismayed by friends
who tell me how many hours they've logged not to just the game in total, but a
single play in Europa Universalis and its ilk.

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matt4077
I always preferred Colonization to the Civ series, and keep wondering why I am
apparently in the minority.

Civ, and also SimCity, always felt as if they would progress along more or
less the same trajectory of growth, with little actual choice for the player
as long as they broadly stayed within the bounds of what the designers
considered typical gameplay.

In Col, I loved building these intricate industrial networks and trade routes.

Now that I’m writing this, I’m wondering if Colonization possibly came too
close to the Soviet idea of central economic planning for the taste of the
audience.

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sadris
Same. Though the AI since hexagonal tiles is so bad I've signed off
Civilization series. Why they haven't contracted to that Google subsidiary to
use machine learning to improve the AI of the game is a mystery.

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Semaphor
If you play Civ V on Windows, you can get the Vox Populi mod for vastly
improved AI.

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Ftuuky
I want to see a AlphaGo/AlphaStar version playing Civ VI.

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gruez
I doubt that will happen, considering that civ is much more complicated (in
terms of mechanics) than playing go or even starcraft.

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setr
Civ isn’t really that complicated compared to sc — “real-time” play is a big
burden, and dramatically increases the search space.

I think the bigger blocker is that civ has no real tournaments to fuel AI
popularity, that the game (and 4X in general) is likely buggier due to less
online-play (meaning the AI is likelier to get trapped exploiting
uninteresting bugs) and at least newer games are probably somewhat unoptimized
and will have longer simulation times (thus slower training) (both valve and
blizzard are quite good about making games playable on a toaster; Firaxis
is.... not.)

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mauvm
Can't wait to play AoW Planetfall!

