ChrTh
Happy Yule!
Ozymandous said:Hmm.. I'd have to disagree a bit with the last bit. Intelligent decision making would be to know to attack or fortify in woods, on a hill as opposed to grassland or plains, etc. That's using intelligence to pick the "right answer". Having to calculate if your 2/3 healthy unit can really beat a 3/4 healthy, but 'weaker' unit isn't using your game intelligence, it's number crunching.
*snip*
I disagree, and I'll explain why.
Malcolm Gladwell wrote this book "Blink". The main thesis is as follows: "experts" in a given area are able to 'thin-slice' (his term) a situation and come to a conclusion immediately (thus the 'blink' of the title), and more importantly, a 'blink' decision is more likely to be correct than a decision that is arrived at through calculation (of the mental or logical variety).
So let's say I've never played Civ before. I have a Warrior about to attack a city on a hill defended by another Warrior. Now, I don't know any better (let's pretend I can't see relative strengths), so I think I'll have a roughly 50% chance of winning (maybe a little less, because he's in a city--although I don't see any walls). I lose.
This happens several times. Eventually, I get the idea that Warrior attacking a Warrior in a city is probably not the best of ideas. I stop doing it. I've noticed, however, that attacking another Warrior outside a city sometimes I win. Also, I notice that on certain terrains I never win.
Even if I can't formulate into words what's happening, I'm learning. At some point in the future, I'll win more than half my battles every time because I'll be aware of what situations are favorable.
Now we go one step further. After some time (100 games? 200 games?) I acquire 'blink' skills with classical battles. I look at the screen, and I notice immediately:
Full strength
City
Hill
Promotions on either side
And I can make a judgement on whether or not I should attack INSTANTLY. I don't even realize I'm taking all this stuff into consideration--I just do it. In the blink of an eye.
And if I'm inclined too (and unfortunately I am--I scored high Innovator on the KAI scale), I'll trust those blink judgements over any calculator the game could devise.
Look through some random SGs. You can almost always tell a newbie from a veteran. Here are examples:
Newbie: Ok, I have an archer defending, that should be good enough to survive the inter-turn.
Veteran: I know my archer is good enough to hold this position, so I'll send my warrior out to try and pick off his worker.
(I know, my point would be more effective if I had real examples)
I highlighted the important part: the Vet knows. In fact, if you were to quiz him on it, he might not even be able to tell you why he's so sure of it (I'll explain why he might be able to in a moment). That's Blink.
Now, we have an advantage here. I don't have to play 100 or 200 games to gain blink skills. By following SGs and reading articles such as Arathorn's, I can gain expertise in advance, thus accelerating the development of my blink skills. I might use a calculator at first, but if I surrender to the unconscious and allow my blink skills to develop (i.e. trust my gut instinct), I won't need it very long.
Now, will I lose more battles then if I were to calculate them? Probably. But that's a blink factor as well. I may be experienced with a 30% casualty rate, so if I lose 30% of my troops, to me it's no big deal--it's how I've always done it...but if someone in your team is more experienced with keeping casualties below 20%, there's going to be some friction there (why are you wasting these soldiers?). We've each developed a different set of tools to make an evaluation, and my margin for error in more lenient. Does that mean I'm more careless with my troops? No. I've probably developed other tactics that compensates for the casualty rate. In an SG, though, with its 10-turn chunks, its harder for everybody to see that--they just see the 30% casualty.
SO
I personally end up trusting the gut instinct more than any calculator, because its what I'm used to and what has worked for me in the past--not just in Civ, but any problem solving task.
In short: Never tell me the odds. I've already figured them out*--just don't ask me what they are.
*Well, not yet with Civ IV ...