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I fail to see the point of fighting a long war with an AI that doesn't know how to fight.
For Fun.

Also, the combat isn't any longer, (combat takes the same time on all game speeds) what takes longer is the economic, scientific, and cultural development of your empire. (More time Empire building in an empire builder game..shocking)
Marathon is easier than Quick v. AI, but that does not necessarily make it less fun.
 
This. I've always played Civ games for the SP experience and the sensation of forging a thriving empire. I never wanted "turn-based StarCraft." I don't care about being especially "good" or skillful at the game or exploiting AI weaknesses.
Have you considered taking up a craft, like Lego-sculpture? Or something. It's no joke, I mean look at this:


And With Lego your efforts with every brick are visible right away instead of 60 seconds of processing later. Because I do wonder why a person would inefficiently use Civ to satisfy a drive like that. Please explain how a thriving empire feels to you. Or the forging.


That said, the AI in BE is just abysmal and way too passive and that is a problem. It baffles me when people say the MP experience is supposed to be paramount in these games. Really? A turn-based 4x is supposed to be MP-focused?

Yes. I find your opposition to the MP community receiving any attention to be as ludicrous. A strategy game with multiple despots following the same rules - how is this not MP?

Balanced games can be consumed by (this sentence is alarmingly difficult to finish without ambiguity) the players who create a community of competition. I want to steer right out of this "MP-player" label. Referring to them as MP-ers is like calling a soccer player a sports athlete, it really doesn't say enough. We are talking about competitive players are we not?, not the players who are playing the game with other Humans, which is something that games just tend to be, if we're talking about games not just video games.
Competitive players will flock to any game that lets 2+ players plug in, since to them, every game is fair until it's proven trivial, braindead, or solved. (Even if you make a terrible game, you'd have to be really unlucky for it to shoot so far from the mark that it's braindead.) Some, or a lot of the game can be deadweight that gates players out of playing before studying up... this can count against the game for being a bore. But sometimes it is embraced like with say Street Fighter, which requires huge time investment just to get combos to register - now you're able to make the basic inputs, you still have to learn to actually outplay your opponent. With some games, execution threshold is a skill that's celebrated, with others, it's thought of as interface failure. In some games people argue. RTSs receive this argument, when they don't embrace their action-economy elements, like Starcraft did.

This fact describes the preponderance of players who wish a game could be tilted towards accommodating MP, because the competitors are always there if there's 2 player slots and everyone has the same rules (asymmetric games cannot support scaling up competition without an extra ingredient).

I feel dumb for only recently having the thought that Civ has lots of eyes on it because it is positively the story of people and everything we've ever been up to. It is truly the game of games. This is almost a burden for it.

My point, which I'll admit I forgot for some moments, is ... everybody has some business in wanting the piece of art to become something more like their ideal, once the original catches their intention. I guess games are unique art like that, noone ever tells the painter to go back and rethink his content without some amount of shame or silliness. So the game comes from its creator, as art and also the creator plays along with 'revising' it. So people want it to be for them. This is what happens.
It...
I thought I had a point but I've said something quite mystifying just now, at least as far as I know.
 

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First, pretty much all single player types want better AI, we just prefer bad AI to the raw min-maxing

Second, I don't think anyone is "opposing" the multiplayer community, even if they agree with me and view Civ as primarily a single-player game.

Third, Civ seems flawed to me in balance of paths to victory when played as efficiently as possible.

If the goal is to simulate the growth of an Empire, the game fails largely with its optimal paths.

But finally, I have no qualms against balance and multiplayer accommodation - but maximizing those traits isn't worth lessening the immersion, the soul of Civ games.
 
Have you considered taking up a craft, like Lego-sculpture? Or something. It's no joke, I mean look at this:

And With Lego your efforts with every brick are visible right away instead of 60 seconds of processing later. Because I do wonder why a person would inefficiently use Civ to satisfy a drive like that. Please explain how a thriving empire feels to you. Or the forging.

I just recently picked up Minecraft again, and it's providing a similar sense of enjoyment to what I get out of Civilization -- starting out alone in a brand-new world, exploring to find resources, encountering other civilizations and interacting with them while I develop and build up my own territory. Minecraft is a bit more like building Lego sculptures in that I can build a nice little castle and a village for myself, but I've always enjoyed the sense of expanding my empire and settling new cities since the days of the original Civilization.

Then again, I've always been interested in worldbuilding -- I used to spend hours drawing maps of D&D worlds that my brother and I came up with. :3

But I think that some of the "inefficiencies" of the Civilization game (vis a vis empire building) are what make it interesting -- something like drawing maps or building Lego sculptures is highly deterministic, with no element of the unknown. Whereas exploring the world in Civilization or Minecraft has a much stronger sense of exploring the unknown, and the joy of discovery that comes from finding particularly good settlement spots or new civilizations. I know from talking with my brother recently that he enjoys the exploration stage of the game the most, finding out which other civs are out there -- once everyone has been discovered, the game settles down and becomes a bit more bland for him.

My point, which I'll admit I forgot for some moments, is ... everybody has some business in wanting the piece of art to become something more like their ideal, once the original catches their intention. I guess games are unique art like that, noone ever tells the painter to go back and rethink his content without some amount of shame or silliness. So the game comes from its creator, as art and also the creator plays along with 'revising' it. So people want it to be for them. This is what happens.
It...
I thought I had a point but I've said something quite mystifying just now, at least as far as I know.

Ha! So I'm not the only person that's thought about this...

Personally, I think it's a bit of a disturbing trend that people tend to argue so much that creative efforts should be directed personally towards them. You say that no one ever tells a painter to go back and rethink their content... but I know I've heard horror stories out of some literary fandoms, where the author of a popular written series gets hate mail about the direction they choose to take their work. (I think Harry Potter is one example, as there's still people that'll complain that Harry dated X instead of Y, and so on.)

I'm not going to say that this sense of "entitlement" is only endemic to modern society, as I think it's always been part of human nature. We'll criticize anyone who produces a product that doesn't meet our particular desires, whether they be car manufacturers, restaurants, movie producers, or whatever. But perhaps because of the internet, the idea that creative individuals should produce what the public demands seems to be really vocal these days, particularly in the field of video games, where creators are expected to be connected to their fanbase through the internet. So you've got a really vocal consumer base that expects creative people to give them what they want as some sort of service industry.

It gets really weird because pretty much every creative person I've met and talked with seeks to create what they want to create, rather than to meet some public demand for what the public wants. Just venturing into the modding communities for BE and Civ V, most of the modders there are creating the mods they want to see, rather than meeting some public demand for them. Sure, they're always happy when other people enjoy their mods, but it's much more about meeting a personal creative desire than fulfilling some public demand.

I suspect it's money that throws the whole thing out of whack. My guess is that game designers, authors, movie makers, and so on are doing much the same thing -- trying to make their own creative vision come to life, and hoping other people will enjoy what they create. But the consumers feel that, because they can wave money around, that people will come begging to fill their needs -- without realizing that other people aren't going to necessarily want to come take their money. Someone could wave a $20 bill at me and tell me they'll pay me if I eat a bag of dog poop, but I could certainly turn them down if I feel that "No, eating dog poop isn't worth $20". Similarly, a game designer focused on SP gameplay might simply shrug and neglect MP gameplay if it's not what they care about, even if they could make more money in the process, or make a game that's perceived as "better" by the fanbase.

As such, I do think people tend to go overboard with expecting other people to fulfill their own personal desires, but given that I've seen it be part of human nature of the past 40 years, I have a feeling it isn't going to change anytime soon. X3 But those people who sit around getting frustrated that other people aren't listening to them and giving them what they want, are just setting themselves up for their own disappointment.
 
What I find really weird is that people actually have a name for attempting to play well in Civ. They actually call this min-maxing or playing optimally. This boggles my mind. In any other game you are simply playing. If you suck they call it sucking. If you play well they say you're playing well. There is no distinguishing between attempting to play well and not because it is assumed that you want to play well but suck because you're bad. Not because you actually want to suck, that's an absurd notion unless you're playing against a child or something.

The closest I have ever seen to this notion is experimental play or screwing around. In civ they call purposefully playing horrible "role-playing". This is something I have never encountered before. I had no idea that there was a massive number of people who actually want to be bad at the game. It's a very foreign notion to me.
 
@bouncymischa

You're being overly cynical if you view the requests, commentary, and brain-storming of the community as disrespecting the artist.

Personally I say what I like, what I'd like, and what I don't like because I'm a fan of the game, and I'd like to see it improved.

Obviously my views on how to do that are colored by my perspective, but at its heart I think that it what most fan discussions of games are.

And while an artist shouldn't fully abandon their vision, its wise to at least know some of what honest fans are saying - sometimes we all get too close to something we love to see its flaws or its potential.
________________________________

@CraigMak

Think of it with these archetypes: you are a Spike gamer in Civ who chiefly cares about winning above all else, some are Timmy gamers who care more about doing what they think is fun rather than focusing on winning, and some are Johnnies who want to win their way rather than what may be the optimal way.
 
What I find really weird is that people actually have a name for attempting to play well in Civ. They actually call this min-maxing.
Min-Maxing has been used for ages and was certainly not coined by the Civ 5 Community, nor does it mean what you're claiming.
 
Good thing I never expressed such a sentiment.

You did. You asked with incredulity how a turn-based 4X is supposed to be MP-focused. Nothing about those two descriptors detracts from player v player, and the strategy genre of course intrinsically arouses competition interest.

It is wholly conceivable a 4X game could be built exclusively for MP, and so be extension, it is reasonable a 4X game could be built with MP in mind plus other things, and it would be suspect for a 4X game to give up MP merely for other modes of consumption without an extraneous cause. More relevantly, the idea a MP-er could see a game built to be MP in the template at hand, follows simply from its ability to be MP at all; so, when you denied the extreme, you challenged the existence of any claim to the genre from that group, following the contrapositive.

You need that explained? For a game called "Civilization"?

This does not grammatically make sense to me. I asked what the feeling is you are referring to , which you claim the game gives you.
I intend to propose that the Civ games are an inefficient vehicle for that feeling or experience, or lead you by argument into valuing a smarter AI, and of the type that plays the game.


Galgus, we agree on ends... I think. So, where MP/SP (that is, accommodation of multiple players vs. a personal crafted experience) trades off with the tuning of the game's mechanics (techs, pacing, etc.) - which, to be clear, happens just when the fact "AI and game" ("game+AI") become entangled as such in designing and tuning the play of those mechanics - you would say the personally crafted experience is primary. That there will be a point where , if you needed to take the step in game-balancing which would make it balanced in symmetry (MP), then the fact that the personally-situated experience would then only receive the consequence of the resulting game+what-the-AI-can-make-of-that, means this decision is a split tradeoff for the SP experience against the symmetric design.

If that's right, please examine the following question for your consideration. If you look at AI as environment, then one is designing AI+game as the whole experience. Then will it not be AI+game which has the failing of single-optimal-path or not? Won't it be AI+game which fails to have potentially multiple viable paths to victory, or succeeds? The AI+game being duality makes it harder to grasp and carry around, but it affords in possibility the extreme morphing of one part to accomplish a given end when the other must be guided by a separate hand. With great vision, the AI could supply what SP-ers want, while the game itself is consumed by MP-ers as they require.

That's my offer to someone wanting "MP-primacy and that's that." if this is about developer resources effectively making two games, then well I wished for a 4X with as good an artistic merit as Civ to be made for the MP-ers by somebody, if not the originators who stick to their SP vision and base.

My actual position remains somewhere on the flavour of doubting that the SP-ers, excepting the ones playing for the turn times, could be playing for some motivation which would not be immeasurably accelerated by taking their enjoyment into a community of Humans who make up the rest of the world with them. For that it has to be balanced, or clearly not balanced without claiming to be so. And then I would want the game to be slanted with the turntimers on the margins, who can pick up the environment (game) as however, and their experience is just in the craft of the AI, which is now specialized to one demographic. The AI that roleplays is just another mode to hunt optimality against for the one group, and affords the roleplay experience for people to enjoy on its own merits, yes, but is a simulation of a player, which a Human actually -is-.


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Cars are tools, though. They're not art. Even if someone makes a car to be beautiful, unless he also tells me "This car actually doesn't have an engine", they're not the same 'creative' endeavour.
The literature entitlement is an example of the same phenomenon, but it is unacceptable there. Writing, art, music, film - the creator wants to make what he wants to make, yup. I suppose... games are co-created. Except for kinetic visual novels (which are HORRIBLY named, they're comic e-books for god sakes) the designer makes a potential experience, but the player makes the actual experience. The writer is sort of showing you himself, or the world, and with image instead of scientific description... you then take that or leave it as you will. Interpret through your own lens, but the writer is done with this process. A 'game' is by definition your participation, you both make the game real. Potential and actual - and then, aren't games essentially pluralistic?

edit: crap, this might be off-topic for a while.
 
@Horseshoe_Hermi seems like you're trying to pick a fight by strawmanning my argument, which is that the SP experience should be at least as important as the MP. If you can quote where I said "the MP community shouldn't receive any attention," I'll eat my words. Otherwise, I think I'll have to pass on any flame war you seem to be trying to goad me into.

What I find really weird is that people actually have a name for attempting to play well in Civ. They actually call this min-maxing or playing optimally. This boggles my mind. In any other game you are simply playing. If you suck they call it sucking.

Why does it confuse you? Games are different. You don't play an FPS, MMO, RTS, MOBA or 4x the same way. And in a game like Civ, did it ever occur to you that people might play it for different reasons?

For me, winning isn't anything special. It just isn't. My favorite part is actually exploring and expanding, fending off invaders and trying to rack up some early wonders. I'm actually a little bummed when it's all over because that means a new game is the only way to continue playing and the empire I spent so much time building is now just reduced to a set of statistics.

I like admiring the world I helped shape. I like seeing my workers laboring away, my armies garrisoning my cities and my ships protecting my trade routes. Being turn-based I have even more time to just sit back and enjoy the view.

Why would it confuse you that some people don't put the victory conditions as their top priority? Especially when it's just an automated card with art and some stats. In MP I understand the competitive aspect. But in SP, I'm mostly just roleplaying.
 
@Horseshoe_Hermi

I fully agree that the game needs to have a healthy number of viable optimal paths - that is good for SP and MP, but especially for MP.

Many desirable traits are like that in benefiting both styles, but sometimes there are trade-offs with interesting and immersive mechanics that may throw off balance.

The AI is in the hard position of needing to feel immersive while playing well - which, to do both at once, requires that all or at least many reasonable immersive paths are viable for victory.

So the ideal of Civ balance is designing mechanics so that roleplaying in multiple forms is not in conflict with choosing an optimal path.

In other words, making reasonable roleplay paths optimal paths and balancing them well.

In that ideal, humans and AIs playing optimally to win would be fairly indistinguishable from roleplayers barring some paths, such as a player refusing to adapt their strategy to a new situation.
 
@Horseshoe_Hermi seems like you're trying to pick a fight by strawmanning my argument, which is that the SP experience should be at least as important as the MP. If you can quote where I said "the MP community shouldn't receive any attention," I'll eat my words. Otherwise, I think I'll have to pass on any flame war you seem to be trying to goad me into.



Why does it confuse you? Games are different. You don't play an FPS, MMO, RTS, MOBA or 4x the same way. And in a game like Civ, did it ever occur to you that people might play it for different reasons?

For me, winning isn't anything special. It just isn't. My favorite part is actually exploring and expanding, fending off invaders and trying to rack up some early wonders. I'm actually a little bummed when it's all over because that means a new game is the only way to continue playing and the empire I spent so much time building is now just reduced to a set of statistics.

I like admiring the world I helped shape. I like seeing my workers laboring away, my armies garrisoning my cities and my ships protecting my trade routes. Being turn-based I have even more time to just sit back and enjoy the view.

Why would it confuse you that some people don't put the victory conditions as their top priority? Especially when it's just an automated card with art and some stats. In MP I understand the competitive aspect. But in SP, I'm mostly just roleplaying.

To me Civ has always been a strategy game. In a strategy game the objective is to understand game mechanics and improve your strategies accordingly. The idea of using Civ as some sort of RPG, BOFFING simulator never crossed my mind.

In fact the idea of not playing your best at ANYTHING never crossed my mind. It just seems strange. I don't want to be perpetually horrible. That seems like a complete waste of time to me. But stuff like minecraft does not appeal to me in the slightest either. That seems like a complete and absolute waste of time as well.

Really, If I wanted to play something that allows me to create and not worry about strategy and improvement I would be playing a SIM game like simcity, sim earth sim whatever. Those are far better suited for such an endeavor. Although they also have a skill level which can be improved as well so I would still probably try to make the most badass city, earth, railroad etc.. possible.
 
That seems like a complete and absolute waste of time as well.
It's not a waste of time when you're having fun, otherwise playing games competitively is just as much of a waste of time.

Also, I get why you guys want the AI to improve as that would make SP and MP games more interesting. But really? Telling people that they should stop playing Civ and play Sim games instead because they are enjoying Civ games in a different way than you?

Why is it so hard to accept that different people enjoy things for different reason and that everybody's fun is just as valid? :confused:
 
Really, If I wanted to play something that allows me to create and not worry about strategy and improvement I would be playing a SIM game like simcity, sim earth sim whatever.

Those games don't let me raise armies and march on the ones who slight me.

Anyway, saying people should play other games instead of Civ would be like me telling you to play grand strategy instead of Civ, since many would consider Civ casual as hell by comparison.

I fail to see how it affects you either way. I don't play MP and I don't plan to play it. As Tirian said, if you're having fun it's hardly a waste of time.

I'm sticking with SP which has exactly zero impact on you one way or the other
 
I'm just voicing a general opinion. Different strokes for different folks. If everyone wanted and liked the same things this would be a very boring world.

The only way it really does affect me is that it detracts from possible players in the MP player pool. That and the forum gets spammed with nonsense by people who don't actually know anything about the game since they don't try to know anything about the game but some how still have opinions on important game mechanics and strategies.
 
That's a cop-out argument, really. If you meant that all along, you wouldn't have continued to single out "Single Player" gamers. You're not meant to deliberately incite with pointed remarks just to reduce the boredom in the world.

Every forum is spammed by nonsense. Just because you disagree with something, doesn't automatically make it nonsense. You don't need to be the best player in the world to know about the game. In order to debate with those who are the best in the world? Sure, that'd help. But as you've said they / you rarely post on here, so that's a redundant argument.

But it in no way automatically vetoes their opinions and insight just because they're not a competitive MP player. I play mainly SP, simply for time reasons. I also don't know as much as I could about the game.

That said, I wouldn't want to be in the MP community if that's the treatment people generally receive.
 
@Horseshoe_Hermi seems like you're trying to pick a fight by strawmanning my argument, which is that the SP experience should be at least as important as the MP. If you can quote where I said "the MP community shouldn't receive any attention," I'll eat my words. Otherwise, I think I'll have to pass on any flame war you seem to be trying to goad me into.

The hostility is in you. I am sorry that I could not ask you about sculpture in some way that did not seem diminutive, but as far as I can tell that is language's fault. If it is my command of language, I apologise again.

I was not grappling with your argument, I was telling you the implications of what you said, which possibly you weren't aware of. I wasn't trying to represent your argument (its basis), I was representing its forward-derivations, and turning your attention toward where sentences such as yours come from.

Unfortunately, the mods for the forum have been clear that , with certain natures of post being proscribed, I cannot proceed with this conversation where honesty would lead me, so I must tell you with an apology that it is now over.


Gorb, the 'nonsense' is a player coming on and saying something is good in the game when it is not good. C'mon. If someone likes making Thorium Reactors in XYZ situation, that's all well and good, but claiming that it is good in XYZ situation is a question of fact, and it is resolved via the norms of CraigMak's world. CraigMak is, I think understandably, offended by the lacking standards of truth used by people who step into the arena of describing what is good (strategically) in the game.
That is how you meant with ending the sentence with "some how still have opinions on important game mechanics and strategies." right CraigMak?

And it's not being right or wrong as such, it's about evidence. Someone saying something wrong with good reason for saying so - a critical test - is pulling his weight at the 'forefront of knowledge,' to invoke DeGrasse Tyson. False statements, and poor evidential methods, just flying around unchecked, is garbage.
I deal with disgust at that by shutting off from that part of the forum. Someone could be vocally offended because he is more attached to it than me and wants that place to be better.
 
Ah FFS what the hell is wrong with this forum lately? Correction, what the hell is wrong with this forum? 3, goddamn 3 threads about BERT, I subscribed to to periodically possibly read about news on BERT etc., caused me to think "screw it" and unsubscribe, after reading ridiculous boring walls of texts for a few days, on basically some kind of prick length contest. Bah.
 
That's a cop-out argument, really. If you meant that all along, you wouldn't have continued to single out "Single Player" gamers. You're not meant to deliberately incite with pointed remarks just to reduce the boredom in the world.

Every forum is spammed by nonsense. Just because you disagree with something, doesn't automatically make it nonsense. You don't need to be the best player in the world to know about the game. In order to debate with those who are the best in the world? Sure, that'd help. But as you've said they / you rarely post on here, so that's a redundant argument.

But it in no way automatically vetoes their opinions and insight just because they're not a competitive MP player. I play mainly SP, simply for time reasons. I also don't know as much as I could about the game.

That said, I wouldn't want to be in the MP community if that's the treatment people generally receive.

I'm not sure what it is that you expect from me. I have voiced my opinion and provided the perspective of the MP community. There's not much else to say from there. If you have read it and digested it then that's about it.

Nothing that I say is going to make a SP role players say, "Hey, I think I want to start playing competitively today." and nothing they say is going to ever make me think that playing SP is fun and exciting. To continue further with the discussion on the same topic would be fruitless.

In regard to your other statement, I am sorry but not all opinions were created equally. That's why we have scientists, doctors and politicians. Their opinions matter far more than the average Joe in their field. This should be true of civ. The opinion of a successful player who can beat other clever humans should carry much more weight than that of some role player who has not even invested any time or effort into attempting to understand the game. It's a matter of experience and self education. The guy with 6000 hours in MP is far more likely to have the correct information than the guy with 100 hours in SP.

I am not sure what kind of mis-treatment you are referring to. All I did was voice my opinion on some subjects which came up. I did not deliver an personal attacks nor did I insult anyone directly. I just stated my opinions which you may obviously disagree with.

In my experience everyone on MP BE are pretty chill. So far more chill and less trolls than Civ 5.
 
The hostility is in you. I am sorry that I could not ask you about sculpture in some way that did not seem diminutive, but as far as I can tell that is language's fault. If it is my command of language, I apologise again.

I was not grappling with your argument, I was telling you the implications of what you said, which possibly you weren't aware of. I wasn't trying to represent your argument (its basis), I was representing its forward-derivations, and turning your attention toward where sentences such as yours come from.

Unfortunately, the mods for the forum have been clear that , with certain natures of post being proscribed, I cannot proceed with this conversation where honesty would lead me, so I must tell you with an apology that it is now over.


Gorb, the 'nonsense' is a player coming on and saying something is good in the game when it is not good. C'mon. If someone likes making Thorium Reactors in XYZ situation, that's all well and good, but claiming that it is good in XYZ situation is a question of fact, and it is resolved via the norms of CraigMak's world. CraigMak is, I think understandably, offended by the lacking standards of truth used by people who step into the arena of describing what is good (strategically) in the game.
That is how you meant with ending the sentence with "some how still have opinions on important game mechanics and strategies." right CraigMak?

And it's not being right or wrong as such, it's about evidence. Someone saying something wrong with good reason for saying so - a critical test - is pulling his weight at the 'forefront of knowledge,' to invoke DeGrasse Tyson. False statements, and poor evidential methods, just flying around unchecked, is garbage.
I deal with disgust at that by shutting off from that part of the forum. Someone could be vocally offended because he is more attached to it than me and wants that place to be better.

Yeah that pretty much sums it up. People voice opinions on strategies and game mechanics which are not based on any evidence. They are just flying by the seat of their pants opinions and they use them to argue with players who have 1000's of hours of experience.

I am fine with being wrong, when i am that means I have learned something new. On this forum it's pretty rare because so many people are straight up dead wrong on here. If I get corrected about something it's usually from only one or two other people I know of who have skill and experience which is up to par.

Although occasionally there are constructive posts on here. Those usually include numbers and discussions on actual game code so they can't be argued with.
 
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