Frustration sets in

[Arkaeyn]

I'm finding myself giving up and starting new games almost constantly with RAND right now, and becoming more interested in working on the city naming than in playing.

As far as I can tell, this stems from three main causes, one of which is all me. That one is that I don't necessarily like being pushed to play in certain ways. I like to play my games of Civilization as kind of a culture expansionist. I want the map to be all my color. RAND seems to push my in different directions, even if it's not necessarily the case, I just have a feeling that I'm doing it wrong.

The leading cause of that, of course, are the UHVs. I've started a couple games as Greece, where I miss the Wonder goal, and then I feel like I've failed and want to start again - even if the game is perfectly fine otherwise. The UHVs seem to change the motivation of the player in a way that increase frustration. Is switching them off easy? I wonder if I'd relax more without them.

Finally, the starting locations is often a source of frustration. I had one game as China where there was no bronze anywhere nearby. By the time I had discovered the local iron and mined it, Attila the Hun had sacked my nearly-defenseless city. Or the screenshot I just posted in another thread of Paris and Moscow being on top of each other. There's nothing terribly wrong with that start, it's playable, but for whatever reason, my patience is wearing thin.

The start location frustration also makes me feel like I don't want to play any of the desert/jungle/tundra civs. I don't know why, they're entirely playable, but for whatever reason, me and Persia just aren't getting along.

 

[Arkaeyn]

I am going to try to force myself to sit down and play games once I start them, and going to try to ignore the UHVs, and focus on trying to Build An Empire To Stand The Test Of Stability. Hopefully this'll get past my drawbacks as a gamer and onto the mod's strengths as a game. Got an interesting Arab game going.

 

[ZachScape]

Wow, Arkaeyn. You really are the one holding the RAND folder together, giving others like me more incentive to look what someone else posted. Kudos
But on topic, I never go after victories. I don't find fun in winning civilization, especially with UHVs. Although, UHVs are like a good trainer at the gym, they tell you where you should be at that point, so like for Rome in reg RFC, it tells me it is possible to conquer the Mediterranean early. The reason I don't go after victories is because I have more fun just playing, seeing what civs ultimately become the superpower, to see what time can do to the world. When I win, I feel that my playing time is cut short.

But I don't hope the civ I play has a good resource. The way I see starting situations is that they are more what if places. The reason Rome, China, India, Babylonia are in our history textbooks are because of where they started, the use of their land. In RAND, if a civ fails because of starting situation, imagine them as not good enouph to be put in the textbooks of civs in the future generations on the map you are playing on (if that makes sense). One of the glorious features in Rhye's is the change civs button. If the civ you start as is no good, try again as a new one. Make it to a chapter in future textbooks.

 

[musicfreak]

But on topic, I never go after victories. I don't find fun in winning civilization, especially with UHVs. Although, UHVs are like a good trainer at the gym, they tell you where you should be at that point, so like for Rome in reg RFC, it tells me it is possible to conquer the Mediterranean early. The reason I don't go after victories is because I have more fun just playing, seeing what civs ultimately become the superpower, to see what time can do to the world. When I win, I feel that my playing time is cut short.

I completely agree with this. I'm the exact same way. I never really play to win (but if I do, that's great), I just play to see how the game plays out, I think it's more fun that way.

However, I disagree with your last point about civs with bad starting locations. Usually (at least for me), having a bad start location makes the game not fun because you can't do anything. But maybe that's just because I hate switching civs.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Is switching them off easy?

NoCustomScenario = 0 in the scenario config file.

And then, custom game.

 

[Arkaeyn]

I suppose the frustration I was feeling here pales in significance to the standard-sized FFH2 map causing me to have 30 seconds between turns after a mere 300 turns. Thank goodness for raging barbarians and stability.

 

[onedreamer]

if starting locations are too bad just reroll the start. It should be at least decent so it can be fun. I think that with a random start it's normal that some starts are just not fun to play.

In RFC RAND, I won my first TIME victory ever in my 2-3 years (lost count.. from its release anyways) of continuous Civ4 playing with China, and I must say it has been the most exciting and rewarding victory I can remember. You should put aside frustration with determination, incresed tech costs, worse stability, not perfect starts make other victory conditions too hard with >insert civ name here< (in my case China), well, find some other goal to achieve. There's always a hard enough goal you can aim at and the fun in your games is to pursue that goal.