MadJinn's PAC Game

[KrikkitTwo]

Might have something to do with PAC's ability (production bonus)?

PAC only has a production bonus for Wonders.
More likely it was based on him getting trade route spam

 

[Khaim]

I think workers are only 60p this time. The rest is just him having good production.

 

[Esperr]

Yeah is there anywhere where anybody has the actual numbers? It seems like based on build times stuff is just cheaper in general, but theres just way more stuff. Theres were at least 10-15 buildings available in the first one hundred turns that he played. Compared to civ V, that's a lot.

 

[jaldaen]

Civ V Analyst is the best site I've found for numbers and keeps pretty up to date.

 

[Tomice]

The analyst site is just plain awesome! And he almost updates it daily. Still, some of the info is weeks old, especially things that aren't easily seen like exact production costs.

Don't interpret too much into the 250 turn press build. They have barely started ballancing and polish when it was released 2 weeks ago.



Also, did MD really play on deity (or "Apollo"?) difficulty?

 

[GeoModder]

On that note, is there anywhere a post/thread where the difficulty levels in BE are posted in order of increasing difficulty? I assume "Apollo" is the highest, and "Sputnik" the easiest?

 

[Arkangelus]

It was the trade routes that seemed to be the HUGE difference maker, just the fact that there were SO many of them. The AI only looked like they had 3 or 4 while the human player can end up with something like 30, they were negating pretty much ALL issues with energy and boosting production to huge levels.

 

[ggmoyang]

Sputnik, Mercury, Gemini, Vostok, Soyuz, Apollo

 

[Gort]

Agreed on the trade routes - Civ 5's internal trade routes were already extremely powerful (go Tradition, feed food back to capital, boom, massive capital with enormous science thanks to the National College) and not only are BE's trade routes more numerous, the internal ones are even more powerful than they were before.

MadDjinn gambled too hard on them, of course, which led to him losing two cities thanks to his skeletal military, but he could easily have diverted some of his focus away from building explorers and trade routes and had a decent army - as others were saying, soldiers were taking one or two turns to build.

Might be that trade routes need to be toned down or the AI needs to make extremely heavy use of them.

 

[Lord Shadow]

If trade routes remained as they are, to the point factions are highly dependent on large volumes of trade to remain powerful, and the AI took full advantage of them, it'd give warfare a great, realistic twist. Something deeper than kill military units, hit cities, rinse and repeat: you could theoretically bring a superior enemy down to their knees conducting guerrilla warfare on their trade units.

Though of course, protecting those vital lines would represent a major challenge for any computer opponent, and it wouldn't be all that easy for a human, either.

 

[Acken]

The analyst site is just plain awesome! And he almost updates it daily. Still, some of the info is weeks old, especially things that aren't easily seen like exact production costs.

Don't interpret too much into the 250 turn press build. They have barely started ballancing and polish when it was released 2 weeks ago.



Also, did MD really play on deity (or "Apollo"?) difficulty?

I hope you're right because in this demo the ratio of costs to expected city production seemed completely off. Shipping it in that state would be a disaster. Especially if the AI doesn't compete.

 

[DarkestOnion]

The game is not easy just because MadDjinn isn't struggling to survive. He is a very good player who often discovers multiple ways to turn negative feedback loop mechanics into either non-issues or in some cases positive feedback loops. Honestly, the ability to manage mechanics like Health with an attitude of understanding and overcoming may be something to both appreciate and learn from, instead of being something to use as a complaint against Civ:BE.

 

[Greybane]

Which sort of colonists did he bring again? Hoping it isn't artists. Seen too many LP's that pick Artists (mostly because they seem OP).

 

[ggmoyang]

He did pick artists.

 

[Gamewizard]

I have no problem with internal routes being powerful, but right now they are TOO powerful. In the LP, at turn 201, he has 185 production and 100 EXCESS FOOD in his capital. And the more cities he conquers, the more he can send to the capital.

By comparison, Slavic's capital has 31 production and 26 food on turn 202 and is half the size of Maddjin's.

Either internal routes need to be toned down or unhealthiness needs a much larger penalty. Wide with a mega-capital seems like a no-brainer.

 

[Acken]

The game is not easy just because MadDjinn isn't struggling to survive. He is a very good player who often discovers multiple ways to turn negative feedback loop mechanics into either non-issues or in some cases positive feedback loops. Honestly, the ability to manage mechanics like Health with an attitude of understanding and overcoming may be something to both appreciate and learn from, instead of being something to use as a complaint against Civ:BE.

I'm sorry but no. Eating what Madjinn does and shows as if he has godlike powers isn't a good attitude to have. I'm grateful for the lets play as much as the next guy but I watch it with a critical eye.

Seeing potential issues and raising concerns is a valid approach. I'm not saying the game is dead and we should all cancel pre-order no. I'm saying that there are problems in what was shown, and many seems to agree. Now it's an older build made for the press and there is still time before release. But it shouldn't be released in that state or I guarantee you other good players will just get quickly bored of it.

By comparison, Slavic's capital has 31 production and 26 food on turn 202 and is half the size of Maddjin's.

At some point Maddjinn show his capital as having 180production 100food by comparison.

 

[Gamewizard]

He could probably win via domination before the 250 mark if he built highways to the other civs' capitals and started spamming True Battlesuits in all his cities.

And stop building those miasma repulsors, you need tacnets.

 

[AriochIV]

The costs and unit stats are fluctuating rapidly (as you would expect at this stage of development) and I'm trying to keep up with them, but it's hard to tell at times which numbers are current. I think the build MadDjinn is playing is actually older than the one Pete used on Thursday.

 

[Manannan]

The game is not easy just because MadDjinn isn't struggling to survive. He is a very good player who often discovers multiple ways to turn negative feedback loop mechanics into either non-issues or in some cases positive feedback loops. Honestly, the ability to manage mechanics like Health with an attitude of understanding and overcoming may be something to both appreciate and learn from, instead of being something to use as a complaint against Civ:BE.

Beg pardon? He ignored a mechanic outright. Having one of your beta testers and someone well known in the community show off that a mechanic is this badly unbalanced ("if you get past -10/-20 [note: I don't recall which he said] health you might as well go down to -100") is not something to be appreciated. It's especially not to be appreciated when you realize things are going to get more abusive when guys like Marbozir and Acken get their hands on the game and start showing people how to really break the game's systems if the balance issues aren't addressed.

Hopefully this build is really out-dated, as quite frankly MadDjinn didn't play particularly well or do anything particularly crazy and the game still looks too easy.

 

[DarkestOnion]

I was not indicating that insufficiently punishing players via the Health Mechanic under the often twirled umbrella of game balance is of no (or even of little) concern. I was also not 'deifying MadDjinn' in my post.To the contrary, I was indicating that very good players often find clever ways to ignore (or even profit from) mechanics designed to limit the larger player base. I was attempting to sanitize the moral value judgment out of MadDjinn 'exploiting the health mechanic' in order to give him recognition for his ingenuity as opposed to vilifying him for 'breaking the rules.' I have learned recently that I feel better looking at this kind of thing in a positive light instead of crying 'exploit!' or 'cheater! as if I am the authority in such matters somehow.