Sullla Discovers the Major Fault Behind Civ V: The Death of Civ?

[SomethingWitty]

What a lot of drama. Dude beats a game on the second hardest difficulty level using very strong strategies that he's developed and, arguably, exploits. He admits that he had fun playing it. He admits in a few cases he got lucky. All of his complaints are fixable and/or moddable.

As the World Turns.

 

[stii]

The issue isn't that Sulla won, the issue is that it can be demonstrated that a certain non-intended and boring play style is hugely better under virtually all circumstances than more traditional play styles.

Spamming out massive numbers of 4-5 pop cities with nothing but trade posts built around them, fed via magical maritime food, and with a library to run dual scientists is demonstrably better than anything else right now. The key phrase being "right now" since it should be pretty easy to fix.

Don't agree at all.

Plenty of people are winning high level games using a number of different strategies. For it to be demonstrably better someone needs to show that it really is better than all the other options.

Where exactly is the proof for all this fear?

 

[jjkrause84]

I read the first page and then just got sad. What he did (to me) was just a peversion....utterly reducing Civ to a set of manageable rules (something. yes, started by the design team but still....).

I feel like Sulla just pawned my NES before my eyes for drug-money.

 

[Jediron]

What a lot of drama. Dude beats a game on the second hardest difficulty level using very strong strategies that he's developed and, arguably, exploits. He admits that he had fun playing it. He admits in a few cases he got lucky. All of his complaints are fixable and/or moddable.

How biased can you be, or better said; ignorant ?

You only call the positives, let me add the negatives.
-his surrounding terrain was poor
-starting position poor
-he also admits that he made soe silly mistakes
-he also admits that he didn't even played optimal all the time:
iow: the result could be better...

You all leave that out, to score a point. And you missed utterly. The strategy he reveals, looks very simple to achieve. It's pretty straightforward. It's all in the policies, mostly. And you only need a handfull of them.

 

[tom2050]

Game is mindblowingly broken. He explained it in detail so that it would be understood what he was doing... he wasn't making Civ into a formula, he actually was doing nothing special at all.

Vast build times, tile quality and resources don't matter, most techs don't matter, most social policies don't matter, tech research so fast you can't use or build the units before they are obsolete, cheap rush builds negate having to think ahead, etc etc etc the list goes on and on and on.

I agree the fundamentals of the game are completely unthought out, and they won't fix these fundamentals for a Very long time, if ever (an expansion maybe).

But, there is hope they do... Thanks Jon Shafer. The guy not only didn't concentrate on gameplay, he didn't concentrate on pretty much anything at all. It makes me wonder what is actually going on in the Firaxis building.

 

[Thormodr]

It's utterly amazing that some people still don't get this.

Where did Sullla get his strategy from? Did he think it up himself? Not really.

Sullla looked at the AI and merely mimicked what it does. Pretty clever by him actually.

The AI ICS's like mad. It's programmed to do so and the programmers obviously thought this was the optimum style of play. It's in the core mechanics!

Now we have so many people saying, "It'll be easy to fix! Why are you complaining when a tweak or two will nerf ICS into oblivion!"

Total BS. All that will accomplish is further narrow what a player can do. Plus, it'll totally lobotomize the AI who totally depend on the strategy to be competitive!

Do people really want the AI to be stupider???

Unless...you let the AI cheat even more than it already does and let it ICS like mad while the human player can not. Of course we all know that'll go over like a lead balloon.

Basically, the game is flawed on a fundamental level. It's like the pillars are made of rotten cement. It's going to take tearing down the whole foundation to really fix this game.

 

[Markstar]

@Roxlimn: Good for you that you are enjoying the game! I do seriously envy you.

However, I have played Civ5 and read enough threads to know that the problem is not just that the AI is weak or that there is this one exploit that people can take advantage of to beat Deity. It's that there are so many ways to beat the game in whatever way you want that a fix would require a major overhaul of the game, not just some minor recalibration. Sure, ICS is an easy way for victory if done right, but an experienced player should have no problem to beat Civ5 Deity even with a small empire.

And yet this is still not the main issue imo. My biggest problem with Civ5 is that not only is the game easy to beat, but it is boring, too, because the buildings are so 1-dimensional that at every point of the game, it is rather obvious what to do (need happiness -> build happiness buildings, etc.).

And while this may be fixed in the future, I will still not be playing it, as I just don't have the patience to play a turn for 30 seconds and then wait another 30+ just for the next turn to load. The game is broken at a fundamental level, and looking at the final state of Civ3 and Civ4 (both of which have some major flaws that were never fixed), I won't hold my breath waiting for version that I would want to play as much as Civ1-3 (I never liked Civ4, but might give it another shot with AND).

Edit: Ups, while writing this (and watching Big Bang Theory), 2 people wrote basically what I did. Sorry about that.

 

[user746383]

But - just as making love is usually more satisfying than "just sex", sometimes the romance is important!

Not sure, there are apparently quite a lot of people around here who just like to get f#!#*&ed.

 

[Jediron]

Oke. And to proof how simple it is, shall we toghether, do it again the "sulla" way and post it here, the "journey" ?

 

[Thormodr]

Not sure, there are apparently quite a lot of people around here who just like to get f#!#*&ed.

Well, Dennis Shirk did say that ciV was a "big sloppy kiss" to all Civ fans.

I don't know about getting kissed but we certainly did get royally screwed.

 

[troytheface]

2nd city island build

destroys Sula's suppositions like a baleful star on a transient fall night sky

emperor almost win

by glorious me

the evidence is clear

 

[lschnarch]

Actually, we have to admit that Sullla indeed was making use of a major exploit:

He selected single player.

I think from that moment on, everything counts as exploit.

 

[tom2050]

Too bad MP pretty much doesn't work.

 

[hyungry]

Don't agree at all.

Plenty of people are winning high level games using a number of different strategies. For it to be demonstrably better someone needs to show that it really is better than all the other options.

Where exactly is the proof for all this fear?

My god, why are you so zarking DENSE?

Plenty of people are winning high level games using a number of different, INFERIOR strategies. Many people have demonstrated that ICS is really better than all the other options; including, in case you haven't noticed, in this very thread. The fear is that Civ V's strategy—which supposedly and supposed to be encouraging small civs with large cities — HIGHLY encourages ICS with no tangible drawbacks.

This forum is littered, plastered and covered with cases and exhibits in favor of ICS. If you're coming here to say "hurr durr wherez da proof," I don't know what more to say to you.

 

[stii]

How biased can you be, or better said; ignorant ?

You only call the positives, let me add the negatives.
-his surrounding terrain was poor
-starting position poor
-he also admits that he made soe silly mistakes
-he also admits that he didn't even played optimal all the time:
iow: the result could be better...

You all leave that out, to score a point. And you missed utterly. The strategy he reveals, looks very simple to achieve. It's pretty straightforward. It's all in the policies, mostly. And you only need a handfull of them.

This is pretty funny coming from you. Clearly you hate civ5 yet you keep posting over and over in these forums. I don't remember civ4 being impossible to win, maybe civ5 is easier but that doesn't make it unplayable.

 

[tom2050]

Civ 3 SID difficulty was/is near impossible to win, literally. The fact that anyone can destroy the toughest difficulty level by following a relatively simple strategy is pretty pathetic.

 

[Roxlimn]

I think Sullla misrepresents his starting terrain as poor. After all, he does have a sizable river and they have grasslands on them. Poor starting terrain would be a no-river start where you're isolated in a corner of the world that doesn't have any rivers and the most common terrain you can find is a hill.

 

[Jediron]

Ow boy, now we are going to argue his starting location. As if he have a GREAt starting position (not).

This is pretty funny coming from you. Clearly you hate civ5 yet you keep posting over and over in these forums. I don't remember civ4 being impossible to win, maybe civ5 is easier but that doesn't make it unplayable.

It doesn't make it funnier either. And i don't comment to your first thought, other then that i have too much "time to spare" now

 

[troytheface]

"This poster claimed that I had lied about the starting position, and actually had generated something like a dozen starts, only picking the best one. Leaving aside that that simply wasn't true, this poster also went on to claim that the city spam tactics I emphasized would only work on a map with very strong terrain, and that I was unfairly branding Civ5 with my claims. I was somewhat irritated by that person, and I set out to prove them wrong with this game."

this is in the intro to the link thing

note the "i set out to prove them wrong with this game"

oh thanks

in essence -

"here is a game not for fun or to show how to settle in desert next to the great mesa. it is to prove someone is wrong and here are some illustrations and game play that is in no way influenced by the very premise of what i am writing or the very human response of arguing on the net with a stranger"

lol

the evidence is clear- Attacko's Desert Tile City Attack -Oil, Fort, and Dune
at least talks about the game from like a , you know, game perspective?

 

[Jediron]

Oke, you now what. I am gonna try this and see if i can do it "the Sulla way".
Gonna post my starting location, no -reloads. first strike, first go....lets see what i have...

Does not look like a very good start, but we will see what happens. I see a fish, cow, marble anf futher away two cows and incence?
hmm, i don't even get a scout...