Random events and huts.

[uat2d]

I think the "break the game" things are not that frequent. And I think civ is a better game when you add the **** happens factor. Just my opinion of course.
Over the course of this discussion I think I now appreciate the other side of this argument a bit more due to the insightful responses from others.

That crap happens factor already happens enough even without events, and it's only acceptable when it can be at least prevented, attenuated or affects everyone equally. I spawned with Shaka, Monty and Toku on my continent and Gandhi, Lincoln and Mansa Musa are on the other one, crap happens, but whatever, this should be interesting! You managed to survive and are unify your continent and are now alone against all three of them on the other side of the ocean, and have 20 turns to raze Timbuktu or you'll lose by Space Race, and 3 turns before he reaches Alpha Centauri, just when your immense navy and army are ready to burn the whole place to the ground, LOL, Bermuda Triangle, say goodbye to a +50 unit stack and your game, crap happens and whoever designed and decided it was a good idea to implement this feature should say that when they were about to be lynched for such horrendous idea.

Imagine if they added an event like "Comet sighted and the peasants are worried - reduced income and some other annoyances" that hurt everyone equally - that would be acceptable because basically you wouldn't be the only one who got screwed over. That would be acceptable and would add another layer of depth to the game, even though it would basically just be there annoying everyone if it fired. Now consider that instead of this, the comet thingie only affected one Civ or that if it was always firing and it got to the point were the game was unplayable - that would be just awful, indeed something that would be best if it wasn't there at all.

The thing with Civ4 events is that they're like this, 90% of the time they can't be predicted, avoided or immersing and act as just annoyances - sure, it's only the 9000th time a careless smoker burned down a theater, give us some more gold so we can rebuild it again and continue to enforce even stricter safety measures, this isn't what I call good gameplay but whatever, and the other 10% just act as you win or lose events that can't as well be planned for, and this is just ridiculous, never should it happen in a strategy game.

"A game that still doesn't work". Say that to my awesome Europe scenario games and tens of hours spent playing and enjoying it. I'd love to see a poll destoying your flawed idea that Civ4 is unfinished and broke, yes because the flawed thing here is not really the game, as i stated before, perfection is perfection, human is human, you'll never get anything perfect about videogames, pros and cons are everywhere, what changes valor of videogames is the ratio about pros/cons.

The thing about Civ4 is that it can be modded and patched to keep pretty much every nuisance away and the modding community right here has made a great job in improving it tremendously, because if you simply take the vanilla game and all the patches, there are still broken features, bad gameplay elements and decisions and overall annoyances that should either be fully reworked or removed, and the game is now out for how long, 3 years since BtS, 7 since Civ4? It obviously will never be fixed now but the truth is that even today there are people out there for example asking on how to disable Global Environment, a feature that they probably came up while on hard drugs or with a schedule that only gave them 10 seconds to think about it before implanting it. Don't tell me this isn't finished and in perfect working condition.

 

[Sojuz]

The thing about Civ4 is that it can be modded and patched to keep pretty much every nuisance away and the modding community right here has made a great job in improving it tremendously, because if you simply take the vanilla game and all the patches, there are still broken features, bad gameplay elements and decisions and overall annoyances that should either be fully reworked or removed, and the game is now out for how long, 3 years since BtS, 7 since Civ4? It obviously will never be fixed now but the truth is that even today there are people out there for example asking on how to disable Global Environment, a feature that they probably came up while on hard drugs or with a schedule that only gave them 10 seconds to think about it before implanting it. Don't tell me this isn't finished and in perfect working condition.

No i didn't say it's perfect, but i'd call it finished, since Firaxis is no more working on it, right? Civ4 Vanilla is still some nice game but there's no chance you'll want to play without BtS.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

100% agree

While I think you paint the events as a bit too dark which I still disagree with, I respect your opinion.

Actually I thought the slave revolt event (which many consider game breaking) was a good one.
Slaving is such a STRONG civic that I believe it should carry a risk to use, and I think the slave revolt is a good possible penalty to offset it's use.

The problem with things like slave revolts is that they don't change the cost-benefit picture enough to actually avoid slavery in almost every case you see in practice. IE slavery is still so good that using slavery with revolt risk > not using it. Therefore, everybody playing sensibly uses it when they need it and whether they pay the price in revolts is random. Functionally it stealth buffs spiritual and doesn't do much more. However, it IS more thought-provoking than the theater burning down. Again.

Strategy games should involve choices with clear tradeoffs, not things that happen with only 1 valid response in the overwhelming majority (or 100% for some events) of cases.

Slave revolts are only game breaking extremely rarely, like when you get 4 or 5 in a really short space and stack lots of anger in the capitol in the earlygame before you can expand (better when also stacked with forest fires). The problem with them so early is that you won't be running binary research before writing (doing so is almost flagrantly stupid) and that it can *severely* cripple early production. However, this threat is so rare (< 1% of games will you see all those revolts so early) that it doesn't change the cost-benefit conclusion of slavery.

There are very few "game breaking" events, and TONS of "trivial and nigh 0 strategy events". The only game breaking ones I can think of off-hand are vedic aryans, random golden ages (extremely powerful and easy to use them), +3 global diplo (SP only), the one that forces a civ to declare war on another civ and feeds the "target" tanks, and bermuda triangle sinking 10000 in ships + transported troops. MAYBE having march on all units too, i'm not sure that one is gamebreaking TBH.

 

[King Pluto]

"A game that still doesn't work". Say that to my awesome Europe scenario games and tens of hours spent playing and enjoying it. I'd love to see a poll destoying your flawed idea that Civ4 is unfinished and broke, yes because the flawed thing here is not really the game, as i stated before, perfection is perfection, human is human, you'll never get anything perfect about videogames, pros and cons are everywhere, what changes valor of videogames is the ratio about pros/cons.

I know people have problems with Civ4 having some ignored issues, but I'm pretty sure he was referring to Civ5, which is the game that is currently marketing an expansion while fundamentally broken.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

I think there is a middle ground. There are many many lower impact events that add color. And listening to my brother whine when he loses a forge for the 2nd or 3rd time makes it all worth it.

They add fake difficulty.

 

[Ambidexter]

They add fake difficulty.

That's what makes the game more interesting for me.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

"A game that still doesn't work". Say that to my awesome Europe scenario games and tens of hours spent playing and enjoying it. I'd love to see a poll destoying your flawed idea that Civ4 is unfinished and broke, yes because the flawed thing here is not really the game, as i stated before, perfection is perfection, human is human, you'll never get anything perfect about videogames, pros and cons are everywhere, what changes valor of videogames is the ratio about pros/cons.

Well then, can you honestly tell me that ALL of the features that were part of the original civ V release currently function as of today, well over 1 year after release, on recommended settings?

You can't do that honestly.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't ask for perfection. I asked that very basic elements common to all games (controls, advertised features, UI) actually function. Civ V fails all 3 of those at once...and while civ IV is better at them, it isn't much so. Civ IV's expansion features are largely swings and misses because the logic that went into their mechanics is incomprehensible:

-Making your faction weaker can make an opponent more willing to capitulate
-AI picks resolutions at random
-Building the AP in minority religion = auto win, even on deity
-Espionage is not well balanced against other options at ALL
-Corporations are actually ok, though again the tradeoffs between options make corp choices obvious.

Rather than "seeking perfection", it might have been nice to check if the buttons listed in the manual do what they claim. Suddenly it's acceptable if they don't? Really? If they fail that basic step it's just because they can't be PERFECT.

The CEO only stole 1000000. At least he didn't steal 10000000000 right? He's not perfect and nobody can be, so it's ok! Maybe all CEOs should steal 1000000 from investors now because they can! They're not PERFECT, after all!

Yes, I'm calling out the "not perfect" defense as that level of rational. In other words, it isn't .

I downloaded karadocs mod recently and will be trying that out. Maybe I'll find that he was willing to do (for free and compared to firaxis, understaffed) what those "professionals" have never managed .

And if your mod did something to help the basic features to work too, then congrats. That doesn't give firaxis a pass or make the base game any better. It means that YOU put effort in and made something that is, to be honest, kind of poor in gameplay 101 into something better. You, not failaxis and their inability to make controls do what they say.

I know people have problems with Civ4 having some ignored issues, but I'm pretty sure he was referring to Civ5, which is the game that is currently marketing an expansion while fundamentally broken.

Yes. Civ IV is unpolished and has tons of broken "features" up the wazzu in the base game, and struggles on recommended settings. It's not as bad as civ V though.

That's what makes the game more interesting for me.

Are you familiar with the trope? I can't fathom someone actually preferring fake difficulty in a "strategy" game. Trial and error gameplay, broken controls, bad camera angles (not present in civ but still part of the trope), etc make the game "more interesting"? I can't wait! Maybe I'll see a convincing argument about how games like quest 64 and i wanna be the guy are the greatest games ever then .

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

That's what makes the game more interesting for me.

So you play on Noble and feel you need to make the game harder by NOT moving up a difficulty level and adding more fake difficulty, but by adding random chance fake difficulty that can screw you or win the game for you on the spot? Alrighty then.

 

[Mylene]

When i moved up in difficulty, events became a no-no automatically
It's not playable on Deity, you work rather hard staying in the game, only to watch it being ruined by some random event? Eeek, no...

 

[Sojuz]

See what i am talking about, you're telling me problems i don't even know! To me the main issues playing Civ4 are the automatized workers and random DoWs and a not really too smart AI, but said this, i can't complain much more... I just play Civ4 for sake of fun, i don't analyze games...
Perhaps you're talking of your multyplayer experience? Because i am a totally SP oriented player, so things may be different, i always thought Civ was not a good multyplayer game, for turns lenght and unrealistic warmongering.

 

[rah]

I do find it slightly amusing. People whine that events can add fake difficulty while trying to beat the game at the most difficult level offered. If just makes the challenge more fun. If you never lose, then the game isn't difficult enough. Just because you can't "PLAN" to offset an event isn't a valid excuse for me. I have survived the vedic event and others and still won. Remember back to civII where deity level was a joke once you figured the game out. The only thing that kept it interesting (except for MP) was all the challenges that people came up with. (many of which became options in IV) This is just a game. I read that most people play their games in a few hours. Complaining about having wasted a little time while you're obsessed with a video game and spending time on an internet site dedicated to that game is kind of hilarious.

Despite all that, I now really do understand what you guys are saying (i have been convinced of the validity of your arguments) I just don't agree.

I guess the best thing would be to take the time to go through the list of events and remove those that people find most objectionable. Maybe make a few that impact everyone (I like that suggestion) and maybe add some new ones. I do think events add color and could improve the game. It may be a slightly broken, but seeing how they're set up, it wouldn't take that much to fix them. Considering the effort that all the great folks have done, I'm surprised that more effort hasn't happened on these. (please feel free to post if someone has done something like this already because I am currently looking at using a mod) If it's good enough, even for our MP group.

 

[Mylene]

I do find it slightly amusing. People whine that events can add fake difficulty while trying to beat the game at the most difficult level offered. If just makes the challenge more fun. If you never lose, then the game isn't difficult enough.

Are you playing Deity? Doubtful, or you would know you can easy lose here without silly events.
We dun whine, we just realize they are not well thought out, and dun want to bother with them while playing already tough games. There is nothing fun about them if 1 unlucky barb pop can already mean you lose, and yip that's how it works on Deity in case you aren't aware.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I do find it slightly amusing. People whine that events can add fake difficulty while trying to beat the game at the most difficult level offered. If just makes the challenge more fun.

Please stop right there and review the differences between what is considered "fake" difficulty vs real difficulty. TVtropes will guide you. Please do not advocate fake difficulty in strategy games.

I read that most people play their games in a few hours. Complaining about having wasted a little time while you're obsessed with a video game and spending time on an internet site dedicated to that game is kind of hilarious.

What I don't like is spending over 25% (closer to 50% in civ V) of my time playing the game not playing it at all, because the game isn't letting me do anything. Some people think not playing is fun. They're usually the people who sit at spawn in call of duty and not fire their weapon for 30-60 second intervals at a time. I'm not one of those people.

And I do agree that events could be *vastly* improved through mod work, not that such gives firaxis a pass for putting so little effort into them in the first place.

 

[rah]

I play deity quite frequently. There are a lot of things that make me lose. (the main reason I came here was to get some extra tips) That's the challenge. To me they add to the fun. If you want to make the game easier, go for it.
And I have posted that there is room for improvement with them.

 

[rah]

Please stop right there and review the differences between what is considered "fake" difficulty vs real difficulty. TVtropes will guide you. Please do not advocate fake difficulty in strategy games.

I guess we'll never agree on this one so I'll stop arguing it. I don't see that BIG of differentiation between these and other aspects of the game. I have already conceded that there is enough difference in the comparison type games you guys play and are 100% correct, but not in normal games.

And I do agree that events could be *vastly* improved through mod work, not that such gives firaxis a pass for putting so little effort into them in the first place.

Yes 100%, firaxis put too little effort, (or misdirected effort) in way too many features in the game. Some I don't think could be fixed. A lot of effort has been done here to fix quite a few of them.

But I still stand by my original statement. Just because I like and use events doesn't make me a non competitive or non serious player. Liking them is a personal preference and not something right or wrong.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

We were arguing over differing definitions of competitive earlier.

 

[rah]

Yep, and I guess having it inferred that I couldn't be considered a serious/competitive player since I like events bothered me more than it should have. But what it ended being that it's really because I don't play in comparison or HOF games. That's something I can live with. Everyone that has ever played me in MP knows I'm serious and very competitive.

 

[Scoottr]

I'm thinking those who don't like random events would never play with random personalities on because they can't predict AI behavior and they like to play Earth maps because they know where everything is and that another continent is across the ocean.

How much fun can that be????

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I think the main problem is that Firaxis forgot something - people don't LIKE events like that. They didn't like the dark ages concept in early versions of Civ III, so made them golden ages, instead.

Slave revolts shouldn't have been an event - they should be something like "every angry face in a city gives a cumulative 3% chance of a slave revolt every turn if you are in slavery", as opposed to just a random event that could hit a city that has never, ever been whipped.

The Bermuda triangle event is bad, even though it has historical precedent. It probably should be invalidated after satellites, or maybe radio or something that could give warning of horrible storms.

or, of course, it could do different things that wipe out the stack - for each ship, x% of sinking outright, x% chance of massive damage that might sink it, x% of minimal damage, x% chance of surviving.

 

[uat2d]

I'm thinking those who don't like random events would never play with random personalities on because they can't predict AI behavior and they like to play Earth maps because they know where everything is and that another continent is across the ocean.

How much fun can that be????

Yes, because "you win" or "you lose" random events are comparable to different AI personalities (this assuming that the AI has a personality).