I'd just like to have clarification here because this is not my experience. Are you saying this denouncing mods is your experience? I understand that some S&T folks may not play around with mods much but I don't recall anyone ever denouncing mods, modders, or the modding community. I have a feeling we may have some misunderstanding going on here. I realize that there are other communities around the interwebs like Realms Beyond that really do shun mods, and maybe over the years, an RB denizen has popped up over here claiming something. However, I'm not aware of the good and very helpful folks over in S&T disparaging mods or the mod community.
Someone saying they have no interest in mods is not disparaging mods. And I don't recall anyone really having an opinion on the difficulty of mods, as why would they, if they don't play them. Some of us have played Kmod and do find it actually more challenging indeed.
(Personally I've played tons of mods over the years and have a full appreciation of the modding community and always have. I will always play around with mods now and then. I also love to be very good at the vanilla game)
Thank you for checking for clarification. I really mean no vitriol or aim to take away from anyone's fun with BtS, nor to question that it, as the final form of the base game, quite fittingly stands as the default metric for discussions and strategies, etc., even if high quality and viable mods do exist for those who prefer them. My response to Drew will hopefully answer your question.
Most of the charges here listed could be flipped on their head easily.
I've seen good players be called "min/maxers" and told they "abuse exploits" many more times than I've seen "casuals". The implications are equally clear, min/maxer = anti-fun, abusing exploits = soft cheating. Abusing exploits in particular smacks of self-rationalization: I'm better at the game, the mod I play is harder, and the only reason you can win on _difficulty_level_ is that you used a mechanic I don't like/understand.
Can't complain about dividing into camps when you speak on behalf of all C&C players in calling most S&T players toxic and hostile.
Can't complain about S&T "indoctrinating" people to be anti-mod when you do your best to "indoctrinate" people to be pro-mod.
The need for a baseline settings/game for in-depth strategy discussion is obvious. It's all too often that a point is made, and then 3 posts later it comes out that "I use the ____ mod". Like cool, we were having a discussion and now you've retreated into your own universe with unknown physics to save your point. (And generally the point doesn't even stand in that mod, but the opposing party can't continue out of ignorance).
Seems like what started this off was gaven saying some mods aren't supported anymore, only AFTER you said you wouldn't even play Civ 4 if not for mods. When you say that to a perspective civ4 buyer, which community is hurting which again?
I do not like gavenkoa being set up as a bully, when the victim is at least equal parts perpetrator.
Putting this message out there and painting the community as toxic is itself toxic. It's the hypocritical cherry on top of the hypocritical sundae.
At the end of the day people are going to promote what they like and attack what they don't like. People interested in a discussion on strategy are going to seek common game settings that they can agree on for reference. And when you bring strategic advice that runs contrary to the norm, expect to be challenged on it.
I'm not sure to what extent this was directed at me (per my use of the word "exploit," maybe?), but if it was, I think you've misunderstood me. I've had a long and somewhat stressful day and so am not in the best frame of mind at the moment, so please give me the benefit of the doubt here if you would. A few points off-hand, that I'd like to reiterate:
- I love Beyond the Sword and have spent probably thousands of hours of my growing up years and then quite a few hundred playing it recently. I really have a very high regard for this game and have precious little negative to say about it, even if I prefer the changes made by RI and regard them to be enhancements for my own play. The base game is superb.
- I respect the skill level of elite players. Being a comfortable deity player is something like a videogame equivalent of a chess grandmaster, and I think that's something to be proud of and I admire those who are there. I furthermore acknowledge with zero misgiving that I'm only a mid-level player.
- If someone barges into a S&T thread or discussion and attempts to derail the conversation on the basis of the different mechanics of their preferred mod; well that's obviously rude and uncalled-for, not something I condone or would want to do. I haven't seen that done, however, and I don't think casually mentioning "I think the difference in this mod is cool, by the way" at all constitutes the same thing.
- My comment about wanting to see a deity player try a very high difficulty level on RI is literal curiosity to see how they would go about playing the game after learning the differences, since obviously nobody beats deity on civ 4 without very strong critical faculties and intelligence. In BtS, we have well over a decade of collective wisdom about how to play the game, so any kind of significant paradigm shift would require lots of fresh thought on their part which I would truly enjoy witnessing. Not at all was I trying to rationalize my inferiority in BtS, which I have no problem at all admitting.
We had a similar discussion half a year ago in this thread, actually:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/hello-again-and-a-couple-of-quick-questions.674507/
There, I think you do sell the mod short and have judged it by its cover with respect to difficulty or the skill level of its creators (not all of whom are making strategy or mechanics decisions, by the way, with all of the added art and UI programming, etc.), and the main curator is far above being a Monarch player. I'd also disagree with your historical criticisms, respectfully, but that is a little beside the point.
Now to answer Lymond more directly, I
was basically called a noob for even mentioning the critique of some of the base game mechanics when I brought up the topic about the mod. "You don't like some of the implications of the SoD mechanics conceptually? You're obviously just new and don't know how to deal with them properly." I think there is a little bit of an exclusivity and instant dismissiveness among top-level players against any kind of questioning of the base game, and this is somewhat circular. It does not logically follow that because some approach has been optimized after enormous amounts of community play, that the choices and preconditions which enable such a path are necessarily the best game design.
And lastly, while it would be cool to have more of a community to play with for the mod I prefer, I'm not at all aiming to tell someone else that they're playing the game wrong or how they should be having fun with the game, even if I did think that discussing it would be interesting. If that's not really desired here, I'll stay out of this board for the most part.
