Flying Fortress achievement - ridiculously fast

[stormerne]

The civ/leader-specific Steam achievements vary from the trivial (e.g. All Roads Lead to Rome - Build a road with a Roman Legion) to the tedious (e.g. Ruler of the Seas - As Elizabeth, sink and destroy 357 enemy naval units, across any number of playthroughs). Some are easy, some are harder. Don't get me wrong: I think they're a good way to get people used to the unique abilities of each civ. There's a little imbalance, however, between the tasks for Monty and Gandhi, or Betty and Zetty.

Anyway, I was running the bathwater (!) and wondered how quickly I could get the one for Washington/USA (Flying Fortress - Bomb an enemy city with a B-17). Hmm... what do B17s need? Radar and oil. Radar = Modern Era, but dependent on Radio and Flight, both Industrial Era techs. Oil is revealed by Biology, another Industrial Era tech.

OK, let's try something I've not done before. I always start in the Ancient Era, but not this time. Let's play Duel Pangaea and have a Modern Era start, so all I have to do is find Oil and research Radar. Then I can build a B17 and re-station it along a chain of my cities before attacking an enemy city. Little did I know...

I start the game and I'm given 3 Settlers, 2 Workers and 5 Infantry! One settler is on a river-mouth, and just offshore is a floating patch of oil (!!), so I settle that one. Holy - now I find I have 200 gold AND 500 culture points!!!

Open culture screen, select Rationalism (now I have a Golden Age!), select Secularism, select Free Thought, select Scientific Revolution - now I've run out of culture points, but I have two free techs: one goes straight to Radar and the other to Electronics. I buy two tiles to poke a finger of territory into the sea to the oil, and my first turn production is a Work Boat (which only takes one turn). It creates an offshore platform on the next turn. Shall I save up to buy the B17? I still have to find the other civ - that means I have time, even on duel - so I promote a couple of infantry to Mech Inf and I'm building a B17.

Time to stop the bathwater.

I send the mech inf, settlers and one of the workers out diagonally in two directions from Washington. But - whoooaaaaa! - what's this? There's an enemy infantry coming my way from the opposite direction. And there's a city boundary there. It turns out that Mumbai is just 8 tiles away from Washington, and a B17's bombing range is 10 tiles. So the other two settlers are not needed, but I settle them anyway for fun, and see what it's like trying to knock out barb infantry (they're tough).

A few minutes later, the B17 is built and bombs Mumbai. The achievement notification pops up in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen... and the bathwater is still hot.

 

[Skwink]

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

You know what's even better?

When you're fighting a war against Washington and his B-17 bombing your units unlocks the achievement for you.

 

[Jerrymander]

I bet no one has ever thought about that before!

 

[Flyingdwarfzz]

Niiiice house picture!

OP:
Easy achivements are easy.

 

[stormerne]

OP:
Easy achivements are easy.

I think what I was saying was, "Should they really be that easy?" I was surprised. Sure, anyone can do this as it works on any difficulty level, but what's the point? Some of the achievements are mildly educational in that they introduce new parts of the game. Some are even fun. Yet some are trite and many are downright tedious. Achievements could have been so much more useful if they'd been thought through but it doesn't seem they were. In other words: it's a missed opportunity.

 

[moyang]

Future start + difficulty below warlord allows 6 policies from start.
ultra quick policy achievements!

 

[stormerne]

Future start + difficulty below warlord allows 6 policies from start.
ultra quick policy achievements!

6? Wow! I had no idea. That's a whole tree if you want it. On deity you "only" get 4: you can open a tree and get 3 from that tree, or you can mix and match. Naturally, in this case, I was going for the two instant free techs, and I only needed 4. Does that mean somewhere between deity and warlord you get 5?

 

[LAnkou]

well, the alexander one (conquest every rival civ city before 350BC) is map dependant: on a duel map, only one civ to extinct, more than easy, while on huge map, it's almost impossible!

Do you know why some civ don't have one ? particulary Siam and Persia...

 

[drachasor]

Achievements in games are pretty stupid anyway. They make people think about how to get these stupid points instead of actually having fun. Now the stupid grind of MMOs can be yours to treasure in all genres...ugh.

 

[LAnkou]

well, getting the achievement is fun for some people (including me)...

when you're playing civilization, you're trying to achieve somethings (being plain victory, beating another difficulty level or a map you may not like (i hate archipelago... ).
I agree that some achievement are ridiculous, (the 1000 road, 1000 forest things...), but some are good (the simple get a victory with all civ leaders) and some are fun to try to get ("build all wonders" is one i'd like to get...)

What i miss for some achievement is an indication of how far i am (number of road builds, forest chopped, which wonders i didn't build...)

 

[SalmonSoil]

Achievements in games are pretty stupid anyway. They make people think about how to get these stupid points instead of actually having fun. Now the stupid grind of MMOs can be yours to treasure in all genres...ugh.

I just had this brilliant idea. Maybe, some people actually enjoy getting achievements. Even when there is no score or reward attached to them. Maybe it adds to the fun for some people. And maybe, just maybe, other people enjoy games differently than you.

Maybe some people find that collecting these "stupid points" is fun. Maybe people enjoy the "stupid grind" of MMOs. Maybe some of the appeal of videogames is identifying and achieving objectives with in the game. I thought a civ player would understand this the most.

Here is a wikipedia page that you may find useful:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjectivity

 

[LAnkou]

whoa, salmonsoil, you're a little aggressive...
It isn't necessary to get your point. Actually, this would had been enough...

Here is a wikipedia page that you may find useful:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjectivity

 

[Paradigne]

6? Wow! I had no idea. That's a whole tree if you want it. On deity you "only" get 4: you can open a tree and get 3 from that tree, or you can mix and match. Naturally, in this case, I was going for the two instant free techs, and I only needed 4. Does that mean somewhere between deity and warlord you get 5?

That just means I can unlock all the policies real quick for the achievement

 

[drachasor]

I just had this brilliant idea. Maybe, some people actually enjoy getting achievements. Even when there is no score or reward attached to them. Maybe it adds to the fun for some people. And maybe, just maybe, other people enjoy games differently than you.

Maybe some people find that collecting these "stupid points" is fun. Maybe people enjoy the "stupid grind" of MMOs. Maybe some of the appeal of videogames is identifying and achieving objectives with in the game. I thought a civ player would understand this the most.

The stupid grind in MMOs is a system designed to stretch out a little bit of fun as far as possible to make it so that developers don't have to make as much content and keep getting money rolling in. It's all about screwing the consumer over by manipulating their psychology.

Achievements aren't much different. They aren't about having a well-designed game. They aren't even about the process of getting the achievement being fun. They're just some largely mindless task you can do to get some silly points regarding, and they can and are used to cover up bad game design (whether from a rushed game like Civ V or whatever).

I'm sure there are people that get something out of non-challenging grinds with little rewards tacked on the end (and all achievement systems have a reward tacked on the end...that's the fact you got a bloody achievement). That's all achievements are, because getting the vast, vast majority of them isn't remotely hard...just time consuming. They are far from the hallmark of good game design.

 

[stormerne]

That's all achievements are, because getting the vast, vast majority of them isn't remotely hard...just time consuming. They are far from the hallmark of good game design.

Achievements are completely independent of game design. If a games designer deliberately tries to make them a major part of their design, it's a game with a short attention span that won't be replayed.

So what are achievements for? Why are they included at all? At best, achievements are fun, educational and occasionally challenging. At worst, they're a substitute for real game content and merely try to reward continued playing of a failed game. And in Civ5's case? Well it seems Firaxis tried to strike a balance, rewarding beginners and experienced hands alike. They tried, but giving them an achievement award as high as 6/10 would be generous. Perhaps no one at Firaxis has an educational background, otherwise they might have done a lot better.

On the good side, they've encouraged me to explore areas of the game I probably wouldn't have done otherwise - areas that I didn't explore in previous Civ incarnations. By the time you've won with all leaders, on all difficulty levels, with all map types and all sizes, and at all victory conditions, you're much more able to say, "This is what I like about the game, this is what I don't like, and these are the ways I'll play in future." In other words, you're less likely to waste opportunities.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I wish you could actually disable achievements.

 

[stormerne]

I wish you could actually disable achievements.

Play offline.

 

[SuperJay]

I'm sure there are people that get something out of non-challenging grinds with little rewards tacked on the end (and all achievement systems have a reward tacked on the end...that's the fact you got a bloody achievement). That's all achievements are, because getting the vast, vast majority of them isn't remotely hard...just time consuming. They are far from the hallmark of good game design.

...but nobody makes you do achievements. They're there if you want to accomplish certain hallmarks, but you're not forced into them. On Steam they don't even have point values. They're just there to add an additional layer of player involvement in a game, that's all. It sounds like you're taking the whole concept of achievements as a personal insult rather than a completely optional pursuit that you're just not interested in.

Personally, I ignore most of them. If something sounds like fun to try for, I do so, but overall the contexts in which I've encountered them (Xbox Live, WoW, and Steam) they're completely optional and I generally don't bother with them because I usually don't find them interesting. But some people do, and they can pursue them if they so desire. Everything remains in the hands of the player; we all still remain in control over the way we spend our own time.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Play offline.

Achievements are still in your face on the Steam interface in offline mode too.

Besides, most of the time I'd rather keep steam online.