How do you Defeat a Rampaging Multiplayer Opponent? Cheese it!

[Archon_Wing]

Like I said, Inca's greatest mistake was willfully entering into a non-competitive game where people use trash settings for the lulz. If a player is going to bother playing a game like that they'd better be prepared to put up with nonsense.

I agree, but how many people that don't frequent these forums realize that a default setting is so broken?

I mean, not even the game designers knew it.

In all seriousness, I find it kind of depressing that so many of the features the game is designed for are broken against other people.

 

[karadoc]

I agree, but how many people that don't frequent these forums realize that a default setting is so broken?

I mean, not even the game designers knew it.

In what way would you change that feature so that it isn't 'broken'?

 

[Archon_Wing]

In what way would you change that feature so that it isn't 'broken'?

Easy, make it harder to win via AP. I've suggested a lot of changes before, including requiring a minimum total population under the AP religion, requiring a certain amount of civs to run the AP religion, etc.

And honestly, you shouldn't be able to vote for anyone besides yourself or abstain for victory. I've seen people accidentally lose games like this. I don't get why they have an option that lets you lose the game to begin with.

 

[karadoc]

Right. -- Back when I was considering what to do about this for my mod, I went the idea of imposing a minimum # of civs running the AP religion.

Victory votes now require a minimum number of "full members" rather than just "voting members". This means that the Apostolic Palace victory vote is only valid if there are at least 3 full members.

I'm not really sure if this is sufficient to make it balanced, but it certainly makes it a lot harder to get a chessy win.

I definitely think it should remain possible to vote for people other than yourself. In fact, I do that often, for diplomatic reasons. This is particularly useful against the AI: if you are sure that they won't win the vote, then voting for them is an easy way to some +attitude from them.

 

[LeHam]

Yeah, setting it to needing a certain amount of people running the AP religion makes more sense. Then again, even by that definition we still had enough people to vote.

Really, though, it's about having fun, and apparently yarp and aod (both were players and posted here) at least thought it was fun, as well, because it was a change compared to how most online games go.

Does Civ IV have a leaderboard ranking for online players, though? Because that's the biggest reason I can see for a player on the losing end to get upset.

 

[karadoc]

Right. I have no issue with what you did in that game. That sounds fine to me. (Just as long as you understand that it wasn't a win for any of the human players!)

There definitely are some problems worth addressing in the normal diplomacy rules. But in your case, based on what you've said, there was no problem in balance nor gameplay in that particular game.

(I don't know anything about the existence of leaderboards; but I'd expect that if there are any leaderboards, only games that are explicitly marked as 'ranked game' would count.)

 

[civac]

Like I said, Inca's greatest mistake was willfully entering into a non-competitive game where people use trash settings for the lulz. If a player is going to bother playing a game like that they'd better be prepared to put up with nonsense.

That's a bit harsh. In any online game you need an basic (and unssually unspoken) agreement on what is acceptable or unacceptable behaviour. There are just too many ways to destroy games. Pre-arranged teams, going afk, gifting cities, insulting other players, espionage economy (which amounts to playing with tech trading). You can not make rules against everything. One important requirement is that all participants are playing to win (within reason). In this example conspired to throw the game. It's understandable if you do not want to watch a superior power crushing your civ. The right thing to do would be simply to resign, formally declaring your loss and leaving the game.

 

[r_rolo1]

^^ That is a little harsh too If the rules do not exclude that behaviour, why shun it ? And, if the Inca were that superior, the diplo win by their enemies would not be possible

 

[TheMeInTeam]

^^ That is a little harsh too If the rules do not exclude that behaviour, why shun it ? And, if the Inca were that superior, the diplo win by their enemies would not be possible

Indeed. By the rules everyone agreed upon at the start of that game, the winner is the faction everyone voted for .

You can't make rules for everything. You make rules for what you care about and then revise them for the next game if people do something that really breaks/lessens strategy choices. Espionage is a perfect example of something that players don't understand and then want to ban. "tech trading"? Hardly. You have to find someone willing to expose themselves mutually to the missions, not run counter espionage, etc or it isn't cost-effective. Even then, you don't get anywhere near the multiplier you get from trades, because you're not starting with something and then using to get multiple things of equal value. You are instead getting one thing at a reduced price relative to direct teching...at the cost of heavy infrastructure investment and no real chance of an actual lead over your rival. To have something to give the other way, you also have to research!

When making rules the general approach should be to avoid the really gamebreaking things and then only ban things if it can be shown that they ruin strategic choice or in some other way hinder skillful competition (or, you just prefer an added rule now and then).

 

[r_rolo1]

Well ,espionage can make wonders in MP if you convince a handful of players to collaborate ( I assume no TT ). I did it in a Pitboss some years ago with the 5 remaining civs of my continent, due to the fact that it was the only realistical way of catching up with the other continent ( we lost a lot of time cleaning the continent ... ). With 5 players you can devise a tech path for everyone and to steal accordingly from eachother ... and then deliver tanks to the other continent that was stuck in a perpetual war in the rifle age

 

[civac]

I shouldn't have mentioned the espionage thing. If you have two civs working together the stealing side can reduce cost to about 11% of the nominal value of the technology. That's not very far from outright gifting the tech. You increase research speed by giving money to the researching side. Of course, it's still debatable whether such espionage partnerships should be banned or not.

You missed my point regarding the rules. When you start a game (especially when playing with people you do not know) you implicitly agree to a certain basic etiquette. When playing a chess game for instance you agree not to flip over the board. In a Civ game it's stuff like not insulting your opponents, teaming, arguably playing to win. A certain basic rule set that if not adhered to would make the game pointless. If you vote some AI to be the winner you are not truly playing a competive CIv game but that is what you implicitly stated when joining the game.

(Although, addmittedly, it's somewhat funny.)

 

[karadoc]

But flipping the chess board over is completely outside of the rules of the game - like punching your opponent is outside the rules of the game... The things we're talking about in civilization are actually parts of the game. The things we're talking about are less similar to flipping the board over than they are to saying "castling" is not allowed because its an unfair game-mechanic. So I don't think that's a good analogy.

In my view, if you think there are some flawed game-mechanics or unfair strategies which should not be used in the game, unless those things are universally recognised, then they should be at least mentioned before the start of the game. If you're suggesting that there were was an implicit rule in this game about not voting for a diplomatic victory, then I think that's silly. The fact that the diplomatic victory condition was enabled means that diplomatic victory is fair-game.

 

[civac]

A better example, then, would be a chess player exchanging her queen with one of your pawns early on. She would be allowed to do that by the rules. However, for a chess match, one of the implicit rules I mentioned is that both sides apply their skill to try to win. There would be no point, otherwise. In a clearly intelligible sense it wouldn't actually be a chess match at all. Trying to win is part of the definition.

It's the same for a Civ match. There is more to it than some people sitting before a computer and moving virtual units around. There is a social component to it. If one player, for instance, amused himself by writing his name on the map with workers off one city he would be using Civ4 (as a piece of software) but he wouldn't actually be playing the game within any useful definition of the term. Voting some AI the diplo leader is clearly self defeating and I would submit that you doing stuff like that does not have to be explicitly outlawed just as you don't explicitly outlaw a player gifting all his cities and money to some rival, say.

Now, of course doing stuff like that in pick-up game is no big deal but there is no ground for bragging about it.

 

[r_rolo1]

Sorry but that doesn't add up. Let's suppose that, instead of a AI, they had voted all for one of them or better, in a unrelated human that didn't tried to buy them to the win... what is the big diference? The player certainly worked his way to be a UN candidate ( either by pop or via UN build ), so why should he be punished by some arcane and worse, never stated, ruleset that forbids the others on voting for him ?

 

[vranasm]

no respect to the Incan player.... abusing overpowered civilization and then claiming victor when he clearly oversights AP...

if he was so good as he claims he should spread the AP religion like mad and switch so he is full member and blocks every resolution

or he could run Theocracy and don't bother with AP at all.

 

[gps]

then claiming victor when he clearly oversights AP...

Totally agree. The AP is a legit game mechanic which has to be taken into account. Just recently I played a game myself, where an AP decision forced me to stop trading with my big and pleased to friendly neighbor France. This seriously damaged our relations and ended in a DoW. Completely ruined my game. Minor oversight with huge impact. I was lucky I had a game save about three turns before the AP vote was to come - and I JUST managed to sent a missionary over to his nearest city and convert it. So no embargo against him, no DoW. I'd say I learnt quite a bit from that: always take care of who's AP member and what nasty stuff they can come up against whom - and be prepared! And always make sure that you friends are always in the same boat as you are. Good diplomacy is as much a part of this game as landmass, tech lead and military power are. IMHO it makes the game better.

 

[Nick Carpathia]

I look at Celt's empire and see well-managed cities, tightly backed to take advantage of all tiles, high populations, and lots of cottages.

I look at Greece, and I see three cities spaced so far apart that a ton of beautiful grass tiles are wasted. I see a ton of land to the north and east that could have been settled and made productive.

I look at Vikingia, and see he has spent an absurd amount of beakers and production to stockpile five (5!) holy cities. I see that he didn't chop his beautiful grasslands and put up financial cottages. I see that he grew to size 15 off unimproved tiles.

Celt would have won anyway. Inca just made it faster.

Edit: And while HC of Inca is pretty good, he's not *that* much better at warrior rushing. And that's all it is, warrior rushing, Quechas are only good against the AI who start with archery.

 

[LeHam]

Now, of course doing stuff like that in pick-up game is no big deal but there is no ground for bragging about it.

I'm not bragging about it. I thought it was kind of a funny and novel way to end the game.

And yeah, I didn't play very well. The thing is the land north of me wasn't very good, and I got bogged down in a war with an AI that ended up crippling my economy (and then the AI refused peace and kept invading my territory unless I did something to stop him).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Totally agree. The AP is a legit game mechanic

Let's stop right there.

The AP is a trash mechanic that they never bothered to test before putting it into the game.

Just because someone mistakenly entered into a game where it wasn't banned doesn't change the reality that AP victory is utter garbage and its balance against other VC in the base game is a complete joke.

 

[Nick Carpathia]

I'm not bragging about it. I thought it was kind of a funny and novel way to end the game.

And yeah, I didn't play very well. The thing is the land north of me wasn't very good, and I got bogged down in a war with an AI that ended up crippling my economy (and then the AI refused peace and kept invading my territory unless I did something to stop him).

Even the AI won't tech 5 holy cities for itself.

What this means is that you and Vikingia were both player controlled until the late classical/medieval era, and you *still* didn't settle those northern city sites. They were weak site, yes, but they had food and some good tiles to make them work, which means you settle them. I even see a rivers that weren't settled. In almost all my games, my natural expansion has been done well before the ADs.

In fact, looking at your land and Inca's, you have smaller percentage of junk tiles (deserts, tundra, ice) tiles than he has! And your land was vastly better than the Mayans and the Dutch.

So again, don't attribute land and leader choice to the difference between your empire and celt's.