PolyCast Episode 74: "The Power of Fact Period"

[DanQ]

Giving an old word a new spin. The seventy-fourth episode of PolyCast is now netcasting. "The Power of Fact Period" features regular co-hosts Daniel "DanQ" Quick, Makahlua and Imran Sidiqui with returning guest co-hosts Bruce "Beta" Hynes, Bruce "Grandpa Troll" Cronkite and first-time guest co-host Scott "AlphaShard".

The summary of topics is as follows:

- 02m05s | Forum Talk
Civilization helping your career, is the Universal Suffrage civic in CivIV overpowered, the argument for the most important technology being flight, should nuclear weapons be more expensive, and all about in-game logs: Chat, Combat, Events and Quests.
- 23m03s | Research Lab
Incorporating unit facing into combat, capturing equipment from the enemy, and likely just a first visit to consider a whole new world that would be Civilization V.

- Intro/Outro | Miscellaneous
Forgetting to introduce someone, observation of an event cancellation, and not hearing whom others are hearing.

PolyCast is a bi-weekly audio production in an ongoing effort to give the Civ community an interactive voice on game strategy. A nominee in the "Best Produced" and "Gaming" categories of the 2008 Podcast Awards, sibling show ModCast focuses on Civ modding and RevCast focuses on Civilization: Revolution.

As always, enjoy.

 

[Rusty Edge]

"Ma- Oh God, No!".....


Gotta love a big entrance..

 

[DanQ]

"Ma- Oh God, No!".....


Gotta love a big entrance..

The exchange reminds me of part of the lyrics to "Tongue Tied" by Faber Drive...

 

[Rusty Edge]

Technically speaking- some times I listen to the stream link, sometimes I do the dial-up bit, and rarely the feed player. I discovered that the sound quality issues I had last episode were minimal on the feed player version.

As for this episode, The feed player version seems to cut off before the last segment and the outtakes. Is this just me?

Personally, I think the most important tech is The Wheel, because I find roads handy for connecting resources, defending territory, getting my troops to the front before they become obsolete, etc. Without the wheel, city specialization might take on a whole new meaning- which special resource your city is built upon. Since I often gift beef or something as a diplo tool, no roads could cramp my style there as well. Even if forts could take their place ( I forget , I mostly build forts as canals ) it would be rather inefficient and slow.

 

[DanQ]

Technically speaking- some times I listen to the stream link, sometimes I do the dial-up bit, and rarely the feed player. I discovered that the sound quality issues I had last episode were minimal on the feed player version.

As for this episode, The feed player version seems to cut off before the last segment and the outtakes. Is this just me?

The feed player streams the standard quality version, which is available for direct downloaded by clicking on the episode title. Is the version I recommend the most -- try it and see if you are experiencing the same difficulty. I have experienced none with any of the versions in testing.

Personally, I think the most important tech is The Wheel, because I find roads handy for connecting resources, defending territory, getting my troops to the front before they become obsolete, etc. Without the wheel, city specialization might take on a whole new meaning- which special resource your city is built upon. Since I often gift beef or something as a diplo tool, no roads could cramp my style there as well. Even if forts could take their place ( I forget , I mostly build forts as canals ) it would be rather inefficient and slow.

A very good argument -- in hindsight I wish we had given it some due in the discussion. I still wouldn't put it at the very top of my list for without the technologies to reveal (strategic) resources, it wouldn't be able to connect any. Though far from guaranteed, resources could also be connected by rivers if/where available. At the same time, its ability to better move units across the map cannot be denied in any situation (even islands ) and is also a prerequisite for Pottery, permitting the ability to both build Granaries and put down cottages.

As such, a very important technology -- in my personal top five to be sure.

 

[AlphaShard]

I would say that most of the ancient Techs are critical, you can't grow Commerce without Pottery and weak Pop growth without Farming. Roads are necessity. Playing on multiplayer I was surprised to see that some techs can be completely skipped.

 

[r_rolo1]

Bah, roads are overrated I've already won games without making even one tile of roads and I'm not the only one....

 

[Rusty Edge]

The feed player streams the standard quality version, which is available for direct downloaded by clicking on the episode title. Is the version I recommend the most -- try it and see if you are experiencing the same difficulty. I have experienced none with any of the versions in testing. .

Tried it again, this time I Civ V discussion before it cut to the Revcast intro ... might be some quirk of my machine and how warm it is at that point... there's a lot of stuff wearing out on it.. ( disk drive , left mousepad key has as much play in it as a teeter-totter and requires multiple fingers to operate, battery is cooked, c drive was replaced this year... ) but I'm waiting until Nov when the Windows 7 machines are out.

A very good argument -- in hindsight I wish we had given it some due in the discussion. I still wouldn't put it at the very top of my list for without the technologies to reveal (strategic) resources, it wouldn't be able to connect any. Though far from guaranteed, resources could also be connected by rivers if/where available. At the same time, its ability to better move units across the map cannot be denied in any situation (even islands ) and is also a prerequisite for Pottery, permitting the ability to both build Granaries and put down cottages.

As such, a very important technology -- in my personal top five to be sure.

It takes a pretty big piece of the tech tree pie, but I'm sure all of the first tier techs do the same.... and no, I'm not going to organize them into groups of techs by foundation, and then organize a blind poll on the general forum and ask Which collection of techs is most important. I'm pretty sure it's more important than flight, but The Snug and Rolo1 are clearly better players than I am. I think Ruff_hi was doing a no-roads succession game also, he's better, too. I think winning without roads or workers is an very impressive feat. Winning without The Wheel would be challenging but I'm sure it's doable in an Inca duel.

 

[AlphaShard]

Inca Dual? So you mean basically a small map with very few civs?

I'm not sure how one can possibly win without Roads. If it was a small map where your not going for massivly large empires then sure.

I think I brought it up in this episode or maybe I didn't, but it really all depends on what kind of game your playing in Civ. If your playing some huge empires game in Marathon I don't think you could do it with out the road system. I mean looking at Rolo's start how does he get the Cow and Corn into the city? Is he playing with NO resources?? To go along further in my point playing Multiplayer game on a small map, the Creative trait seems pretty important. As already in my two games I've had culture boarder problems.

 

[Rusty Edge]

Inca Dual? So you mean basically a small map with very few civs?

I'm not sure how one can possibly win without Roads. If it was a small map where your not going for massivly large empires then sure.

I think I brought it up in this episode or maybe I didn't, but it really all depends on what kind of game your playing in Civ. If your playing some huge empires game in Marathon I don't think you could do it with out the road system. I mean looking at Rolo's start how does he get the Cow and Corn into the city? Is he playing with NO resources?? To go along further in my point playing Multiplayer game on a small map, the Creative trait seems pretty important. As already in my two games I've had culture boarder problems.

It's concievable to me now. It wasn't when I said Wheel is the most important tech. As I was typing I remembered that my only ever diety wins were Huge/Marathon/Arid/ Raging Barbs against 2-4 A.I. competitors ( it sprang out of a discussion of what were the toughest settings. The legion ( yes, I'd log around 1,000 kills) of barbs effectively pillaged my roads faster than I could replace them. It was settle on metal, riverside, and hold out until the barbs ate my competitors. It wasn't a no wheel or no roads game, the only rule was no great wall.

So it dawned on me that the solution to no Wheel is military. That's what I wind up doing when I get frustrated. "When in doubt, take 'em out!"

 

[Grey Fox]

DanQ: It's funny you never mentioned the biggest reason (IMO) why Bronze Working is one of the strongest techs. SLAVERY!

 

[AlphaShard]

To me it sounds like a real challange not to use roads and would require a specific kind of map and set up. That doesn't sound over-rated to me at all, reading Rolo's thread it also stats no workers. I just can't concieve how you would win against AI when they will be using the units that use Copper, Iron, Ivory, etc.

 

[r_rolo1]

To me it sounds like a real challange not to use roads and would require a specific kind of map and set up. That doesn't sound over-rated to me at all, reading Rolo's thread it also stats no workers. I just can't concieve how you would win against AI when they will be using the units that use Copper, Iron, Ivory, etc.

In fact there was a SG that had a rule that forbid any improvement ( they could use , and used workers.... P.S. : I forgot there was other team playing the same map )... they even gone to the extreme to go to the WB to erase what couldn't be pillaged. The map was not special in any way ,and neither did the map I used in the SG I linked here before ( that I can assure it came directly of the RNG, since it was me that got the map for the game )

About the resources: you can always settle on top of one source of the resource that is by a river or in the coast. But even without that, as most siege units are resourceless, that is not such a big issue as that most of the times.

Well, to cut to the deep, except for cities ( just because I never saw someone trying to win without cities ... maybe it is possible ), for any civ feature that people think that it is essential to win , I can show you a posted game where the player won without it....

 

[AlphaShard]

I through the RR2 thread you had posted earlier and found one game where a person had all sorts of tile improvements from Mines to Cottages, a few pastures and a nice road system. How did all of that get build without Workers?

 

[r_rolo1]

Captured improvements For the roads.... we avoided capturing a barb city in a penisula to the west of us with the hopes that one AI would capture it and make a road through our territory to link it to their land... and so did it happen

 

[Rusty Edge]

Well, to cut to the deep, except for cities ( just because I never saw someone trying to win without cities ... maybe it is possible ), for any civ feature that people think that it is essential to win , I can show you a posted game where the player won without it....

Fascinating! NCC. No City Challenge.

Let's see, no city means no religion, so I'm guessing AP victory is out.

You can't build spaceship parts, so that's off of the table. Teching would be a problem since you can't research anything.

No city = no territory, so domination is out.

Diplomacy would be weird with no borders. I don't think you can have civics without a city. You'd have nothing to trade but gold and the techs you started with, recieved from other nations, and popped from huts. Even so, if you lasted long enough, you might be able to play with no negatives, and if you faced Shaka in the UN, maybe you could get lucky.

No city= no buildings, so culture is out.

I think no city = no score, but maybe you could get points for razig cities, or money in the bank, or having a tech, I simply don't know how score is calculated. Regardless, your score will be pretty low without territory or cities or culture, so to win a time victory I think you'd have to be the only civ left, and when that happens, it's called conquest, whether you wiped every other civ off of the map yourself or you played peacefully and let the barbs do the dirtywork.


I guess that leaves us with UN ( without any votes of your own) and Conquest.

You couldn't build units without a city, you'd have to start with them or pop the from huts. Having somebody gift you units in multi-player would be way cheesy, and I've never seen an A.I. gift units. You couldn't upgrade your warrior to an ax, because you don't have any territory of your own in which to do it, even if you could get copper from another civ.



I have the feeling somebody could do it if enough people set their minds to it. Probably easier on "require complete kills", so you're not burdened with the settler- I guess that unit would be like your chess king. There may be some balance to be found of rushing a neighbor, hiding out in friendly cities from raging barbs and fleeing before you become the default defender.

Thoughts, anyone?

 

[r_rolo1]

You can't gift units to a player outside of their territory, so receiving units would also be impossible

Well, it was pretty much throwing a crazy idea to the air.... one thing I learnt already about the Civ forums is that if someone throws a idea to a variant in the air, someone sooner or later will try it, no matter how crazy it looks

 

[DanQ]

DanQ: It's funny you never mentioned the biggest reason (IMO) why Bronze Working is one of the strongest techs. SLAVERY!

Yes, I forgot to mention that. What's funnier to me still is that no one else on the panel appended that point to my answer.

 

[Rusty Edge]

You can't gift units to a player outside of their territory, so receiving units would also be impossible

That reminds me, you can't pop a tech from a hut until you have a city.

 

[Rusty Edge]

Even though there was spirited disagreement, I didn't hear any words like "Dumb" or "stupid" refering to an idea, or anyone's use of intellect questioned. Therefore, this episode was way better than previous ones lately. Fact.


I've finally accepted the fact that if The Research Lab is to be a regular feature, the ideas and names of various regulars on that forum are unavoidable. That means MosheLevi and his vision of CIV TOTAL WAR, as well as rysmiel and Argentryx who believe that CIV III was the best civ ever, and that we need to reverse the trends of less micromanagement and more tactical elements which CIV IV introduced.

I think the panel did an excellent job of covering the topics in that segment this week ( CIV V thread excepted and accepted as incomplete, as per Maki's notation ).