Tribal Villages: YES or NO!

[thadian]

Do you play with Tribal Villages ON or OFF? I have observed that out of 8 goodie huts (all on scouts), that i get an average of 5 golds, 3 maps, and one tech.

(sure we all probably had a game where we got both iron working and horseback riding off the bat, now on to normal situations)

When Tribal Villages give your AI opponent the same however, it can be a game-changer for Augustus to get iron working. This isn't always the case. When the AI gets barbarians, it gets a nice bonus vs them, more than you do. So, there is almost no negative event an AI can get from a tribal village. In fact, when 6 AI's get a free tech, 5 piles of gold and 2 worthless maps, thats kinda bad for you. They will have more to deck each other out with in trades, and more gold for troops.

For you however, the rewards may be greater. No time wasted on Animal Husbandry? Just get meditation and free Priesthood? Iron Working? The possibilities are limitless, and for each useless map you unlock, you normally get a tribal village revealed anyway. Unlike the AI, you know how to use your gold, how to research. If your planning an axeman rush, and have no cows, sheep or pigs, Animal Husbandry may be worthless to get for free. Then again, free writing is appealing to me.

So to you all now. I turn tribal villages off, because it gives the AI considerably more than it gives me (monarch). Like random events, it can do many good things for you - or your enemies.

With them turned ON, you get a set of dice. Good? Barbs? Tech?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Off.

I certainly hate events more, but there's no fun like an AI asking for open borders in 3500 BC or something. I'll pass.

 

[Cutlass]

On. Though I play a lot of games where the AI clearly beats me to almost all of them on the continent. I like to play the Terra map, and I get most of the ones on the other continent, but by the standards of that late in the game the quantity of money is pretty low and if I don't always get a tech.

 

[CCRunner]

I keep them on, partially because I can pop some gold and the occasional tech and partially because since I don't actively seek them out, it gives the AI some potential help

 

[djvandrake]

Well, I'm working on getting proficient at Monarch (3 losses, 2 wins, 1 in progress) and to date I've been playing with them on. But after reading your post thadian I'll likely try the next game with them off. I did pop three techs this game (archery when I had 3 turns left to research it, then fishing and sailing) but I didn't get any gold from them. Fine with me the techs are more valuable. Getting techs is usually more rare for me though.

I can also see the value is concentrating on my immediate surrounding terrain instead of going on the goodie hut chase.

Good thread. I'll be interested in seeing others answers.

 

[nanomage]

i leave them on. they are like events - addingmore luck and chance to the game. certainly, barbs may be very annoying and extra techs ridiculously powerful. but it adds excitement, so i think they are worth switching on.

 

[thadian]

9-2 so far.

Those of us who play with it off prefer not to have the distraction of the random element throwing things too far off. I play with random events on however, just not the huts.

I have noticed a trend in the repliers who voted "ON" that they leave it on not for their own benefit - but to help a failing AI gain some ground.

Lets keep the feedback coming!

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I like 'em. They aren't really game changing - you dont' get much of a shot at a hut - and the techs certainly aren't game changing.

Events are similar - they are fun but generally not game changing. Barb invasions suck, but that's what you get for not researching archers.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

i leave them on. they are like events - addingmore luck and chance to the game. certainly, barbs may be very annoying and extra techs ridiculously powerful. but it adds excitement, so i think they are worth switching on.

. It seems so fundamentally flawed to have a game decided not by one's ability, but by chance. Huts are less likely to do this than events for certain, but both fall along similar lines.

It's almost comical to me that I'm always in the minority on this. Taken to an extreme, chance games wind up being things like "who rolls the dice higher", playing monopoly, or the card game "war".

In a strategy game, if one behaves optimally he or she should win. The only way a person who actually made all the perfect moves would lose is another person doing it with a better start.

Barbarians, tribal villages, and random events impact this measure of skill negatively in ascending order (aka events are the worst). Now, rather than anything the player did right or wrong, he can get a leg up on chance. He can also lose INSTANTLY (only for events thankfully) or be set quite far back compared to those playing a comparable game. Most frustrating is that if one does plan for these things and they don't occur, the play is vastly suboptimal.

Basically, liking events and leaving them on is akin to finding a dice with 20 sides and rolling it twice...before each game. Rolling a 40 will guarantee you a win. Don't even play it out. If you roll a 2 or 3, also quit without playing a single turn, but be sure to count that one as a loss, because it officially is.

If that's fun or exciting to people, they should by all means leave it on (hey, why not ADD the dice roll element for EXTRA chance!). However, these shouldn't be default options. They shouldn't be used in forum games where people compare there progress. And they absolutely, unequivocally, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, EVER...EVER be used in COMPETITION settings such as multiplayer (assuming it's serious) or Game of the Month (BTS version). Never. It has no place there at all.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I like 'em. They aren't really game changing - you dont' get much of a shot at a hut - and the techs certainly aren't game changing.

Events are similar - they are fun but generally not game changing. Barb invasions suck, but that's what you get for not researching archers.

Wrong, they're game changing.

In 3.17, the event for archer uprising is triggered by having the archery tech (it was patched out that archers could hit your warriors). Before the patch, you could get hit by archers before 3000 BC. "That's what you get for not researching archers" my foot. See how many games YOU can block 4-7 archers by 3000 BC without crippling your start on any halfway decent level.

But guess what? Even after the patch, they can hit you TURN YOU GET ARCHERY. Haha! You have 1-2 turns to whip (assuming you got BW before archery although this might not always be viable/safe) or build enough archers to stop 4-7 archers from taking your capitol! Hahaha.

At higher levels smaller things can screw you too. 3x forest fires before you have any gold or even bronzeworking, granting you 3 whip anger at a time when you need to expand, costing a crucial blocking site for example. Locust swarms knocking that pasture out repeatedly when you commit to a chariot rush. DIPLO PENALTIES that ruin otherwise perfectly composed UN wins. An event that FORCES YOU to DECLARE on someone else, and you take the diplo hit (that's not game changing?!), barb events or other problems knocking an AI out of contention allowing sury to get 40 cities...

I could go on. Now, while I'm not exaggerating (all of these things have happened to me MORE than once, although it was someone other than sury other times), events are probably only game-breaking in like 5% of games...possibly less.

That's too high. That is higher than quite a few game elements that you can select and aren't default.

The worst part is that in games where everyone is playing the same start in a format such as BOTM, the chances of them causing meaningful damage go up drastically. The goal isn't winning the game in those, it's winning it faster or with a higher score than another human. If two perfectly equal players played the same map the same way, and one lost his forge twice while the other had all his axes promoted for shock for doing nothing, might you guess who would have an earlier finish date? That's the problem.

 

[r_rolo1]

Just to add, you can still be hitted by a vedic aryan uprise in 3.17 if you don't have archery, because sometimes a barb uprise redirects to other civ by no aparent reason. If a AI has a Vedic uprise and if it redirects to you before you have any counter ( especially in Marathon, because the grace period does not scale with speed ) , you're screwed anyway

On huts..... I normally let them, just by laziness. But I understand the concerns of the persons that dislike the "luck" factor on a game where you are supposed to be a god-like control freak ( discussing if civ should be like that or not is enough for another 15 page thread ) and definitely it skewes the comparison between games ( not mentioning that enabling huts is a effective handicap vs humans above Noble, because both of the AI having Noble hut luck and more units to explore ).

 

[Tonifranz]

Wrong, they're game changing.

In 3.17, the event for archer uprising is triggered by having the archery tech (it was patched out that archers could hit your warriors). Before the patch, you could get hit by archers before 3000 BC. "That's what you get for not researching archers" my foot. See how many games YOU can block 4-7 archers by 3000 BC without crippling your start on any halfway decent level.

But guess what? Even after the patch, they can hit you TURN YOU GET ARCHERY. Haha! You have 1-2 turns to whip (assuming you got BW before archery although this might not always be viable/safe) or build enough archers to stop 4-7 archers from taking your capitol! Hahaha.

At higher levels smaller things can screw you too. 3x forest fires before you have any gold or even bronzeworking, granting you 3 whip anger at a time when you need to expand, costing a crucial blocking site for example. Locust swarms knocking that pasture out repeatedly when you commit to a chariot rush. DIPLO PENALTIES that ruin otherwise perfectly composed UN wins. An event that FORCES YOU to DECLARE on someone else, and you take the diplo hit (that's not game changing?!), barb events or other problems knocking an AI out of contention allowing sury to get 40 cities...

I could go on. Now, while I'm not exaggerating (all of these things have happened to me MORE than once, although it was someone other than sury other times), events are probably only game-breaking in like 5% of games...possibly less.

That's too high. That is higher than quite a few game elements that you can select and aren't default.

The worst part is that in games where everyone is playing the same start in a format such as BOTM, the chances of them causing meaningful damage go up drastically. The goal isn't winning the game in those, it's winning it faster or with a higher score than another human. If two perfectly equal players played the same map the same way, and one lost his forge twice while the other had all his axes promoted for shock for doing nothing, might you guess who would have an earlier finish date? That's the problem.

That may be. However, many of us play to recreate history. And whether you like it or not, chance events have greatly impacted history, and sometimes changed its course. Any history that excludes chance events would be misrepresenting history, as many events, and many wars, were decided by things that the rulers of the nations did not decide on.

For example, the destruction of Pompeii in A.D. 79 was a random event, the kamikazes that devastated Kublai Khan's fleet in his Japanese invasion, sudden freezing of the Rhine in the early fourth century allowing Barbarians to cross enmasse to Gaul, the traitor who opened the gate to the Manchus in the 1600s, the fact that France purchased Corsica in 1768, the year before Napoleon I was born, all of these were random events, which were not consciously planned by the the rulers of the nations concerned, and the result of which were not what the rulers expected.

Like it or not, there is an element of randomness in history. Much of the roles of the leaders of history is to respond to events that happens on their watch. In fact, many times when leaders have failed to cope with such events adequately, even through no fault of their own, they suffered.

In fact, much of history has been decided by luck. And leaders were graded on how they managed their fortune. Not everything in their empire happens because they consciously planned it.

Just like in Civilization IV, I believe, players should just accept random events and huts and other things, and manage their games to cope with it. If for example, I was destroyed by barbarian uprisings, I simply imagine that I am like the Indus Civilization that was destroyed totally by barbarians in the second millenium B.C. If a random event destroyed my forge while building my Colossus, I imagine that there was a fire or something (fires are notorious in the ancient age and even in the modern era), and just be thankful that it didn't destroy all buildings. If my mines repeatedly collapse, I simply imagine that those hills are inherently unstable. And in history, such things happen, like the Yellow River in China repeatedly damaging the dikes built to contain it and causing mass casualties.

Civ IV is not chess. I believe that it is about what-ifs of history, like what-if the Aztecs survive into the 20th century and the United States existed in 4000 BC. And in trying to direct the history, it is simply unbelievable that everything that happens in my empire that effects the well being of my country is in my hands and under my perfect control. In Civ 4, I am a leader, a human leader(who happens to be immortal), not a god (unless you open worldbuilder ). A leader can control much, even most of the events happening that concern him, but not all.

Anyway, that is my view. If people want to play with events on, they can. And if they don't want to, then they should turn it off.

 

[Cutlass]

It's also true that one weakness of the Civ series, of turn based strategy games as a whole (at least played single player) is a sameness to the games over time for experienced players. Goody Huts and Random Events mix that up a bit. By making the game a little less predictable, there's an added challenge.

 

[PureE]

I like random events.

I don't want to play the same game every time, and while it never is, with the random events you get just that little something extra special. Sure, your start may be crippled every 1 in X games, but consider that you can always restart that game with minimal loss of time, and you'll be having the rest of those X games more fun (specially the one where you get the bonus instead of the cripple )

And hey, there's always autosave to turn back time.

 

[scu98rkr]

I can see both sides of the "Randomness" argument and the point is to strike a balance.

As it has been said this CIV is not chess all the combat has a certain amount of randomness and the game has always been this way.

Anyhow back to the goody huts previously I had no problem with them as AutomatedTeller says I didnt really think they were game changing.

More recently I've been playing LAN games with my housemate Im a slightly better player than him and normally win however I dont think I've EVER lost a game in which I've popped a tech I've realized its a massive boost and have considered turning them off.

 

[Supr49er]

Huts OFF.
Random Events ON. (usually)

 

[twansalem]

Game changing or not, goody huts are just part of the Civ experience. It would feel wrong to turn them off.

 

[r_rolo1]

More recently I've been playing LAN games with my housemate Im a slightly better player than him and normally win however I dont think I've EVER lost a game in which I've popped a tech I've realized its a massive boost and have considered turning them off.

One time in Emperor I popped BW, AH and writing.... if that is not game breaking, I don't know what it is

 

[Mesodius]

That may be. However, many of us play to recreate history. And whether you like it or not, chance events have greatly impacted history, and sometimes changed its course. Any history that excludes chance events would be misrepresenting history, as many events, and many wars, were decided by things that the rulers of the nations did not decide on.

For example, the destruction of Pompeii in A.D. 79 was a random event, the kamikazes that devastated Kublai Khan's fleet in his Japanese invasion, sudden freezing of the Rhine in the early fourth century allowing Barbarians to cross enmasse to Gaul, the traitor who opened the gate to the Manchus in the 1600s, the fact that France purchased Corsica in 1768, the year before Napoleon I was born, all of these were random events, which were not consciously planned by the the rulers of the nations concerned, and the result of which were not what the rulers expected.

Like it or not, there is an element of randomness in history. Much of the roles of the leaders of history is to respond to events that happens on their watch. In fact, many times when leaders have failed to cope with such events adequately, even through no fault of their own, they suffered.

In fact, much of history has been decided by luck. And leaders were graded on how they managed their fortune. Not everything in their empire happens because they consciously planned it.

Just like in Civilization IV, I believe, players should just accept random events and huts and other things, and manage their games to cope with it. If for example, I was destroyed by barbarian uprisings, I simply imagine that I am like the Indus Civilization that was destroyed totally by barbarians in the second millenium B.C. If a random event destroyed my forge while building my Colossus, I imagine that there was a fire or something (fires are notorious in the ancient age and even in the modern era), and just be thankful that it didn't destroy all buildings. If my mines repeatedly collapse, I simply imagine that those hills are inherently unstable. And in history, such things happen, like the Yellow River in China repeatedly damaging the dikes built to contain it and causing mass casualties.

Civ IV is not chess. I believe that it is about what-ifs of history, like what-if the Aztecs survive into the 20th century and the United States existed in 4000 BC. And in trying to direct the history, it is simply unbelievable that everything that happens in my empire that effects the well being of my country is in my hands and under my perfect control. In Civ 4, I am a leader, a human leader(who happens to be immortal), not a god (unless you open worldbuilder ). A leader can control much, even most of the events happening that concern him, but not all.

Anyway, that is my view. If people want to play with events on, they can. And if they don't want to, then they should turn it off.

This post pretty much sums up my thoughts exactly. That being said, I play with both goody huts and random events on.

 

[KingLoraxII]

That may be. However, many of us play to recreate history. And whether you like it or not, chance events have greatly impacted history, and sometimes changed its course. Any history that excludes chance events would be misrepresenting history, as many events, and many wars, were decided by things that the rulers of the nations did not decide on.

For example, the destruction of Pompeii in A.D. 79 was a random event, the kamikazes that devastated Kublai Khan's fleet in his Japanese invasion, sudden freezing of the Rhine in the early fourth century allowing Barbarians to cross enmasse to Gaul, the traitor who opened the gate to the Manchus in the 1600s, the fact that France purchased Corsica in 1768, the year before Napoleon I was born, all of these were random events, which were not consciously planned by the the rulers of the nations concerned, and the result of which were not what the rulers expected.

Like it or not, there is an element of randomness in history. Much of the roles of the leaders of history is to respond to events that happens on their watch. In fact, many times when leaders have failed to cope with such events adequately, even through no fault of their own, they suffered.

In fact, much of history has been decided by luck. And leaders were graded on how they managed their fortune. Not everything in their empire happens because they consciously planned it.

Just like in Civilization IV, I believe, players should just accept random events and huts and other things, and manage their games to cope with it. If for example, I was destroyed by barbarian uprisings, I simply imagine that I am like the Indus Civilization that was destroyed totally by barbarians in the second millenium B.C. If a random event destroyed my forge while building my Colossus, I imagine that there was a fire or something (fires are notorious in the ancient age and even in the modern era), and just be thankful that it didn't destroy all buildings. If my mines repeatedly collapse, I simply imagine that those hills are inherently unstable. And in history, such things happen, like the Yellow River in China repeatedly damaging the dikes built to contain it and causing mass casualties.

Civ IV is not chess. I believe that it is about what-ifs of history, like what-if the Aztecs survive into the 20th century and the United States existed in 4000 BC. And in trying to direct the history, it is simply unbelievable that everything that happens in my empire that effects the well being of my country is in my hands and under my perfect control. In Civ 4, I am a leader, a human leader(who happens to be immortal), not a god (unless you open worldbuilder ). A leader can control much, even most of the events happening that concern him, but not all.

Anyway, that is my view. If people want to play with events on, they can. And if they don't want to, then they should turn it off.

I have thought about this myself and although I had different events in mind - it really sums it up nicely, IMO. Your citizens freewill should cause them to DO things that may drive you nuts and cause problems - mother nature will do it as well. For my games, random events seem more natural than NO random events. Random events happen everyday and have since the dawn of man. For single player - I like them - they make far more interesting.

On the flipside - I think any games posted for competition should have them off (multiplayer, BOTM, etc) - the playing field should be level as a test of skill.