Ways to spice up the end game

[Munroe]

I always thought that winning the game was very boring and expected.. let me explain. For half the ways to win ( Culture , Diplo, and Spaceship) you easily know many many turns ahead you are gonna win.. I am rarely ever in a "space race" where is am worried about not me getting the ship to launch first and in diplo if you have the UN its pretty easy to kiss the AI's ass and get voted to win. In Culture you can always see when you start getting closer to either of the culture wins that the game will be over in x turns. With the other VC (Conquest and Domination) Once you are done kicking the crap out of the stronger civs all your left with is moving your units around getting more cities with very little resistant just to reach that magic % for the win or grabbing that last city of that last civ to win. The AI is never smart enough to realize "hey this guy is gonna "win" if we dont do something."

The AI like any human should try to stop a player(or another AI civ) from winning. It would make it more competative and add little more action near the end. If a civ sees you got a city making 100+ culture a turn and has 9000 points, it better do something like capture the city. Just like in multiplayer (since there is none I am just guessing heh) if a player was about to win via culture or spaceship, heck I dont wanna lose so I would send in everything I had. If one civ is starting to really turn into a military might and threatening everyone and killing off civs 1 at a time, the AI should think "hmm I might be next so if we dont do something we are all dead". Maybe have the AI create a nice alliance to try and stop the one civ who is killing everyone. I would love to see the AI's form a big alliance to try and stop a blood thirsty civ. Maybe if you were great friends with a civ they will ally up with you so you start having more 3v4 civs type thing rather then the usual 1v1 or 7v1. It would give the final step to "win" a bit more challenge and action. No civ should be able to step out and be declared #1 so easily.

I could see how players who dont like so much war might not like this. But I certainly would.

[Captain]

So you are advocating something like the Age of Kings statement "Player X has built a Wonder. If it stands for Y turns, they will win." and then every other player tries to kick the crap out of that civ to prevent them from winning, right?

Sounds good to me. Peaceful builders would try for this but then would also need to be very well prepared for the inevitable onslaught. Makes lots of sense too, if you make a very nice attractive empire, others are going to try to take it from you.

But some others might not like this kind of pressure. Should be an option.

[Todd Hawks]

I don't know... I think I would be annoyed if close allies suddenly declare an all-out war on me just because I'm winning.

For the game it is logical but for "managing my empire" I wouldn't want this.

It would be o.k. as an option.

[Spec]

I agree completly, but I dont think it should come as an option, it should come with the level. Like in monarch and higher. Cuz I dont care if the AI wants to kill me at cheiftan or warlord, my achers could probably kill their tanks.

Spec.

[Worthingtons]

Yes, this kind of feature should be incorperated, but not to a massive effect. For example, in early versions of Championship manager it would become easy to get a storming start to the season and be top, and then for no reason except to 'balance' things you'd lose the next 10 games. It was very frustrating.

I used to like the Civ II 'The French and the scum have signed the Berlin pact to stop English Aggression' thing.

[Rimpy]

I agree that once it becomes obvious that a civ is about to win, all the other civs should do everything to stop them.

Although we unfortunately can't modify the AI's behavior, I can at least spice up the end game for myself by playing by a different set of rules.

My favorite way of playing the game is to set the victory options to space race and conquest only. Except that I never actually win the space race, I always try to win by conquest. However, the AI can win by space race if it tries. This makes for some very interesting games.

If I know that an AI is about to win the space race, I'm compelled to attack them whether I'm prepared for it or not. This prevents me from picking and choosing whom I want to attack next. I'm forced to attack certain civs regardless of diplomatic standing or geographic proximity.

I've found that this makes the end game a lot more interesting. Try it out, it's a lot of fun!

Rimpy

[Tarquelne]

Domination/Genocide:
I think these victory types would be far more interesting if the AI civ's "got a clue" about aggressive (well, _successfully_ aggressive) opponent civilizations. I think the diplomatic penalties for taking and especially razing a city should be much harsher, in that they steadily increase for each city taken or razed. A little genocide is OK, but after awhile the other civs catch on that you don't mean well.... Hopefully this change wouldn't require much more than a tweak of the diplomatic AI.

Spaceship:
I'd like it if a couple of new Spaceship techs had semi-"Wonder" status: Only the first Civ to research the tech can get it via research - others have to get it via Diplomacy or warfare ("Hand it over or die.") The techs should be expensive, and at "opposite" sides of the Modern tech-tree. A good tech lead would be necessary for a player to feel confident about getting both techs via research, and even then they'll be sacrificing first crack at a number of other Modern Age techs.

Hmm.... maybe having one tech should allow you to be able to research the other tech. (So warfare is much less likely to be required to get both techs if you first research one of them.) Or you only need 1 of the techs, so 2 civs could qualify for the spaceship via pure research.

Making Uranium less common might make Spaceship victories more interesting. Unless you're lucky enough to happen to have a deposit in your territory some diplomacy or warfare would be necessary to complete the Ship.

UN:
A more involved Diplomacy engine/AI would go far towards improving this victory. Obviously. I wouldn't mind if the UN had an unrealistic level of power in the game (compared to real life). The World Council stuff in SMAC (is that what it was called? World Council?) might have been my favorite part of SMAC. Maybe something to hope for in an expansion.

Cultural:
Well, I think the whole Culture system is pretty undeveloped other than the border fuction. I assume Firaxis has a bunch of their own ideas on ways to make Culture more interesting.