PolyCast Episode 146: "Forest for the Trees"

Decrease zoom. The one-hundred-and-forty-sixth episode of PolyCast, "Forest for the Trees", features regular co-hosts Daniel "DanQ" Quick, "Makahlua" and Philip "TheMeInTeam" Bellew with first-time guest co-host Danny "snarzberry" Steele; it has a runtime of 59m59s; listeners are encouraged to rate the show on iTunes and follow on Twitter.

The summary of topics is as follows:

- 03m22s | Senate
Comparing the merits of promotions for Galleys, and a generalized "to do" list in the early game, both for Civilization IV.
- 15m40s | Forum Talk
Considering the possibility of a demo for the Civilization V expansion pack Gods & Kings, as well as the most anticipated scenario(s) from it.
- 24m40s | Research Lab
Contrasting the Scout unit in CivIV and CivV in the context of revising its promotion capabilities.
- 31m20s | Miscellaneous
On the implications for CivV's game mechanics from the upcoming G&K expansion, ethics and legalities of Civilization's developer and publisher incorporating community-generated MODs into the base game (47m49s; recorded for Episode 122), playing CivV without any Victory Conditions (50m18s; recorded for Episode 124), and how to keep CivIV interesting after all these years since its release (52m02s; recorded for Episode 134).

- Intro/Outro | Miscellaneous
Losing focus as quickly as it was obtained on the appearance of one's cities in Civ, and how to win for gaming by failing in reality.

Recording live before a listening audience every other Saturday, PolyCast is a bi-weekly audio production in an ongoing effort to give the Civ community an interactive voice on game strategy; sibling show RevCast focuses on Civilization: Revolution, ModCast on Civ modding and TurnCast on Civ multiplay.

If you observe some notable differences in audio quality for the worse in this, as compared to most of our episodes, it is because we had to rely on our backup recording as the primary recording software failed unexpectedly -- and unknowingly at the time -- shortly after starting. Pardon the inconvenience for the affected parts of this episode.

The point about getting gold back or beakers if the AI declares war on you if you have a research agreements I don't agree however it needs to be changed

THey should make the AI actualy know how a research agreement work and if the AI is plotting against you then he should decline when you ask for a research agreements

Its like the AI doesn't know how the Research agreements work it just signs it and then DOWS you.

apocalypse105 said:

The point about getting gold back or beakers if the AI declares war on you if you have a research agreements I don't agree however it needs to be changed

THey should make the AI actualy know how a research agreement work and if the AI is plotting against you then he should decline when you ask for a research agreements

Its like the AI doesn't know how the Research agreements work it just signs it and then DOWS you.

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I think that the idea is that it was meant to be draining your gold reserves before it attacks you. On that basis, it does understand it; I'm not sure that it is doing the right thing, though.

I'd prefer that it have a fixed per turn cost, however.

This may well be solved now in Gods & Kings with the requirement that Research Agreements only be signed with those players with whom a Declaration of Friendship exists.

My argument was, in part, in the hope that the AI could -- and would -- take into account a significant enough shift in circumstance where at some point during the duration of the Research Agreement it would decide that it would be in its best interest not to see it through.

DanQ said:

My argument was, in part, in the hope that the AI could -- and would -- take into account a significant enough shift in circumstance where at some point during the duration of the Research Agreement it would decide that it would be in its best interest not to see it through.

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I'd like that also, but it places both of us in the optimistic category, I'm afraid.

That would be a lot of work.

theadder said:

I'd like that also, but it places both of us in the optimistic category, I'm afraid.

That would be a lot of work.

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It would be a lot of work, but worth it. I'm confident it's doable to some degree of effectiveness at least.