Is it dishonourable to restart a game?

[a3kov]

Open Sky only works on flat plains and grassland with no features.

Please re-read what I posted. You don't want to work wheat, stone, calendar lux and mines, etc ?

Random events are part of any strategy game.

Yes, they are. The extent of the randomness should be limited though, which is the whole point. This is same like insta-death in other genres, just bad game design.

open sky is garbage too found with

No it's not, and you should learn how to use it first, before giving nonsense advice to people. Start with Civilopedia first.

He was mentioning working flat stone, wheat, pastures, and plantations. But whatever it was a bad plan as their do not give enough faith.

It gives plenty of faith in pasture-heavy areas, enough to found. The only problem is getting enough workers fast.
Better just admit you didn't know how Open Sky works, before I told you

 

[Cokolwiek]

Jesus Christ, was I like that when you all didn't liked me? I see now, I'm sorry.

 

[CrazyG]

Jesus Christ, was I like that when you all didn't liked me? I see now, I'm sorry.

You still are a lot like that

 

[Ziad]

Damn.

 

[Cokolwiek]

You still are a lot like that

That's the best forum drama thread since we banned Crag Hack. Also I sense your post will gather extraordinary amount of likes.

 

[stii]

You still are a lot like that

I'm sad I can only like this once.

 

[stii]

However I do mostly agree with Cokolwiek here. Building next to a river is a minor buff, pretty low on my list of priorities for building a city. I wouldn't dream of settling on a river over settling on top a suitable lux. Same with settling on a hill over river when a city might need to be defended.

God of the open sky is fine but very far from broken. You can't really found with it so it needs to beat out the other pantheons that provide non faith bonuses and I general I find it doesn't beat god of all creation. So the faith is somewhat wasted and you need to work weaker titles to get the most benefit. Bu the time god of the open sky is catching up to all creation the AI's religion will start flipping your cities negating it. One of the reasons god of all creation is often best if that your capital is last to flip.

What I've mostly noticed from these threads and others is you don't HAVE to do anything. You can play a bad civ and you can do all kinds of bad things as well. As long as you do some of it well the game is still winable. There are many many different ways to play that leads to winning the game and it is pretty hard to even tell what the bad plays really are.

 

[a3kov]

So the faith is somewhat wasted and you need to work weaker titles to get the most benefit.

You don't have to. Yes, you have to lock tiles but generally the choice of non-feature tiles is rich enough. No need to work those terrible unimproved 2f or 1f 1p tiles.
2 pop city with a pasture (very modest I would say) already gives you 2 faith. 4 cities each having 4 pop, 2 pastures and 1 shrine each gives 6 faith per city which is enough to found.
The advantage is that you get early faith from working unimproved tiles which beats many other pantheons. Sometimes you get unlucky and you can't get enough money for workers
and your production is occupied with other things (usually, units) and these are the only cases where you can't found with it.
But we are getting off-topic here.

What I've mostly noticed from these threads and others is you don't HAVE to do anything.

What I find amusing, and sometimes annoying, is this typical scenario.
People are discussing what is better, A or B, then somebody like Cokolwiek comes to the thread and says it doesn't matter and he can beat Deity with A or B or neither. Which doesn't help the conversation (in many cases, one is clearly better than another). So one can play a blank civ with no UU, UA and UB, and still win, but that doesn't answer the question if A better or B, plus, playing with the better option would clearly made you win faster or easier. Also, all of these bonuses add up, and at a certain point you are not able to win because a runaway accumulated all of these bonuses and snowballed too much thanks to it.

 

[CrazyG]

However I do mostly agree with Cokolwiek here. Building next to a river is a minor buff, pretty low on my list of priorities for building a city. I wouldn't dream of settling on a river over settling on top a suitable lux. Same with settling on a hill over river when a city might need to be defended.

I've really been appreciating non river starts lately because of the well for strong starts, and the option to delay researching masonry. But baths do have an impact, especially as tradition.

I wish there was a wonder that gave a free baths though, or enabled them to go places without freshwater.

Also open sky is great, but I think it's great because of the culture. It's faith is slow, though you can get a religion with it if you push aggressively. Several civs can make great use of those flat tiles, even without resources, such as India, Shoshone, or Huns.

 

[a3kov]

It's up to the player to decide if sacrificing fresh water for something else is worth it. Personally I wouldn't settle non-river lux if I have to sacrifice the fresh water, the hill for defense, maybe. Though denying that Bath is a huge bonus, is just denying reality. You don't have to make optimal choices all the time, but the choices are always there, and your win probability will change depending on the choices.
I think the issue mentioned by @Gidoza is that sometimes the map gives you no such choice and you spawn in an area without much fresh water at all, denying you even the option to have Baths.

 

[azum4roll]

Open Sky (and Renewal)'s problem is that you have to work 2 of the same type of tiles to make it work. You have to make a sacrifice if you have a 2 pop city with a plains pasture and a grassland lux, for example.

 

[stii]

You don't have to. Yes, you have to lock tiles but generally the choice of non-feature tiles is rich enough. No need to work those terrible unimproved 2f or 1f 1p tiles.
2 pop city with a pasture (very modest I would say) already gives you 2 faith. 4 cities each having 4 pop, 2 pastures and 1 shrine each gives 6 faith per city which is enough to found.
The advantage is that you get early faith from working unimproved tiles which beats many other pantheons. Sometimes you get unlucky and you can't get enough money for workers
and your production is occupied with other things (usually, units) and these are the only cases where you can't found with it.
But we are getting off-topic here.

.

The only cases is a real stretch you can't ever 100% found unless you have a huge amount of faith generation off multiple sources. And open sky isn't close to enough to be safe. Your 4th city having a shrine is pretty meaningless if you can't get the shrine up until a few turns before you need to found. Having lots of faith later on isn't really worth very much. It might well beat other pantheons, but that just means they are too slow to found as well!

I think trying to found on deity is just insanity in general. You are just giving up a large % of games and taking open sky is making it even worse. When the AI founds the last religion you need a pretty huge boost and most of them are random in one way or another. You have to commit to the plan long before you know if it will work.

And this is particularly apt given the thread we are in. Getting a religion then winning 50% or 75% doesn't seem great to me. It is a lot like rerolling your start until you get a good one.

 

[Cokolwiek]

People are discussing what is better, A or B, then somebody like Cokolwiek comes to the thread and says it doesn't matter and he can beat Deity with A or B or neither.

Wrong. I've written four different times a post about what I do think of ABC bonuses in different threads and that I agree they should be changed (halving them on capital founding and removing from shrines). That does not warrant making game absurdly easier by removing them as I and many other players can still beat deity with them on.
You need four cities with 4 citizens to found. That's awful lot and much too late. I've founded with one city and goddess of the beauty (Im Nayeon) on deity in my last photojournal.

So now you have several deity players that agree with me on freshwater, baths, and open sky pantheon being garbage to found with. Are you still view my opinions as nonsense posted to be controversial? Because they are clearly not and they are shared by some of the best players we have here now.

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: Please, stop the personal attacks. This thread has been derailed because of the sniping between several of you. Let's get back on topic and have a civil discussion.

 

[CrazyG]

I'm a Deity player and I like God of the Open Sky, freshwater and baths. IDK if open sky is broken since other pantheons have gotten crazy buffs too, but you can high roll really well with it.

Baths make a big impact on mid-game culture especially with tradition and artistry. It can be the difference between getting first or second ideology.I get tempted to reroll starts without freshwater if I was going to play tradition, no baths hurts so much. I think it affects balance of civs like Koreans (who still have a coastal bias and thus miss fresh water often). Maybe a somewhat weak cultural wonder (like Uffizi) could allow building baths in cities without freshwater.

 

[Cokolwiek]

I'm a Deity player and I like God of the Open Sky, freshwater and baths

The question was not do you like them but if it's nonsense and controversial to call non-freshwater starts bad, and open sky too low faith to reliably found with, which you seemed to agree with in your previous posts.

It can be the difference between getting first or second ideology.

I see what you did here, but in that game I had baths in my capital and one of secondary cities.

Trying to stay at the topic I really don't think restart are needed to have a good chance at victory or just have a decent empire. But I do think choosing a plan for the game, assessing if religion is viable, and choosing first policy require taking into account starting terrain, defensive and offensive capabilities, and neighbors. More so for taking tradition than authority, as authority is kind of securing better terrain for yourself option. If you find it unfun, go ahead and reload, it's your game. But trying to argue its warranted by balance or lack of viability to play well is unwarranted in most situations in my opinion.

 

[azum4roll]

I think it affects balance of civs like Koreans (who still have a coastal bias and thus miss fresh water often).

Why? Coastal is second best bias they can have (rivers flow into sea, so it's more likely to have fresh water near the coast) after straight river bias - and you can't just give a river bias to every Tradition civ.

 

[CrazyG]

Why? Coastal is second best bias they can have (rivers flow into sea, so it's more likely to have fresh water near the coast) after straight river bias - and you can't just give a river bias to every Tradition civ.

I think coastal bias is bad for tradition. I find a start that is both inland and without freshwater quite rare.

But I could be wrong, maybe it's not less likely.

 

[stii]

I've really been appreciating non river starts lately because of the well for strong starts, and the option to delay researching masonry. But baths do have an impact, especially as tradition.

I wish there was a wonder that gave a free baths though, or enabled them to go places without freshwater.

Also open sky is great, but I think it's great because of the culture. It's faith is slow, though you can get a religion with it if you push aggressively. Several civs can make great use of those flat tiles, even without resources, such as India, Shoshone, or Huns.

I think they give a middling bonus

I'm a Deity player and I like God of the Open Sky, freshwater and baths. IDK if open sky is broken since other pantheons have gotten crazy buffs too, but you can high roll really well with it.

Baths make a big impact on mid-game culture especially with tradition and artistry. It can be the difference between getting first or second ideology.I get tempted to reroll starts without freshwater if I was going to play tradition, no baths hurts so much. I think it affects balance of civs like Koreans (who still have a coastal bias and thus miss fresh water often). Maybe a somewhat weak cultural wonder (like Uffizi) could allow building baths in cities without freshwater.

Interesting, I don't really notice when I miss having them, like I couldn't tell you if my cities have baths or not in my last two peaceful tradition games. But I do focus culture pretty hard in my cities and picking civs in general. So maybe I should consider founding my cities on rivers a bit more. Like for the 2-5th cities it might be worth slightly worse position to get baths later.

But I do feel pretty strongly that a small bonus early is better than a big bonus mid game. Things snowball so hard. And settling on a lux isn't even that small +6-8gpt and maybe +1h from T10 onwards.

I do kind of like god of the open sky is you can make it work, I just think you need to be byz or something really extreme. Like when mt Kailash isn't good enough sometimes it makes me want to look at other options. So if the AI lost its ability to t1 shrine, I could see it being good.

 

[a3kov]

I think trying to found on deity is just insanity in general.

Let's just remember not everyone plays on Deity I'm just a humble Immortal player.

Open Sky (and Renewal)'s problem is that you have to work 2 of the same type of tiles to make it work. You have to make a sacrifice if you have a 2 pop city with a plains pasture and a grassland lux, for example.

I agree, in general mixed terrain is a strong case against Open Sky. In fact, in most cases it's clearly visible after researching Animal Husbandry, that there are simply not enough pastures around. In most games I get a mix of all terrain types (flood plains/desert is the main offender here as it tends to occupy large areas). But then, it's not a weakness of the Pantheon itself - you have the tools to decide if it will fit in your start.