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Civilization 7 Is in Development

polygon.com

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Re: Civilization 7 Is in Development

#22
post #19
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Districts mechanics is great, I can’t imagine going back to the old everything in city center model. Loyalty mechanics is a mixed blessing, after so many years I can’t say whether I like it or not. I find climate mechanics a nice yet minor addition. AI is crappy as ever. But since you only stopped playing after Gathering Storms you should already know what I said above; the game hasn’t changed much since, even one ma…

Everything you said was basically my impression of the game when I left it. I didn't know about the last part, it doesn't surprise me they underdelivered on it.

To be clear secret societies is an optional game mode, and it’s not half bad for what it is, especially if you enjoy overpowered gameplay.

Re: Civilization 7 Is in Development

#23
post #5

Did Civ6 end up being good? Civ games usually only beat their predecessors once the last expansion comes out. I stopped playing 6 after the climate change DLC. Was pretty underwhelmed. Has it matured now like 5 did?

It's definitely better than the previous ones .. the previous games feel unplayable now. I can't imagine civ5 (4 cities only to be viable and stupid-as-heck civic options) or earlier (no hexes, stacking units?). But... at the same time, Civ6 feels super phoned-in and underwhelming most of the time. (The AI dialog, world congress, road-building-via-trade routes, and various other stupid things are so annoying that I can't believe anyone who really cares about the game had any input on them.)

Mostly I just want the same game, made by a different company that's run by people who are less interesting in churning out DLC for $ and leaving all the quality-of-life stuff to modders.

Re: Civilization 7 Is in Development

#24

It would be really interesting if some of the advances in AI could make their way into the game. Make the gameplay more human by incorporating recent advances in ML-based gameplay e.g. Diplomacy and Poker. Create more variety of dialogue using transformer models. Make in-game diplomacy more nuanced. There’s a lot that could be done.

The dirty secret is we think we want the AI to play more realistically, but actually don't. This is true in many games but especially Civilization, where we rely on the AI behaving predictably to feel mastery over the environment, and for diplomacy to feel "fair". If the AI were playing to win, diplomacy would mostly evaporate as a game system. It'd break the fiction of the game.

Re: Civilization 7 Is in Development

#25
post #24

It would be really interesting if some of the advances in AI could make their way into the game. Make the gameplay more human by incorporating recent advances in ML-based gameplay e.g. Diplomacy and Poker. Create more variety of dialogue using transformer models. Make in-game diplomacy more nuanced. There’s a lot that could be done.

The dirty secret is we think we want the AI to play more realistically, but actually don't. This is true in many games but especially Civilization, where we rely on the AI behaving predictably to feel mastery over the environment, and for diplomacy to feel "fair". If the AI were playing to win, diplomacy would mostly evaporate as a game system. It'd break the fiction of the game.

It would be a different game, but as a counterpoint: people do play and enjoy multiplayer civ.

Re: Civilization 7 Is in Development

#26
post #24

It would be really interesting if some of the advances in AI could make their way into the game. Make the gameplay more human by incorporating recent advances in ML-based gameplay e.g. Diplomacy and Poker. Create more variety of dialogue using transformer models. Make in-game diplomacy more nuanced. There’s a lot that could be done.

The dirty secret is we think we want the AI to play more realistically, but actually don't. This is true in many games but especially Civilization, where we rely on the AI behaving predictably to feel mastery over the environment, and for diplomacy to feel "fair". If the AI were playing to win, diplomacy would mostly evaporate as a game system. It'd break the fiction of the game.

a lot about the nonsensical lust for 'ai' will be solved, once people realize it's not literal human 'intelligence', it's just a collage of data based on statistical analysis of past data and a prompt.

Re: Civilization 7 Is in Development

#28
post #24

It would be really interesting if some of the advances in AI could make their way into the game. Make the gameplay more human by incorporating recent advances in ML-based gameplay e.g. Diplomacy and Poker. Create more variety of dialogue using transformer models. Make in-game diplomacy more nuanced. There’s a lot that could be done.

The dirty secret is we think we want the AI to play more realistically, but actually don't. This is true in many games but especially Civilization, where we rely on the AI behaving predictably to feel mastery over the environment, and for diplomacy to feel "fair". If the AI were playing to win, diplomacy would mostly evaporate as a game system. It'd break the fiction of the game.

> The dirty secret is we think we want the AI to play more realistically, but actually don't.

The dirty secret is that we don't know if we want that. So far we don't have technology to make Civ AI play remotely like a reasonable human (at least not on a consumer grade PC). So we have absolute zero data point on how players will react to that.

Re: Civilization 7 Is in Development

#29
Civ needs to be moddable and they can get a little percentage of every mod sale. Then this franchise will be actually good rather than something people play for a week or two and forget about.

I want an invention tree that's thousands of items long based on actual human history, not an invention tree that's optimized for what a 15 year old will find 'fun' within the first week of play.

Civ is an unfortunate lost opportunity to make educational content that'd make people want to go read a history book afterwards.

Or maybe it's just me :)

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