Yes, must be impossible bro. Oh wait... https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/sampsas-huge-epic-deity-ntt-novassals-no-fail-gold.682784/ First you bait people into showing you why your claims are incorrect, then you ignore. Good stuff.
The "Expanded OCC" and it's negative effect on measuring the effectiveness of buildings and corporations
- Thread starter Bibor
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MassRiflemen
Dr. Draftingstein
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I'm glad it's been done. I imagine that the was hardest game of your life. Nothing from Immortal carries over into the Deity on those settings.
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Nope, not even close. I've played immortal maps on normal speed that were harder than that.
Also, thank you for acknowledging that game.
PPQ_Purple
Purple Cube (retired)
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That is what I am saying as well. I just think that the "fun" path to acquiring that understanding is personal experimentation and experience and not reading a manual.
jnebbe
Prince
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Why though? How are you supposed to guess which specific action you're doing is wrong and what specific action you should be doing instead, without seeking outside guidance? That sounds like an incredibly time-consuming and inefficient way to improve at anything.
Fippy
Mycro Junkie
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Well i think the missing link between both "parties" may be: Civ4 is so rich in strategic depth that can you can experiment before and after "mastering" certain mechanics.
Tbh discussing what's more fun (experimenting on high level or casual) gets boring quickly..cos this topic existed long before Civ4.
Tbh discussing what's more fun (experimenting on high level or casual) gets boring quickly..cos this topic existed long before Civ4.
PPQ_Purple
Purple Cube (retired)
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By experimenting and figuring things out your self.
I think the difference in opinion we have is our difference of objective. You are goal oriented. As in you focus on the goal of achieving total mastery of the game and therefore you seek the most efficient way to achieve that goal. Where as for me the process of experimentation and discovery it self is the fun part and the end state of total mastery is the point where the fun ends. Indeed, as far as I am concerned I am perfectly happy to newer ever totally master the game because I enjoy the act of playing in its own right without having any goal beyond that act.
I had kind of "peaced out" of this thread, but the discussion with @MassRiflemen and @sampsa made me think of something else that might be pertinent here. @MassRiflemen (and I'm sorry if it feels like I'm singling you out, but there are other examples on the forum) would post a lot of threads about immortal/huge/mara/no tech trade/land-heavy maps, and you can see that while his approach is definitely "out of the meta", it is also very similar from game to game: you need a start with stone, you need to get certain wonders, or you need to run an espionage economy for this strategy to work, for example. I hope it's clear from @sampsa's example that you don't "need" to do any of these things.
I think it's dangerous to set up a dichotomy between "independent thinking" and "groupthink" because individuals learning "by themselves" can also get stuck into a way of seeing a problem that limits the solutions they can access. The "community" working around a certain type of problems (that's true for games, but also for any community of learning and practice) may have some dominant strategies and perspectives, but despite such imperfections it's still better than not having access to others' views on the same problems. To make another anaology (sorry!), if you think of scientific revolutions (as in Kuhn's philosophy of science), the people responsible for paradigm shifts in a field are not total outsiders, they were generally members of the community working in that field.
I think it's dangerous to set up a dichotomy between "independent thinking" and "groupthink" because individuals learning "by themselves" can also get stuck into a way of seeing a problem that limits the solutions they can access. The "community" working around a certain type of problems (that's true for games, but also for any community of learning and practice) may have some dominant strategies and perspectives, but despite such imperfections it's still better than not having access to others' views on the same problems. To make another anaology (sorry!), if you think of scientific revolutions (as in Kuhn's philosophy of science), the people responsible for paradigm shifts in a field are not total outsiders, they were generally members of the community working in that field.
MassRiflemen
Dr. Draftingstein
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I do agree with what you said. I'm shocked at that cottages can carry the game on Deity (even with Pacals fin trait) without the Great Wall and Philo trait to steal early game techs.
Basically my strat was to steal techs, then used all my saved gold to beeline rifleing and kill the top three ais, while changing to merc+represenation + culture slider (for draft unhappiness) to reach assembly line before the bottom ais did. It works very on Immortal, has never worked on Deity.
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Bibor
Doomsday Machine
Perhaps the closest example I can come up with to Civ4 that happened before is classical music. Note, history is not repeated, but is a great teacher, so obviously not all things are the same.
Classical music started as pop music. A certain composer like Bach was the flavor of the month, Ed Sheeran of the period. Fast forward 300 years and you get to the situation we are now in today with Civ4: it's well known, well established, almost everything to be known is known and documented, discussed and discussed some more, to minute details. Largely thanks to this forum. Today, a Bach concert won't fill up a 20.000-seat concert hall. Sheeran will.
In 2023, we have three paths that an interpretation of Bach can take:
One, go into music school, get a hopefully great teacher, learn to read scores, cry trying mastering the organ after spending years on piano, win the classical way. If luck has it and you're talented and willing, you'll become a great Bach player.
Two, grow up on a computer, get into music trackers, start experimenting as a DJ, no formal education at all, stumble on a Bach piece you for some reason like, create a trance remix that makes any classical musicians' eyes pop out.
Three, a combination of the two.
The truth is, there is no "proper way" to play Civilization anymore. It's too well known. I'd as soon watch a game where someone plays with a "purchase techs only" rule than watch someone win "the classical way" on deity. And I guarantee you that it would generate more interest than "yet another deity game". The fact that Civ4 purists "can't get over it" is also nothing new, same happens in classical music. Once "you go crossover", the classical music community pretty much disavows you for life. Because "how dare you".
So, to conclude, keep calm & keep civilizing those squares with communism workshops
What I've learned so far is that if someone is unable to discuss the actual topic, he will try to confuse the subject with unrelated nonsense and analogies.
sylvanllewelyn
Perma-newb
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Some like to explore the game on their own.
Others are goal-oriented. Win with the highest probability or optimise some objective variables under certain game settings and stipulations [what the OP calls "game settings" or "proper context" I suppose].
They asked questions and got answers. Everyone's happy.
Expanded OCC as the OP described is an established meta for winning in the fewest turns under some game settings.
As for myself, one of these days I would like to win space race with Russia using only United Nations civics. I want to roleplay a democratic, liberal， free, healthy, peaceful, happy Russia.
Others are goal-oriented. Win with the highest probability or optimise some objective variables under certain game settings and stipulations [what the OP calls "game settings" or "proper context" I suppose].
They asked questions and got answers. Everyone's happy.
Expanded OCC as the OP described is an established meta for winning in the fewest turns under some game settings.
As for myself, one of these days I would like to win space race with Russia using only United Nations civics. I want to roleplay a democratic, liberal， free, healthy, peaceful, happy Russia.
Deaf Metal
Warlord
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Peter or Catherine?
PPQ_Purple
Purple Cube (retired)
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I find the idea interesting that anyone would even try to do that. Because personally my approach is the complete opposite. Like, my usual setup is something like this:
- Largest map size possible
- Slowest speed (or almost slowest)
- Most civs that I can fit.
- Maps with lots of continents separated by oceans to prevent quick conquests and too early expansion. Ideally it would be 3 civs per continent.
- Allowed victory conditions are space and conquest only. Those are the only ones that really take a whole game to get. Everything else can be gotten early and I wouldn't want that.
- No vassal states.
- No tech brokering. Keeps the AI from running away on me.
On a side note, I like it when the game is a struggle to the very end. If at any point I get too far ahead of the curve and it's clear that I am going to win no matter what I just quit because all the fun is gone at that point. But I also don't like things too challenging where I am constantly behind. I like a level of difficulty where I am on top the whole time but I have to fight to stay there, if that makes any sense as an explanation.
But to each their own. As long as everyone is having fun.
