Watch the Reloads

[Ozymandius]

I would like to have a shorter period as well. I do not know how to use any of the aids and downloads such as mapstat... I travel a lot whether on holidays or for my part time job delivering trucks. I was on a train yesterday looking for a good starting position manually... start, play a couple of millennia, new map etc... When I was within an hour of my destination... I had to stop because if I had found a good starting point my game would be disallowed. While I'm on holidays... cruising.. I get to my cabin, load, play for a while and save... same problem.. I'm obsessed but I play short periods.. I also have a notebook that changes screen resolution if left on for more than 15 minutes without a move being made... and my eyesight ain't what it used to be... I have to shut down and reload my game to allow scrolling and a screen large enough to see...
I personally don't care how many saves/reloads are made because luck in the first 1,000 years should not determine your fate. If you don't get that first free settler, I abandon my game. The AI is not allowed to choose the best starting position.. humans with mapstat are and that "cheat" is acceptable... Perhaps HOF should provide the map, give us three months or so and see what combination of moves gives the high score... as long as us tech-challenged types are not allowed to reprogram the files...

 

[LulThyme]

Your last suggestion is exactly what GOTM is...

 

[denyd]

I think what Ozymandius is saying is that maybe there should be a category where reloads aren't considered. A "best possible score" flag regardless of methods used (exception would be data file manipulation).

I'm not sure that I'm for or against this idea as it would put a different slant on the game. Quite often there are times when I wish I could got back 10 turns a MM a city to complete a wonder a turn earlier so I'd get it or that I'd research a different tech so I'd get a monopoly (or even a single turn to prevent a city riot).

It's strange that the thing we most want to correct with a reload is the thing that makes this game so addictive, the element of chance. When it goes our way, it's great, but when it goes against us, we want a re-roll. We humans are a strange bunch of animals

 

[Ozymandius]

I think what Ozymandius is saying is that maybe there should be a category where reloads aren't considered. A "best possible score" flag regardless of methods used (exception would be data file manipulation).

If I play chess.... touch it and the piece has to be moved... no take backs...
but if I'm analyzing a chess game I want to know... well what would happen if I do this instead... and so on

I remember the "show me" attitude which resulted when I posted that under certain conditions elite troops die when recruits or veterans did not when attacking... chance sure.. but common sense in the chess analogy would be that attacking with a pawn would lead to a safe capture but do it with a rook or bishop and you lose your piece... I thought that there might be a game with a high score resulting from analysis that would be more rewarding then luck.
The sequence of moves results in an outcome much different than skill demands. Attack an enemy with an elite unit and under 1.29 a GL might result. If you build a city first rather than after the battle the results will be different with no great leader. When playing one game over months are we measuring cumulative luck or skill in milking a game.

Again yesterday, while playing on the train, a bump caused my mouse to move a GL to the wrong square.... well tough but no reloading rules means scrapping the game because the GL is now toast..

For every rule that has ever been made someone will find a way to get around it. I was hoping that there would be a forum to play a game with no rules other than the manipulation of code. If the designers overlooked something and a player is smart enough to take advantage of the AI weakness the player wins and the designers can come out with patch #1.3 1.31 etc until the game is fixed. A list of allowable cheats??? There is no cheating if you play by the game designers rules. Here is the game, play it, and beat it. Using various utilities that the AI does not have to beat the human is as much of an exploit of the game's intentions as other objectionable activities. They are just different means to a desirable end.

 

[sanabas]

And if you're analysing the civ game the same thing is helpful, replaying turns with slightly different moves can help you get a feel for what's likely to happen. But reloading to regenerate a random event until you get the random event you want is hardly a bug, and not something that can be designed/patched out of the game. It's like playing a game of monopoly on the computer, and reloading to reroll the dice as many times as required to get the double 6 you want, or to land on/avoid a particular square. Or playing poker, and reloading/reshuffling until you deal yourself a full house. As soon as any random element is part of the game, there is the choice to ignore the random event and try again until you get the best possible outcome. That's not a game flaw, or something the designers should worry about, and it is cheating to do it. Off the top of my head, I can only think of two decent games that have no element of luck at all: go and chess. Every other game has random events that you can exploit if you want, if you can reroll and your opposition can't.

 

[Moonsinger]

Off the top of my head, I can only think of two decent games that have no element of luck at all: go and chess. Every other game has random events that you can exploit if you want, if you can reroll and your opposition can't.

I think there is a some element of luck in go and chess or any other games for that matter. For example, on your best day (happy and well fed), you would definitely play a much better chess game than on your worst day (loved one just pass away, etc). Basically, it works like this: your best day = bad luck for your opponent; your worst day = good fortune for your opponent. So you see, there is really some random factors that we can't really control in almost everything in life. The law of the universe is fairly simple, what goes up, must go down some day. Therefore, after those bad events, the good events will come eventually (in real life, we probably won't live long to enough enjoy the good day, but it will come). It's all part of the circle of life and it will be balancing out in the end. There is really no need to worry over a little misfortune - who know...may be losing a tank to a spear is the key to pop a military greater next. Of course, if I want to play it safe, I just bombard everything to kingdom come before I send in the cavalry.

 

[LulThyme]

That's one way to interpret it Moonsinger.
There is still a difference between games like chess and go and civ or poker.
Chess and go are games of total information, and the outcome is completly determined by the actions on the two players. With enough computing power, any player can theoritically know the outcome to any position, if a player can force a win etc...
This is not true for all games.

 

[superslug]

Is this different from loading from the auto save files. If so is there a different way of loading them?

It's not really different from loading the auto.sav files, you're just loading a different copy of them from outside the Civilization folder. If the most recent auto.sav is the one causing the crash, then obviously you'd have to go back to the autosav before that.

 

[superslug]

Sluggo~ are you saying that if there is any portion of the game where there is a reload under 1 hour you will tank the game?

No! What I'm looking for is an average of 30 minutes as determined by the final.sav submitted. If I were to declare a minimum of 30 minutes for every session, players would likely only submit their 4000bc and final .savs, whereas I prefer having all 5 files. It's much easier to determine the reload curve and see that it matches.

I have decided that the stated average session should be 30 minutes, and that will go into effect with the next update.

*(Schedule in first post updated.)

 

[Sandman2003]

Again yesterday, while playing on the train, a bump caused my mouse to move a GL to the wrong square.... well tough but no reloading rules means scrapping the game because the GL is now toast..

I am sure that that experience was frustrating for you. Just as I am equally sure that most players here have suffered from the effects of an unfortunate misclick at one time or another.

In my latest huge deity milk, one of my curraghs survived an ocean/sea crossing to meet a new civ, but then I misclicked and accidentally sent the curragh to a sea square before being able to explore further. With unmet civs and a bunch of turns invested in getting the curragh there in the first place, I was pretty disappointed when the result of my misclick proved to be the death of my poor curragh. So do I curse and hope that reloads on misclicks will oine day be allowed? Well, I do curse, but I certainly don't think that this sort of thing justifies opening up the can of worms that would result from alowing reloads.

In your case, it was an GL (M or S?). Do you toss every game where you don't get a GL on the first try? That is a perfectly valid tactic for attempting some of the categories of very fast finish, of course. Anyway, I don't personnally feel that a good game is totally reliant upon a GL, and have even submitted some here where I never received one. Whereas a misclick has the potential to reveal map information, or troop dispositions that would otherwise be unknown to you. It certainly doesn't justify a reload, IMO.

 

[EMan]

I have decided that the stated average session should be 30 minutes, and that will go into effect with the next update.

Okay, that sounds pretty reasonable and should keep the vast majority Happy!

Meanwhile, at the Other End Of The Spectrum.....

For every rule that has ever been made someone will find a way to get around it. I was hoping that there would be a forum to play a game with no rules other than the manipulation of code. If the designers overlooked something and a player is smart enough to take advantage of the AI weakness the player wins and the designers can come out with patch #1.3 1.31 etc until the game is fixed. A list of allowable cheats??? There is no cheating if you play by the game designers rules. Here is the game, play it, and beat it. Using various utilities that the AI does not have to beat the human is as much of an exploit of the game's intentions as other objectionable activities. They are just different means to a desirable end.

Now, You ARE talking my language!

You are Preaching to the Choir, Ozymandius.....and Pushed my #1 Button!

Maybe it's because we're chessplayers (or ex-). There's something about being able to get around the Rules whilst the other 99+% of the Players are diligently developing the Rules and Playing with Honor.
I've put forward the "No-Rules Rules" idea on more than one occasion, essentially saying the same thing as you.

For me it's all about 2 issues:

1. Don't have a Rule that's impractical or you can't enforce
2. Ensure a Level Playing Field for All

As I see it, all this debate about "Average Reload Time" is somehow aimed at discouraging cheating.........But, in reality, if you don't play with Honor it's way too easy to cheat.

Now I know it goes against the grain to allow Exploits and Bugs to be used in a game........But, hey, Firaxis (viz. Sid et al), whom we worship, has decided to ship the version..........So, if it's good enough for Sid it's good enough for me!

So, it's really "Firaxis Rules", not "No-Rules"!

BTW, if we make enough noise and have enough fun with the Bugs & Exploits, maybe Sid will be "embarrassed" enough to put out a Patch!......I'm thinking Civ 4 here, of course.

 

[Ozymandius]

BTW, if we make enough noise and have enough fun with the Bugs & Exploits, maybe Sid will be "embarrassed" enough to put out a Patch!......I thinking Civ 4 here, of course.

We are all debuggers who pay for the privilege to find faults... progress can be measured by the millions of adoring fans who pay for the privilege of saying "gotcha", what's next? there is always someone who is more devious than the game designers' intentions... after all civilization is evolving both here and in the real world... or whatever world is real

 

[Methos]

... or whatever world is real

Are you asleep, or awake? Which world is the waking world?

 

[killercane]

Well see theres a blue pill and a red pill...

 

[Tone]

I have decided that the stated average session should be 30 minutes, and that will go into effect with the next update.

I'm all for this. The key word IMO is average-thanks for listening!

 

[bluejay]

I have decided that the stated average session should be 30 minutes, and that will go into effect with the next update.

Will this be enforced on the 1000BC save?

If so, I'll have to change methods. My habit has been to take maps from mapfinder and play for 10 to 20 minutes to sort them out. This takes me only to somewhere in the 2000BC-2750BC range. If I then choose one and go in one session to 1000BC, I wouldn't average 30 minutes per session on smaller maps.

 

[Methos]

Well see theres a blue pill and a red pill...

I had forgotten about the Matrix. I was actually referring to the dreaming world, or lucid dreams.

Edit: My apologies for going off topic.

 

[EMan]

Will this be enforced on the 1000BC save?...

The 1000BC game-save is Optional!

 

[superslug]

Will this be enforced on the 1000BC save?

We'll be going by the average in the final file, as that's the only true game average.

 

[A_Turkish_Guy]

if my game crashes or i have a power problem how can i prove that??