Ancient ruins?

I really like them, they add interest to the beginning of the game and often stop you being totally pigeon-holed into a style of play dictated by which leader you picked/got.

I almost always end up in a war at 3700 BC because I chop up any AI scouts/archers before they steal my ruins!

I agree they can get a bit OP sometimes but that's fairly rare in my limited experience. If they get too silly I tend to restart as 3 upgrades to the same unit or 3 techs down the same line ruin the game a bit.

The super-powered Faith one needs to go tho. The regular Faith one (I think 40 or 80 faith on marathon) is fine but the 200 faith one is a bit over the top.

Maps are the most disappointing. An early one is ok if it shows you a couple of other ruins, or a wonder, or an AI city, but 90% of the time it's some random selection of sea tiles with a bit of Ice.

Plus, as others have said, the AI gets them too. In my recent Celts game I was 2nd to pantheon even though I started with the 3 forests. Just the luck of the draw.
 
I like them because oftentimes, they are right next to a barb or barb camp; thus, making it a little bit tricky to get with your scout (with the chance of losing it).
 
No, they are not "overpowered". All civs, including you, have roughly an equal chance of getting the same set of bonuses. It may mean that you have to do a better job at scouting to grab more (both land and sea), which some are loathe to do. Imagine an AI opponent popping a map - do you think that will help it at all (whereas you could get a slight bonus from it). Additionaly, you get more value from gold than an AI civ does. I don't think the AI is programmed to get only good ruins, so you could do better.
 
I don't think that ruins are overpowered or underpowered. I just feel that the AIs will get far more of them than I will, even though a single AI may get about as many as I would. I don't care to run the risk that an AI will get a better boost (say a wonder-producing early tech I want) that leaves me in the dust. I prefer the more "equal" playing board without ruins. What few bonuses I may get from ruins are outweighed by the bonuses given to all the AIs. I think in a multi-player game, I would leave the ruins on for every player's sake though.
 
No, they are not "overpowered".

If you don't like the word 'overpowered' to describe them, perhaps 'distortionary' would be better. Any random element that can potentially give you a massive boost, or potentially give you a map, is going to be quite distortionary. Perhaps it is fair to say that it is the culture and faith bonuses, and not the ruins themselves, that are overpowered, but the difference is really a semantic one.
 
I think they wanted to promote scouting more. I know that when mad trading was allowed, I rarely scouted anything.

So now instead I never know the layout of other continents until satellites (it's not worth getting/giving open borders, and sending a unit out there to scout....or at least is seems like too much effort).
 
If you don't like the word 'overpowered' to describe them, perhaps 'distortionary' would be better. Any random element that can potentially give you a massive boost, or potentially give you a map, is going to be quite distortionary. Perhaps it is fair to say that it is the culture and faith bonuses, and not the ruins themselves, that are overpowered, but the difference is really a semantic one.

Only in the context of re-loading (with re-seeding) to get a favorable result.
 
Well, no, because you might get a favourable result, whilst your neighbour doesn't, or vice versa. That distorts the game whether you reload or not.
 
So now instead I never know the layout of other continents until satellites (it's not worth getting/giving open borders, and sending a unit out there to scout....or at least is seems like too much effort).
Yeah in CiV often >50% of the map is revealed before Satellites because of open borders issues or the ice caps, barbarians killing scouts, etc. I really don't like this and still don't see a good reason why it is this way.


I think they wanted to promote scouting more. I know that when mad trading was allowed, I rarely scouted anything.

I always scouted in CIV. Sometimes the AI wouldn't or couldn't trade maps. And when they did, that hardly ever revealed the whole map. It wasn't till late game that I could reveal more than 75% of it.

And if they wanted to emphasize scouting more, they should have made the unit stronger and upgradeable. At a certain point in the game you can't build it at all anymore and the scouts you have that have survived 2000+ years are now one-shotted by barbarian infantry and such.

Well, no, because you might get a favourable result, whilst your neighbour doesn't, or vice versa. That distorts the game whether you reload or not.

Yeah but it's random. It's not like one player AI is set to get the bonuses from huts while the others don't. It may turn out that way by coincidence, but really the bonuses usually get spread pretty evenly between myself and the other AI's in my single player games. I don't see how it's distorting the game when everyone has roughly the same chance of benefitting from it.
 
Yeah but it's random. It's not like one player AI is set to get the bonuses from huts while the others don't. It may turn out that way by coincidence, but really the bonuses usually get spread pretty evenly between myself and the other AI's in my single player games. I don't see how it's distorting the game when everyone has roughly the same chance of benefitting from it.

Not every player in a game is going to get a culture or faith ruin. So those that do will be advantaged, and those that don't will be disadvantaged. Given it's based on sheer randomness, I would call that a distortion.

The logic that 'everyone has roughly the same chance of benefiting' means there isn't a distortion doesn't really work either. Imagine one of the ruins gave you an insta-win. Now, because it's random, every civ in the game would have an equal chance of hitting it, but it'd be clearly distortionary nonetheless.
 
I HATE having my warrior turned into a spearman, unless I'm a spearman UU civ, which I rarely am. I LOVE having a scout become a no movement penalty archer.
Why would you HATE having your warrior turned into a spearman? It's a straight upgrade with no downside, at a time in the game when the combat difference between a barbarian warrior and a player's spearman is significant.

The scout upgrade is less unambiguously wonderful, as it no longer has access to scout promotions.
 
Not every player in a game is going to get a culture or faith ruin. So those that do will be advantaged, and those that don't will be disadvantaged. Given it's based on sheer randomness, I would call that a distortion.

The logic that 'everyone has roughly the same chance of benefiting' means there isn't a distortion doesn't really work either. Imagine one of the ruins gave you an insta-win. Now, because it's random, every civ in the game would have an equal chance of hitting it, but it'd be clearly distortionary nonetheless.

You've really taken the concept to such an extreme with your last two sentences to the point that it doesn't really apply.

I have to disagree with your first paragrpaph. The randomness is what makes it not a distortion IMO. It's also not the case that the bonuses are so massive they can't be overcome or that the players who get them are going to necessarily win. I do take your point that it distorts a player in the since that it gives them a boost. But as I've said anyone can get the boost, no one is predetermined to get a boost and the boosts (while large for the early game) are not so big that they can't be overcome. Therefore I don't see it as distorting the game overall.

I suspect since this is all about our opinions that neither of us are going to agree on it though.:D
 
Why would you HATE having your warrior turned into a spearman? It's a straight upgrade with no downside, at a time in the game when the combat difference between a barbarian warrior and a player's spearman is significant.

The scout upgrade is less unambiguously wonderful, as it no longer has access to scout promotions.

The reason I dislike the Warrior --> Spearman upgrade is the upgrade paths. A Spearman now eventually becomes a Lancer while a Warrior becomes a Rifleman.

An Archer which ignore terrain costs is awesome. It is very quick to build another Scout for exploring.
 
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