Question on terrain and resources

[PaperBeetle]

The game also does not come with pencil and paper. Is it cheating to make notes for myself as I play?

The view of reloading as cheating is not one the developers have ever espoused, to my knowledge. As you say, they even include options for it; not just the map seed, but the option of whether to save the RNG seed.
No, reloading-as-cheating is part of the culture of competitive play. And I think it is obvious why competitions like GOTM and HOF must disallow reloading. Further, if we wish to be able to debate strategy sensibly, I think we should leave reloading out of the discussion, otherwise the human player could choose to get a military leader with every battle fought (every battle is a guaranteed win, of course), would get a SGL with every unique tech researched, etc.

 

[CommandoBob]

Well now...

However, The Game does not come with either Civ assist or MapStats. These are 'tools' created by players to make their life 'easier'. These are what are referred to as 'cheats' as they are not part of the 'package'.

Here endeth the 'sermon'.

Hmm....

The game also did not come with a CivFanticsForum. Is this site also a 'cheat'?

 

[Buttercup]

The game also does not come with pencil and paper. Is it cheating to make notes for myself as I play?

This is true! However, how do you guys know what type of government an AI tech is in and how do you know what tech they are currently at? Aren't these two things normally hidden from the human player? Or am I unaware of an F-key that tells you?

No, reloading-as-cheating is part of the culture of competitive play. And I think it is obvious why competitions like GOTM and HOF must disallow reloading. Further, if we wish to be able to debate strategy sensibly, I think we should leave reloading out of the discussion, otherwise the human player could choose to get a military leader with every battle fought (every battle is a guaranteed win, of course), would get a SGL with every unique tech researched, etc.

This would be house rules for a specific event though, not general guidance on what's acceptable play. And yes, I suppose one could re-load a game to death for the best result possible - however, I did try this once with a half-dead army, and it did die on every single re-load, so I'm not sure it counts for all occasions. I suspect re-loading for Armies would take so long the person doing it would soon get bored of playing the game. There would probably be one or two who like that kind of thing though.

Hmm....

The game also did not come with a CivFanticsForum. Is this site also a 'cheat'?

why yes, it's the best cheat available!

 

[scratchthepitch]

The game also does not come with pencil and paper. Is it cheating to make notes for myself as I play?

Yes. Have you noticed that some people who did that USED to post on this site and have since disappeared? Included in the Civ series software is a hidden program few have found out about. Till it's too late. This is anti-cheating software at it's most sophisticated. And deadliest. Those missing people? They found out the hard way what happens when you try to outsmart the Civ AI through nefarious means. You may have gotten away with it up to now, but Firaxis is watching you, and will strike when you least expect it.

 

[Spoonwood]

Further, if we wish to be able to debate strategy sensibly, I think we should leave reloading out of the discussion, otherwise the human player could choose to get a military leader with every battle fought (every battle is a guaranteed win, of course), would get a SGL with every unique tech researched, etc.

Hmmm... I could nitpick here, but your point in general holds true.

 

[CommandoBob]

However, how do you guys know what type of government an AI tech is in and how do you know what tech they are currently at? Aren't these two things normally hidden from the human player? Or am I unaware of an F-key that tells you?

F3, the military advisor, will let you know which civ is which government type. And how your strength is rated compared to that civ.

F4, the trade advisor, will show you what techs are available to trade with each civ when you talk to them. It will also show what luxuries and resources are available to trade with that civ. It will show how many of each resource are available to trade. If you see something like Wines (0) that means they have Wines connected but not available to trade. Usually this is because they have only one source of Wines and it is being used by them.

 

[CKS]

Hmm....

The game also did not come with a CivFanticsForum. Is this site also a 'cheat'?

Actually, mine did. The first time I got a leader, I couldn't figure out how to make it do anything (I was trying to get my elite* unit to do it, rather than the leader unit, which I hadn't seen yet), and I found nothing in the manual of any help, except a reference to the civfanatics website. That proved to be enormously helpful.

This is true! However, how do you guys know what type of government an AI tech is in and how do you know what tech they are currently at? Aren't these two things normally hidden from the human player? Or am I unaware of an F-key that tells you?

The military adviser tells you the government an AI is in. The only way to know where an AI is in the tech tree when they are far ahead is by paying attention to the wonders they start and the units they build. Neither MapStat nor CivAssist tells you anything about their tech level beyond what you can see in the diplomacy screens.

However, The Game does not come with either Civ assist or MapStats. These are 'tools' created by players to make their life 'easier'. These are what are referred to as 'cheats' as they are not part of the 'package'.

Most of us call them "utilities". MapStat saves me from having to check in with each leader every turn to see if they have something I want (very useful, especially when there are more leaders than spaces in the F4 screen), but it doesn't give me any information beyond what I could get myself. Even the culture totals of the AI it gets from counting pixels in the culture score screen. It doesn't tell me what to do. It can't even keep my cities from rioting, because I get wrapped up in what I'm doing and forget to fix my unhappy towns.

I know that at RBCiv they ran at least some competitions where these utilities were banned, though, so you are not alone in feeling that they are too big a help. In non-competitive play, though, you can play as you like. Using utilities or reloading or cherry-picking starts isn't cheating in a single-player game played for your enjoyment, so people should do what they like (and let others do the same).

 

[Buttercup]

Ah, so civ assist just helps with the complicated math such as calculating whether one direction is better than another so one doesn't have to get a calculator out one's self and do the math, for example. F-keys, wow, I've played for so long and never even knew they existed! This site is like the Apple of Knowledge - once you know stuff, your game experience changes forever!

 

[CommandoBob]

Both MapStat and CivAssistII will run the numbers for such things as flip risk of a city (which is sorta messy) and how many units are needed to make that flip risk 0.000%and keep track of how many tiles are needed for a Domination victory. Sorta handy.

If you have vanilla or PTW, both tools allow you to expirement with differing RCP numbers. That is not needed in Conquests due to a reformulating of the corruption calculation.