Disable CS and huts

[King Jason]

No you can't. You must explore early. Exploration is largely fueled by expansion. Wait a while on a competent difficulty level, and you'll have AI cities at your door. You also won't be able to tell where the barb hordes are coming from (which arrive early) without scouting early, and you'll be missing out on goody huts. This 'choice' is illusory, exploring early is the only logical choice.

Right, I forgot that I was forced to move my warrior every turn. It's no more an illusory choice than practically anything else in the game.

No, you're rewarded for no reason. 99% of players will build scout first, period.

Because it's the optimal strategy. It's the optimal strategy because it nets the greatest return on your investment. You're not forced to take the optimal strategy. So Again, I'm not rewarded for no reason, I'm rewarded for building optimally. Last year I got my girlfriend into civ5 - guess what? She went monument first every start because that's what she liked. Guess what? She wasn't rewarded for playing optimally. Or at least, was 'rewarded' differently. When I finally explained the scout-first logic, she started playing scout first, and now she gets it.

Your complaint rests in taking issue with a strategy that you're already identifying as optimal and therefore, in your mind, necessary. Something players will always do. Just because players always do things that doesn't mean the rewards they reap from those actions are "free" - Otherwise every technology I ever research is "free" - I mean, I'm going to research tech anyway, right?

There was no skill or foresight in bumping into these things in the fog of war or having more flat terrain around you than the next guy...

[snip]

...No it's not like saying that at all. You had to have foresight to beeline the tech. No foresight is required to bump into CS first.

I'm not saying there's no chance involved. But there's chance involved in over 50% of this game. If you don't think there's any measure of strategy to exploring, then I'm going to suggest that you either don't know how to explore and read the map properly - or perhaps you auto-explore every scout.

If you don't auto-explore every scout then I'd ask why? I mean if exploring is meaningless and entirely random then there's virtually no reason not to auto-explore.

But no - You do it because you're deciding if you go east, west, south, or north; You're deciding if you're going to waste time crossing that river; If you're going to travel flat land or venture through the thick jungle; If, after meeting a civ - and noticing their scout to the north - you are going to instead send yours south to beat them to unexplored territory.

So I suppose your opinion will remain immutable if you don't think there is a very active component on the part of the player when it comes to early exploration. But I assure you, there is.

Notice you used the term 'eventually'. My argument isn't that CS bonuses are unbalanced. My argument is that getting a free envoy for meeting them first as opposed to a small chunk of gold is unbalanced. +2 production or +2 culture is insanely strong 10 turns into the game. That's a free monument or an extra population point working a hill. It's also representative of # of turns shaved off of future policies/units/buildings now that you have that bonus culture/production, making it snowbally. Other players have to invest in that culture or production, but one guy gets it for no reason.

Notice I also said it's rare for a player to eat up all the first envoy bonuses. Especially, as you mentioned, when the a.i. will likely have free scouts on higher difficulties. Meaning that all of those 'unbalanced' bonuses are going to my opponents. I tend to avoid nerfing the A.I. - they're bad enough at the game as it is.

 

[Randall_Flagg]

So, relax, even if the game does not ship with these options,*very doubtful that Firaxis will not add this in* a mod can and will be made on day 1.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

If "scout first" is optimal strategy 99% of the time, then we should start with a Scout. (Maybe instead of a Warrior, unless Warrior first would be best 99% of the time)

That way there could be actual strategy about
2nd Scout v Monument v Builder v more Warriors/Slingers

 

[Furycrab]

No, you're rewarded for no reason. 99% of players will build scout first, period. The AI will be given a free scout on higher difficulty levels, and from the LPs, they seem to rush a scout on lower difficulty levels. So when everybody first-builds a scout in roughly the same time frame (maybe a turn faster or slower depending on if you moved your settler etc), you are being 'rewarded' for absolutely no reason. The scout that you built at the same time as everyone else just so happened to stumble upon more first-envoys due to random chance. There was no skill or foresight in bumping into these things in the fog of war or having more flat terrain around you than the next guy.

It's not exactly for no reason. There are advantages to the game if players feel it's important to go scout first. It encourages players to meet other civs and CS quickly and provides the tools to make educated decisions and rewards players who can make good decisions with the scouted information. If the scout doesn't make up for it's opportunity cost, you have this weird game where it's almost better to go blind at a lot of things.

To be honest, I'm fine with the first to meet gets an envoy, because they removed a lot of the other reasons where you needed to know what's on the map quickly. No tech cost reductions for meeting civs that have a tech you don't. You rarely even get enough gold back to pay back the scout and buy something later. You can get a delegation, but can't sell embassies for early game gold. Even goody huts are kinda nerfed in that they give you tech boosts which you might have already planned on getting. So the fact that the scout might give something extra that a Slinger, Builder, Warrior or Monument might not get is fairly important IMO.

 

[indradiva]

I'd also like to point out that Industrial CS dont give you flat production, only if you're building buildings, wonders and districts. The same applies to Militaristic CS, but for units respectively. So, if you meet one of those it's not going to be a bonus from get-go.

 

[CaiusDrewart]

Huh, I'm surprised so many people here like goody huts. I never enjoyed their randomness myself. Plus I tend to think Civ offers the player sufficient incentive to explore even without huts.

As for city states, I hated the way they were implemented in Civ V. I didn't find the mechanic very interesting or flavorful, the AI didn't compete for them properly, they were unrazable (ugh), and they just took up an annoyingly large amount of space under standard settings. Civ VI city states are looking better, at least on the first three counts, so I'll give them a chance. But it's nice to have the option to turn them off.

Anyway, I'm sure that Civ VI will allow the player to turn off huts and to select any number of city states (including zero of them).

 

[LDiCesare]

Civ VI city states look like they are still unrazable, though. With so many things unrazable, why allow raze city at all?
Goody huts are indeed a bit too random, but with scouts or explorers, they only yield good results (at least since IV,don't remember how it was in III), so it's not that random. You know you'll get a positive effect from exploring. The location is random, and there's a kind of race for them which makes exploration an interesting game in itself.
The best goody huts were those of FfH2,though. Deadly, but you wanted to clear them in order to get loot and mostly avoid endless skeleton/goblin/monster spam. Made exploration really interesting.

 

[King Jason]

City states are able to be razed in the current build we have access to.

 

[Aheadatime]

Right, I forgot that I was forced to move my warrior every turn. It's no more an illusory choice than practically anything else in the game.

It's optimization. If a decision is better ~99% of the time, the other 'choices' are illusory. Not scouting/scouting late is illusory. Yes, at the lower difficulty levels, you can do anything. My mistake for assuming we were both talking about the same playing field. From this point on, know that I'm talking about optimal, high-level play, as this is what the game should be balanced around.

(lots of snips) It's the optimal strategy because it nets the greatest return on your investment. I'm not rewarded for no reason, I'm rewarded for building optimally. She went monument first every start because that's what she liked. She wasn't rewarded for playing optimally.

You're proving my illusory point. She wasn't rewarded, and thus the choice was false. If you choose the rat food behind door B when there's a 100$ bill behind door A, given a second chance, you'll choose door A 100% of the time, making door B a non-choice. So let's take this back to the initial conversation.

Me; The first-envoys are too powerful for 0 investment/skill.
You; The investment/skill is first-scout, which was a legit choice.
Now; We both agree the choice isn't actually a choice.

Thus, we should both be able to agree that the first-envoys require no skill or investment.

Your complaint rests in taking issue with a strategy that you're already identifying as optimal and therefore, in your mind, necessary.

That's not my complaint. You're straying from the initial conversation. My complaint is that the reward involved is too powerful to be chance-based. I don't have an issue with ruins or first-to-meet gold in Civ5, because they're adequately powerful bonuses for a chance-based system. Compare that to a free +2 production (which I think can stack if you meet more than one 'production' cs first), a free monument, or a free shrine+monument (relic), and you can (hopefully) see the difference.

Just because players always do things that doesn't mean the rewards they reap from those actions are "free" - Otherwise every technology I ever research is "free" - I mean, I'm going to research tech anyway, right?

No. Research can be boiled down to two things; choice and pace. The choice being which tech/tech-path you're choosing. Pace being how fast you're teching. The former relies on intelligence and foresight, ie rushing military techs to better plan an invasion of a nearby neighbor. The latter relies on a ton of player-based factors, such as decision-making, foresight, and intelligence. Neither of these compare to randomly stumbling upon a cultural CS first with your scout. Not even remotely similar.

I'm not saying there's no chance involved. But there's chance involved in over 50% of this game.

If we can't agree on what a reasonable reward could/should be for chance, then this discussion will go nowhere. A free 20-30% increase in production and a free building both seem overpowered to me.

If you don't think there's any measure of strategy to exploring, then I'm going to suggest that you either don't know how to explore and read the map properly - or perhaps you auto-explore every scout.

It's still luck based. You can follow the flat terrain and avoid barbs all you want. At the end of the day, you still might not meet any CS first. And what happens if I get a particularly hilly start? Should I have the strategic prowess to know on turn 1 that the hills to the east subside into flat terrain, but the hills to the west continue on?

If you don't auto-explore every scout then I'd ask why? I mean if exploring is meaningless and entirely random then there's virtually no reason not to auto-explore.

But no - You do it because you're deciding if you go east, west, south, or north; You're deciding if you're going to waste time crossing that river; If you're going to travel flat land or venture through the thick jungle; If, after meeting a civ - and noticing their scout to the north - you are going to instead send yours south to beat them to unexplored territory.

I don't auto-explore because I have faith that I can follow flat terrain and avoid barbs better than an AI. This doesn't mean that stumbling upon a CS first is skillful. It's still luck, period. If two players can follow the same strategy (follow flat terrain, avoid barbs, end turn adjacent to rivers) and receive different results (2 goody huts and 3 CS envoy vs 1 goody hut and 0 CS envoy), then one would have to be a fool to ignore the luck involved. It's self-evident, and requires no debate.

Notice I also said it's rare for a player to eat up all the first envoy bonuses. Especially, as you mentioned, when the a.i. will likely have free scouts on higher difficulties. Meaning that all of those 'unbalanced' bonuses are going to my opponents. I tend to avoid nerfing the A.I. - they're bad enough at the game as it is.

So? Wonders will largely be going to AI as well, and so will relics. Does this mean that it's ok for them to be overpowered?

 

[King Jason]

Choice, in itself, is illusory. It really depends on where you 'choose' to draw the line.

At every single moment in civ there is an optimal decision where making other decisions would not be the best course of action given the goal you have in mind. The only difference between going scout first and the myriad of other decisions you can make at any single moment in the game is that the 'illusion' is more obvious to you.

CS being overpowered is your opinion. I don't think they are and I think removing them from the game is far more advantageous to the player than it is the A.I. and I prefer not to give myself crutches. The human player being 1 civ out of 8 means that, statistically, CS benefits will go to your enemies more often than you. I don't consider keeping the A.I. and human player on even footing anything more than a cheat for the human player.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Choice, in itself, is illusory. It really depends on where you 'choose' to draw the line.

At every single moment in civ there is an optimal decision where making other decisions would not be the best course of action given the goal you have in mind. The only difference between going scout first and the myriad of other decisions you can make at any single moment in the game is that the 'illusion' is more obvious to you.

CS being overpowered is your opinion. I don't think they are and I think removing them from the game is far more advantageous to the player than it is the A.I. and I prefer not to give myself crutches. The human player being 1 civ out of 8 means that, statistically, CS benefits will go to your enemies more often than you. I don't consider keeping the A.I. and human player on even footing anything more than a cheat for the human player.

Not necessarily
1. the "best" course of action may depend on factors you don't know (and is thus probabilistic... and can result in a risk v. reward choice)
2. the "best" choice can depend on how other's will react to your reactions to their reactions to your choice (game theory)
[while #2 could be considered part of #1 in SP it is definitely not in MP]

 

[Aheadatime]

Choice, in itself, is illusory. It really depends on where you 'choose' to draw the line.

Just to clarify, you meant this strictly in regards to Civ? Else, that's a philosophical discussion that will spiral out of control, and I'd like to keep this thread clean.

At every single moment in civ there is an optimal decision where making other decisions would not be the best course of action given the goal you have in mind. The only difference between going scout first and the myriad of other decisions you can make at any single moment in the game is that the 'illusion' is more obvious to you.

This isn't exactly true. If the map is still fogged, this is entirely false. Even with revealed map, it's still not true, as you can't make 100% optimal decisions with unknown factors present. Example, I want to settle a hill 8 tiles north of my cap, as it's ideal for whatever goal I have. I can't see in the fog that the AI will get there 2 turns before, and thus I've wasted the efforts. With info I had, the choice I made was correct.

There's also the prospect of spontaneous chaos. If three peace-loving, friendly neighboring AI's declare war on you same turn, and you have no military due to your focus on tourism, then that doesn't mean it was wrong to focus on tourism. It's an unforeseen event that couldn't have been calculated properly.

CS being overpowered is your opinion.

No it's not. My opinion is that first-to-meet-envoys are overpowered.

The human player being 1 civ out of 8 means that, statistically, CS benefits will go to your enemies more often than you. I don't consider keeping the A.I. and human player on even footing anything more than a cheat for the human player.

But when the human player gets such a significant boost with no upfront investment or tactical foresight, it means much, much more in their hands than it does/would in the hands of the AI.

 

[Bkeela]

I never understood this. Civilization isn't a sandbox game or a Paradox game where you're just watching the wheels turn mindlessly through the ages. It's a tight game with a beginning, middle, and end. Just "taking your time" is not appealing to me in Civ.

It also isn't a StarCraft game. Tradionally Civ games have taken a few days, rather than a few hours to complete. Hurtling through the eras so fast you don't get time to appreciate the epochs defeats the pleasure of advancing your civilization. Tight game? I guess compared to a Paradox title Civ may seem tight.

 

[rastak]

Civ VI city states look like they are still unrazable, though. With so many things unrazable, why allow raze city at all?
Goody huts are indeed a bit too random, but with scouts or explorers, they only yield good results (at least since IV,don't remember how it was in III), so it's not that random. You know you'll get a positive effect from exploring. The location is random, and there's a kind of race for them which makes exploration an interesting game in itself.
The best goody huts were those of FfH2,though. Deadly, but you wanted to clear them in order to get loot and mostly avoid endless skeleton/goblin/monster spam. Made exploration really interesting.

Where did you get that? It's possible they will change it but the Yogcast guys absolutely captured and razed, yes razed, a City State.

 

[bbbt]

It's optimization. If a decision is better ~99% of the time, the other 'choices' are illusory. Not scouting/scouting late is illusory. Yes, at the lower difficulty levels, you can do anything. My mistake for assuming we were both talking about the same playing field. From this point on, know that I'm talking about optimal, high-level play, as this is what the game should be balanced around.

A significant number of players on these boards play on higher difficulties, but I don't think the majority of players do: based on the steam achievement statistics, for instance, more players have beaten the game on Prince (or any of the lower levels) than all of the levels above Prince - combined! I really don't think making the game balanced for high-level play is Firaxis design goal at all. It's more about making a 'fun' single-player game experience with a lot of semi-random variety in each playthrough than a balanced, competitive experience.

 

[rastak]

A significant number of players on these boards play on higher difficulties, but I don't think the majority of players do: based on the steam achievement statistics, for instance, more players have beaten the game on Prince (or any of the lower levels) than all of the levels above Prince - combined! I really don't think making the game balanced for high-level play is Firaxis design goal at all. It's more about making a 'fun' single-player game experience with a lot of semi-random variety in each playthrough than a balanced, competitive experience.

There a few players here who have demonstrated a significant understanding of the game and still play on Chiefton. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

 

[King Jason]

But when the human player gets such a significant boost with no upfront investment or tactical foresight, it means much, much more in their hands than it does/would in the hands of the AI.

Again, the upfront investment is building a scout and also using it properly. Compare Filthyrobot's streams to literally anyone else's and you'll see a stark contrast in the rewards he's able to consistently generate via his exploration efforts over everyone else because of the tactics of exploration he employs that some people simply don't - for example how to appropriately respond to discovering coast. He also typically builds two scouts, where everyone else builds one. More often than not, the extra scout has yielded rewards.

Which is why I brought up auto-explore. An A.I. is going to bring a scout to the coastline because it can't tell the difference between fog of war a few tiles into the ocean or fog of war that's covering explorable land. Players know that once they discover coast, it's a waste of their time and movement to actually bring the scout to the edge of the coast as most of the time you're only discovering ocean or islands you can't reach yet. There are also tons of other micro nuances that will separate average players from good players, and from the a.i. - a great example is promotions. When you hold a promotion you can no longer generate experience. Watching the footage, the average player that notices the promotion will promote immediately the next turn. Makes sense. However, this is not optimal - as the optimal path is to move the scout two tiles and then promote, as the promotion ends the scouts turn.

Technically, that choice comes with it's own risks and rewards - moving a mere two tiles could make you discover a natural wonder in which case you lost some XP. That's a risk you take - the reward is not losing an entire turn where your scout stays in place.

Basically, you said one would have to be a fool to ignore the luck involved. I haven't said that there is no luck involved. I've merely made the claim that there is strategy that is very much employed in exploration. Similarly, I'd say one would be foolish to suggest otherwise.

Exploration is not 100% luck. Nor is 100% strategy. Much like the rest of the game, which you go on to demonstrate in arguing against my claim that there are always optimal paths that merely become harder to inspect. Eventually, the incalculable unknown of any civ gamemay as well be regarded as "random". You building a settler to settle that city 8 tiles north and being beaten to it is no more random than you starting scout first and taking 4 steps to the south to discover a city state.

There's any number of factors that could have shifted the circumstances so you would have beaten the A.I. to that spot. Just like there's any number of factors that would make those 3 A.I. declare war or not declare war, be it separately or at the same time. This is especially evident with the "random seed" reload which proves that the A.I. actions are quite literally random dependent on the games seed.

 

[bbbt]

There a few players here who have demonstrated a significant understanding of the game and still play on Chiefton. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Certainly, in many ways the lower-levels (especially for more experienced players) are good for a more 'SimCiv' experience, when a player is more interested in building a grand empire and the like than dealing with the AI.

I was stating that I don't think Firaxis is designing primarily towards the high-difficulty players, but a lot of threads on this board would veer that way.

 

[qadams]

There a few players here who have demonstrated a significant understanding of the game and still play on Chiefton. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

I usually play at a lower level myself. I could win, and have, at the highest levels, but simply find the game more fun the other way.

 

[LDiCesare]

Where did you get that? It's possible they will change it but the Yogcast guys absolutely captured and razed, yes razed, a City State.

The initial videos showed no choice to raze when invading a city state, but it did show for regular cities. So this may have changed in the meantime (and might still change now).