Am I Just Losing It?

[Omegon3]

I'm curious whether any other players have experienced this with "unrestricted leaders"... When playing unrestricted, I inevitably seem to do MUCH better than when playing standard. Playing unrestricted leaders is the ONLY time I have ever managed to reach the Julius Ceasar level (and I've managed that twice though, admittedly, with the Apostolic Palace's diplomatic victory option). Be that as it may, it sures seems like I do better with unrestricted than standard...

Am I just going crazy (my wife certainly thinks so!!!!) or has anyone else found this to be the case?

 

[Bhruic]

Well, if you were playing with Random for Leader/Civ, then I'd consider that odd. But if you are selecting the Leader/Civ, it's not strange at all. You can select some combinations that are considerably more powerful than the defaults (Lincoln/Egypt, Darius/HRE, etc). And the AI is stuck with random choices that might not mesh well. So it's no surprise that you can do better.

Bh

 

[Omegon3]

(Almost) always play random... I like the surprise (though NOT necessarily the combinations I might get). The difference is in the final score. Before "unrestricted leaders" I felt luck to get a final score of over 8000. With unrestricted leaders if I don't exceed 8000 I figure it is a pretty bad game.

 

[Bhruic]

Well, that is odd then. Unless you are getting some lucky combinations, there's nothing inherently superior about unrestricted leaders.

Bh

 

[KMadCandy]

hmmz. i wonder how much the combos your opponents are getting plays into it. i've tried unrestricted a couple of times, going non-random myself to test out specific things. i didn't finish any of the games, was just testing/messing around. in each game tho i met some combos that scared me! then again i wonder how good the AI would be at taking advantage of some of the combos. if not on random personalities, gandhi's still going to be a builder even if he gets praets, right? and monty will be a warmonger from the get-go even if his UU is a fast worker?

in any case, it sure sounds like you're doing well! and having fun which is the best part.

ps wives are very often right

 

[Omegon3]

Let me ask this another way: Did one of the patches might have accounted for the difference in scores and I just saw it as relating to unrestricted leaders (i.e. a "patch" that provided higher final scores)?

As a side, my wife is almost always right -- I don't want to die young (heh!! I'm only 56!!)...