Might be nice if you took the stick out of your backside before replying next time though.
Every time I try, firaxis attaches a rocket to said stick and seems to have perfect aim...
Seriously, I'm just pointing out a differing opinion and approach to the game
And I'm just showing why that approach to game design leads to completely idiotic garbage when subjected to the difficulty scale, whereas the opposite approach would not.
Even the developers have talked about how the AI civs are designed to role-play somewhat, and not just go all-out for victory like a human player would.
This is an excuse thrown around very often. It's bogus. There's a difference between "role play" and "0 code to even attempt to play the game within its rules". Civ IV has much more of the latter than most want to believe/admit. Civ V takes it to a new level but I don't see many arguing that's the "best game" here so I'm ignoring it for now.
Let's put it this way: If the AI is so "role-play esque" and "immersive", why does it throw darts for which AP/UN resolution to call? Why do some of them actively pursue the strongest approach? Why do they EVER threaten the human? These sandbox arguments are a crap excuse, because the game would 100% guaranteed run as a sandbox on low levels no matter what. All these crappy, shoddy, and incomplete efforts with the "sandbox" excuse do is make sure that the game is not balanced at the high levels, while adding 0 value to low level play (though not detracting from it). The end result is that many high level players experience a range of frustrations, while low level players who just sandbox all the time never actually know or understand just how borked and idiotic the mechanics really are. Here are a list of some mechanics that are in SKELETON CODE and are a total JOKE in the FINAL BTS patch:
1. Capitulation
2. Peace vassal
3. Espionage
4. UN resolution call logic
5. Absolutely everything involving the apostolic palace
6. Events
7. AI expanding to 3 cities despite way more available land while another gets 12
8. AI trade logic
These are *major* and in many cases *standard* features. If you know how the code works for them, you see it's not finished. It's painful. And yet, the sandboxers blather on about how the game doesn't need to fix these things because it's a "sand box". Last time I checked, this is a turn-based STRATEGY game. The S standing for *strategy*, not *sandbox*. Allowing elements into the game that have NOTHING to do with strategy is a bad thing, at all levels. It just affects lower levels less, and then high level players who have played the game more and know more about it get lectured by people who don't even know what high difficulties are like about how the game "should be". It's easy to simply brush those players off with high level elitism, but for me it's more fun to completely destroy the fundamental arguments that these sandbox apologists attempt to use. Which I've done...and that's why so many attempts to counter my arguments here fall to "opinions" and feelings instead of putting up objective reasoning.
but then the whole concept of Dimplomatic Victory goes out of the window anyway if you're playing to win, as no-one would ever get any votes at all
There are situations where the player is compelled to vote for someone. There are also situations where diplo can end a blown game early.
The only other remaining victory conditions DO involve going Conan on the world.
There is one VC the AI is explicitly programmed to pursue. One. Space doesn't count; it doesn't pursue it in dedicated fashion and in stock BTS no code exists for it to do so.
And if you don't want a game that "goes conan", perhaps the game should be BALANCED that way. Right now, military is what, over 50% of the build options? It's also set up to be much stronger and threatening than it has to be. The game was designed that way; and yet the designers ignore that reality when constructing their AI. This disparity has been a constant in the series; if military is such an overwhelming portion of the game, pay more attention to it or make it less overwhelming!
So the AI already does go for 50% of the victory conditions. Getting a diplo victory against a human would never work anyway, unless it was with the AP and the human was a weak voting member, but then I'm sure that would be complained about to as it would basically be the rest of the world deciding to win with the player having no say.
Make that 33%. Also, diplo as a VC was ill-conceived from go. It was certainly never balanced against other VCs. Not to mention that a LARGE part of my argument *is* that, by sheer chance, the AI occasionally sets itself up so that it IS the rest of the world deciding to win without the player having a say. What do you think PAssals are?! When you meet an AI that has 38% of the world's land and pop at astro, and has captured all of 2-3 cities to get that because he has 2 peace vassals and a douche that folded to him in 2.5 seconds, how can you possibly construe that as anything else? When I argue that the AI should try, I am arguing that those little @#$%@#%lings that don't expand, feed their master techs, and forfeit half of their cities w/o a fight should STOP DOING THAT. If the player gets those little crap-piece AIs, it becomes super easy. If an AI gets them, it gets super hard. Turn-based strategy? My @#%@#, that is if firaxis would quit trying to shove things there. That's turn based "chance". In an attempt to defend this game, you are arguing in favor of random chance and using age-old excuses in an attempt to pad your argument.
If you want a better tone, you need to use legit arguments that are 1) relevant to the problem at hand 2) are not canned, recycled nonsense that's been going on for years 3) actually address things I've said, rather than ignoring them and attempting to derail the points you simply have no answer for. When posters play ignorant to previous points, I'm not going to play nicely.
Windsor makes an excellent point; why does gandhi just die every game where he doesn't get excessive luck? How are people saying that "self-implosion" as an AI strategy (and one of the dominant ones) is a GOOD thing for realism, immersion, and balance? That's what your side of this argument boils down to. It hurts to see.
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