Exploiting Swords into plowshares

bigjim1 said:

I like the unpredictability of ruins, but I wish they'd ditch the "crude map" and recent barbarian activity and bring back the occasional new city or settler from Civ IV (and earlier).

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The 'crude map' has gotten me El Dorado before.

budweiser said:

The 'crude map' has gotten me El Dorado before.

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Speaking of things that should be eliminated...

If you don't like the randomness of ruins you could just turn them off.

DateOfRebirth said:

Randomness doesn't belong in strategy games, unless you have a static start your planning is useless. Checking the map for 3- 4 turns isn't cheating, it's planning.

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LOL...
I was very impressed until you mentioned this.

Don't get me wrong, you are more than welcome to play however you'd like.

Still though, if you are scouting the map and then reloading that's pretty much the definition of cheating.

I like the randomness of ruins, it does add excitment and purpose to scouting.

It would be nice though to have a choice, say culture or cash, map or upgrade, pop+ or faith etc..

With regards to restarts/reloads...each to their own I reckon. I definitely wouldn't applaud it, but I won't condemn it either.

For me, i try to play clean, but do reload occasionally, for example if i have made a strategic error.

So, yeah ... let's make a brag thread talking about "exploiting" something ...

... after,
-Playing a Pangea kinda map on Deity
-I'll just take a guess, 30 reloads, because you didn't liked the start
-looking where the ruins are
-again, most likely reloading everytime you have lost a unit

Well done.

I'm sorry, but I simply do not understand what this thread is for.

Realyn said:

So, yeah ... let's make a brag thread talking about "exploiting" something ...

... after,
-Playing a Pangea kinda map on Deity
-I'll just take a guess, 30 reloads, because you didn't liked the start
-looking where the ruins are
-again, most likely reloading everytime you have lost a unit

Well done.

I'm sorry, but I simply do not understand what this thread is for.

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Uh whole reason the A.I is difficult on deity is because you're supposed to use everything you can to win. Getting a good ruin doesn't mean you won the game. If you don't quick reload after accidentally losing a unit to an army that appeared out of thin air, you might as well quit. If you ever played a console game, do you not save and reload?

I'm speechless.

And the console comparison is just stupid. Those are checkpoints where you start again, after you got defeated.

But this

If you don't quick reload after accidentally losing a unit to an army that appeared out of thin air, you might as well quit

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I find the A.I too easy on deity to win domination, my current challenge is winning scientific victory on deity before 1800. I always play on Pangaea to eliminate run away A.I and luck spawns.

I play deity all the time, it's the only the real challenge.

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is just random chatter of a bad player who truly believes he "beats" deity.

I'm off to the next thread, people complaining how the AI sucks, is predictable and that the game is too easy. Yet armies appear out of the sudden ... interesting.

Realyn said:

I'm speechless.

And the console comparison is just stupid. Those are checkpoints where you start again, after you got defeated.

But this

is just random chatter of a bad player who truly believes he "beats" deity.

I'm off to the next thread, people complaining how the AI sucks, is predictable and that the game is too easy. Yet armies appear out of the sudden ... interesting.

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I know I am wasting my time talking to a fool, but let me at least teach you something: The only way to increase difficulty in this game is to bump up resources and production to the A.I. The A.I doesn't get more intelligent, it's just the same mindless bot on chieftain. Only this time it has x100 more units and resources. The point of deity is to survive against a mindless monster, I played deity in all my games since 2010. Do you have any idea how the algorithm for this game works?

Nah, I get it. If I create a random map with a random number on Civs right now you could beat it. You could. Because you got sooo much experience playing Deity!

So you are arguing this:
The only way to play is deity.
But you aren't able to beat it fair and square without reloading.

So instead of stepping down a difficulty you keep playing/reloading it(but only on Pangea, so the AI does not get luck spawns! How dare they.) until you "won".

Oh, and let's say I don't know how "the" algorithm works. Please explain to me how this one and only algorithm for this game works. Whatever you are meaning with that lol.

And another way to increase the difficulty: play fair.

Whatever kid

DateOfRebirth said:

If you don't quick reload after accidentally losing a unit to an army that appeared out of thin air, you might as well quit.

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You should know there is Lets Play section on this website, where guys like Realyn, Maddjinn, Sidor, Lites and others play (and win) this game on Deity without single reload. So, yeah, he knows the algorythm You can watch their videos and descriptions there. Don't consider it impossible, it is just impossible to You right now.

DateOfRebirth said:

Randomness doesn't belong in strategy games, unless you have a static start your planning is useless. Checking the map for 3- 4 turns isn't cheating, it's planning.

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I disagree with this. A good strategist plans for uncertainties rather than removes uncertainties. Risk is often considered the epitome of a strategy game, but it's certainly dependent on the roll of a dice.

As it was said before, to each their own. You can scout, reload and mod the game as much as you wish. But doing so will skew the game to your favor thus making winning deity less of an achievement than someone who does not do these things.

The scouting is one thing...but reloading because you lost an unit is a bit strong, don't you think? In my opinion, part of a strategy game is strategizing so you exactly don't lose that unit (to make an example).

So I understand the somewhat harsh reactions to your posts, DateOfRebirth, as it is simply not considered "proper" play, but then again, you have your own definition of proper as do others.

DateOfRebirth said:

Randomness doesn't belong in strategy games, unless you have a static start your planning is useless. Checking the map for 3- 4 turns isn't cheating, it's planning.

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I reload a lot, too. The difference between us seems to be that I know that I am doing the equivalent of cheating at Solitaire, looking for where the aces are hidden. I do it because I know I am a horrible and lazy player. I can't see how it can ever be touted as a superior play style. I have fun, and that is enough for me, but your statements seem to claim something different altogether. They seem to say that people who do not play this way are somehow inferior.

As for "Randomness doesn't belong in strategy games", does that mean you don't ever play against other human beings? I have found people to be the most random and arbitrary element you can add to a game. Even chess, the text book example of non-random, becomes unpredictable when you face a human opponent.

eris said:

I reload a lot, too. The difference between us seems to be that I know that I am doing the equivalent of cheating at Solitaire, looking for where the aces are hidden. I do it because I know I am a horrible and lazy player. I can't see how it can ever be touted as a superior play style. I have fun, and that is enough for me, but your statements seem to claim something different altogether. They seem to say that people who do not play this way are somehow inferior.

As for "Randomness doesn't belong in strategy games", does that mean you don't ever play against other human beings? I have found people to be the most random and arbitrary element you can add to a game. Even chess, the text book example of non-random, becomes unpredictable when you face a human opponent.

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Yeah I could play a game without reloading, but I am also too lazy to dedicate that much massive amount of attention every turn. I use reloading to correct obvious mistakes.

There is a difference between randomness and unpredictability, I try to eliminate randomness and luck. For example I spawned near a fountain of youth in my early scouting, I chose not to play that spawn.

The only time I did something simillar to this was, well, yesterday. I was at Immortal, trying to make my Swedish strategy work, but I made many mistakes, got sandwiched between the Ottomans and France, double Dow. I was able to survive, but my empire was at a really bad position, tech wise and growth wise. I tried to save it, but then, France dows again... within 10 turns. I stoped the invasion and all, and had only explored part of my continent, so, as I wanted to try my strategy with some different things, I decided to reload the autosave of turn 0 and start a "new" game. Right now, I conquered France and the Ottomans, and am happily moving towards Spain. The game isn't easier in any manner (no El Dorado, no Foy, rushy neighbours, huge lake on the center of the continents, still haven't met the other continent's civs), but I made my strategy work and am really happy that I enhanced it.

I guess I'm somewhat biased and scarred from childhood. I had two older brothers and we had one Atari 2600. We had to take turns playing, if you hit reset, your turn was over. So when I played by myself, I'd screw up the game, and hit reset. I was so conditioned to do that it became instinct and I would do it when we were all playing. I'd lose my turn and would have to hand the controller to my older brother who would then play for 30 minutes because he kicked ass on every game. I still won't hit reset. Two Civ V examples:

1. My first game moving up to Prince difficulty, I DoW'd Inca, invaded, seiged a city, and we traded units. When I looked up and saw after 100 years of fighting I still had not taken a city I wrote the game off. BUT, I saw that as a chance to go back and reload to try a few scenarios to learn from. I tried 2 other strategies, saw which worked better, then started a new game with that knowledge. Any win would be corrupted by the tile knowledge I had from my first attempt. I couldn't call it a win so no point going forward.

2. My current game. I just bought Ancient Wonders and wanted to try building Zeus. I picked Washington because I like mid-game/late game wars and betw Minuteman and B-17 it gets no better. After scouting I realized I was on an island with 3 city states. My strategy to build Zeus, get some Warriors promoted through early wars, upgrading to Minuteman, than steamrolling everyone wasn't going to work. My gut was to scrap the game and start over. Instead I decided this was an ideal map to try my first Cultural win. I'm now on my 5th tree, Catherine has a city on my continent, I'm woefully out-teched, too broke to pay off the CS's on my continent, and all my culture techs are getting robbed by everyone because my 2 spies are utterly useless ("Uh yeah, hey, sorry to tell you someone just stole Machinery, must've been when I went to grab a coke or something. Sorry, boss.") The point is, being so far out of my comfort zone, this is the most tense but enjoyable Civ game I've played in a LONG time, just when I was starting to get bored with Dom victories. I'll come out of this game a better player even for future Dom VC games.

It doesn't matter what other folks here say about whether you're cheating or you aren't. I'm just saying you may find yourself with a game that if continued, could be pretty damn fun. That's not to say this Cult VC isn't getting a bit tiresome, but I want to see if my battle strategies and tactics are going to be enough to hold off the invaders until I can build Utopia. Defending my entire Eastern border from Cavalry and swarms of Rifles with 1 Cannon, 1 Pikeman, 1 Lancer (may God rest his soul) 2 gatlings, and a Knight with medic has been tense but pretty damn fun. When Harold DoW's me and sends in all those ski infantries on my border, it's gonna get bloody! These battles are a hell of a lot more fun than my mid-game steamrolling from past games.