What do you do when the random selections don't fit what you like to do?

[JTMacc99]

Everybody has a favorite style of play. Some like war early. Some like to war all the time. Some, like me, will war super early if necessary, and then would prefer to start the world domination tour sometime immediately before or after Liberalism. Others like to go peaceful. Some like to war just enough to win a space race. Really, right from the start, I needed to put a lot of effort into the economy because I had SO much land to settle and somehow had to settle it all AND fund my research all by myself until Optics.

So, what do you do when the random generators give you a leader and/or a map that doesn't call for what you want to do?

If you like to peacefully expand and shoot for space, what do you do if the map gives you Boudica and Zara as a close neighbor?

If you're like me, and want to go for domination around the time of rifles or cannons, what would you do if the generator give you Ghandi and a large isolated continent? I decided to go ahead and found religions from Code of Laws and (bulb) Philosophy. Run Pacifism. Build the Parthenon. Flip into Free Religion once I'm ready to meet the rest of the world. Beeline Astonomy and use Liberalism to make a run for early Democracy. I put an engineer and merchant on ice, and was hoping to be in full fledged Mining Inc and Sushi driven economy by the early 1800's. At that point, choose a victory condition.

It all seemed like a good idea, but without my normal military build up around Liberalism, and with a distinct amount of ignoring rifles and military tradition to attempt to get my corporations up and running, I left myself open to attack. I managed to get almost all of the other guys to fight with each other, but my best friend Joao (was pleased and like +10 with him) went ahead and declared war on me anyway. He had dozens of frigates but never actually decided to load up his cuirassiers on boats to capture any of my cities. (Moron.)

Fifteen turns into the war, Indian Rifles and Ironclads have turned the tide, BUT this has seriously impacted my grand plan. It's a good learning experience, but I wonder if I should have just stuck to what I'm good at and built up a military full of cannons and rifles right after Astronomy. I could have squashed Joao well before he even had thoughts of frigates.

 

[kossin]

Play The Map is what I try to do. Gives the best odds of winning/learning.

 

[UWHabs]

I tend to not just play random everything, so I don't run into it. But mainly, take it as a learning experience.

I had one game where I was going into it all "GRRR WANT TO KILL PEOPLE", and took a continents map with Julius with an extra leader on it. What happened? I was a good 20-30 tiles from my neighbour, and was on the huge "South America" of my continent with a one-square choke point. Well, I beelined the settler and stuck him on a hill next to the choke point, and had a huge map to rex into. So I needed one city to defend. I only had a half dozen Praets that game, when I expected to rampage with them.

But it taught me about rexing, blocking land, and all that. So it wasn't exactly what I was going for, but it ended up being a fun game anyways.

 

[Badtz Maru]

It depends. My usual play style is probably 80% builder, 20% warmonger - I'll generally start one war in the BCs and one in the last third of the game, and of course I'll take advantage of any declarations against me, but I usually don't shoot for conquest or domination wins. If I get a leader that is really focused on warfare, though, I use it to work on my war game. I usually don't do as well as I usually do, but it's an interesting change of pace. And sometimes, I'll play against their traits. I got Montezuma once and played my usual 80/20 game, and won a cultural victory - but I did also try to help my allies whenever they asked me to go to war instead of just declaring and staying home, like I usually do.

 

[JTMacc99]

You guys are like me. You give a go at altering your style to fit the game, but in the end, you still go tend to go back to what feels comfortable.

I have a hard time just going for something completely different, even if I'm in a dream situation for another person. In my Ghandi game, I'm pretty sure I could have founded 4 religions once I figured out that I was all alone on a big continent. I could have easily started down a path of a cultural victory, and this probably would have been the quickest and easiest of the choices for me. Instead, I just decided to go for an economy/corporate driven domination or space race victory, because this is more in line with how I'm used to ending my games.

 

[bestsss]

select if you dont like random

 

[JTMacc99]

I love random! Even with quite a bit of random options at the start, I still manage to play most games with the same general idea of how to win.

I brought up the topic because I'm wondering if anybody has thoughts on what to do when they find themselves in a perfect set up to do something completely different than what he or she normally likes to do.

 

[Silu]

If you play to win, any "play style bias" that makes you play suboptimally (like, rushing early when it's dumb) should be learned away from ASAP as it's most likely one of the biggest things holding your game quality back. Traits don't matter nearly as much as other parameters though - a war-favoring situation is much more important than a war-favoring Civ.

Monte is frigging amazing for cultural vics btw, one of the best IMO. Who can say no to infinite 1pop whipping of missionaries and temples? The AI personalities aren't meant to optimally exploit their traits

 

[DaveMcW]

So, what do you do when the random generators give you a leader... that doesn't call for what you want to do?

Do it anyway.

Civ-specific bonuses are only good for short-term tactics, not long-term strategy.

The map is much more important though. You should know the basic strategy for each map if you want to beat "random".

 

[naterator]

if you like random, try planet generator (comes with BUG). there's a TON of options, and if you set them all to random, you really never know what you're going to get.
A few games ago i wanted to improve my early game warfare, maybe rush 2 civs instead of 1, so i picked monty and drew an isolated start, by mapping the world i fould there were 2 uninhabited continents (just barbs, one was the barbarian states of america, thanks vedic aryans). So i basically beelined astronomy and made settlers, instead of invasion forces. Didn't end up fighting one offensive war except vs the barbs(culture win) Totally the opposite of what i set out to do, but still good fun. (And silu, is right, Monty IS amazing for culture wins, i almost never win by culture and i basically stumbled into it because the sacrificial altar is so awesome. It was so powerful that my boss had to remind me not to talk TOO enthusiastically about the benefits of slavery when at work.)

 

[SillyGoat]

i It was so powerful that my boss had to remind me not to talk TOO enthusiastically about the benefits of slavery when at work.)

At least you didn't mention the benefits of having a sacrificial altar in the cafeteria.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

At least you didn't mention the benefits of having a sacrificial altar in the cafeteria.

Only because they're obvious .

 

[es4]

If you really don't like it, re-roll. Otherwise, play the map.

I refuse to play Stalin as a random leader (both for the traits and the RW personality). The rest of the combos, even if it isn't ideal it's a chance to adjust. Trying to be peaceful next to warmongers? Make friends with them and/or build lots of castles. Isolated start? Don't need to worry about diplomacy for a while.

 

[SillyGoat]

Only because they're obvious .

I can think of more than a couple of marketing people who would make excellent cafeteria bait.

 

[binhthuy71]

When I play, the difference between "favorite play style" and "in a rut" is nearly non-existent. If I go with random map and random leader I'll lose roughly four out of six games. I often play a better game and learn a bit more in the losses than I do in the wins. On the way I've found some leaders who are poor as an AI (De Gaulle, for instance) yet are effective and fun when I play them.
If my ego becomes too wounded I go back to my favorite map and favorite leader for an almost guaranteed win.