Single Player v Multi Player

[wtiberon]

What do you think is a better test of Civ skill?

I have always said that MP's difficulty is one or two slots above Deity. I have seen some of the best Single players get stomped on by seasoned Multi-players.

[sealman]

No question (in my mind at least). Multiplayer. The AI, no matter what level you master, I am not yet up to diety, is predictable. A human player is not.

Of course, it also depends on the skill levels of the human players. a real experienced player will not have a good test of his civ skill against a beginner.

[Martacus]

Mulitplayer. It's like this with all games (excluding maybe chess). Eventually you learn how the computer "thinks". Of course you can sometimes do that on MP as well, if you know the person well enough. But it's far less common.

[Chieftess]

Originally posted by sealman
No question (in my mind at least). Multiplayer. The AI, no matter what level you master, I am not yet up to diety, is predictable. A human player is not.

I think it depends. MP is more about rushing, and trying to defeat your opponent the quickest. SP is more about thinking out the strategy, and careful planning (something you can't do in MP, since most games are 2 hours instead of 2 months). I'm probably in the minority when I say it's pretty much equal. A player who goes for score in SP might not be the best MP player, and vice versa.

Of course, it also depends on the skill levels of the human players. a real experienced player will not have a good test of his civ skill against a beginner.

*stares intently at wtiberon. *

[Gengis Khan]

General answer: Multiplayer, the AI is predictable & not capable of formulating an effective strategy other then send in a ton of units to get slaughtered.

I'm sure I am that some of the best Diety players would get killed against a multiplayer vetran, the strategies are just too different. But I'm just as positive that just as many of multiplayer vets would get killed trying Bamspeedy's Beyond Sid varient, jag rushes don't work when the AI outnumbers you 100 to 1 & without elimination or a time limit to fall back on they'd find their strategies somewhat lacking. The 2 are practically different games & you can't really compare the strategies or difficulty of them.

[Yndy]

I'd say beat deity in SP and then move to multiplayer.
Although I did not finish any MP game so far, the strategy part is not harder, just different.

I think most of the good MP players can beat deity and deity plus AI.

[Aggie]

Obviously multiplayer. I don't agree with Chieftess that multiplayer is rushing it. I have played a lot of PBEM's to mid inustrial age or further. Especially non-pangaea maps tend to end later in the game. It DOES mostly end in miltary decisions though. But my PBEM vs Stapel will be decided on who will be able to build the Space Ship first.

Multiplayer games force you to seek for the best ways to make money, acquire techs and expand. It is often vital to be leading the tech race. The most developed human is able to sell knowledge, the other one won't.

Also: SP stops with deity. Multiplayer games allows you to play vs humans that often have skills above that level, especially on war tactics.

[Padma]

My experience with MP has been much like Chieftess'. It is usually just a "hurry up and stomp your opponent(s)" game. This has quite turned me off even bothering with MP. I will not deny that with *good* players, or at least players who are not so heavily into "Crush! Kill! Destroy!", it could be a very interesting experience.

I will agree that MP allows you to play against more "unpredictable" humans, instead of the known AI, which means you have to be *good* to win. Just pick your opponents carefully.

[Aggie]

I can understand that on-line multiplayer games tend to be fast games. But you can't expect from people to sit behind their PC for 15 hours straight. That's why I favour PBEM. Much more relaxed pace, gives you the opportunity to think every move through and also, most importantly, makes you realise that "stomp your opponent" does NOT work. Humans that are only interested in building military will lose in the end, because civ is not about that, also not in MP games.

[Paalikles]

I say both are measurements on the skill of a player - as they basically measure two things - human vs AI and human vs human
I think you will agree that AI is not equal to human.

Take myself as an example - I play regent civ3 - I have 1.29 and will get conquests.
I ve only played 1 tbs game against a human this side of the millenium - and it was only half a game of SMAX.

I have good control of the AI at regent (havent had time to move up, as I am mostly preocupied with studies )
I do not think I could have the same level of control with a human regent player though - at least not unless I paid more consideration to more advanced strategies and tactics than the ones I use now.
As many threads have pointed out - the AI is limited to use what firaxis programmed it to do - and not use reason - therefore one cannot expect single player to measure the same skills as multiplayer.

@MP being fast games: Well - that is also a way to measure a skill, just like being able to use any civ, any map type, any victory condition and any tactic - are measurements of skills.
Some games are fast, others are not

Just my 2 NOK though

[WildFire]

Depends really.

You could be playing utter noobs in mp for PTW and feel as if your all high and mighty. Or you could be playing sp diety and feel as if thats too easy. This could go on forever. So I say mp cause I've played Dave and you

[Dr Alimentado]

Multiplayer - specifically Play By Email.

I agree with Aggie, PBEM is not about rushing per-se. With the more relaxed pace you can play at the same pace as you would a single player game.

I just finished this PBEM game vs anarres that went all the way to nukes ! I have never even played that far in SP because in my experience the AI is always beat by that stage of the game...

[cgannon64]

Ideally, Multiplayer. If people play it like they play a regular game - slowly preparing for wars, making and keeping alliances and not a total free-for-all.

[wtiberon]

Originally posted by Chieftess


I think it depends. MP is more about rushing, and trying to defeat your opponent the quickest. SP is more about thinking out the strategy, and careful planning (something you can't do in MP, since most games are 2 hours instead of 2 months). I'm probably in the minority when I say it's pretty much equal. A player who goes for score in SP might not be the best MP player, and vice versa.

Not all MP is about rushing and I've played plenty of games where I never bloodied my sword .

*stares intently at wtiberon. *

hehe still sore over that one eh? :P Most of your MP experience was against some really good warmongers like myself, Dave, and others from the ladder but there are some good builders out there too whose whole goal is to spread as large to accumulate alot of points. They often balance spreading their empire to building an army to deflect folks like me that just wanna kill em :P.

[Mark Young]

I find both challenging.
The higher levels of SG's are still challenging for me, becasue I am learning about the MM side of things, whilst PBEM's are even more challenging cause a person wont let things slip past him and you have to be more vigilant.
Plus what Aggie said about leading the tech race is more important in pbem's (not that it isn't important in SG) cause if you meet other civs first you get to trade first which increases your lead and can alienate a lesser civ ( I learnt that the hard way ).
Whereas in SG games I will EVENTUALLY catch up to the ai, it's just a matter of when.

[Aggie]

Also there are things that you are going to use more in MP than in SP, allowing you to see more possibilities of the game:

- mobilisation: an obvious way to build a your military faster, but more important in MP games
- drafting: a superb way to make your corrupt cities useful and get a decent army
- tech stealing: essential for the human who is trailing the techs race
- other syping activites: uncovering a spy did once put me in a winning position, because I prevented the other human from sabotaging my production

[troytheface]

Mp ...if u know how ur enemy thinks then u win , simple. Although the "stomp and kill" commnet as a mp drqback has some merit-they both have a bit to do with placement luck

[Chieftess]

Originally posted by wtiberon
[B]

Not all MP is about rushing and I've played plenty of games where I never bloodied my sword .


hehe still sore over that one eh? :P Most of your MP experience was against some really good warmongers like myself, Dave, and others from the ladder but there are some good builders out there too whose whole goal is to spread as large to accumulate alot of points. They often balance spreading their empire to building an army to deflect folks like me that just wanna kill em :P.

hehe, then there's starting locations... You had grasslands. I had a skinny triangle of plains (5 tile wide at the base, 9-12 tlies high). Guess I should have placed my hoplites on the borders of the coast, and built up swords.

[Aggie]

Starting locations CAN indeed be very unfair in multiplayer. We (CDZ PBEM players) solved that by having mapmakers who provide balanced maps according to requests of the players