I dont think there were really any problems with this game. Most of the advantages were negated by the modding and house rules. The AI disbands units, but other than my Muslims, no one was allowed to attack them anyway, so that effectively forced the humans to focus on each other rather than picking off the AI. Yes, nukes are very powerful, but they were nerfed as much as literally possible. The fact of the matter is, this is what would happen should the world get into another world war in the nuclear age. It's also why WW2 ended when it did. 2 nukes was enough to stop the war, now we've dropped more than 10 and half the world is a wasteland... and on marathon speed, it takes a while to clean up the mess. Yes there was a little luck on the Russian/Chinese side, but generally this is what would happen. All major cities are now useless, large stacks of armies dead, and we are forced to fight with whats left. If anything they are nerfed even FURTHER by the fact that you have to build a nuclear weapons facility first, and then only that city can build them. In regular BTS you can build them anywhere at any time as long as you have uranium, which makes them even more powerful.
Any modern scenario WITHOUT nukes is honestly unrealistic to me. There's a reason they are so scary and powerful and are the end-all ultimate weapon. I'd be willing to say that they are part of the reason that the real world today hasn't had any more
major worldwide conflicts. They are the great balancer - if a large stack is coming, nuke it, and its useless. Its a lot tougher to manage in a nuclear world, but the only way to fight it is to spread your units and make it so that any nuke would not put a huge dent in your army. That also nerfs their powers a little bit... leaving just the complete destruction of a city as the biggest benefit. :rollseyes:
The fact that the AI vassaled to humans so easily definitely caused problems and quickly took away any advantage that the Muslims had with the ability to declare... but its not like vassals were very useful in the war in any shape or form. Had every single AI country vassaled to the USA on turn 1, all else equal, I dont think anything else would have really changed. If anything, the fact that I was able to pick on his African vassals forced Tigranes to spend some time and energy trying to defend them, or else his steamrolling of Europe would have been even faster. He is right - ultimately when any 1 player is approaching a victory condition, its only natural that the rest would declare war on him and make it tougher to win. Humans are not the stupid AI, we recognize when someone is about to win and do our damndest to stop them from winning! That's why its so tough to win! The 1 game I won in this game in any multiplayer form, was a 1 v 1 PBEM with 16 AI... when I was within 10 turns of a cultural victory, the other human declared on me and had a sneak attack waiting, ready to invade and burn 1 of my legendary cities. He was not the stupid AI and the only thing that saved me was the Christo Redentor, which I was incredibly lucky to have built for the culture randomly along the way. Thats where my famed Nationalism defense was born
I'm ready to congratulate Tigranes on a great job setting up this game. Considering what he had to work with, it was pretty balanced and worked out well. The reason the East is winning is because of superior preparation and war-mongering skills, not because the scenario was unbalanced or set up wrong. There were MANY mistakes made by each of the Western Allies, while Russia and China had a plan from day 1, and executed that plan with minimal mistakes. I'm glad to say that I caused 1 of those mistakes!
The only thing I would have changed from day 1 is getting rid of permanent alliances and force there to be ONLY 1 WINNER. That's how civ is meant to be played, in my opinion, and forces any alliances to be tenuous and temporary... thats how I played the game and it would definitely extend this game longer, if Russia and China were now forced to figure out how and when to fight each other for the ultimate victory... and would also allow the rest of the beaten nations to have a chance to get back in the game.
Anyway... I am NOT ready or willing to declare the East the winners yet! If kiwitt or Eclipse are losing interest and want to retire, I will gladly takeover their civs and fight to the last man!!!! crazy, maniacal laugh
But if you ask me -- UK and US do have at least +10 attitude in real life affairs.
Iranians really set the tone in this game from the very beginning, so I cannot blame AI for being boring.
I possibly had the most behind the scenes work of everyone, and I'd like to think a pretty decent look of the inner workings of both sides...
