Axes Still Rule

[Spearthrower]

The game is not supposed to have only one dominant strategy. On the contrary, the intention of the designers was that the game should equally favor many varied approaches. Clearly, this is not the case. Hence, the standard game is broken.

There's always going to be a dominant strategy - it's impossible for everything to be exactly equal. Anyway..... play against people if you are so sure of yourself.

Money ------> mouth is.

Egypt ftw!

You are wrong, it is not broken, you simply don't appreciate the multi-faceted nature of the game. Repetition does not make it a fact.

 

[bastillebaston]

The "boring" part was a joke.... guessed you missed the fun in that too!

I think I may be excused for not getting you peculiar sense of humor.

All objections raised have pertained exactly to the point, you've just misunderstood the entire nature of your own thread.

The main topic of this thread is that the game has a unique dominant strategy: the SoD rush (the axe rush being the most powerful instance of this). Few of the objections raised so far have adequately addressed this issue.

 

[Spearthrower]

The main objections to this point is that there is not a unique dominant strategy.

Your "dominant strategy" is dominant for taking other, close-by civs cities. That doesn't instantly equate to be a sole dominant strategy, nor does it equate to winning.

Winning is not something you can define for everyone (although you seem to think that you can).... a culture win is at least equal to your supposed dominant strategy.

You might as well have posted about how the lighthouse was so overpowered because it gives you 1 extra food per water tile and nothing else can possibly do that, therefore, in terms of water tiles, the dominant strategy is.... *drum roll* lighthouses. The fact that it is the only one is conveniently ignored.... as is the fact that the only way to militarily take another civs city is to use a stack of military... LOL.... it's comical..... you came here to tell us that attacking other civs is the best way to attack other civs... I am speechless at your enlightenment.

The level of non-sequitur is perhaps the most amusing thing in this thread. I am sure you know it too and you are just yanking chains.... no one can really be this serious about arguing such an absurd point.... can they?

 

[bastillebaston]

There's always going to be a dominant strategy

Incorrect. There are games with no single dominant strategy (incidentally, a common feature of those sort of games is that they tend to have more than one "Nash equilibrium.") Have a look at the following definition of what "dominance" means in game theory:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominance_(game_theory)

Perhaps, this may help to clarify things for you.

it's impossible for everything to be exactly equal.

Alternative strategies need not be "exactly equal". In a varied and complex game, one single strategy should not be almost invariably favored over the others.

You are wrong, it is not broken, you simply don't appreciate the multi-faceted nature of the game. Repetition does not make it a fact.

For all its "multi-faceted" nature, the game allows for a one-sided form of strategic dominance. This makes it a broken game, especially if we look at the designer’s declared intention to nerf SoDs.

 

[polypheus]

Although I don't like Emperor because it requires more micromanaging than what I consider tolerable, I have played a couple of Emperor games on huge maps (and standard maps with fewer opponents, which is basically a scaled down version of huge). In those cases, I've still found the axe rush to be overpowered, and the SoD rush to be the dominant strategy.

This assumes of course that one is in a situation to axe-rush. That is not the case in many Huge maps as copper is NOT nearby and is probably not even available. And rushing post-axemen is a lot harder because by then the AIs has built up reasonably large militaries of their own and city cultural defenses are higher so cat/grenadier rushes require extremely massive numbers of units especially in Emperor. I woudn't say that this is exactly "overpowered".

Map size is not the crucial factor. Number of opponents and game speed are. The slower the speed the more powerful the rush. Granted: if there are more than 6-7 opponents and you are playing monarch or above, one early rush may not be enough to put you in the lead. In such a case, keep rushing with cats/trebs/grenaderies/what have you until you are in a comfortable enough position to win your chosen type of victory. Nothing beats that strategy.

You are generally better off rushing your neighbors at some state than refraining from doing so.

I always play on Huge maps on Emperor with at least 11-18 Civs (whatever the default number is based on specific map type). As long as I have the resources I need and have the right amount of good productive cities, there isn't a whole lot of advantage to rushing. Killing 1 or 2 Civs out of 11-18 total civs won't really achieve much over just keeping a defensive army and building peacefully unless you are going after conquest/dominance victory which is just too tedious to do in Huge maps with such a massive number of cities and civs to conquer. I do "rush" and conquer Civs but only on a as needed basis. I have not found "rushing" to achieve anything if I already have a large and productive enough empire and have no need for war.

Sure, but axe-rushing your neighbors always places you in a better position to compete with the distant civs. If you don't rush the neighborhood, you'll be far worse off in comparison to the distant civs.

Why would this be so? If I kill off 1-2 Civs in my immediate neighborhood why would it affect or hamper the distant Civs that have been peacefully building up tech/science and sitting by? It doesn't.

 

[Spearthrower]

Um... the dominant strategy in any given game is the one that succeeded in that game. It only stands to reason.

It also stands to reason that if you and I play, and I play as Egypt and build only chariots and you play as whoever and build only axes, then the dominant strategy for that game is building chariots. Does that then extend to every game?

I am really sure that you must be joking now.... even quoting wikipedia... does it get any better?

 

[Littlelisa]

Ultimate strategy

 

[Spearthrower]

Quality!

I'm seriously thinking about making the BastilleBaston Mod... in which every tile has copper and the only thing you can build is axemen!

I bet I'd lose!!

 

[Moonlit Knight]

Didn't bother to read the whole thread, but I've got an answer to bastillebaston's problem.

You say that axe rush is overpowered. If you don't get axes, you use catapult rush, which you say is overpowered. Then you say that grenadier rush is overpowered.

See any link between these?

Of course you can conquer other nations if you have way more troops than they! It's simple mathematics, 2 attacking grenadiers are better than 1 defending grenadier. 2 attacking axemen are better than 1 defending axeman/spearman/archer/whatever. If you have something technologically equal but way more of it, your chances to win are way much better.

Exactly. And as far as balance goes I think it's about right. Sure it would be fun to have long drawn out sieges where you have to pillage the surrounding country side and slowly wear down the opponent but in realistic terms each game turn is a long time and you could be trying to conquer a city for 60 years!

It's a tough thing to get the balance between realism and game balance. But for me there are a few things that I would like to see changed to make the earlier game period tougher (and in general).

1) Fog of War and map making. It's entirely unrealistic that Warriors/Scouts can travel half way across the world and the civilisation automatically remember every hill, plain, resource etc. I'd like it that the fog of war is only lifted for a turn or two outside the cultural borders. Then when something like Copper appears you wouldn't automatically know where it was.

2) Warriors should only be able to travel so far from your nearest City, a bit like the way planes can only bomb within a certain area. Why? Because it's unrealistic that an army can travel halfway across a continent not requiring food, resource etc. Or to limit SOD's they could apply a health penalty for every unit outside of your cultural border. So the more units you have outside of your cultural border, the less powerful they are due to starvation, disease etc Later techs and buildings could increase this range etc, and forts could act as "safe havens" and be allowed to be built in enemy land (as long as there was a trade route to stone etc). Scouts/Explorers could be immune from this penalty, making them more useful in war time situations as well as peace time. Maybe Scouts/Explorers should automatically start with a strong withdrawal chance also?

3) The fog of war should remain like that until the civilisation is advanced enough to make maps. Perhaps as the cultural influence of a city increases then line of sight outside of its borders also increases. It could be that Explorers have the added benefit of everything they see clears the fog of war for good. This makes them much more useful later game than they currently are.

4) I personally think the production of military units could do with being tweaked. I think Copper and Iron shouldn't enable you to make Axemen, Swordsman etc but give them a massive production boost to building them instead. Same with Horses. I think that all civilisations should have access to Copper and Iron as a default, but that they need a resource tile to speed up or mass produce units requiring it. I think food should also be a massive factor in how fast a city can build human based military units. Planes, Tanks etc would still rely on your civ controlling an Iron resource though. I do not think, with the exception of wooden based ships, that units or settlers should be able to be chop rushed. Cutting down forests does not make babies

5) Perhaps all cities should be able to make Warriors (militia), but only those with a Barracks can make more advanced (eg Axeman, Spearman) units. Or perhaps the Forge should be able to be built earlier and a City can only produce Swordsman if it has a forge.

There are many ways for the game to be changed, but whether or not they'd improve the game is another matter. I know this post has gone off topic so I will also post most of it in the suggestions forum.

 

[bastillebaston]

Your "dominant strategy" is dominant for taking other, close-by civs cities. That doesn't instantly equate to be a sole dominant strategy, nor does it equate to winning.

You have wholly misunderstood what is the relevant sense of "dominance" in this thread. A dominant strategy need not be a strategy that is invariably conductive to victory. Dominance is a property that makes one strategy a better choice than another. In most game settings (including MP), the following statement obtains: "choosing to SoD-rush at some stage nearly always gives overall a better outcome than choosing never to rush." Hence, the stack attack rush is strategically dominant.

Winning is not something you can define for everyone (although you seem to think that you can)....

You (technically) win whenever the game says you do (that is, “You have won an X-type victory” pops on your computer screen.)

You might as well have posted about how the lighthouse was so overpowered because it gives you 1 extra food per water tile and nothing else can possibly do that, therefore, in terms of water tiles, the dominant strategy is.... *drum roll* lighthouses. The fact that it is the only one is conveniently ignored.... as is the fact that the only way to militarily take another civs city is to use a stack of military... LOL.... it's comical..... you came here to tell us that attacking other civs is the best way to attack other civs... I am speechless at your enlightenment.

The benefits of lighthouses have absolutely nothing to with the topic of this thread (by the way, I don't think that lighthouses are overpowered).

The level of non-sequitur is perhaps the most amusing thing in this thread. I am sure you know it too and you are just yanking chains.... no one can really be this serious about arguing such an absurd point.... can they?

Far from being absurd, the point reveals a deep flaw in civ's game mechanics.

 

[Moonlit Knight]

You have wholly misunderstood what is the relevant sense of "dominance" in this thread. A dominant strategy need not be a strategy that is invariably conductive to victory. Dominance is a property that makes one strategy a better choice than another. In most game settings (including MP), the following statement obtains: "choosing to SoD-rush at some stage nearly always gives overall a better outcome than choosing never to rush." Hence, the stack attack rush is strategically dominant.



You (technically) win whenever the game says you do (that is, “You have won an X-type victory” pops on your computer screen.)



The benefits of lighthouses have absolutely nothing to with the topic of this thread (by the way, I don't think that lighthouses are overpowered).



Far from being absurd, the point reveals a deep flaw in civ's game mechanics.

Let's turn this on its head. Answer these two questions.

a) You've been critical of what is wrong with civ. How would you improve it?

b) Give examples of other computer games where the AI strategy is better in your opinion.

 

[Spearthrower]

You have wholly misunderstood what is the relevant sense of "dominance" in this thread. A dominant strategy need not be a strategy that is invariably conductive to victory. Dominance is a property that makes one strategy a better choice than another. In most game settings (including MP), the following statement obtains: "choosing to SoD-rush at some stage nearly always gives overall a better outcome than choosing never to rush." Hence, the stack attack rush is strategically dominant.

Thus, one could also state that using a worker to build improvements on tiles is a "dominant strategy" as it is always the better choice than not using a worker to build improvements on tiles.

In other words, there are many many many "dominant strategies" you need to put in place in each game to win.... therefore, there is no ONE dominant strategy..... non-sequiturs are so entertaining.

Dominance theory works for games with a very limited scope of potential actions and reactions.... trying to equate it to civ is either a) utterly absurd or b) a joke..... I am still laying hope on the latter.

 

[bastillebaston]

Civ therefore is an empire building game.

An empire building WARgame (with the stress on "war").

One of the ways you can choose to build your empire is by warfare, just as one way is by choosing culture.... you cant choose to do warfare by building, nor can you choose to do warfare by culture... therefore, it is not a warfare game.

Unless you select the "always-peace" option, you cannot deliberately choose to immunity to attacks. In nearly all games, at least one war occurs (including AI vs. AI wars, which may affect your chances of winning). Sure, there are rare cases when absoutely no war occurs, or somebody wins without ever building a military unit, but those are unusual occurrences, regarded as oddities. Nearly all civ games simulate wars. Therefore, civ is a wargame.

 

[Spearthrower]

In every game at least one religion is founded, therefore civ is a Religious Empire Building game.

You sir have achieved the much sought after title of.....

Cum hoc ergo propter hoc meister.

 

[homan1983]

You just didn't build a large enough stack.

Hai guiys I think I gat it naw!

You can take any city at any time with axemen, its just you need a large enough stack!

So if you wanna take an ancient city with 2 archers, you need 4 axes.
If its a Longbow defended town you need 8 axes.
If its a moderm city defended by 2 mech infantry of a protective civ you need 563634598734579834573 axes.

Remember bastille's golden rule:

"if it doesn't work, you didn't build a large enough stack of axemen"

I can see how this can be overpowered. Maybe he's been right all along

 

[bastillebaston]

Thus, one could also state that using a worker to build improvements on tiles is a "dominant strategy" as it is always the better choice than not using a worker to build improvements on tiles.

You are thoroughly confused once again. Dominance is relation between alternative or mutually exclusive strategies. Your worker example is once again irrelevant. Building some improvements is indeed preferable over building no improvements at all. Hence the former dominates the latter. So what?

Number one: Building improvements simply does not dominate over SoDs rush (or vice versa). Those aren't incompatible strategies at all. Dominance with respect to SoD does not even apply here.

Number two: Unlike the SoD rush, building some improvement is indeed meant by the designers to be a "dominant" strategy, but only in the restricted and perfectly acceptable sense of being preferable to building no improvements. While playing, you are supposed to train some workers and improve the land. Obviously, this has nothing to do with SoDs being overpowered.

In other words, there are many many many "dominant strategies" you need to put in place in each game to win.... therefore, there is no ONE dominant strategy..... non-sequiturs are so entertaining.

Only those strategies that are effective alternatives to doing at least one SoD rush at some stage in the game are relevant in this context.

Dominance theory works for games with a very limited scope of potential actions and reactions.... trying to equate it to civ is either a) utterly absurd or b) a joke..... I am still laying hope on the latter.

I agree that dominance can be mathematically defined only when the strategy itself has been strictly defined, and that "SoD rush" does not allow for a strict mathematical definition. But that doesn't really matter. All I need is an intuitive sense of strategic dominance which we all understand (although you seem to struggle to do so).

 

[bastillebaston]

In every game at least one religion is founded, therefore civ is a Religious Empire Building game.

Fair enough. Civ is a religious empire-bulding WARgame (with the stress on "war".)

 

[Spearthrower]

Fair enough. Civ is a religious empire-bulding WARgame (with the stress on "war".)

Only if you choose to play it that way!

 

[Littlelisa]

Defeating your enemies via either culture/war/Peace/expansion/spaceship/time/religion/wealth is the dominant strategy.

 

[bastillebaston]

Um... the dominant strategy in any given game is the one that succeeded in that game. It only stands to reason.

No, as I have already explained to you, that's not the correct definition of strategic dominance. A strategy dominates another just in case the former is overall nearly always a better choice than the latter, and you can't have both. A strategy may dominate all of its alternatives even if it is not invariably successful.