The Official gripe about grasslands thread

[gskyes]

I just wanted to add my piece related to this...

I was also dissapointed when I cleared the jungle to find no bonus grasslands. I also had many workers on the starting island clearing all that jungle. No bonus shields anywhere did have an impact on productivity for my primary core of cities.

However, I do remember cracker giving us an explanation of his reasoning after the game had started. The reason was so that everything was kept equal for each player which made comparison of games and skill much easier. On this island, most of the jungle squares were relatively equal to each other. The decision to clear one jungle tile instead of another one next to it would be mostly random and based on city positions, ect. It essentially would have become pure luck for one player to find a bonus grassland while another player cleared the next jungle square over and did not find one. Thus giving the first player a slight advantage in QSC score without accurately reflecting the skill of that player. By removing all the bonus grassland, cracker removed any extra variables for our games and made the starting situation equal for each player. (cracker, please correct me if I am mistaken)

 

[RufRydyr]

Just wan't to add my 3 cents to the official whine about things that don't matter thread. Some things just don't reallly matter that much. 'nuf said.

 

[nbarclay]

I'm afraid I may have an allergic reaction to chill pills that causes them to have opposite their intended effect. Seriously, thanks for the clarification. I can understand your preference for not wanting to report every bug if they're such regular things, but when someone specifically points to a case where a bug that bit in the previous game might affect his strategy in the next one if it's still there (as Singularity had before I even got involved), is that not sufficient reason to provide some kind of concrete answer? One rule of complaints I've heard is that each complaint someone bothers to write likely represents the views of several people who have similar (if perhaps less strong) feelings but didn't bother to write.

Nathan

 

[nbarclay]

I could agree with making such a change to reduce luck in the QSC results if the change were documented, although removing huts would deserve to be a much higher priority if the goal is to make luck less of a factor. It's the undocumented nature of the de facto rules change (and especially cracker's reluctance to say whether the deviation is still around in the new game even when asked explicitly), not the change itself, that I find so irritating. If I know what the rule is for a given game, I can adjust my choices accordingly.

Nathan

 

[Singularity]

Finally my little insignificant matter is brought to a conclusion.

I'll make sure that next time I'll do a survey by PM to see if the matter is significant or not.

Seriously though, thanks for making a better case of the matter than me nbarclay. I guess we all have differenent reactions to different aspects of the game, which is healthy - because it shows how many ways you can approach this game and still feel that you're doing the right stuff. Why would we otherwise have labels like builders, milkers, crammers and warmongers? I'm a lumberjack

 

[el_kalkylus]

Originally posted by nbarclay
.., although removing huts would deserve to be a much higher priority if the goal is to make luck less of a factor.
Nathan

Talking about luck, I agree here. One little hut pop could give huge advantage. I would like huts to be eliminated. About grassland and forest chopping, I don't care very much.

 

[Bamspeedy]

I like what he has done with the huts. From what I've seen in the last few games, huts have always been far from the capital (Notice in GOTM17, no huts were on the starting island). Getting a settler from a hut that is 20 tiles from your capital isn't game breaking like when you get one at 3950 BC. Getting a city that will be a 1-shield city forever, or for a very long time isn't worth very much. Sure, you may get a tech from a hut, but that isn't nothing when there are other random factors that can give a player more techs (like which techs the AI researches and you can trade for).

As for jungle/forests, I think throwing a curveball like that does screw up some people's results, and it was not a welcome surprise to some people. If there isn't much forests/jungles around, people wouldn't have minded much, but when you have an extremely large cluster of jungle, then you expect that at least some of it would have bonus grassland underneath. Claiming jungle is kind of a trade-off. The city gets off to a slow start, but later in the game, those become powerful cities. But if there isn't any BG hidden, then those cities lose much of it's power. After GOTM17, some players may refuse to grab any jungle until much, much later in the game when playing a GOTM.

 

[Singularity]

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
I like what he has done with the huts. From what I've seen in the last few games, huts have always been far from the capital (Notice in GOTM17, no huts were on the starting island). Getting a settler from a hut that is 20 tiles from your capital isn't game breaking like when you get one at 3950 BC. Getting a city that will be a 1-shield city forever, or for a very long time isn't worth very much. Sure, you may get a tech from a hut, but that isn't nothing when there are other random factors that can give a player more techs (like which techs the AI researches and you can trade for).

Most of what you say is true. But since we all have to spend ~40 turns on a tech like poly it will end up turning the statistics for two equally well played games if one either get it from a hut, or AI pop it and trade it to you.

As for jungle/forests, I think throwing a curveball like that does screw up some people's results, and it was not a welcome surprise to some people. If there isn't much forests/jungles around, people wouldn't have minded much, but when you have an extremely large cluster of jungle, then you expect that at least some of it would have bonus grassland underneath. Claiming jungle is kind of a trade-off. The city gets off to a slow start, but later in the game, those become powerful cities. But if there isn't any BG hidden, then those cities lose much of it's power. After GOTM17, some players may refuse to grab any jungle until much, much later in the game when playing a GOTM.

This is the closest description of what I felt was bugging me with the change in GOTM17. Allthough I would settle the jungle anyhow since it's all a matter of getting territory ASAP. Especially from ancient times to steam age this is making the junglehunt very unattractive compared to pre GOTM17 games.

BTW, this thread has allmost 10000 views in 24 hours. I know I peaked in it a time or two, but 9800 times.....

 

[Aeson]

It's just still being credited the views that the GOTM18 pregame discussion had.