Featured Game 1 Spoiler thread #2 - Endgame

[Seek]

No need to default to Culture in order to establish supreme supremacy, Seek - there is no "grand prize," as there's no way to balance for difficulty at this juncture. And as of now you take the gold in Science!

Believe it or not, I'm not that competitive, but if I am competing, I like to win! (Btw, I was mostly joking about defaulting to culture, in case that wasn't clear.)

So you played a tall Science game? I haven't done this in a long time, and while my record is 243 or 244, I did it before some major changes a while back that I think made the game harder. Do you know what I'm talking about, or have you finished in the 250+ range since the spring or so?

Since I was MIA for a while, I've only played one science game in recent memory (the one I mentioned with Korea, a two city tall science win on t251.) Given the strength of Freedom, and the necessity of Rationalism, the slower policy rate from a wide empire makes a wide science strategy suboptimal at this point, I think - though I might try it sometime soon to compare.

I agree that culture wins seem to come too quickly, that the Research Lab is a near-total waste where it's now located, and think switching Freedom with Order is definitely worth trying... or else nerfing Freedom, rather than worrying about whether the specialist economy is OP. But I don't follow you on the SS Factory. Don't you always have it when you start building parts (or, if broke, soon after)?

Exactly, which is the problem I was trying to delineate. Since the SS factory is available after you can start the parts, unless 1) you have a decent bank account and can purchase the factory in your production cities or 2) you have a slow enough science output so that you will be waiting around for a large number of turns before getting to the parts on the other branch, it's a completely pointless building; it's far better (ie, faster) to simply produce the parts than build the factory and then produce them.

Looking at the tech tree again now, I will actually amend my suggestion above and propose that (and this is purely for gameplay reasons, obviously) Robotics - *not* Computers - should require Plastics and the SS factory should be available at Computers. I think this could be best for making the approach to the Science VC an interesting proposition: Go along the top branch to get the Research Labs up, go along the middle branch so you can build the SS factories while getting to the SS part techs, or go along the bottom branch so you can simply start the Apollo Program. As it is now, there is zero incentive to pursue any approach other than Rocketry and starting the Program - even if you're being attacked, one of the best defensive land units is available there, Rocket Artillery.

 

[Txurce]

Believe it or not, I'm not that competitive, but if I am competing, I like to win! (Btw, I was mostly joking about defaulting to culture, in case that wasn't clear.)

I knew you were joking, and was replying in kind. The problem is that I don't use emoticons, as a matter of deep religious conviction. I debated where to use the exclamation point; I should have just made it more clear I was kidding!

Since the SS factory is available after you can start the parts, unless 1) you have a decent bank account and can purchase the factory in your production cities or 2) you have a slow enough science output so that you will be waiting around for a large number of turns before getting to the parts on the other branch, it's a completely pointless building; it's far better (ie, faster) to simply produce the parts than build the factory and then produce them.

I have almost never had that experience - odd, huh? I can build a SS Factory in 4-5 turns, and usually need 8 or so to research Satellites these days, so it works out for me. But...

Looking at the tech tree again now, I will actually amend my suggestion above and propose that (and this is purely for gameplay reasons, obviously) Robotics - *not* Computers - should require Plastics and the SS factory should be available at Computers. I think this could be best for making the approach to the Science VC an interesting proposition: Go along the top branch to get the Research Labs up, go along the middle branch so you can build the SS factories while getting to the SS part techs, or go along the bottom branch so you can simply start the Apollo Program. As it is now, there is zero incentive to pursue any approach other than Rocketry and starting the Program - even if you're being attacked, one of the best defensive land units is available there, Rocket Artillery.

I think this (or some variation on it) is a very good idea. It creates some choice where there was none. There used to be some choice involved in how to progress through the tech tree for Science, but ironically with the improvement to the Diplomacy path, the Science one became too linear.

 

[Seek]

• 1) the barbarians were too passive
• 2) Greece benefited from the Great Wall effect well after I had dynamite
• 3) it seemed as if there were too many whale luxuries for the CS, due to the preponderance of island CS on the map
• 4) going for Great Merchants early on in the SP trees seems like a no-brainer, making me wonder if they are OP
• 5) the AI is a little better launching amphibious invasions, thanks to the embarkation defense change

1) I thought about this more, and the barb camps that popped up later did spawn normally, so I'm almost positive it was Thal placing the initial camps, and those camps were bugged somehow.
2) The Great Wall is obsolete when the civ that builds it techs Dynamite. Odd, but what can you do.. (I'd prefer it if it obsoleted when *any* civ teched Dynamite.)
3) CS rarely have more that 3 different luxuries worldwide these days. It must have been an undocumented change in one of the vanilla patches, because it was not like this on release.
4) Hmm, one of these days I'll have to think about getting a Great Merchant early, but I always go for Great Scientists, Engineers and Artists over Merchants even with the recent changes. I suppose that means they're pretty well balanced at this point.
5) That's good to hear, though after a certain point in the game the embarkation defense is actually detrimental because artillery can one-shot embarked units.

 

[Txurce]

Thanks for the clarifications.

4) Hmm, one of these days I'll have to think about getting a Great Merchant early, but I always go for Great Scientists, Engineers and Artists over Merchants even with the recent changes. I suppose that means they're pretty well balanced at this point.
5) That's good to hear, though after a certain point in the game the embarkation defense is actually detrimental because artillery can one-shot embarked units.

I haven't yet built GM's, but do beeline for the two early policies that give you one. They make a big difference.

Yes - so do destroyers, for example, and maybe even frigates with the land promotions. That's no worse than ramming, though. What I've noticed is that the AI can sneak up on you with a dozen units. Even though they'll usually deploy them horribly, you have to respond seriously. In GotVEM 1, Siam sent two major invasion forces my way, and England must have been thinking about it, because it had two major embarked armies hovering outside my ports. (In the latter case I knew I was safe because of the OB rule.)

 

[Thalassicus]

Guess it'll be culture every GotVEM from now on until policy costs are adjusted if I want to be competitive.

I apologize if that sounds a little snarky, but the recent change to tech cost and the finish dates of the culture victories above make it clear to me that either culture is too plentiful or SPs too cheap at this point in VEM.

Culture victories can be achieved earlier than others, but generally have a lower score than other victory types. My conquest games received ~5 times as high a score as my culture games. Either way it's moot because I think we want to do high score on a per-victory-type basis.

Complexity/difficulty in Civ is generally going to be front-loaded no matter what we do, since early game decisions have an amplified effect on the game as a whole.

• Greece benefited from the Great Wall effect well after I had dynamite
• it seemed as if there were too many whale luxuries for the CS, due to the preponderance of island CS on the map

Buildings and units obsolete when the player who owns it (Greece) researches the obsolescence tech, not other players. That's just how obsolescence works and it's done in the game core. I reorganized the placement and variety of citystates on the map, but kept the luxury distribution about the same.

 

[Txurce]

Culture victories can be achieved earlier than others, but generally have a lower score than other victory types. My conquest games received ~5 times as high a score as my culture games. Either way it's moot because I think we want to do high score on a per-victory-type basis.

Absent a scoring formula a la GOTM, earliest win makes more sense than high score. The latter otherwise becomes a milking game where, for example, a conquest approach leading to a non-Conquest victory will almost certainly result in a higher core than a fast, peaceful approach.

 

[Toddy]

Won by diplomacy in the end, took over the whole continent wiping out Harun and Suleiman.

Will post a couple of screenshots later. Looking forward to the second game.

 

[Seek]

Culture victories can be achieved earlier than others, but generally have a lower score than other victory types. My conquest games received ~5 times as high a score as my culture games. Either way it's moot because I think we want to do high score on a per-victory-type basis.

Complexity/difficulty in Civ is generally going to be front-loaded no matter what we do, since early game decisions have an amplified effect on the game as a whole.

Certainly. My point was that we could kill both of these birds (early culture victories and, to a lesser degree, late-game ease) with one stone by increasing culture costs after a certain point. I really see no reason not to do so. And, since it's so imbalanced between different playstyles, score isn't very relevant in most situations; game balance should take precedence I think.

Any thoughts on my ideas for rearranging the tech tree for the science vc?

 

[Txurce]

We have achieved Victory! Space Race win 1800 AD.

That was an excellent write-up. I built cities exactly where you did and in the same order on the continent. Off-shore I also built the same three, plus a fourth on the island north of Boston. I didn't go for the GL, though, and (as I mentioned) made the mistake of going for Liberty instead of my usual Tradition, despite not expanding nearly as much as I had somehow imagined... old habits doe hard. Your population growth was excellent, and it really paid off.

 

[lindanealmck]

Is 107,000g a record pace deal? I haven't seen that much gold very often, period, let alone as a payoff!

I've had a "losing" civ sneak off with a cultural win against me twice. Now I make it a point to check the Victory Progress screen every once in a while from the midpoint on.

Did you consider going for a Diplo Victory?

I did, but I ran out of time. I was still a tech or two a way from globilization.

I was amazed at that amount of gold - even more amazed at how quickly I could spend it!

 

[Thalassicus]

Consider these hypothetical situations:

• Player A finishes Science victory on turn 200 with 5x 10 cities and 2,000 score.
• Player B finishes Science victory on turn 201 with 20x 10 cities and 10,000 score.

While Player A finished sooner, I'd say Player B did better. I think we should just list the high score for each of the major victory types (excluding time).

Absent a scoring formula a la GOTM, earliest win makes more sense than high score. The latter otherwise becomes a milking game where, for example, a conquest approach leading to a non-Conquest victory will almost certainly result in a higher core than a fast, peaceful approach.

It'd be interesting to see if this victory-switching approach actually does result in a higher score. The finish date is a very big factor in the score calculation.

 

[Txurce]

Consider these hypothetical situations:

• Player A finishes Science victory on turn 200 with 5 cities and 2,000 score.
• Player B finishes Science victory on turn 201 with 20 cities and 10,000 score.

While Player A finished sooner, I'd say Player B did better. I think we should just list the high score for each of the major victory types (excluding time).



It'd be interesting to see if this victory-switching approach actually does result in a higher score. The finish date is a very big factor in the score calculation.

I wouldn't necessarily say Player B did better. I would say he took a different approach. In fact, given the argument that high pop is key to high science, Player A may have played the better game.

GOTM had its own scoring system developed by Aeson (I believe) because of the problems with gaming high score. The GOTM system strongly favored quick finishes. Obviously we don't have such a scoring system available at this time. But in terms of awarding someone first and second place finishes, experimenting to see how I game the GotVEM for highest score doesn't sound like fun to me.

Finally, it seems likely from the filed reports that most players assumed they were playing for fastest time.

 

[Thalassicus]

I'd be okay with either score or time - and one for each victory condition.

 

[Txurce]

I'd be okay with either score or time - and one for each victory condition.

Let's list both. What do you mean by score, by the way - the one visible in-game, or the one in the HOF?

 

[Thalassicus]

The hall of fame version, because it's adjusted for time.

 

[Txurce]

We have achieved Victory! Space Race win 1800 AD.

Could you post your turn-after save for confirmation and game score? Thanks!

 

[Txurce]

We have confirmed our first medallists from GotVEM 1, for both fastest finishes and highest scores. (High scores in Civ 5 factor finish time sufficiently well to merit it.)

Because there weren't nearly as many submissions as there were downloads, the awards are limited to one per category this time around.

Note: Toddy and Bernd-das-Brot, could you submit your HOF scores? And EsoEs, if you did better than Seek in either category, please let me know.

The winners are:

Science Victory High Score & Fastest Finisher: Seek (2586, 250 turns)

Diplomatic Victory High Score & Fastest Finisher: Toddy (5818, 324 turns)

Cultural Victory Fastest Finisher: DragonGreen (227 turns)

Cultural Victory: Bernd-das-Brot (2984)

Conquest Victory: (no submissions...)

 

[EsoEs]

sorry for not submitting but I did do a reload in my game. I thought the Aesthetics policy was bugged, and as such choose to go down a different path. This did however, make my save inadmissable. Congratulations to all the winners, best of luck in game 2!!

 

[Toddy]

Note: Toddy and Bernd-das-Brot, could you submit your HOF scores? And EsoEs, if you did better than Seek in either category, please let me know.

As requested

 

[Bernd-das-Brot]

Hello!

Here my HoF-Screenshot. I was away over the last week so I couldn't reply earlier.

Greetings

Bernd-das-Brot