i've never played a 4x computer game that did not turn into a slog end game. That means that the design is not fine.

We obviously disagree about how good Civ V is which is fine, everyone likes different things. But I take strong issue with the idea that Civ V's problems come from over-polishing. We must be using different definitions of the word. Civ V's problems (relative to Civ IV at least) are that they tried to simplify too many elements, happiness being the most glaring problem but there are others, and ended up with a game which has some poor core mechanics. Simplification is NOT the same as polishing.

I would define polishing a game as making so that the game design is taut (ie decisions are such that multiple choices are valid and the choice made does make a difference), the game is stable (doesn't crash), core mechanics and systems don't have any visible bugs or major exploits (LH problems in this area include the save/load problems, instability after generating several maps and the growth/food mechanic being broken by queuing pioneers) and visible minor bugs or UI glitches during typical gameplay are few and far between.

I think Stardock have done a good job of making the game stable, a reasonable job of making the game design taut but a poor job of eliminating major and minor bugs and exploits. I say the last partially in the context of this being effectively the 3rd release of the game (whether you view it as 3 separate games or a base game with 2 expansions makes little difference) and many of the major bugs/exploits have been known for a very long time...

Correct me if I'm wrong on these two points, but the AI only surrenders if you are beating them up and the AI cannot use the master quest victory.

That's not really that important though. I think my terminology was inaccurate, and there is less maintenance per turn than a game like Civ late game. That's a good thing.

What I meant is that in every 4x game where the goal is conquest, there is a point where the balance of the game tips from challenging game play to effortless cleanup. This is due to the snowballing effect of power, and it's something that games like Civ try to design around with systems such as happiness, corruption and war weariness. In the case of Civ games, this means that you usually end up conquering, consolidating, conquering, consolidating, etc. It's not perfect, but it does keep the ramp from going insane.

The only system that tries to affect this at all in LH is unrest, and due to the ease of overcoming it, it's mostly a non-factor.

As a result we have a game where the player has effectively won after 2 hours of playing, but must spend 6 hours cleaning up (on large maps), which is very bad. Granted, part of this is due to AI not wanting to quit and not being nearly as strong as its score suggests, and the AI improvements earlier mentioned will improve both sides of this equation (takes longer to effectively win, and less time to clean up).

Ideally I'd love to see some sort of mechanic cause the game to be over by around 4 hours, with 0 hours of cleanup.

Noticed a bug, a screen shot would have wrapped it up, but...yeah sorry.

Anyways I assume everyone noticed this already but...

If you line up your troops  all right next to each other and there isnt space to walk around them.  The AI does nothing and constantly passes on their turn.

And epic army can be defeated by a single archer doing 1 damage a shot if they have a line of whatever in front of them.

| = border, X = Troop Square

|XXXXXX| = AI stops doing anything and just skips turn and lets you pick them off at range.

Its a common tactic to line up your troops like this due to swarm tactics, and I hate having to do...

|XXX_XXX|

|___X___|

In order to not have the AI sit there and die to ranged.

I have to disagree with this approach, serious exploits should certainly be fixed as a pretty high priority IMO. Particularly the pioneer exploit which is so easy to use and so powerful.

You're giving the player an awful lot of credit if you think they can sit there with their capital not growing due to maxed out food and NOT think, mmm well, I might want a pioneer in the future, would it hurt if I just queued one up, I'm not doing it because of that exploit of course. However maybe I should queue two, cause you know, there are lots of places I could put outposts down...

Abracadabra! Magic, suddenly the capital is growing again. And then you are sitting there wondering why everyone is finding the game too easy and trying to find ways to improve the AI to match... fix the exploits (even if players are only using them accidentally) and you'll help the problem.

It's your game but obvious and overpowered exploits are a big turn off for me...

Brad, you guys need to create a game where you're a game development studio. You'd have to allocate resources to different areas (marketing, developers, etc.), design the game, communicate to forum users, etc. Would remind me of the DLC Quest game on Steam.

It seems to me that creating and supporting a game is just like playing one- you have limited resources and need to find the best way to optimize them.

I think it depends on the type of exploit. I really couldn't care less about custom faction exploits, for example. No claims are made about them being balanced. If you find them unbalanced, don't use them.

I don't care too much about "exploits" which essentially revolve around playing the game optimally. There can be an issue with the AI using them properly, but in theory that can be programmed in.

I care quite a lot about exploits which reduce the suspension of disbelief, or seem broken. For example, not requiring resources other than gold when upgrading unit size doesn't seem right, and encourages an obvious exploit where you build smaller units and then upgrade them. Queuing pioneers to exploit population growth also seems odd.

I also care quite a lot about exploits which seem so powerful that they make the rest of the game pointless. Using a horse to steal Insane loot from undefended lairs isn't particularly against the spirit of the game and it doesn't break any game mechanic. But it's too powerful, and has odd effects (like higher monster difficulty levels actually making the game easier when using this tactic). Hopefully this will be fixed in the next patch.

This does leave a lot of grey area, but in general it's only the big, suspension of disbelief destroying exploits, that seem to make other parts of the game pointless, which I really object to.

Only Diamond leauge? You should be at least Grandmaster, and play LH 24/7 every day so we don't have any bugs or exploits! 

No JK, you guys are doing fine, but some people can't help but want everything and your soul

+1, I actually subscribed to these forums initially just to post a thread on this topic.  The subject may not get much light, but it has some strong supportive arguments.

Hah, fun idea.  +2

The GUI propels me to do this^.

Irritates me no end too.

I wish there was a way they could use steamworks to watch how people play and then incorporate the strategies into the AI.

I wasn't really addressing the idea of "good" AI, but rather competent AI as it relates to the problems with these type of games that people described in earlier posts 

This isn't about you or Elemental, but really any symmetrical game where one side can get an advantage... It's just mathematically impossible to reward the early game without making the mid/late game one-sided.

People keep wishing for something that is simply not going to happen unless symmetry is gone or the AI is competent.

when all the "broken" 4X games can work fine in a multiplayer setting, I think it's pretty clear that AI is the weak part

I think the balance issues with pretty much all 4X games give a pretty good indication of how well the developers understand the strategies, but that isn't even the point. Even if people do learn how to play 4X games, they still don't know how to write strong AI for complex problems