Huts/Events Poll

Skill level and use of huts and events


  • Total voters
    114
Noble, On

Interestingly, it seems that the higher level in skill players get, the more frequently they play with huts and events turned off. Why is that? Are huts/events really that much of a game breaker?
 
Huts make the game harder at the higher levels (the AI will get most of them) and events make it less predictable and therefore turns planning into guesswork.
 
Monarch/Emperor, on.
I do not see what a little bit of RNG can do to an already RNG based game.
Bermuda triangle? Not as disastrous as losing your 10 rush axes against a 3 archer garrison.
 
Being able to handle unpredictability is the sign of a good strategist.

Not with Civ4 events, it's not.

A good strategist doesn't spam warriors from turn 1 on the of chance than in 20 turns the Vedic Aryans will arise. And if they do, you don't have any chance to handle them.

But I probably shouldn't have said anything, now you're going on another of your rants stating that bad RNG based events cancel good RNG based events and that you're a better strategist than everyone else here because you play with them on.
 
Noble, Huts off, Events on (but all negative events are modded out).
 
There are two very different views of "good strategizing":

1. "Good strategizing includes to react appropriately to unforeseen events, utilizing the resources at hand." Players who focus on this approach tend to increase the randomness of their games by switching on huts and random events, choosing random leaders and/or randomizing map scripts, etc. For them, good strategizing is "to make the best out of the hand that fate dealt you".

2. "Good strategizing is to plan things well in advance." Players who foxus on this approach tend to increase the predictability of their games by switching off random events, and selecting the map, their leader, and sometimes even their opponents to match their grand plan.

Both approaches are valid, they are just different facets of the same thing. Personally, I'm strongly in the first camp, I like the unpredictability - partly because it's working against me. It increases the challenge. I tend to play games with 30+ AI Civs on the board, so having very strong random events increases the chances that one of them gets powerful enough to be a competitor in the late game.
 
I've only ever played SP and in that context i actually like them, but would never play a game with them on on MP or in any competitive setting. I won't participate in anything HoF does until they disallow them.
 
Wow, the events debate hasn't evolved at all since TMIT and myself hammered out the major arguments ages ago. The summary:

Civ already has a large number of moderate-probability, small-impact occurrences (individual rounds of combat). Since you can influence the promotion and composition of your army as well as pick favorable terrain, you can influence the outcome of these occurrences. And given the vast number of occurrences throughout the game, you can expect a particular distribution of outcomes. Events are low-probability, variable-impact events--I don't see anyone complaining about the tiny things like the security tax wall event. People just have a problem with low-probability, high-impact occurrences. Strictly speaking, if you play enough games, you should expect some distribution based on the choices you make (i.e. civics you run, order of technologies researched, etc.).

But like the players who claim the RNG is cheating them in combat, there are always going to be players who don't like events. Nothing new to see.
 
1. "Good strategizing includes to react appropriately to unforeseen events, utilizing the resources at hand." Players who focus on this approach tend to increase the randomness of their games by switching on huts and random events, choosing random leaders and/or randomizing map scripts, etc. For them, good strategizing is "to make the best out of the hand that fate dealt you".
I completely agree with this. The whole beauty of the game for me is that having random elements in the game makes it more like real life. The more the better.

In life, you can't always pick the elements of the "game" and have everything turn out your way, right? ;)
 
Antilogic, I'd even prefer if those combat situations where even less RNG based. It hardly happens and when it happens it usually isn't a big deal (considering that any military requires numbers), but damn do I rage hard when my tanks lose at >99% odds.

That's one thing Civ5 had right, less randomness in combat. Even better, Advance Wars combat. No, tanks should never ever lose to spearmen or longbowmen, no matter what the RNG gods decide.

My BS-meter goes crazy when my tank loses to an longbow or when my submarine loses to a galleon, just like when a stack of barbs magically spawns outside my city or when I get mass-slave revolts during my first GA.

The game is already unbalanced with terrain generation and civ traits + UU/UBs, but that's fine and one can often overcome that. But pure RNG madness, stuff that can't be anticipated and is often just plain stupid (instant Golden Ages to my enemies, 4 Infantries spawning outside a razed city that only had a couple Rifles, yada yada yada), that kind of crap should always be out.
 
Being able to handle unpredictability is the sign of a good strategist.

This is based on the flawed assumption that all of the events (or even most) require a material application of strategy.

Strictly speaking, if you play enough games, you should expect some distribution based on the choices you make (i.e. civics you run, order of technologies researched, etc.).

The problem is the "enough games" part. Each game is its own entity, and events with sufficient impact can negatively influence the strategy of a given map by giving the player a ridiculous advantage or disadvantage independent of his decisions. That's all well and good until it happens in MP, in BOTM (though BOTM has gotten away from it, kudos) or in HoF (where the GOAL is to get as many good events or catastrophically bad events for opposition as possible...and rather than looking for an "averaging out" function in many games you're looking for an outlier).

But like the players who claim the RNG is cheating them in combat, there are always going to be players who don't like events. Nothing new to see.

RNG outcomes of battle and events do not make for a functional analogy, sorry. RNG battle outcomes are nearly the exact opposite of "low probability, high impact", and only in extremely early fights can the outcome of one battle have a meaningful impact on whether somebody wins...and that's before collateral and other "guaranteed damage" elements make their way into combat.

The only "cheating" going on in this game is when the AI invokes its own rules or ignores game rules (worst enemy map hack, gaming the displayed diplo to show something it isn't, getting bonuses independent of levels, seeing into the fog without moving units there first, etc)...or when a human actually cheats of course (hacks, 50 techs from oracle, doubling hammers glitch).
 
There are two very different views of "good strategizing":

1. "Good strategizing includes to react appropriately to unforeseen events, utilizing the resources at hand." Players who focus on this approach tend to increase the randomness of their games by switching on huts and random events, choosing random leaders and/or randomizing map scripts, etc. For them, good strategizing is "to make the best out of the hand that fate dealt you".

2. "Good strategizing is to plan things well in advance." Players who foxus on this approach tend to increase the predictability of their games by switching off random events, and selecting the map, their leader, and sometimes even their opponents to match their grand plan.

Both approaches are valid, they are just different facets of the same thing. Personally, I'm strongly in the first camp, I like the unpredictability - partly because it's working against me. It increases the challenge. I tend to play games with 30+ AI Civs on the board, so having very strong random events increases the chances that one of them gets powerful enough to be a competitor in the late game.

Actually, I beg to differ, Psyringe.

1 is good strategizing.

2 is not.

The reason is that in real life, you DO have to live with the hand fate has dealt you. You either make the best of it or you sit around and whine until the cows come home to little sympathy but lots of contempt.

1 is good life outlook. 2 is unrealistic and the ones who do are inevitably the ones that whimper about things being unfair and are frequently the ones causing havoc trying to "fix" the world. I can name any number of man-made disasters caused by such people, the chief of which are the millions killed by Communists.

Thus, I subscribe to 1, and view people who subscribe to 2 with grave suspicion.

Moderator Action: I did tell everyone to not go into personal attacks - this post does not fit the bill. Please refrain from trolling in the future. - ori
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889
 
1 is good strategizing.

2 is not.

Is factually wrong. The definition of strategy includes games approached with both of those outlooks. Any assertion otherwise is inaccurate.

The reason is that in real life

:rolleyes:. I thought this thread was about civ IV? I didn't see anything about "playing" real life in this thread. Did I miss it?

1 is good life outlook. 2 is unrealistic and the ones who do are inevitably the ones that whimper about things being unfair and are frequently the ones causing havoc trying to "fix" the world. I can name any number of man-made disasters caused by such people, the chief of which are the millions killed by Communists.

How about not name-calling your opposition constantly?
 
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