There is something seriously wrong with my Barbs!!!

I would like to apologize for offending anyone with this statement in advance but i simply have to make it. How is it someone playing Immortal diff has no clue about VA uprisings?

 

I believe HoF games do not have VA

 

They do IIRC but they added a second pre-req tech to make them show up later if they show up (and since other uprising event conditions are met by then oftentimes you won't see the archer one as frequently).

 

ha, reminds me of the time I got the uprising just after I had gotten done beelining bronze working. Something not quite fair about having half a dozen axemen come knocking at my borders and there not being any bronze within my visible hemisphere

 

I am not offended
The thing is I have only seen this two times in my recollection. Being that I have played about 200 civ games on immortal by now.

Once I think I had an adequate defense and actually 2-3 cities. Therefor I thought it was just another barb uprising, but just a bit more units then usual.

This time, well you saw it for yourself.

 

In my opinion skill (at least in CIV) is to prepare for all sorts of unexpected events. I believe that the entire point of the game is to continuously try to stack the odds in your favor as much as possible with the occasional well timed daring gamble.

Different competitions have different amounts of luck or randomness involved (chess vs ice-hockey), but they all have a component of luck to a different degree. If you eliminated luck entirely then, I believe, you could calculate the winner before the game and that would not be much fun...

I am not suggesting that you are wrong, but we probably have different tastes for the unexpected.

 

Some players on this forum would reduce Civ to a math equation if they could.

 

In the improbable case that was possible, that doesn't mean that they would be able to solve it If it is impossible to awnser the Three Body problem....

 

Ouch, rrolo, that made my head hurt.

 

, that wiki article could definitely use some rewording....

The classic 3 bodies problem is quite simple:

It is impossible to solve analitically unless in very special cases.

If a problem this easy to formulate is impossible to solve, I seriously doubt than the math formula of Civ IV ( that reminds me Steven Hawking, by some reason... ) would be analitically solvable even if someone could find it

 

Sure, skill can prepare or overcome uncertainty. That's not the point.

The point is that there are a certain class of events that do not cause the player to vary actions (as the optimal decisions don't change), but can impact the outcome of the game positively or negatively. It's rational to minimize those, since they basically reduce a part of a game to chance ----> flip coins, roll dice, or play war and it's similar...I don't see how an element of "heads or tails to see if I win, or win sooner" is fun.

This is a non-argument. It's fluff. It isn't even true for paper-rock-scissors, let alone a complex system like civ.

 

How is golf in any way shape or form a game that is majorly altered by luck?

 

I have one word for you , just one word: wind

 

There is a reason why the top golfers in the world are paid so incredibly much for being so good, and it's because it's a game of skill. Wind can affect the game by a little bit, yes but not so much as to typically be game breaking or making. Furthermore good golfers account for wind speed and direction and plan their shots accordingly making it even more skill based than luck.

 

You say that because you never played golf in a area with inconstant wind

 

Wind can not cause someone to INSTANTLY lose (unless playing a 1 hole game or something). It is also not within reasonable control for golf. Both of those statements are untrue about civ IV events.

 

I'm not sure I'd readily say it's "rational" to minimize those. Part of what distinguishes Civ from other games (for example, sudoku) is the element of chance. Although I am sure some players try to minimize chance, I'd imagine that most people are happy with RNG-ruled combat, live with arbitrary barb appearances, and allow the game to present them with different starts. These are all essentially random and are all crucial to the game's success. I'd only christen it "rational" if random chance were somehow opposed to the very nature of the game, and I just can't see that. Sometimes your ten axemen lose to three archers; that's just life.

For me, my only complaint with the game in general is that I've found that the higher the difficulty I play (pretty much only emperor at this point), the more formulaic my strategy. I practically always grow my first city to size four and then build a settler. I'm practically always aiming for early liberalism. I'm practically always looking to take out some civs with a drafted rifle army. I like to have the events to force me out of my formula. Having said that, I'll say again that I think that it's safe to remove the VAs (and any of the other "Alt+F4" events).

PS I also play FfH with "Living World" (double events) enabled, and you'd cry if you saw how unbalanced some of them are.

 

Nothing worse than a lovely day at the golf course ruined by a Barb Uprising on the second hole.

 

I guess there aren't too many golfers in this crowd. The rules of golf go out of their way to make luck a factor in the game.

- Your tee shot hits a bird and drops into the lake in front of you. Too bad , -2 strokes off your score. A game that was purely emphasizing skill would allow you to hit the shot again with no penalty.

- You hit a 300 yard drive into a divot that a previous player left in the fairway. Too bad - play it as it lies. A game that was purely emphasizing skill would allow you to drop the ball in a new (undivoted) spot with no penalty.

- You're playing in the US Open, and the course is wet from a lot of rain. Your drive lands in the middle of the fairway, and the ball has a big glob of mud on it. Too bad - play it as it lies. A game that was purely emphasizing skill would allow you to clean and replace the ball with no penalty.


I could go on and on, golf is just full of examples like this. And tournaments have been lost (and won) on incredible strokes of luck completely outside of the players control.

 

How about when Tiger Woods hit a ball that landed behind a boulder that was directly in the way of his shot to the green, and because the rules said anything that could be moved was allowed to be moved he got a group of fans to come and help him pick up the boulder and move it out of the way. They actually re-wrote the rules because of what he did.

Sure there's some luck involved but it is by far and large a game of skill and not luck, if it were by and large a game of luck then there wouldn't be consistent winners such as there have been throughout the history of golf.