Nobles' Club: what map options to use by default?

Which of the following best matches how you think Nobles' Club maps should be set up?

  • Huts/events on (as now).

    Votes: 22 25.9%
  • No huts ever, events off.

    Votes: 27 31.8%
  • No huts ever, events off, and discourage people from turning events back on.

    Votes: 23 27.1%
  • Huts on, events off.

    Votes: 8 9.4%
  • No huts ever, events on by default.

    Votes: 5 5.9%

  • Total voters
    85
  • Poll closed .

dalamb

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Recently a few people flamed me saying no map series should ever have huts or events. Here's a poll to see what people think. Please only vote if there's a moderate chance you'd actually play the NC series, but feel free to comment regardless.

Bear in mind that "huts on" also means no-huts saves would be available somehow -- either with instructions for how to delete them, or with some nice person like Capellan posting them. The last two poll options are there only for completeness; I haven't heard anyone ask for them yet.

Paraphrases of arguments heard on both sides:
  1. Events and huts make games non-comparable, so should never be turned on in a map series.
  2. NC games aren't comparable anyway just because people can select different difficulty levels.
  3. Some people like huts and events, and the series isn't a competition, so it should be OK for people to play that way.
  4. You can easily turn off events in Custom Scenario, so it's OK to have them on by default.
  5. Events should be off by default; the people who should have to go to extra effort are the ones who want events.
  6. If anybody wants to play with huts, they have to be in the WB save, since you can't turn them back on like you can with events. There are instructions for deleting huts by editing the save file (and lately, Capellan has been providing no-hut saves).
 
Huts and events off please. Based on argument #1. After what TMIT posted about the Bermuda Triangle event, I will play with events off except in mods like FfHII where they make sense. For a casual game, I like huts, but for these tutorial games random factors should be minimized.

If people want to have disasterous events in their game, they can use custom scenario to turn them back on.
 
When you are trying to help people move up difficulty levels you really shouldn't have things that add a lot of random chance and fake difficulty.
 
about the map thing.
non spoiled should be map settings you would select if playing a "play now"
including rules changes
extra things you edited and strange edits, surprises and flavour should be spoiled of course.

I play most of my games with both on.
but for a game that is shared by people, I would prefer it both off.
another factor is that as people go up, they will play public games that have this as a regular setting.

as to difficulty, it can go both ways with huts, but noble up+ , the huts help AI more.
as fore events, some can be drastic (religion spread etc., other are annoing)
slavery event actually balances the game, but to far lesser extent that is necessary, but most events are just meaning less.

eventually the skill just means trying the luck on "bet" events, and surving the "bad" events with paying nothing

as for quest, they are fun.
but for all these things, I don´t like the random aspect.
someone should make a mod where selected events are triggered, and not random. (ie build 10 colloseums = get quest to build another 10)


in time , this stuff just becomes annoying and repetitive, although sometimes its fun.
 
Events are complete trash. Crap like your improvements constantly being burned down so early on is just not fair, and I wouldn't even mind that except some events can do massive damage; and hits to diplomacy ones are especially unfair. Or how about the instantly stop war/declare war one? I'm not sure why they decided events that do damage could appear so early on, when they hurt the most.

Huts are cool, but are too random. On Noble, you get 2 free wins vs barbs, so they actively make the game easier as you can pop the huts with pretty much minimal risk. Popping a hostile hut is actually just free experience.

However, it's not really that hard to set up a no hut/events game, so I really could care less. The only thing you need to add is how to turn off events.
 
Events on/off is totally under user control when using WB saves, so who cares? If you don't like events, just select "custom scenario" and turn them off. I'd like to see 2 sets of saves: one with huts on, the other with huts off. People should be free to play the game the way they like.
 
When you are trying to help people move up difficulty levels you really shouldn't have things that add a lot of random chance and fake difficulty.

Agreed. Huts and events should be off by default, and the standard text should explain how to turn them back on.
 
Much though I prefer to play with no huts or events (and voted for that option), you can't "turn huts back on" if you originally create the scenario without them.

Optimally, there should be two saves for each difficulty; one with huts and one without. But if only one save for each difficulty is to be provided, it should include huts. You can take 'em out easily enough, but you can't put 'em in.

I'm happy enough to keep providing "no huts" saves - it's literally only a minute or two of work.
 
I enjoy huts and events, but for comparison which is a big part of NC, I voted for no huts/events plus discouragement.
 
I used to enjoy them, and I'm ok with huts but you nearly always get gold which gives you a cushion to get some extra research and stuff. I thought to myself "lets play without that cushion" and haven't had them on ever since.
Events can just be frustrating. Its funny on TMITs vids, he often says "more random event nonsense" which is just what it is. The slavery event is about the only one that has some balancing effect, I feel.

Anyone is entitled to play in their own way, but I chose to say discourage events for the NC series because its better to learn without these additions, and causes unneccesary aggro and shortens ones life span :D. For example, many new players don't have enough workers. Now if you say "build more" and things get destroyed, it'll confuse things a little i.e.
1. You won't see the difference of building more workers and how it benefits you
2. OR you compensate by having an obscene amount of workers, just messing up the game especially in the early stages.

just as an example, it just gives a bit of an unclear edge to a strategy game

Agreed. Huts and events should be off by default, and the standard text should explain how to turn them back on.
You can't put on/take out huts from the custom screen though, can you? Its part of the WB file, so if you want them off you have to delete them, but you can't insert/remove them at will (randomly distributed)
 
I don't know where to stand on the huts side of things.
On one hand having huts off puts more emphasis on proper scouting/spawnbusting and makes the early tech situations more skill-based (cheesy gold/gems start notwithstanding). On the other hand huts can help the AI almost as much as the player and they present a very tasty distraction that tests your discipline.
I'm gravitating towards no huts, but I don't feel that strongly about it.

On the events side of things I am much more certain.
Events are BAD. You don't really learn anything from having your diplomacy game screwed up by some random event. Neither do you learn all that much from having victory handed to you on a silver platter by some lucky easy quest.
I suppose barbarian uprisings make an interesting lesson in early defense, but again they might as well happen to your rivals handing the game to you. I'd rather you make a raging barbs special episode for that though.

Events being enabled is the main reason I have not participated in the NC series. Turn that stuff off already.
 
One thing that's clear from this thread: whatever the decision, the NC intro spiel needs to explain how to turn events on or off, because it seems a lot of people don't know how.

Also, as noted in the Suleiman thread, there should probably be warning to Monarch+ players to use worldbuilder to add archery in for the barbarians.

Something like:

For players on Monarch or above, you should add archery as a tech for the barbarians (if you don't, the AI will capture bard cities very early). This cannot be done in the save file and must be done in Worldbuilder, as follows:
1. Zoom in all the way so you can't see the rest of the map.
2. Go to the menu, enter worldbuilder.
4. Select "player" mode on the right. When you select it, you'll get a drop down. Barbarians are at the bottom, so cover the res of the list with your hand if you don't want to see who else is on the map. Select barbarians.
3. Select "Technologies" tab in the box on the left.
5. Find archery (arrow head icon) and click it.
6. Exit worldbuilder.
7. Zoom out again after the map fades, and start playing.

Hopefully you avoided looking at the minimap while you were doing all this :)
 
I agree that any game where multiple people use a map should have huts and events turned off. I think that events are actually really balancing - they raise the potential risks of slavery and a pure farmers gambit - which are good.

But I think that if you are trying to compare or even learn, you cannot have things that may be hugely different between games (like popping currency or metal casting - or 4 barb warriors next to your exploring warrior)
 
What kind of worldbuilder save will mean the least work for Dalamb? "No Events" can be toggled on and off through the Custom Scenario part of the menu, but huts have to be part of initial map generation: they will not retroactively appear if the "No Huts" option is toggled off through Custom Scenario. [Remember, I voted for No Huts, No Events, so I'd be happy with Worldbuilder saves with those options already in effect, but I can see from the poll that a number of people would like the option to play with either or both options. However, there is no point in giving Dalamb so much extra work he burns out on the game hosting.]
 
@dalamb
I don't think you can add archery to the barbs for us - there's nothing in the WB save that defines barb techs. So if you add the tech for them, then create a WB save, then quit and play the WB save as a scenario, you'll probably find when you look in WB again that they've lost the tech.

Be nice if I was wrong about this, though :)

@A_Hamster
I'd expect the least effort would be to create the WB saves with the huts in. dalamb already creates 4 separate saves for different levels (either by editing the XML or by adding techs and units in WB I guess?) - we definitely don't want to be asking him to make even more variations!
 
I forget what I voted. Honestly, I really don't care. I enjoy the series and I appreciate the time you put into it. I usually start most games but don't have the time to finish, still less to post.

I just wanna say thank you for taking the time to give this to us!
 
The way I interpreted the "archery for barbs" thing is that I'd need to provide save files for monarch+ instead of scenario files (or, in addition to) in order for the barbs to have the "right" techs. That might not so much extra effort; most of the work so far is making the noble level map and doing the writeup. I could try it for NC 71 (Churchill) and decide if it's too much effort. Another concern is how much file space it takes up; the .zip files need to stick around forever, so I'm reluctant to get in the habit of significantly increasing the size of the initial attachments.

I wonder if it's simpler just to always add barbs as a "minor nation", though -- that way they'd be an n+1st opponent in every game, but they'd have whatever techs we decide barbs ought to have (TMIT votes for Theology ;))
 
Minor nations are fun to play with, but carry some significant problems:

1. They are war opponents for everyone, affecting AI behavior
2. AI can be bribed out of war vs them (abusable)
3. They don't spawn like barbs. They spawn like a faction, such that only civs near them would ever have them function as "barbs"

That said, it makes he happy that some still remember the shenanigans I pulled as a NC host on occasion :p. "Super barb has founded christianity" on like turn 5-10 with "choose religions" off certainly had an interesting impact on player morale :p. That game wound up being easier than average though, and I designed it as such.

I haven't made maps like that in a while, interest never seemed high enough to merit it. Even PYL was short in participation sadly. I'd really like to run a "same start" series where people can choose their starting leader, but the only way that wouldn't be heavily burdensome would be to have the end players switch their civ in the game themselves.
 
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