best random event

[Dhoomstriker]

Also, BUG mod has absolutely nothing to do with this event....

Okay, I was mistaken, then. As far as I know, the BUG Mod disables some of the more radical Events. I thought that the Vedic Aryans was one of them. Apparently, that belief is wrong.

And you could still die. Aryans do some funny stuff with "target city", which is why they're still not "fixed" in 3.19 (I'm surprised you've yet to cite the changes to this event rule in recent patches that claimed to fix it but did not).

To be honest, how the "target City" effect works is still a mystery to me. So, I can't feasibly comment on how successful any patch attempts were, as I don't really know what they set out to accomplish.

My UNDERSTANDING of what the patch attempted to do was to make it so that whoever "got" the Event was the first target, but to me, even if that fix works as I just described it, it isn't much of a "fix" at all.

I do think that the "Lemming-like" Mission that causes the Barb units to target a City and then leave it undefended is quite silly. That said, as others have alluded, it can offer a certain level of entertainment to (unfairly and unrealistically) waltz into an AI's City that was systematically captured and abandoned by the Barbs in this manner.

In my opinion, an important "fix" would be to change when the Event can happen. Of course, your claim seems to be that the Event shouldn't exist at all, which is also a fair approach to take (and was an approach that I thought that the BUG Mod had taken since I don't recall having seen this Event since I stopped playing non-Bug/BUFFY-Mod BtS games). But, if a fix were to happen in place of the Event being removed, I would be okay with seeing one of:
a) The Event being pushed to a later date, so that it doesn't have as much of a chance of instantly ruining your game beyond a realistic ability to recover from it
OR
b) Changing the Mission that the Barb units are given. For example, they could have a Mission that heavily prioritizes Pillaging. Certainly, such an Event would still be damaging. However, I believe that the Event would have a much smaller "suspend your beliefs" factor, as it would be far more realistic and believable within the context of the rest of the game's mechanics than the current effect of units which "Lemming" their way into a City and then keep moving on to the next City

Not on immortal+ they don't. Windows with a single archer are incredibly rare...and the ability to actually attack them before they whip another one with a 1 move unit more rare still.

I guess there is an element of AI personality involved, as well as the speed at which the AI has managed to expand. I have seen single-Archer and unescorted Settlers in many games, and while I admit that I play on a ton of different difficulties (that's the nature of playing a lot of Game of the Month games and Forum games), I would be surprised not to see the AIs pulling this gambit on Immortal and Deity levels.

However, I will concede that the AIs on Immortal and Deity are far less likely to leave a City with only 1 Archer in it in the early-game timeframe that we are talking about, since the AIs start with so many free units and they have to "put them" somewhere. It's probably more when they expand to additional Cities that you'll see some AIs finessing 1-Archer Settler Parties or even defenderless Settler Parties, which will be at a point where you'd likely already be hit by an early Vedic Aryans Event.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Okay, I was mistaken, then. As far as I know, the BUG Mod disables some of the more radical Events. I thought that the Vedic Aryans was one of them. Apparently, that belief is wrong.

The HoF mod BUFFY (which uses BUG but way more than just BUG) does that. BUG stands for bts *unaltered* gameplay lol.

To be honest, how the "target City" effect works is still a mystery to me. So, I can't feasibly comment on how successful any patch attempts were, as I don't really know what they set out to accomplish.

I'm not sure its consistently possible to predict the target city. There are tendencies but its RNG based IIRC .

My UNDERSTANDING of what the patch attempted to do was to make it so that whoever "got" the Event was the first target, but to me, even if that fix works as I just described it, it isn't much of a "fix" at all.

Actually what they changed was the event tech requirements (previously you didn't need to have someone know archery to trigger it). They didn't even bother to attempt to look at target city code.

Anyway the only way to make a feature balanced is if it causes a player to prepare for it under rational expectations; preparing 1/100 contingencies at the expense of defense against problems that would always happen is bad form. Putting in 0-skill (IE decision-baked) outcomes adds noise to the game and does nothing to further the advertised STRATEGY in the genre.

Firaxis has proven time and again it doesn't know how to balance things though, and not just with these gimmick features.

 

[ecuwins]

...but then firaxis never got the controls working 100% in the past decade so w/e ^_^.

I've heard this mentioned before. What's up with the controls?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I've heard this mentioned before. What's up with the controls?

Mostly, hotkeys don't work consistently.

But you also have problems like units executing orders from the previous turn and moving into dangers that is ALREADY SEEN at the start of this turn, before you can interrupt said unit. Workers are notorious for this, but military units can do it too. Then, when interrupting a unit is asinine (IE a worker improving a tile next to barb borders rather than a unit where no barb unit can possibly threaten said worker) the game has no problems making you order that irrigation over and over and over again...but preventing the worker from moving w/o prompt next to the barb archer and starting an improvement? THAT is too much to ask .

I'm scratching the surface here, but basically they didn't even try when it comes to streamlining the UI for players who want to take advantage of hotkeys to play quickly.

 

[ecuwins]

I see. I've mainly just been using the mouse for everything. I don't even use the UI buttons for movement. I have found them to be clumsy. Right click mouse just seems so much more easy for me.

I have run it to that worker next to a barb border issue. It is slightly annoying.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I've heard this mentioned before. What's up with the controls?

Try selecting a Worker that is not on a Forest, holding down the shift key (keep it held down) and right-click on a square that has a Forest.

As long as you continue to hold down the shift key, the Worker will not move. What you should see is that a "Chop" Worker Action appears, which you can hover your mouse over, in order to find out how many Hammers you will get for your Forest Chop and which City the Forest chop will go to.

When you're done looking at this info, press the Backspace key to cancel the movement and you will have some additional info without having had to have moved your Worker.

However, this functionality is inconsistent at best. Sometimes, you can click 7, 8, 9, or 40 times and that "Chop" Worker Action won't appear. Sometimes, it will appear on the first or second try.


Then there's some really frustrating behaviour with having a stack of units selected and you trying to attack with one unit at a time by selecting a single unit from the stack. Don't even dare to have multiple stacks on the same square or else you'll very quickly get really frustrated trying to select individual units. The game has a very non-intuitive way of cycling control to another unit after your selected unit attacks.

Of course, you could just disable the unit cycling functionality, but I don't think that disabiling functionality because it wasn't coded properly is a proper solution.

I don't know how to make videos of my playing and I'm not sure that I would do so even if I knew how, but someone who makes such videos could probably make a 5 minute segment that showcased some of these issues.


Of course, TMIT could probably make a segment that is 2-hours-long and that is also jam-packed full of these deviations from expected behaviour with selecting units and inconsistencies in doing the exact same thing and getting different results: there really are enough of them to make a video last that long.

 

[Grassland Farm]

The "quest" events are silly but give nice rewards. Except that stupid Blessed Sea. "Oh cool, let's build 24 cities that will work 5 water tiles and 1 GL hill, wooooh!

 

[Tlc2011]

The best player in the world will do one of the following:
a) Get a Settler fast enough for a second City
OR
b) Capture an AI's City

Then, they will leave their capital undefended. The Aryans will walk in, capture said player's capital, and then move on, leaving that player's capital undefended.


Since that best player in the world has a second City, that player will not die to a Conquest Victory. That best player will also have a Warrior (or other Military Unit) near enough to their original capital in order to recapture the undefended City before either an AI does so or before the City comes out of revolt and the Barbs build a defensive unit there.


That's not to say that the Event is balanced: it clearly isn't when it is one of the Events that the BUG Mod disables. Seeing as how BUG is supposed to advertise "Unaltered Gameplay," the Event was indeed deemed to be unbalancing enough to be disabled (thus going against the general policy of avoiding the alteration of gameplay). But, the best player in the world can survive such an Event.



Is there a choice between a City being "broken beyond repair" and having the City being destroyed? Also, what does "broken beyond repair" mean?

Yes, there is a choice, and Broken Beyond Repair *BBR* means you lose
most of your stuff in that city, usually it resets your city to the stone age
levels [One pop, almost no buildings [possibly none], i'd suggest you go with the BBR.]

 

[Apeman]

The best event was when I recieve spices in Scotland

 

[MeatUnit2]

After building the Great Wall it's always fun to get Barbarian Uprising. I've had games where I've eventually dropped bombs on them just for fun.
But I name myself "Crazy Ass" or "Slick" because I'm easily amused. When the AI says things like "We are done, Crazy Ass" it makes me happy. I'm silly, I know.

 

[lasombra1984]

One nice screenshot of "What happened after 3 barb uprisings wiped all civs on continent".
My 4 CG III Macemen succesfuly survived 3 such stacks)

 

[10lire]

What is happaned to me with uprising barbarians is incredible:

Difficult level: Prince
4 axemen against 3 chariots (+100% strenght against axemen) with combat I promotion (+10% strenght) on a hill with forest (+75% defense strenght):

the attackers strenght was 5, my defense was 11,4; but in a someway the barbarians have beaten all of my chariots!!!!!

And, of course, I didn't care about those axemen continuing to produce buildings instead of armies; after 2 turns they conquer my capital..

Do uprising barbarians have a special strenght bonus when they are generated by a random event? I never heard that..

 

[MackanGyver]

I think the chariot bonus vs Axes is only when attacking, correct me if I am wrong.
If I am then just a bit of bad luck.

 

[10lire]

You are right!!!! !! and I'm so stupid; anyway the stats were 5 vs. 7,4; again enough unlikely..

 

[Bob the Barbari]

Chariots don't receive defensive bonuses, so no +75% from hill with forest. It was 5 (axeman) vs. 4,4 (chariot).

 

[uat2d]

I once got the Barbs Uprising. I had 2 warriors and was up against about 5 or 6 axes. That was easy enough, I just Ctrl+W and right clicked the barb stack till it was gone. Done and done.

I was already tired of constantly having to rebuild by barracks, my forges and my factories, and this event was it for me. Never again I played with Random events on.

 

[Ataxerxes]

I once got the Barbs Uprising. I had 2 warriors and was up against about 5 or 6 axes. That was easy enough, I just Ctrl+W and right clicked the barb stack till it was gone. Done and done.

I was already tired of constantly having to rebuild by barracks, my forges and my factories, and this event was it for me. Never again I played with Random events on.

I'm not as honorable as you are. If I get a game-ending event I'll use WB to change it. Although no events does make the game fairer but less predictible.

 

[Skallagrimson]

Yeah there's no reason to restart an otherwise good game when the game throws a stack of axes on turn 4 lol. I just WB it, delete the ridiculous barb stack, and play on.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yeah there's no reason to restart an otherwise good game when the game throws a stack of axes on turn 4 lol. I just WB it, delete the ridiculous barb stack, and play on.

So is that OK in HoF, XOTM, or the Earth Challenge when said stack spanks an AI up and down, kills them off before 3000 BC, and you're left with a super AI that now has close to triple the average land? Oh wait, it's illegal to reload in those formats...

Deliberate allowance for game breaking luck has a negative impact on gaming. It's a disgrace that so many modern games not only allow it, but embrace it.

 

[AJ11]

Deliberate allowance for game breaking luck has a negative impact on gaming. It's a disgrace that so many modern games not only allow it, but embrace it.

This is true enough.

Random, luck-based events that cause a bit of discomfort or give a small increase here and there (e.g., 1 gold or extra culture for a theatre, or a quest that requires you to expend resources to get a much larger, empire wide bonus) gives the game an added bit of uncertainty and eliminates the feeling of "same old, same old". This is good.

A random event that is an "I win" or a "you lose" button, on the other hand, is not.

It is ridiculous that a singular event can make or break a game. This is a strategy game. Not a Rogue-like.