Prestige Victory Type

I've played 3 playthroughs of this current iteration (.65) with all victory types on, and all games have ended with the Prestige victory. I won one and the other two were won by AI.

The problem here is that it's really not clear how the victory was achieved in any of these games. Instead of feeling good about any of the playthroughs, I felt kind of cheated because the path to victory is not explained well enough. To draw on another 4X that does this victory type well, Humankind, they explain quite clearly how much fame you are achieving and it's clear which actions will lead to x amount of fame.

Sorry, but this victory type is a real stinker in it's current implementation.

galactic civilizations iv

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SchismNavigator

Join Date 06/2012

+165

Hmm, communicating gameplay is a key element we want to work on. I'd like to open this thread up for others to chime in with ideas on how we communicate victory conditions and what works towards them.

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Publius of NV

Join Date 08/2002

+231

I've already mentioned that with the removal of the ascension icon from the galaxy window top bar it's impossible to tell how close to ascension victory you are. So it's clear that the game is going in the wrong direction as far as communicating victory conditions goes.

I have to agree with the @Sedghammer - ever since it was introduced, all of my victories have been prestige, and it hasn't been clear to me why my prestige score is increasing either.

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Quoting SchismNavigator,

reply 1

There could be two thresholds for each winning condition: let's say 50% ( a ) and 80% ( b ).

If we reach a threshold we get a pop-up: You are approaching ( a ) / close to ( b ) winning condition X.
If the first(!) opponent reaches a threshold there should be a pop-up.
Those should be pop-ups. No notifications. Notifications are to reduce spam and not to communicate important stuff.

The victory screen should show all details.

Prestige victory: I would like a relative approach that compares you to your opponents. Maybe a combination of relative elements and absolute numbers. But pure absolute numbers seem to be very hard to balance. You would need absolute numbers that work for different galaxy sizes, number of opponents, difficulties.

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Here are two general ideas how a relative approach might work. First is stolen from another game... second is my own idea.

1) We gain prestige points like we do now. But we do not win by reaching a certain number of points. But there will be a galactic council.
Every civ has a number of votes based on its prestige points. Two civs challenge for prestige victory.
Civ A = Civ with most prestige points. Civ B = next most prestige that is not allied to A.
Civ A and B vote for themself. Civs that like A much more than B vote for A and vice versa. If there is no big difference they abstain.

A Civ wins by reaching (for example) 3/4 of all votes (including abstain!).

2) We win a prestige victory by reaching a certain number but the points will be distributed in a relative approach. For example:
Biggest military power = 100 points. Military domination (51% of galaxies combined military power) = 100 additional points.
Same for: income (tourism + trade + planets) ignoring tax rate (you do not need to increase tax rate), ascension, population,control zone,...?.

Galactic Achievements: like it is now but there could be a limit. Problem without a limit could be that there are a lot of cool GAs but they become too dominant in regards of prestige victory.
Alternatively they could give less points. Maybe 20/1000 (now: 50/1000).

Having at least one ally = 100 points. Alliance domination (half or more of all civs are part of your alliance) = 200(?) additional points.

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