HOF Challenge Series II Ideas

[killercane]

What about standard or large deity time, quick speed, ancient-classical, on an islands map with Willem van Orange for naval intrigue and dikes?

 

[cabert]

What about standard or large deity time, quick speed, ancient-classical, on an islands map with Willem van Orange for naval intrigue and dikes?

+1 vote, except, I'd leave starting era free

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

What about standard or large deity time, quick speed, ancient-classical, on an islands map with Willem van Orange for naval intrigue and dikes?

Great idea!

I'm with Cabert in regard to starting Era; accept all starting Eras. Otherwise, it could be a long even at quick speed.

Did you mean Archipelago Map? There are a lot of different maps with islands in them.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

All the Games should have NO Tribal Villages.

It is an evil option (game disrupting option). Finding and popping a Hut amounts to rolling a ten-sided die or twenty-sided die where the one spot means you get a free any one of the Technologies you can Research. For the skill it takes to methodically search areas with a unit before any AI can, one is rewarded with a chance at a Technology, a free Scout/Warrior (Worker/Settler at lower levels), a Map and a big change of significant Wealth.

Why even bother to play the Game when we have Hut hunting to do?

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[WastinTime]

Huts don't have that great of an effect on the game. One could argue that re-rolling starts, using mapfinder, turning off barbs, or picking creampuff opponents has a much greater effect.

In most games, even if you pop a critical tech, you only save a few turns in the long run. For most of the VC's it's a trivial effect. Religious victory has a slightly larger effect because the game is so short.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Huts don't have that great of an effect on the game. One could argue that re-rolling starts, using mapfinder, turning off barbs, or picking creampuff opponents has a much greater effect.

In most games, even if you pop a critical tech, you only save a few turns in the long run. For most of the VC's it's a trivial effect. Religious victory has a slightly larger effect because the game is so short.

A large amount of the time, Huts provide a significant amount of Wealth. Sometimes they provide a few early Technologies. In my opinion, many Players should learn how to Win the Game with using Tribal Villages. In particular, many Players depend on the early Hut hunting for huge amounts of Wealth (for the early Game). This is mainly why I'd like to see more HOF competitions forbid use of the Tribal Village option.

Perhaps, I overstated my case against Tribal Villages. However, you may be understating the effect of Huts. Getting early free Wealth from Huts can allow a significant stretch of turns at 100% Research running a significant deficit. It's not just the free Technologies that I'm against.

In the lower levels, Huts provide Workers and Settlers and frankly many Players should learn to Play without the Hut crutch. In the recent Settler level Gauntlet, I seem to recall more than one Player popping six Settlers. That's not insignificant in my opinion; it really ruins any semblance of Strategy that might otherwise exist at the lower Difficulty levels.

In the final analysis, popping something good or bad from a Hut is a matter of pure Luck. There's no best Strategic/Tactical way of Popping other than the trivial tactic of using a Scout rather than some other unit to maximize Wealth provided. There is also luck in winning/not winning combat, but in combat tactics used can greatly effect the outcome. There's no such redeeming quality in a Hut. The Hut is superfluous, chaotic Game element whose only function is to "spice up" or "spoil" the Game; its worst than eye candy, because of its detrimental effect on the Game. The only redeeming quality of the Hut is that its fun to pop, except possibly when Barbarians are on.

In your comparison of the Tribal Village option to other things allowed in the HOF, only No Barbarians is another option. I'm not sure the other items you mentioned are a fair comparison.

Remember that this is only a request to have all Huts off for the next HOF Challenge Series. I'm not requesting a ban on Huts, although I'd shed no tears if they were banned.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[WastinTime]

I think the game was designed to have a certain amount of wealth to start the game. Something to keep your economy going before currency and something to pay for BTS events.

Popping a 80 beaker tech free and popping out 80 gold is almost the same thing.

It is strategic to decide how much effort you put into early exploring. Hut rewards make it matter. What good is starting with a scout? That's a nice advantage for the Civs that have it. It makes the choice of leader more interesting.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I think the game was designed to have a certain amount of wealth to start the game. Something to keep your economy going before currency and something to pay for BTS events.

For Ancient Era this is not true when Tribal Villages are disabled; even when Tribal Villages are enabled, you are not guaranteed to pop Wealth or Technologies, so I do not agree with your hypothesis that the Game Designers meant the player to have some fixed amount of Wealth starting in turn 0. Your Wealth starts at 0 and you have to earn your Wealth.

On the other hand, it is true that later Era starts begin with an increasing amount of Wealth. However, for the purposes of the HOF that is effectively irrelevant, because with the exception of Time Games, it is almost always better to start with Ancient Era to get the earliest Win. With EQM, starting with Wealth is about 90% prohibited, since that is about the number of EQM Games that must start with Ancient Era, since only Rock of Ages Games can and must start with a non-Ancient Era.

Again, please remember that I'm suggesting the option "No Tribal Villages" for all HOF Challenge Series II Games. It's irrelevant whether the Game designer's wanted all Games to start with Wealth or for that matter to start with Tribal Villages ...

Let's drop the philosophical discussion regarding the desirability or undesirability of Tribal Villages. The Game Designers provided an easy way to turn off "Tribal Villages". Just Do It.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[WastinTime]

Your Wealth starts at 0 and you have to earn your Wealth.

I agree--earn it. I wasn't saying they should give us free gold. But huts are a valuable way to earn it before you can start trading resources, conquering or pillaging. And of those, huts are the one and only peaceful option.