From King to Emperor - ouch

[Archon_Wing]

Well, I think there's a difference between doing things for fun and just clicking buttons. Sometimes I would ignore GotH to make a more challenging game, or as a tutorial since it causes too much skew. Unironically picking DS over it outside of a few civs or a resource barren start is closer to clicking buttons.

Also, if one is giving advice, it's generally a bad idea to insert one's preference or idea of fun in it, unless they specifically ask for something more tailored for some form of fun. Giving bad advice is still bad advice. Now you may like Divine Spark because it gives more great people, but to a player that is struggling to win, then you should really tell people that other pantheons may be better....

 

[ezzlar]

Builder first is 100% safe on Emperor and Immortal, assuming good unit management.The only time it doesn't work is when there aren't 3 improvable tiles in which case a scout is usually better.

Also you may spawn on a map with no close neighbors, or a neighbor that's not that far away but has early defense bonus (eg, America, France) in which case doing a swords or horse rush is much safer.

In any case, set build orders are too inflexible, and so I usually never recommend it. It heavily varies according to spawn. Eg. fast slinger is good on some starts but completely trash on others.

I think you are thinking about even higher builder orders?

 

[Aristos]

Cooked setups will allow optimal play to win faster. Optimal play under less ideal circumstances will have less of an advantage, but will still outperform suboptimal play so long as the distinction has any meaning.

Agree to disagree, Phil. Cooked setups will never be a part of my definition of "optimal". If they were, well, almost anyone would play "optimal".

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Agree to disagree, Phil. Cooked setups will never be a part of my definition of "optimal". If they were, well, almost anyone would play "optimal".

That's not what I'm saying. Optimal play is optimal regardless of the starting conditions. Starting conditions influence the result, but not the thought process used to choose the theoretical best action in any one moment.

You can have optimal play on map where only T200 victory is possible (in principle), and optimal play on a map where someone wins T105. If no better moves were possible in each respective game, then it's optimal play in both cases despite a 95 turn difference in victory time.

This of course assumes we're optimizing for win date. If you're optimizing for something else you are likely to get different decisions.

 

[Aristos]

That's not what I'm saying. Optimal play is optimal regardless of the starting conditions. Starting conditions influence the result, but not the thought process used to choose the theoretical best action in any one moment.

You can have optimal play on map where only T200 victory is possible (in principle), and optimal play on a map where someone wins T105. If no better moves were possible in each respective game, then it's optimal play in both cases despite a 95 turn difference in victory time.

This of course assumes we're optimizing for win date. If you're optimizing for something else you are likely to get different decisions.

Disagree. Optimal play can only happen when starting conditions are the generally accepted standard. I am not talking civ only here. Imagine a 100 mts Olympic sprint competition. Imagine everyone is allowed to "cook" their starting setup. Then, a few of the competitors shorten the strip by 20 mts, others throw nails in opponents lanes, etc. You get the picture. Shot goes off, so do the runners. One of the 80 mts "100 mts" sprinters runs magnificently, and finishes first 3 seconds ahead of the runner up.

Optimal run? Nah. Sub-optimal. Optimal can only be achieved if running under the generally accepted standard.

 

[Victoria]

best or most favourable; optimum.
"seeking the optimal solution"

If you can take some performance enhancing drug which improves your result and get away with it then that is optimal in the takers eyes.
Not sure they care about anyone else's views on optimal.
I'm with Phil

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Optimal run? Nah. Sub-optimal. Optimal can only be achieved if running under the generally accepted standard.

Civ has no "generally accepted standard". Most things don't.

The definition of "optimal", as I understand it in the English language and consistent with looking it up, is "best or most desirable". There is no extra baggage of "most desirable only within a narrow set of constraints". "Optimal" choices necessarily change as constraints change. You don't optimize for a 100m run the same way you optimize for a 2 mile run, even if both have generally accepted standards.

Put another way, if you change the rules such that you can throw tacks onto opposing runners' tracks and there is no sense of ethics holding you back, then throwing tacks is the optimal choice under that standard. If you try that with current Olympic standards, you lose (disqualification) and will likely be hated, which is hard to justify as optimal. If you want to optimize space win time, it is nonsensical to optimize for "most number of trees in the game possible", because these have contradicting choices. But there *is* an optimal approach to maximizing tree count.

As an aside, the whole purpose of allowing cooked starts in HoF going back to Civ 4 is to create a level playing field. *Everyone* gets great starts, that way you wash out the noise when 10 people play a random start, only two start with a resource, and only one of them gets double corn. Despite your dislike of them, it is the closest the community has ever actually come to a "generally accepted standard" in practice!

I'm not fond of super starts either. I prefer having different choices be optimal more frequently, because that makes individual choices more meaningful to the outcome for longer. But that's just playing to win a game, not playing to minimize turn count. Different goals, different optimization choices. The tree guy would pick different stuff from either.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I think what Aristos is saying is that people are only posting games where they are carried by the start and not by skillful play and it is possible said players can't come up with good strategy on regular or poor starts; thus said players aren't so good.

Or something

Incidentally this is why I never took HoF seriously either and in Civ 4 people generally didn't take games with huts seriously either.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I think what Aristos is saying is that people are only posting games where they are carried by the start and not by skillful play and it is possible said players can't come up with good strategy on regular or poor starts; thus said players aren't so good.

That's not really in dispute. It takes more skill to win consistently on a variety of maps than it does to reroll until you get good positions and only play those.

However, an optimization process to win the game should use similar reasoning in any of excellent/average/poor starts. You'll get different outcomes, in fact if you didn't assertions about start quality wouldn't make sense, but that doesn't change the fact that there is in principle an optimal decision for each choice on each start type.

Incidentally this is why I never took HoF seriously either and in Civ 4 people generally didn't take games with huts seriously either.

The really good Civ 4 HoF players were among the best players in Civ 4. Fippy, Seraiel, Wastintime, Jesusin, Elitetroops, Sun Tzu Wu, Rusten, Ironhead, Kaitzilla litter the board for deity games. These players have all performed very well in "standard settings" games also. Some of them have outright taken gold finishes in BOTM and succession games. Rusten wasn't a regular in HoF but has placed there and is one of the best I've seen play Civ 4.

In other words, while not a perfect measure of skill performance in these "cooked settings maps" compared against other players with "cooked settings" does seem predictive of player ability in general.

The exception is the "espionage" victory lol. The debates over that one were good times, glad to see it wound up just getting its own category eventually. If it had more participants that one would also be predictive of skill, but it hasn't had the competitive push of the other categories, it's the only one that still has blanks. The competition for some of the slots for other VCs has been quite tough.

 

[Victoria]

No offence but the optimal way to play if you include everything is choosing the civs you fight, the map type you play, the advance settings etc.
If it was just that then fine but RNG is not just goody huts, unless you play exactly the same even your combat role will be different.
Therefore optimal play is what Phil says. The way you play in game to the finale you seek in the best way you can. Deciding the track is not part of the game, it is the same as choosing Pangea.

Optimal play for me includes only doing GPT deals unless giving something away. Why? Because I am not as satisfied at the end otherwise.

 

[Archon_Wing]

However, an optimization process to win the game should use similar reasoning in any of excellent/average/poor starts. You'll get different outcomes, in fact if you didn't assertions about start quality wouldn't make sense, but that doesn't change the fact that there is in principle an optimal decision for each choice on each start type.

I'm aware of that there are optimal decisions in every game, but to me I don't want to just learn about map tailored map strategies. I just find it much more informational when everyone starts on say, the same map, eg GOTM or whatever. And yes, I know those maps can be cooked too...RNG always matters even on the same map, but there's just so much noise. Compare it to say speedruns of most games around-- most serious compeitions in this tend to try to normalize everything, even down to game versions with crap like say, Japanese text goes faster than English text.

I think this is in the context of apples and oranges where people talk about super fast finishes as a standard, but the amount of proof towards it is.... somewhat lacking. So the other implication I am guessing--sorry if I guessed wrong--, that these cooked starts tend to be more showing off rather than any substance.

In another note...

We're talking about this thread here where the OP's goal is to move up a level. I could tell them that builder first is more or less the superior solution in the grand majority of cases unless it is impossible to make use of it.. Now, people can disagree with this; they have a right to be wrong after all, but simply tossing a build order with zero explanation is invariably going to lead to failure, eg, the OP ends up on an iceberg or builds the preset army only to find out it's an island. Now that is suboptimal.

And unfortunately that is the trend to people who simply copy something someone else said and often repeat advice that may not even be viable anymore. I sometimes do that myself. Examples include the generic triple slinger build (which I guess still works to a degree) but people have developed much more advanced tactics than that.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

True, the fastest way OP can improve is self-reflection, but it's not always easy to see own mistakes game to game. Gaining the ability to evaluate and update the thought process that led to mistakes would take him to deity rather than emperor, if practiced for a while, but it would certainly suffice for emperor as well.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Yea that is true, though sometimes I feel like the RNG factor can give poor feedback on whether or not you are actually doing the right thing. In general, without posting specific games, it's hard to say since the biggest impact decisions are often early on. Usually if someone posts a t400 save and asks "how do I win from here?" then the answer is that the question itself isn't right.

 

[tedhebert]

Never seen so watched 10 mins of an Eleanor game... he took divine spark over goddess of the harvest. I just wanted to shout and shake my screen a lot

To be honest, I never take Goddess of the harvest... Why ? because I just don't chop all that much... Sorry, I'm not an optimal player... I chop when I know I'm going to build a district at that place, , and I chop wooded hills to build
mines on top of it a little later in game... when I've chopped 10 tiles in a huge map game, that's a lot for me... So, with THAT in mind, taking Goddess of harvest would be VERY suboptimal.

I still manage to win at deity... just takes longer (and makes it more challenging and fun ;-) )

To OP, pretty much all of the advice given so far are very good (including Victoria's BTW... but in this case you'll need to chop a lot for it to be worth your while). Now, building an army first doesn't mean you HAVE to go to war with your neighbors. But, usually, it's a good strategy to do so, and to do so early game. Later on, you can
choose if you want to warmonger or if you want to be a peaceful builder, but starting at emperor, trying to build wonders/districts and getting a religion all at the same time at the beginning is recipe for disaster. If you chose a Religious Civ and want to play it to it's strengths, by all means go for it... but know that it will make your game harder until medieval at least.

If the chosen civ is NOT religious based, forget about religion completely, build an army and maybe 2 districts (campus and commercial is usually my choice), throw in a builder in there (buy it if you can), then go settle as much as you can. If you survive to medieval, you'll have plenty of time afterwards
to build whatever you want to build in that particular game.

Hope this helps ;-)

 

[Victoria]

taking Goddess of harvest would be VERY suboptimal.

Ok then, earth goddess and god of the forge would have been worth mentioning as you have an audience.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Divine Spark is actually a pretty mediocre pantheon outside of culture victories; I do take it a lot but it's because all the good ones are taken anyways.


Well, it can have use as Russia (both writer and prophet), except Russia is often the one to not need such a pantheon or has a huge list of better ones for it. There is also Kongo since they often have poor faith generation.

The thing is with any of the faith pantheons is you can buy great people anyways, and it's any GP of your choice. Even more so if you're building the oracle. If you don't build the oracle, than DS isn't very good anyways.

 

[tedhebert]

Ok then, earth goddess and god of the forge would have been worth mentioning as you have an audience.

oh certainly... I take those when they're available, especially god of the forge. I also take Divine Spark often when most of the good ones are gone, because I see it as a 'passe-partout' pantheon,
meaning that its benefits are pretty much applicable to all civs...

I was just surprised as to how strongly you felt about Goddess of the Harvest, before I remembered how much chopping is an integral part of your game ;-)

 

[Victoria]

I remembered how much chopping is an integral part of your game ;-)

Integral part of my discussions. Because the AI does not chop it is a way to catch up.
Maybe 1 game in 5 of mine has the harvest goddess if that, it is not as guaranteed as some claim. Certainly GOTM harvest goddesses and relics are uncommonly common.
I have played every pantheon purely because of variety and because my VC are not options at the start of the game.
Have you tried to get 10 30 pop cities before?

 

[tedhebert]

Integral part of my discussions. Because the AI does not chop it is a way to catch up.
Maybe 1 game in 5 of mine has the harvest goddess if that, it is not as guaranteed as some claim. Certainly GOTM harvest goddesses and relics are uncommonly common.
I have played every pantheon purely because of variety and because my VC are not options at the start of the game.
Have you tried to get 10 30 pop cities before?

No... I'm usually in the 15-20 bracket for my cities... there are exceptions, but I have rarely gotten over 25 honestly. 10 pop 30 cities ? hmmm... I'll keep that in mind for next time I want a different challenge... It would take me way off my usual game to try and do this (which is good ;-) ) And I'm certain that I would need to think a lot beforhand on how to achieve this, because I don't feel this is something easy to achieve

 

[Victoria]

No... I'm usually in the 15-20 bracket for my cities... there are exceptions, but I have rarely gotten over 25 honestly. 10 pop 30 cities ? hmmm... I'll keep that in mind for next time I want a different challenge... It would take me way off my usual game to try and do this (which is good ;-) ) And I'm certain that I would need to think a lot beforhand on how to achieve this, because I don't feel this is something easy to achieve

Ah it’s not that bad if it is your aim.