Is luck too important?

[Ryika]

I'm no more or less general than you are Ryika.
How often do you get a Tundra heavy start?? (Peter maybe aside). One game in 20. I still won't restart that though. I play the hand I am dealt. But you can. It isn't the end of the world. And luck is still not too important in VI. You certainly haven't made a case that it is.

Okay, maybe we should clear something up first: I never claimed luck is too important. In fact, in the post that started this discussion, I specifically said that I think "luck" is fine the way it is. To bring it back into your memory:

The gap between a good start and a bad start is definitely really large, but I think in terms of Singleplayer, that's fine. In terms of Multiplayer I remain of the opinion that there should be map-scripts made available that focus a lot on balanced landmasses.

The real problem I see in Singleplayer is that the whole "Play the Map"-idea just doesn't work. A bad start is a bad start, and there's nothing you can do about it. There is no "Oh, I started surrounded by deserts, so let me run a strategy that makes deserts useful!"-decision, the only decision is "My starting location sucks. Guess it's time to beat up my neighbors."

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/is-luck-too-important.611695/page-2#post-14685558

That's when you answered that you can "play the map the majority of time". Somewhere during that discussion, you seem to have forgotten where that conversation started, and hey, maybe that's the reason why nothing you're saying has really been making sense to me. So let me give you a concrete example of what I mean - not that I think this is an "optimal solution", but as a starting point:

Coastal Start with really bad land:
- You should be able to focus fully on the coastal terrain. Add a proper adjacency effect to the harbor that increases food on surrounding, water-tiles. That way, the Harbor can be used to guarantee some good tiles for growth. And because your city is coastal, you unlock the harbor reasonably fast.
- A new building should be added to the harbor, competing with the Lighthouse. It has none of the bonuses of the Lighthouse, but instead adds bonus-food to all Sea-Tiles (The idea being that you only construct it if you really need to work a lot of water tiles to grow, again, this is just an example; no need to discuss the balance of this)
- Add a new Policy Card - ideally on a Civic that is off the usual path - that adds Production and Culture to the city if it works at least 4 Water tiles (or something similar)

With this simple setup you now already have the ability to turn a really bad start into a "decent" start by focusing on the things that you have available to you. Ideally it still puts you in a worse position than a "good start" (again, in my opinion differences in strength are perfectly fine in Singleplayer), but it should give you an alternative to just accepting a bad start, or conquering everybody who has better land. One that is based on being able to actually adapt to your starting location.

 

[HF22]

@Victoria

To be honest, more open space makes me just as likely to go slingers. More fog & barbs to bust.

More generally, I suspect for ideal play, hunting for freebies (Eukeras, city states, religions etc) is a mistake. The opportunity costs are often higher than benefits.

On the other hand, I think the game is designed with the idea you are supposed to hunt them, & it is often more fun when you do. While winning deity by ignoring several key game mechanics is currently very easy, its not always particularly interesting.

But steering back to the topic on the thread, given the AI remains fairly uncompetitive, I don't think missing out on any luck based bonuses are game breaking. A bad roll is plenty recoverable, whereas in harder previous Civ games it could be fatal (atleast for me - I was like a Prince level Civ 4 player).

 

[nzcamel]

Okay, maybe we should clear something up first: I never claimed luck is too important. In fact, in the post that started this discussion, I specifically said that I think "luck" is fine the way it is. To bring it back into your memory:


https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/is-luck-too-important.611695/page-2#post-14685558

That's when you answered that you can "play the map the majority of time".

And I think you can

I like your suggestions to improve the water tiles. I think they are one area where the ball has been dropped a bit, and it will take more than the addition of Auckland (lol) to bring back balance there.

 

[Victoria]

@HF22 you dissed scouts, you took it off topic... but did not really as you said scouts are about luck.

"opportunity costs" and "I suspect ... it is a mistake"

is that the best you can do? Sounds like you have no argument and just go slinger slinger slinger every time... thats fine, go for it but do not laugh at scouts without a decent argument...

and BTW, I play slinger, x 10 often so I know both sides of the coin.... do you?

 

[HF22]

@Victoria

I haven't run the numbers, so I hedge

But I think its generally accepted early slingers are pretty optimal at the moment. You need them anyway for early barbs & AI joint wars, & having already paid for them, you may as well use them. As for exploring, recon in force counts right?

Clearly you can build scouts and win deity. And for a peaceful game it may be preferable. But the easiest way to win is surely just to exploit the AIs inability at war, even for VCs other than domination.

 

[Victoria]

This is true if you have nearby fodder for your cannons.
As often as not I start a fair distance away - I always play a standard size continent map, the the default small size not that it should make any difference.
Not every map suits a highly agressive start, you end up being badly behind on higher levels always doing that, unless you restart, I personally will bang out a scout sometimes.
Depending on what prod you start with depends on how quickly you can get things out but scouting with 3-4 slingers is likely to be a bad ROI

 

[Eliminator_Sr]

@nzcamel
Working anything else over food and production or save maybe gold to buy that relavant tile to work on isn't a valid strategy. It's a mistake because it's not efficient. You failed to point out how working Incense can be strategically just as efficient as Sugar or Spice. How many turns does it save? How does it facilitate snowballing?

Yeah I play with more hills and mountains. How does that prove anything? I simply don't like warmongering on Deity so I play on Emperor with more Hills. That's the only way I can play the way I want to.

Oh and skipping Scouts for a Warrior means missing out on game breaking +2 outputs from City States. That's not even sound.

Spice and sugar are hardly game breaking - come on. I will even ignore them to work regular mines at first. In the early game the extra production can help you pump out units that much faster which allows you to capture a neighbor early or defend against barbarians. I also prefer the +3 gold lux like Truffles and diamonds or gypsum to the extra food. The additional gold from those luxuries can easily provide enough money to rush buy a unit or two which is very useful for domination or defense. There's rarely a single 'optimal' choice in civ - there are many options some of which work better than others but it depends on your overall strategy and the map type. You can easily shift focus back and forth from food to production to grow the city as needed early on.

You are quite liberal with your use of 'game breaking'. Yes the +2 for first to find city state is a nice early advantage (far better than the above luxes IMO) but I've won plenty of games without it. There is a definite opportunity cost for building scouts and I've had plenty of games where they netted me nothing at all when there are few nearby city-states. It's not a foregone conclusion that you'll find a city state first if you look with a scout as opposed to a warrior - I often get the bonus anyway with an early non-scout unit. It's perfectly sound gameplay.

 

[HF22]

@Victoria

I am unclear why a little extra space means a scout makes sense. The need for slingers to clear barbs is even greater if no cities are around.

I would think dropping in an early settler, before a second or third slinger, would make more sense than a scout if you have space.

As far as I can tell, more cities early gives the best yields in Civ 6, not minor buffs for smaller empires.

 

[nzcamel]

I get a scout out in going after my initial warrior/slinger; and another one a bit further along...then I do play on huge maps at a minimum (experimenting with mods for larger maps atm). Along with finding CS and goody huts, they provide free recon later in the game.

 

[Victoria]

@HF22 its a little complex but this is how I work

I look at my starting position, do I see coast and/or mountains. These things help protect me from barbs and limit my ability to attack other civs. If I see them I may start a scout depending on how I feel. I will then send my barb the way of open space. This is typically where horses are more prevalent and if my barb can find a camp he will kill it before it spawns horses.

If this way is still clear and flat I will continue with my scout becase a scout on flat land is faster than a slinger but not on rough ground. If barb scouts come to my camp from another direction I will swap to slinger but mountains, coast, civs and CS can limit their attack capability completely at times. If my clubman comes across another civ early in his journey I will also swap to slingers.

Its not a hard fast rule, it depends on how I feel but I do not take out CS just because there is no civ nearby, I like their other uses and just blindly killing everything is damn boring just for the sake of efficiency when I can win anyway. Nearby civs will push the hell out of me unless I kill them on deity. On Emperor it depends on how I feel, on prince I will not kill them because I do not need them, just their capital at some stage if that way inclined.

My games have huge variety, I play all victories and try weird things out, its not about winning, winning against a machine means nothing to me. Even winning against other people is not important, my whole life philosophy is am I happy with what I achieved. I do however believe the strategy I use with scouts is the most fexible I do not for a second think it is the safest to avoid early defeat at high level.

 

[Eliminator_Sr]

I get a scout out in going after my initial warrior/slinger; and another one a bit further along...then I do play on huge maps at a minimum (experimenting with mods for larger maps atm). Along with finding CS and goody huts, they provide free recon later in the game.

Yes I would agree they are probably more valuable on large maps (I usually play standard), but as far as free recon later you can do that with any unit you've built or with great generals so I don't agree that's a compelling reason for building them. I've had games where they have really helped but usually only as a first build and with plenty of open space around after that they are kind of useless in my opinion. I find them to be worth it about 50% of the time and it's largely luck of the draw. I think their primary usefulness is just getting a little extra map knowledge early which is usually a reliable bet. On high difficulty I almost always opt for slingers instead.

 

[nzcamel]

but as far as free recon later you can do that with any unit you've built or with great generals so I don't agree that's a compelling reason for building them.

The effects of some social policies aside, there are only a few units in the game that have no maintenance cost. And as the game progresses those units need be upgraded if you are to stay competitive. The scout however doesn't upgrade for agggges, yet that isn't a biggie as they still serve their role well. The extra movement point (plus upgrades for moving through woods etc) means that they are the best sentry.

To be fair, great people and religious units also do the trick as you allude to, if you have them to spare

 

[HF22]

@Victoria

If you are not arguing its optimal, then yeah, whatever floats your boat.

The game isn't difficult enough to require optimal play, and what is most fun is entirely up to you.

 

[Kyro]

@nzcamel
I thought this was a civil discussion but it is clear you are more interested in belittling me. What's with the assertions that I can't play on higher difficulties and what does that do to justify your points?

Just so you know and stop jumping to conclusions for how I make my decisions. My goal for every Civ game is to create the perfect civilization with maximum potential. I aim to be leading in every aspect for games that I play, have most of the world wonders, have the maximum number of policy cards available and the best of the great people. And I aim to do that without warmongering at all because conquering cities for progress is just so exploitable it is cheating to me. To that end Deity is not a suitable difficulty because the great people I want often get skipped by eras and game strategy is always about being faster and faster in one aspect. I am inflexible that way and restart games entirely when that standard has not been achieved. By extension just Victory is no longer important to me but how I win that matters more.

Also I don't remember ignoring any of your points that are relevant to this discussion . I have been explaining why your ideas don't work out. You on the other hand have just been ignoring any of the questions and rebuttals by dismissing them based on the assumption that I am inefficient in gameplay because I am inflexible.

You have still yet to answer my most pressing questions.


To those who claim there is no one viable strategy for all times, warmongering is THE most effective strategy for MOST times so long as there are neighbours to conquer. The game is just made that way. You can manipulate the map etc. so that isn't the case but that won't change what the devs had in mind.

@Eliminator_Sr

You missed the point of why I said Sugar and Spice are overpowered, Which is to have a larger population faster so as to work more production. To that end those Luxuries are very potent. You also missed the point of how subtle values in the early game have cascading effects in the game. I've already explained twice why +2 isn't a small value early on and I'm not doing it again.

A Sugar/Spice start in peaceful games can mean a difference of 3 early World Wonders on Emperor difficulty, or just one on Deity. That's from experience and trust me I have restarted entire games at least a hundred times thus far.


To those who who say a bad start and by extension luck don't affect the game too much. How does a pacifist player make up for it? What if he really wanted a wonder and missed out because of a bad start? What if he wasn't able to race the ai to a favored spot for expansion because of the bad start?

You see there's just no answer for questions like that because the only solution is war or restart so to that end Luck is too important because it made all the difference. Also I won't call warmongering being flexible because it is the one solution for everything in Civ 6.

The real reason why Luck is too important in this game is because it has a Cascading/Compounding effect on the game. Bad luck doesn't just bite and leave you alone. You carry its effects for the whole game. You know why you you missed that Wonder by 1 turn? You founded the city 100 turns ago 6 turns later than you could have thanks to a late settler because you were beat to an early encounter with a Militaristic City state by 1 turn because you didn't have productive tiles at the start to rush the scout. It can SNOWBALL and that is precisely why it is too important.

 

[HF22]

@Kyro

So there is too much luck involved in reaching your self imposed goals in light of your self imposed restrictions?

That is not really the fault of the game itself. Nor is it a great basis for discussion with other players who don't share the same paradigm.

 

[Kyro]

@Kyro

So there is too much luck involved in reaching your self imposed goals in light of your self imposed restrictions?

That is not really the fault of the game itself. Nor is it a great basis for discussion with other players who don't share the same paradigm.

I'll just quote myself to answer you. "The real reason why Luck is too important in this game is because it has a Cascading/Compounding effect on the game. Bad luck doesn't just bite and leave you alone. You carry its effects for the whole game. You know why you you missed that Wonder by 1 turn? You founded the city 100 turns ago 6 turns later than you could have thanks to a late settler because you were beat to an early encounter with a Militaristic City state by 1 turn because you didn't have productive tiles at the start to rush the scout. It can SNOWBALL and that is precisely why it is too important." Ever heard of the Butterfly Effect?

Also to note what is important to players may differ from player to player but it is safe to say however that an enjoyable experience is the most important. Bad luck just destroys that by causing regret. Can you win with bad luck? Yes but it's just not fun to race uphill and to many the journey is more important than the end.

My self-imposed standards are immaterial to the extent that luck can influence the game. The first is preference, the other is an observable phenomenon.

 

[HF22]

@Kyro

But it doesn't cascade if you follow the meta. It becomes a minor irrelevance, overcome by much stronger factors.

Like wasting production on wonders with lackluster benefits.

In any event, unless you go peaceful, there is so much margin for error its irrelevant. Putting a win back a few turns is hardly "too much luck".

 

[Victoria]

You could say this 'luck' is what makes the game more interesting, fun, a challenge... Or...what makes the game too hard, to uncomfortable and too regretful.

Last night I really needed Petra and lost it with 2 turns left, sure it took me about 10 seconds to recover from the shock but I carried on and had a really enjoyable game, winning a deity scoence at 257 when it should have been around 200. I lost about 20'turns through 'bad luck' and 30 turns through stupidity. I still had a great time.

 

[Kyro]

@Kyro

But it doesn't cascade if you follow the meta. It becomes a minor irrelevance, overcome by much stronger factors.

Like wasting production on wonders with lackluster benefits.

In any event, unless you go peaceful, there is so much margin for error its irrelevant. Putting a win back a few turns is hardly "too much luck".

To someone who finds victory the only pursuit in the game and the process unimportant of course you would find Luck in that sense irrelevant. You don't even care about Wonders in fact and Luck does have a huge impact on those on Deity.

If you play in Multiplayer the difference due to luck will become disgusting.

 

[Victoria]

lol, I'm with you on that @Kyro its all about the journey