Axes Still Rule

[Spearthrower]

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).

Quality... you have a 1 trick pony strategy which you claim is superior to all, refute all the strategies I have listed then dare to claim that I lack strategic understanding.

Well done for realising that you can attack stuff with your troops, I commend your tactical brilliance.... even better... your use of one single troop en masse is pure genius..... roll over Xenephon, Sun Tzu, Alexander..... bastillebaston has got copper and aint afraid to use it!!!

Your "dominance theory" analogy is entirely flawed, you cannot possibly equate such a reductionist explanation to civ... you've already accepted it, so why persist with this faulty logic?

You didn't even recognise the parody I provided.... not big on recognising how you manage to easily refute your own weak arguments when they are presented back to you, are you?

 

[Spearthrower]

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

You sir/ma'am, are a genius!

Why did no one else think of that?

 

[bastillebaston]

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

No. War dominates over peace; unless you go for culture, the SoD rush hugely dominates over the always-peace attitude. Wealth/Spaceship are not alternatives to SoDs: you can be a warmonger, and capitalise with space race.

 

[kcbrett5]

Why is anyone still arguing with bastillebaston? He opened this thread by saying that the axe rush is still the best way to play (and in his opinion the only way to go). Then immediately follows it up with, only on low difficulties, because the AI has too many units at higher levels. And only if I choose a connected map with nearby enemies. And only if I immediately access the right resources, otherwise I quit. And his games never go to the modern era because if there was any chance of anything but an easy victory, he already quit.

It is so obviously pointless to argue with a person when that is the opening statement. I would prefer he doesnt play civ. Let him get bored. He only dumbs down the real debates here.

 

[Spearthrower]

No. War dominates over peace; unless you go for culture, the SoD rush hugely dominates over the always-peace attitude. Wealth/Spaceship are not alternatives to SoDs: you can be a warmonger, and capitalise with space race.

No. War sometimes dominates over peace. The point is that doing something the same way every time is not fun, not clever, not a strategy, not interesting and not worthy of a thread. You can also be a peacemonger and capitalise on a space race, you can also be a peacemonger and win by cultural domination..... you have decided to see everything from a solitary perspective and chose to ignore all else in favour of it. Great. But don't actually expect others to do likewise. Single-minded, in the box thinking is not why people play games live civ. Reductionism only reduces your perspective, not the field of play.

 

[Spearthrower]

It is so obviously pointless to argue with a person when that is the opening statement. I would prefer he doesnt play civ. Let him get bored. He only dumbs down the real debates here.

I admit, I like shooting fish in a barrel!

 

[bastillebaston]

Quality... you have a 1 trick pony strategy which you claim is superior to all, refute all the strategies I have listed then dare to claim that I lack strategic understanding.

So far, you have listed no relevant alternative strategy. Building Lighthouses or building improvements, for example, are not relevant alternatives. Always peace, on the other hand, is a relevant alternative, but you have said nothing to prove, for example, that always peaces is on the whole preferable to doing at least one stack attack rush.

Your "dominance theory" analogy is entirely flawed, you cannot possibly equate such a reductionist explanation to civ... you've already accepted it, so why persist with this faulty logic?

The dominance concept is entirely clear and straightforward. I think you mistake this for "reductionism" because you still struggle to grasp the concept, despite its utter simplicity. So let me define it once again:

"strategy X sdominates over strategy Y: choosing X always nearly always produces a better outcome than choosing Y"​

Example:

"choosing to SoD rush at some stage of the game nearly always gives a better overall outcome than choosing never to rush."​

You have said nothing so far to seriously challenge the above claim.

You didn't even recognise the parody I provided.... not big on recognising how you manage to easily refute your own weak arguments when they are presented back to you, are you?

As I have already explained, what you call a "parody" was an irrelevant analogy.

 

[bastillebaston]

No. War sometimes dominates over peace.

"Sometimes war" dominates "always peace". By the way: The SoD rush doest not of course mean constant war. During some stages of the game peace will be better than war. But, *overall*, war clearly dominates, in the sense that doing at least one SoD rush at some stage of the game is vastly preferable to doing none during the entire course of the game.

The point is that doing something the same way every time is not fun, not clever, not a strategy, not interesting and not worthy of a thread.

It's the game mechanics that forces this sort of repetitiveness. Unless you deliberately choose to ignore the dominant strategy, the game will nearly always follow the same pattern.

 

[Spearthrower]

Let's take this back to the beginning shall we?

Once again, the axe rush quickly does the job, and guarantees victory.

Guarantees victory.... except for the caveats of

if you have no bronze/iron (too frustrating...) or if you play scenarios/advanced starts.

Oh except those, right.... oh and all the other caveats that people mentioned and you ignored.

No need to bother with espionage. ...

No need to found/spread either religions .....

or corporations......

I ignored all the new wonders (I hardly ever build any wonder, for that matter)....

Apostolic palace....

random events....

As to the late game units, I’ve never got that far… by the time infantry comes around I’ve already won my games.

You use no other feature of the game. Why? Because you claim that you dont need to because you can win with 1 single strategy (with hidden caveats of course)

then you wonder why

This is too bad… I already feel rather bored and disappointed with BtS.

You play 1% of the game and you are bored with it.... the obvious suggestion that 900 people have mentioned is.... try playing with those components too. Surely reducing a fantastically varied game down to its most basic proponent is the very thing that is boring you?

I hate football - the grass is green... I dont like green.

You also conveniently ignore the fact that playing to try to exploit a specific and solitary element of the game to its fullest is naturally going to achieve its goal. You can exploit a horde of game mechanics in Civ - that is both the joy and the REAL STRATEGIC element of the game. There is a lot of variety in the game mechanics you can exploit... all of them lead to victory... you unfortunately, have only discovered one... keep on trying lad, you'll make it someday!

To clarify, hooking up copper, building axes then attacking your nearby civs every single time, does not constitute a strategy.

Further to this, you actually pursue the argument that this is a dominant strategy even though you have already stated that...

if you have no bronze/iron (too frustrating, I would just recommend quitting

My guess is that what actually happens is you only play 1 in 10 games through due to the caveats (i.e. reset because of no copper)... you dominate your nearest neighbour or two, then consider the game won - of those 1 in 10, I bet you never even go onto claim your victory - forget those idiots on the other side of the world building their workers and lighthouses... you are teh pwn. Their higher tech level, less adminstrative costs, vastly greater income thanks to all those pointless religions and buildings, infrastructure and wonders are all totally pointless and boring compared to your stack of axes... sat... on this side of the world..... in B.C...... hmmm

Money ------>>> mouth

Prove your dominance, stop spraying your empty """"strategy"""".... go online and show us. Become the best, then we might listen.

 

[Calavente]

you swapped from :
'axe rush is overpowered and need to be nerfed'
to
" 'war sometimes' dominates on 'always peace' "

whats is the clear logical link between your 2 statements ?

I agree with the later and disagree with the former.

while going to war at a time or the other beats never doing war (as a quickest victroy strategy), using 1 SoD/axe rush during 1 war is not the same as saying that SoD/axe rush are overpowered.

you are right: 1 SoD will win the battle... but it won't mean you win the war or that the diplo to stop other civ from intruding, or the culture to protect your newly obtains cities are not NECESSARY. or trade so that your powerful 14pop city does not go into rebellion...etc

yes : SoD helps winning wars and having some wars helps winning the game : but they are
1) no guarantees
2) not the only strategies that always work against the AI (worker stealing works very fine.. thank you, or capital camping : those nerf the AI , giving you place to expand ==> overwhelming technic)
3) not the only strategies you HAVE TO use to win. (in CIII you could win early with rushing with sioux horsmen and only using them. try winning with only SoD, never using diplo, or never using trade, never develloping your cities ==> this is the same statement as saying 'SoD are overpowered because if you don't make any war it's harder to win')

4)// I lost my thought

EDIT : ah yeah :
SoD are the way to win wars... who cares, wars aren't always the best/quicker solution to win the game.
even a late rush war with a neighbourg is hammer /gold/ beaker / time consumming. then, you may/will encounter a cv that has traded tech... and out-tech you.
it is fun crossing a continent with full galleons of grenadiers... only to find that they already have cavalery... or infantery tchao SoD...

5) and it's true that if you started with going SoD .. and then if it doesn't work, waiting for the next SoD time, it will always be better to go for a SoD technic. other path have to be prepared.
after doing axe rush and cat rush, you are too late to go for diplo/space/domination win without using another rush. (that it is easier to win through war when your civ is tailored for war ... is normal)

Diplo/space can be won faster by focusing on it than by starting warmongerer and then changing option. (but after playing warmongerer until say ..500AD or 1000AD, it is easier to finish the game by a diplo (or spacerace) win with warmongering a little more than going for a religion or trade path for which you have not tailored your empire).

you are saying : (with an analogy with role playing, or morrowind/ADD/...etc)
"when I use my big barbarian swordman, in late game, wining is always easier through bashing people than by charming them therefore the bashing head style is overpowered compared to the mage/thief approach".
In reality if you tailor your avatar into being a thief or a mage, he will be as powerful but you won't win by bashing heads. If you try to win by bashing heads with them, you will find they are weak !!! oh, so strange

 

[kcbrett5]

All anyone needs to know is that he plays on MONARCH and is complaining the game is too easy and boring, yet refuses to play on a higher level because there are too many challenges (i.e. more AI units, more maintenance penalties from over expanding too quickly). And while playing on Monarch, if the game looks too challenging (i.e. limited access to resources or long distances to enemies), he quits and start over until he finds an easier set-up to dominate.

The rest of his arguments have absolutely no credibility once you have read this one.

 

[fetabobar]

I don't say I agree with the OP, he has overstated his case but he's got a point. Sods are the way to win wars, there's no arguing with that. I once read (I dont' remember the source) that the people ad Firaxis wanted to eliminate Sods, or make them less powerful, or something like that. That has not happened in vanilla and warlords. I don't know about BtS, I don't have it yet. Maybe the siege nerf is the answer to the OP?

 

[Spearthrower]

Fetabobar - Actually, no one would dispute that!! SoD's are the way to *win wars*.... it's the other claims that are the problem.

 

[Spinal]

It's the game mechanics that forces this sort of repetitiveness. Unless you deliberately choose to ignore the dominant strategy, the game will nearly always follow the same pattern.

First post, but your inane argument merited it.

You've postulated that to ignore axe-rush is to ignore the dominant strategy, and the existence of this strategy lessens the game experience. People have pointed out that this is only the case when you hand-tailor a set-up that will make this work. You've ignored every post that says you are achieving this "superior" means of victory because you make certain every starting setting adhere to winning in this fashion.

So I'll grant you, the game is biased and this strategy prevails if:

You play a lower skill level, ignoring the more challenging settings.
You play a clustered-tight knit map.
You play a leader who starts with mining.
You basically re-start, until the random generator provides you the resource that fuels your strategy.

People have suggested you increase the skill level, but you stated you don't micro-manage. I'd say it's the challenge you're avoiding, or the fact that your statement/strat wouldn't work, so you avoid it.

People have suggested trying to win a different victory type. Again, you've claimed these are inferior, despite higher point totals for several of those win options.

People have suggested not only using a leader that is set-up for your win type. In other words, could you make the same statement for all starting civs? Even most?

And lastly, people have said if you start and re-start until a resource is where you need it, then of course you'd be able to make this claim. People can stack attack a city, and reload every time a unit loses combat, and try a different unit until victory is achieved also. Loading/reloading/restarting to make something work is not a game flaw, but a user flaw.

I almost hope this is just a troll, as the inability to grasp that the lengths you go to to make this work consistently are hardly the game's fault, or even a flaw, as much as you stacking the odds and simply erasing and starting over when even that doesn't work.

Your X > Y argument is flawed because you fail to restate your needs. Your argument should read X >Y, if A and B and C and D and E.

 

[Spearthrower]

Great first post.... I fear it is only going to go to waste and fall on deaf ears.... but welcome, all the same!

 

[largedarryl]

I'm not willing to get into this argument about how rushing the AI is OP.

Well how would you suggest that we prevent this problem? (And why is this in the BtS forum because I don't recall seeing anything about BtS that would make the rush strategy weaker)

Would you like something added to the game so that a city that has had at least 1 border pop be unrazeable? That would prevent most early rush strategies from working very well.

Do you want someone to create an AI that just sits there and builds units to prevent your rush?

If you think there is a problem with the game, how do you suggest we fix it, instead of just responding with the same post again.

 

[fetabobar]

Fetabobar - Actually, no one would dispute that!! SoD's are the way to *win wars*.... it's the other claims that are the problem.

Are Sods the only way to win wars in BtS too? This is not good I hoped they nerfed sods. To be honest, I haven't read all the posts in the thread, but wasn't the OP basically complaining that Sods must be nerfed? That sounds right, what's wrong with that?

 

[Spearthrower]

It's not the *only* way to win wars.... but numerical superiority is always going to be a way to do bloody well in a war!!

And the OP was not talking about wars... he was talking about Axemen (later changed to SoD's in general) being the most effective strategy in Civ.... which is completely ridiculous in the potential scope for victory in this game.

 

[fetabobar]

It's not the *only* way to win wars.... but numerical superiority is always going to be a way to do bloody well in a war!!

What are the other ways? If you have numerical superiority is there a better way than Sods?

 

[fetabobar]

I don't recall seeing anything about BtS that would make the rush strategy weaker

I've read that in BtS siege is nerfed. This must have made cat rush weaker, no?