Starting virtues beyond Prosperty?

[The_Reckoning]

Nothing's wrong with trying to win a game. Its just that if you analyze the game to find out the most streamlined way to beat it you shouldn't critize the game when you found that way. And, as I said twice, analyzing a game and then executing the orders to solve it as quickly as possible is not actualy playing. Its more like solving a mathematical puzzle. Sure it would be boring to solve the same mathematical puzzle twice. Thats not a fault of the puzzle.

Are you saying that calling the game too easy is an invalid criticism?

A 2x2 sudoku puzzle is a terrible mathematical puzzle to solve. And can you stop with the semantics, if you're completing sudoku you're playing sudoku. Trying to beat Civ efficiently is still playing the game.

 

[The_Reckoning]

There is no strategy, this isn't a strategy game. What these other players are talking about is getting enjoyment out of a game which is greatly lacking in what it pretends to be.

+1

We can agree to disagree about the enjoyment of beating up on completely passive and worthless AI, but it is rather out of place to go around calling players scrubs when they are trying to salvage something from the game.

Going back to the original point I made, deliberately gimping yourself because the game isn't well balanced isn't fun for a lot of people. I think you agree? I was attacking the idea that people are "solving" the game, and attacking the suggestion that that should exonerate Firaxis for putting out something which isn't a challenge if you play to win.

 

[Jimbo30]

Deliberately gimping yourself because the game isn't well balanced isn't fun for a lot of people.

We're not exploiting bugs here. We're just making all the decisions which help us win. The term for someone who doesn't do that is "scrub", and they tend to be worse at games in general for it.

"Scrubs" tends to be used in MP games. For me Civ has always been an SP game. If I'm starting a 6 hour+ game I like to know that it's not a foregone conclusion before I started, that's why I use the Balanced Trade Route mod.

You can be sure that in an MP game I'd use every single tool available.

 

[NyQuil]

Sometimes I play it from more of an RP perspective.

I'm not looking at turn victories - I'm building cities in interesting places and creating navies with an air force because it's fun to release the hounds as opposed to just walking my rovers over there and slaughtering everyone.

It was a lot easier to do this in SMAC because you had other characters to interact with - as flawed as they were.

I enjoy it when I actively hate a faction (MOO, MoM, Civ, SMAC, what have you) - then taking steps that may not be all that conducive to a fast victory, but are nonetheless satisfactory, like nuking their last city.

It's not always just about maximizing your ability to reach the winning condition as quickly as possible.

Inevitably there are people who focus on this aspect, and inevitably they are the "best" at winning the game.

Ultimately, it's about entertainment - not everyone is entertained by the same thing.

 

[Tinker]

Prosperity does seem a little crazy - "let's combine the best of Tradition and Liberty in one tree!"

But then again, Knowledge and Industry are pretty damn good trees as well. As far as strength goes per tree, it tends to be Prosperity > Knowledge > Industry > Might, because Industry still has a lot of quite bad virtues, and Might is generally a very counter-intuitive tree unless you're going pure Domination.

 

[GhostSalsa]

Might has several solid perks, particularly the free agent and affinity XP x1.2 multiplier. But those are tools best weilded by a faction that brings its own bonuses to the core mechanics of the game, especially pure science, pruduction, and culture: and, in BE, we have no strong core mechanic UA's.

We have no culture UA, and only a very inconsistent science UA (Elodie). The closest to a strong production UA is PAC. So there's no real chance for a "my UA attends to core needs, Might leverages those gains" synergy approach right now. Every faction relies on (Prosperity, Industry, or Knowledge) virtues to get its basic economy running smoothly.

It's still a better stab at a dynamic, indirect rewards tree than CiV Honor or BNW-Piety ever were, so kudos to the small improvements there. Might is the most interesting tree to me.. But as with other trees some of the virtues don't fit with new BE logic (faster XP virtues when XP doesn't do anything important anymore except heal -> could have just been written as direct heal bonus virtues).

 

[drakar8888]

I don't like prosperity at all, feels like too much wasted policy points in order to get the really good ones at the end of the tree. And the free settler is overhyped because on most starts there would be a dumb station that spawns exactly on the best expo location or there are aliens that can't be evaded without waiting for the purity immortal explorer to protect the settler guy. So you either have to wait or settle on a bad spot.

Also it seems a lot of people are going for terrascapes spam as endgame plan, but 6 energy maintenance is just not worth it for me. In my last game I went industry main + knowledge secondary and did biowells at expos + manufactory spam at capital. Ended up with a 280 production capital and a turn 204 purity win on apollo.

 

[Dalerian2]

Sometimes I play it from more of an RP perspective.

I'm not looking at turn victories - I'm building cities in interesting places and creating navies with an air force because it's fun to release the hounds as opposed to just walking my rovers over there and slaughtering everyone.

It was a lot easier to do this in SMAC because you had other characters to interact with - as flawed as they were.

I enjoy it when I actively hate a faction (MOO, MoM, Civ, SMAC, what have you) - then taking steps that may not be all that conducive to a fast victory, but are nonetheless satisfactory, like nuking their last city.

It's not always just about maximizing your ability to reach the winning condition as quickly as possible.

Inevitably there are people who focus on this aspect, and inevitably they are the "best" at winning the game.

Ultimately, it's about entertainment - not everyone is entertained by the same thing.

+1 for this. All of it.

Perhaps one of the most effective min-max techniques to ensure an optimum win path is to simply reload after every random event until you get the result you desire.

Can't say I find it much fun - monotonous, laborious, effective, but not fun.
Much the same with micro-managing population points, flipping science project to a 3rd ring just before stealing research, etc. Yes, they're more effective. But to me, they're also more dull.

Putting aside whatever negative words may apply to me, this has the side effect of making the game more challenging, as well as being more of what I find fun.