[R&F] Devs Play as India

[nzcamel]

Poor Andrew Frederiksen.

He's been reduced to "the bald guy."

Yeah... Andrew. That's the one

Note: Santa hats gone for me now too

 

[Rancio]

I don't know whether winning fast being not "enjoyable". But if you discuss about the "strength" of anything you must refer to its actual effect. For example, Kongo has more malus than bonus to help you win or win fast or enjoy the game, so there's no reason for it to not rank the bottom.

I don't think Kongo is the worst Civ, actually have one of the best times in CV, if I don't miss something 84 turns culture victory is actually very impressive and powerfull and don't know if some chinese player has a game with China with less than 84 turns, "salted fish" works amazingly good with Kongo, +50% GWP and +4 slots in palace makes an impressive amount of tourism in the capital with Reyna and Print if I'm correct with Amphi, Apadama and Great library it's 176 tourism just in the capital and can be done quite fast, without print 88 tourism, objective thinking.

 

[Chorazin]

I'm not trying to strawman you, it's just that I thought I wouldn't have to write five lines of explanation for what I wanted to say, but here goes.

You want that AI escort their settlers, because you - and some other players - make a habit out of declaring war on them to snatch up those settlers. At the same time, however, most human players do not escort their settlers either, fully counting on the AI not declaring war on them just to snatch the settlers away. If you want the AI to escort their settlers, that means - directly - that you want the AI to see other players at peacetime as a danger to their settlers - in other words, you want the AI to consider declaring war to snatch settlers a thing. And that means an AI that is not roleplaying, but gamey. And, as I mentioned a while back, most players aren't going to like an AI that plays that way - AI is, according to most people, supposed to role play. From what I've heard on this forum, the AI in Civ V was originally programmed to play more like a human, and people hated it because they felt it broke immersion.

I dont always escort my settler but I will have a military unit or two lurking around where I am going to found. As for declaring war on un-escorted settlers, I just assumed everyone did this? Civs dont have to 'roleplay' to just simply escort their settlers with military units if other military units are close by. It is your most important early unit, why are you not protecting it?

I mostly play vs humans so it's always a facepalm moment watching an AI move an un-escorted settler around, or start building a monument whilst I proceed to zerg rush them into oblivion. You dont have these issues vs human players, everyone zerg rushes at the start trying to get land/city states, everyone always escorts, quite often with more than one military unit. Can lead to some interesting early wars and cities being founded in odd spots rather than eating a settler loss.

I made a post on here a while back when I started playing more against the AI and realised just how effective early military rushing is for any victory condition. Extra cities, settlers, you quickly can snowball into a really early victory, especially with someone like Montezuma and those free builders. I always felt this should be the hallmark of a domination victory and you should have to pursue a more reserved approach for other victory conditions. But nope, works great for science or culture.

There are several problems that compound the issue, the fact that the faster you progress through your civics/techs the more worthless new cities become after about turn 80ish. It makes very little sense to plant a new city if you are going for a rushed science victory. District costs become prohibitive very quickly so by the time it is built and you start getting returns the payout isnt worthwhile. This sort of forces early rushing, the more cities and settlers you can capture and found by turn 80 really has a massive impact on victory. Especially if they have relevant districts to your victory conditions, this may have changed in R&F, I dont know i dont own it.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

There are several problems that compound the issue, the fact that the faster you progress through your civics/techs the more worthless new cities become after about turn 80ish. It makes very little sense to plant a new city if you are going for a rushed science victory. District costs become prohibitive very quickly so by the time it is built and you start getting returns the payout isnt worthwhile. This sort of forces early rushing, the more cities and settlers you can capture and found by turn 80 really has a massive impact on victory. Especially if they have relevant districts to your victory conditions, this may have changed in R&F, I dont know i dont own it.

Only real change post R&F is that games when you don't beat up on the AI can also be won quite quickly. Getting as many cities as you can as early as you can still makes any victory condition easier, but you can limit yourself to cities you found, you don't need to take out your nearest neighbour.