The Iroquios

Iroquois UUs is such badass. I once had fun using them to trigger early Domination victory on standard map, 20% Pangaea, hot and arid, 5 billion years old, minimum 4 rivals and succefully submitted my victory score on the hall of fame recently.

I think the AI Iroquios is much stronger in c3c due to the changes in their civ trait having Agricultural and Commercial, except they don't usually build cultural improvements.

 

I used them a lot in civ3, haven't used them in conquests yet
part of the reason I use them is that the city names match stuff around me. I live in western NY. Salamanca is 60 miles away, Niagara Falls is near by, Allegheny, Tonawanda, etc. adds a familiar touch

 

Thats one of the oddest reasons I've heard of not to play a civ. Understandable though

 

I think he said that's why he does use them, though it's awkwardly worded.

 

I played my 1st game on emperor in just about 2 years. One of the AI the AI was the Iro and they were the run away civ and I was unable to catchup with them in the industrial age. They're in the modern era and I don't even have tanks yet. My only chance to win I think is to research armor, suck up 8 turns of anarchy, switch to communism and mobilise. I hate the Iro in the AIs hands. I also hate not playing Commercial civ (in this case the Maya). Bit rusty at this game.

 

Iroq are my favorite Sid civ, start with Alpha and are commercial. They can be rough in the AI hands as MW is going to smack around most any units in early game.

They get an early GA and run over other civs.

 

I once read that someone refused to build the Sistine Chapel because....wait for it.... because.... they were atheist. The sheer retardation was too much for me.

 

If you can build the Chapel, it is time to move up.

 

Unless you enjoy playing levels where you can build the chapel. Playing levels that are only winnable with severely limited playing styles is fun for some, and not for others. And there are all sorts of points along the scale, too. I don't mind playing a level (Emperor) where OCP is a game-losing "strategy," for example, but I would mind playing a level where ever building the Sistine Chapel, ever, was an auto-loss.

Lo5

 

The Chapel has no value, because one should not have any cath built.

 

...In. The. Highest. Levels.

Lo5.

 

(i.e. playing where anything less than 100% optimal strategy is an auto-loss.)

Lo5

 

Its not about auto-loss, heck, some players build colloseums in their sid games, (not for the culture win) and build OCP in their Diety games. (and still win)

But it is simply not usefull enough to justify. Even on chieftian you are better off not building a temple, becouse it will make you win faster and more overwhelmingly.

I agree with you about it limiting the game though. But we should blame Firaxis for not balancing it properly.

In some way, they did do this better in Civ4.

 

I guess it's the moral imperative of "should" that bugged me. Sure, I agree, under most (I would disagree that all, especially for temples) circumstances, happiness-only buildings are a bad idea even on Chieftain (actually, unless you're of chieftain-level skill level, they're more so on Chieftain, since you have even LESS unhappiness to fight!). But that you "shouldn't" build them was just too much much finger-waving for my gall bladder. If it's more fun for you personally to build them than not to do so, then you definitely should build them, because having fun is the whole point!

MAS, I agree with you about poor balancing. Sometimes I wish Civ were open source, as then we would see more frequent official releases with incremental improvements to play balance. Moddability is definitely great, but I personally feel very strange playing modded games, as I have a weird feeling that I'm not playing the "real" game.

That said, modding down happiness building costs by about a third might make it more optimal for me to play in a way that's more fun, and boost the AI slightly, since they have a greater tendency to build them, and tend to underuse the slider.

I wish I had a computer that could play Civ 4. I got a chance to play it for about 10 hours, and have followed the Civ 4 forums a lot, and it really does seem to be a step forwards, yes, forwards. Yah yah, it's got too many shiny things. Deal with it. In three years (and remember, we're talking intently here about Civ 3 three years or more after release), those shiny things will run on a reasonably cheap computer. Blah blah etc. [/flamebaiting rant]

Lo5

 

Civ4's greatest contribution to the franchise was the return of a real builder's strategy. Buildings have no maintenance costs and there is no corruption. Instead, the cities themselves cost money. This encourages city development and discourages bunches and bunches of crappy little cities. It also means it is worthwhile to have more than just a barracks and an aqueduct outside of your core. In fact, instead of having a core of cities all with the same improvements, Civ4 cities tend to be specialized for things like science, gold, production, military, religion, culture or leaders.

As for Civ3, there's little point to cathedrals and even less for colloseums, culture games being the notable exception. I only ever build temples for the cheap border expansion. Trading 1 gold for 1 happy face makes little sense when the slider does the same thing but doesn't cost me any shields at all.

 

LO5, I presume it is fun alreay or you would not be playing and certainly not posting. So really the concepts are about doing better in the game. In my mind doing better equals more fun.

One of my teammates in a PTW demo game would not play above Monarch as he like to build everything and crush the AI. That play style is fun once or twice, but I fail to see the fun in whipping a hapless AI over and over.

So I moved up till the handicap made it hard to win and impossible to roll ove them. Now the level this ooccurs at is a function of how one plays.

If one insist upon build cath as soon as they learn the tech, then that level will be around DG.

Anyway I have no interest in trying to address what is fun for someone, only what is sensible. Making cath and colosseum makes no sense in most situations. That is not to say it never is correct. Ok colosseum are never correct unless it is a culture win.

 

about Iroquois (spelling, well CAII shows 'i' before s, whatever...) - great civ with good traits. i've had good games with them.

about lvl and fun etc. IMO fun games with that 'one more turn' thing are best, whichever lvl is player on.
as for me - i'm still moving up (dg now, with successes) and find it the greatest thing to 'optimize' my empire to work better and better.

 

Hi there vmxa,

I felt myself getting hotheaded and excited in this discussion (my problem, not yours, don't worry), thus the long delay in replying until I could write with some more distance.

The part above really underscores the difference -- for me, having fun *isn't* necessarily about facing harder and harder levels, and certainly not so at the cost of funnelling down into a narrower and narrower set of the aspects of the game that can still be safely used.

Don't get me wrong and think that I'm writing to defend an assumed habit of my own to build temples like mad; I actually build very few unless religious, and not many even then; the same goes for Republic.

But the moral imperative of "should" being doled out upon the building of cathedrals is a little too much for me. True, you shouldn't be doing anything that doesn't promote a win if you're only playing to win. But maybe you're not!

So don't be him!

Oh wait, you're *not* him! ;-) And he's not you!

[more stuff on building cathedrals tending to impede a win]

Hm, where did I say that building cathedrals didn't tend to impede a win? I must be blind; I keep looking and looking, but can't seem to find it! What am I doing wrong?!

Lo5

edited-in PS: Crap, that still came out hot-headed. Oh well.