General discussion about UHVs

[BSPollux]

Taken from what I read here, it seems that the opinions about the goal behind UHVs are quite diffrent. This thread is ment to check that.

What is your opinion on how UHVs should work?

It seems that some people want them to dictate a very strict plan on how to play a civilization. Similar to a game of minesweeper: one wrong click and you lost. A try and error game where your goal should be to guess the hidden path that the scenario creater decided for.

I personaly think that they should force the player to follow the historic way the civilization evolved. Not every single step but the overall approach. Like the discussion to tech first and expand later or the opposite. Orr to focus on colonies or religion somewhen. But it should allways allow a free game.

The promoters of the 'strict' way seems to be motivated by some 'eliteist' feeling. Like making a game for civilization professionals or something. to ensure that, the goals must be hard to achive and that in return limits the potential ways to reach it. I think this cuts away a lot of what makes civ special, the freedom.

Whats your point of view on this?

 

[AbsintheRed]

It seems that some people want them to dictate a very strict plan on how to play a civilization. Similar to a game of minesweeper: one wrong click and you lost. A try and error game where your goal should be to guess the hidden path that the scenario creater decided for.

I don't think that's anyone's opinion on this, especially not mine

The promoters of the 'strict' way seems to be motivated by some 'eliteist' feeling. Like making a game for civilization professionals or something. to ensure that, the goals must be hard to achive and that in return limits the potential ways to reach it. I think this cuts away a lot of what makes civ special, the freedom.

The difficulty of the UHVs is another question IMO
Noone wants to force the player into a specific path and strategy in every game, the more possible ways to win is the better
But we should keep all UHVs challenging, and I think we need to be strict on this
What's the replayability value of the mod if even a total newby to RFCE and it's specific mechanics can easily win all UHVs without any real efforts?

Having said that, please try the 1st french UHV with the latest version
I already made some changes there a month ago when this first came up, yet you are still on the same issue with Beta 13

 

[rrosen]

You can win through score, domination, conquest and UHV. Perhaps also religious, at least in Sword of Islam (SOI). Score, domination, conquest and religious all incorporate a large degree of freedom to develop in an ahistorical fashion. The purpose of UHV is to provide a victory condition for a player that manages to develop along the lines of actual history (two of the goals) as well as what the civilization wanted but couldn't achieve (third). Why play for UHV, when there are 3 (or 4) victory conditions that better suit the other playstyle?

Moreover, I think what you describe above is an over-exagerration. Look at the SOI subforums. I would argue that many of the UHV there are very hard. For example, AnotherPacifist, probably the best RFC player, struggled with Oman UHV for several tries. Yet, the path that succeded for him was very different than the one that worked for me. The same can be applied to almost every civilization of SOI - the strategy thred there contains many examples of very detailed guides on how to win UHV, but they are absolutely not the only way to succeed. Oman can go for a large or small empire, Kingdom of Jerusalem can go for Yemen or Byzantium, Antioch can become muslim for open borders - but that will antagonize their Christian neighbors, and so on.

I'm not even sure against what position I'm arguing. The first Byzantine UHV in RFCE requires you to have Constantinople focus on culture and food. Is that a bad thing? Should all UHV be as the Kiev food victory - you succeed by adopting more or less any method, without focusing on the UHV?

Currently, I can't recall a strategy thread for RFCE. I think that is indicative.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Should all UHV be as the Kiev food victory - you succeed by adopting more or less any method, without focusing on the UHV?

Currently, I can't recall a strategy thread for RFCE. I think that is indicative.

Yes, that's my point too
None of the UHVs should be trivial, an automatic win even if you play badly
After balancing the civs are more or less final, I plan to make most UHVs harder
IIRC I already said it in another thread, but the current (svn version) french 1st UHV and bulgarian 2nd UHV are the perfect examples for me ATM.
They are fairly hard, but can be achieved in most games

After that I'm sure we will have strategy thread(s) too

 

[Wessel V1]

The current situation is certainly not that there is one possible path to achieve the UHV. I remember the first time I solved Egypt in RFC on Viceroy. It took me several tries, and I was so happy I was just going to write a strategy guide about it until I realized that there were much better methods. Now I could do it on Emperor on first try with time spare. The thing is, that UHVs are like a puzzle, and like other games, you have to learn how to solve the puzzle first to know what is the correct path, just like you learned to play basic Civilization 4 and Beyond the Sword. Let's say you started to play at 50% possible strength. After a few tries you improved to 75%, and 80% is needed to win. However, after 80% there is still improvement possible and that is where it allows you to adopt your own personal strategy. The main debate about UHVs is whether it should require 75% or 85% or whatever percentage. In the end, it should be doable for most people, but on the other hand it is important to know what is 100%. It could be that the best player known here, whoever that may be, can only get 90% out of the game. The goal then is lowered to 75%, lower than what it should be. My view is that it the goal should be a percentage of perfect rather than a consensus of mediocre (which isn't typically Dutch, indeed). Accumulation goals are a good example of this, but we should keep in mind that more expansion always is better, so we should avoid conquering of territory (for example, conquer Bulgaria and Poland as Kiev). Goals should be IMO what is a percentage of perfect play within more or less historical (Solid areas? OK areas?) boundaries.

My guides in the Beta 13 thread show that while I keep an eye on the goals, I pretty much play my own game, and the UHVs come with that. For example Bulgaria, I could easily have generated 2 more Great Priests or build more faith buildings, but I didn't have too. The same could be applied for the Burgundian UHV. I had loads of stability left (over +40 in a golden age), so I could have expanded to other places, but I didn't feel like it. I also conquered France but didn't have to. There are many basic guidelines but how you fill in the details is completely up to you. It might be wise though to sometimes swap buildings for units early on, early expansion helps any civ.

 

[BSPollux]

"They are fairly hard, but can be achieved in most games"

That alone sounds like a failure to me. YOu are suggesting that in some games there will be no chance to win the UHV at all?

ANd: I wasnt realy talking about specific UHV yet, all I wanted is feedback on the question "If you had to decide between difficulty and freedom, how would you decide?'" Should UHVs be so strict that two games with the same nations have to follow the very same path each time you play, or would you instead take the risk that an unworthy player might have an easy round once in a while and win even thou he made a few bad decissions?

Whats worse? Seriously, what is?

 

[Wessel V1]

I disagree. I think it should be read as: possible except cases of extreme bad luck. The siege of Constantinople can always turn out to be a failure, because the AI accidently puts a fair number of defenders in the city.

What we at all means should avoid is that the UHVs just require normal play to win. There always should be a component that takes you from the normal path, that being the path you'd normally follow to go for an average game, like a typical Prince Space Race Victory without massive conquering. At first some of these seem hard or impossible, but with proper planning it is. Remember you're playing on Monarch, which is one of the higher levels of Civ 4.

Please give us an example of what you think is a very bounded path to a UHV-goal. I'm sure there are other ways to do it. Even provinces can be covered with culture only, which is the way I'm going to get some of Germany's goals. I'm not going to settle Franconia.

I edited my previous post by the way, you might want to read it again if you haven't already.

 

[Nintz]

Okay...

UHVs they should, IMO, be achievable in 95% of games, if you play with them in mind.

Personnally, I am not a huge fan of the way RFCE's UHV system works, but it is still pretty good.

What I don't like is that too many of the goals require foreknowledge.

Take Kiev, for instance. The food requirement requires nonstop expansion, while frantically training anti-calvary for the mongol invasion. Not my cup of tea, in terms of playing style.

Byzantium goals requires you to realize that massive Seljuk and Arab invasions are going to happen.

Norse goals also require a very... interesting strategy to win a UHV. Seriously, conquer Crimea, Sicily, and Iceland? Oh, and build Vinland, and have a better score than most European superpowers. Right.

These are examples of rather specific civs.

Than again, I cannot deny the flexibility of some other civs. France is one example.

It's goals are relatively easy if you can get the first one (which is easy with mercenaries).

However, you can achieve the goals in many different ways.

To conquer the holy land, for instance, you may wish to lead a crusade. You may also simply send a fleet over to conquer it traditionally.

And the colonies may be achieved through science, luck, privateers destroying enemy AA sources, simply collapsing the enemies who have AA, and I'm sure there are more.

All in all, this mod is well balanced in terms of UHVs, you just need to plan ahead.

 

[ezzlar]

I usually think about what would make playing this civ extra hard. What achievement (UHV) would deviate from just pursuing a domination victory?