ALC Game #23: America/Lincoln

Why do people keep calling for him to show how to use the unique building and unique unit? "When you play America again you really should make sure to use Seals and Malls," "Man, too bad you didn't use the UU and UB," "Maybe drop back to Emperor to showcase the UB and UU." Do you really have a hard time wrapping your head around how either might be utilized?

Remember, they both come late in the game, meaning the building is close to useless for all but the closest space victories, and the UU would only help with domination. For civilizations with an early UU it's reasonable to expect it see used because most games involve a war at some point. To use a late UU you need to (1)pursue domination, (2)start frivolous wars.

Sisituil is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. People aren't satisfied not seeing Seals in a screenshot even if it involves jeopardizing the game just to have a late war. I can't help but feel this is some roleplaying limitation which serves neither to educate people how to best use a leader, nor provide a realistic example of how to use a particular unit or building.

What I don't understand is the notion that Emperor games are over more quickly.

I would have thought a higher difficulty level would mean a higher probability of late game wins or losses? Just like Noble means a longer time before the game is decided than Settler should Immortal mean a longer time than Emperor. Or what am I missing here? Or do you propose Sisiutil should slack off, purposefully using a lower difficulty level to prolong an already won game?

Lord Chambers said:

Why do people keep calling for him to show how to use the unique building and unique unit? "When you play America again you really should make sure to use Seals and Malls," "Man, too bad you didn't use the UU and UB," "Maybe drop back to Emperor to showcase the UB and UU." Do you really have a hard time wrapping your head around how either might be utilized?

Remember, they both come late in the game, meaning the building is close to useless for all but the closest space victories, and the UU would only help with domination. For civilizations with an early UU it's reasonable to expect it see used because most games involve a war at some point. To use a late UU you need to (1)pursue domination, (2)start frivolous wars.

Sisituil is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. People aren't satisfied not seeing Seals in a screenshot even if it involves jeopardizing the game just to have a late war. I can't help but feel this is some roleplaying limitation which serves neither to educate people how to best use a leader, nor provide a realistic example of how to use a particular unit or building.

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I only brought it up because it's one of the points he's made in the past about the ALC in general. Is he really damned? That sounds a little extreme, it's only a game.

And no, jerk, I don't have a hard time wrapping my head around anything. I read these for fun, not education. Maybe you should drop down to decaf.

kazapp said:

What I don't understand is the notion that Emperor games are over more quickly.

I would have thought a higher difficulty level would mean a higher probability of late game wins or losses? Just like Noble means a longer time before the game is decided than Settler should Immortal mean a longer time than Emperor. Or what am I missing here? Or do you propose Sisiutil should slack off, purposefully using a lower difficulty level to prolong an already won game?

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I was considering the fact that tech trades were useful for the entire game here at immortal because the AI techs that quickly. On emperor, it would be up to Sis to research most techs by himself by the late mid-game because his empire will have passed everyone by. Based on that, I was thinking late game units may have more usefulness even though it may be 'slacking off', as you say.

It doesn't matter much either way. If it came to vote, which it won't, I'd say stay at emperor. It's a far better read than lowering the difficulty slider to butcher everyone. If Sis had been going for domination, it's very likely the marines/SEALs would have been needed.

Lord Chambers said:

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I was waiting for the obligatory post condemning the entire point of the ALC series.

I don't think most players read the ALC threads because they're wondering "How can I make better use of America's UU?" I think they're reading because they're wondering "How can I improve my game, win more often, and move up the difficulty levels?" That's the real reason I started this series and continue with it, because that's what I'm trying to do as well.

At the same time, I didn't want the game to get boring by playing the same leader and same strategy all the time, hence the decision to base the series around playing each leader. I wanted to explore more of what the game has to offer.

I think this game demonstrated that the American UU/UB can be difficult to leverage because they come so late. I would be doing people who read these threads a disservice if I played a sub-par strategy merely so that I'd get some use out of them. Choosing to not war on Montezuma when the chance arose in the medieval period in this game would have been a sub-optimal decision. So I didn't do that, I made the more sound strategic choice of going to war, claiming more land and eliminating a neighbouring rival who would have been at least troublesome, if not downright threatening, all game.

The lesson here is that sometimes you'll get to use the SEALs, sometimes you won't. It depends on what happens earlier in the game.

Anyway, on to Babylon. I'll start the pre-game thread tomorrow.

Woohoo! (On both counts.)

Sisiutil said:

Choosing to not war on Montezuma when the chance arose in the medieval period in this game would have been a sub-optimal decision.

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Well...... warring Montezuma when you'd had the chance earlier may have been even more optimal. I guess we'll never really know.

Daedal said:

Well...... warring Montezuma when you'd had the chance earlier may have been even more optimal. I guess we'll never really know.

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I think that would have been a risky strategy. To avoid Huayna from expanding past the US into the space created by the Aztec war, S would have had to box him in, resulting in high probability of a backstab. He may have gone for Egypt instead, but S being at war with Monty would have made America an attractive dogpile target too.

Monty was also quite far, making keeping hold of any of his cities expensive very early on (although gems in New York would have helped with that).

patagonia said:

I think that would have been a risky strategy. To avoid Huayna from expanding past the US into the space created by the Aztec war, S would have had to box him in, resulting in high probability of a backstab. He may have gone for Egypt instead, but S being at war with Monty would have made America an attractive dogpile target too.

Monty was also quite far, making keeping hold of any of his cities expensive very early on (although gems in New York would have helped with that).

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That was my thinking at the time, yes: Monty was close enough to be a danger but too far away to be a convenient early target. If there'd been a land bridge linking the Aztec empire to Ethiopia, things might have been very different.

Lord Chambers said:

Why do people keep calling for him to show how to use the unique building and unique unit? "When you play America again you really should make sure to use Seals and Malls," "Man, too bad you didn't use the UU and UB," "Maybe drop back to Emperor to showcase the UB and UU." Do you really have a hard time wrapping your head around how either might be utilized?

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Sisiutil said:

The idea of the All Leaders Challenge is that I'm going to play a game with each of the Civ IV leaders. With the help of all the posters who participate, I will attempt to make the most of the leader's unique characteristics: traits, starting techs, unit, and building.

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There are threads out there about achieving optimal victories, high scores, roleplays, etc. This one is about leveraging the leader's unique stuff. The takeaway from this thread then is that late UU/UBs need to be planned for earlier than expected if your goal is to use them (and that sometimes, the map renders them useless, just as an isolated start renders the earlier UUs useless).

The pre-game show for the next ALC is underway HERE.

BlueSoxSWJ said:

The takeaway from this thread then is that late UU/UBs need to be planned for earlier than expected if your goal is to use them (and that sometimes, the map renders them useless, just as an isolated start renders the earlier UUs useless).

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I think the takeaway is that the later your UU, the higher the probability it will be irrelevant when it appears (either you've already won, or you've already lost).

Sisiutil is showing us the right way to play by not playing suboptimally just to let the UU shine.

By the way, you all should play as the Minor Nations sometime. I sometimes think some of you place far too much importance on leaders and uniques, when in reality they only nudge things a bit here and there. After playing with no leader traits, no UU and no UB a few times, you should realize you will do perfectly fine without them!

Looking forward to Hammurabi time!