SGOTM 13 - Pre-game discussions

[Dhoomstriker]

Are Bad Events really so bad that a team of strategic thinkers cannot find some way to deal with them, much like they would any other screw that an AI throws into the inner workings of your well-oiled machine?

Are Good Events REALLY so good that they will catapult a team to a Gold Medal? Really? Do you honestly believe so?


"Well, if teams are close anyway and if one team gets a really bad streak of luck and the other team gets a good streak of luck, then yeah, maybe it might make a difference in one placing in the standings..." Maybe. Or are we just fear-mongering?


Doesn't every team have access to the complete list of Events? Oops, I just let the cat out of the bag--you do have access to it now!


Can't a team that will work together towards a common goal also be prepared to deal with Random Events? Certain game actions can be taken to increase or reduce the likelihood of certain events. Other game actions can be taken to greatly reduce the potentially bad effects of Bad Events.


Are Events really so different from much of the other luck-based events that people seem to glaze over when comparing games to each other? I have watched countless game comparisons using the Reply tool and one player's game (for the XOTM) or one team's game (for the SGOTM) can be greatly affected by where a Civ chooses to settle its second City... it's not always a consistent location; after that point in the game, AI empires can drastically diverge even further.

In one team's game, an AI might settle near the only Ivory or Iron on the continent and then found a Religion immediately thereafter, securing that Recource with a strong Cultural presense. In a different team's game, the AI might settle a more Resource-rich location on the other side of its empire without any Strategic Resources nearby and all early-game Religions might be founded on a different continent. Suddenly, a tough situation for one team becomes a simplistic rush for the other team. That's Civ 4. That's life. Nothing is made to be "fair." Learn. Adapt. Play. Enjoy. But don't come whining about "fairness" issues because life and Civ 4 don't care.


If Gandhi decides to declare war on your team but not on other teams, will you complain?

Will you complain if The Pyramids are built by a far-away AI in 500 BC in your team's game but are still available for a team that wasn't even going for them as of 500 AD?

Will you whine and pout if Mansa researches techs that duplicate yours, leaving you nothing to trade with him, while Mansa ends up researching techs down a different path in a different team's game?

These issues are the kind that we face in every Civ 4 competition. I would boldly claim that each one of those scenarios has a far greater impact on the game than a Random Event will have.

You are all but guaranteed to come across scenarios of similar "unfairness." And yet here you are, willing to compete, able to participate, and ready to have fun.


I believe that the Game Designer went far out of his way already to cater to the community by soliciting our input before designing the map. Ultimately, it is his choice as to whether or not he were to heed your input and you should feel privileged and blessed that he listened well.

But, he's also the Game Designer. Are we going to tie his hands? Can he not make some decisions independently of the community? I say that if the Game Designer made a choice and if he or she claims that the map was well play-tested, then I will believe them. Are you now going to turn around and say that Erkon is a poor play-tester? Do you doubt DynamicSpirit's ability, a long-time XOTM player and a well-established Game Designer, to have considered the implications and have deemed them to be within the spirit of the competition?


And what if other random factors occur that make games differ from each other, as I guarantee you they will? Are you going to ask an admin to open the World Builder for a team's save and delete the Gem Mine that popped on Turn 18? Are you going to ask a game admin to change the settling location of Zara's second City so that it matches-up for each team? Or are you going to admit that, within the well-defined parameters of our little Civ 4 world, there is a wealth and multitude of randomness that will cause the games to diverge? If you can open your eyes to this fact, if you can truly appreciate some of the randomness that goes on even from players starting with the same saved game, then you'll realise that Random Events will account for a fractionally small amount of the differences that will occur between games.

Sure, we well-timed or a poorly-timed Random Event can have a bigger impact than one that comes at a different time in the game, but the same can be said of AI settling locations, research paths, Wonder-grabbing or the lack therefore, diplomatic decisions based on randomly-generated values, Barbarians randomly spawning here or there, Barb Cities appearing or not appearing in good or bad locations, AI-AI tech trades, AI-AI Resource trades, AIs that are slow or particularly fast to hook-up a Resource that they could have traded to you, an AI beelining Monarchy and trading it to your team early on, the AI that built The Pyramids spawning a Great Prophet in one game or spawning a Great Engineer and stealing yet another Wonder in a different game, Holy City distribution, random spread of Religions, AI-AI wars creating a super power, AI-AI teching and heavy inter-trading on another continent in one game versus very little trading in a different game, etc.

I'm sure that your collective creative juices could come up with a list that literally fills pages and pages of a thread, listing the randomness that is built into Civ 4. Random Events are but a tiny subset of things that can happen and will not be the major defining factors of any game.


In fact, only a subset of the total list of Random Events are available for any one game, with probabilities of them occuring also being set at the time of the save being created. In this way, the list of Random Events that can occur and are likely to occur are far more likely to be consistent from one team's game to the next than many of the other factors of the game which rely on random-number generation.


And yes, if people are not willing to trust the Game Designer's abilities to have thought through the implications and have decided that they are worthwhile to include in our game and the Map Tester(s)' abilities to foresee potential complications and deem them acceptable challenges, then yes, we might need another thread for this topic.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

The only non-default option is that vassals are disabled. You can deduce that means the answer to all your questions is 'yes'

In my opinion Tribal Villages is a game element that can put a team way ahead very quickly with the minimum of skill it takes to locate and a enter them. There is also a 5% chance or possibly more of getting a free early Technology for just being lucky.

I'm not too keen on Events, but they aren't quite as game breaking as Tribal Villages.

With war on the agenda, it doesn't make much difference whether they're on or off, though I'm prefer them off.

Summary:

Tribal Villages: Definitely Off
Events: Slight Preference for Off
Barbarians: Slight Preference for Off

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Events and barbs don't matter though I agree 100% with Sun Tzu about tribal villages... Early on they can create gambits all alone (and hop, I popped masonry, how great this is? ) nough' said...

Triball villages :OFF (please )

 

[Indiansmoke]

Random events add a huge element of luck, much worst than huts IMO.

The slave revolt event in particular can break your game, not to mention barb archers or horse archers appearing next to capital (although in this map highly unlikely).

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

^^ Somehow I got them out of my head... but I completly agree IS (and no spiritual to mitigate the slave revolt )

 

[Dhoomstriker]

The slave revolt event in particular can break your game

Clearly, you're not whipping hard enough! If you are fully leveraging Slavery and are keeping your Cities sufficiently small enough, the Slave Revolt Event cannot occur.

I am not going to go into details of how to mitigate every bad event, because doing so touches upon a strategic discussion that is best saved for the team threads, but suffice it to say that there are ways to mitigate a lot of the bad effects of Random Events if you and your teammates put your collective minds to the task.

From my perspective, including Random Events is not much different from adding an extra rule like "you may not declare war on more than 2 other Civs," in that your strategy may have to shift accordingly. Teams that don't adapt will be more likely to suffer from ill consequences--the same could be said for teams that fail to appreciate the strategic implications of a special rule, such as teams that don't recognize that cleaning-up Fallout in an AI's Cultural Borders won't work if you are at Peace with said AI.

 

[Fluroscent]

@Dhoomstriker

The argument that other things are random too is NOT a good reason to include MORE randomness. Randomness is an integral part of Civ 4. Differing AI behaviour, for instance, is part of the unpredictability that creates challenges and makes the game of Civ 4 interesting. It constitues part of the proper difficulty in this game, without AI unpredictability, the game would be MUCH easier. Regardless of how the AI behaves, you, as the human player/team have to make up decisions to deal with it. The better the decisions, the better the result. You live with the implications for competitive play, and design maps that don't have critical early inconsistencies (Like your example of an AI 2nd city, you can avoid inconsistency by design here)

Random events are not like that. They do not promote any sort of good play, or sensible actions. They just happen, and you deal with them. Sometimes they produce game altering results. And for what? NOTHING. They have no purpose, they are fake difficulty, they are not fun (go ahead and learn that huge list by heart, I sure as hell don't want to).

How is a feature that randomly punishes good play like using slavery (however you want to use it!) a feature we want to use in the SGOTM? How are you going to use the event triggers to your advantage when the chances remain so low you cannot count on anything? It would be like trying to attack a city knowing you need to win several ~22% battles to win. It can happen, but is it good play if it does? No, it means you made a strategic error. Not using slavery (easiest example) to avoid slave revolts is a strategic error too. Playing with random events does not increase the complexity and challenge of the game, it only increases the randomness, and that is 100% a bad thing.

Please argue why we want to have them in the game now. I think it is clear that there is ample reason to NOT use that stupid feature.

Are Good Events REALLY so good that they will catapult a team to a Gold Medal? Really? Do you honestly believe so?

Is it so hard to believe a random event could decide the gold medal? You phrase it like you would have to be quite blue eyed to believe it. SGOTM12, you know, the one JUST finished, was decided by ONE TURN. Are you seriously suggesting that random events could not have swung that result? Do you honestly believe it couldn't?

But, he's also the Game Designer. Are we going to tie his hands? Can he not make some decisions independently of the community? I say that if the Game Designer made a choice and if he or she claims that the map was well play-tested, then I will believe them. Are you now going to turn around and say that Erkon is a poor play-tester? Do you doubt DynamicSpirit's ability, a long-time XOTM player and a well-established Game Designer, to have considered the implications and have deemed them to be within the spirit of the competition?

It is the game creators choice ultimately. But that does not mean we shouldn't voice our opinions on the matter.
I respect DynamicSpirit as much as you do, I can guarantee that. But that does not mean that the reasoning for including random events is something I have to agree on. I don't know the reasoning, but I would venture a guess that since the game is designed to be less like a scenario, and more like a normal custom game, that it was deemed a good idea to have as many "default" options in place as possible, within reason.
However, a lot of people like me do not consider random events to be part of a default game at all. Random events will make the game LESS like a normal unaltered game. That is what I think, and I suspect most of the people here who play XOTM and play games in the S&T forums feel the same.

Bottom line: I see lot's of people preferring a no to the random events. I am yet to see a reason why we should use them other than "they are not important anyway".

 

[LowtherCastle]

The argument that other things are random too is NOT a good reason to include MORE randomness.

Or is it? If a single type of low-probability randomness can impact one team's game, isn't the competition more balanced if there are more low-probability types of randomness, thereby increasing the likelihood that all teams will be affected by some randomness?

Please argue why we want to have them in the game now. I think it is clear that there is ample reason to NOT use that stupid feature.

Dhoomstriker has already provided some tech on how to run slavery and still minimize the effects of the slavery revolt. Thus he has shown that knowledge of the mechanics of random events can overcome the adverse effects of random events. Maybe an SG with random events will increase the general knowledge base in the CFC community so people won't be so alienated by random events. I consider that a good reason to include random events.

Is it so hard to believe a random event could decide the gold medal? You phrase it like you would have to be quite blue eyed to believe it. SGOTM12, you know, the one JUST finished, was decided by ONE TURN. Are you seriously suggesting that random events could not have swung that result? Do you honestly believe it couldn't?

In SG12, the Plastics Ducks completed the GLH at least a couple hundred years after Roosy completed it in OSS' game, iirc. This enabled the Plastic Ducks to have almost twice as many cities in the mid-game, without severe mainteneance issues, leading to a massive tech juggernaut in the end-game. Furthermore, Roosy having both Representation and the GLH enabled him to tech like a maniac in the OSS game in contrast to the PD game. Random events would have been trivial by contrast, imo.

 

[Fluroscent]

Or is it? If a single type of low-probability randomness can impact one team's game, isn't the competition more balanced if there are more low-probability types of randomness, thereby increasing the likelihood that all teams will be affected by some randomness?

You are correct in a sense, but more random factors are not going to do much other than introduce a higher risk of game altering luck. But my main point was that it was a different type of randomness, and that randomness is intrinsic to the game does not support the random events feature.

Dhoomstriker has already provided some tech on how to run slavery and still minimize the effects of the slavery revolt. Thus he has shown that knowledge of the mechanics of random events can overcome the adverse effects of random events.

He has provided a part-workaround for a problem. This is unnecessary when one could just eliminate the problem.

Maybe an SG with random events will increase the general knowledge base in the CFC community so people won't be so alienated by random events. I consider that a good reason to include random events.

First actual argument that supports playing with random events. I'm still of the firm conviction that random events are a poorly thought out and poorly balanced, and thus learning the finer points of how to work around them is not appealing at all. But good to hear at least one argument for random events.

In SG12, the Plastics Ducks completed the GLH at least a couple hundred years after Roosy completed it in OSS' game, iirc. This enabled the Plastic Ducks to have almost twice as many cities in the mid-game, without severe mainteneance issues, leading to a massive tech juggernaut in the end-game. Furthermore, Roosy having both Representation and the GLH enabled him to tech like a maniac in the OSS game in contrast to the PD game. Random events would have been trivial by contrast, imo.

I agree, but you have to have uncertainty in when AI will complete wonders, like I said in my previous post. It is a necessary part of the game. But I was not banking my argument on the actual impact of random events. I merely answered directly to this quote by Dhoom:

Are Good Events REALLY so good that they will catapult a team to a Gold Medal? Really? Do you honestly believe so?

Fact is, a good event in favor of PD would only have had to give a one turn improvement on finishing to have swung the result in their favor. How the random nature of AI wonder building was that influential is not the point.
The situation in SGOTM12 only showed how GLH is hugely overpowered and is another issue entirely, and that it is automatically given to an AI in this game is a very good idea.

 

[Mitchum]

When comparing games and skill level of the various teams, I think we can agree that minimizing randomness is a good thing, right? In my idea of a perfect world, all AI would behave the exact same in all games (settling location, tech choices, builds, etc.) until the human has interacted with them or performed some action (i.e. founding a religion, completing a wonder) that would cause the games to diverge. Obviously, there are so many aspects of the game that prevent this from happening that it will never come true. However, since we do have an opportunity to remove yet another layer of randomness (huts and random events), shouldn't we do it?

I'd hate for all of us to spend 4 months and at the end have a debate over the fact that the winning team got "lucky". It could diminish the sense of accomplishment for the winning team...

I'm in favor of removing huts and random events but will live with the decision either way.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Clearly, you're not whipping hard enough!

Clearly Dhoom, you never played with IS

Or is it? If a single type of low-probability randomness can impact one team's game, isn't the competition more balanced if there are more low-probability types of randomness, thereby increasing the likelihood that all teams will be affected by some randomness?

If we were to play ten games, I guess the likelihood that all teams have equivalent playing conditions would be higher. I don't think this stands for a one shot game. (I don't think the setting will influence the final classement, but I can see it bringing unnecesarry frustration ) Though as Mitchum, I will be happy to play regardless...

 

[Cactus Pete]

Random events add difficulty and certainly make the game more like RL. On the other hand, they will increase the role of luck in this competition, and I agree with Flo: they're not particularly fun (maybe too much like RL). There are better ways to make the competition interesting, and I suspect DS has already managed to do that.

 

[Ronnie1]

I think DS should pick the settings, and we can play the game if we would like to. I know I will play, and have lots of fun doing it.....that is the point right?

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Are Bad Events really so bad that a team of strategic thinkers cannot find some way to deal with them, much like they would any other screw that an AI throws into the inner workings of your well-oiled machine?

Are Good Events REALLY so good that they will catapult a team to a Gold Medal? Really? Do you honestly believe so?

The slave revolt event in the Capital can hit a team pretty hard when that city is their only one or vastly most productive one.

Don't forget that permitting Events also allows Quests:

One quest I've made good use of in Domination games (would also apply to Conquest and thus SGOTM-13), is the where the player is rewarded with free City Raider I promotions for Swordsmen in all cities for building a relatively moderate number of Barracks; there is a secondary bonus for running Hereditary Rule when this happens.

Completing such a quest could potentially give one or more teams an "unfair" advantage. EDIT: Other teams would never be given this opportunity, since getting a particular quest is Random Number dependent.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I set random events and goody huts on, based partly on experience of these discussions in the GOTM forums, which seem to indicate that GOTM players are evenly split between people who like and people who dislike those features. But it's pretty clear from this thread that amongst the SGOTM community a much higher proportion of players dislike events and goody huts. Since there's no particular reason to include them in this game, and I want people to enjoy the game, I'll amend the settings to remove all goody huts, and disable events. (The bit of bad news is that may cause a couple of days additional delay before the game is available for everyone to play).

I'll edit the game announcement post to make the change clear.

Hope that's acceptable to all

 

[shyuhe]

EDIT: Other teams would never be given this opportunity, since getting a particular quest is Random Number dependent.

Sun Tzu Wu

I'm pretty sure this is incorrect. The pool of available random events are set at the time a game begins, and since everyone is playing from the same starting save, everyone's available pool of random events is the same.

edit: as an aside, I always play with both huts and events on because I like the randomness. I guess I'm in the minority though.

 

[beestar]

Great, thanks DS! I'm sure there will be enough mapmaker evil to balance the lack of huts and events/quests ...

 

[Duckweed]

Since a military victory is usually a preferred way to pursue gold medal in xOTMs, can we expect a special medal for highest score? Otherwise, it's obvious every team is going to whip their cities to death.

 

[mabraham]

Since a military victory is usually a preferred way to pursue gold medal in xOTMs, can we expect a special medal for highest score? Otherwise, it's obvious every team is going to whip their cities to death.

Naw... I'm going to whip their cities to death...

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I'm pretty sure this is incorrect. The pool of available random events are set at the time a game begins, and since everyone is playing from the same starting save, everyone's available pool of random events is the same.

edit: as an aside, I always play with both huts and events on because I like the randomness. I guess I'm in the minority though.

One or two Teams might get the Quest that provides the free City Raider I for all Swordsmen for building some Barracks. The other teams may or may not get a different quest. My point is for a War agenda, a Team might get a huge boost by completing the free City Raider I Quest, especially if they are running Hereditary Rule which provides another free promotion (if I recall correctly). Getting a free CR1 promotion for all Swordsmen built is a huge bonus for a war effort and I doubt that all Teams would even get the opportunity to complete this valuable War Monger Quest.

In each game, I doubt that more then a few quests will be offered and I doubt all teams will be offered the same quests. I believe that which quest offered is randomly chosen. The Quests are also Era Centric, so a Team that passes through the Classical Era without this quest being offered will never get it in the future ever.

Sun Tzu Wu