Featured Game 2 Pre-Discussion

[Sneaks]

@glider1 - I'm sorry, but you have failed to convince me that InfoAddict makes the game actually easier in any significant way: all the crucial information can be found in the diplomacy screen, victory progress screen, or the advisors' window. I don't see how knowing who has mutual OB or who is trading luxuries has any impact whatsoever on our games - I know it never has for me! The only real information that isn't available somewhere in vanilla is "leader attitudes" but this really should be included in vanilla IMO (in civ4 you could ask leaders "what do you think of X?" Why can't we here?) - but even here, with a little investigation one can determine more or less what the attitudes are. InfoAddict 1) allows the player to check on these attitudes while stuck in the inbetween turn AI trade/diplomatic screens (which, again, should be available in vanilla) where one could potentially make a fatal mistake and 2) simply makes all the disparate diplomatic information spread over many screens available in one place, removing (truly) annoying micro and dozens of mouse clicks and note-taking.

__________

On a different subject, I'd like to propose (again) that we have favored Vitory Conditions like vanilla GotM. It would create more discussion, I think, since more players would be directly pursuing the same goals, would be more helpful in providing general balance information about the mod (what is working, what's not, potential strategies or exploits, etc.) and might make the competitive aspect more thrilling.

InfoAddict certainly makes the game easier. If I know that Egypt does not like Siam, and it is in my best interest to be friends with Egypt, I can leverage my information in making DoFs properly. It also ranks #s 2 through 7 for me for all sorts of things like military strength, etc., which provides me with an excellent position in determining whether to attack or whether to produce more units in defense.

 

[Txurce]

I agree that 90% of what InfoAddict provides is convenience. Even in terms of comparisons, the vanilla game provides some - they're just not complete. Given the state of the rest of the vanilla game, I think it's highly likely that this (like no replay until the last patch) was a result of being rushed to release the game last year. Trade information is probably the biggest difference with vanilla, but this was available in earlier versions of Civ, and makes the game more fun. My choice now would be incredible micro-management - constant checking until the Mongols need cotton again - or a moderate version where, on some occasions, I will monitor the progress of a trade agreement.

In the Civ 3 GOTM's there were multiple VC's, but I agree that it might be more useful for VEM to have us all focus on the same one. It would also be more educational for some. One counter-argument might be that it better highlights SP differences.

Thal, how do you feel about it as the chief developer?

How does everyone else feel?

 

[Seek]

InfoAddict certainly makes the game easier. [1] If I know that Egypt does not like Siam, and it is in my best interest to be friends with Egypt, I can leverage my information in making DoFs properly. [2] It also ranks #s 2 through 7 for me for all sorts of things like military strength, etc., which provides me with an excellent position in determining whether to attack or whether to produce more units in defense.

[1] But - and this is my point - that information *is* available (albeit less exactly) and that IA simply makes diplomacy less of a MM headache.

[2] You can get enough information in this case from the Demographics screen. In general and on the higher difficulties I simply always assume I'm in last place militarily, somewhere near the bottom in tech, and middling in SPs - that's just my general playstyle. (When not pursuing domination, anyway.) Again, I don't see how this really alters gameplay: If we are going domination, we'll already have units to defend; if we're pursuing a more peaceful strat, it's always a good idea to have a decent military to prevent the AI from picking on us; if we're going science, that will be the focus no matter where the AIs are on the tech tree; etc. Important decisions will be the same with or without the mod.

The more precise information in IA (compared to the more general information in vanilla) doesn't drastically alter decisions in the game in my experience, nor have I yet to see that proven for anyone else at this point.

Anyway, if the consensus is against using IA, so be it - I will still happily participate in the GotVEM!

 

[Txurce]

Anyway, if the consensus is against using IA, so be it - I will still happily participate in the GotVEM!

For me this is one of those areas where, to paraphrase Thal, fun (or eliminating un-fun) trumps everything else. InfoAddict makes Civ5 what a computer-based game is supposed to be: an activity where you don't have to keep paper and pen handy, or mindlessly repeat multi-civ checks every turn (like I used to in Civ 2) in order to not miss an opportunity.

 

[Sneaks]

1. No it is not. There is no way of knowing if AI 1 is hostile towards AI 2 UNLESS there has been a denouncement or war declaration.

It does not drastically alter decisions, but it certainly makes the game easier in difficulty, as you will always know everything about every AI.

 

[Txurce]

To elaborate, this is one of those cases where making the game more fun by allowing you more deeply into the diplomatic innards trumps "making it easier." Another major factor is that the AI already knows this information. InfoAddict effectively reduces that AI edge, and allows us to play on closer to level ground. Additionally, we have done the same - or more - by buffing naval units (making the game even less competitive), taking away the AI pop boost, etc. If the goal of VEM were to consistently make the game harder, I would view this differently.

 

[glider1]

Yes, info-addict has been a great thing for civ5 because for vanilla players, it helped them to understand why the AI does what it does diplomatically. Without it, players tended to get confused about what the AI does, and assume that the AI diplomacy engine is broken and then complain on the forums. Info-addict has settled that tendency down because they can see the relationships and the reasons (trade, OB, deals, relationships, power, etc). So no argument, info-addict is great on one hand because it makes the game more fun and adds intellectual interest, but I do think that it tends to change the play style from what was intended by the designers of civ5 because of the extra information. I cannot be sure, but suspect that the design decision was to keep civ5 clean from any espionage related concepts, because that will be the next feature in the series (once somebody with talent can work out a way to do it).

Cheers

 

[tlaurila]

Sort of back to the topic from InfoAddict...

I'd start by moving the warrior NW, to see how it looks there. There's two options for the capital as it seems to me: Either settle in-place or one tile NW. If I settled NW, then I'd be going for Stonehenge to get the gems. (Assuming there won't be spectacular lands SE of the gems)

The start location looks good in everything: Gold, hammers, food. It's not spectacular in any one, though - unsurprisingly leaving us with wide options With all those hills I'm tempted to go production/gold with the capital, get wonder-building, and go look for a food-rich place for the science city elsewhere.

Initial plan is to build no more than 3 cities myself, which the capital should be able to crank out quick and I can focus on tradition. Then go puppetteering for the eventual gold rush. This means going for some militancy around medieval. Time to give those camels a swirl.

 

[Txurce]

The original site is ideally suited for Stonehenge... but there's nothing to give you an edge against the AI to build it (other than the food nerf). Another factor is that the original settler spot doesn't seem to be a river tile.

About all I know for sure is that I'll move the warrior at double speed one tile at a time, probably heading NE, and possibly E rather than onto the hill, depending on how far he can go. (The double moves surprised me the first time I tried them - are they an unintended feature?)

I haven't looked at the revised puppeting yields to think about puppeting vs annexing. Are they more tempting?

 

[tlaurila]

The original site is ideally suited for Stonehenge... but there's nothing to give you an edge against the AI to build it

Another factor is that the original settler spot doesn't seem to be a river tile.

There is the marble, but of course they are in opposite tech branches.

Oh, that's right, the other river flows towards the east! How interesting... Probably means I'll settle to the hex NW, and soon seek to follow that river. Hopefully some good lands will not be far.

 

[Ahriman]

For me this is one of those areas where, to paraphrase Thal, fun (or eliminating un-fun) trumps everything else. InfoAddict makes Civ5 what a computer-based game is supposed to be: an activity where you don't have to keep paper and pen handy, or mindlessly repeat multi-civ checks every turn (like I used to in Civ 2) in order to not miss an opportunity.

Unsurprisingly, I agree with this. More info and transparency is better. Trying to do balance by hiding information from the player is lame. And it doesn't have much info on gameplay, the main impact is reduction of annoyance.

On the game: Stonehenge seems low priority given that there are no nearby luxuries that need Calendar and the other luxuries lie along mining/masonry.

 

[Txurce]

On the game: Stonehenge seems low priority given that there are no nearby luxuries that need Calendar and the other luxuries lie along mining/masonry.

I think you're right... and it's interesting how one decision leads to the next in terms of capital placement.

 

[Ahriman]

and it's interesting how one decision leads to the next in terms of capital placement.

Yup. And that is why Civ is a good game.

Another nice thing about this start position is that lots of river tiles mean lots of gold income, which is very nice for Arabia. Arabia basically requires the Commerce tree, because it gets such a huge bonus from the Commerce Finisher combined with the Bazaar, and with discounted gold purchase costs with their high gold income.

 

[Atlas627]

Thal must've changed the start location tiles. The starting location is somehow not on a river, even though the tile to the left is a flood plain with no river. And both the tile to the west and NW show (through their flood plain graphic) that there was a river going around the start location when the map was generated.

Thal, if you want to not have the river, I suggest changing those tiles to grassland then back to desert (and flood plains respectively) in the map editor so as to not confuse people. I totally thought that there was a river simply because of the flood plain graphic.

 

[Seek]

There is a river under the settler - you can see the mouth of it in the ocean on the strategic view screenshot.

 

[Txurce]

There is a river under the settler - you can see the mouth of it in the ocean on the strategic view screenshot.

I think you're right, although even blowing up the image I couldn't be sure. It also makes sense - not al lot of major rivers end one tile short of the sea.

 

[Thalassicus]

The start tile is indeed on a river that flows southwest to the ocean. It's hard to see because of the hill and unit selection. Next time I'll be careful to ensure unit selection doesn't obscure the terrain borders. Here's how to tell:

• The green part of floodplains orients itself to rivers. No river, no green - floodplains appears like open desert without a river nearby.
• The river wrapping around the start tile can be seen on the strategic view, with the mouth of the river connecting to the ocean.

Oh which reminds me, Thal, how much work did you do to the island chains North of Washington in the GotM 1? The reason I ask is that I have yet to see anything like those islands in all subsequent Continents+ games. I see plenty of little archipelago areas, 1 tile islands surrounded by fish and other 1 tile islands, but nothing like what we saw in that game. How much did you edit exactly?

The only change I made to that area in Game 1 was moving some luxury resources from the mainland to the islands. The rest was randomly generated. I did generate a dozen maps until I found one that looked interesting. This is one advantage of GotVEM maps... whoever picks out the map can ensure it's nifty, and people playing it wont' have to worry about spoilers.

On a different subject, I'd like to propose (again) that we have favored Vitory Conditions like vanilla GotM. It would create more discussion, I think, since more players would be directly pursuing the same goals, would be more helpful in providing general balance information about the mod (what is working, what's not, potential strategies or exploits, etc.) and might make the competitive aspect more thrilling.

Since Game 1 favored science/culture victories, it seems reasonable to require a domination victory for Game 2. This should provide variety between the two games.

I don't have any opinion about InfoAddict. I personally prefer to play without over-analyzing things, since I'm much too over-analytical in most things in life and like to hold back on it when playing. If it makes the game a little easier in some way, I don't have a problem with that. Clearly some people like it a lot and for that reason it should stay in, at least for now. We can hold a poll for Game 3 about what mods to include.

 

[Thalassicus]

Something to consider is it takes time to get the initial scouts and workers out. With this start location, the following is a build order I'd likely follow:

1. Masonry
2. Calendar
3. Optics

1. Liberty
2. Free Settler
3. Free Worker

1. Settle capital in place
2. Scout
3. Scout
4. Worker
5. Monument
6. Stonehenge
7. Pyramids

1. Expand naturally to Wheat.
2. Buy northern Marble tile.
3. Marble completes improvement at the same time Stonehenge unlocks.

 

[Txurce]

I was wondering if someone was going to suggest starting with two scouts. I just finished playing a Pangaea-Plus game, and don't see the innate advantage. Yes, a lone scout will have a lot of walking to do, but I met the other civs in plenty of time. At some point I could see building a second scout (or even a third, given that they upgrade) but not right away.

 

[EsoEs]

I'm actually towards the tail end of a continents+ map and I opened 2 scouts and it paid off bigtime. I had insanely awesome land, was able to scout it all and settle it thanks to knowing where the other players were in relation to me, and in what direction they were settling. (My 4th city was less than 12 tiles from Catherine's cap, but she headed south along her coast rather than inwards towards me). Scouts can be hit or miss, but if you're smart there are always some interesting things you can do with them i.e. worker steal, camp clear for influence, etc.