Is RB3 proving its point?

[ShuShu62]

I have been following Sulla's playthrough's with interest. His latest is an attempt to prove that ciV is completely broken and unfixable because you can dominate deity in a succession game after only 1 month.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=392335

All of the founding assumptions are playing out but 1.

yes, you can kill hundreds of units with 4 horses
yes, you can infinitely sprawl cities in a tight lattice like SMAC and cIIv
yes, you can predicatably beat deity
no, the entire process does not appear to be easy, or boring.

Even the old chestnut that there is only one way to play seems to get challenged by the participants themselves. While the general arch of the story is as they predicted, the details are varied with multiple options suggested.

 

[Jaffa Tamarin]

You can't prove "unfixable". Anything is fixable. All you can do is make guesses as to how likely it is to be fixed, which depends on whether Firaxis has the resources and the will to do so.

Also, on the question of if Civ5 is fun. I have fun, which immediately disproves the "not fun" theory, at least for me.

 

[sonofman]

I thought you meant is Rock Band 3, a game that is being released that builds upon what worked in previous games, adds new features, and addresses community complaints directly, proving that game companies can still make good games...

a counter to the Civ5/Fallout Vegas thread...

However, after seeing what the thread is ACTUALLY about, Im very interested in this game being played...

I think so far it is proving Civ V is quite fun and requires a lot of skill and thought to thrive in the harder levels... I'd be dead by now if that was my game..

 

[SomethingWitty]

"completely broken and unfixable."

Nerf the horsemen.

 

[Celsus]

The "decisions" they discuss in thread are on fairly minor things - much more common seem to be each of them agreeing with each other on next steps in the larger picture. The arc of their victory they all agree is easily assured already and they are still using horsemen

 

[Vellis]

Regardless of the result, this will only prove that the AI is poorly designed. It certainly doesn't prove anything about the core design of the game being unfixable or not. People really have issues separating AI design and game design =p

 

[Celsus]

Regardless of the result, this will only prove that the AI is poorly designed. It certainly doesn't prove anything about the core design of the game being unfixable or not. People really have issues separating AI design and game design =p

You don't think that having possibly the best strategy in the game as building cities in a tight 7-hex grid as something fundamentally flawed with the happiness, trade, culture, CSs, etc. mechanics at all?

 

[Vellis]

You don't think that having possibly the best strategy in the game as building cities in a tight 7-hex grid as something fundamentally flawed with the happiness, trade, culture, CSs, etc. mechanics at all?

Don't get me wrong, ICS is broken. But it's certainly not unfixable. There's no such thing as a problem in game design that is unfixable. However, using a single OP strategy against a horrible AI doesn't prove anything, they could just as easily win using a more "traditional" fewer, larger city strategy because the AI is just that bad at playing the game. I mean, look at the way Japan approached its units in the first war they fought, it was horrible.

Give a human the same production and commerce advantages that a Deity AI enjoys and let them play against someone using ICS. Do you think the person using ICS would stand a snowball's chance in hell?

The game's AI is what's really broken, the design of the game is good enough even if it has it's problems.

 

[milk steak]

Won't they not be able to play that succession game anymore because of the new patch (and the incompatibility with old saves)?

 

[Abegweit]

Regardless of the result, this will only prove that the AI is poorly designed. It certainly doesn't prove anything about the core design of the game being unfixable or not. People really have issues separating AI design and game design =p

Yes. But I think think you need to look in the mirror, bud, because you're the one that has them confused. It's not the AI that they set out to break; it's the game mechanics. And that is precisely what they are doing. The designers never intended this game to work in that fashion.

In fact, I'm quite sure that JS thought ICS was impossible. Instead it turns out to be the dominant strategy in the game. Just like they thought that only the best players in the world could beat deity.

 

[ShuShu62]

You don't think that having possibly the best strategy in the game as building cities in a tight 7-hex grid as something fundamentally flawed with the happiness, trade, culture, CSs, etc. mechanics at all?

That one is easy. No I don't, and No it isn't. My proof? Without tight 7-hex grid packing, there would be no
cIv,
cIIv,
SMAC,
MoM.

If you expand ICS to IxS you also knock out
MOO,
MOOII,
Railroad Tycoon I,II,III.

You knock out the fanbase from ALL of those games, do you think we would be talking about cIV much less ciV?

 

[Celsus]

I'm sorry ShuShu you totally lost me there, what does 7-hex grid have to do with square-tile games or MOO?

 

[Abegweit]

That one is easy. No I don't, and No it isn't. My proof? Without tight 7-hex grid packing, there would be no
cIv,
cIIv,
SMAC,
MoM.

What a fallacious argument. Who cares about these games? This one is called Civ5 and those others are completely irrelevant to it. It is quite obvious that the designers of the game intended the player to use the full three rings around the city and to have small empires. Shafer, after all, plays the game with only three cities.

 

[Celsus]

Don't forget they're playing the frigging Ottomans, not Greece or Arabia or France or Siam or arguably any civ with synergies to their strategy

 

[Vellis]

What a fallacious argument. Who cares about these games? This one is called Civ5 and those others are completely irrelevant to it. It is quite obvious that the designers of the game intended the player to use the full three rings around the city and to have small empires. Shafer, after all, plays the game with only three cities.

In my mind, it's quite obvious that the designers intended for either method of play to work. Look at how the AI chooses to build cities, generally 4 tiles apart. As it turns out though, more, smaller cities is the better way to play the game right now. It also turns out that Horsemen units are OP. Yes, these are both problems with the design of the game, but they're not unfixable.

Provide an incentive to build larger cities or a disincentive to build more, smaller cities, and give horsemen a slight nerf. Problem solved.

Again though, this strategy isn't why they're beating deity without too terrible of a challenge. The AI being horribly bad at playing the game is why. Like I said in my post above, take two players of equal skill and give one of them the production and commerce advantage that the Deity AI enjoys. There's absolutely no way the player without those advantages will win.

 

[ShuShu62]

What a fallacious argument. Who cares about these games? This one is called Civ5 and those others are completely irrelevant to it. It is quite obvious that the designers of the game intended the player to use the full three rings around the city and to have small empires. Shafer, after all, plays the game with only three cities.

I believe you are in the minority on this one, but I launched a poll to see. My feeling is that the prevalent mood on this board is that ciV paid to little homage to its predecessors, rather than too much.

 

[Abegweit]

I believe you are in the minority on this one, but I launched a poll to see. My feeling is that the prevalent mood on this board is that ciV paid to little homage to its predecessors, rather than too much.

Agreed. So why did you bring them up?

 

[ShuShu62]

Agreed. So why did you bring them up?

To make the point that ICS is at the heart of the entire seires, so claiming that ICS is too much of a departure from the series is not an accurate statement. In fact, it could honestly be called a return to its roots, if folks weren't so amped up on disappointment.

You response that the roots are not relevant to the conversation has suprising legs in the early polling reslts though.

 

[Vellis]

Agreed. So why did you bring them up?

I'm still curious to know why you believe the designers didn't intend for a higher number of smaller cities to be a viable strategy, when the AI (which was designed by the designers) generally goes for a higher number of smaller cities?

Granted, it doesn't execute it well (or anything well for that matter), but the intent is obviously there.

 

[gunter]

Is RB3 a new detergent ?