SGOTM 15 - Discussion Thread

[neilmeister]

It wasn't taken as criticism, just a gentle reminder that it is impossible to know/test every permutation of the scenario.

 

[Gumbolt]

I am just glad our team worked out bears had 1mp or we would of struggled early game. Just a shame we took the slow route to the AP win.

It's great to see OSS and PD being so competitive in nature. It would be a shame to lose LTC on this series. OSS are a big part of the SGOTM games.

I think if you took time to look at the diplomacy you could tell that with the civics and gifting of techs you could get most Ai to open borders.
+ 4 gifting techs,+2 resources, +4-5 civics, +4-5 shared war bonus. Oh liberating cities +x. Once you had OB +2 after 50 turns. So +5 was not too hard. By 1505 we had most Ai at +8- +17. Overkill! PR figured this out too late really.

The AI at pleased were quite easily bribed into war without the AP. The Ap certainly helped this. The bug would of certainly helped too.

This was one game where you simply could not predict what the ticking time bomb Elizabeth was going to tech or do. For instance on our game she reached curs before rifles. No 2 games were going to be the same.

Neil did a great job on the map. Getting culture and domination to be so close was inspiring. The thing Neil did not predict was the skills of the top players.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I think this is the key point. Bug for me goes back to the original bugs (a moth I think) in computers. It means that the code doesn't function the way it was intended. Mabraham is demonstrating that it's not a bug, meaning that the code is functioning as intended, in other words, the programmers did their job correctly.

Your issue is with the terms "peace" and "peace treaty" rather than with the code. Peace is, by definition, a time without war. It describes the current state of affairs between two players. They are at peace or they are at war. In CIV there are three types of treaties, if you will: 1) a Cease Fire Treaty, 2) a Peace Treaty, and 3) a Declaration of War "Treaty." The first two involve a state of peace, the third involves a state of war.

Your argument is that "make Peace with" should mean "make a Peace Treaty with" or at least it should be made less ambiguous. It really isn't ambiguous, though, if you understand Peace to mean peace. Your basically saying that Peace means Peace Treaty. It doesn't. What it certainly is, though, is subtle, something dear to your heart methinks...

Thanks for providing your unique perspective on this issue. It has helped me clarify my own thoughts on the subject.

Even if one agrees with your interpretation of "Peace" in "Make Peace With <Civ>", the <Civ> can make "Peace" via either a "Cease Fire" or via a "Peace Treaty" and the player will not be given the choice of which one to buy and furthermore he will not know which one was used (unless the <Civ> declares war in less than ten turns).

Thus the issue is actually much worse than a simple bug. It is in fact a fundamental design flaw in the "Make Peace With <Civ>" diplomatic action.

Also, a "Cease Fire" is not a state of "Peace" as you would like every one to believe. It is usually a temporary cessation of active hostilities though it could eventually last 60t or more.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[ZPV]

Thanks for providing your unique perspective on this issue. It has helped me clarify my own thoughts on the subject.

Even if one agrees with your interpretation of "Peace" in "Make Peace With <Civ>", the <Civ> can make "Peace" via either a "Cease Fire" or via a "Peace Treaty" and the player will not be given the choice of which one to buy and furthermore he will not know which one was used (unless the <Civ> declares war in less than ten turns).

Thus the issue is actually much worse than a simple bug. It is in fact a fundamental design flaw in the "Make Peace With <Civ>" diplomatic action.

Also, a "Cease Fire" is not a state of "Peace" as you would like every one to believe. It is usually a temporary cessation of active hostilities though it could eventually last 60t or more.

Sun Tzu Wu

You can tell in the Foreign Advisor if there's an active Peace Treaty between two civs - you don't have to wait and see if either one declares war.

It's definitely ambiguous - when you either CF or make a Peace Treaty, the game says "xxx has made peace with yyy" in both cases, but the game is usually pretty good at telling you when a deal has a multi-turn commitment (and reading the code, it's always a Ceasefire in when you bribe someone - I don't think the possibility of the AI redeclaring right away was something the developers considered).

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

War and Peace in Beyond the Sword is not simply a matter of two states of War and Peace. Much of the Diplomatic subsystem is dedicated to showing the various attributes of the War/Peace status between the player and AI and even between AIs to a lesser degree. The "We have enough on our hands." comment in the diplomatic window is a clue the the Civ is in war preparation mode. There are many others. So the failure to properly design and implement the "Make Peace With <Civ>" is particularly frustrating.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[LowtherCastle]

When you open up your CIV and load it in to your computer, there's a whole lot of stuff that's not described. One of the most obvious examples of hidden stuff is a number of hidden attitude factors that none us would know anything about if we didn't have access to the source code. Two AIs are shown as having +3 attitude toward us, but one is Cautious and one is Pleased.

Uncertainty is programmed into the game in any number of ways, just as it is in life. People make agreements and then one turns around and backstabs the other. Such is life.

 

[ZPV]

War and Peace in Beyond the Sword is not simply a matter of two states of War and Peace. Much of the Diplomatic subsystem is dedicated to showing the various attributes of the War/Peace status between the player and AI and even between AIs to a lesser degree. The "We have enough on our hands." comment in the diplomatic window is a clue the the Civ is in war preparation mode. There are many others. So the failure to properly design and implement the "Make Peace With <Civ>" is particularly frustrating.

Sun Tzu Wu

There's a seperation between a civ, and the AI that runs it.
Between two civs who've met, there are only three states - war, peace, and enforced peace (i.e. a peace treaty) (just like in a multiplayer game between humans).
The AI can run a war plan (which is reset by a peace bribe) in addition to this - just like the human can plan before it goes to war, or decide to hole up and wait for the AI stack, etc.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

When you open up your CIV and load it in to your computer, there's a whole lot of stuff that's not described. One of the most obvious examples of hidden stuff is a number of hidden attitude factors that none us would know anything about if we didn't have access to the source code. Two AIs are shown as having +3 attitude toward us, but one is Cautious and one is Pleased.

Uncertainty is programmed into the game in any number of ways, just as it is in life. People make agreements and then one turns around and backstabs the other. Such is life.

I don't agree. As complicated as BtS is; there is no way way you can compare it to real life.

Yes, the BtS does absolutely have designed in uncertainty such as a warrior can attack and kill an Axeman or any other game element that needs a RNG to keep it from becoming too predictable. On the other hand, a game can be too unpredictable, such as brokered Peace being effectively a Cease Fire rather than a Peace Treaty. I agree with ZPV that the game designers never considered the possibility that a player initiated "Make Peace With <Civ>" might result in that same Civ redeclaring War on the Civ that was threatening its Cities before the peace agreement and now that its cities are not threatened or because another Civ bribes it, it declares war with the same Civ still on the same turn. Why is it that so many of you seem unconcerned that the design of this game element is just plain wrong.

BtS was designed to be fun, but in this case, brokered Peace fails to do what it should do. The brokered Peace must last at least one turn to be useful enough to pay dearly for it; probably should last 10t; brokered Peace for 0t has limited usefulness.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Duckweed]

@LowtherCastle

You can always insist that your T100 save is better, and your hypothetical teams could beat our SGOTM11 result by 20 turns since they exist in your own mind. No one could change it if you insist. As I said, I have seen lots of disagreements since SGOTM11. I could not and also have no interest in switching others' mind. Some team might think that galleon war is the best, some team might think that Cui war is the best, and some team might insist that culture victory is the best way to go. There's nothing wrong as long as they enjoy their choices. The final result might provide some criteria to estimate the performance, but not always fair. In my mind, our team's SGOTM15 performance was only 2nd to the SGOTM11 performance (T182 victory was the best result that we could achieve given the logical progress in our game, we made no major mistake and very few minor mistakes in this game) and this gold is more qualified than SGOTM14, for some reasons that I don't want to say.

 

[Htadus]

Oh for crying out loud, lets just drop all the what could have happened and stick to what did happen. Every team had nearly equal chances to win the game based on the teams collective knowledge of the game. From there it is the execution and planning of the game with the aid of some RNG luck/bad luck. Everyting about this game has RNG component and that is the intention of the game designers. So tough luck to teams who missed the podium and well done to the teams who won. Can't we all just get along

 

[Duckweed]

The ice was added to stop the galleon abuse of the last SGOTM.

"abuse" does not seems a proper word to me. IMO galleon + siege war requires the most complicate warring skills and empire management as well

• the development of empire to research Astro in the fastest way
• the management to balance the unit production of galleons, siege units, and non-siege units
• the plan of war logistics

The above plus diplomacy almost include all the necessary elements to master CIV.

 

[Mitchum]

FYI - SGOTM-16 signups are open.