The late game is easy for the simple reason that by the "late" game, you've overcome all the cheats the AI was given and come out on top. You have unlocked the full toolkit, so now anything in the game that can be done, you can do. Faced with a human player that is now at full capacity, the AI has nothing new it can really throw at you, aside from maybe cheating harder.What are some games that manage to remain challenging in the late game? Why is late game usually so easy?
I've often pondered this and come to the conclusion that simply piling cheats on the AI is the wrong approach, because all it does is ruin the early game while changing nothing about the inevitable late game. This is more true of a map with a non-bounded map than a finite map that the player has or will explore the entirety of well before this point in the game, but it occurs to me that the AI doesn't even need to actually exist before the player actually encounters it.And how to make it not so?
Why is late game usually so easy? And how to make it not so?
I think a big problem in most strategy games is that they make it too easy to keep large empires. Your citizenry are all nice and quiet little drones happily working away to feed your warmachine and your immense economy. Your military is also made of meat drones, so you will never be worried about coups by rogue generals, usurper princes or what have you. You can't face a "Late Roman Empire" situation. Economies are generally too simple to properly despict serious economics issues. Demographics are never a real issue. Most of them don't despict things involving an empire's capability to control territory. Your empire can't fall unless you play like an idiot.
This is why you see games trying to add some kind of final end boss in the form of an outside context problem, like Stellaris's Crisis.
Funny, I was typing about it.
I think Stellaris has something interesting going with its mid-game and late-game Crisis. The Crisis in Stellaris is an interesting way to shake-up the late game.
Yes! It would be great if the mop up phase was optional.Regarding the OP's thrid question:
I'd like to have as an option for the enemy to surrender once the human player is in the lead in all categories.
Also having specific victory conditions, (reach certain tech level, capture certain city/planet, kill certain hero/leader) will shorten the mopping up phase.
And having the AI break alliances willy nilly (Civ2, AoW) just as you are winning is bloody annoying.
Yes! It would be great if the mop up phase was optional.Regarding the OP's thrid question:
I'd like to have as an option for the enemy to surrender once the human player is in the lead in all categories.
Also having specific victory conditions, (reach certain tech level, capture certain city/planet, kill certain hero/leader) will shorten the mopping up phase.
And having the AI break alliances willy nilly (Civ2, AoW) just as you are winning is bloody annoying.
Now, as for alliances, I am a bit torn on the issue, because human players would totally disregard all past agreements and backstab you if you seem about to win, so it kind of makes sense for the AI to do the same.
What are some games that manage to remain challenging in the late game? Why is late game usually so easy? And how to make it not so?
Need more games that start from the late game. So the devs can focus on making that interesting instead of endlessly fine-tuning the build up from single settler and a warrior start (or whatever the equivalent is).
Yeah, another annoying thing is how it's presumed in these games that maintaining your tech levels doesn't require any effort whatsoever. Progress just keeps progressing, just maybe stalling briefly every now and then. (and also progress keeps progressing along a pre-determined path, but that's yet another issue...)you go backwards in technology
The way I see it is that most strategy games lack any sort of guiding mechanisms for the AI to generate challenge. I will use Stellaris as a reference because I was playing it most recently but this does apply to other games as well.
Essentially it boils down to the fact that most strategy games lack something like a point of contention. Something that everyone on the map wants but only one can have. In Stellaris this manifests as "rare resources" that are needed for more advanced tech and ship components but are rare in name only. So you can find deposits in every third system or you can cheaply synthesize them(the technology for it can be researched without even finding the resource first). They also never run out so the end result is that there is never any reason to fight over them or even haggle and trade as they are plentiful and easy to get. So the AI cannot structure its behavior around(a.k.a building fleets, researching weapons tech, haggling for it, making deals/alliances) getting said resources because there is no point to fight over them in the first place and setting "capture every third system on the map" as a goal is sure to only cripple the AI instead of providing a challenge. This exact dynamic more or less applies to everything in Stellaris.
Does not matter if its tech, planets or pops. They are all rather easy to get and always plentiful so no matter what they can never really be used to set a certain goal for the AI and therefore the AI cannot really pose any kind of challenge as its only available goals essentially boil down to "existing" and not much more.
Compare that to say much more "primitive" RTS games like warcraft where there are really only two resources but one of them comes in a very limited quantity(gold) and therefore if nothing else the AI is eventually forced to hunt for a new gold mine. Thus you get a point of contention and something for the AI to structure its behavior around and provide some kind of a challenge. Its not perfect but its hell of a lot better than the Stellaris AI which basically freezes once the cheats run out.
The core problem is that for this setup to function you need to count with these "points of contention" from the start to finish. So the AI can be actually programmed to pursue them with any kind of sense and so that these points remain relevant for the whole game or even become more relevant as it goes on.
The core problem is that for this setup to function you need to count with these "points of contention" from the start to finish. So the AI can be actually programmed to pursue them with any kind of sense and so that these points remain relevant for the whole game or even become more relevant as it goes on.
The core problem is that for this setup to function you need to count with these "points of contention" from the start to finish. So the AI can be actually programmed to pursue them with any kind of sense and so that these points remain relevant for the whole game or even become more relevant as it goes on.
I haven't played it myself yet, but have heard Age of Wonders III doing something like this in its Golden Realms DLC. Basically it generates a bunch of points on the map, initially guarded by strong neutral armies so you or the AI can't pursue them from the start. Then towards the end-game holding those points for an extended period of time is the victory condition. Because it's a fundamentally simple mechanic the AI apparently gets it.
Compare that to say much more "primitive" RTS games like warcraft where there are really only two resources but one of them comes in a very limited quantity(gold) and therefore if nothing else the AI is eventually forced to hunt for a new gold mine. Thus you get a point of contention and something for the AI to structure its behavior around and provide some kind of a challenge. Its not perfect but its hell of a lot better than the Stellaris AI which basically freezes once the cheats run out.
Why is late game usually so easy?
The core problem is that for this setup to function you need to count with these "points of contention" from the start to finish. So the AI can be actually programmed to pursue them with any kind of sense and so that these points remain relevant for the whole game or even become more relevant as it goes on.
I haven't played it myself yet, but have heard Age of Wonders III doing something like this in its Golden Realms DLC. Basically it generates a bunch of points on the map, initially guarded by strong neutral armies so you or the AI can't pursue them from the start. Then towards the end-game holding those points for an extended period of time is the victory condition. Because it's a fundamentally simple mechanic the AI apparently gets it.
I think the catch is that to move the win screen to that point would mean that the player would start to lose arbitrarily on these grounds. If the player occupies 30% of the map, he's probably into his victory lap. If the AI occupies 30% of the map, it's nowhere close to over, even in a full observer match, as the capacity of the AI to shoot itself in the foot far exceeds the player's at that point.When we look at something like GalCiv we are brought back to the idea that the game simply needs to acknowledge the actual point of victory. Some players are able to just decide that they have won and move on but many other players seem to really require an official win screen. Move the win screen condition to the same point that pro-active players usually assign themselves the winner at.
This. Games do very little to no simulation of various complexities of governance. Large states are notoriously difficult to manage. The larger a state grows, the lesser the extent of administrative control of it's base components by the top leadership. Also. different conflicting interests start to arise and become ever more difficult to get under control with the state growing in size. That is also something games don't even attempt to portrait or if they do, it's a lame slider that gives you time to the next rebellion.Your empire can't fall unless you play like an idiot.