The Great Lighthouse

^Um... I think I get your point, but I'm not sure, could you explain more.

It's the same point I was essentially making...I don't possibly see the logic that made it necessary to remove the Great Lighthouse because the Great Lighthouse alone is overpowered. IMHO, it's not the most overpowered wonder - and if the map is heavily water skewed, then both other water-related advantages, and especially the Colossus, would probably need such "balancing" just as much. And specifically - and keep in mind I'm not on the Vikings team, and we've even got wonderful Cothons anyway over here with the Q - but I really see this as a strong nerf against the Vikings too, and am concerned over the fairness of that.

Edit: as far as the mapmaker/admin thing - I'll say again I'm not too upset over this now and will go on just fine, and this really could have been fine too. But announcing it earlier may have helped - again, given my preferences on game settings I was longing for something less totally dull... and if announced in advance I would have been fine with the mapmaker having free reign to add in "hero barbarians" and other worldbuilder stuff in general. But I can also see how many other teams/players would not have expected such - though I too trust Dave made a decent call so we'll just let it run its course, probably this just being announced at the time it was is the only real concern.

Super bonus points to any team that can figure a way to capture the barb city.

Some possible ideas?
Massive culture bombing?
Can enough nukes melt the enclosing ice caps?
Opening and closing nearby borders to teleport a transport?
Paratroopers?

Irgy, Sommerswerd, TMIT, relax.

No one cares THAT much about the Wonder, in fact it's not really about the wonder, not to me anyways. It's about the level of modding to the map that I wasn't mad aware that the Mapmaker was going to do. I have no problem playing without the GLH. I don't think there really is anyone here that is that upset that they can't build the thing either.

Also Sommerswerd I tech Music ALL the time.

I love this. This adds so much excitement and intrigue. It's not like he told us the GL was disabled after a team had already teched for it.

At the end of the day the map maker knows more about map than anyone else and is in best position to know if the game would play better without a certain feature.

I could understand this thread if this had been announced after a few turns had been played but seriously... turn 0...

Its a lot of whining about nothing.

Underestimating the GLH on a map where you can get 2-3 commerce trade routes on each of the bonus routes is a grave error. Not only is it a strong wonder, but on a map where you get it without getting killed or boxed in with those conditions, it is easily the strongest wonder in the game, well above pyramids, oracle, or great library. At least several players from every team understand this. Now, whether Dave is doing this for balance purposes or as a comical prank, either way I don't see how it oversteps his bounds. If you remove the map-maker's ability to mod the map in this fashion, you might as well pull his ability to change terrain at all...the latter is far higher-impact.

No, there are no more barbarian surprises.

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Well I am sure glad to hear that. Though I would have appreciated it if these warnings were ahead of time, so I wouldn't have to throw my other plans out the window now.

Plans are hard to have when you get a majority vote on a custom mystery map :/.

TheMeInTeam said:

Somehow, I find the uproar over this a little silly. Dave doesn't want the advantage skewed one way, and he was given the right to choose how to set the map up.

Haven't some of you realized that map layout can cause a FAR GREATER impact on the game than any single wonder, even that one? What if Dave hands only one civ marble/stone? What if one side is given bfc metal and a close spawn to someone else? Every single decision about the map has influence on the potential for traits and civs to influence the outcome of the game. And yet for one singular decision that if we guess the reasoning is not even the biggest deciding factor on the map, we're hitting multiple thread pages.

Someone who picked IND or ORG can whine over this all they like, but keep in mind that a water map puts others at a disadvantage too, if it is a water map. More importantly, if this wonder is so strong based on his decisions that it gives one side a controlling advantage, it makes sense to curtail the game being decided or largely decided in the 1000's BC.

The map, as a controlled setting, is different from random generations, and therefore we are expected to adapt...and the complaint is over a WONDER, one which we're informed from turn 0 that we can't attain?

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There are 2 things that need to be made clear.

First is the taking the great lighthouse out of the game. This is of no specific importance as it is for all and infact it is a good decision to make on water maps.

Second and in my opinion the real issue, is that the map was made sea based (as the great lighhouse ban indicates), without telling teams before they pick civs that the map will be seabased.

As a result, and if the map is infact seabased, Sirious who picked Dutch, have a BIG advandage due to their unique building. CDZ who picked Vikings also have a BIG advantage due to their extra move navy and their amphibious maces. If they win circumnavigation as well that will be 2 extra move navy, in effect impossible for anyone to protect multiple coastal cities.

These are facts!

As an example I only mention that CDZ in their internal pitboss game, chose to use No city razing option, because they recognize the fact that it is imposibble to protect multiple coastal cities from naval rushes...never mind defending from units that have 2 move advantage!

So if this was to be a sea based map the teams should have known before they pick!

Now since this is a diplo game, diplomacy will determine alot, true, but I don't see the point of getting a BIG advantage from the getoff, just because the mapmaker does not realize the implications of what he is doing.

However, alll this is theory, that I felt needed to be clarified so that everyone is clear on what the argument is and people don't say it is silly whinning.....actually I have faith that Dave has thought of all this when he made the map and that we are trully in for a nice unique map design and an enjoyable roughly balanced game.

To be fair the polls were showing a leaning toward Archipelago/Islands. If Dave really wanted to take the Sea based civs advantage away he should have made the map Pangaea type map or no water at all.

I think no one has seen has seen enough of the map to really know what it will be like, and since its hand made it could really be anything

Indiansmoke said:

...
So if this was to be a sea based map the teams should have known before they pick!

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To be honest, I think you're actually the only person making this point so far. I'm not trying to lessen your point by saying that, it's still at least as valid as anything anyone else has said. But I don't think people are missing the point when they're not discussing it, they're just responding to other people's posts.

Personally I don't agree with this philosophically, but I'll admit it's partly a matter of opinon. I'll explain my view though. Choosing a sea-based leader is a risk, just as choosing an early game rush leader is a risk, and choosing a resource-dependent UU is a risk. To me, that's exactly why it was important that we pick the leaders before we knew what sort of map we were playing. Of course it's then also highly preferable that the map was decided without knowledge (or at least without accounting for) of the chosen leaders, but I'll put faith in the admins on that one.

Of course some people don't like those risks, and try to remove them as much as possible. That's presumably your point of view and it's valid. Personally, I prefer random leaders, random maps, random starts, put all the random elements in a bucket and hopefully on average they cancel each other out. To me, removing one just makes the others more visible, without making things a great deal fairer on the whole. In a game that will go for so long and involve so many people though removing as many random elements as possible is more justified.

Finally, just to be clear, I'm simply discussing the issue philosophically here. I think it's an interesting issue, but I'm not really trying to acheive anything here.

Indiansmoke said:

There are 2 things that need to be made clear.

First is the taking the great lighthouse out of the game. This is of no specific importance as it is for all and infact it is a good decision to make on water maps.

Second and in my opinion the real issue, is that the map was made sea based (as the great lighhouse ban indicates), without telling teams before they pick civs that the map will be seabased.

As a result, and if the map is infact seabased, Sirious who picked Dutch, have a BIG advandage due to their unique building. CDZ who picked Vikings also have a BIG advantage due to their extra move navy and their amphibious maces. If they win circumnavigation as well that will be 2 extra move navy, in effect impossible for anyone to protect multiple coastal cities.

These are facts!

As an example I only mention that CDZ in their internal pitboss game, chose to use No city razing option, because they recognize the fact that it is imposibble to protect multiple coastal cities from naval rushes...never mind defending from units that have 2 move advantage!

So if this was to be a sea based map the teams should have known before they pick!

Click to expand...

And if it was a land based map should we complain about that as well? As Robi said, nobody knows what the map looks like just yet, in all likelyhood there will be a lot of land so there is not really a problem there

Now with regard to the internal game, which was started ages ago, this No city razing option was only picked as something different to try, not due to any recognition of anything at all. We've played games where it has been allowed, generally the only constant has been no tech trading so i'm not sure of the relevance of that point.

Indiansmoke said:

There are 2 things that need to be made clear.

First is the taking the great lighthouse out of the game. This is of no specific importance as it is for all and infact it is a good decision to make on water maps.

Second and in my opinion the real issue, is that the map was made sea based (as the great lighhouse ban indicates), without telling teams before they pick civs that the map will be seabased.

As a result, and if the map is infact seabased, Sirious who picked Dutch, have a BIG advandage due to their unique building. CDZ who picked Vikings also have a BIG advantage due to their extra move navy and their amphibious maces. If they win circumnavigation as well that will be 2 extra move navy, in effect impossible for anyone to protect multiple coastal cities.

These are facts!

As an example I only mention that CDZ in their internal pitboss game, chose to use No city razing option, because they recognize the fact that it is imposibble to protect multiple coastal cities from naval rushes...never mind defending from units that have 2 move advantage!

So if this was to be a sea based map the teams should have known before they pick!

Now since this is a diplo game, diplomacy will determine alot, true, but I don't see the point of getting a BIG advantage from the getoff, just because the mapmaker does not realize the implications of what he is doing.

However, alll this is theory, that I felt needed to be clarified so that everyone is clear on what the argument is and people don't say it is silly whinning.....actually I have faith that Dave has thought of all this when he made the map and that we are trully in for a nice unique map design and an enjoyable roughly balanced game.

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I am in heavy agreement with this ----> designing a map such that some teams score a HEAVY advantage based on leader choice is a bad move for a map maker trying to create a balanced MP game. Perhaps this, too, was taken into account, but the GLH move itself is not the big deal. I'll withhold any judgment until we are actually deep enough into the game to determine what's really going on with the map. I have a good bit of trust in the map creator's skills, and that will not change until I've been given cause to change it.

* please delete *

Indiansmoke said:

So if this was to be a sea based map the teams should have known before they pick!

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But why? We all were not knowing what to expect.

I know, your team has voted for something different, but it was decided to just let the map maker decide.

You should have proposed an amendment to the ruleset, which states, that the map maker might make a surprise map, but please tell all the details before.

BTW, I don't know whether it really is necessary to take the Great Lighthouse out of the game, but I trust the map maker on this one.

nevermind

BCLG100 said:

Now with regard to the internal game, which was started ages ago, this No city razing option was only picked as something different to try, not due to any recognition of anything at all. We've played games where it has been allowed, generally the only constant has been no tech trading so i'm not sure of the relevance of that point.

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just for the record....this is from the original cut more crap pitboss thread.

barbu197728-09-2009, 17:30
Map maker reporting.

- With Indiansmoke, we are now 15, 16 will be maximum number for the map I have in mind.

- I think Espionage is good. And will remain on. If you don't like it, don't use it but others may take advantage of it.

- City razing is off, mainly to prevent late game coastal city razing without real chance for retaliation.

- We will not use BUFFY. The KISS principle applies here (keep it simple, stupid)

- 2 settlers does speed up things alot.

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Matrix29-09-2009, 14:28
I myself am away from thursday till wednesday, but in the weekend I'll probably have internet and Civ4 available.

I'm not afraid of the settler-spawning-bad-city-placements-tactic, because that definitely won't help towards your victory. You're just screwing it up for yourself and possibly your opponent.

I think what makes the biggest difference is the presence of water. If we're playing on an archipelago map, city razing is a must IMO. On a pangaea map I agree city razing has more advantages than disadvantages.

I sense a poll is coming up... [rolleyes]

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Matrix30-09-2009, 02:22
I think it's sufficient to disallow razing after an amphibious attack, as barbu1977 suggested. Attacking from sea gives you so many targets at the same time, that's the only problem I have with city razing. You just can't defend yourself against that (as I have proven in the last pitboss on Earth, against Darkness and IanDC).

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Azza30-09-2009, 09:20
I think it's sufficient to disallow razing after an amphibious attack, as barbu1977 suggested. Attacking from sea gives you so many targets at the same time, that's the only problem I have with city razing. You just can't defend yourself against that (as I have proven in the last pitboss on Earth, against Darkness and IanDC).

I think that's definitely the most important reason for having a rule against city razing.

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There *is* a way to defend amphibious city razing, by the way. Everyone's pretty creative, so I'm sure you can come up with it.

And if you can't, then for once in our lifetime we can use a civ IV game tip: on water maps, powerful navies are not optional.

Answer: use your own amphibious raid or sink ships. It might be true that you can't garrison and actually defend all of the coastal cities, but if it's come to that you screwed up and deserved the damage. Someone in those games won, correct? It was decided by each team's actions, right?

I am very much against arbitrary bans of actions that are allowed in the game outright. Amphibious attacks are heavily penalized in most cases, and yet remain one of the FEW ways in the entire game where the game isn't heavily biased against a human attacker in a 1 on 1. No walls far less concern over collateral initiative (but not none!), high priority on heavy scouting.

If amphibious raze is banned we might as well start banning more wonders, ban state property, ban bureaucracy, ban elephants, ban catapults. Why not?