Credible Challege and Avoiding Late-Game Tedium

People mention late-game tedium a fair amount. The complaints fall into two categories: frustrations with having to micromanage a whole bunch of things in the lategame, and annoyance with being in a position where the game is basically won (as in, none of the other AIs/players have a reasonable chance of beating you), but it would still take a bunch of time to achieve any of the victory conditions. These suggestions are tailored more toward addressing the second set of issues.

The first thing to ask when looking for a solution for this problem is - how do you get in a position where you have essentially "won" but are still far from any of the victory conditions? The answer is, you build up enough of an economic, research, and/or military lead so that even if all the AIs teamed up on you, you would still wipe the floor with them. Achieving such a lead requires passing through a region where you are recognizably a serious threat, but are not yet unstoppable, and not being contested by enough of the AIs to get your snowball halted.

Let's look at an actual GalCiv3 example. I got a very good map draw - starting in the middle of a fairly large star cluster, while my 3 opponents started off in smaller star clusters off to the edges. As a result, I was able to get to over twenty colonies, while the AIs only had 4-6 at the end of the expansion phase. Now, if the AI were playing to win, they would have immediately identified me as a serious threat, and started cooperating while preparing to attack. Instead, they sat around doing nothing while my econ exploded - the only reason I haven't finished it by now is because I'm still testing stuff out.

AIs should be on the lookout for potential runaway civs (they could use certain milestones, like "has 30% more researched tech points than anyone else", "has 33% of the military power in the galaxy" or "has 45% of the population in the galaxy"). Once a player passes a "runaway snowball" milestone, the AIs each choose between two options: "This player is getting dangerously strong, I'd better form a coalition to take them down!" or "This player is getting powerful, I'd better team up with them!"

Thus, once you start getting powerful, the game progresses naturally into a fight with you and your hangers-on vs. the rest of the galaxy. If your enemies fail to weaken you enough that you fall below the danger threshold, they start becoming increasingly desperate - doing things like setting research to 0, producing nothing but military units. If the game lets you go into debt or take out loans for speed-buying, they do that too. If that fails too, they surrender, ending the game.

This would make the endgame a lot more interesting than hitting End Turn a bunch of times until you win, when there's never any chance of defeat. Admittedly, it would make Tech and Ascension victories a bit rarer, as you would have to achieve the victory threshold before your opponents spend everything trying to stop you and surrender. But then, holding the line vs. a massive enemy assault is more interesting than how those victory conditions tend to play out right now.

So, would anyone else like to see this?

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I would like to see that. With two caveats. If the coalition was successful, and you get back down to under the threshold amounts by a certain percentage, then the coalition would tend to either dissolve or start stabbing each other in the back. Also, if you fell below the threshold, then your hangers-on would stab you in the back.

However maybe this could be done through traits and modifiers in the diplomatic screen.

-has 30% more researched tech points than anyone else= Advanced Technology -4 (or +4 for the hangers-on)

-has 33% of the military power in the galaxy"= Galactic Hegemon -6 (or +6 for the hangers-on)

-has 45% of the population in the galaxy=Unchecked Growth -4 (or +4 for the hangers-on)

-has 40% of the production/economic capacity of the galaxy=Economic Powerhouse -4 (or +4 for the hangers-on)

Those would be in addition to the normal diplomatic modifiers, and if a faction and if one of these modifiers then you get the opposite modifiers with everyone else who has your same modifier.

So basically if you are playing of the Terrans and the Altairians end up as your hangers on and the Yor, Drengin and Krynn stand against you they would get a negative penalty to diplomacy with you and the Altairians and get positive diplomatic bonuses with each other. Then after they've knocked you down to size, (like 10-15% under the original threshold then these extra diplomatic modifiers would go away.

Hangers-on should come from nations that share your ideology, and that you've had good relations to in the past. Also, if a leader could have a craven/cowardly trait they would also attempt to be ingratiate themselves to you.

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Lucky_Jack

Join Date 01/2002

+62

Killswitch, I think your percentages would have to be scaled to how many opponents you are playing, or are left. For example, if you have only 33% of the military power and only one opponent then the opponent has 67% of the military power, so you should loose, not win. Of course, if you had meant to say "has 33% more military power than anyone else", then that would be different.

Also, an alliance victory would have to be done a bit differently, perhaps by making the comparisons on an alliance to alliance basis.

Somehow, I get the feeling that this would all result in a loss when you could eventually pull out a win. Perhaps it would be better if it was more under control of the player (in single player mode, or subject to a vote in multi-player mode) through an option from a "victory progress" window.

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