Another thread about capturing cities..

[Jaybe]

Otherwise I run into someone who's built the Great Wall and ragequit.

Ooh! Great Wall is such a dragg, man. It's a real slog ... until you conquer it, but then it's so much more rewarding! Next time you encounter it -- persist (though you might consider saving the game and taking a few hours' break).

Never ragequit. It's the dark side.

 

[Thalassicus]

While I agree it's fun, that just leaves me rich and running away with the game where I end up building stables because the 1 maintenance is lower than 4 for a longsword, and in those cases, yes, I run out of buildings even without purchasing anything.

If you don't want to build anything, set the city on Research.

The pace of the game balances between three rates: policies, techs, and construction. A few versions ago I slowed techs because of feedback techs came too fast. Was that a mistake? It would be easy to increase tech pace if people are running out of things to build. Altering policy and tech costs are generally the preferable method of adjusting the three-way balance, because they have few variables to consider.

 

[Txurce]

...it's stumped by Russia's Great Wall. I'm starting to reach the phase where turtling to a science win is a lot easier than actually playing the game.

Otherwise I run into someone who's built the Great Wall and ragequit.

In general, you could try a higher level. With regard to the GW, I've been running into it a lot lately with good-sized civs, and it is not easy. You can wait for artillery, or else try a mix of siege units with plenty of cannon fodder out font, and a mounted unit to dash in and take the redlined city. Unfortunately, the latter requires a lot of patience.

 

[Thalassicus]

The Great Wall isn't much different than fighting in rough terrain, and I treat it as such.

I could move its obsolescence tech to Rifling if you want, up from Dynamite.

 

[Txurce]

A few versions ago I slowed techs because of feedback techs came too fast. Was that a mistake? It would be easy to increase tech pace if people are running out of things to build. Altering policy and tech costs are generally the preferable method of adjusting the three-way balance, because they have few variables to consider.

I like it a lot now, actually. For the first time ever, possibly, I can easily fall behind in tech if I don't focus on it. In my opinion, that's how it should be.

The Great Wall isn't much different than fighting in rough terrain, and I treat it as such.

I could move its obsolescence tech to Rifling if you want, up from Dynamite.

While I hate making things harder for the AI, the presumed bug that lets the GW last until the owner discovers dynamite is a good argument to moving it to Rifling. (Presumably it would still be about the owner.)

 

[Thalassicus]

Every unit and building obsoletes when the owner researches the appropriate tech. The Great Wall follows the same pattern, so it's not really a bug. Setting that aside a moment, consider two points:

• If Player A has the wall, and is behind in tech compared to Player B, giving Player B a further advantage would make runaway games easier.
• The Great Wall currently has reduced cost, gives a free Great General, and a free Wall. Even with all these buffs people still do not prioritize this wonder. Would reducing its power be counterproductive?

One important question is what purpose should the wall have? One straightforward answer could be the wall should discourage warfare against that player in the Medieval era. To accomplish this we could increase its short-term power while reducing the long-term power. One method of doing so might be to change its obsolescence tech to Metallurgy, and significantly reduce the cost, so it's easy to build but doesn't last long.

 

[Seek]

• The Great Wall currently has reduced cost, gives a free Great General, and a free Wall. Even with all these buffs people still do not prioritize this wonder. Would reducing its power be counterproductive?

The human defender's advantage in civ5 is so strong that I think it will never be a priority for most players, and I don't have any problem with that - it's a good wonder for the AI to have. (Though in my GotM2 game, I did give it moderate priority. The general makes it a somewhat offensive wonder as well.) I don't think lowering the price is necessary.

 

[Txurce]

[/LIST]
The human defender's advantage in civ5 is so strong that I think it will never be a priority for most players, and I don't have any problem with that - it's a good wonder for the AI to have. (Though in my GotM2 game, I did give it moderate priority. The general makes it a somewhat offensive wonder as well.) I don't think lowering the price is necessary.

Agreed.

 

[Atlas627]

^This

 

[Gamewizard]

I like the Great Wall as is. If you don't want the AI to get it then you should build it yourself!

 

[Ahriman]

I think the frustration is that when facing the wall there is really nothing you can do about it. Ideally if I was choked off by a civ with the great wall, then I could beeline artillery so that it would no longer affect me. And if I have it, I have weird distorting incentives to not get artillery.

So, in an ideal world, the obsolesence would be controlled by other players and would function relative to each player (so, my Great Wall might work fine against Ghandi, who skipped artillery and headed on for fighters, but not so well against Genghis, who beelined artillery early).

I certainly don't think it is too weak. I don't think that every Wonder has to be designed just to make the human player want it, when its effect is something that is more valuable to the AI.

 

[KidJustKid]

The Great Wall isn't much different than fighting in rough terrain, and I treat it as such.

I could move its obsolescence tech to Rifling if you want, up from Dynamite.

+1. On that, does, or even can, the AI deprioritise techs that obsolete their wonders?

As Ahriman said - the disadvantages for a human are so overwhelming that you're unlikely to take the tech at all. That could create another possible but unfavourable design choice - wonders or even buildings that are not high priority or economical/efficient for the human player but are useful for the AIs.

It's useful as human players play a different game to the AIs - they aren't role playing, but instead have an objective and strategy, part of which is security and [obvious?]EXISTING[/obvious?]. AIs do not deal with their objectives in the same way so need a cheat to keep them on the level in terms of their capacity to win or play effectively - they are sitting building wonders, so why not make one of them buff their def vs invasions? Could that mean if not an explicit two tier wonders system but maybe one that is balanced so that some that seem intrinsically more useful than others and leaving the rest to the AI so they can play more effectively?

That said, the lopsidedness of the GW does seem excessive at its root - an overall nerf could give it a longer term utility without allowing its 'abuse' to an extent.

Lulz, having written that Ahriman ninja'd me by a day or so.

 

[KidJustKid]

If you don't want to build anything, set the city on Research.

I did end up doing that, and with a NC, Old Faithful, Observatory + University, I rolled into Industrial with ease. In my game at least, construction time on buildings was definitely not a limiting factor - 3/4 turns for new buildings in new cities isn't limiting at all, especially as not all cities build all buildings and not all techs have buildings to build. Policies essentially became inconsequential as I didn't need anything in particular for my strategy to work. I may well go back to Epic speed and seeing how the balance stacks up, as I'm only a recent convert to Normal and Standard sized games.

Looking back now, it may just be that Thal's definition of its use as 'Discourages invasion during the Medieval era' simply isn't useful to the player and requires a dumb AI to build.

 

[Txurce]

I just finished a Continents-Plus game with Germany on 117.1, in which I took advantage of lots of free barbs to rush Delhi with just brutes and two archers. To my surprise it fell, and I rolled on from there. Although I was limited by having only two other civs on my continent, I took the first 5 with teams consisting of brutes/landsknechts/rifles, one with two crossbows and one with a single (CS booty) cannon. (I researched artillery just before rolling the last two.)

I think I bought three rifles, three cavalry and three cannon the entire game. (Note: nothing before late Renaissance.) I built one rifleman when I had nothing else that I wanted to build.

I annexed everything because I couldn't see the downside. (If it's slower culture, I mitigated it by buying and building culture buildings.) There was always something I could do to stay above -10. I wonder if courthouses shouldn't have some happiness function.

Would Continents-Plus be prone to spawning more barb vessels? Again, I couldn't believe how many there were.

 

[Thalassicus]

Gandhi has the lowest military priorities of any leader, so I'm not surprised he was easy to take down. Islands are settled late and usually in the fog of war. Barbarian camps can spawn only in fog of war, so maps with many islands spawn more camps.

 

[Txurce]

Against my better instincts, I decided to collect ships. As many as 80% were parked, while the others racked up promotions. I gave away 12 to CS. Eventually I had enough with Bombard to try using them en masse in an assault. I couldn't help cringing at the losses but... they did the job. At one point I had five Privateers operating with one Warrior (!) taking isolated coastal cities.

As you can see, I still love playing with the Germans. One of these days I'll have to try the only civ I've never touched: your favorites, the Mongols!