"Chess against an AI doesn't become a different game or one that requires less reaction to the opponent's strategy. Civ is a single-player game that pits that player against multiple opposing strategies, not a single-player puzzle game - but lacks that reactive element."
There are elements you react to throughout a civ game, unknown variables. Discovering new land, direct diplomacy with AIs, expansion/shifts of power of the AI, inter-AI diplomacy, for example. Again, your argument that there is not react-ivity like against a human player applies to single player strategy games as a whole. There is no point for you to be playing any games of the civ series if that is your gripe.
As above, and as in the thread when I discussed it at length, it's an observation rather than a "gripe". I went into more detail there, which perhaps explains why you're missing my point now - possibly it isn't clear enough. All of the above, and all of the points you mentioned before, are changes to your strategy you make according to your situation, even taking account of shifts in power and changes in diplomatic relations. This is where the situation differs from playing chess or even Starcraft against the AI. In any interactive game of that nature, you are actively responding to moves your opponent makes specifically to deny or beat your own strategy. Everything you do is based around reacting and responding to the opponent. The issue isn't that an AI is just worse at it than a human, the issue is that the mechanisms don't exist in Civ games to allow this level of interaction.
You can go to war with opponents, but to a large extent that's it. Human opponents might try anticipating your strategy and stealing wonders/particular resources they sense you need, which is at best a limited sanction. If an opponent has a tech lead or a culture lead your only recourse is to eliminate the capital or culture city, and Civ is built such that having a lead in one area tends to involve having a lead in all the others. A player in the lead scientifically is generally able to win militarily as well, making these sanctions of limited effectiveness. More to the point, unlike these other games, in Civ your strategy doesn't revolve around defeating an opponent's strategy, just on teching quickly enough to meet your own win condition.
"The above list of cases in which Civ games are context-dependent illustrates that nicely: civ/leader choice is wholly down to the player, as is map type. Resource types in your surrounding area are set at the start of the game. That leaves diplomatic circumstances ... which in a neat circle pins my case for why it is a bad strategy game design to have a diplomatic system whose effects lie largely in factors outside the player's control (such as other civs' personalities)."
That actually does not support your case. Just saying you are right doesn't make it so. It just makes you sound arrogant.
Based on your posts, I'm unconvinced you yet understand what my case is. To reiterate:
1. This strand of the thread started with my contention that Civ V and Civ IV diplomacy were both unsatisfactory because a key determinant of the gameplay - diplomacy - was largely outside a player's control.
2. I further observed that a fundamental element of strategy games missing from Civ games generally is interactivity with the opposing player(s).
3. You just presented the four key areas in which Civ strategy is context dependent.
4. I observed that only one of those - diplomacy - is interactive in the sense of 2 above.
5. I concluded that, given 2 above, 4 supported my case 1. i.e. that having the one element of Civ strategy that involves interaction with opponents' strategies largely outside the player's control is poor design from a strategy game perspective.
All of which still leaves me curious as to why you're taking issue with it except for the sake of arguing, when you conceded early on that this isn't the sort of game Civ games are anyway, which was rather my point.
Even if diplomacy is not something you see on the map, in both Civ 4 and Civ 5 they equally are out of the player's control.
Which, as you'll recall - and as summarised in 1 above - was precisely my initial point. You see what I mean about people insisting that I'm lambasting Civ 4 and/or defending Civ V by virtue of making a point that slams both systems equally? The difference is, the lack of control manifests in different ways in the two games.
The variables are set, how many presents you need to make a leader forever your friend, how much gold they will give you for a resource. You then work with those variables to further your goals. It is a misconception that having the ability to completely manipulate Civ 5 adds some element Civ 4 does not have.
It may well be - I can't think of anything in my comments to date that implies otherwise.
All Civ V adds relative to Civ IV are different conditions for positive/negative relationships, mostly relating to conflict over land, city-states and Wonders, and a more direct ability to influence tripartite relations through Declarations/Denunciations that affect the relations of the two negotiating powers to third parties (less wandering into Portugese cities to kill their Aztec friends). This has nothing to do with gold-for-luxuries exploits or the like.
The downside being, other than that the AI isn't good enough to handle this system anyway, that these same factors also put the larger part of diplomacy outside a player's control; if you're being denounced by someone who's built up friendships, his friends will denounce you in a cascade that is essentially impossible to avert. You have limited control over the conflicts that arise; leaders can decide more or less at random if they want the land you own, you can't determine which Wonders they particularly desire. You don't necessarily know in advance if the city-state you just made a play for is one they were saving cash and influence to befriend/ally with if they aren't presently allies (although that one's easier as they'll usually announce they're protecting it) etc. etc.
Are you expecting some level of human react-ivity from a single player game where everything is ultimately static? If you are analyzing lower tiers of react-ivity, like civ 4 vs civ 5, it i just simply wrong to bring the human element into it.
See above, it comes down to the design of the game rather that what's playing it - hence my point that chess remains chess whether an AI is playing it or a human is, it's not a fundamentally game with the AI. That has nothing to do with the quality of the AI - if the AI's bad you can get by with suboptimal responses to its plays, but the game still revolves entirely around an adaptive strategy that changes to take account of opponent's countermeasures, and countermeasures adopted to take account of those... Civilization does not. That's the sole point here and it's neither an issue of game quality or of, in your telling phrase "civ 4 vs. civ 5". Believe it or not, and despite the question that prompted this thread, not every post that mentions the two games has to be favouring one over the other or making a criticism of one that isn't true of the other.
Indeed, in today's Civ V game Oda behaved (as he generally does) much as Montezuma did in that Civ IV game, in spite of common friendships and denunciations. It wasn't quite as far outside my control - as ever in Civ V Oda will generally not attack if you have a military advantage, so the war dec was partly punishment for not keeping a strong enough military rather than randomly declaring war because that's what he does. Also I think I had a declaration of friendship with one of his enemies. It was, nonetheless, essentially the same deal - the diplomatic overtures I had made were pretty much irrelevant to the outcome (not that I'd made many in anticipation that he'd probably behave that way anyway), and as I've argued before and in the Rants thread, Civ V does not allow the player sufficient control over diplomatic relationships, any more than its predecessor did. I do nonetheless get the sense that Civ V gives lower priority to personality effects on diplomacy than Civ IV - what a lot of players seem to see as evidence that Civ V leaders have no personalities, I suspect.
Now I suppose I'll respond to some of the misstatements on Civ 4 strategy.
"Nor did you quote it in context here - from recollection this quote referred specifically to the late game when your cities are already 'saturated' (i.e. you're working all tiles), in which case your only benefits from growth are the output of additional specialists, and in most cases these are lower than tile resource yields."
So when the city is size 20+? It is just dumb to think health is irrelevant at that point, or was irrelevant leading up to that point.
Not at all - in that last game I had an early-game capital with 17 health just from its initial resources. Chopping down the few forests surrounding it would have reduced that by maybe 2. By the time it came close to the limit it would have had incidental bonuses from additional resources, structures built for other purposes etc.
"This is also the stage in the game where, if not at war, you will be using Liberalism rather than Hereditary Rule, and will have passed the happiness level that resources provide in these cities, and so once again happiness control becomes relevant."
You can get your cities very large well before Liberalism. It is also easy to get a happy cap to 20+ with Liberalism. If you would only be able to keep cities to size 14 post-Liberalism, then Hereditary Rule is still the more valuable civic. Well, no Liberalism civics even replaces Hereditary Rule anyways, so I don't get your point.
Apologies, I'm misremembering the name of the appropriate government civic - the one that boosts science output.
"Yes, you'll cut down forests once this is achieved, but the only short-term gain you get from chopping down a forest is trading production for food, and in any case the chances are you won't yet have the population to work all the nonforested tiles you have before reaching Monarchy and other techs with happiness-controlling effects."
You don't trade production for food, you get a large short term production boost. Usually to jump-start your civ in renaissance/medieval eras (but also to get Oracle). Why is this even worth discussing health if we are talking pre-monarchy era? You made comments that health was irrelevant in more than just the first 40 turns. If all you want to say is that health is irrelevant pre-monarchy, then I agree, most of the time it is. That's not what you said though.
I believe this was more a point specifically addressing your criticism about not developing a sufficient food surplus, not about the original point I made regarding health generally.
"By the time you hit that 'health cap', as I discussed elsewhere, you already have the standard health-controlling infrastructure - you're always going to be building granaries early because, as you keep pointing out, population growth is good. If you have a coastal city you'll be building Harbors."[/I]
So what you are saying is health is irrelevant, yet have to choose build health+ in cities. Um, okay? Granaries/harbors providing 1-3 health each will not get you to size 16-20 cities.
No, I want to build granaries because they double population growth rates. I want to build harbors because they give me extra gold. I want to build grocers because they give me extra gold. I want to build the Hanging Gardens because they give me population. I want to be Expansive because my workers are more efficient and to double production speed of granaries for the aforementioned population boost. etc. etc. In none of those cases would I actually be producing/selecting the thing because of its effects on health, and its timing would be influenced by when I founded the city (granary), when I needed more gold to expand (grocer, harbor), not by when people were starting to become sick - all of these improvements are things I would generally build long before reaching any health cap. Even building roads to connect bonus resources to my trade network arguably has the primary function of giving me something to trade with other civs. Yet all of them, wholly incidentally, make health less relevant by raising that cap ever higher.
?
, you can almost always leverage this or gain happiness) show that you still have lots of learning to do before becoming a great player. Was fun having an e-battle, but it's become dull, play whatever game you prefer, and I hope you can enjoy Civ4 despite Buddhism and that crazy Monty, I guess.
). After you spend more time on the internet, maybe you'll realize what you've become.
) How is the online on Civ 5? The only online I played was in the 360 game, and that game kind of sucks. Its like Civ for kids.
