Civ V Beta 1

[Emperor Joseph]

So whats the deal do i just do the games and put them up or do i need to register???

also I'm wondering if you can still use the "free speech" trick or is that officially against the rules?

 

[JonoLith]

I don't understand the debate that's going on here.

As far as anyone should be concerned, at all, if it's possible to do in the game, it should be allowed. I respect that the creators of the HoV decided that Razing Cities isn't allowed, however I firmly disagree with it.

If it's possible to do in the game, then it is working as intended. Assuming everything is a bug might lead to certain people saying completely viable strategies are also bugs, even though they are being incredibly obtuse, and refusing to listen to anyone about anything. Hypothetically speaking, of course.

In the end, it SHOULD be that if it's allowable in the game, it should be totally fine, and until it's patched, if it ever is, then it should be fine. Simply putting a wet blanket on it and killing it outright, for no real reason other then you think it's silly, runs counter to the design of the released game.

In short, until a designer comes in here and says otherwise, I see no problem utilizing all of the "Exploits" neccessary to achieve victory.

 

[12agnar0k]

So whats the deal do i just do the games and put them up or do i need to register???

also I'm wondering if you can still use the "free speech" trick or is that officially against the rules?

The free spech "trick" or "exploit" while it is an exploit, for the beta purposes, it matters not if you use "tricks" or not. Just post what you did if you did do something. This whole beta guantlet is to find and expose the bugs/inbalances/exploits of the game.

 

[erajah]

I don't understand the debate that's going on here.

As far as anyone should be concerned, at all, if it's possible to do in the game, it should be allowed. I respect that the creators of the HoV decided that Razing Cities isn't allowed, however I firmly disagree with it.

If it's possible to do in the game, then it is working as intended. Assuming everything is a bug might lead to certain people saying completely viable strategies are also bugs, even though they are being incredibly obtuse, and refusing to listen to anyone about anything. Hypothetically speaking, of course.

In the end, it SHOULD be that if it's allowable in the game, it should be totally fine, and until it's patched, if it ever is, then it should be fine. Simply putting a wet blanket on it and killing it outright, for no real reason other then you think it's silly, runs counter to the design of the released game.

In short, until a designer comes in here and says otherwise, I see no problem utilizing all of the "Exploits" neccessary to achieve victory.

So, hypothetically speaking, if there was a "Cultural Victory Button" in your game that automatically win your game with a cultural victory, that should be allowed, since it's in the game.

Seriously though, given that the nature of the exploit is something that the game testers probably didn't think about, I don't know why there's a debate about this. I just think it's a little unfortunate that the first HoF chosen was a cultural victory.

 

[Denniz]

OK WTH, you just BAN selling cities in the middle of my game? I spend 8 hours to play, and i sold a city i counquered back to the owner for money... so u are telling me becouse of this i cant use my game?

Thats just sad.

I'm seriusly angry at this change. I owned the mentioned city for exectly 1 turn. Obviusly it didtn generate any culture. Why is this not allowed?

Relax. One city here or there does not matter.

The exploit that is being discussed is saving your accumulated culture until late in the game when you sell most or all of your cities so you can buy your policies at a lower per city cost.

 

[Denniz]

So whats the deal do i just do the games and put them up or do i need to register???

Just post your saves here for the beta. It is mostly about comparing our experiences playing a game with the same settings. Plus some bragging rights to those that get the best dates.

Once we get the code built to process saves, you would have to register on HOF website to upload your games. That is still a working in progress.

also I'm wondering if you can still use the "free speech" trick or is that officially against the rules?

waiting for free speach is fine for this gauntlet. The exploit we are not including involves selling all your cities at the last minute to cut the total cost so you can win that much eariler.

 

[bhavv]

I have to say after this current game that its not worthwhile waiting for free speech if you have 1000 gold saved up and a nearby cultural city state. Just unlock the top two in Patronage and dump 1000 gold into the city state.

Also, I were easily capable of maintaining 50+ in this game, so all the turns I spent waiting without either piety or patronage were wasted as they could have produced extra culture with mandate of heaven (I had over 20 by the time I could have taken mandate of heaven, but waited for 1000 gold first instead).

The free speech / cristo redentor waits are far far weaker than keeping as many culture city states allied as possible, and creating as much excess as you can for mandate of heaven. I'm at 1890 AD this time and just need two more polices, Im a long way away from Cristo Redentor, and am getting new policies every 11 turns.

The thing is that if you get wine or incense near your capital, lots of other luxuries, plus 3+ cultural city states, thats what you need to win this. It is fully dependant on getting as many cultural city states as possible, and as much excess as you possibly can.

 

[Neuro]

Quick Question: If a ruler offers me cities in order to make peace, are these cities puppet cities, or are they auto-annexed?

 

[JonoLith]

So, hypothetically speaking, if there was a "Cultural Victory Button" in your game that automatically win your game with a cultural victory, that should be allowed, since it's in the game.

Yes. But since it's not I'll just step over your strawman I just knocked down and restate my point.

If it's in the game, it should be allowed. Period.

 

[JonoLith]

I have to say after this current game that its not worthwhile waiting for free speech if you have 1000 gold saved up and a nearby cultural city state. Just unlock the top two in Patronage and dump 1000 gold into the city state.

Also, I were easily capable of maintaining 50+ in this game, so all the turns I spent waiting without either piety or patronage were wasted as they could have produced extra culture with mandate of heaven (I had over 20 by the time I could have taken mandate of heaven, but waited for 1000 gold first instead).

The free speech / cristo redentor waits are far far weaker than keeping as many culture city states allied as possible, and creating as much excess as you can for mandate of heaven. I'm at 1890 AD this time and just need two more polices, Im a long way away from Cristo Redentor, and am getting new policies every 11 turns.

The thing is that if you get wine or incense near your capital, lots of other luxuries, plus 3+ cultural city states, thats what you need to win this. It is fully dependant on getting as many cultural city states as possible, and as much excess as you possibly can.

This is, more or less, what I am attempting to do. I think a nice combination of this strategy coupled with holding off for the big push at the end will be very very nice.

Don't forget to use the extra luxury resources you get from your Bazaars to get even more happiness through trade!!

 

[Neuro]

Yes. But since it's not I'll just step over your strawman I just knocked down and restate my point.

If it's in the game, it should be allowed. Period.

I see your point, and understand the feeling behind it, but at the same time, there's nothing wrong with house rules regarding gameplay, as long as the rules are agreed upon by a significant portion of those involved.

I definitely wish Firaxis would code in a penalty to stored culture upon non-puppet city loss.

 

[Ozbenno]

OK WTH, you just BAN selling cities in the middle of my game? I spend 8 hours to play, and i sold a city i counquered back to the owner for money... so u are telling me becouse of this i cant use my game?

Thats just sad.

I'm seriusly angry at this change. I owned the mentioned city for exectly 1 turn. Obviusly it didtn generate any culture. Why is this not allowed?

We are just trying to get some guidlines as we go along. If you had started before this was announced that is fine, just say so in your submission. What you had done isn't using the explouit so therefore no problems.

 

[iggymnrr]

It's curious to consider what civ can do the fastest culture win and with how many cities. The knee jerk reaction is to go OCC but with no tech trading this could slow down the theoretically fastest win. However, two cities may be doable. The 33% increase in SP cost means the second city has to do 50% of the capitol's culture and 50% of culture from other sources to break even. This might be possible and allow for faster teching. I wonder about Askia being best. Conceivably, the second city could be founded and a mosque cash built ASAP: +5 culture and no extra maintenance. Triple gold from barbs can finance this.

Caveat: Hermitage will make the 2nd city really work overtime, more so than culture possible from city states. On the other hand, this is offset by the speed which the CR can be teched and built as well as extra finance for gold buying.

It may be possible to forgo Stonehenge and simply puppet it on completion. i.e. Start next to Egypt and puppet the wonder, annexing when ready.

 

[Dragros]

So... Either I'm really unlucky, the AI got really lucky, there is a glitch, or I just suck at this game...

I decided to pick Napoleon for my first attempt. I expanded to two cities and captured a third once my neighbor civ decided he wanted to expand in my direction. (I don't remember the leader's name, he was standing in front of a burning city if anyone knows who that is) He attacked me and I was able to purchase an army (I was doing pretty well at this point). So, I became pretty good friends with Siam in our time on our continent but I noticed as time passed he was getting angry at me. He attacks, I defend, we make up, back to being friends. As all of this is happening I see the other civs that I haven't met yet losing their capitol cities. All of them, every last one except me and Siam were taken by 1 guy. He hit the industrial era before I was in the renaissance, then built Cristo Redentor when I was halfway to industrial...

I'm too scared to continue, I don't even know who it is, but it seems that he decided he wants a cultural victory now.

So yeah... any suggestions?

 

[Neuro]

Ghandi, easily. Go with one city, and crank it out.

 

[Ozbenno]

Thanks for everyone who is taking part in the challenge and the discussion at the moment

There have been some interesting points made and to be honest at this stage there is no right or wrong answer to these issues. Until Firaxis make their game design intentions clear through patches and the like, we don't know what they intended, we can just take a guess at what is how they intended the game to work and how they didn't.

A point was made before about banning Inca in Civ IV. They were only banned from gauntlets like this, not the HOF in general. If something like the gifting cities at the end of the game to reduce policy costs is never patched or changed, we, in all liklehood would have to accept them for general HOF games but would ban this tactic from gauntlets. This would lead to the situation where the HOF tables for culture would probably all have this tactic, just as the domination and conquest tables (at high levels) in Civ IV HOF are mainly Inca.

So thanks for the discussion going, it has been great so far.

I have also put the list of completed games up in the 2nd post in this thread. I will eventually provide links to peoples writeups of their games as well, have been some good ideas floated about in them.

 

[Neuro]

So... Either I'm really unlucky, the AI got really lucky, there is a glitch, or I just suck at this game...

I decided to pick Napoleon for my first attempt. I expanded to two cities and captured a third once my neighbor civ decided he wanted to expand in my direction. (I don't remember the leader's name, he was standing in front of a burning city if anyone knows who that is) He attacked me and I was able to purchase an army (I was doing pretty well at this point). So, I became pretty good friends with Siam in our time on our continent but I noticed as time passed he was getting angry at me. He attacks, I defend, we make up, back to being friends. As all of this is happening I see the other civs that I haven't met yet losing their capitol cities. All of them, every last one except me and Siam were taken by 1 guy. He hit the industrial era before I was in the renaissance, then built Cristo Redentor when I was halfway to industrial...

I'm too scared to continue, I don't even know who it is, but it seems that he decided he wants a cultural victory now.

So yeah... any suggestions?

Well, you're supposed to play as Arabia in this one, but that's beside the point.

Here's how I did it: First, you need a good starting spot. You want a nice long river nearby, and at least two luxuries. If there's no river, restart. Even better: Marble within 3 tiles, and a riverside wheat next to your starting spot.

Research Order: Pottery, Calender, Writing, Philosophy, Animal Husbandry, Trapping
Build order: Scout, Monument, (Worker), Stonehenge, Great Library/Oracle/Great Library

The (Worker) is for if you had a source of wheat nearby on your start, this gives you an extra hammer which means your scout and monument finish several turns before Stonehenge is done. If no wheat (or other bonus), don't build a worker, buy one for 310g, much better than wasting turns when you are racing for early wonders.

A note on GL/Oracle/GL: After Stonehenge, Philosophy won't be finished most likely, so start building Great Library. You should get Philo before GL finishes, so build out GL till it has one turn till completion, then push the Oracle ahead of it on the build queue. In 5-10 turns, you should be close to finishing Trapping. When there's 1 turn till you discover trapping, push the GL back up to the top, and finish them on the same turn. Use the free tech on Civil Service, then finish out the Oracle.

This should put you well ahead of the other civs, and your river tiles will be cranking out the food now.

 

[zehcoutinho]

I could only finish in the turn 406. Will try another game to see if I can top it.

 

[Dragros]

Well, you're supposed to play as Arabia in this one, but that's beside the point.

I read that first post like 5 times last night and somehow I missed this...

Time to start over =P

 

[DaviddesJ]

If it's in the game, it should be allowed. Period.

I am sympathetic to playing the game absolutely as much as designed as possible. Personally, I would allow razing cities to reduce policy costs, I see no problem with that at all.

But you can't literally mean that anything the game permits should be allowed. All previous versions of Civ gave had game-breaking bugs. This will be no exception. There will be some things that just can't be permitted without ruining the game. In time, we will discover what those are. Some of them might eventually be patched out of the game, but not everything can or will be patched.