Planning cIV BTS MTDG III

My point exactly 2metraninja, rules were put in place to prevent collusion concerning city gifting. Coastal blockades are also commonly banned. This is beside the point, though. What definition of OP do you use in your argument Sommerswerd? It seems we might see the term differently.
 
OK, I see a lot of people expect me to step in charge of the organization of the game. MTDG3 was not my idea, but since it was almost non-active before I started to advertise it and actually all the fuss leaded to the big interest about the game we enjoy right now, I think I can ride the wave and take organizational duties for MTDG3.
 
It depends on two things. 1. As I already asked, why do you consider the mission overpowered? Is it because the cost does not scale with empire size but affects the whole empire? Is that the only reason? Because bulbing a tech does not scale with empire size, but getting a tech affects the whole empire. So is teching OP? Is bulbing OP? There are plenty of Wonders that give Empire-wide benefits, and yet their cost does not scale with empire size. Are they OP? Building 1 Oil well delivers oil to your ENTIRE empire no matter whether you have 3 cities or 30 cities. And the cost to build the Oil well is the same regardless. It does not scale with empire size. Is that OP? (Now for this we have evidence that the makers of Civ thought it was OP, because in Civ 5, strategic resources are nerfed to scale with use). So should we ban the use of strategic resources?

This is a lot of rhetoric but I don't think you're actually trying to understand. The examples you give are very different. Imagine if you could build a unit that, when deleted, immediately gave you +20h in all cities, and this unit cost 100h. I'm sure you'd agree that's broken, right? The fact is that if you have more than 5 cities (probably even less, but then for sure) you will be building as many of these guys as your cities can support before you start losing tons of hammers to overflow caps.

Of course lots of things in Civ let you make a profit like this thing does. Building a worker at the beginning of the game gives quite a tidy profit. Building forges pays back after a while too. Currency pays itself back too and it does so faster if you have a bigger empire. Ultimately though, all these options you have are competing with each other for priority, they have time costs, they have risk. Mostly they have opportunity cost.

This hypothetical unit that I invented though, you will look at your in-game situation in many, many cases and it will be obvious that building this guy instead of something else is almost pure profit and has negligible opportunity cost. And you will find that civ would become a game of planting as many cities as possible and just spamming these guys, and building everything else you wish to produce in just 1 turn. It's such a good deal that you would be crazy (from a perspective of succeeding in the game) to not build as many as possible and ignore all other methods of hammer production after you've set your cycle up.

The claim here (I don't know for sure that it's true as I have never played with swap civic/religion allowed, so I am not making any such argument myself) is that these civic/religion swap missions fall in this same category. i.e. there are very common situations where the immediate detriment to your opponent from being the target of such a mission is massively higher than the cost to you of executing it, and therefore if they are allowed, once the game reaches this point it will just be filled with as much spamming of this mission as possible. (Btw I expect people who want to ban nukes would make a similar claim; that nukes easily have the capability to cause much more damage than their cost and therefore that spamming nukes becomes incredibly necessary.)

I have more to say about this but might as well do so in response to the next bit...

2. How many players are in the game. And what sort of game is it? If there are only 2 or 3 players or its a regular internet blazing speed MP game, then no, it is not reasonable to ask people to rely on "collusion" (BTW I'd call it Diplomacy, but hey, you wanna call it "collusion" to make it sound bad, whatevers;)). Anyway with 5 or more players, playing a slow-paced diplo heavy MTDG, sure I will expect players to rely on diplo (collusion) to defend themselves against all tactics... OP or otherwise.

You are arguing basically that if you don't have an ally to help you undo the damage it's your own darn fault. Well, I agree with you that diplomacy is an important aspect of the game and you should suffer for neglecting it and treating everyone badly. But that doesn't mean diplomacy is a magic solution that cures all ills. Here is the big thing: games often have fewer players left at the end. If it ever gets down to 3 players or 2, there is 100% going to be a player with no ally to bump him back, and now we have that situation where civic/religion switching is going to be used at every opportunity.

Of course this is not enough to ban it. You only ban it if you don't like the result it gives. So the people arguing to ban it are saying they don't want the endgame to be full of civic/religion switching, which I can sympathize with.

One other thing, about calling it "collusion". I think that is actually a fair term to use when you abuse a system in a way that's only possible with someone else's help. Why? Civic/religion swap seems to have been designed as an adversarial mechanism. Similarly with tech stealing btw. Yet if coordinated (i.e. you intentionally avoid counterespionage missions and don't protect your cities, perhaps even gift a small border city with certain religion between you) they can be massively positive sum. If you used open borders cancellation with an ally to suddenly teleport all your units into enemy territory I would call that collusion too. But dogpiling someone, that's good old cooperation. :)
 
Look, look, Seven, I am sure somewhere the fibre is broken somewhere. I cant tell for Sommerswerd and the other guys who argue, but at least I am not trying to impose things to you guys, I am already tired of repeating that the settings are to be decided and I am arguing in principle, rather than trying to convince you to play the game this way.

It went bad when all this "You dont know nothing, you must listen to us, as we know better" attitude started at RB forum and the fact that it did not even came from some really capable and valued members of your community, but from some guys overly excited by the fact they are in the same wolf pack as you and other great civvers and they have as their sacred duty to protect RB values and beliefs even against imagined and abstract attacks.

Just as those guys shouted how broken espionage is as concept, you and few other have politely argued and gave reasons why not all espionage is bad, but specific parts of it.

Your way is the correct way of doing things. :)
 
Look, look, Seven, I am sure somewhere the fibre is broken somewhere.

...

Your way is the correct way of doing things. :)

Heh, I can't tell if you are criticizing or praising my post, but I guess it's not important. Honestly I've yet to hear a convincing argument against civic/religion swapping back at RB, but Parkin's argument here gave me some real understanding about it (finally) so I hoped to make it that clear to everyone (or maybe just Sommerswerd ;)).

Btw personally I like the idea of nukes being this thing that destroys easily more hammers than it costs, with the effect that the economies of the world are massively set back. But I've never gotten to nukes in a game where they are allowed, and I can imagine that I'm romanticizing their impact on the game so I'm willing to go along with people who want them banned when they are in the majority.
 
The point has been made on RB's forums, and I agree to it, that we should really start deciding settings before full enrollment, as many people will not want to commit for certain settings. Don't we have enough teams and players signed up now that we can proceed into a final settings discussion and vote, or are we still waiting on some forums?

What are the contentious issues? I have this list so far:

- nukes (on/off)
- spies or the civ-wide esp missions (no spies, nix the two missions, or all is still ok)
- huts/events (on/off)
- corporations (on/off)
- known tech bonus (vanilla 30% or higher, like 100%)
- BUG mod (included/not or included without # cities)
- double-move mod (on/off)
- always war (on/off)
- tech trading (on/off)

Missing anything? Then we need to get a map made and a maker chosen. I get the feeling I'm not going to be accepted for that, so who is, and what type of maps do we want?

- engineered starts (yes/no)
- wrap (none, 1-axis, 2-axis)
- mirrored starts (yes/no)
- type of script (donut/pangaea/continents/archipelago/etc)
- map makers

And, finally, how do we choose civs?

- restricted leaders (on/off)
- can have many instances of a leader (leaders exclusive to one team, or not)
- method of assignment (....)

Anything missing, or is this it?

It might be best to save us all some breath to do a straw poll over the next 36 hours from each team to see which issues actually need to be discussed more fully, then to do a binding, final poll a couple days later, then get things going once we've got a map and the teams are ready. I would suggest each team votes for each with a qualifier for each option, which could be (impossible!, prefer not, don't care, prefer so, must have!). For example, a team could vote on a couple issues like this:

-nukes on: definitely not!
-nukes off: must have
-known tech bonus: don't care

-no espionage: don't care
-espionage normal: impossible!
-espionage without 2 missions: prefer so

After the teams have voted, we can get a feel for what needs to be discussed more fully, and the team captains can act as intermediaries if there are any big issues. Perhaps we can solve the issues with consensus between team captains, leaving minor options for formal polling. Some of this stuff needs to be figured out before the map makers get to work, so best to start at it ASAP imo.
 
In the most games I've been played gifting city was tied with a 50-turns no-return, other than that, you are free to gift your MoM/Pyr city to anyone you like.

Also, in many games a rule of not gifting a city when you are at war to other than a nation to which you are at war with the agreement of ALL other parties you are at war is forbidden.
Just tick "Always War"... no problems with arguing about city gifts or unit gifts then. :)

Btw personally I like the idea of nukes being this thing that destroys easily more hammers than it costs, with the effect that the economies of the world are massively set back. But I've never gotten to nukes in a game where they are allowed, and I can imagine that I'm romanticizing their impact on the game so I'm willing to go along with people who want them banned when they are in the majority.
They do mess with your head a bit. You have to change a large part of the way you play the game, e.g. splitting units into smaller stacks and keeping them separated, as well as questioning every move you make. (More than usual. :p ) Subs become ominous engines of death while Airships become ever more valuable, and coastal cities are left even more vulnerable.

As long as you can put up with the headache of re-organizing things around the new regime though, it can be fun. Though depending on the map and the state of the game, a bit of a tech lead can potentially translate to a very fast win for the first person to Fission. ;)
 
:) By your way I mean your way of making a dispute giving arguments, answering to the other's inconvenient questions, etc, etc.

Honestly I've yet to hear a convincing argument against civic/religion swapping back at RB,
Yes, this is somewhat strange - people who never actually played with espionage on are so fanatical about wanting it ruled out. One guy even have told outright: "We played PBEM1 with espionage allowed and it was so well and strong implicated by one player, so we never ever used it and we firmly believe it is broken" WTF? From one specific game you make a rule and if is carved in stone till the end of the time? Technically speaking, yes, it is very powerful to switch someone to some unfavorable civics. But I already said few arguments about it:

1. You must be in this unfavorable civic to switch the other guy in it. If you rely too much on one civic to make or brake your game (representation, free speech, slavery), maybe thats separate issue and you should try to be a bit more flexible?

2. LP's example of a small and weak civ switching to crappy civics to be able to switch large and powerful civ in their crappy civics? Well, who will protect this small and weak nation from the wrath of the powerful nation who is very angry at them? Not to mention that small and weak nation will have small and weak economy and will have hard times keeping espionage to out-espionage the big and powerful nation. It will be most probably the case that after the first switch from the weak nation to the powerful, that the powerful nation will keep switching, sabotaging, etc the small nation.

I am only convinced that switching civics must be forbidden in conjunction with Christo Redentor. But I can agree to modding somehow those civic switch to scale with civ size (say the cost is a factor multyplied by the numbers of citizens in given nation so it is almost impossible to influence government in strong and big nation, while small and weak nations coups can be made easily like in the real world?) For switching religion, it can be another multiplyer - ratio between the citizens under the current state religion and the one which is object to the change? I dont know for sure, but "Ban espionage" is just plain silly reaction of crowd of village idiots screaming "Kill the Beast with fire!":)

Same thing with nukes. Banning them is just ... I cant think of another formulating than "Dumbing down" the game. Maybe in AW duels, it is straight "who gets them first wins" and I would agree they should be banned there. But in FFA? After all we are thinking human and can come up with a plan to not allow your enemies getting nukes and obliterate you (kill them earlier, sabbotage their Manhattan production, cut/deny/conquer their uranium, or you build UN and propose a ban on it, etc, etc - there can be 10's of ways without mentioning between-human diplomacy levers). Not that I like nor pursue nukes myself, but just generally banning them is... dumbing down by removing one one aspect of the game. Once nukes are removed, this is almost guaranteed that the strongers will grow only stronger, while the smaller will just die at the end in a war of attrition. Smaller economies cant outproduce bigger and win by sheer power. I mentioned I do like chess, but prefer Civ. In chess there is a strategy, where once you have 1 pawn advantage, you can exchange all the other figures 1:1 ration and at the end just win the game with 1 pawn becoming Queen and if you are good player, you can do it. What fun is that? In chess there is no such strong leverage. Nukes can be the leverage in Civ4.

Just thinking out loud. Please comment on those with thoughts/arguments. :)

edit: cross-posted with LP, but yes, nukes just change your entire perception of the game. They are somewhat early in the tech-path for reason. They can change the thinking: "I have largest territory, I have the biggest production and income and I will just defend (as the defender have always the advantage) and just cruise to win." As only handful of nukes can change the entire shape of the power ratios and international politics.
 
Just tick "Always War"... no problems with arguing about city gifts or unit gifts then. :)


Might be solution, although I do like units gifting/human interaction - it is the salt of the game.

Have you played in a AW pitboss with simultaneous turns and how were things with potential double-moves solved there?
 
2. LP's example of a small and weak civ switching to crappy civics to be able to switch large and powerful civ in their crappy civics? Well, who will protect this small and weak nation from the wrath of the powerful nation who is very angry at them?
Whichever larger nation they align themselves with. If the smaller nation is acting alone then sure, they won't last long - but usually that will not be the case.

Not to mention that small and weak nation will have small and weak economy and will have hard times keeping espionage to out-espionage the big and powerful nation. It will be most probably the case that after the first switch from the weak nation to the powerful, that the powerful nation will keep switching, sabotaging, etc the small nation.
Aside from the fact that the smaller nation would already be in the crappy civics (unless the larger nation was switching them to better civics!?), this would be a poor use of the larger nation's time and energy, as it'd be a similar EP cost for insignificant effect. We're talking about an overly cheap mission that is most efficiently exploited by the small against the large, due to an oversight by the programmers who failed to scale espionage costs appropriately for empire-wide missions.

Might be solution, although I do like units gifting/human interaction - it is the salt of the game.
Human interaction is still fine. Always War is a purely mechanical setting which allows us to avoid any issues with gifting. As a side benefit, it helps with more minor things like balancing the Great Lighthouse.

Have you played in a AW pitboss with simultaneous turns and how were things with potential double-moves solved there?
Playing in one now with double moves simply allowed. I wouldn't recommend that here though. Best to just have a rule to play periods of combat/settling battles in order - i.e. if you're engaging in battle with or competing for land with another player, you play in the correct turn halves. If you're not presently engaged in conflict with another player, then you don't need to worry about when you play until the next conflict is about to begin.
 
I want to mention what *I* think is the most potentially broken thing about spies - the counterespionage mission mechanics. Counterespionage missions double the cost of opposing missions. They can't be renewed while they are still in effect and wear off when the game turn rolls. This makes any sort of sequential turn stuff terribly unfair, as people who play earlier get a big advantage. In this case I don't think we are literally doing a sequential turns game, but I'm worried about either the APT mod or manually implemented war turn split rules making it so that one player has a gap in their counterespionage every 10 turns when other players can steal their techs at a big discount (as well as do other nasty things of course, but tech stealing is the most powerful mission outside of the civic/religion swap ones), while players who get to move first in turn order never have to expose themselves to this. (Or even worse there is a race to log in every 10t between people who are at peace but want to steal techs from each other and run counterespionage.)

One way to fix this would simply be a DLL mod that allows counterespionage to be run even while it's active (one line change, really simple, but requires a mod). Other possibilities are we could simply ban counterespionage (lol), or perhaps prohibit its use in the first half of the first turn it expired, so that everyone has to have a gap every 10t. Of course it's all moot if we just ban all spies but that doesn't look likely right now.
 
Whichever larger nation they align themselves with. If the smaller nation is acting alone then sure, they won't last long - but usually that will not be the case.

Yes, masters and servants. Sometimes masters can protect servants and sometimes they cant. Or the servants simply dont want to try their luck. And at last, come on - we are talking about heated and competitive inter-site demo game, where is the glory of being servant? I think more of the players will ten times prefer to die like men than to serve as pawns. This is more problem of between-players relations of course.

Aside from the fact that the smaller nation would already be in the crappy civics (unless the larger nation was switching them to better civics!?),

Yes, this is what I imply - the bigger civ will have the espionage to switch the smaller to whatever they desire. Here comes another issues - one cant switch another nation to civic it lacks. So if the small nation is backward, most probably they wont have the advanced civic the bigger civ would love to be in.

this would be a poor use of the larger nation's time and energy, as it'd be a similar EP cost for insignificant effect.

The effect would be that the smaller nation will be forced to stay in not-those-crappy civics, so they cant switch the bigger to them. Again this is only hypothetical.

We're talking about an overly cheap mission that is most efficiently exploited by the small against the large, due to an oversight by the programmers who failed to scale espionage costs appropriately for empire-wide missions.

Besides from this that I always love when the small have even the slightest chance to shot back at the big one and not being futile against those Goliaths (same with nukes - they give weapons to the poor and weak), I already proposed that in a mod the cost scales with the size of an empire. (BTW, Robert Plomp from Apolyton already contacted Firaxis with few questions/requests. This might be one of them if we so decide :) )


Human interaction is still fine. Always War is a purely mechanical setting which allows us to avoid any issues with gifting. As a side benefit, it helps with more minor things like balancing the Great Lighthouse.

A lot of things from the human interaction are excluded form the game with AW. Like uable to stack units with ally, unable to pass trough chokepoints with cities, etc.


Playing in one now with double moves simply allowed. I wouldn't recommend that here though. Best to just have a rule to play periods of combat/settling battles in order - i.e. if you're engaging in battle with or competing for land with another player, you play in the correct turn halves. If you're not presently engaged in conflict with another player, then you don't need to worry about when you play until the next conflict is about to begin.

Yes, this is what I am talking about - you cant play simultaneous with DM banned and AW in. I played in one such game along with world-class players (Bemep, Moineau, Indiansmoke, Ntenistromeros, and so on - you remember it as you were invited - it was called Return of the Sword) and the game simply disintegrated because of inability to manage double-moves. And allowing double- moves is simply a not an option for most of the players. Especially I think will be great issue to the RB guys, as it can be easily exploited and there comes who have more time to stay online rather than who plays better civ. Double-moves allowed games are for online games, where reaction and finger-skills can be put to test and competition too.

Those are my thoughts, will comment on Seven's later.
 
Just finished reading Seven's post at the top of the page. Will read the rest later as I am off to work.

@ 2metra - Yes please take the reigns on getting this going. It's starting to make CFC look bad;)

@LP -I guess LP is ignoring me :(... OK, that's fair I guess

Bottom line for me is I am playing regardless of whether we play a RB Chess-style NCTON game or whether we play with spies fully loaded, partially loaded, off, nukes on off, Mods no Mods, Spanish Mod or No (Hell I'd play even if Tech trading was on... ITS OFF BTW... before anyone goes crazy). So all this discussion about spies is academic for me. I am fully aware that this is like religion for some and I'm not trying to convert anyone as I know its impossible. There's a reason I havent breathed a word about this over at RB forums (other than my initial inquiry before I knew the extent of it)... Out of respect for their beliefs. Over here I speak freely:D. If someone wants to chase me back to "my home" and argue about this, well... what can I say?

I am confident that we will have fun and be competitive regardless of the settings. We dont need any special settings. The settings I am advocating are the ones I PERSONALLY would enjoy the most. I would also like to see all sites play a little out of their comfort zone, as I think it will make for a better game and not give anyone too much of an advantage but hey that's just me. I will read and comment on the rest later today.

LP please play for CFC:please: (that's the last time I will say that...probably:mischief:)
 
Yes, this is somewhat strange - people who never actually played with espionage on are so fanatical about wanting it ruled out. One guy even have told outright: "We played PBEM1 with espionage allowed and it was so well and strong implicated by one player, so we never ever used it and we firmly believe it is broken" WTF? From one specific game you make a rule and if is carved in stone till the end of the time? Technically speaking, yes, it is very powerful to switch someone to some unfavorable civics. But I already said few arguments about it:

Let's assume you are right and its not broken, or at least not as broken as we think. Is it really worth arguing about? Its something we've had a very bad experience with that we would like to avoid repeating. We are reluctantly okay with the rest of the espionage system being enabled despite the fact we consider it an un-balanced, un-fun mechanic that is never used in our games. That, to me, is us going 99% of the way to meeting you...please, give us this last 1% :).

Darrell
 
It depends on two things. 1. As I already asked, why do you consider the mission overpowered? Is it because the cost does not scale with empire size but affects the whole empire? Is that the only reason? Because bulbing a tech does not scale with empire size, but getting a tech affects the whole empire. So is teching OP? Is bulbing OP? There are plenty of Wonders that give Empire-wide benefits, and yet their cost does not scale with empire size. Are they OP? Building 1 Oil well delivers oil to your ENTIRE empire no matter whether you have 3 cities or 30 cities. And the cost to build the Oil well is the same regardless. It does not scale with empire size. Is that OP? (Now for this we have evidence that the makers of Civ thought it was OP, because in Civ 5, strategic resources are nerfed to scale with use). So should we ban the use of strategic resources?

2. How many players are in the game. And what sort of game is it? If there are only 2 or 3 players or its a regular internet blazing speed MP game, then no, it is not reasonable to ask people to rely on "collusion" (BTW I'd call it Diplomacy, but hey, you wanna call it "collusion" to make it sound bad, whatevers;)). Anyway with 5 or more players, playing a slow-paced diplo heavy MTDG, sure I will expect players to rely on diplo (collusion) to defend themselves against all tactics... OP or otherwise. RB, CFC, Poly, WPC, CivPlayers. No limit, AFAIK, but I expect that non-viable teams will not be allowed to play. I agree, and frankly I doubt CFC can field more than 1 viable team anyway what with all our best and brightest defecting to play for other sites, right;)

Look mate, stop creating strawmen. Argue why you want espionage instead of creating false analogies.

Those of us that oppose the use of the civic/religion-swap missions say that e.g. by putting you into a religion that you only have in one city while being in Organised Religion, you will lose hundreds of hammers for five turns empire wide; Or another exampled would be that you'll lose happiness and science if you were switched out of Free Religion and so on. <- Argue these points instead of creating strawmen. We are all adults, we can debate this without resorting to logical fallacies.
 
You turncoat! You enjoyed when Amazon stole techs and now blame them?
 
I got a bunch of people to respond to so I will do it in seperate posts as opposed to one mega post. It's just easier that way.:)
This is a lot of rhetoric but I don't think you're actually trying to understand.
OK this is the second time I have been accused of this last time was by scooter IIRC...as in he said my argument was just theoretical while his (the RB position) was based on actual experience. So now I must remind you that my position is based on HAVING ACTUALLY RUN AN ESPIONAGE ECONOMY IN AN MTDG FOR TWO YEARS. Now please, anyone tell me that they have similar experience. If you don't, I will still listen to your arguments and thoughtfully consider them, but please at least respect that I am not just theorizing and talking empty rhetoric.

Seven, as for your specific point, it is completely unfair, if you care to, go back and see my original statement that began this discussion where I cited that I had read the RB thread and encountered EXACTLY the point you make (that Civic swap Mission (CSM) is all people will do if enabled) and I had considered it and then I gave my specific reasons the point was not valid. Furthermore, to illustrate how your above statement is unfair, you said:
The examples you give are very different. Imagine if you could build a unit that, when deleted, immediately gave you +20h in all cities, and this unit cost 100h. I'm sure you'd agree that's broken, right? ... This hypothetical unit that I invented though, you will look at your in-game situation in many, many cases and it will be obvious that building this guy instead of something else
Now go look at the examples I gave of game mechanics that effect the whole empire but dont track with empire size. Every single example is a REAL, ACTUAL mechanic in the game. And your response is to use some absurd hypothetical, and then accuse ME of engaging in rhetoric? WTF?

Anyway, as I said in an earlier post, I get it, you RB guys have bought into the line that the CSM is so OP, that the cost-reward is so UB that if we play a game with it enabled, all anyone would do is use that mission non-stop. And I have subsequently proven that to be false through lessons learned ACTUALLY RUNNING THE CSM IN AN MTDG. But it seems to me that you are the one who is not listening.:(
The claim here (I don't know for sure that it's true as I have never played with swap civic/religion allowed, so I am not making any such argument myself)
I know;), and that is my point, well one of my points. What I have gleaned from reading some of Ruff's 90 page PBEM 1 thread at RB, coupled with the comments here, is that One guy caught you by suprise with an EE and since no one was familiar with it, he pwned everyone with it. And based on that one experience, everyone decided that espy was OP and banned it forever.

Now combine that with the fact that the clergy hates EEs, because when the oldest players first got good at Civ 4 there was no espy, and so they learned to play expertly without it. Then when it was introduced, they realized they would have to adapt, but they didn't want to, so they just labeled it OP and banned it. Naturally everyone accepted this, because they were the most experienced, meaning that very few people have any real experience using espy, so when the clergy tells you its OP you just accept it without any experience using it. And since you never use it (because its forbidden) you are now afraid of it as well, so it stays banned, and it becomes like religion. Your above statement is proof positive of this principle in action.

What is so insane about this, is that Ruff LOST that game!:lol:. So all this hand wringinng and tooth gnashing about how OP espy is and how all hell will break lose with it on... The guy who caught everyone BY SURPRISE (which wouldn't happen in this game because everyone is ready for it) with a well run EE STILL LOST THE GAME, to a good ol fashioned Diplomatic Victory. Go figure:mischief: So what was all that about it being invincible and OP?
You are arguing basically that if you don't have an ally to help you undo the damage it's your own darn fault. Well, I agree with you
Thanks;) I am glad you finally accept that the 'ally-switch-me-back' is a viable defense that negates the 'little-civ-hurt-big-civ' argument
Here is the big thing: games often have fewer players left at the end. If it ever gets down to 3 players or 2, there is 100% going to be a player with no ally to bump him back, and now we have that situation where civic/religion switching is going to be used at every opportunity.
This is an excellent argument. Here is my response:

1. In a (3 civs left) 2 on 1 situation, if you are the 1, you have lost the diplomatic contest and thus deserve to lose the game anyway. Honestly, if its 2 on 1 your going to lose, whether its by espy, or culture, or AP victory or UN victory, or an all out Military rush, its over. What does it matter then if they wont let you run SP or OR anymore? Just fight to the death like a man or conceed defeat and congradulate the winners. (Or Nuke them both befo... Oh yeah Nukes are probably gonna be banned:p)

2. In a 1 on 1 situation CSM is irrelevant because THE OTHER GUY HAS TO RUN THE CRAP CIVICS he is switching you to. If you are both stuck in Despotism then no one has any advantage. (which is why chain-CSMs between last 2 players will probably not happen) The only disadvantage would be if you're dumb enough to keep trying to switch back.

"But what if he is SPI or has CR?:sad:" - You should have built CR yourself. It's your fault if you don't have it. As for him being SPI, Well you should have taken that into account before you ended up stuck in a 1 on 1 with him at the end. SPI sucks most of the game, and if a player sacrifices FIN or PHI or CRE or ORG to get SPI, then he deserves to get the FULL benefit of his choice, not some nerfed down BS version because people are scare of one little espy mission. There are plenty of SPI leaders to choose from. If you are so fearful of CSM. If you think its sooooo OP, then pick a SPI leader.

"But what if he is switching my Religion instead of Civics?:sad:" - If you get to the endgame 1 on 1 without having spread all his religions to most of your cities then you played poorly and you deserve to suffer the consequences. Plus by then the loss in gold/hammers etc will have been offset by corpora... Oh yeah:p I forgot

The Point of the CSM is to force you to use a particular civic NOT to force you into anarchy. You only go into Anarchy if you decide to switch back. All the complaining about the lost turns of hammers/gold etc, CSM just glosses over this. How about this, more elegant solution. We ban using CSM to put people into the bottom tier Civics and Serfdom. Everything else is OK? Is that a fair comprimise?
 
I wouldn't call "friendly anarchy" as a tactic.. it's one of the most cheesy moves I can think about..

I also think that the civic changing missions are overpowered, I hate 'em, they were not banned in my previous games, but I wished they had been. I wouldn't drop spying altogether tough..
 
Top Bottom